Alex Austin's Blog - Posts Tagged "passion"
Will You Read This Novel?
To followers of my blog who review on Goodreads or elsewhere, I'd like to make available PDFs of the typeset novel. If interested, contact me at alaust70@aol.com
The following is from a letter Permanent Press is sending out to reviewers and agents.
"Many of you have seen earlier electronic versions of Alex Austin’s Nakamura Reality months ago, and so this update. Our pub date is mid-February 2016 for this astounding first novel. It has so many different currents travelling throughout body of this book. It weaves between realism ad surrealism, resentment by a world famous Japanese novelist (and a member of the Yakuza), for an American who married his daughter. It’s about ingenious scheming, cultural clashes. Yet—above all—it is also A FIRST RATE THRILLER that we will be nominating for all the major mystery awards as well as for the major literary prizes."
Nakamura Reality is a different kind of novel and tough to classify. I'm looking forward to opinions from both reviewers and readers.
More Moonlight
Moonlight Tandoori: The Battle (to get this story right) Continues.
Chapter 2
Through the hospital room’s window, Philip watched the two white grazing beasts, the slender branches of the hilltop willow stroking their wide backs. Four years ago, in recovery from his operation, he gazed in amazement at the hill and the animals. It was almost identical to the background of a photo taken of his mother as a young woman in Pakistan. As a child, he'd brought the photo to bed with him. The hill, the two Brahman cattle, his mother in the foreground. He could almost see her standing there. The glass shuddered under a sudden gust, and a dust cloud shrouded the scene. When the dust settled, the girl was gone. Nadia— or Niya?
If I go with you to the Getty, will you go with me to Shangri-La?
Niya must have seen the old movie Lost Horizon. Shangri-La was the film’s fabled Himalayan valley, a kind of Eden, cut off from the outside world and almost impossible to get to and just as difficult to escape. But once there, why leave?
Philip winced and turned from the hospital’s view to the doctor’s intense dark eyes behind silver framed lenses, her gaze on the tweezers that probed his shoulder under a bright beam.
After a cursory examination in the emergency room—full from the overflow of other facilities still dealing with the victims of the horrendous 101 crash—he’d been taken to a room on the third floor, where the doctor gave in to Philip’s request to sit up during the procedure. The center had its fair share of vistas. If he had a view, he wanted to see it. He shifted against the pillow.
“Are you doing all right? Not feeling faint?” she asked.
“Fine,” he said as a drop of blood oozed from his sliced skin, which under the intense light seemed to him little different from Niya’s.
The doctor had removed eight slivers of glass from Philip’s neck and shoulder. On the metal tray, the fragments formed a pointed leaf, similar to one of Niya’s henna designs.
A nurse entered the room carrying Philip’s shirt, which he’d left in emergency in one of the hospital’s large plastic bags. She set the bag alongside the bed’s rail, exposing the dark spots of his and Niya’s married blood. Somewhere down the maze of corridors, the surgeons were asking for clamps and sponges. By now, they’d be deep into Niya’s flesh ... He looked again for the girl on the hill.
He saw only the animals.
Cattle perhaps—at this distance, Philip was uncertain. They fed on a small carpet of yellow grass, for in mid-summer the hill was largely bare and dry. If the creatures moved quickly, dust would cloud about their hooves, but they seemed content in their golden patch, rubbing up against each other like drunken friends steadying each other on the way home. At the top of the hill the reddish tile roof of a Spanish-style home, largely hidden by saguaro, scrub oak and mesh fencing, served as a pedestal for the fierce setting sun.
The physician lifted the tweezers whose tips held another gem. “I think we’ve just about got it all ... umm.”
Not quite all. As the tweezers again prodded his flesh, he focused on the hill and the animals. The low sun sent the beasts’ shadows to the base of the slope and into the street that separated the hill from the medical facility.
“Do you know what those animals are, Dr. ...” Philip glanced at her ID badge. “Dr. Farnooz?”
Her tweezers probing Philip’s shoulder, the doctor either didn’t hear Philip’s question or chose to ignore it.
Four years ago he’d first seen the hills under a midday sun. The mounds were bleached white, so the cattle—if cattle they were—seemed at first a piece of the earth itself. But then the undifferentiated white wavered, evolved into a shape, then two. He’d asked several of the nurses and orderlies to identify the animals, but even when he pointed, few saw them, and none offered a name.
On the day of his discharge, hoping for a closer look, he’d had his daughter drive him by the hill, a huge parcel of land enclosed by a high metal fence with every gate locked, but the animals were not there...
“… and I think that’s it.” The doctor dropped the last sliver on the steel tray. “I’ll get someone to clean it out and cover it.” She scribbled on a pad, ripped off the sheet and handed it to a nurse waiting nearby. “You’ll need an antibiotic and some painkillers.”
“Do you know anything about her—the young woman, Niya?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t. She’s still in surgery.”
Philip heard a distant buzzing, which grew louder as he looked at the walls, ceiling and floor as if to find the sound’s source.
She shook the tray as if panning for gold or reading tea leaves. Philip followed her eyes as she glanced up at Philip’s chest, her eyes tracing the thin white line that ran vertically down the center.
“Heart surgery?”
“Bypass.”
“You’re young for that. How long ago did you have it?”
“Four years this September. Right here at this hospital.”
“Well. You’re set for life.”
Philip nodded. After Philip’s operation, his thoracic surgeon assured him the same thing. Initially he felt elated but upon consideration wary. An open path through the woods, but behind the trees something treaded. The nurse cleaned the wounds. Just outside the door, someone prayed to Mother Mary. Shadows overran the hill.
“I liked your show. It was quite entertaining,” said Farnooz.
“Oh, thank you.”
“Except the final episode. Too many loose ends.”
“Yeah, I hear that a lot.”
“Perhaps the series will return?”
Philip held up crossed fingers. The doctor mimicked his gesture, smiled and turned.
“Do you have any idea how long Niya will be in surgery?”
But Doctor Farnooz had moved on.
Philip returned to the emergency room to sign papers and then used the restroom. Taking his shirt out of the plastic bag, he shook the garment a couple of times, ran water over the bloodied neck and dried it under the hand drier, leaving it damp, wrinkled and only a little less discolored. He wet his hair and combed it with his fingers. Tamped down his eyebrows. There were some gray hairs in them, same as his head. No complaints about his skin. Still smooth. Shiny. Leading man looks. Some thought he used a tanning machine. Of course the town was filled with men with leading man looks; few led, many followed.
At the entrance to the third floor waiting room, a neighborhood lay crushed and smoldering on the television. “Drone Strike Misses Target,” read the caption. Beneath the TV, a handful of children played with chipped blocks, scarred reptiles and disheveled dolls.
“I do not know,” said a familiar voice.
Deeper in the room, Niya’s uncle Farhan, his employees and several family members were gathered around two uniformed police officers and another man in plainclothes whom Philip took for a detective. There were no shy actors, but there were impervious audiences.
Philip approached Niya’s uncle and clasped his shoulder. “How is she?”
“Fuck off.” Farhan tossed off Philip’s hand.
Philip stepped back. He shouldn’t have touched the man. Some proscription against ... how can one know? “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Please leave, sir.”
“I just wanted to know how Niya was.”
“That is none of your business.”
Philip nodded and turned toward the exit, which seemed to waver as if made of paper. His shoulders tightened. Farhan’s anger was not justified. Philip faced the man. “I tried to save her.”
“Oh, you shielded my niece? You even tried?”
“I didn’t—there wasn’t—”
“Good enough to serve you—but not save. Oh, we understand. Thank you. Now get out.” Farhan slammed his fist into Philip’s chest. Right into the spot where the wires held his sternum together before the bone knit.
Philip grabbed Farhan’s wrist. Farhan stepped away, jerking violently to break the hold.
“I tried,” said Philip, squeezing hard enough to feel the man’s bone.
Farhan whipped Philip sideways. “Get out!”
“Whoa, whoa,” said one of the uniformed officers, clamping Philip’s wrist, to create a tripod of limbs. “Calm down, both of you.”
Lips shining as if gathering saliva to spit, Farhan said, “You have nothing to do with her, understand? She is promised. We know what you want.”
A hand caught Philip’s shoulder, turning him. It was the plainclothes officer. “Hi, I’m Detective Elbon. I’d like to speak with you, Mr. Raine. Outside.” Elbon, who was tall and blond, guided Philip into the hall.
“Mr. Jahangiri is pretty shaken,” said Elbon. “She’s his niece, you know. He’s responsible for her.”
“She’s a friend, for Christ’s sake!”
“Imagine if it were your daughter or niece. Would you want a stranger inserting himself?”
“Inserting? I just asked—” What was he getting at?
“They see it as an intrusion,” said Elbon.
“Fine, I get it. It’s nonsense, but I get it.”
“So you like Indian food? Eat there every night?” asked Elbon.
No, not every night. Thursdays. In four years, he had only missed his Thursday dinner with Niya when a production held him late, or he took a part for the run of a play, or his daughter called for the cavalry. The previous Thursday was one of those nights. A new neighbor, Ms. Vergust, was about to split open one of the Vergust children’s heads.
Philip made it simple. “I like Indian food, but not every night. Usually I’m there Thursday.”
“Today’s Tuesday.”
“I was coming from an audition in Studio City and headed to another one in Calabasas, but there was a traffic jam. I decided to wait it out at the Moonlight.”
“It was convenient,” said Elbon.
“Right.” That was the truth. Why did he feel like it wasn’t?
“You like the girl though? She’s a good waitress?”
Elbon was staring. Provide the simple, easily digested answer. The detective didn’t need family history. Who did? “She’s efficient. Pleasant.”
Elbon glanced away. “Nothing intimate?”
Philip waited until the detective met his eyes. “No. Nothing intimate.”
Elbon pointed to Philip’s neckline, where the bandage was showing.
“Some glass,” said Philip. “Niya was pouring from a pitcher ... nothing really.” And compared to what they had done inside his chest, the smash and grab, or to Niya’s wound, it was nothing.
Philip and the policeman watched a gurney squeak by.
“So tell me how it happened,” said Elbon. “The shooting.”
“I’ve already—”
“Please.”
As Philip spoke, Elbon took notes.
“So Teapot—the short and stout one—was the target and Charlie the shooter?” Elbon asked when Philip had finished his account.
“I said he looked like Charlie Manson.”
“Until we establish his name, let’s go with Charlie. It’s convenient.”
“Yes, Charlie was the shooter, and Teapot—“
“Let’s call him Danny DeVito.”
“He didn’t look like Danny DeVito.”
“It’s convenient. I’m big on mnemonics. So what were Charlie and Danny wearing?”
That was easy. An actor’s specialty. “Rags. Layered rags. Street people.”
“Ethnicity?”
“The tall one—Charlie—who knows under all that hair? His beard was a little red. Irish maybe. The shorter one—Danny— was dark skinned.”
“African American? Hispanic?”
“No. Mideast maybe. Indian, Pakistani.”
“Pakistani. Like the restaurant.”
Philip shrugged. “It’s a guess.”
Elbon regarded him for a moment, lingering almost sensuously over Philip’s face. “Her uncle thinks you could have done more, but these split second things ... well, I wouldn’t worry ... Thanks for your help,” said the detective, his study finished.
Ten minutes later, disregarding the detective’s advice, Philip returned to the waiting room where Farhan and the other men held something in their fists.
“Farhan, if I’ve said or done anything—”
“We don’t want you here,” said one of the restaurant’s servers, stepping forward and opening his fingers. A small flat oval lay in his palm. Did the man fetch the stone in case Philip returned, or was it just his pet rock?
Didn’t they see he was sincere? He had no bias. How could he? “I’m trying to apologize.”
“Don’t bother.”
“You understand that she could have died if I hadn’t—”
“If Allah hadn’t,” interrupted another server, opening his fist to reveal a stone. “We don’t need white heroes.”
“Saving little colored girls,” added someone at Philip’s back.
Philip twisted, face burning. Can’t you see?
“This is for family only. Please leave and forget about my niece.”
“Have you no respect?” asked another.
“You cannot be in her room,” said Farhan, stepping forward, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. “Please leave.”
They were the ones who were being unfair to him. Philip spread his arms. “This, this is a waiting room. I can wait, can’t I?”
“Shut up!” said the first man who had spoken, and who now gripped his stone tightly, showing its edge. The talk died. In the silent interval, the room seemed to expand and grow darker. In a moment, they’d all disappear.
But he hadn’t stood ...“I’m sorry,” Philip muttered, uncurling his fingers. On the back of his right hand was a large bruise as if he’d pounded his antagonist. But likely he’d only brushed it against something hard earlier. The statins and aspirin thinned his blood. His hand bruised as easily as a ripe peach. He turned from the phalanx of men to the exit. The fight had been lost before it started.
****************************
As Philip pulled up in front of his home, a raised ranch house that had seen better days, his cell phone beeped. He turned off the engine, and the car’s interior soon sweltered. He stood outside in the unrelenting heat, insects gathering in the light of his phone, and called for his messages. One was from Lilia, the assistant director of the play, wanting to know why he hadn’t shown. A second message was from the pharmacy informing him that his prescription was ready. The third message was empty but for static. The caller’s ID was unavailable.
His anger and disappointment with Farhan had not diminished. He leaned against the car and gazed at the heavens, hoping that the stars might draw out some of the poison, a starry poultice. It didn’t work, but poison notwithstanding , he was drained.
Before the front door was half open, Cyclops twisted between his ankles “Hey, girl.” He picked up the tawny cat, let it cling to his shoulder and scratched the slender neck. “Hungry, huh? Sorry. A long bad night.” He kissed the cat on the forehead, above where the skin had virtually closed above the lost left eye, and then, though he had never done it previously, put his lips to the sealed wound.
He carried Cyclops to the kitchen, set her down and opened a can of cat food. He watched her eat from her bowl. He found her a year ago. She clung to a tree branch ten feet above the ground. Dried blood matted her face. Likely a coyote had taken a bite out of her. Too weak to resist, the cat let Philip climb to her and lift her from the branch. He took her home, cleaned and attended to her wound the best he could. The next day he took her to a veterinarian. The vet sutured and dressed her wound. He could do nothing for the lost eye. He provided Philip with the phone number and address of the SPCA, but Philip responded that he would take the cat home, try to find its owner and failing would keep her himself.
So he now had a one-eyed cat.
Cyclops finished her meal, purred contentedly and excused herself for her evening pursuits.
Philip showered, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and poured out his pills: the statin, the alpha-blocker, the antidepressant. He considered a Xanax, the five remaining tablets looking forlorn at the bottom of the orange container, but he recapped the bottle. He turned on the news. Ten minutes of bloodshed was enough. He then turned the television off, and then read twenty pages of a Simenon novel, but resisting its dark twists, set it down.
Normally, the person he shared the house with, Sonny, would be watching the talk shows, Conan or Fallon or whomever. But Sonny was out of town for a few weeks. If Sonny were here, Philip would have put on his headphones, listened to Bach for an hour before going to bed. But in his empty house, he put on the stereo and let the music fill the room. He picked up the book again and waited for the music to transport him. Bach’s intricacy and depth, the nests within nests, never failed to move him. But tonight it was as if hands clamped his ears. Perhaps the uncle was right. Maybe he could have done more. If it were his daughter or grandson, would he have found a way to take the bullet? Philip was imposing himself on a family tragedy. His relationship with Niya was no more than friendship, and he had never imagined it going beyond that. But from the outside it would be the same old suspicion: a middle-aged man lusting after the hot exotic babe. Was asking her to accompany him to a museum even outside the bounds? She couldn’t care for him. What did his bar buddy once say? They don’t even see you.
But then what was that question about?
Why would she want to go to Shangra-La with him? For an instant, like some underground stream that had found its way to the surface, he remembered love—pop song love, popcorn love. He thought he had spent his love on Yvonne. Blonde Yvonne, fair as a white peach. He thought he’d emptied his pockets on Yvonne. Were there a few coins left?
Why does the lamb love Mary so? Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know.
After twenty minutes, he turned the music down and called the hospital.
Niya was out of surgery and in a recovery room.
He didn’t have to feel his pulse to know his heart had not slowed to its normal resting beat. Though the air-conditioned temperature in the house was comfortable, when he slipped into bed he turned on his heating pad, a habit that he had acquired since his operation. He placed the pad between his thighs, quickly feeling the warmth against the shells of the stolen arteries. He could sleep if he could just keep his mind on Tarzan.
Edgar Rice Burroughs had built the house, which Philip had bought when the Precinct X money was overflowing his bank account. In the backyard was a reproduction of Tarzan’s treehouse, from which a rope hung. Philip kept the blinds retracted on his bedroom window to watch the thick rope. When the Santa Anas blew, the rope swung in a wild wide arc, and would slip where it was tied around the high limb to make a high-pitched sound like an animal’s screech. Philip would watch the rope like a silver chain dangled by a hypnotist, superimposing on the pendulum one of the many Hollywood Tarzans swinging on his vine from tree to tree.
Johnny Weissmuller or Buster Crabbe or Christopher Lambert gliding through Malibu jungle: Philip’s soporific. This night, Alexander Skarsgard, the new Tarzan (the ape man never got dated), effortlessly held his swinging vine. Skarsgard rose toward a sturdy limb, but he didn’t quite reach it, so he drifted in ever diminishing arcs. Coming to a dead stop perpendicular to the ground, Skarsgard twisted, faster and faster until he spun like a top. Skarsgard dropped it, but the line continued to swing as if someone were pushing it. Philip drew off his covers, slipped from bed and stepped over to the window. Standing by the rope was a tall man in a cowboy hat. The man grabbed the rope and swung it, setting it in motion again.
Was this one of the homeless, come down from his shelter in the hills? They sometimes passed over the property on their way to the boulevard. The man appeared to be gazing at Philip’s window, at Philip. Or was it someone sent by Farhan? A warning to stay away from his niece? There was another possibility. At the height of Precinct X’s popularity, more than a few of the show’s fans had followed him. Some merely wanted an autograph. Others wanted time to tell him their story. Men and women with a crush. There was never any real problem, and admittedly it was an ego booster. But when the show ended, that kind of interest dwindled to an occasional glance of recognition. Although in the last few months, there were times when he caught sight of strangers who seemed to be approaching him. When Philip stopped to make himself available, they promptly vanished.
The cowboy pushed the rope again, leaving it swinging as he withdrew into the darkness. Screech, screech, screech.
Philip pulled on his pants and shoved his cellphone into his pocket. Downstairs, he grabbed a brass candle holder—Jesus, it did happen—and started towards Sonny’s bedroom to alert him, and then remembered that his roommate was gone. He went out the front door and stole silently along the side of the house.
In the backyard, the rope had come to a stop. Philip listened and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He heard only the rustling of birds on dead leaves. He saw nothing that shouldn’t have been there.
“You out there, pardner?” shouted Philip into the dense brush that covered the foothills behind the home.
Philip pushed the rope. He waited until its period matched the beat of his heart. He breathed deep into his abdomen, holding it for a count of ten and exhaled, and then turned toward the house.
In his bedroom, he looked once again out the window. The yard was empty and the rope still and straight as an exclamation mark. He wondered if he had imagined the cowboy as he imagined his cast of Tarzans. He lay in bed sleepless, fingering the bandage on his chest. He willed the Tarzans, but Farhan sent the intruder. His fingers slipped from the fabric to his chest. It was a small price to pay, wasn’t it?
Will you go with me to Shangri-La?
Why, Niya?
Chapter 2
Through the hospital room’s window, Philip watched the two white grazing beasts, the slender branches of the hilltop willow stroking their wide backs. Four years ago, in recovery from his operation, he gazed in amazement at the hill and the animals. It was almost identical to the background of a photo taken of his mother as a young woman in Pakistan. As a child, he'd brought the photo to bed with him. The hill, the two Brahman cattle, his mother in the foreground. He could almost see her standing there. The glass shuddered under a sudden gust, and a dust cloud shrouded the scene. When the dust settled, the girl was gone. Nadia— or Niya?
If I go with you to the Getty, will you go with me to Shangri-La?
Niya must have seen the old movie Lost Horizon. Shangri-La was the film’s fabled Himalayan valley, a kind of Eden, cut off from the outside world and almost impossible to get to and just as difficult to escape. But once there, why leave?
Philip winced and turned from the hospital’s view to the doctor’s intense dark eyes behind silver framed lenses, her gaze on the tweezers that probed his shoulder under a bright beam.
After a cursory examination in the emergency room—full from the overflow of other facilities still dealing with the victims of the horrendous 101 crash—he’d been taken to a room on the third floor, where the doctor gave in to Philip’s request to sit up during the procedure. The center had its fair share of vistas. If he had a view, he wanted to see it. He shifted against the pillow.
“Are you doing all right? Not feeling faint?” she asked.
“Fine,” he said as a drop of blood oozed from his sliced skin, which under the intense light seemed to him little different from Niya’s.
The doctor had removed eight slivers of glass from Philip’s neck and shoulder. On the metal tray, the fragments formed a pointed leaf, similar to one of Niya’s henna designs.
A nurse entered the room carrying Philip’s shirt, which he’d left in emergency in one of the hospital’s large plastic bags. She set the bag alongside the bed’s rail, exposing the dark spots of his and Niya’s married blood. Somewhere down the maze of corridors, the surgeons were asking for clamps and sponges. By now, they’d be deep into Niya’s flesh ... He looked again for the girl on the hill.
He saw only the animals.
Cattle perhaps—at this distance, Philip was uncertain. They fed on a small carpet of yellow grass, for in mid-summer the hill was largely bare and dry. If the creatures moved quickly, dust would cloud about their hooves, but they seemed content in their golden patch, rubbing up against each other like drunken friends steadying each other on the way home. At the top of the hill the reddish tile roof of a Spanish-style home, largely hidden by saguaro, scrub oak and mesh fencing, served as a pedestal for the fierce setting sun.
The physician lifted the tweezers whose tips held another gem. “I think we’ve just about got it all ... umm.”
Not quite all. As the tweezers again prodded his flesh, he focused on the hill and the animals. The low sun sent the beasts’ shadows to the base of the slope and into the street that separated the hill from the medical facility.
“Do you know what those animals are, Dr. ...” Philip glanced at her ID badge. “Dr. Farnooz?”
Her tweezers probing Philip’s shoulder, the doctor either didn’t hear Philip’s question or chose to ignore it.
Four years ago he’d first seen the hills under a midday sun. The mounds were bleached white, so the cattle—if cattle they were—seemed at first a piece of the earth itself. But then the undifferentiated white wavered, evolved into a shape, then two. He’d asked several of the nurses and orderlies to identify the animals, but even when he pointed, few saw them, and none offered a name.
On the day of his discharge, hoping for a closer look, he’d had his daughter drive him by the hill, a huge parcel of land enclosed by a high metal fence with every gate locked, but the animals were not there...
“… and I think that’s it.” The doctor dropped the last sliver on the steel tray. “I’ll get someone to clean it out and cover it.” She scribbled on a pad, ripped off the sheet and handed it to a nurse waiting nearby. “You’ll need an antibiotic and some painkillers.”
“Do you know anything about her—the young woman, Niya?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t. She’s still in surgery.”
Philip heard a distant buzzing, which grew louder as he looked at the walls, ceiling and floor as if to find the sound’s source.
She shook the tray as if panning for gold or reading tea leaves. Philip followed her eyes as she glanced up at Philip’s chest, her eyes tracing the thin white line that ran vertically down the center.
“Heart surgery?”
“Bypass.”
“You’re young for that. How long ago did you have it?”
“Four years this September. Right here at this hospital.”
“Well. You’re set for life.”
Philip nodded. After Philip’s operation, his thoracic surgeon assured him the same thing. Initially he felt elated but upon consideration wary. An open path through the woods, but behind the trees something treaded. The nurse cleaned the wounds. Just outside the door, someone prayed to Mother Mary. Shadows overran the hill.
“I liked your show. It was quite entertaining,” said Farnooz.
“Oh, thank you.”
“Except the final episode. Too many loose ends.”
“Yeah, I hear that a lot.”
“Perhaps the series will return?”
Philip held up crossed fingers. The doctor mimicked his gesture, smiled and turned.
“Do you have any idea how long Niya will be in surgery?”
But Doctor Farnooz had moved on.
Philip returned to the emergency room to sign papers and then used the restroom. Taking his shirt out of the plastic bag, he shook the garment a couple of times, ran water over the bloodied neck and dried it under the hand drier, leaving it damp, wrinkled and only a little less discolored. He wet his hair and combed it with his fingers. Tamped down his eyebrows. There were some gray hairs in them, same as his head. No complaints about his skin. Still smooth. Shiny. Leading man looks. Some thought he used a tanning machine. Of course the town was filled with men with leading man looks; few led, many followed.
At the entrance to the third floor waiting room, a neighborhood lay crushed and smoldering on the television. “Drone Strike Misses Target,” read the caption. Beneath the TV, a handful of children played with chipped blocks, scarred reptiles and disheveled dolls.
“I do not know,” said a familiar voice.
Deeper in the room, Niya’s uncle Farhan, his employees and several family members were gathered around two uniformed police officers and another man in plainclothes whom Philip took for a detective. There were no shy actors, but there were impervious audiences.
Philip approached Niya’s uncle and clasped his shoulder. “How is she?”
“Fuck off.” Farhan tossed off Philip’s hand.
Philip stepped back. He shouldn’t have touched the man. Some proscription against ... how can one know? “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Please leave, sir.”
“I just wanted to know how Niya was.”
“That is none of your business.”
Philip nodded and turned toward the exit, which seemed to waver as if made of paper. His shoulders tightened. Farhan’s anger was not justified. Philip faced the man. “I tried to save her.”
“Oh, you shielded my niece? You even tried?”
“I didn’t—there wasn’t—”
“Good enough to serve you—but not save. Oh, we understand. Thank you. Now get out.” Farhan slammed his fist into Philip’s chest. Right into the spot where the wires held his sternum together before the bone knit.
Philip grabbed Farhan’s wrist. Farhan stepped away, jerking violently to break the hold.
“I tried,” said Philip, squeezing hard enough to feel the man’s bone.
Farhan whipped Philip sideways. “Get out!”
“Whoa, whoa,” said one of the uniformed officers, clamping Philip’s wrist, to create a tripod of limbs. “Calm down, both of you.”
Lips shining as if gathering saliva to spit, Farhan said, “You have nothing to do with her, understand? She is promised. We know what you want.”
A hand caught Philip’s shoulder, turning him. It was the plainclothes officer. “Hi, I’m Detective Elbon. I’d like to speak with you, Mr. Raine. Outside.” Elbon, who was tall and blond, guided Philip into the hall.
“Mr. Jahangiri is pretty shaken,” said Elbon. “She’s his niece, you know. He’s responsible for her.”
“She’s a friend, for Christ’s sake!”
“Imagine if it were your daughter or niece. Would you want a stranger inserting himself?”
“Inserting? I just asked—” What was he getting at?
“They see it as an intrusion,” said Elbon.
“Fine, I get it. It’s nonsense, but I get it.”
“So you like Indian food? Eat there every night?” asked Elbon.
No, not every night. Thursdays. In four years, he had only missed his Thursday dinner with Niya when a production held him late, or he took a part for the run of a play, or his daughter called for the cavalry. The previous Thursday was one of those nights. A new neighbor, Ms. Vergust, was about to split open one of the Vergust children’s heads.
Philip made it simple. “I like Indian food, but not every night. Usually I’m there Thursday.”
“Today’s Tuesday.”
“I was coming from an audition in Studio City and headed to another one in Calabasas, but there was a traffic jam. I decided to wait it out at the Moonlight.”
“It was convenient,” said Elbon.
“Right.” That was the truth. Why did he feel like it wasn’t?
“You like the girl though? She’s a good waitress?”
Elbon was staring. Provide the simple, easily digested answer. The detective didn’t need family history. Who did? “She’s efficient. Pleasant.”
Elbon glanced away. “Nothing intimate?”
Philip waited until the detective met his eyes. “No. Nothing intimate.”
Elbon pointed to Philip’s neckline, where the bandage was showing.
“Some glass,” said Philip. “Niya was pouring from a pitcher ... nothing really.” And compared to what they had done inside his chest, the smash and grab, or to Niya’s wound, it was nothing.
Philip and the policeman watched a gurney squeak by.
“So tell me how it happened,” said Elbon. “The shooting.”
“I’ve already—”
“Please.”
As Philip spoke, Elbon took notes.
“So Teapot—the short and stout one—was the target and Charlie the shooter?” Elbon asked when Philip had finished his account.
“I said he looked like Charlie Manson.”
“Until we establish his name, let’s go with Charlie. It’s convenient.”
“Yes, Charlie was the shooter, and Teapot—“
“Let’s call him Danny DeVito.”
“He didn’t look like Danny DeVito.”
“It’s convenient. I’m big on mnemonics. So what were Charlie and Danny wearing?”
That was easy. An actor’s specialty. “Rags. Layered rags. Street people.”
“Ethnicity?”
“The tall one—Charlie—who knows under all that hair? His beard was a little red. Irish maybe. The shorter one—Danny— was dark skinned.”
“African American? Hispanic?”
“No. Mideast maybe. Indian, Pakistani.”
“Pakistani. Like the restaurant.”
Philip shrugged. “It’s a guess.”
Elbon regarded him for a moment, lingering almost sensuously over Philip’s face. “Her uncle thinks you could have done more, but these split second things ... well, I wouldn’t worry ... Thanks for your help,” said the detective, his study finished.
Ten minutes later, disregarding the detective’s advice, Philip returned to the waiting room where Farhan and the other men held something in their fists.
“Farhan, if I’ve said or done anything—”
“We don’t want you here,” said one of the restaurant’s servers, stepping forward and opening his fingers. A small flat oval lay in his palm. Did the man fetch the stone in case Philip returned, or was it just his pet rock?
Didn’t they see he was sincere? He had no bias. How could he? “I’m trying to apologize.”
“Don’t bother.”
“You understand that she could have died if I hadn’t—”
“If Allah hadn’t,” interrupted another server, opening his fist to reveal a stone. “We don’t need white heroes.”
“Saving little colored girls,” added someone at Philip’s back.
Philip twisted, face burning. Can’t you see?
“This is for family only. Please leave and forget about my niece.”
“Have you no respect?” asked another.
“You cannot be in her room,” said Farhan, stepping forward, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. “Please leave.”
They were the ones who were being unfair to him. Philip spread his arms. “This, this is a waiting room. I can wait, can’t I?”
“Shut up!” said the first man who had spoken, and who now gripped his stone tightly, showing its edge. The talk died. In the silent interval, the room seemed to expand and grow darker. In a moment, they’d all disappear.
But he hadn’t stood ...“I’m sorry,” Philip muttered, uncurling his fingers. On the back of his right hand was a large bruise as if he’d pounded his antagonist. But likely he’d only brushed it against something hard earlier. The statins and aspirin thinned his blood. His hand bruised as easily as a ripe peach. He turned from the phalanx of men to the exit. The fight had been lost before it started.
****************************
As Philip pulled up in front of his home, a raised ranch house that had seen better days, his cell phone beeped. He turned off the engine, and the car’s interior soon sweltered. He stood outside in the unrelenting heat, insects gathering in the light of his phone, and called for his messages. One was from Lilia, the assistant director of the play, wanting to know why he hadn’t shown. A second message was from the pharmacy informing him that his prescription was ready. The third message was empty but for static. The caller’s ID was unavailable.
His anger and disappointment with Farhan had not diminished. He leaned against the car and gazed at the heavens, hoping that the stars might draw out some of the poison, a starry poultice. It didn’t work, but poison notwithstanding , he was drained.
Before the front door was half open, Cyclops twisted between his ankles “Hey, girl.” He picked up the tawny cat, let it cling to his shoulder and scratched the slender neck. “Hungry, huh? Sorry. A long bad night.” He kissed the cat on the forehead, above where the skin had virtually closed above the lost left eye, and then, though he had never done it previously, put his lips to the sealed wound.
He carried Cyclops to the kitchen, set her down and opened a can of cat food. He watched her eat from her bowl. He found her a year ago. She clung to a tree branch ten feet above the ground. Dried blood matted her face. Likely a coyote had taken a bite out of her. Too weak to resist, the cat let Philip climb to her and lift her from the branch. He took her home, cleaned and attended to her wound the best he could. The next day he took her to a veterinarian. The vet sutured and dressed her wound. He could do nothing for the lost eye. He provided Philip with the phone number and address of the SPCA, but Philip responded that he would take the cat home, try to find its owner and failing would keep her himself.
So he now had a one-eyed cat.
Cyclops finished her meal, purred contentedly and excused herself for her evening pursuits.
Philip showered, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and poured out his pills: the statin, the alpha-blocker, the antidepressant. He considered a Xanax, the five remaining tablets looking forlorn at the bottom of the orange container, but he recapped the bottle. He turned on the news. Ten minutes of bloodshed was enough. He then turned the television off, and then read twenty pages of a Simenon novel, but resisting its dark twists, set it down.
Normally, the person he shared the house with, Sonny, would be watching the talk shows, Conan or Fallon or whomever. But Sonny was out of town for a few weeks. If Sonny were here, Philip would have put on his headphones, listened to Bach for an hour before going to bed. But in his empty house, he put on the stereo and let the music fill the room. He picked up the book again and waited for the music to transport him. Bach’s intricacy and depth, the nests within nests, never failed to move him. But tonight it was as if hands clamped his ears. Perhaps the uncle was right. Maybe he could have done more. If it were his daughter or grandson, would he have found a way to take the bullet? Philip was imposing himself on a family tragedy. His relationship with Niya was no more than friendship, and he had never imagined it going beyond that. But from the outside it would be the same old suspicion: a middle-aged man lusting after the hot exotic babe. Was asking her to accompany him to a museum even outside the bounds? She couldn’t care for him. What did his bar buddy once say? They don’t even see you.
But then what was that question about?
Why would she want to go to Shangra-La with him? For an instant, like some underground stream that had found its way to the surface, he remembered love—pop song love, popcorn love. He thought he had spent his love on Yvonne. Blonde Yvonne, fair as a white peach. He thought he’d emptied his pockets on Yvonne. Were there a few coins left?
Why does the lamb love Mary so? Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know.
After twenty minutes, he turned the music down and called the hospital.
Niya was out of surgery and in a recovery room.
He didn’t have to feel his pulse to know his heart had not slowed to its normal resting beat. Though the air-conditioned temperature in the house was comfortable, when he slipped into bed he turned on his heating pad, a habit that he had acquired since his operation. He placed the pad between his thighs, quickly feeling the warmth against the shells of the stolen arteries. He could sleep if he could just keep his mind on Tarzan.
Edgar Rice Burroughs had built the house, which Philip had bought when the Precinct X money was overflowing his bank account. In the backyard was a reproduction of Tarzan’s treehouse, from which a rope hung. Philip kept the blinds retracted on his bedroom window to watch the thick rope. When the Santa Anas blew, the rope swung in a wild wide arc, and would slip where it was tied around the high limb to make a high-pitched sound like an animal’s screech. Philip would watch the rope like a silver chain dangled by a hypnotist, superimposing on the pendulum one of the many Hollywood Tarzans swinging on his vine from tree to tree.
Johnny Weissmuller or Buster Crabbe or Christopher Lambert gliding through Malibu jungle: Philip’s soporific. This night, Alexander Skarsgard, the new Tarzan (the ape man never got dated), effortlessly held his swinging vine. Skarsgard rose toward a sturdy limb, but he didn’t quite reach it, so he drifted in ever diminishing arcs. Coming to a dead stop perpendicular to the ground, Skarsgard twisted, faster and faster until he spun like a top. Skarsgard dropped it, but the line continued to swing as if someone were pushing it. Philip drew off his covers, slipped from bed and stepped over to the window. Standing by the rope was a tall man in a cowboy hat. The man grabbed the rope and swung it, setting it in motion again.
Was this one of the homeless, come down from his shelter in the hills? They sometimes passed over the property on their way to the boulevard. The man appeared to be gazing at Philip’s window, at Philip. Or was it someone sent by Farhan? A warning to stay away from his niece? There was another possibility. At the height of Precinct X’s popularity, more than a few of the show’s fans had followed him. Some merely wanted an autograph. Others wanted time to tell him their story. Men and women with a crush. There was never any real problem, and admittedly it was an ego booster. But when the show ended, that kind of interest dwindled to an occasional glance of recognition. Although in the last few months, there were times when he caught sight of strangers who seemed to be approaching him. When Philip stopped to make himself available, they promptly vanished.
The cowboy pushed the rope again, leaving it swinging as he withdrew into the darkness. Screech, screech, screech.
Philip pulled on his pants and shoved his cellphone into his pocket. Downstairs, he grabbed a brass candle holder—Jesus, it did happen—and started towards Sonny’s bedroom to alert him, and then remembered that his roommate was gone. He went out the front door and stole silently along the side of the house.
In the backyard, the rope had come to a stop. Philip listened and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He heard only the rustling of birds on dead leaves. He saw nothing that shouldn’t have been there.
“You out there, pardner?” shouted Philip into the dense brush that covered the foothills behind the home.
Philip pushed the rope. He waited until its period matched the beat of his heart. He breathed deep into his abdomen, holding it for a count of ten and exhaled, and then turned toward the house.
In his bedroom, he looked once again out the window. The yard was empty and the rope still and straight as an exclamation mark. He wondered if he had imagined the cowboy as he imagined his cast of Tarzans. He lay in bed sleepless, fingering the bandage on his chest. He willed the Tarzans, but Farhan sent the intruder. His fingers slipped from the fabric to his chest. It was a small price to pay, wasn’t it?
Will you go with me to Shangri-La?
Why, Niya?
