Walter Williams: The Picture Business

“If you like.”

Paulie followed her out into the driveway.

“Nice fuchsia,” she said.

“Huh?” Paulie wondered if this was some kind of strange sexual compliment he hadn’t heard before.

“Fuchsia. The plant you’ve got out here.”

“Oh,” Paulie said. “Thanks.”

“The stuff on the deck out back,” Gloria said, “is honeysuckle. And over in the corners, that’s bougainvillea.”

“No kidding.”

Paulie saw that she had driven here in a Toyota pickup with a camper shell. Nice, he figured, for quickies on a mattress in the back.

Entrepreneurship, he thought, imagination, professionalism.

It was what made America great.

Next day Paulie had to fly to Detroit to solve someone’s problems. After he came back, he decided to have a little housewarming celebration, so he asked Helio and Helio’s brother Raimundo, and their associates Leo and Marcio, and had them over for drinks.

“Nice fuchsia,” Helio said as he walked in.

“Thanks.”

Helio stood in the foyer and gave the place the once-over. “Great new place,” Helio said. “I didn’t know you were doing so well.”

“I got a great deal,” Paulie said, “and I just kind of stepped into the place.”

Apparently Helio had never been to the house when Norton owned it, and didn’t know who it really belonged to. That was fine with Paulie, because if Helio learned the place was Norton’s, he might try to make good on Norton’s debt by selling the furniture, burning the place down for the insurance, or turning it into a fuck pad for himself and his girlfriend.

“Great place,” said Raimundo. He was looking at himself in the gilt-edged mirror in the foyer. He smoothed down a lapel.

“Nice suit,” said Paulie.

“It’s a Princess Suwannee,” Raimundo said. “She’s expanded her line to menswear.”

“Nice,” said Paulie.

Raimundo lifted a foot off the ground. “You like the shoes? The belt? Gucci.”

“Nice shoes,” said Paulie.

“What’s this?” called Marcio. He had walked into the office and noticed the mediatron.

“It came with the house,” Paulie said. “It’s some kind of virt thing.”

Marcio, who spent half his life in virt when he wasn’t running his crew, sat down before the console and started pressing buttons. He propped some virt shades on his forehead, then called up a list of files. “How about Marilyn’s Humpday Surprise,” he sniggered, and touched the screen with his finger.

All three screens filled with the sight of Gary Cooper screwing Marilyn Monroe doggie-style. “This isn’t virt!” Marcio complained. “It’s just flatscreen!” He took off the glasses and tossed them on the console.

Helio looked at Paulie. “I didn’t know you went for this stuff,” he said.

“I don’t,” Paulie said. “It was on the machine.”

Helio just wrinkled his eyes a little. Paulie knew that Helio didn’t believe him, and that made him feel uncomfortable.

“Who’s the skinny guy with the hairy butt?” Raimundo asked.

“Gary Cooper,” said Marcio. He had probably cleaned up Dodge City with Cooper in the virts.

“Is he supposed to be famous or something?” Raimundo asked.

“He was a big star. Back before color.”

“I hate black-and-whites,” said Raimundo. “You got anything with real movie stars in it?”

Marcio poked around in the files and found a piece with Cher, Claudia Andropova, and Jack Nicholson in a three-way.

“Okay,” Raimundo grumbled. “But Cher wasn’t a real star.”

“She won an Oscar,” Marcio said.

“You’re bullshitting me.”

“You can look it up.”

They stood around the office for a few minutes watching the three-way. Paulie asked if anyone wanted him to freshen their drinks. None of them did.

After awhile Marcio got bored with the three-way, and he called up a file with Robert DeNiro and Brooke Shields. Only it was the twelve-year-old Brooke Shields, digitized from Pretty Baby or somewhere, and Paulie noticed Helio and Raimundo, who both had families, giving him disgusted looks from under their eyelids as if he were a pervert.

“I’m tired of this,” Helio said. He looked at Paulie. “You got anything on that machine besides porn?”

“I don’t know,” Paulie said. “I’ve never used it before.”

It was worth one last try, he thought, to explain that nothing on the mediatron was anything he put there.

Marcio ran a finger along a touchpad and gave the mediatron’s files a quick scan. “We got some Bruce Lee here,” he said.

“Bruce Lee is good,” said Helio.

What Helio said was good, the others watched. That was how things worked.

They got some chairs and fresh drinks and watched Bruce Lee break ribs and heads and limbs in Enter the Dragon, cheering and making learned professional observations as each of the bad guys bit the dust. “Now that’s a good picture,” said Helio. He gave a look at Paulie. “Not like that pedophile shit we saw earlier.”

Paulie wanted to protest again that none of these images belonged to him, but he knew perfectly well there wasn’t any point to it.

After the movie, Raimundo suggested going to a place in Santa Monica that he knew. Helio said that sounded fine to him, so that was the end of Paulie’s party.

They drove down to the club in convoy, one car after another. Helio rode in Paulie’s car and gave him a list of things that he needed Paulie to do in the next few days. Not solving problems, exactly, but preventing them, reminding people of their obligations so that they wouldn’t become problems. Pauhe said he would handle the situations.

“I know you will,” Helio said, and then he said, “By the way, I talked to Little Joe.”

Paulie thought about that for a moment, and then said cautiously, “You did?”

Little Joe had a lot to do with why Pauhe decided to move from Providence to L.A.

“He says he understands about Big Joe. He understands that it was just business, and that there was nothing personal in it.”

“That’s good,” Paulie said.

“He knows it was the Lukas that hired you, and he’s taken care of the Lukas, so as far as he’s concerned, that ends it.”

Pauhe didn’t think he wanted to trust Little Joe’s assurances anytime soon, but it was nice to know that Little Joe was at least being civil. Little Joe’s basic problem was that he was a hot-tempered, vengeful little fuck, and every time Paulie’s name came up he would start frothing at the mouth. Maybe by now he’d calmed down a little.

“I really appreciate this, Helio,” Pauhe said. “It’s nice of you to go out of your way for me.”

“You’re a good guy, Pauhe,” Helio said. “I don’t want my friends getting mad at each other over a misunderstanding.”

“Thanks again,” Pauhe said. “I owe you one.”

“Ever since you solved that Vitalio problem for me,” Helio said, “I knew I could trust you.”

Paulie was pleased to hear that. It was nice to know he’d found a place here with Helio, had established a good working relationship.

Still, he figured he was not going to test Little Joe’s good will by flying to Providence anytime soon.

“Little Joe called you Taco Pauhe,” Helio said. “Is that what they call you out East?”

“Not to my face, they don’t,” said Pauhe.

“I don’t get it, the names these Eastern guys have,” Helio said. “Crazy Al, Joe the Weasel, Fat Tony. They’re all little boys’ names.”

“Or baseball players,” said Paulie.

Helio laughed. “Well,” he said. “Here we call you by your grownup name.”

“Thanks, Helio.”

Pauhe wondered if he was becoming a part of Helio’s mob. He hadn’t been part of anyone’s mob back in Providence. Partly because he didn’t have the right ancestry to become a made guy, not being Sicilian or anything, and partly because he’d noticed that sooner or later all the guys who were mobbed up got arrested whenever the authorities chose to pay attention to that particular outfit. Whereas those who worked independently, solving people’s problems whenever anyone came up with the money, were almost never found out or arrested. Hundreds of people had their problems solved every year, but the people who actually did the work were almost never found out.