Philip Nutman - Cities of Night

Kurt Cobain was laughing.

“It doesn’t matter; no one gets out alive,” he said, applying lipstick to his cracked, bleeding lips. He was wearing a dirty wedding dress and looked like a silent movie star. We were standing in the middle of a muddy pasture. The landscape was flat and seemed to go on forever.

“Let me tell you the secret,” he whispered.

Somewhere, a woodpecker began banging on a tree. I wanted it to stop. I wanted to hear the secret, but the woodpecker kept banging.

Banging. Banging. Banging.

Kurt laughed and started to run away. I wanted to follow but as I looked down I saw my feet were trapped in mud.

“What?” I cried after him. “I don’t understand?”

The woodpecker banged louder.

I opened my eyes, wincing. Disoriented. Bright sunlight stabbed my pupils.

A California surfer was rapping on the Prelude’s side window. My neck cracked as I twisted in the seat.

“Out of the car. Now.”

Caught between the vividness of the dream and the cold shower of reality, I blinked, mouth open in slack-jawed incomprehension.

Where was I?

My eyes focused on the half-timbered and brick house behind him, and memory kicked in. But my reactions were obviously too slow for this male beach bimbo with his long, blond curls who was now grabbing at the door handle. It was locked.

“Out! Now !”

I opened the door but before I could climb out, he yanked me by the back of the neck and nearly launched me into a nearby tree.

“Hey!” I shouted. “I can explain—”

The son of a rancid cunt squeezed my throat, choking the life out of me. I would have punched his mutherfucking lights out, but he had my right wrist locked and was doing some martial arts move on me which hurt so bad I screamed like a little bitch.

“You think that hurts?” he snarled. “Wait until I really put some pressure on you.”

The pain was so intense I puked all over the driveway.

Mr. Surfer Muscles jabbed his knee into my ribs. It hurt like Hell. I wanted to kill the cunt, but I was in so much pain I was powerless even to raise a hand or hit the piece of shit in the face.

“Try anything and you’ll regret it,” he said, suddenly calm.

One hand on my neck, the other still threatening to wrench my arm from its socket, he marched me up the driveway and around the side of the house.

The pain and booze residue kicked in, and I vomited again. One, two, three deep retches — a painful gag of bile and alcohol.

“You disgusting pig!” Mr. Muscles said, then slammed my head against the wall of the house.

He dragged me towards the back of the mansion. I was hurting so bad, he could have dragged me to Hell and left me there.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “All I wanted was—”

The SOB kicked me in the ribs, slapping my angry consciousness back into my still somewhat confused head. All I knew was I now really wanted to kill this bastard.

But all I could do was let the piece of shit haul me around the back of the mansion. I could barely lift a hand.

The kitchen door was open, and the deceptively lilting sound of women laughing confused my fragmented consciousness.

As my captor dragged me in, two girls in their early twenties wearing loosely fastened silk robes glanced up with glazed eyes from a long wooden kitchen table. Dawn’s early luminescence divided the room into squares of light and shade like a chessboard. A strong scent of weed suggested they were stoned rather than drunk, and a mirror, razorblade, traces of coke, and other drug paraphernalia confirmed the fact that they were high from more than marijuana.

Beach Boy pushed me down into a chair.

“Leave,” he said, nodding at the coke. “And take that with you.”

“Can’t we watch, Mickey?” the blonde one asked, deliberately pulling her robe halfheartedly together in mock modesty. It slid open further to reveal small, perfect breasts crowned with raspberry nipples.

“He’s no fun,” commented the redhead, taking a deep drag off the joint held between her long, manicured nails.

“Don’t damage him, Mickey. He’s cute,” the blonde giggled, smiling at me as she stood, one hand touching a breast before pulling the robe closed. She sashayed out of the kitchen, leaving the redhead to gather their stash.

In ten seconds, I’d seen more female flesh than in the previous five months. The only pussy that had slept in my bed was my cat, and even Suki had run away. After Abby walked out, I made halfhearted attempts at meeting girls in bars, but the cute ones were taken and big chicks didn’t set my world on fire.

“Please… take your hand off me,” I said, trying not to let my voice crack. “This is all a big mistake. I—”

“Who is he?”

A tall guy in a silk suit which probably cost more than six months’ rent at Arbordale stood in the doorway through which the girls had vanished. His jet black hair was precisely styled, but the paint stripes of gray at the temples gave him the appearance of a raccoon. George Hamilton would have envied his hair, and the authoritative tone his body language spoke belonged to a senator. Or a Mafia don.

“Don’t know,” Mickey Muscles replied

“Search him.”

Before Mickey, who belonged in a Steve Reeves Hercules flick, could put his plate-sized paws on me again, I stood, hands halfraised. The apologetic position was the wrong move. Mr. Silk Suit’s right hand darted under his jacket, producing a gun.

“Wait! It’s okay. I’m going to get out my wallet, okay?”

“Don’t move. Michael will remove it.”

“Okay. Okay !”

Mickey — Michael, Samson, whatever his fucking name was — nearly tore the pocket from my frayed jeans, flipping the battered wallet open to my driver’s license as he thrust me back in the chair.

“Dale Jackson.”

He thumbed through the rest, not that there was much — my social security card, some old receipts, and my last dollars.

“Who sent you?” Silk Suit cocked the gun.

“Hey, hey, put that thing down, will you? There’s no need for that.” I said.

“Look, I was driving home late last night, but I was too drunk and pulled over—”

Mickey’s hand shot across my face.

“Who sent you? Who’re you working for?”

I couldn’t answer between the pain and the blood in my mouth.

“If you don’t start talking by the time I count to three…”

“One…”

I held up a hand in surrender as I massaged my jaw. “Two…”

Mr. Silk Suit advanced, slipping the safety off.

“John! Where are you? I want breakfast. I want a mimosa!”

A woman’s voice called out from close by, throwing Silk Suit’s arithmetic off.

“ John! I want champagne. And strawberries. ”

The voice grew louder, then a glamorous woman with sleep-teased black hair, wearing only a diaphanous negligee which left nothing to the imagination, appeared in the doorway. Silk Suit concealed the gun, annoyance creasing the angles of his face.

“Oh, we have a visitor. Why didn’t you tell me, John? Well, don’t stand there, fetch some champagne and let’s all retire to the lounge.”

She wrinkled her nose at the mess in the kitchen. The counters were strewn with empty bottles: Stoli vodka, Cristal champagne, Campbell’s tomato juice, and various imported beers. Someone had spilled caviar on the stove. Lifestyles of the rich and unknown.

Maybe. There was something familiar about the woman, a flash of recognition which cut through my pain, fear, and surprise.

She looked to be in her early forties but had obviously tried to preserve a younger image. I knew a nose job and collagen injections when I saw them. The raven hair was pure Sophia Loren, the bee-stung lips Kim Basinger. My three years in L.A. had exposed me to enough boob jobs, butt lifts, anal bleaching, liposuction, tucks, and folds to qualify me for medical school.