Steve Erickson - Zeroville

His bloody hand hangs at his side. The girl begins crying. “Oh mother,” Vikar says, then reaches to Zazi with his other hand as she draws away from him amid the glass.

210.

Soledad sobs, “You’re frightening her.”

“I’m frightening her?” Vikar says. The wrath that seemed momentarily satisfied when he smashed the window returns.

“No,” Zazi calls to Vikar when he takes another step toward her mother.

“Now do you want to see bárbaro ?” Vikar says to Soledad, raising his bloody fist.

“Don’t,” says the girl.

“All these nights your daughter is sleeping in the car?” says Vikar. “Do you believe you’re the Whore of God, to sacrifice your child on the altar of pleasure?”

“ Mi dios ,” Soledad cries.

“He’s not my god,” he says. “Look.” He turns his head. “This is the profile of the one who wants you,” and turns his head back, “this is the profile of the one who would kill you, for sacrificing your nine-year-old child.”

“ Diablo .”

Zazi says to him, “Don’t. I’m O.K.” She adds, “Actually, I’m eleven now.”

211.

In the corners of the parking lot’s concrete bunker, homeless people look up from the rags where they sleep. Crying, Soledad rushes Vikar and pounds his chest. “Don’t you think I’m trying?” she blurts. “Don’t you think? Driving all the way from L.A. for this shitty little part in this shitty little movie?”

“By spending your nights with me?” he says. “You try to take care of her by sp—?”

“Yes!” Her pounding exhausts itself. “It’s exactly what I’m trying to do!”

Vikar begins walking away. He gets halfway across the parking lot and turns; his hand leaves a trail of blood. “Come on,” he says.

Soledad still cries.

“Come on.” He motions to Zazi.

“Where?” Soledad finally says. “I can’t sleep with you when she’s with us. It’s not right.”

“Come on.”

212.

Back at the suite, mother and daughter sleep in the bedroom and Vikar finally falls asleep on the couch. Both are gone when he wakes. He doesn’t go to work but lies on the couch looking at the remains of his model church on the floor.

213.

On the fourth day, someone slips something under the door. He still lies on the couch. Another hour passes before he rises from the couch and walks to the door; it’s that day’s Variety . A small notice in the bottom left-hand corner of the second-to-last page is circled in purple, announcing that United Artists has brought onto its “troubled” production of Your Pale Blue Eyes a “respected Academy Award-nominated” editor to take over the project in its “final stage.” I wonder if this is how Dotty found out . An hour and a half later Vikar gets a call from the Sherry-Netherland front desk, informing him his balance is paid through the next day.

214.

Vikar takes a cab to the parking lot on Thirty-Fourth Street. Soledad’s Mustang is gone from where it was parked; the space still glimmers with broken glass. He walks up and down the aisles and up and down the structure from one level to the next, but the car is gone.

215.

He arranges with the hotel to stay in New York another forty-eight hours. In his inertia he manages to ship to Los Angeles the stack of movies: I’m not giving them back . The night before he is to catch his plane, he shakes himself from his torpor for one more trip down to the Bowery.

216.

He finds himself watching the band without seeing it, listening to them without hearing, until someone pulls at his elbow. There in the dark he almost can’t register her; she’s shorter than everyone else. He says, “What are you doing here?”

“Mom told me about it,” she says. “The more she talked about how disgusting it was, the cooler it sounded.”

217.

He says, “How did you get in here? You’re nine.”

“I’m eleven,” Zazi says, “almost twelve.”

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I’m not drinking or anything.” She says, “Everyone seems to know who you are.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“You missed this great band. They’re from England and the lead singer’s this little fat chick with braces and I can’t tell if she’s black or white or what, and get this, the sax player is a chick too.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“There are ten million fucks in the naked city, and she’s with one of them. Or maybe,” Zazi shrugs, “three or four.” She sees the look on Vikar’s face. “Sorry,” she says.

“You’re nine,” he says, “you shouldn’t say things like that.” He gives her fifty dollars and the key to his suite. “Do you need a place to sleep? Do you remember where my hotel is?”

She looks at the money and key for a moment. “Thanks,” she finally says. “Aren’t you staying?”

“No.”

218.

Back at the hotel he gets another key from the front desk, goes up to his suite and packs and leaves a folded blanket on the couch in the sitting room. He goes to bed and sometime in the night hears the door open and close. In the morning the couch is empty, the blanket draped over the end.

219.

When Vikar reaches the TWA ticket counter at JFK, Mitch Rondell is waiting with an assistant. “Can I talk to you?” he says to Vikar. He wants his movies back . Vikar imagines an armed struggle there in the terminal. “Don’t check him in yet,” Rondell says to the woman behind the counter.

220.

Vikar says, “I’ve already shipped them.”

“What?”

“I’ve already shipped the movies back to Los Angeles.”

“What movies?”

“The ones you gave me. The Long Goodbye .”

“The movies are yours, Vikar. I want to talk to you about what happened.”

“It’s all right. I saw the Variety article.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“Can we go into the lounge and talk?”

“I’ll miss my flight.”

“We’ll put you on another flight, if it comes to that. In first class. I need to talk to you.” Rondell puts his hand on Vikar’s shoulder and the assistant picks up Vikar’s bag.

221.

In the lounge Vikar and Rondell sit at one table and the assistant with Vikar’s bag sits at another on the other side of the room. “We would like you to come back,” Rondell says.

“What happened to the respected Academy Award-nominated editor?” Vikar asks. From anyone else, it would sound sarcastic.

Rondell leans across the table, speaking with more intensity than Vikar has heard from him. “No one understands you or what you’re doing,” he says. “No one understands what this picture is as you’ve cut it. I don’t understand it. It’s not an art film and it’s not a thriller and maybe it’s a thrilling art film but I’m not getting it.”

“It would be better if it were finished.”

“Maybe it would and maybe it wouldn’t. I’m accepting that I may never get it. That’s O.K., I don’t have to get it, not at this point. We brought in a very smart editor, very hip, he did the sound edit on Coppola’s last two pictures and just cut Zinnemann’s last picture, two Oscar nominations in the last four years. He looked at what you’ve done and we talked about it.”

“Is it faster in first class?”

“What?”

“Is it faster in first class, back to Hollywood?”

“It’s the same, Vikar. Listen, this guy didn’t understand what you’re doing either. But he was more or less convinced you’re doing something . He said the first ten minutes he thought you were completely incompetent but by the time he got to the end he knew that wasn’t it. He said he has no idea whether the picture is working or any good but that every decision you’re making is original at best and counterintuitive at the least.”