Dick had plenty of other enemies, that’s for sure—including his on-the-books employees—so DB’s interviews with them saved me the trouble of droning on about what a vicious, stupid sociopath he was. She didn’t get into details, but she did mention that none of them were shy about giving examples of the oily charm and off-hand cruelty Khalika and I were all too familiar with.
They told her everything they knew, but even they didn’t know about his side business.
Imagine those movies where you’re set up to really hate the bad guy, right from the get-go. My sister saw him operating once—and only once—at his office. It was one of the few instances he did something with her. He took her to a shrink, and he must have been pretty worried about doing it, but she’d pulled a knife on Bianca during one of their arguments. Khalika started acting out around twelve, and Dick’s threats didn’t mean shit to her. Her antics escalated to where he needed to get a handle on it before we were taken away, or Khalika started cutting herself—or worse, reporting him. Of course, for that to happen, they’d basically have to catch him on film going down on one of us or vice versa.
Anyway, he took her for an evaluation by an expert in teen exorcisms. Just kidding—she was just a shrink.
The evaluation was terminated mid-way because Khalika simply wouldn’t interact with the woman. Ten minutes in, she spit on the shrink’s carpet, then ground her cigarette butt into it. This was exactly what Dick would have scripted. He apologized and said that perhaps another form of intervention might be necessary, or that he might send her off to boarding school for an attitude adjustment. The shrink told him that adolescent eruptions of this magnitude were not uncommon. And that was the end of it. He had to pay for a new carpet.
Khalika told me how pissed he was that he had to pay for the carpet and the full hour, even though it was cut short. Afterward, with him in a foul mood, they went to Dick’s office, where she caught a load of him in action. Of course, she was only too happy to fill me in when she was delivered home. Actually, she didn’t so much tell it as act it out, like a movie scene, using different voices for the different characters. She typed it up later with, as she said, a cigarette between her teeth. Khalika and I love film, and it’s better to think of some things as a script anyway. I mean, it’s the only way to process most of the shit that goes on. I paraphrased for DB, inserted myself in place of Khalika, but here’s, more or less, what Khalika typed up and stuffed somewhere in one of those boxes:
An Asshole out of Hell
By Khalika DeLoache
One Sheet: A big red asshole, with a dick shoved in it.
INT. Dick Danzinger’s penthouse office suite, Manhattan. Daytime, July 1982. Cue “Bad to the Bone,” by George Thorogood.
Elevator doors open on a meticulously groomed man accompanied by a sullen, smirking pre-teen. The man side-eyes an attractive girl with exposed cleavage, her smug face an advertisement of the surgeon’s art. He leans in close.
DICK DANZINGER
(whispering)
If you did not already exist, I would need to put in an order with Zeus.
He pulls an embossed card from his jacket and hands it to her. He flashes a chicklet smile.
DANZINGER
Call me.
The girl, though flustered, is pleased and self-consciously runs her fingers through streaked-blond hair. The man exits quickly, leaving the girl staring after him, glossed lips slightly parted.
Danzinger’s jaw is set, tanned face expressionless as he whooshes past the outer receptionist, goth teen in tow, and clicks through two wide glass doors with “Danzinger Agency” lettered in black. He takes long strides, passing an outer office secretary who’s on the phone, studying her green-varnished nails. She looks up, startled. He ignores her, but then remembers what he requires of her.
DANZINGER
COFFEE! COFFEE! COFFEE… and get me a fruit salad with some yogurt on it… no, a green smoothie… chop-chop! Oh, and get the kid whatever she wants.
The two proceed farther into the temperature-controlled lair, the teen following at a distance.
DANZINGER
Fuck it! Cancel that, it’s almost lunch and I have a look-see… I think. Some bimbette from Shitstain, Idaho… Asswipe, Indiana, some “I” state. They all sound alike, I mean the girls and the states.
ANOTHER SECRETARY
(looking up from an open magazine, startled, also flustered, smiling weakly)
Oh, good morning, Mr. D. Do you want your calls from yesterday and this morning or just yesterday? Your accountant called about five times, frantic. The bank called and said you don’t have enough in your account to cover the checks Jennifer wrote last week to pay the taxes and fees on the condos. And some really rude guy who said… never mind, I can’t say what he said, but he’s called before.
DANZINGER
Just give the goddamned list to Lisa and tell whoever called from the bank that he can blow me, and if anything bounces again…
Danzinger draws an index finger across his neck.
DANZINGER (CON’T)
But ring Bernie in two minutes and put him through to Lisa. Jesus, I can’t even take a piss in peace around here! COFFEEEEEE!
Danzinger sweeps past her. When he is out of sight, she waits exactly two minutes, speed-dials the accountant, puts him through, then jumps up to get his coffee, nearly tripping over some fashion magazines stacked by her desk.
SECRETARY
(hissing)
Motherfucking asshole, eat my Tampax!
PASSING MAIL BOY
(whispering)
I heard that.
CUT TO:
Danzinger arriving in his assistant’s office, which is outside his. She is older and harder looking than the outer two, wears a wide gold bangle, large hoop earrings and a black silk midi-dress with shoulder pads.
DANZINGER
You’re about to get a call from the Bernster, Lis. Just find out what he wants now. And who the fuck am I supposed to be having lunch with, and what time?
LISA
(expressionless, voice monotone)
I already know what he wants, Dick, but I’ll ask again. Lunch is one o’clock at Liguria.
DANZINGER
Yeah, right. Just tell Bernie there’ll be an infusion any day now and to quit getting his shit in a downpour. And goddammit, I meant for you to book Jams. Never mind, book me there for dinner.
LISA
‘Kay. You’re having lunch with the cowgirl you flew in from Iowa, the Miss Cornhole… whatever, the one you saw at some local contest?
She checks Dick’s schedule as he puts his foot up on her desk and inspects one of his Italian-made loafers, pulls a tissue out of a box, wipes the shoe, and drops it on her desk.
LISA
Her name’s Shaundra Kelly. That really unpleasant guy called again too — wouldn’t leave a name — said you’d know. He also called me a useless, lying cunt.
DANZINGER
(snorting)
Sweet! I guess this one’ll order her steak chicken-fuckin’-fried with tater tots, thousand island on her salad, or maybe “vinegar-ette.”
Danzinger makes air quotes around the word.
This one could maybe have potential if she loses about half a ton. If the guy calls again, just tell him I’m working on it and to quit making threats, or —
The phone rings. Lisa curls her lip before she picks up the phone, tapping her nails on her glass-topped desk before giving the finger to Danzinger’s back.
LISA
Hey Bernie, sup this time in numbers hell?
The receptionist and outer office secretary both show up with coffees, look at each other helplessly. Danzinger takes a mug from one of them, takes a sip, and spits it back in the mug.
DANZINGER
Jesus fucking Christ — this tastes like it drained out of Tut’s asshole!
Danzinger puts the cup down on Lisa’s desk and demands a fresh one from a new pot. Then he retreats to his soundproofed inner sanctum. He yells to Lisa, before he shuts the door, to arrange for the kid to be taken home in his limo. The teenager has ordered nothing from the downstairs trattoria.
LISA
Just bring him another one, I’ll take that one. Give me his calls, all of them, except the prick with no name. Oh wait, he doesn’t leave a number. Bring me an overdose of something too, or a gun. And get these fucking roses out of here — they’re all wilted.
CUT TO:
EXT. Liguria. Camera pans quickly up to a window, through which we can see Danzinger and Shaundra being shown to a table in back. Shaundra is dressed in her Midwest best.
DANZINGER
You look like a Nordic goddess in that ensemble. How was your flight?
Danzinger’s smile, wide and blinding against his tan, doesn’t reach his eyes.
SHAUNDRA
Great, Mr. Danzinger, smooth as silk.
DANZINGER
Please, call me Dick.
SHAUNDRA
(flustered)
Oh, OK… Dick. This place is just amazing. It feels like I’m in a dream and I’ll wake up back home any second!
DANZINGER
You’re not in Kansas anymore?
CUT TO:
INT. An upscale hotel room. Danzinger and Shaundra are going at it, loudly and grossly.
CUT TO:
Danzinger in the shower.
DANZINGER
(singing off key to “American Girl” by Tom Petty)
Raised on… bacon, lots of it… and cream of corn, vats of it…
CUT TO:
A faceless woman showering, blood running off her breasts, her taut stomach, down her legs, her feet, and into the shower drain.
CUT TO:
EXT. Danzinger estate. Father of the Year arrives in the driveway. He alights from limo, not waiting for the chauffer to open the door, orders him to stand by.
UNIDENTIFIED GIRL
(out of frame)
Heeeere’s Ozzie! He must have “gotten off” early today. Whaddya wanna bet he’s in a good-ish mood, and extra hungry? What are the odds he hands us a wad of laundered cash and suggests we go to a movie and stay out as long as we like?
Fade to black.
END scene.
The scene dissolved when DB asked what that was about, the woman showering, the blood. I had to think about that for a moment, then made a stab at it. I was never sure of that myself.
I turned my head to face DB.
“I dunno. Foreshadowing maybe, about Bianca’s involvement in his business?”
I see pornography as death. It has to end in death, because it has to get worse and worse for the customers to get hard, especially the older fuckers. Even Dick and Bianca knew this.
“Or maybe it was Bianca after she found out one of her favorite lovers cheated on her.”
DB stared at me. I couldn’t begin to read her expression, and I didn’t care what she thought anyway. It didn’t matter to me why Khalika put that shot in, but she always has her reasons, and they always make sense.
“Just kidding,” I said. “I doubt old Binny had the energy or planning skills for something like that. Besides, she might have broken a nail.”
DB smiled weakly. Did she think I was giving her the runaround? Hard to say.
Women need to be complicit in all the filth, like Bianca, for it to be such a huge business. Women must cooperate, Khalika said. And women produce the stuff too. She talked about the buyers of the end product, how the ante must always be upped.
Between you and me, I almost believe Khalika had lived before, many times maybe, before she was born with me. It was like she knew everything from really early on. She read voraciously too—even more than I did—from way back, before Shakespeare, back to Lucretius and earlier. She would feed me everything she picked up on her virtual trips through the centuries.
“I took a break last year.” Then, as if remembering another vague dream—some wacky plan from a lost childhood: “I was supposed to start college this fall.”
What will I do now, Daddy? It doesn’t matter, does it? Not now, anyway.
Last year, Khalika and I read our brains out, went to the movies, talked about everything, everything we read and saw. I rode Mercutio every day. Khalika had been out of the house for a while, so I was hardly ever there either, and when we were, we were mostly hanging out in the barn.
I took a few more sips of beer. Movies: I absorbed all the tricks—loved quick cuts, foreshadowing, flashbacks and forwards, voice overs, unreliable narrators—everything that keeps the audience on their toes and on the edges of their seats. If I ever write a screenplay—Khali and I have a plan to do one together, someday—I’ll use all of them, maybe try to invent new ones, if that’s even possible. I love it when writers show you the girl slipping a gun or knife in her bag and you forget all about it until she shoots or stabs her lover or his wife. Or at least I always forget; Khalika remembers. She’ll say, “Here comes that gun,” and laugh her husky laugh. I’m into when an actor talks directly to the audience, breaking the fourth wall. I like flashbacks that show how the bad guy never grieved his murdered wife at all—ate like a pig after the funeral, visited his mistress, screwed his brains out. I love it when time gets compressed, reality distorted. Khalika always knows what’s going on but never spoils it for me. I’ve gotten better at it—at knowing—and now we both look at each other at the exact moment we know who dunnit, or who’s winding up with a toe tag.
“Maybe someday, when this is all behind me,” I told DB, “I’ll be able to write one of those dark comedies. I read something about comedians—that the great ones are actually very deep, tortured people who use their comedy as a form of therapy. I can believe it too. That’s another funny thing about Dick and Bianca: neither one had any sense of humor.”
I chugged the rest of my beer and ate some nuts.