William Vollmann - The Royal Family

I keep thinking that she’s somewhere and needs our help, he said, but I don’t even know where to look. It’s all so hopeless. Just for a second I’ll believe that she’s alive and is waiting for us to get her out, and then I’ll come to my senses and…

Oh, shut up, said Smooth. Nice view, huh?

A lady was pushing her infant in a stroller. Tyler couldn’t tell whether the baby was a boy or a girl. But to Smooth it didn’t matter.

Sacramento’s in my blood now, Smooth said. I like this house. I like Q Street. Do you like Q Street?

(Sacramento may be dull but it is centrally located, they say, because westward lies San Francisco only an hour and a half away, unless traffic is terrible; eastward lies skiing and waterskiing at Lake Tahoe; northeastward and southeastward we can also quickly strike the “gold country”—Tyler for his part well remembered a boyhood visit to the Empire Mine whose main shaft slanted down infinitely, buttressed and skeletonized with barrel-ribs, stays, rusty corsets fabricated according to the envisonings of long-dead engineers. Silver droplets of yesterday’s rain leaked through the soil and then transected that endless square shaft, wriggling on a beam of its cold lights. The boy smelled dirt, gravel and old metal. This was earth. This was where he must go.)

I said, do you like Q Street? You know what the FBI calls this house? They call it the Q Street compound.

I hope that makes you feel important.

Don’t be a goody-goody, Henry, said Smooth, whose words remained as always long and slow and unstoppable like a string of cylindrical wine cars on some old train. — Fill up that glass of yours. I love living in Sacramento. But I don’t want to die here. I’d rather die in San Francisco. It sounds more sinful, don’t you think?

But is there any chance that the Queen, uh—

That’s a perfect thought. That thought is as fresh as a young boy’s anus.

Smooth, I—

You had your chance and you didn’t use it, I’m sorry to say. You could have taken her somewhere if you’d really cared, but you know what, Henry? Your envious ears got in the way. You never loved her. You only loved Irene. And for once I’m not trying to be cruel; I’m just speaking the truth.

Would you stop it?

You want my help again, don’t you? Hey, you want me to be a bloodhound on the trail of the Queen’s abductors? Buddy, I’m a private eye from way back! Send me into any men’s room and I’ll sniff the urinal to get their traces. Are they fresh traces? I’ll wonder aloud… Let me see. — Somebody drank a lot of coffee recently, I’ll say to you. It’s got a real strong odor to it. How would those wine connoisseurs put it? Well, a strong Java nose, let’s say, not light and fruity at all, nothing fancy — he’s not one of your espresso men — moving on to a bold finish in the low register with overtones of beer and something meaty, maybe roast beef, maybe a hamburger. And you’ll say thank you, case closed. You’ll say—

Oh, shut up, you twisted sonofabitch.

She’s gone, Henry. Get it? We know that. From her prophecies. Was she ever wrong?

Never.

And what did she say?

But that’s bullshit, Dan, just to give up on someone because—

Then don’t give up. You’re the private detective. You know how to find lost people. Or at least you should know, Sherlock.

Knowing that if he did not patiently persist and bear the other man’s insults, still another hope would be closed — remembering likewise the Queen’s fantastic notions on the virtue of undeserved suffering — he controlled his despairing rage and said: What about Domino?

What about her?

She’s got to know something.

Look, Henry. Domino’s as much a victim in all this as anyone. I don’t care how evil you think she is.

But it doesn’t add up. She—

That avenue is closed, Henry. It’s closed even to me. Domino and I have an agreement not to see each other anymore. It’s too painful for both of us.

Now what’s that supposed to mean? Were you in on it, too?

Paranoia will get you everywhere.

I’m going to talk to Domino.

That’s better. It’s better to be confronted with your failures at every turn. You’ll see. Tell me what she smells like these days…

Why?

Why what?

Why don’t you care about Africa?

I’ll bet you just wish you had the guts to punch me, don’t you? But you’re afraid you might lose information.

Tyler, feeling almost unbearably disgraced and humiliated, burst out: Whatever you and I talk about, and it’s been this way every goddamned time, I always have the feeling that it’s useless …

As it is. And you know why? Because you’re useless. You remember when I told you that I could see from your mouth that you like to go down on women? Well, now let’s talk about your teeth, Henry, your lying, grinning teeth. You lie through your teeth, you know that? If you ever said anything straight and honest it would choke you coming out of your crooked soul. — And Smooth, fixing his blinking, bleary eyes on him as best he could, brought his face closer and closer until Tyler was trapped in the stench of his breath and cried out: Now you’re just goading me again — for nothing. And you always tell me I don’t like you, and you do everything you can to make that true.

At least I got you off the topic of the Queen, so grin and bear it. But you’re avoiding the issue, because in addition to your envious ears and your lying teeth you have a coward’s heart. Have another shot, said Smooth, refilling his own glass first. — There’s ice in the freezer. I accuse you, Henry Tyler. I accuse you of letting down everyone you ever loved or had a tie to, of failing the Queen, betraying your brother, seducing and torturing your sister-in-law, neglecting your mother, rejecting Domino — oh, I could go on and on. The one thing I’ll say for you is that you’ve run your little business into the ground; that shows some integrity. You see, Henry, if I could get you angry then you wouldn’t be sad about other trifling points. Isn’t that how it works? Or are you a man like me who can be angry and sad at the same time?

And whom didn’t you let down, Dan?

Oh, almost nobody. You, Domino and the Queen, I suppose. I like to believe I never let you down, Henry. So don’t start kvetching and asserting that I’m letting you down now. All this has a higher purpose.

I don’t get it. I mean, I—

Know what those FBI turds told me? Let’s say you have your dick up some eight-year-old boy’s ass and it slips out. You know, accidents happen. And so you put it back in and… Well, that’s an additional felony count right there, even though you hadn’t even finished. Can you get that?

Dan, when you talk that way you’re just smearing yourself with filth. It’s as if you—

So I’m letting you down.

It has nothing to do with letting me down. I’m trying to tell you not to—

And you think, and the FBI thinks, and everybody except the Queen thinks that I let those kids down. Well, did I?

Can we just for one minute make this about the Queen and not about you and me?

Isn’t this a religious experience, Henry? Can’t you see God in my shit? And you know what makes you so dishonest? God’s speaking now, so you’d better listen. I’m telling you loud and clear, boy, that the reason you’ve let everyone down is because you can only love completely what you don’t have.

Tyler was silent.

You had her! You had her and she loved you!

I had whom?

Why didn’t you kill yourself? Then you could have been with Irene, at least. Maybe if you hurry up and do it you can still catch up with the Queen before she turns into fog—