Pain Killers (16 page)

“Why do you think? I had eight months, twenty-seven days of abstinence. I did everything right—and where did it get me? Stuck in a San Quentin love nest with some cranked-out Kosher super-Nazi, trying to keep my skin from crawling off my body. So yeah, pretty me was off everything. Drugs, alcohol, food—
whoo-hoo!
—and I have this to show for it! I mean, look at
this.
” She swept her arm to indicate the stink box we were sitting in. Then she sighed. “Oh well.”

“Oh well what?”

“Oh well, in fourth grade, I was the girl who drew unicorns on her notebook with condoms on.”

“You drew unicorn dick?”

Tina recoiled. “What? No! Are you
sick
? The rubbers went on their horns. Magnums. Same brand as Daddy.”

As usual, I felt responsible for her difficulties—even the ones I had nothing to do with, including the crime blotter of a childhood that continued to warp her behavior in ways that broke my heart. We hadn’t even talked in six months, and our first nonmarried fight followed the exact curve of all the fights we had when married. “You just love me ’cause I’m damaged,” Tina said. “It saves you having to do it.”

“Okay, I’m sorry your childhood sucked. I’m sorry this isn’t the Ritz. I’m sorry I’m on a case. I’m sorry I have to work for a fucking living. You think I like doing this shit?”

“Oooh,
drama
!” Now Tina was chipper. She thrived on fights. “Hey, at least you
had
a career to dump in the toilet. It’s like I do these things—the fetish con, the Christian sluts, this trip to Quentin—and I keep thinking,
Why can’t I do something better with my life?
”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Self-esteem issues?”

“Hey, fuck you!”

“Fuck
you
! Welcome to the world. You’re an artist, trying to survive.”

Tina brightened. “You really think so?”

“Sure. Who knows what fantastic thing is in your future—but you couldn’t go there if you didn’t go here.”

Tina smiled with genuine surprise. “Sometimes you can be so supportive.”

“Hey, I love you,” I said. “There’s no accounting for taste.” I didn’t mean for my voice to rise. “But what the fuck possessed you to agree to fake-marry a Bernstein?”

“I needed a job that didn’t require a résumé.”

“So where’d you hide the cash you brought up?”

“Where you do you think? Between my legs.”

“Really? I’m thinking even in hundreds, ten grand is a wad.”

“I fit
you
in, didn’t I?”

“Cute.” I was tired of talking, and there was only one question left. “Did Zell give you your share?”

Tina smacked her forehead, like the shills in V8 commercials. “That’s what I meant to ask you. Did you check him out?”

Now it was my turn to squirm. “I dug around,” I said vaguely. I
had
taken a stab at the DMV—illegal, but possible, if you had a loose C-note and a state employee willing to tickle a few keys on their computer and slip you a printout. Then it was on to CLC, the commercial license lists; L.A. County tax rolls; AARP; gas and electric; NCIC—he didn’t have a record—up the ladder to property tax rolls, military, DBA…I hit half a dozen boilerplate skip-trace sites, half-assedly trying to nail down the identity of the man who was paying me.

“You dug around?” Tina repeated. “Great. What’d you find?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ve always trusted my gut.”

“Yeah, and how’s that been working out?”

This stung. “
You
seemed to think it was okay to take a job from the guy.”

“Exactly! Only people like him hire people like us. Didn’t you think you should at least find out what Zell wants to do when you nail down the Angel of Death?”

“I will.”

“When? Manny, I’m serious. If there’s even a possibility it’s actually Mengele, you have to kill him.
Now.
Hit him with a wrench and call 911. Make him pay.”

“I’m sure that’s what Zell intends to do. He just wants to be sure.”

“Really? So he hires
you
?”

“Okay, okay!” Bad as the Doughboy-era dope had made me feel, I already missed it. “Maybe some of the pieces don’t fit….”

Tina plucked out her cigarette to make room for her thumb. She bit on
that,
then stuck the cigarette back in. Busy woman. She lifted her eyes with a plaintive
What the fuck do you expect me to do?
gaze. Her bites made little kittling sounds. I’d rarely seen her in this condition. She was usually the strong one. Now that she was nonpukaholic, all the unstuffed feelings splashed everywhere.

One of life’s sorrier truisms: when you think you’re functional with an addiction, it’s because the addiction allows you to function. Someday I’m going to write a book.
The Addict’s Way.
Get a nice suit and go on Charlie Rose. Ask him where he buys his hair. What
he’s
on. (Nobody’s going to tell me the man’s not at least drunk.) Really
engage.

I yanked my brain back from visions of self-help millions and stealing kisses from Marianne Williamson backstage at Total Empowerment Seminars. Tina stared at me like she was trying to set ants on fire.

“Baby, what’s going through your mind?” I asked her guiltily.

“Mengele.”
She pronounced the name like it tasted oily. “To be even peripherally involved with someone like that and not destroy him…That’s unforgivable.”

“I said I’d take care of it.”

“And I asked you when.”

“What is this? I feel like we’re married again. There’s another class tomorrow, okay? By the way, are you planning on sleeping here?”

“No.”

I tried not to man-pout. “Why not? You meeting another Third Reich Bar Mitzvah boy? You know, the last one didn’t get along so well with Dr. Mengele, if it
is
Mengele. Did I tell you that? Guards had to drag him off. Bernstein would have killed the old fuck if he weren’t in chains.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Trust me, the chains made sense.”

“I’m not talking about chains. I’m talking about Bernstein trying to kill Mengele. He raved about him like he was a rock star.”

“How long have you known Bernstein?”

“One night. But one night’s a long time if all a guy does is yammer. Trust me, if that skeek had any more meth inside him he would have talked backward. He idolizes the SS.”

“That’s the trouble with meeting your heroes. They disappoint.”

She didn’t answer. Just took another swig of cough medicine and stared out the missing window. “Look at that moon,” she said finally, licking a few drops off her fingers. “It’s the same one that hung over the death camps.”

It’s the same one that hung over the death camps.”

“And what the fuck did it do about them? Nothing! Look at it. It’s like a blob of white shit stuck to the sky.”

“You shit white when you have liver disease,” I said.

Tina nodded. “Well that’s what you are when you have the chance to clean somebody like Mengele off the planet and you don’t. You’re a white blob of shit.”

“Can we stop with lunar stool metaphors? Why the fuck aren’t you going to sleep with me?”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t.” She peeled herself carefully off the trailer foam. “Just not in here. The smell would make a dead fish sick.”

“I still don’t know what that was in the fridge,” I said. “It might have been a hand in a mitten.”

“Let’s go to my place.”

“You have a place?”

“A girl has to stay somewhere.”

“So where are you?”

“Two spaces over. The minivan. Don’t ask.”

Bathed in tainted moonlight, I made out the cross on the minivan’s door. As we crunched closer over the gravel, I aimed a penlight. Tina’s ride sported more than just a cross. Depicted, in airbrushed pastel, was the crucifixion. Three buxom, kneeling Mary Magdalenes—black, Asian and blond—clasped their hands in supplication before a very buff Jesus. The Son of God appeared to be peeking down their tank tops. Above the tableau ran Reverend D’s flamboyant, curling signature. Below it, in Gothic letters: CHASTITY IS NOT A VIRTUE…IT IS A REWARD!

“Provocative,” I said.

“And then some.” Tina aimed the beeper and the minivan’s doors unlocked with a satisfying
crunk.
“If you look close, Jesus is wearing a crown of thongs.”

Still holding the key-beeper in front of her, she turned back to me. “One of the girls did an outcall to Mengele. You should talk to her. Her name’s Cathy.”

“Are you serious? When did she see him?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a month ago.” She looked away as if seeing something she didn’t want to see. Unlike me, Tina did not get happier on opiates. So of course she did more of them.

“God, Manny, I was clean when I was binging and purging. I mean, I was burning my uvula down to a stump, but I was clean and sober…. Now I’m abstinent and look at me.”

“Transitional relapse. You’re stressed out, you’re taking the edge off. It’s not like you’re holding a gallon jug of morphine and pouring it on waffles at IHOP.”

“Can we talk about something else besides food?”

“Sorry. You’re right. Insensitive. So, how did you—never mind.”

I found the handle and yanked the panel door sideways. My paranoia genes were riled up. Standing in the open talking, even off campus, invited attention, if not outright surveillance. I tried to nudge her into the minivan, but she wouldn’t budge. Instead she punched me in the chest.

“How did I what?”

“Nothing.”

“Ask it, Manny.”

“Okay, but get inside. We probably shouldn’t be out here.”

She finally relented and got in. I ducked in after her and slid the door shut behind me. It was dead black.

“Tina?”

“Ask!” she said.

“All right.” I couldn’t see her, which made it easier to talk. “Tell me the truth. The Christian escort thing, the Alterna.com scam…Are you, you know, back in it?”

“
It?
No! I told you.”

“Thanks, baby.”

I reached for her, got an armful of air and leaned sideways to reach for her again. Nothing.
She was gone.
I heard her clump into the backseat. Or the second to back seat. I didn’t even know how many rows there were.

“God, it’s darker in here than outside.”

“Smoked glass. People see big tits and Jesus, they’re going to want to peep in. Hang on.” She unsnapped her purse. Cupped the flash of a lighter, followed by orange Newport glow. “To answer your question, Reverend D kept me on to work with the girls.”

“What kind of work?”

The glow deepened; I could hear her staccato puffs. Blowing smoke rings in the dark. “The reverend sold virgins.”

“What? Like nine-year-olds from the Ukraine? He pimped out cherry girls? Fuck! He didn’t strike me as
that
evil. What the fuck were you doing working with him?”

“No, no! I told you. They were evangelicals. And they were all over eighteen. They just wouldn’t let a man put his organ in their vessel of procreation. They were technical virgins.”

“
Technical
virgins?”

“I didn’t say they were innocent. I said they hadn’t been deflowered.”

An odd conversation in the dark.

“So they didn’t fuck.”

I felt her finger scratch lazily across the back of my neck.

“Not vaginally. But they
would
do naked prayer sessions. Along with Greek, Russian, bareback oral or facials.”

“And still leave a customer feeling virtuous.”

“You can’t put a price tag on pure.”

“So…your job again?”

I was glad for the dark. It cushioned all this new reality.

“I showed them how to keep their female organs penis free. The reverend liked to say, ‘Takes a man to show a little girl how to make love, but it takes a woman to show her how not to.’”

“Barry White meets Dr. Laura. Nice. So what was your title?”

“Life coach. Hymen wrangler.”

“There money in that?”

By now she was kissing my ear. From behind.

“Don’t laugh. I did consultation work in seven states. The reverend knows how to get the Family Research Council and government abstinence-ed money. He had a little rap for visiting suits, the faith-based financial gatekeepers.” She did a strikingly lifelike imitation of the rev, throwing in a smidge of Isaac Hayes. “‘Virgins in the ghetto. Jesus himself could not work a bigger miracle.’” Evangelicious!

“Let me guess. Then he’d get them blow jobs, right?” I realized how that sounded and corrected myself. “Not Jesus. The reverend…The girls would have told him about an old Nazi perv, right?”

“They wouldn’t have had to. Rev D took all the calls. He would have booked him.”

I felt the impact as she crawled back over the seat beside me.

“Wait. Back up…. So Zell finds out there’s a war criminal living in Reseda. What does he do?”

“Depends.”

God, I loved what her fingers did with my neck. She pressed her hands over my ears. Now there was no light and no sound.

“That’s so good,” I said, moaning as I answered my own question. “Either he has him arrested or…Maybe he wants to do something with him. Whatever it is, he wants to be sure. So he gets Mengele somewhere he can be observed….”

Tina didn’t say anything, just squeezed tighter on my ears till I heard the ocean. Her body pressed mine from behind.

“…Then he sends
me
to observe him. Which still makes no sense. If you even suspect, you fucking arrest him. Unless…Zell’s pro-Nazi. But if he wanted to help the bastard, he’d sneak him back to Brazil. Before some state-trained Israeli shows up and goes Judah Maccabee on his ass. I keep going over and over this….”

Soft fingers caressed my cheek. I thought I smelled…lavender.

“Mmmmmm…”

The fingers on my face were like a child’s. And so dainty. In spite of myself, I imagined the grave faces of the Viennese girls after Dr. M removed their arms. The horror of
that.
They looked, on the screen of memory, like little twin Tinas. I thought
hand transplant
and bolted forward with a strangled gasp.
“Tina!”