They Thirst (14 page)

Merida wiped her swollen eyes and looked around to get her bearings. She really hadn't noticed where she was running. The narrow street stretched out before her, lined with brown brick buildings that were gutted and desolate, bombed and burned out by the hands of the arsonist or feuding street gangs. Mounds of rubble glittered with bits of broken glass; layers of yellow mist hung over empty lots where a rat as big as a gopher occasionally scurried from shadow to shadow. Some of the buildings looked as if they'd been split right down the middle by a huge axe, the tiny rooms and hallways exposed as were the metal twistings of pipes, the toilets, and the tubs. And everywhere was the wild spray-painted scrawl: ZORRO '78; L.A. HOMICIDES (and beneath that in a different color, SUCK); RAPHAEL HIGH CONQUISTADORS BEST; GOMEZ WAS HERE; ANITA DOES 69. There were also drawings of crude sexuality interspersed. On the side of a wrecked apartment building, staring impassively down at Merida, was a huge face, drawn in red with blood dripping from both corners of the mouth.

Merida shivered; it was getting colder, wind twisting savagely through the maze of wreckage as it sought a way out. And now she realized that she'd run too far. She had no idea where she was. She could turn around and see lights in the sky from Whittier Boulevard, but in this silent place the boulevard seemed a hundred miles away. She began to walk hurriedly, new tears wetting her eyes; she crossed the street and moved along another that became narrower still and was rank with the odor of old, charred brick. Of course her street, her apartment building, couldn't be too far away; it would have to be only a few streets over. Mama would be waiting, wanting to know where she'd been.

She was wondering what she was going to say about her swollen eyes when she heard the footsteps behind her. She caught her breath and whirled around; something dark scurried for the shadows like a rat, but whatever it was was big enough to be a man. Merida narrowed her eyes, squinting to get a better look, and she stood very still for what seemed like hours. Then she started walking again, faster, her heart hammering in her chest.
A young, pretty girl like you can get raped out there,
she remembered her mother saying.
Raped or much, much worse.
She walked faster, and at the next desolate corner she turned again toward the distant lights of Whittier. She looked back and saw two figures this time, both leaping for the cover of open doorways. Merida almost screamed, but forced down the sound. She thought she'd seen a face as white as gossamer and within it a pair of eyes that shone in the dark like a lowrider's headlights. Footsteps clattered somewhere close to her, echoing between the brick walls like muffled explosions.

Merida began to run, the breath bursting from her lungs in a high whine. When she dared to look over her shoulder, she saw five or maybe seven figures, running silently like a pack of wolves; they were gaining on her, and the one in the lead had a face like a grinning death's head. She tripped over debris in the street, cried out, and almost went down. Then she was running as fast as she could, her mother's warning echoing in her head—
Raped or much, much worse.
She looked back again and screamed in cold panic. They were almost upon her; one of them reached out to grip her hair.

And from the darkness of the street, three more of the things emerged before her, waiting for her. She recognized one of them—Paco Milan, one of Luis's friends from the Homicides, except now Paco's face was as pale as the belly of a dead fish, and his fiery gaze crackled through Merida's skull. She thought she heard him speak, though his mouth didn't seem to open, "No more running, sister," he whispered, the sound like a wind through dead trees. "No more place to go." He held his arms out for her and grinned.

A clawlike hand gripped Merida around the neck and jerked her head backward. Another clamped her mouth shut, freezing fingers digging into her flesh. The figures danced around her as she was dragged toward a doorway.

And in a crumbling hulk of brick, she learned that there
was
something worse than rape.
Much, much worse.

It was almost midnight, and the party was just getting started. The hospitality bowls that had been brimming with Quaaludes and amphetamines, Black Beauties, Bennies, and uppers of a hundred different sizes and colors were now almost empty; the silver trays that had been crisscrossed with white lines of fine, pure cocaine were now only dusted with the traces of it, and the ceramic vases that had held dozens of red-striped McDonald's drinking straws now contained only a few. But the house was still filled with people of all ages and in all manner of dress from Bill Blass suits to Yves St. Laurent disco dresses to denim cutoffs and T-shirts advertising Adidas or Nike running shoes. The huge sunken living room to which most of the party had gravitated was heavy with several layers of sweet, thick pot smoke; the beige, deep-pile carpeting had started catching cigarettes when the ashtrays had overflowed, and now the dime-sized burns looked like a natural pattern. Someone was hammering at the grand piano over by a plate glass window that looked out over the blue-lit swimming pool; someone else was playing a guitar and singing, all this plus the cacophonous noises of a hundred people battling the thunder of Bob Dylan's voice from a pair of thousand-dollar Bose speakers. The house throbbed with bass guitar and snare drum backbeat; the picture windows shivered every few seconds. Somebody in a cowboy hat was trying to climb on top of the grand piano urged on by a stunning blond-wearing a tight black dress. A few women had stripped off their blouses, proud of what they had, and moved through the crowd pursued by young men with bulging crotches. Older men in suits, confident of the power in their bulging wallets, were content to wait. Dylan's voice became a shriek when the stereo's needle dug a trench across it; he was replaced by the Cars.

Damn it,
Wes Richer thought.
I like Dylan. Why'd somebody want to go and do that to my record?
He smiled and took a drag off the fat joint that was slowly burning down between his fingers.
Doesn't matter,
he reassured himself.
I can buy another one tomorrow.
He looked around the room through glazed blue eyes. Stellar. One fucking whale of a stellar party. Tonight he felt he had the answer to a question that had plagued him for most of his twenty-five years/ The simple question was addressed to God:
Whose side are You on, anyway?
As he regarded the glowing eye of his joint, he knew he had the answer right in his back pocket, just arrived in a Cosmic Fortune Cookie:
Your side, Wes. God is on your side.

But He hadn't always been,
Wes thought.
Damn straight.
He fashioned an image of God in his mind—an elderly, slightly doddering being in a white London Fog overcoat with a gold muffler to chase away the chill of the high altitude. God would look suspiciously like Wes Richer in his "old man in the park" bit, and—
yeah, give the bit a kick
—
God might talk a little like a tired Jewish, vacuum cleaner salesman: "Wesley, I got a lot to do, I can't get around to everybody! Who do you think I am, Santa Claus? There's this guy over in New Jersey wants to get away with a little cheating on the taxes; a lady in Chicago keeps after Me to send her lost dog home, but the mutt got run over by a bus; a pimply kid in Des Moines wants to pass a history test or he's completely
vermisched;
this fella in Palm Springs wants Me to keep his wife from finding out he's got three women on the side . . . everybody wants something, Wes! And that's just right down there in the US of A! What am I, Dear Abby? And you, Wes! You keep wanting to know whose side I'm on, and why your last pilot went down the tubes, and why you can't win anymore at the blackjack tables!
Gevult,
what a mess down there! I slap My own hands! Okay, okay, so maybe if I help you out, you'll quit bugging Me so I can get on to bigger things? Okay, boom, there you go! Happy now? So enjoy it already!"

God had come through for him today; this afternoon he'd won over two-thousand bucks betting on Alabama over USC, and the premiere of his new show, "Sheer Luck" looked good in its seven-thirty spot on ABC. At least everybody here had laughed in the right places and applauded when it was over. And then the party had
re
ally
started.

The Cars were thundering away now, and from his chair Wes could see some people swimming bare-assed down at the pool. He laughed out loud, his bright Midwestern face crinkling with mirth; he was a medium-sized man with a curly thatch of reddish-brown hair and thick eyebrows that also seemed curly, set high over light blue eyes that, when not totally bloodshot from drugs, seemed more like a kid's eyes. He had a healthy, friendly, innocent look—a "safe look" one of the ABC executives had dubbed it. It was a look that drew teenie-boppers and at the same time assured Mom and Dad that he was really an okay guy, probably a class cut-up but nothing to worry about. Like the assessment from another ABC brain— "an All-American comedian."

Someone jostled his elbow, spilling ashes onto the dirty carpet. Wes looked up and smiled but couldn't tell who was standing there. He thought for an instant that it was his father because the man had a mane of silver hair, but of course it couldn't be his father—he was back home in Nebraska, fast asleep at this hour. "There you are, Wes!" the man said. "I've been hunting all over this place for you! I missed the show, but I heard you were really great in it" A hand found Wes's and squeezed it. 'The show
's
got
stellar
written all over it, boy. Good to see you again."

"Who are you?" Wes asked, still smiling and thinking about those fools in the pool who were freezing their nuts off because no one had turned on the heat.

The man's head was split in half by teeth. "Good to see you again, Wes. Great party!" And then he was gone, swallowed up into the crowd that swirled around the chair where Wes sat smoking.

I don't know that guy, do
I
?
he wondered.
Jesus! Where did all these people come from?
He looked around but didn't seem to recognize any of them.
Who were they? What the hell. They were all friends, or friends of friends. Or somebody's fucking friends!
In another moment a couple of young women were standing over him, one in a violet dress, her breasts spilling over the top. He stared at those breasts, still smiling easily, while the two girls chattered on about how good "Sheer Luck" had been and how they'd never ever been to a party anywhere near this fine, not even at Hefs place.
Who the hell were these girls?
One of them—he wasn't sure which—put a hand on his knee and slipped a little white card into the pocket of his blue Ralph Lauren cowboy shirt. He knew it would have her name and phone number on it in elegant black script; everybody carried those around these days, it was essential to the wardrobe.

He caught a glimpse of her Ultra-Brite smile before the party closed in around him again. A group called 1994 hammered away on the stereo now, Karen Lawrence's lead vocals making the windows shake.
Christ, what a set of pipes!
Wes thought languidly. He stared down at the reefer and said to himself, "You've hit, Wes. You've come back. God . . . is . . . on . . . your. . . side."

"Wes?" someone said, gripping his shoulder. He looked up and saw his manager, Jimmy Kline, standing over him; Jimmy's broad face looked beatific, his dark eyes shining like little black buttons behind his wire-frame glasses. There were two older men with Jimmy—Wes recognized one of them as Harv Chappell, an exec at Arista Records. Wes tried to stand up, but Jimmy pushed him back down. "Stay right there, my man," Jimmy said in his thick Brooklyn accent. "You know Harv Chappell, don't you? And Max Beckworth? They liked the show, Wes. Every-fuckinbody liked the show!"

"It was great, Wes," Harv said, smiling.

"Fantastic. Three seasons at least," Max said, smiling.

Wes nodded. "Hope so. You men need a drink, something to get mellow on?"

"We're going to be talking record contract with Arista on Monday," Jimmy said, his eyes getting brighter and brighter. The Hawaiian print shirt he was wearing, a wild mixture of purples and oranges, seemed to glow in the dim, living-room light. "How's that grab you?"

"Great, just great."

"Of course," Jimmy turned to smile at the Arista execs, "we'll be negotiating with Warner's and A&M, too. You know Mike Steele over at A&M, don't you, Max? He's talking six figures on a single record deal with options."

Max shrugged. "Comedy records are risky," he said, glancing around the room to take stock of who was there. "Only Steve Martin and Robin Williams turn a profit these days, sometimes Richard Pryor if his material appeals to the kids. It's just too easy to take a bath with comedy these days.

"Baths? Who's talking about taking fucking baths? I'm talking about mass appeal, man, everybody from Farmer Jones to the punk crowd. Wes covers all the bases."

"We'll see, Jimmy. Let's wait for the ratings on 'Sheer Luck,' shall we?"

"Yeah, yeah. Uh . . . Wes, where's Solange?"

"I don't know," Wes said. "She was here a few minutes ago."

"The hospitality bowls are going dry. I'm going to get Joey to fill 'em up, okay?"

Wes smiled and nodded. "Sure. Anything you want to do. 'Sheer Luck' was pretty good, wasn't it?"