Junior pulls his chair to within whispering distance of the businesswoman and begins the hard sell with a soft voice. “The whole process takes a while. First, you check him out of here and get him home. A week after that, Thanatek starts the ball rolling. I pay you and your uncle a visit and we discuss the particulars and arrive at a fair, income-adjusted price.”
“Price?”
“And then, a few days after that, I come in to resolve the problem and end the suffering.”
“I get it now. I get it.”
In a townhouse living room with a view, the lights are low, candles lit. The businesswoman paces, drinking wine. The stock quotes show on her large-screen TV. Something by the Kronos Quartet plays on the high-end stereo. She looks at her watch. The chimes ring. She lets Junior in. “Would you like a drink before you visit Uncle Jack?”
“Maybe after. I like to get it done, you know. Where is he?”
“Down the hall, second door on your left.”
The businesswoman stares at the stock quotes as Junior tiptoes down the hall. When she hears the door close, she opens an antique escritoire, withdraws ten bundles of hundreds from a pigeonhole, drops them into a manila envelope.
She can hear the faint, muffled gasps of the uncle being smothered.
A shooting gallery at a roadside carnival, a moonlit night. The attendant sets out gaudy prizes and listens to a radio. An uninflected academic voice drones on: “We’re urged from every page of every newspaper and on every TV wavelength to buy all manner of goods which, in fact, we are quite happy without. This constant barrage of advertising, with its emphasis on owning this or that in order to be happy, healthy, or more attractive, has given America the reputation of being dreadfully…”
Mickey and Myra approach the gallery. The attendant lowers the volume.
Mickey drops a dollar on the counter, takes up a rifle, fires six shots, misses every time. He smiles sheepishly at the attendant, then moves down the midway arm-in-arm with Myra. The attendant wipes the rifle barrels with an oiled cloth and raises the volume on the radio: “To prosper in this country, it is good to know the American character. Sometimes Americans feel like jumping a fence for the fun of jumping, or they burst into song for the fun of singing, or they string silly words together just for the fun of saying them. What they do for fun, they do for the sheer pleasure of doing it, without having any other purpose in mind.”
The tamale van is parked on the midway, doing lots of business.
Walter unloads meat from a truck behind the van. Mickey gets out his wallet. “These are great tamales. I’ve had ‘em. I should get us a dozen.” He buys a bundle of tamales wrapped in newspaper and two Budweisers.
Walter spots him. “Hey, Zook!”
“Walter…how goes it?”
“Hey, is that Myra?”
“Hi, Walter.”
“Guys…you heard about Wayne? That runny eye he had? It was cancer. He’s in bad shape. It went to the brain. He’s in pain.”
“Oh, no.”
“You found work yet, Mickey?”
“Nothing solid. A few nibbles.”
“Go down to the post office. They’ll be a man short. Wayne ain’t going back.”
Walter waves, moves up a ramp into the tamale van with his load of meat.
Mickey and Myra stand on the midway near the bumper cars and eat tamales with the cars crashing behind them.
“These are great, Mickey. Thanks.”
“The best I ever had. How’s that book coming?”
“I’m halfway finished. And I’ve got a title. Deathcraft. You like it?”
“That’s catchy. Deathcraft. I like it.”
“I think it’s gonna get published. I got a feeling.”
“Hey, that’s great.”
“There’s this private detective, Derek Balanchine. He’s zeroing in on a magician who killed his wife.… I read in Writer’s Digest, you gotta give your detective figure lots of quirks, lots of odd personal habits and outlooks. So Balanchine drinks only one kind of drink, Pimm’s Cup, with 7-Up and a cucumber stick. Wherever he goes, he orders a Pimm’s Cup. If the bartender doesn’t know how to make it, Balanchine pisses on the floor and leaves, always walking out backwards. I quote, ‘sweeping the room with his dark, darting eyes.’ Another funny thing about Balanchine. He was born with both male and female organs. A true hermaphrodite. Mostly, he preferred the male role. But every once in a while — in fact, this is how he traps the magician. He has sex with him. Before this we know that his wife had once written a letter to a girlfriend saying that the magician had a very special shape to his…organ. And this detail, naturally, leads Balanchine to conclude that the murder weapon was this very specially-shaped organ. It looked a little bit like a banana and had a poison tip.”
“That’s good stuff, Myra. It’ll sell in the airports.”
At the dining room table a worried Vickie drinks beer and stares at the wall. Though she isn’t listening to it, a small portable radio is dialed to a talk show: “I’m telling you, Marty, the way things are nowadays, why bring an unwanted baby into the world?”
“I agree totally. What is this government of ours up to?”
“On the one hand they’re eighty-sixing abortion and at the same time, abolishing welfare as we know it. And they’re building prisons on a massive scale, the government housing of the future.”
“Okay, ‘nuff said. We’ll be back with more talk in a minute. Right now, give a listen to this, troops. A word from Walt down at Walt’s Premium Meats.”
“Hi there, folks. This is Walt from Walt’s Premium Meats. Come on over and see me. Stock up for the big Fourth of July weekend. Low price special on lean ground beef, all-beef franks, spicy brats, ready-made sirloin k-bobs and honey baked hams.”
Vickie lifts another beer from the fridge and turns off the radio.
Near the carnival roller coaster, Mickey tells Myra, “We’re starting a business.”
“Who’s we?”
“Me and Junior, and Ray, and Lorna, and Vickie…maybe. It’s a family-type organization. It could be a big money-maker. No overhead, no rent, no union dues.”
“I’m all excited. What kind of business?”
“It’s kind of been Junior’s thing, Junior’s idea. And it’s pretty early on, too. We’re not all set up yet. Still some bugs to work out.”
“What does the business do? Is there a product?”
“It’s more like a service. For shut-ins and sick people, real sick people. We send somebody out to visit them, ease their pain, bring some comfort to them and the family.”
Myra kisses him. “What a nice idea. Sort of like a hospice on wheels.”
“Yeah, like that. Like that.”
A ritzy neighborhood, late at night. Junior pulls into the driveway of a mini-mansion in a new, white Monte Carlo. Several other cars are parked in the driveway.
He rings the bell. A Latina maid answers the door.
“Yes?”
“I have an appointment at four with…”
A handsome, stylishly attired gay man appears behind the maid. “It’s fine, Theresa. He’s expected. Hi, I’m Greg. Come on in. I think we’re ready.”
Junior is led through an entry hall, then into a modern drawing room. Seated are several other well-dressed gay men, having drinks and chatting softly.
“He’s here,” Greg announces softly. “Are we all ready?”
The men grasp their drinks more tightly and begin a solemn procession up the spiral staircase.
In an upstairs bedroom, a young man hooked to a drip lies comatose on a sofa. A table in the room is heaped with liquor and hors d’oeuvres.
Greg whispers to Junior, “Lyle just couldn’t do it himself. He knew his doctor wouldn’t either. So when I heard about Thanatek from a friend, I said, ‘That’s it, get them on the phone.’ And here you are.”