86'd: A Novel - By Dan Fante Page 0,48

now I was at the orchid. My nose close to the stinky fucker. “Funny smell,” I said.

“It’s plastic, for chrissake.”

“Oh,” I said, touching one of the fake white blooms. “And it actually looks real. But, you know, it smells funny. A bit like piss.”

Without saying good-bye or shaking Stedman’s hand I began moving toward the door. “Look,” I said. “Let me think all this over. There’s a lot to consider. How about that?”

Stedman appeared puzzled but immediately recovered himself. “Abso-fuckin’-lutely, my man! Give yourself a day or two. The point is, after we have the screenplay—the pages—we get the ball rolling. You write it—we shoot it. No screwing around. Belly Up is now our next project.”

“I hear you,” I said, still backing across the flesh-eating swans toward the door.

“Billy,” Ronny bellowed, “I’m really excited that the three of us will be working together. Aren’t you?”

Billy nodded. Billy now looked excited. Maybe Billy would perform oral sex on Ronny too after I left the room or empty his piss pot for him.

Stedman grinned again. His best million lira, I gotcha, film-producer leer. “It was—like—an amazingly cool surprise when I read those stories. Like finding a diamond in a Dumpster.”

“Really,” I said, “A diamond in a Dumpster? No kidding? That’s an interesting choice of words.”

“Hold up,” Ronny barked. “You’re driving us to see the new location, right? We’ve got a full day ahead of us.”

“Yeah,” I said, putting my cap on, “I meant to tell you. I guess I’ve got the flu or something. I’m sick to my stomach. I’ll call in and get you one of the other guys to drive you for the day.”

Ronny Stedman gave me a long look. “Well—okay—I mean, if you’re sick. Sure.”

“Yeah, I’m sick. I’m sick to my stomach.”

In the elevator on the way down to the street I felt my crotch scars itching like crazy. I began shaking. I needed to smash something, anything. Then in my mind Jimmy gave me a direct order: Listen to me, asshole: drive yourself to the nearest gun store—buy a used .38—the same kind that you got from your old man—the kind that Portia took from you and threw away—and come back here and shoot these two cocksuckers deader than the deadest lowlife snakes that they are.

Then I noticed the glued-on, maroon-colored nameplate next to elevator button #11 that read HOLLYWOOD STAR PRODUCTIONS. I took out my pen knife and pried the plastic fucker away from the fake formica paneling, then snapped it in half, tossing the pieces onto the floor. From now on, no matter what, I promised myself I would not set eyes on Ron Stedman again. Let Rosie and Joshua at the office deal with the slithering feral fuck. I’d develop a slipped disk in my back or contract hep C or whatever excuse I needed to come up with to avoid being in the same car ever again with these pricks.

Down on the street behind the wheel of Pearl I phoned Rosie with instructions to replace me with another limo and chauffeur, telling her a sudden and important business appointment had come up.

On the way back to the office I stopped at Wells Fargo Bank, waited in the usual line of eleven people, then cashed my check: $1,357.00. I told the smile-trained imbecile behind the counter to give me my money all in twenties. I wanted to feel the weight and the roll in my slacks. The kid sighed and ha-humphed and mimed his best Jay Leno, roll-your-eyes to the camera expression, then reached under the counter for more bills.

Back at Dav-Ko I parked Pearl in the driveway, walked into the office past Rosie, then wordlessly grabbed the keys to my Pontiac and took off. For the last hour my mind had been a screaming monkey. I had to escape, to go anywhere and to be anywhere else. I despised Hollywood and the bizarre greedy deranged mutant jerkoffs it had spawned. I hated myself for not facing Stedman and telling him how I felt about him and his obvious and ungenuine conniving manipulations and stupidity. I hated the limousine business. I hated it all.

twenty-two

It happened to me rarely these days. Working and making money and writing and managing Dav-Ko was all that I’d been doing for months. But I now clearly had a serious case of the fuckits.

I can’t say it was Ronny Steadman and I can’t say it wasn’t but within me there is this leveling device thing that, when my mind exceeds a