William Vollmann - The Royal Family

Can I talk to you in private?

The false Irene, who could barely hobble ten steps anymore but who could still shoot up heroin as deftly as a Kabuki dancer rotates his pretty wrist, thereby causing his gilded fan to flash like a fish in sunlight, stood there beside her brother, her protector whom she now desired to protect, glaring and listening.

About what? Tyler said.

Can I hire you for half an hour?

We don’t do half an hour jobs, said Tyler, keeping the clipboard between them.

Can you recommend somebody?

Try Wessels on Stockton. He might do half-hours.

Well, really what I wanted to do was put you back on Mr. Brady’s payroll. You know, help you out, cut a little deal…

Go on inside, Consuelo, he said to the false Irene. I’m right behind you.

He locked the man out and took Irene upstairs. She stuck her fishy-rotten tongue in his mouth. Gently he patted her between her shoulderblades, thinking: I participate in this not out of lust or disloyalty to my Queen, but out of duty. This is my religion now.

You got ten dollars on you? said Irene.

Who’s got a radio? said Harry. Okay, let’s have ’em on the desk. What number you got?

Fourteen.

Fifteen.

Twenty-one.

Nineteen.

Outside, a car alarm was honking and honking

Come on, boys. Radios, radios!

Three. We’re gonna double up with Exercise.

Twenty.

Okay, said Harry, tell the slapper it’s time.

What the fuck you talking like that to me for? said the slapper, his face empurpled. You think I don’t know what time it is? You think I’m working for Mr. Brady and I don’t know what time it is?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, said Harry, to humor him. And you can lead us to the whores, right?

Told ya I don’t hang out with them anymore, the slapper said. I just know ’em.

Harry yawned. — Big day. Queen’s day.

That cunt, said the slapper. Trying to start shit with Mr. Brady…

On Harry’s desk, an alarm clock began to buzz.

Let’s pull everybody inside, please, called the slapper. (Majestic as a New York cop, he wore sunglasses, storm-blue duds and a wide orange belt. Spread-legged, he towered like a statue.) Everybody inside. Mannie! Mannie! Everybody inside.

They came inside, and the slapper sang out: Hey! Lockdown! Can’t you show some respect? Mr. Brady’s about to speak!

Okay, said bowling-pin-shaped Brady with his hands in his pockets, strolling slowly, his suspenders tight. Let’s listen up. I’m only going through the breakdown once, so when you hear your group number, listen for your name. Here we go. Group Apple: Chu, Darrah, Davis, Glovinski, Goebel, Haji, Hall, Hameed, Hamidi…

The slapper kicked Harry’s desk and cried: Chuckles! Chuckles! Hey, you, fat boy! Dude, Brady’s talkin’! Gotta pay attention!

Out front, a bunch of Brady’s Boys in the media brigade were signing the cast of a Puerto Rican in a wheel chair.

You have Mannie’s group going out with the press, Brady was saying: Don’t show ’em anything they really don’t want to see. On Turk Street at five-minute intervals we have groups Apple, Bacon, Cabbage and Doughnut, with the usual squad leaders. Doughnut will record. Shazib, I want you to baby that microphone. Don’t swing it around, don’t whack some lowlife’s skull with it; you got other tools for that. Show ’em how you respect Allah, how the Queen of the Whores stinks in your nostrils. Got that? Halliday, you be ready with batteries and tapes and whatever the fuck Shazib needs. All right. Apple, Bacon and Cabbage, when history starts to go down, give Doughnut Group plenty of room. We have to document what we do. It protects us in court and it helps with our fundraising. All you apes understand that? Good. And no one had better lie to me. The slapper’s going to take charge of the new group and break ’em in. Slapper, keep ’em tight tonight; keep ’em alert. Now, on Ellis Street at five-minute intervals we have groups Exercise, Frantic, Gallop and Hunk. Hunk will be recording. Porterfield, you know your stuff now with the video camera? You gonna take the lens cap off this time? Good. And we have Group Ice on Market Street and Hyde, posted as reserves. Be ready to block their rabbit hole on Capp Street, too. Keep your engines running. Harry, I’m pulling you to run the command post tonight. Everybody got that? You call command, you don’t say C.P., you say Harry. Why make it easy on the enemy? And before you go out, make sure you let Harry know what radios you have on your patrols. Questions? No questions? All right. Chuckles, front and center. Situation report.

I don’t think they’ll try to fight back or burn us or rush our HQ, Chuckles said. They was all drunk or cranked up last time I looked.

And when was that, Chuckles?

’Bout half an hour ago, Mr. Brady.

Well, they’re tricky bitches and vicious sons of bitches. Be ready for anything, boys. And do what you have to do. Don’t start anything, but do what you’ve been sent out to do, and if they get in your faces, you get in their faces. Questions?

Uh, Mr. Brady…

What is it, Porterfield?

If they get serious with us, how bad can we hurt ’em?

Don’t worry about a thing. It’ll take a quarter of an hour for the police to come. Anyway, we’re just doing what the police don’t have the guts to do. We’re gonna shut the bitch down.

Shut ’er down!

Nuke the bitch!

Out, out, out! Let’s go, crazies!

Look at those Brady’s Boys! a woman called happily.

I haven’t seen them for a while, her husband said.

Like a green serpent, the column flanked the theater crowds. Young and fast, it offered to the public a constellation of solemn, wide-eyed expressions, reminiscent of Marines.

Brady’s Boys! a girl cried.

People came up and shook their hands.

An old black lady came up to the head of the column and said: I pray for Mr. Brady.

Thank you, dear.

Have a good night, ma’am, another vigilante said.

Oh, you Brady’s Boys are so polite.

I love it, man! the vig shouted.

Ten- shun! a man on the sidewalk sneered.

The Brady’s Boys looked him up and down, saying nothing.

Just before the tunnel, George, the black shoeshine man, basking on his throne, raised his palm in an Indian salute.

Gimme more bump, begged Strawberry. I swear I’m gonna pay you…

Oh, you don’t have to do that, said the trick with a patronizing smile.

That’s just the type I am, Strawberry replied, feeling very proud of her rectitude even though she and the trick both knew that she would never pay him. — Hey, where you goin’?

She stood cleaning the pipe and then slowly uplifted it like a monstrance and breathed blue flame while the TV’s blueness whirled with hubcabs, dogs and falling cereal.

I said where you goin’?

I don’t talk much, said the trick, already at the door. He flipped the switch, and the bare bulb on the hotel ceiling flickered on, sizzling and glaring uneasily.

Dim the light! the whore cried in a panic. She rushed to the window, peering around the curtain as if she were waiting for something.

What for?

I’m tweaking. I’m naked. Dim the light.

Hey, this is my room, lady. I paid for it. I don’t wanna be in the darkness.

Come on. Dim it.

Grimacing, he turned it down. He was a well-built and steelyhearted man in his fifties or very late forties. She thought that she’d seen him somewhere. But of course her memory illuminated all comers as evenly as the dun-colored light deep in pedestrian under-passes.