Harvey read my mind.
“I know you want to kill me, Dick. I know how it is when timid men smell blood.”
Nobody talked. Nobody breathed. We all looked at Harvey.
He said, “Don’t be hasty. I’m the only one who can help you out of this scrape you’re in.”
He explained.
I granted him a stay of execution.
8
I hogged a booth at Ollie Hammond’s Steakhouse. I held a cross and a big garlic bulb.
The succubus was late.
Oscar and Joi guarded the gas chamber. They barricaded the shop and held my dad’s shotgun on Harvey. Harvey hammered away at my Home-TV Show. He thought he could buy me out of the shit I slid into and slide on his seventeen snuffs.
He was wrong. I passed sentence. Oscar and Joi played public defenders and petitioned me for a pardon. I said no. They said they were glad and conceded their collusion in Contino’s kangaroo court. I said Harvey’s death would bea real gas. Oscar and Joi laughed. We drew straws to pick who’d drop the pellets. Joi won. Oscar dipped down to Western Costume. He bought her a boss black death robe.
I felt righteously righteous and smilingly smug. I ratified my rationale a dozen times and reveled in its logic. Harvey was a freelance freak. The LAPD did not know he killed women. The LAPD could not be trusted to rein in their rabid Rottweiler. I could gas Harvey and give up gore for good.
The succubus was late.
I felt valiantly virile. I felt spectacularly spiritual and alluringly alive. I had the big Hush-Hush file. I had dirt. I knew who fucked and sucked and licked and dicked and boozed and coozed and injected and elected to genuflect to their basest desires. I could wreck careers and resurrect my own. I could shake down booking agents and casting agents and columnists. I could run a prime portion of the press and have them castrate my competitors. I could regulate my rise to Mount Olympus. I could humble those who humbled me in the spirit of Hush-Hush hegemony.
The succubus walked in.
I shook. I shivered. I squeezed my garlic bulb.
She sat down at the table. She wore her widow’s weeds witchingly well.
Vivid Viv.
She said, “Jesus, Dick. You smell.”
I dropped my garlic. I picked up my cross. I aimed it at her crotch under the table. I said, “You’re probably wondering why I called.”
She nodded. “I’m wondering where you found the audacity.”
I said, “I’ve been having an audacious time lately.”
“That’s an evasion, and it’s not a suitable answer.”
Vicious Viv.
I said, “I’m sorry about your husband.”
Viv flicked some tobacco off her tongue. “That’s a craven response, and it’s what you should have said first.”
Vindictive Viv.
I tamped my temper down. I made a neutral and nut-neutered statement. “I didn’t have a choice. The LAPD was squeezing me.”
Viv laughed. “You had a choice. Your options were suicide or direct action.”
I laughed. Viv laughed. It was shitty laughless laughter.
“You blew your most immediate options and your chance to father my child. I suspect that you’ll blow whatever else comes your way.”
I popped a few tears. Wicked words and garlic fumes sucked them out of me. A waiter walked up. Viv waved him away.
“You never returned my car, Dick.”
I shrugged.
“I found another handsome Italian man to impregnate me. He’s much more famous than you, and I’m sure that he has a larger penis.”
I said, “Who?”
Viv said, “Dean Martin.”
I dropped my cross. It hit the floor. It made a wop! sound.
I said, “Fuck Dino. He moves Mob money to the Vatican.”
“Yes, and my husband was a homosexual. If you’re trying to shock me or titillate me, you’re employing the wrong tactics.”
I wiped my eyes. I wiped my nose. Viv tossed me her napkin.
“Tell me what you want, Dick. I’m meeting Dean at Chasen’s, and I don’t want to be late.”
I blew my beak on white linen. “I want direct action, and I need to talk to Sheriff Biscailuz.”
Viv stood up. “I’ll arrange it in the spirit of what we could have had.”