Christopher Sorrentino - Trance

Now Haff leaned back in a chair and stared at the water-stained dropped ceiling in the office of the tow truck business where the field command post had been established. When the op had begun taking shape, he’d headed here from his office. Tips had continued to come in. When he arrived, he was briefed by an agent supervisor: “The switchboard’s like a Christmas tree.” Haff liked that one; it was the sort of malapropism that made his day.

But the LAPD was up his ass. They were just being outrageously aggressive. So Haff quietly made arrangements to minimize the Bureau’s role. Rather than leave the locals holding the whole bag, though, he thought he’d grant them one small favor, just for the sake of auld lang syne, their mutually beneficial relationship, and all the usual horseshit. He picked up the phone and dialed.

He said, “I’d like to speak to Commander Montag, please.” Randy Montag was the LAPD’s public relations liaison. Haff called him the Shadow because of his ability to cloud men’s minds.

Haff waited a few moments, drumming his fingers on the metal desk, and then said, “Randy. Gary Haff at the Bureau. We have an operation coming down that’ll require your fine hand. Oh, yeah. Lucy, you gotta lotta splainin to do.”

He laughed. “Oh, because it’s all yours, my friend. The federal government is just going to be pitching in and directing traffic.” He tilted his head back and laughed again. “Literally”

1466 East Fifty-fourth Street

Cinque handed Crystal another twenty; he was running low on cigarettes. Crystal took the money and headed up the alley toward Sam’s one more time. That was funny; there was cops all over the place.

The man behind the counter smiled at her. “You busy today,” he observed. “Gonna wear a groove between here and your place.”

She shrugged. She was pretty sensitive to what she perceived as criticism at her age. She handed him the twenty, and he exhaled sharply. “Y’all know I need to keep some change for other folks, don’t you?” he said, giving it back.

Sullenly she reached into her pocket and dug out a couple of singles and handed them to the man, keeping her hand extended for the change.

“Y’all want a receipt with that?” he asked sarcastically. She turned and left without answering.

As she turned down the alley she saw a white man sliding up to her sideways and she stopped and sighed. It was predictable on the level of cop bullshit. He took her aside, plunked her right out of her real life and into the realm of his convenience. Name and who you going to see, all that. Then he said she had to turn around. No one going through here. This was new. Why? Because he said so. He got a little look on his face, just this angry smile like he was going to cross that line they sometimes did where they start taking little liberties if you don’t start doing what they wanted so she dropped it and turned around. Before she entered Sam’s to return the cigarettes she remembered to put a big smile on her face.

YOLANDA RETURNS TO THE car to retrieve her purse and tersely whispers the room number to the hidden Tania. Tania waits another five minutes and enters the motel at 5:30 to join the others.

The brightly lit public areas of the Cosmic Age are unusual, with panels depicting odd geometric patterns affixed to the walls and staircases, and hanging lanterns offering a not altogether incongruous hint of tropical Orientalia. Sunlight streams blindingly through the tall windows that vertically band the building, and two clerks working the front desk squint across the counter at their guests. At this hour the lobby is becoming busy, as tired vacationers return to their rooms after an afternoon at the theme park. Blending easily with them, Tania ascends a staircase of molded cement steps mounted on an angled steel track.

The interior of the room is pure American Motel: beds, night tables, credenza with color television, picture of ships at sea bolted to the wall. Yolanda is keeping the heavy drapes closed. She lies faceup on one of the double beds, and when Tania enters, she informs the ceiling that Teko is checking the perimeter. Tania switches on the TV

Tania likes to adjust the color, the tint and the hue. She likes a bright, vivid picture, with unreal shades. To her, that’s the point of color television. It drove Eric Stump nuts.

She suddenly realizes that she hasn’t seen television since the night she was kidnapped. The whole country that she’s planning to take over is right here in this box, and she hasn’t even had time to notice how much she’s missed it, the detergents and the new Chevys and the powdered soups that come in an envelope, awaiting boiling water. There are Kenner nail salons, SST Smash-Up Derby cars, training schools that provide free tools upon graduation from their certificate programs. The double knits, the K-Tel records, the lonely Maytag repairman. Even Yolanda raises her head from the synthetic counterpane to watch.

And then there’s nothing more American than this, a preemption of the regularly scheduled broadcast for a special report. Uniformed men with guns outside a flimsy house. The only question is why is this so special after a television lifetime of Vietnam?

It’s the most ordinary of Southern California houses; Tania must have seen a thousand of them in just the last two days.

And they are saying, “SLA.”

And they are saying, “Kidnapped newspaper heiress Alice Galton.”

And they are saying, “Surrounded by police and FBI agents.”

Teko comes in, all excited, though for a brief instant he considers becoming pissed off that Tania and Yolanda have found the news on their own, that he was not the first to watch television. But he settles in, sitting at the foot of the bed Yolanda lies on. “It’s live,” he says.

1466 East Fifty-fourth Street

Della Hurd didn’t believe the boy’s story because his imagination was alive with bedevilment and he was a handful. But there was a look on his face like she doesn’t know what and that old fool Jimmy was standing by the fence with a waiting face. So she went in the back and checked the oven and the range and she shut her back door and turned the lock, all with profound misgivings. At her age there was less time to be wasting.

“I seen some strange things over there myself, Della,” said Jimmy. She waved her hand at him to shut him up.

“Lillian was there looking pretty sick.”

Lillian was like living with a auto wreck as far as Della Hurd was concerned.

“Place was a mess.”

What she just said?

“Full of white people and lots of guns.”

Della Hurd put her hand on Timmy’s shoulder and told him to stay with Mr. Reddy. Then she got on her horse and got over there.

It was worse than she expected. House looked like a army base except with beer bottles and half-eaten sandwiches all over. Ignoring the white people, she went to Sheila’s room and found her lying insensible on the bed. She went to that Lillian’s room and found her barely more responsive.

“Is everybody here drunk?” Della Hurd asked herself.

In the kitchen she found Cinque and some girl, catching the tail end of the same tired rap his daddy had laid down.

“I am ready to die,” he said, swigging from a bottle of plum wine, “but I’m gonna take a lot of motherfucking pigs with me. You got a smoke, baby?”

Della Hurd went up to the girl, a teenager she knew from around, and told her to get herself home. Then she turned on Cinque.

“What the hell you doing here? Get yourself out of this place right now and all your friends with you. This is my daughter’s home and my grandsons’. And you are not welcome to come in here and start making trouble.”