William Vollmann - The Royal Family

You wanna do me, Henry?

You’re a mighty beautiful woman, Domino.

Well, then I guess you have quite an opportunity, now, don’t you, she said with her trademark venomous bitterness. (When she was a little girl there was something wrong with the car. They went to the mechanic’s. He was greasy and smoking. There was a naked picture on the wall. It made her ashamed. She couldn’t have been more than three. Her mother was changing her brother’s diapers.)

Of course I’d love to sleep with you, Domino, Tyler said. Buy you a drink?

Rum and Coke, she purred instantly.

Rum and Coke for Domino, please, he said to the barmaid.

Okay, dear.

Now, tell me this, said Domino. What are your intentions regarding the Queen? Because it affects all of us. Don’t think we haven’t all seen you sneaking around.

What are my intentions? he muttered. I don’t know.

Smooth said you’re a detective. He said you’re a lousy stinking cop.

I bet he didn’t put it quite that way.

Well, are you a cop?

Nope.

Are you a detective?

Yes I am.

Why, you sonofabitch. You even admit it. You’re spying on us all. You want to bring us all down. And you enjoy it, don’t you? You’re good at it.

Oh, once you get used to the databases, you just kind of whip in and out, he muttered.

And you’re not ashamed?

I’m not out to hurt you, he said. I promise.

What are you about?

Just chilling out with your Queen, he said.

You want to get her? You want to destroy her?

No.

But you like her?

Sure.

You love her? That stinking old Maj!

I don’t know her that well, he said.

And how do you feel about the rest of us?

I think you’re all great. But you’re the best, of course, Domino.

Oh, don’t fucking patronize me. You men are all the same. All you want is to use us. You don’t give a damn, really, do you? You don’t give a fucking damn.

Here’s your rum and Coke, dear, said Loreena.

Domino uplifted it without thanks and thrust her long grey tongue between the ice cubes.

And for you, Henry? said the barmaid like the dreamy Queen speaking through closed eyes, lips parted as if to kiss some ghost which he could not see. Your usual?

Yeah, why not, he said.

Look, said Domino. I’m reminding you of my interest in all this. I’m reminding you to cut me in. You never would have met the Queen without me.

Honk four times, he said agreeably.

Listen, she said. Listen. I’m trying to tell you that I…

I am listening, Domino.

Oh, go to hell.

I go there regularly.

You think you got the Queen pinned down now, don’t you, fucker? You think she’s yours? Well, you’re never going to own her. I can see you’re one of those types who just thinks he can own a woman. Well, women have got it in for men like that.

I don’t need to own her, Domino. Why buy when you can rent?

Yeah, how many other thousand guys you think she’s already fucked? the blonde snarled.

Dan Smooth, who’d just now strutted in, raised his forefinger, and Tyler thought: Okay, kiddies, here we go. Blessed art the peacemakers.

You remember the proverb of the Sadducees, Domino?

Fuck, no, pervert, and I don’t care, either.

Well, Smooth explained, not a bit perturbed by this less than eager pupil, the Sadducees asked Jesus about a man who’d married his dead brother’s wife according to the Law of Moses — you know, he had to take care of his brother’s gal — well, then he died, and his brother married her, and he died, and so on and so on, until all seven brothers had had her one by one, and then they all died, and so did she. Her cunt must have been tired by then. I wonder what it smelled like… But the Sadducees were trying to trip Jesus up, see. That’s why they raised the issue in the first place. It was a sting, you see; it was entrapment. We’ve all been there before. They said to Him: Whose wife is she going to be in Heaven? (Because they didn’t believe in the Resurrection at all.) But Jesus got them, Domino. Because you know what He said? He said: You are wrong, knowing neither the Scriptures nor the Authority of God. For in the Resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in Heaven. How do you like that?

So in Heaven she fucks them all or not? said Domino, intrigued in spite of herself.

What do you think?

Sure, said Tyler after a moment. Sure she does. She’s got to.

What do you mean, she’s got to? You misogynist!

Tyler rubbed his chin and said: No, no, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant, that would be the right thing to do. She would want to. They all took care of her and let’s assume they loved her, so let’s assume she was at least grateful — doesn’t it flatter you if a john loves you?

Now we’re getting personal, said Domino.

Yes we are, Smooth gloated. Go ahead. Domino. Tell us what it’s like for you, and what color their ooze is.

Oh, knock it off, Smooth, said Tyler.

You’re always telling me to knock it off. Why don’t you knock it off?

Knock what off?

I love it when men fight, said Domino.

I bet you do, said Tyler. And I concede in advance. I don’t have any answers. But Danny boy here knows everything. In my job, you know, I sometimes ask a lot of questions. If the witnesses are able to answer every question, you know that some of what they say isn’t true.

So they fall in love with you sometimes? Smooth pursued, paying no attention to this objection. Indeed, it seemed as if he’d taken complete charge of the conversation by now, not so much overcoming arguments as reducing them to demonstrations of disrespect equivalent to the loud cries of a scattered search party.

Uh, they do, uh huh, replied the blonde with surprising coyness.

And that’s personal?

Uh huh.

Well, my theory is that if you keep saying it’s personal you must be flattered, because otherwise you’d just say straight up that you don’t give a damn whether they love you or not.

Domino laughed. — Maybe so, she said.

Now, that being the case, I think you also would do the nice thing if you were in that Sadducee wife’s situation up in Heaven.

If all those angel husbands pay me first!

I need coffee, said Smooth. I’m falling asleep.

You want a toot? said Domino.

Oh, that’s nice of you. But let’s try this little coffee shop for a minute…

I mean, what ever, said Domino, irritated.

The Vietnamese coffee shop at Mason and Eddy had lace curtains around the windows so that you could see only the silhouettes of the shoulders inside. Smooth ordered a Vietnamese coffee, jet-black, slow-dripping into a metal cylinder of condensed milk. Tyler chose a can of root beer. — Nothing for me, said Domino. I don’t like these goddamned foreign places. I bet that coffee of yours is full of ground up cockroaches.

At the next table sat a mother with a six-year-old boy.

I’d like to get into that, Smooth said.

Cut it out, Tyler said.

The Queen ran silently in and kissed Tyler on the lips. Smooth got her a chair. She sat beside Tyler, holding his hand. — Hi, Maj, said Domino. I missed you…

Smooth craned his head, smiling and winking at the six-year-old, whose mother, desolate about something, sat close-eyed with her head in her hands.

Hello, mister, the child said.

Why, hello there! said Smooth in his most friendly manner. Are you full?

Yeah.

Is your smooth little tummy all full?

Yeah, said the child shyly.

Now I have a question for you. Do you like to answer questions?