Jakob nods. “Well, you picked a real winner to model yourself on.”
“Oh, I’m only doing Stanwyck tonight. I have a growing repertory. You should see my Veronica Lake.”
Jakob gestures to the display shelves.
“Do you do the ordering?”
“I couldn’t trust it to anyone else.”
“How loose do you play with the semiotics?”
“Oh, Christ,” Jane says, face falling as he hands back the Seitz, “You’re not an academic, are you?”
“Hack filmmaker,” Jakob reassures and as if to prove his claim, he pulls a business card out of his pocket and hands it to Jane who reads
Amerikan Pictures
hyperreal noir for our entropic world
a division of Hungry Artists Group
Jane’s smile returns and he says, “Well, I’m not a purist if that’s what you mean. I’ll stock non-American. I’ll go for a good genre-blend. I can tolerate some of the neo-stuff. I’m simple. Give me some crime, cynicism, claustrophobia, a little innocence betrayed.”
“And visually?”
“The starker the better. Disorientation. City grime. As much shadow as you can manage without going muddy. I’ll take some angles, some mirrors, maybe some silhouettes. But what about you? What do you need?”
“He needs nine thousand bucks.”
Felix’s voice.
They turn around to see him directing the Roaches inside. His red leather suit looks vinyl under the shop’s harsh lighting.
“We got bored,” Felix says to Jakob.
“I can handle this,” Jakob tries, but Felix makes a face that cuts off debate.
“Oh no,” Sweet Jane says. “Don’t tell me you’re with these animals.”
Felix walks up to Jakob, puts a hand on his chest and softly pushes him backward.
“Film this, cousin,” he says. “You might find a way to use it one of these days.”
Then he wheels around and backhands Jane across the face, breaking skin to the corner of the mouth and initiating a trickle of blood that clashes with the Barbara Stanwyck lipstick. He pulls the shop owner into himself by the lapels and says, “We’ve been letting you slide, queenie. Now where’s my goddamn money?”
Jane looks at Jakob, more disappointed than terrified, as if he’s been through this drill before. Jakob wants to tell him Felix is serious this time, to just hand over the payment and get the Roaches out of his life.
“Turn the goddamn camera on, cuz,” Felix yells. “I’ll show you how to make Papa proud.”
He drives a knee into Jane’s groin and the shopkeeper drops to the bricks, sucking air.
Felix points to the door and Vera turns the deadbolt. The Roaches start to circulate, knocking over shelves, smashing neon with broomsticks. Emil Krofta takes out an Urquell Malt bottle and heaves it against the wall, where it shatters and fills the store with the smell of gasoline.
“You know why he needs the money, Jakob?” Felix asks, driving a boot into Jane’s side. “He wants to get himself castrated. Honest to God. He’s saving for some operation.”
“Sidney Lumet,” Jakob mutters, “Nineteen Seventy-five.”
“What?” Felix says, staring down at the bleeding lump of Jane.
Jakob puts the Seitz on the floor and watches the Roaches destroy the place, tear posters from the walls—I Wake Up Screaming, Scarlet Street, Fear in the Night. He watches them rip the tape from videocassettes—The Naked City, Street of Chance, The Big Gamble—making a growing pile of curling, twisting lace on the bricks.
He steps back to Felix, puts his hands on his cousin’s chest and mimics the original push, adding just a fraction more of force. Felix is shocked and then amused.
“What do you think you’re doing, Jakob?”
Jakob gets ready to grab for the Seitz and swing at his cousin’s head. But from foot-level, Jane croaks, “I’ve got the money. Stop it, please,” and they both look down as the drag queen attempts to stand.
Jakob reaches down and grabs an arm, tries to haul Jane up.
Felix continues to stare at his cousin, the smile all gone, but he says, “Go get it,” and the Roaches halt their rampage for a moment.
Jakob holds the stare and says to the room, “I’m Hermann Kinsky’s son. We are done here. All of you get outside.”
The Roaches don’t know what to do.
“You don’t move,” Felix yells.
Jakob turns to Huck, “Hrabal, take them out of here. Or I’ll tell my father to cut you loose.”
“No one moves,” Felix screams, top of his lungs.
And then a shotgun blast blows a crater in the ceiling and comes close to shattering every eardrum in the small shop. Half the Roaches hit the floor and cover their heads. Jakob and Felix turn, both crouched to see Sweet Jane Firbank positioned behind the sales counter, leveling a 12-gauge pump at them.
“You’ve got five seconds,” Jane says, “to get the fuck out of here.”
“Go,” Jakob yells at the Roaches.
Felix stares from the gun barrel to his cousin’s eyes, takes a single brush at his jacket and says, “Okay, kids, let’s kill the freak.”
He stands up slowly and the Roaches mimic his movement.
“I swear to God,” Sweet Jane screams.
Emil Krofta and Little Jiri Fric are the first to pull their pieces from their suitcoats.
Sweet Jane settles on Fric, pulls the trigger and lets the recoil carry him backwards to the ground.
Little Jiri takes the load midsection, goes to the floor the worst way, gut-shot, torn open in the belly and fully aware of what’s happened.
Emil Krofta extends his arms over the counter and unloads his Butterbaum automatic, putting nine lead-tipped rounds into Sweet Jane’s head and chest before the shop owner can manage to repump. Sweet Jane is already dead by the time Huck Hrabal and Vera Gottwald line up next to Krofta and turn the transvestite’s body into the most prestigious target in this surreal shooting gallery. When the trio’s magazines are emptied, Jane Firbank is an unrecognizable mess of shredded flesh and bone wrapped in the remnants of Barbara Stanwyck’s pajamas.
Jakob’s ears are locked in a loop of ringing vibration and his lungs are caving in to panic, gunpowder, and the asbestos fragments that drift down from the hole in the ceiling. But he manages to crawl to Jiri Fric and pull the smallest Roach into his lap.
“Call Doctor Seifert,” he yells to Felix.
But his cousin ignores him and instead yells for his gangsters to evacuate the scene.
“Hrabal,” Jakob pleads, “help me carry him out.”
Huck takes a step in Jakob’s direction, but Felix screams, “Leave him. He’s a casualty.”
Hrabal turns from Kiri to Felix, watches as Felix motions to the door with his pistol.
“Outside,” Felix snaps. “Right now.”
“Go ahead,” Jakob says and after a second, Hrabal runs out of the store.
Jakob sits on the floor, his pants and shirt already saturated with Jiri Fric’s blood. He stares at his cousin, struggles for some air.
“This,” Felix says, “is all your fault.”
“You,” Jakob says, “are a dead man.”
Felix holsters his gun, steps into Ruttenberg Road, and takes off after the Roaches in the general direction of the Bohemian wing.
reel two
A camera is a gun.
An image taken is a death performed.
14
Sylvia sits inside the Snapshot Shack and does the film inventory. She counts boxes Of Kodak and Fuji and Konica and the generic stuff that nobody buys. She arranges box after box in their shelving slots, organizes them by brand name, film speed, number of exposures, black-and-white or color. At ten o’clock the brown panel truck pulls up and delivers the morning’s prints. It’s a light load, a half-dozen envelopes full of vacation shots, birthday shots, half-focused cookouts that have been sitting in the camera since Labor Day. It seems like there are fewer customers every week.