Kill the Dead

THE PHONE RINGS four times. I’m about to hang up when she answers. “Hey. What are you doing?” “Nothing important. I’m reading the Light Bringer script, trying to learn my lines. What do you think it tells us about the world that I have less to say as Eve than I do when I make my pornographic films?” “Want to go talk to a guy with a rep for using Drifters to do his dirty work?” “Drifters?” “Zeds. Golems. The dead boys from last night.” “Ah. Prázdný, you mean.” “Zed has less syllables, so I win. Do you want to meet the guy?” “Who is it?” “Cabal Ash.” She spits out something in Czech. I can’t understand it, but I don’t think it’s “yippee!” “Sure.” “Where are you?” “At Simon’s. Where are you?” “At Max Overload. I could get a car and pick you up.” “No thank you. Simon told me about you and cars. I’ll pick you up.” “Okay. Don’t forget to bring the toy you were going to show me. The Drifter de-boner.” “Ah. I was waiting for you to say something sexy. I thought for a moment that all you remembered about the night was the business behind the bar.” “I remember the business inside the bar, too. You always remember losing your virginity.” “Good boy. I’ll see you in half an hour.” “I’ll be out front.” Kasabian looks up as I thumb the phone off. While I was talking he was pretending to work. “That was her, wasn’t it?” “Who?” “Don’t be cute. Bring her up when she gets here.” “Next lifetime maybe.” “At least get her to sign these.” He holds up a couple of DVDs he was hiding on his table. “I found a couple of her movies from when I was bootlegging discs to make ends meet.” “Poor you. Forced to steal porn.” “Hey, there weren’t any American versions. They were all European. PAL format. The wrong region code. By reformatting them, I was performing a public service.” “For horny old men and bonehead teenyboppers.” “Who needs more help than them?” “I’m not bringing her up. But I’ll get her to sign your discs.” “Have her make it out to ‘Aldous.’” “You sure you don’t want to go with ‘Alfredo Garcia’?” “Fuck you. It’s an old family name.” “That’ll be our little secret.” “Fuck you twice. I’m not taking name abuse from someone called Sandman Slim. That sounds like a diet shake with roofies.” I look at him perched on the desk, his little legs on his keyboard. He frowns back at me, a defiant head on glorified skateboard. I hate it when Kasabian is right. I take the DVDs and put them in a Max Overload bag. “You’re a cruel man, you know that, Aldous?” “I’d give a rat’s ass if you weren’t running off with the love of my life.” “This week’s love.” “That goes without saying.”