T. Boyle - T.C. Boyle Stories II - Volume II

Steve drove. He’d never had a DUI, but Royce had, and Royce needed his license up and running in order to ferry people around to his various listings, as if that would make a difference since nobody in his office had sold anything in recent memory. Or at least he hadn’t anyway. They took the 101 into town, wound their way down Laurel Canyon and valeted the car in a lot off Sunset. It was just getting dark. A continuous line of cars, fading to invisibility behind their headlights, pulsed up and down the boulevard. This was the moment he liked best, slamming the car door and stepping out into the muted light, the street humming with the vibe of the clubs, the air so compacted and sweet with exhaust it was like breathing through your skin, the night young, anything possible.

Their first stop was a Middle Eastern restaurant that hardly served any food, or not that he could see anyway. People came here to sit at the tables out front and smoke Starbuzz or herbal shisha through the hookahs the management provided for a fee. Every once in a while you’d see a couple inside the restaurant picking over a lamb kebab or pita platter, but the real action was outside, where just about everybody surreptitiously spiked the tobacco with something a little stronger. The waitress was slim and young, dark half-moons of makeup worked into the flesh under her eyes and a tiny red stone glittering in one nostril, and maybe she recognized them from the week before, maybe she didn’t. They ordered two iced teas and a hookah setup and let the smoke, cool and sweet, massage their lungs, their feet propped up on the wrought-iron rail that separated them from the sidewalk, eyes roaming the street. After a moment, just to hear his own voice over the shush of tires and the rattling tribal music that made you feel as if you were running on a treadmill, Royce said, “So what nationality you think these people are — the owners, I mean? Iranian? Armenian?”

Steve — he was a rock, absolutely, six-two, one-eighty, with a razor-to-the-bone military haircut though he’d never been in the military — glanced up lazily, exhaling. “What, the waitress, you mean?”

“I guess.”

“Why, you want a date with her?”

“No, I just—”

“I can get you a date with her. You want a date with her?”

He shrugged. “Just curious, that’s all. No biggie. I just figured, you’re the expert, right?” This was a reference to the fact that Steve had dated an Iranian girl all last winter — or Persian, as she liked to classify herself, and who could blame her? She was fleshy in all the right places, with big bounteous eyes and a wide-lipped smile that really lit her face up, but she’d wanted things, too many things, things Steve couldn’t give her.

“Yeah, that’s me, a real expert, all right. I don’t know why you didn’t just hit me in the face with a two-by-four the minute Nasreen walked through the door”—he held it a beat, grinning his tight grin—“ Bro. ” He was about to bring the hose to his lips, but stopped himself, his eyes fixed on a point over Royce’s shoulder. “Shit,” he breathed, “isn’t that your brother-in-law?”

Feeling caught out all of a sudden, feeling exposed, Royce swung round in his seat to shoot a glance up the boulevard. Joe — Big Joe, as Shana insisted on calling him after she came back from Russia with Joey, who was just a baby in diapers then — was nobody he wanted to see. He’d left Shana with a fractured elbow and a car with a bad transmission and payments overdue and she’d been working double shifts on weekends ever since to catch up. Which was why Royce took Joey Friday through Sunday — Joey needed a man’s influence, that’s what Shana claimed, and besides, she couldn’t afford a babysitter. “Ex-brother-in-law,” he said.

But there he was, Big Joe, easing his way in and out of the clusters of people making for the clubs and restaurants, his arm flung over the shoulder of some woman and a big self-satisfied grin on his face, just as if he was a regular human being. Even worse, the woman — girl — was so pretty the sight of her made Royce’s heart clench with envy. If he was about to ask himself how a jerk like Joe had managed to wind up with a girl like that, he never got the chance because Steve was on his feet now, up out of his seat and leaning over the rail, calling out, “Joe, hey, Joe, what’s happening?” in a voice deep-fried in sarcasm.

Joe was no more than twenty feet away and Royce could see him exchange a glance with the girl, as if he was going to pat down his pockets and pretend he’d left his credit card on the bar at the last place, but he kept on coming because he had no choice at this point. He wasn’t that big — just big in relation to Joey and Shana — but he carried himself with a swagger and he had one of those faces that managed to look hard even when he was smiling at you. Which he definitely wasn’t doing now. He just froze his features, tightened his grip on the girl, and made as if to ignore them. But Steve wouldn’t have it. Steve was over the railing in a bound, waving his arms like a game-show host. “Hey, man, good to see you,” he was crowing in his put-on voice. “What a coincidence, huh? And look, look who’s here”—and now the voice of wonder—“your brother-in-law!”

That moment? Nobody really liked it. Not the couple with the pita platter or the waitress or the other smokers, who only wanted to suck a little peace through a tube and dissolve the hassles of the day, and certainly not Joe. Or the girl he was with. She was involved now, giving him a look: brother-in-law?

“Ex,” Joe said, looking from her to Royce and shooting him a look of hate. He was stalled there, against his will, the girl about to say something like Aren’t you going to introduce me? and people beginning to turn their heads. Steve — he was amped up, clowning — kept saying, “Hey, come on, man, come on in and have a toke with us, like a peace pipe, you know?”

Joe ignored him. He just kept staring at Royce. Very slowly, in disgust, he began to shake his head, as if Royce were the one who’d walked out on his wife and kid and refused to pay child support or even leave a forwarding address, then he tightened his grip on the girl’s arm, sidestepped Steve, and made a show of strutting off down the street as if nothing had happened. And nothing had happened. What was he going to do, have Steve fight his battles for him? It wasn’t worth it. Though if he was Steve’s size, or even close, he would have gone over that rail himself, and he would have had a thing or two to say, and maybe more — maybe he would have gone for him right there on the sidewalk so people made way and the pretty girl let out a soft strangled cry.

By the time they settled in at the first bar up the street, he’d put it out of his head. Or mostly. He and Steve talked sports and spun out a couple of jokes and routines and he found himself drifting, but then Joe’s face loomed up in his consciousness and he was telling himself he should have followed him to see what he was driving, get a license plate number so Shana could clue the police or child services or whoever. Something. Anything. But he hadn’t, and the moment was gone. “Forget it,” Steve told him. “Don’t let that fucker spoil the night for you.”

They went to the next place and the next place after that, the music pounding and the lights flashing, and for a while there he felt loose enough to go up to women at random and introduce himself and when they asked him what he did for a living, he said, “I’m a dog man.” That got them interested, no doubt about it, but it was the rare woman who didn’t turn away or excuse herself to go to the ladies’ when he began to explain just what that meant. Still, he was out on the town and the alcohol began to sing in his blood and he didn’t feel tired or discouraged in the least. It was around eleven when Steve suggested they try this hotel he’d heard about, where they had a big outdoor pool area and a bar scene and you could sit out under the stars and watch girls jump in and out of the pool in their bikinis. “Sure,” he heard himself say, “why not?” And if he thought of Joey, he thought of him in bed, asleep, the video remote still clenched in his hand and the screen gone blank.