Low Life (5 page)

Simon leaned closer, hoping he was mistaken – maybe it was just the sound of the ice shifting again – but he wasn’t. He wasn’t mistaken.

Shackleford’s cold left hand shot up and grabbed a handful of Simon’s gray hair and yanked it hard, slamming Simon’s head against the blue art deco tiles that lined the wall
around the tub. The pain was immediate and a star burst exploded in front of his eyes. He slipped off the edge of the tub and thudded to the floor with a clacking of teeth. He heard the ice
shifting, felt cubes of it falling out of the tub around him and on him, and then something heavy – something which weighed about a hundred and eighty pounds – was on top of him. It was
cold as a corpse, wet, and slippery as a fish.

Simon blinked away the blindness and saw floating above him a white plastic grocery bag. There was a hole in the front of it and it dripped blood onto his face, into his mouth – salty and
thick and metallic – and through the hole he could see one pale green eye staring at him, bright and alive and filled with rage and insanity.

He reached behind him for a weapon of some kind – I’m not going to die on the floor in my own bathroom for no reason at all – and knocked over a magazine rack, sending the
glossy things sliding across the tiles. The next thing to fall was a toilet plunger, and then a toilet brush. Water spilled out of the cup the brush had been sitting in, stale and reeking.

Simon’s vision was fading and going smeary at the edges and the colors were distorting, becoming bright and strange, everything turning blue and green and grainy as an old film.

And then he felt it.

A porcelain jar out of which a small bamboo plant was growing. It was the only plant in Simon’s apartment, and he took great care to make sure it stayed alive. Filled with water and small
stones, the porcelain jar was heavy.

Simon wrapped his hand around it and swung his arm forward like a catapult, smashing the thing into his attacker’s face. A moment later blood came gushing from the hole in the bag and the
bag sagged with the weight of what blood could not escape it. Simon wrapped his hands around Shackleford’s throat and squeezed as hard as he could, gritting his teeth, feeling the veins in
his temples pulsing, feelings the cords in his neck go taut. His heart was pounding in his chest.

Shackleford went limp, but Simon wasn’t going to fall for it this time. He let the body drop to the cold tile floor and then crawled atop it and continued to throttle the neck. And then he
picked up the porcelain jar again – now slick and smeared with blood – and slammed it against Shackleford’s head. It was an easy thing to do when there was no face to look at. He
might have been cracking a walnut. He slammed the jar against the head a dozen times, breathing hard. With each hit, what was behind the bag went softer and softer as the bone of the skull broke
into smaller and smaller pieces. The porcelain jar finished what the plastic flashlight had begun.

He got to his feet, feeling weak and lightheaded, swaying on his legs like a top-heavy tree in a strong wind. He swung a leg and landed a kick into Shackleford’s ribs, but when he kicked
again he lost his footing and fell to the floor, sitting in the stinking water that was running along the grout lines.

He sat there, sprawled out, legs in front of him, hands pressed against the tile behind him, holding him up, and stared a blank moment. His chest hurt from heavy breathing. His throat was sore
and bruised and it hurt to pull air through it.

‘Jesus,’ he said, and then looked at Shackleford. ‘You better stay dead this time.’

He crawled toward the bathroom counter, grabbed his whiskey, and downed it in a single draught. It burned going down.

He sat down on the couch with the telephone in his lap. He dialed Dr Zurasky. He hadn’t talked to Zurasky in over a year – since last April or May – but for
some reason he was the first person Simon thought to call. He didn’t know why. He couldn’t tell him what had happened. He just wanted someone to talk to. After four rings that someone
picked up and said, ‘’Lo?’

‘Dr Zurasky, it’s Simon Johnson.’

‘Who?’

‘Simon Johnson.’

‘I don’t – never mind that. It’s late.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s just—’

‘Is it an emergency?’

‘I don’t—’

‘This is my emergency line. It says so right on my card. Is this an emergency?’

‘No, I guess not.’

‘Are you thinking of harming yourself?’

‘No.’

‘Are you thinking of harming someone else?’

Simon paused. Then: ‘No.’

‘Okay,’ Dr Zurasky said. ‘Call my office tomorrow morning at nine. Tell my assistant Ashley I said to squeeze you into the schedule. What was your name again?’

‘Simon Johnson.’

‘Right.’

The click of a signal being severed.

‘Oh,’ Simon said. ‘Okay.’

He put the phone back into its cradle and set it on the floor. For a moment he thought about calling Robert or Chris, but then decided against it. No good would come of it. He got to his feet
and padded to his bedroom.

He awoke with a bit of a hangover. His throat hurt. He stumbled to the bathroom, wetted a washcloth, wiped himself down with it – the bathtub being in use – brushed
his teeth, and combed his hair. There were two dark blue-green thumbprint bruises on the front of his neck, and eight barely noticeable fingerprint bruises stitching their way up the back, right
into his hairline. He was surprised the bruises weren’t worse. He looked at the corpse in the bathtub. A lot of the ice had melted in the night and gone clear – before, it had been
frosty white – and he could now see the body beneath. It was strange, like an insect in amber.

He walked out of the bathroom, down the hall, and into the kitchen.

There was a screwdriver on the kitchen floor, partly hidden beneath the edge of the counter. It was a Phillips head with a black and yellow plastic handle. According to the same handle it was a
Stanley screwdriver.

He picked it up and put it into a junk drawer.

He packed his lunch.

He grabbed Shackleford’s wallet and keys and headed out through the front door.

He pushed his way out of the Filboyd Apartments and walked along Wilshire toward his car. As he walked he kicked a pack of Camel Filters – his brand – picked up the
box, shook it, found it was empty, and dropped it again. Then he saw the dog just to his left. It was in the gutter, its head resting on the curb, which was smeared with blood. He recognized its
chewed-on steak-fat ear. It lay dead behind a black Saab sedan. Its mouth was open, its tongue hanging out. The car was no more than two years old and had blood streaked across its otherwise white
rear license plate.

Poor bastard.

Simon briefly considered keying the Saab, scratching something awful into the door, but decided against it.

He continued on to his Volvo.

He sat at his desk and dialed the number.

Ashley picked up on the other end. ‘Dr Zurasky’s office.’

‘Hello. This is Simon Johnson. Dr Zurasky was expecting me to make an appointment for today, and—’

‘He said you’d be calling. Have you seen Dr Zurasky before? He wasn’t—’

‘I’m actually feeling much better today, so I’m just gonna hold off.’

A pause, and then: ‘Okay. I’ll let him know.’

‘Thank you.’

He hung up the telephone.

Then he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He glanced left and there was his boss, Bernard Thames, a pear-shaped man in his fifties with narrow shoulders and a wide middle. Big forehead
a beach over which the wave of his bangs splashed, eyebrows like question marks, long and narrow fingers with knuckles like knots, fingernails trimmed so short a couple of them were bloody. He wore
gray suits and spoke in an inflectionless monotone. But Simon thought there might have been more to him than was immediately obvious – Mr Thames often wore red socks.

He had no idea how long his boss had been standing there.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘About the Samonek account.’

‘If you mean the discrepancy between the check and the time card for Fran Lewis, it’s the time card that’s in error. I got a last-minute phone call from Sheryl on Wednesday. I
must have forgotten to update and initial the time card.’

Mr Thames nodded a quick affirmation, tipping his chin briefly.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘That answers that.’

He turned to walk away, managed three steps, and then turned back.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask you,’ he said, ‘did you call the office a couple nights ago?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, sir. I don’t recall ever having called the office after business hours.’

‘That’s what I thought. Strange.’

‘Someone called?’

‘Someone claiming to be you called and left a message. Apologized for missing so much work, and then asked for his job back. It didn’t make sense.’

‘No, sir. I haven’t missed a day yet.’

‘I know. I checked your file.’

‘Oh.’

‘You have no idea what it might be about?’

‘Not the foggiest.’

Mr Thames nodded and frowned, as if that was what he had expected to hear but had been hoping for more. Then he simply stood and stared for a moment.

‘Is that all?’ Simon asked.

Mr Thames blinked and looked around like he didn’t know how he’d gotten there, smiled a smile that could have meant anything, and said, ‘Yes, indeed.’

‘Okay, sir.’

Mr Thames turned and walked away, each step he took momentarily revealing a thin slice of red sock before the gray pants fell down to cover it again.

When Simon stepped out of the office building and into the noontime sun, Robert and Chris were nowhere to be seen. He figured they’d gotten tired of waiting for him
– it had taken longer than usual for the twentieth floor to clear out – and headed to Wally’s without him. They had been doing that more and more frequently.

He lighted a cigarette and started his walk toward Broadway.

When he arrived at the diner, he found both of his friends at a booth against the back wall. They were sitting next to one another.

The diner walls were thin wood paneling and the tables which littered the room were white with specks of blue and scratched and stained as well. The chairs were a mishmash, some metal, some
wood, some plastic, no two alike. The diner had a ‘B’ rating – maybe cockroaches had been found in the kitchen, or the refrigeration system wasn’t quite up to code –
and in a fit of humor someone had spray-painted a graffito on the glass window in which the ‘B’ was posted to make it the beginning of a claim of quality.

it said. Simon could neither confirm nor deny the claim, since he’d never ordered a meal here.

He walked across the scarred vinyl floor to the booth where Robert and Chris were sitting.

‘Hey, Simon,’ Chris said.

‘Hey.’

‘How you doing?’ Robert said.

Simon sat down across from them, shrugged.

‘I’m good. Did you guys order already?’

‘Yeah, it’s on the way,’ Chris said. ‘Did you watch that UFO special last night?’

‘What UFO special?’

‘The one about UFOs.’

‘No,’ Simon said. ‘I had company. Was it any good?’

‘Was it any good? Are you fucking
kidding
me? It was about UFOs. Of
course
it was good. Those fuckers’ll get you, man. I told you to watch it. I can’t believe you
forgot.’

‘You never mentioned it.’

‘When we talked on the phone the other night. Man, you got a memory like a cheesecloth.’

‘When we talked on the phone the other night?’

‘When you called me.’

‘I didn’t call you.’

‘’Course you called me.’

‘You had company?’ Robert said.

‘Well – not company exactly. Someone broke into my apartment.’

‘God
damn
, man,’ Chris said. ‘I told you you should move outta that dump and into a proper apartment. Were you home?’

‘Yeah,’ Simon said. ‘I was in bed.’

‘Are those bruises on your neck?’ Robert said. ‘What happened?’

‘He broke in through the front door.’

‘After that.’

Simon opened his mouth but nothing came out.

Babette arrived carrying a brown tray and gnawing on her gum like a horse on cud. She put chipped white plates with sandwiches and fries in front of Robert and Chris, and then put Simon’s
7-Up on the table in front of him.

‘Hi, Simon,’ she said, smiling.

Babette was almost pretty. She was in her mid-thirties, and her face was a smooth oval framed by boyishly short brunette hair. Her lips were thick and red and looked very soft. She had a large
backside and a narrow waist, where her body bent forward like an elbow, maybe from the weight of her breasts, which were sizable. Somehow, she reminded Simon of a rather sexy ostrich.

‘Hi, Babette,’ he said, smiling back. ‘I like your lipstick.’

‘Aw, you’re too sweet.
Thank
you.’

‘Sure.’

Then she pivoted on a dirty white sneaker and bounced away like a beach ball.

Simon took the paper off the top of his straw and drew in a swallow of
7-Up.
There was something black floating on the surface of the liquid. Simon thought it was a piece of ground
pepper. He dipped a finger in, got whatever it was on the tip of it, and then wiped it off on his pants. If he didn’t like Babette he might complain. But he did like her.