The Desert Rose Page 13

  He had a little dope which they proceeded to smoke and Wood said he needed food so they got him a couple of chili dogs at a place near the Circus Circus. He was in sort of gross condition, seemed to have gained maybe twenty pounds overnight, but it didn’t slow him down at the arcade. Before long he had a little crowd watching, it was obvious just from the way the machine sounded that the king had come. Woods gave it his total concentration. She got a little bored and went out and sat on the fender of the car, thinking more about the audition than about Mel.

  The main thing she was wondering was whether she’d have to do the top drop, usually you did at auditions according to reports. It meant a lot of creeps like Bonventre got a free look at your tits, of course they would get that anyway if she became the lead dancer. Woods finally came out looking a little annoyed, he had been on the verge of breaking his own record at Space Invaders but someone in the crowd had had an epileptic seizure, fell right over backwards according to Woods, naturally it had broken his concentration. Woods was kind of nervous, not because of the guy falling over backwards but because he was afraid someone would spot him and tell his mother. Woods sort of lived in terror of his mother, which was understandable, she definitely wasn’t afraid to punish her kids. No doubt she would ban Woods from the arcades for several months if she knew he was playing hooky.

  “I don’t know why I take all these risks, I guess you bring out the masochist in me,” Woods said. He was sort of scrunched down in the seat and was ready to go even lower if they happened to pull up beside his mother at a stoplight. Pepper liked it, it was sort of amusing to keep Woods on the edge of trouble. Buddy would never defy his parents for her or anyone else, he was a total chickenshit in that regard. All Buddy had going for him was his looks.

  Woods suggested they go out to the lake, he was more comfortable in an area his mother didn’t frequent, so while they were driving out she sort of told him the big secret, she was going to be his godmother-in-law. Woods had to admit that was kind of the ultimate in weird. He said Mel often came to their house for dinner, he and his parents were very old friends. It was going to be pretty strange having Pepper come to dinner as Mel’s wife. Woods knew all about the lingerie though, that was how Mel knew his mother—when he had been a fashion photographer she had been a lingerie model, hosiery particularly. That was interesting, just from seeing Woods’s mother around the pool it had always struck her that she had great legs.

  Woods was definitely glad she was getting rid of Buddy though, he liked to describe Buddy as a local yokel. They sat around the lake for a while, smoking the last of Woods’s dope, then they drove back and she dropped Woods off a block from school, he was going to try and sneak in and do his science lab, hoping no one would notice that he had just arrived.

  Pepper went to the studio and got her stuff but it was a long time until the audition so she decided to hit Gary’s just on the off chance that he was up. He had a weird little house not far from downtown, the walls all covered with photographs of guys he thought were fantastic-looking, plus a few of her and one or two of her mother and Jessie in their younger days. Gary was sitting on his little midget patio in just some shorts. In shorts he didn’t look so great, his legs were scrawny and he had a pot belly, plus he was pretty white, he made very little effort to keep a tan.

  “Pepper, that’s a stunning blouse, you wear black better than anyone I know,” he said. He looked dulled out from being up all night, but dulled out or not Gary always responded to a good outfit.

  “So what’s the deal about Jessie’s ankle?” she asked.

  Gary sort of smiled. His basic attitude was that life was mostly funny, only once in a while bad events started happening, when quite a few of them happened at once he called it the Crud Flood. He definitely seemed to be in his Crud Flood mode, dulled out and probably stoned, as he often was when he wasn’t working.

  “Well Jessie’s flat on her back for a couple of weeks,” he said. “Your mother was talking about letting her live at your house so Myrtle can keep her company when she gets out of the hospital.”

  Then they had a laugh. Pepper thought of something funny, which was what if Maude mistook Francois for a stuffed animal sometime when he was asleep and ate a couple of his legs off? In Gary’s state that possibility struck him as hilarious, he laughed himself silly and went to get a beer. Then he informed her that her mother was asleep in his guest room, she had gotten very sick at her stomach because some nut she had breakfast with had fed her K rations. Pepper had only vaguely heard of them but Gary explained they were stuff soldiers had to eat during wars. Where her mother had found someone who actually ate them regularly was beyond him.

  “Why do you look so keyed up?” Gary said, he picked up right away that she was a little nervous. The thing that sort of was nagging in her mind was that after all Mel had taken quite a few pictures of naked guys, Fritz and Buddy for two. It was a little strange, maybe he was slightly gay or something and if anyone would know Gary would, there was nobody gay in Las Vegas that he didn’t know.

  In fact Gary was so surprised when she told him there was a rich guy who proposed to her that he stopped being dulled out. Then she mentioned the audition with Bonventre and it turned out he knew about it, in fact the reason he wasn’t asleep was because he was supposed to be there in case they wanted to see how she looked in a few costumes. He had kind of been feeling guilty because he hadn’t told her mother about it, he was kind of in a conflict of loyalties situation, plus he wasn’t sure what he thought about her working at the Stardust anyway, he had been trying to think about it but Jessie’s accident had thrown him off schedule.

  “Jesus, what else is going to happen today?” he said, the marriage bit took him aback. It turned out for once there was somebody in Las Vegas he didn’t know. He had heard of him a few times vaguely but that was it. Mel didn’t hit the discos or the Strip or the bars so Gary was no help, although so far as he knew Mel wasn’t gay, he didn’t know any guys who had been his lovers.

  She told him about the modeling bit, the old underwear, and Gary got fascinated. “I’d probably be doing it myself if I had the money,” he said, “I do understand the turn-on. Of course if the guy’s that visual he would want to marry you, he’s not gonna find better looks.”

  Then she told him Mel had already given her on the order of five thousand dollars, which naturally made Gary whistle, he himself seldom had a dime.

  “So how come you’re botherin’ with Bonventre?” he wanted to know. “You’re sixteen years old, Pepper, I know you’re a fine dancer but you don’t know everything. Maybe the guy would take you to New York. Good as Madonna is she’s not as good as teachers you could get in New York.”

  The point was Gary thought she ought to think the Stardust move over very carefully. Obviously Bonventre wanted to get rid of Monique but that didn’t mean Pepper needed the job, particularly now that Mel had entered the picture. However Gary admitted it was all getting sort of super-complicated and would take some thinking through. He frankly wasn’t up to it, thanks to no sleep. “I don’t suppose there’s any hope you’ll discuss this with your mother?” he said.

  “No way,” Pepper said.

  “Pepper, I just wish you had a little more sympathy,” he said. “It’s a puzzle to me how you got so much control, people twice your age don’t have your level of control.”

  Then he sort of sighed. “Your poor mother doesn’t have six ounces of that particular commodity,” he said. “That’s why she ends up eating K rations for breakfast now and then, I guess.”

  Pepper had never noticed that her mother had even one ounce, all the more reason it was time to get away from home and not have to deal with the consequences, such as boyfriends like Denny or the one before him, an Italian named Roberto who had thought he was some kind of great cook only he never washed a dish and used so much garlic in everything that the whole kitchen had begun to smell like garlic.

  Pepper got the sense that Gary was sort of intrigued by M
el, he confessed he had always been fascinated by rich people. At least he didn’t bother telling her that marriage was a serious affair or she was too young or anything, he had lived in Las Vegas long enough to notice it didn’t always have to be that serious. Plus he thought a guy who got turned on by making movies of her in old underwear was bound to have some interesting quirks and quirks were one of Gary’s main interests. He was keeping notes on quirks he had observed during his years as a wardrobe manager and was going to type the notes up someday and maybe have them published, just quirks, like a showgirl who put bottle caps over her nipples when she was in the dressing room—things like that.

  They took the Buick to the Stardust, Gary said her mother would need his car to go visit Jessie. Then he made her stop at a drugstore, he wanted to refill a pill prescription, it was going to take a pill or two to get him through another night.

  While he was in waiting for the pill prescription to be filled she heard a click click. She looked and who would it be but Denny, she had had the bad luck to park about ten feet from him. He was leaning on a car shooting pictures of her, there was not much she could do except show total scorn.

  “Hi, do you give blow jobs?” he said, walking over to the Buick. He was obviously proud of how crude he was.

  “No, but you can probably get some in jail,” she said.

  “Your momma wouldn’t put me in jail,” he said. “I left her too many beautiful memories.”

  Pepper rolled the window up and ignored him, only just then Gary came out and saw him. Denny looked slightly taken aback, he hadn’t expected Gary to be around. Gary definitely wasn’t afraid of him either, he ran right out and said “Get away from that child, we’re having you arrested, you’ll be lucky to get out in ten years.”

  Denny told him to fuck himself or something, but Gary just said let’s go. They drove off and left Denny standing there pretending to be super-cool.

  “Why don’t we call the cops? I’ll tell them he tried to get me to give him a blow job,” Pepper said, but Gary vetoed the idea, unless her mother was willing to go through with a prosecution it was hopeless.

  “Then it’s hopeless,” Pepper agreed, the more she thought about it the more furious it made her that he would walk up and say something like that to her.

  They went on to the Stardust, where Bonventre was waiting with a couple of choreographers. She was expecting the top drop bit and was sort of in the mood to tell them to go suck their own dicks if it came up. After all she didn’t need them, there was no doubt that Mel would give her plenty of money if she asked him. The way Bonventre and the two guys watched her just brought on more scorn. The choreographers showed her a few routines and she just did them without saying a word. Once or twice she goofed but she just did it again, most of it was simple. The audition didn’t last but about twenty minutes and she was angry the whole time, the guys were sort of standing there like judges but they didn’t say much, it was obvious Bonventre made the decisions. Gary was just wasting his time being there, they didn’t use the costumes and they didn’t ask to see her tits either, it was just a little dance audition. Bonventre was wearing his black suit and sort of smiling like he knew some great secret. Finally he said, “Pepper, I know you need to get back to school, thank you very much for coming, do you need a ride?”

  That was all he said, then both the choreographers told her she moved beautifully, everyone was extremely polite. She said thanks, she had stopped being quite so angry. Gary walked her out, he had decided to go back to his place and soak in a bath to see if it would wake him up a little.

  “So what’s the deal, did Bonventre like it?” she asked, she didn’t know what to think.

  Gary just grinned and held her hand for a little. It turned out he had been extremely impressed with the audition.

  “Denny did you a favor, I don’t think you’re aware of how totally haughty you are when you’re angry,” he said. “Those choreographers had their minds boggled. They expected some little teen queen who would be about ready to faint with reverence and in walks Miss Hauteur, boy did you give them a surprise. Do you know you get a little red spot on each cheekbone when you’re angry like that? It’s better than makeup.”

  It was true the choreographers had been impressed, but they were peons, actually, Bonventre was the boss and he was harder to judge.

  “Oh, forget it,” Gary said. “The audition was just a formality. He wanted to see you on stage is all, he definitely intends to hire you.”

  Gary was yawning a lot, he was super-tired. “Pepper, I don’t know what to think of you having all these possibilities,” he said. “It seems like just the other day I went to your first birthday party.” But he admitted she had seemed grown up since she was twelve, the fact that she was taller than most girls and wore clothes so well may have helped.

  They made a date for Sunday, Gary loved being her adviser and said what they should do is sit down and discuss her options intelligently. He loved sort of analyzing people’s options.

  Pepper said fine and dropped him off. Gary was sweet but she didn’t exactly feel in the mood to wait for Sunday, after all he had been analyzing her mother’s options ever since she could remember and it hadn’t changed a thing, her mother still just went around getting in love time after time, mainly with idiots or pricks of various kinds.

  Actually she was more in the mood to take Woods’s advice, which was simple, Woods just said the way to live was to do everything. Although he sort of toed the line where his mother was concerned he liked to describe himself as a total hedonist. His attitude was you should dance all the dances, take all the drugs, play all the video games, do all the sex acts, and get as much money as possible without risking criminal prosecution—he always stuck that one in, he wasn’t eager to risk criminal prosecution even though his father was a lawyer.

  Woods was a student of doomsday, he knew a good deal about nuclear arsenals and stuff and said the Big Poof was likely to happen any time. His view was that Idi Amin or somebody equally weird would steal a few H-bombs and start things off and then there’d be the Big Poof, so why make elaborate plans? He himself was not even keen on going to college, he was more interested in being a total hedonist until some nut got loose in the arsenals and blew up the world.

  Pepper didn’t know about doomsday but she definitely felt in the mood to just do it all, not the one thing Woods really wanted her to do which was sex acts with him, but basically anything else she was ready to go for, like marrying Mel and having a lot of Jap servants to wait on her and also dancing the lead at the Stardust and being a star for a while. She was thinking maybe a year or two, then if she got bored she would see about New York and the great teachers. Although from what she could see of New York on the news it looked sort of horrible, lots of clouds and junk. There were definitely some good aspects to life in Nevada.

  She went on and had her lesson and didn’t say a word about the audition. Madonna was not in a great mood, she looked like she might have a migraine or something so Pepper just didn’t bother updating the news. Madonna looked sad enough as it was. It was sort of odd that she didn’t have boyfriends, she was about a hundred times more beautiful than Myrtle and Myrtle had two boyfriends. Madonna just had cats, six of them in all, but no sign of a boyfriend or a girlfriend either.

  When she got through Buddy was sitting on the fender of the Buick looking totally freaked out. He definitely couldn’t bear the thought of losing her and apologized quite a few more times for not letting her borrow the Mustang to go to Mel’s. He seemed to think that was the main reason she was giving him so much trouble, he also said he had some very good dope, he was counting on that doing the trick if the apologies didn’t. It showed the level his mind operated on, obviously Mel had access to all the dope she could possibly want.

  She started just to get in the Buick and drive off but Buddy actually grabbed her, he was so freaked out at the thought of losing her that he wasn’t going to let her leave. It was very embarrassing, because
of course Madonna was watching it from the studio window.

  “Get your fuckin’ hands off me, Madonna’s watching!” Pepper said, which was enough to make him let go.

  “Okay, but when can I see you?” he asked. He was red in the face and definitely not behaving like the cool guy he was supposed to be.

  “Listen, go suck your own dick!” she said, Buddy turned out to be the one who caught the remark. She had no intention of explaining anything to him, let him read about it in the papers. She just drove off, thinking that after all Madonna wasn’t dumb, she had had Buddy pegged as an idiot all along, which was probably why she hadn’t dropped any compliment on his looks, unlike her mother, who practically couldn’t stop talking about how great-looking Buddy was.

  She expected him to come tearing past, with a few cops chasing him, but he didn’t and she just drove on to Mel’s house. Mel must have been watching from some vantage point because he came out in the driveway grinning at the sight of the Buick, which was probably the ugliest car that had ever been anywhere near his house. “Love your car,” he said and leaned in and gave her one of the little kisses at the corner of her mouth. Then he sniffed a little and asked if she had goats for pets, so she told him about Myrtle and Maude.

  Mel was in quite a good humor. She expected him to be revolted by the appearance of the Buick but Mel didn’t care at all.

  “Why there’s no reason why the most beautiful girl in the world shouldn’t drive the ugliest car,” he said. “I like the beauty and the beast effect.” The car had so much goat hair in it it did sort resemble a beast.

  “It looks like a gorilla died in it at some point,” Mel said. “What’s your mood today, Pepper?”

  It was kind of impressive, the way he looked at things. He pointed out that he hadn’t always been a rich man, he had endured a few scuzzy cars himself along the road to riches. He said he definitely wanted to meet Myrtle at some point, she sounded like a character.