William Vollmann - The Royal Family

And where is she?

I don’t know.

And what does she have to do with the big grey box?

I don’t know.

As long as everyone’s being so vague, we have to make certain assumptions. So where does Tyler do his color work?

Come on, Dan, the FBI woman interjected, and her laugh was as loud and inhuman as a trolleycar bell, I think you know. You’ve known him for years. He wrote your letters for you. You didn’t write that garbage.

Smooth was silent.

As busy as a hen in a blender, said the FBI woman brightly. Tyler wrote that, Dan. As busy as a chicken in a blender.

The affable FBI man came out and said to Tyler: Any child that’s been up to Dan Smooth’s house on Q Street is in danger of having been molested. Henry, I would never lose that thought.

Who else came over to your house on Q Street, Dan? the FBI woman was saying. Do you know anything about that?

She led Dan Smooth out. Smooth was red and sweating. The FBI man shook Tyler’s hand. When he saw Smooth’s sad and terrified face, Tyler wanted to kill those two tormentors.

You got time to come with me? Tyler said.

You a cop? said the used-up woman.

Not me, he sighed. Not me.

How far do you live?

Just past Harrison Street.

They started walking, and she said bitterly: Well, I guess you’re going to take me to the paddy wagon, right?

You don’t trust me much, do you? said Tyler.

I don’t even trust myself.

Well, I’ll take that as a compliment.

Why is that a compliment?

Because if I admitted that it wasn’t a compliment, then I might get hurt feelings, said Tyler with a wink.

The woman laughed. Then she said: So, if I was to just turn around and run right now, I guess you’d come after me with the sirens, right?

That’s right. What flavor of handcuffs do you want, strawberry or banana?

When Tyler was much, much younger and had first begun to meet street prostitutes, he’d mistaken for a miraculous capacity to instantly size men up, determining whether they were muff-divers, harmless old impotents, serial killers, rich men with deeper wallets than they let on, or undercover cops, what was actually circumstantial compulsion to render quick judgments: Here he is in the bus zone, with his window rolled down, and he wants me to get in the car and date him. I have five seconds to make up my mind. Some prostitutes, granted, did have built in bullshit detectors, like an old cop Tyler once knew who had looked him in the eye and instantly known he was lying. Tyler had only been fifteen or sixteen then. He’d been trying to impress the cop by saying he knew some street criminals he didn’t know. The cop’s eyes had flicked out some awful ray of instantaneous truth, and Tyler turned red. Then the cop turned away wearily. Nothing had been said. Domino was that intuitively excellent at times. But most of her colleagues just guessed fast, risking, risking, sometimes falling into chance’s jaws.

The whore cleared her throat. — We turn here, you said?

That’s right, sweetheart. Paddy wagon’s just around the corner.

He unlocked the front door and said: Pretty big paddy wagon, huh?

Hey, I remember you. Ain’t you the old Queen’s boyfriend?

I was. How’s the new Queen working out?

Oh, I ain’t supposed to talk about that stuff. I mean, it’s not cool. New Queen’s not the same as the old Queen. With the new Queen a girl could get in serious trouble.

That means it’s Domino, right?

You ain’t stupid. Now, whatcha wanna do? You wanna date me or what? If you want me to take care of you, you gotta pay me five bucks extra, ’cause five bucks is the Queen’s percent. You come home without the Queen’s percent, honey, you better not come home.

He locked the door behind them, and she started to take off her clothes.

You miss your Queen? he said.

Now there’s a mine-field of a question, the whore said. I told you already we have a Queen…

You miss the Queen? The real Queen.

Even if I was to say nothing, you’d probably snitch to the Queen and get me in black with her. I don’t wanna be in black with the Queen. Don’t think I don’t know you. You’re just another of those suck-up guys. When the Queen spits in our mouths, we swallow ’cause that’s our job. When she spits in your mouth, you like it. You’re a pervert. Now where’s my money?

So since I’m going to snitch on you even if you keep quiet, you might as well tell me what you think, sweetheart. Here’s twenty and five for Domino. Do you miss your Queen or not?

And if I did? What the fuck good would that do? And another thing the Queen said, she said we have to call the old queen just plain Africa now, ’cause that’s her name and she’s not Queen no more. And nobody’s supposed to say Domino like you did. That’s a serious offense. I’m warning you. You gotta be careful. If she hears a girl say Domino, she’ll take her and — and…

And what?

I’m not gonna talk about it. I saw it one time. I don’t want to think about it.

How’s Strawberry doing?

I haven’t seen her.

How about Beatrice?

She’s fine. Bea’s cool. Bea can get along with anybody.

And Justin?

Justin’s turned mean. Please please please don’t tell anyone I said that… But I still have my magic charm. It’s like a car antenna that Bernadette stole because she’s my friend, and then the Queen took it and made love to it so it’s alive from Maj. And I keep it hidden with my Mark of Cain. And Justin he knows…

And Sapphire?

Oh, she lets Sapphire hang around. That girl’s out of Protective Services now, ’cause she’s not a minor. Anyways, Sapphire can’t do no harm…

Listen. If I find the Queen, you have any message for her?

The woman burst into tears. — Tell her I love her. Tell her she’s my Mama and please come back…

And I want you to tell Sapphire—

Oh, what time is it? I got a regular waiting for me. I love you, baby. Okay, I wanna go take care of that guy.

He let her out and stood watching as she fled. It was dark across the roofs of Harrison and Folsom Streets with yellow residential lights glowing unhealthily all around. Then he went to bed. In the morning he was not quite lonely because he had the sunny company of rusty fences.

After that, all the whores he met were sullen and suspicious. — Whatcha up to? they might say. You datin’? but if he asked: You wanna come to my place? they’d say: No, you have to come to my place. — That Queen, they’d say, she just a black widow spidah. — He saw one of them across the street from the pay phone at Seventeenth and South Van Ness and watched her approach him; she looked familiar; but when he greeted her she just walked on. At Capp Street there were none; at Mission Street there were half a dozen, but they all stood within protective knots of men who watched for enemies.

You lookin’? a man said to him. You lookin’?

Nope, said Tyler. Just lookin.’

Late at night it was now, almost midnight, and enough alcohol lived inside him now to give his step a slight roll as he passed under the rhythmically thudding cars at the steel bridge at South Van Ness, and the used car lot, fissured like a mongoloid’s tongue, was so blue beneath the streetlights like the inner world of a detergent commercial; and a radio quietly talked to itself. Not a soul was anywhere in that world except the sleeping-bagged homeless pupae in the most discreet nests that they could find, and, of course, people in cars; at the red light, a grimacing woman rested her map on the steering wheel two steps from him, the light on in her station wagon; she was determined not to exist for him, and equally determined to keep him from existing for her — well, fair enough. Blue pulses came from a TV in a window.