Timothy Hallinan - Crashed

There was one nice lawyerly touch: in small print on the back of the package were the words MODEL WAS EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER AT TIME OF MANUFACTURE. I knew for a fact that that was true. So Wattles, whatever other kinds of nefarious activity he might be engaged in, wasn’t promoting plastic pedophilia. I found myself wondering whether there might not be a worldwide underground traffic in used department-store mannequins of children. Somewhere, I figured, there was probably a catalog.

Catalog , I thought. Good idea; here was something useful I could do. I went online, brought up Google, and typed MY SWEET INFLATABLE YOU, hoping this query wasn’t being electronically filed in an indelible record of my online activities by some gray government bureau. Wham! With the absolute moral neutrality that makes Google so perversely fascinating, it filled my screen with a whole bouquet of hits. And the very first one had everything I needed, and more: a picture of Dora at her most alluring (high-definition version available), the price, some truly unsettling prose about her capabilities, a couple of even more unsettling endorsements from happy customers, and-almost too good to be true-Wattles’s mailing address for those who wished to pay with checks or money orders rather than having Visa or Mastercard know they were buying inflatable companionship.

I printed five copies of the page, using glossy paper for the full effect. Then I killed half an hour writing the letter I planned to roll up in Dora’s open mouth when it came time for her to take center stage. It was good, even by my strict editorial standards.

“You’re going out there a limp bag of latex,” I said to Dora. “But you’re coming back a star.”

I thought it would be polite for her to answer me, so I pressed her left ear, expecting either, “Oh, Baby” or “Don’t stop now,” or maybe both of them together to show I was someone special, not just another guy with a good pair of lungs. Nothing. I pressed the right ear, and I have to admit that pressing either ear was mildly creepy-feeling. Not a word, not a syllable, not a perfunctory appreciative moan. In addition to being a second-rate burglar, a bad planner, a danger to those around me, and someone whose personal clock was set on fast forward, I couldn’t get a cheap rise out of a blow-up doll.

I picked up the package, and my spirits lifted: in print that was smaller than most punctuation marks were the words, BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED.

Okay. It wasn’t me. I went to sleep.

“Geez, I’m sorry,” Louie said in the doorway. “Didn’t know you had company.”

I’d shot halfway across the room, traveling eight inches above the carpet, at the sound of the door opening, and I stood there now, panting, trapped somewhere between the adrenaline rush of panic and the post-sleep fog of no-coffee-yet. “Jesus,” I said. “Don’t do that. And look a little closer before you apologize to the lady.”

“Holy smoke,” Louie said, peering at Dora. He’d come in from a bright morning and the room was as dim as I’d been able to make it. He looked concerned. “You know, Junior,” he said slowly, “you’re not what I call handsome, but you’re not a bad -looking guy. I mean, Alice knows some girls she could introduce …” His voice trailed off. “She looks a lot like somebody,” he said.

I said, “Doesn’t she.”

Louie said, “You’re fuckin’ kidding me” in the tone of someone who has just seen the Virgin Mary in a swirl of powdered coffee creamer. He came the rest of the way into the room and tugged a lock of Dora’s Dynel hairdo. “I mean, same hair and everything.”

“We should try to be gentlemen,” I said. “Neither of us knows about the everything part.”

“Oh, man,” Louie said. “This is dynamite.”

“Take it from me,” I said. “It’s harder to blow up.”

He looked around the room. “You thought about the maid?” he asked. “She’s gonna take one look at that and run all the way back to Venezuela.”

“You’re right. I probably need to stash her.” I unplugged the little valve on her back and started to press on her to push the air out. “You want to help?”

“Not on your life,” he said, sitting as far away as the room allowed.

“Just asking.” I found that I was trying to avoid pressing on her, um, sensitive areas. I put her on the floor and sat on her and was rewarded by a nice long hiss.

“Got your gun, I think,” Louie said, watching me. “The thing you want, it uses CO2 cartridges, right?”

“I don’t know. Sounds right. Not noisy anyway.”

“Makes a little noise like phut ,” Louie said.

Dora was shrinking nicely. “Like what?” I wanted to hear him say it again.

“Like phut you,” Louie said. “I don’t mind being laughed at, but I like to get paid for it.”

“If this works out,” I said, “I’ll have ten K for you day after tomorrow.”

“Ten K counts,” Louie said. “What if it doesn’t work out?”

“You can sue my estate. What about the car?”

“It’s the old LAPD black-and-white,” Louie said. “What do you want Willie to write on the door?”

“Pacific Security.”

Louie made a mouth. “Not much of a ring to it.”

“I know, but I’ve got a shirt that says that, and they might as well match.”

“You’re the only guy I know,” Louie said, “gets a car to match his shirt.” He made a sound that probably passed for a laugh at his house.

“Where’s the guy with the special gun?” Dora was almost flat enough to fold.

“Where are all the freaks?” Louie asked. “Hollywood.”

“Good. We’ll go together. I’ve got another stop to make.”

“What are we, running errands?”

“Got to see a girl about a phone,” I said.

“Am I going to like her?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But she’s got a sister.”

Wendy’s eyes widened in panic when she saw what was in my hand. She stuck her tongue between her teeth, bit down on it, and took a step backward. For a second, I thought she was going to close the door in my face. She yelled, “Jennie.”

Louie said to me, “Why isn’t this kid in school?”

“She’s a full-time student in the School of Life,” I said.

“Kid like this,” Louie said righteously, “she oughta be learning stuff.”

“I am,” Wendy said. Then she called, more loudly this time, “JENNIE.”

“I’m peeing,” Jennie shouted. “Is that okay with you? Am I supposed to get permission or something?” I heard a door open, and Wendy glanced to her left and said, “Pull your pants up. Junior’s here with some little guy.”

“Little?” Louie said.

“She means like cute,” I said.

“Hey, Junior,” Jennie said, coming around the door. Then she saw the phone in my hand and stopped like some character in Ovid, turned into a stone fountain or something.

“You guys left something out last night,” I said. I waved the phone back and forth. “And it’s sort of important.”

“I don’t know what you’re-” Jennie began.

“I saw your eyes in the restaurant when I mentioned Jimmy,” I said. “And you should have seen your sister’s face just a second ago. Don’t look at Wendy like that. You weren’t exactly Miss Cool, either.”

The two of them stood there, their eyes drifting downward, identical expressions of thought on their faces. “Why don’t we come in,” I said, “and you can tell me about it.”

. “Thistle had been really scared about doing that movie. She was taking too much stuff, and I got scared that maybe she’d try something stupid, you know, something to, uh, hurt herself. So I went back over.”