The Price of the Ticket Read online

  “Ding… ding… ding… ding…”

  “I’ve got a five-hundred-dollar income tax refund in my hundred-dollar jeans,” Martin continued dreamily, determined to warp Celeste’s quip into a pleasantry, “and I’m going down—down, down, down–to meet a really hot date.”

  “Your driver’s door is open. Please close your driver’s door.…”

  He looked at Celeste, utterly ingenuous. “After Cats we’re going to Postrio. Herb Caen will be at the bar, and he’ll say hello to me. I’ll call for champagne and goose paté–”

  “Ding… ding… ding… ding…”

  “Jesus Christ,” Celeste said, making a face. “You cruise that bullshit every time you start this fucking truck?”

  The voice-ding stopped abruptly. Pauley grunted, and removed from beneath the dash a small aluminum canister with numbers stenciled on it. Three copper prongs protruded from one end of the canister, each with a little hole in its tip.

  The thing looked damned intrinsic. “Hey,” Martin objected, obviously worried. “What are you doing to my car?”

  “Really, Pauley,” smiled Celeste. “That’s his fantasy catalyst. We were just ordering the hors d’oeuvres.”

  Seam raised his hands in protest. “Tell your father to lay off my car,” he whined.

  Celeste’s face assumed a very serious expression. “Uh oh,” she said.

  Pauley raised his eyes from their contemplation of the canister, looked at Seam, and half stood out of the driver’s seat. Before Seam could do more than cringe Pauley sidearmed the canister over the back of the pickup bed. Fifty yards up Bush Street the canister skipped into the intersection at Baker and ricocheted off the driver’s door of a black BMW as it ran the light.

  Martin emitted a little gasp. “That car cost $52,000!”

  “Type-A bull’s eye,” said Celeste dreamily, thinking approximately the same thing. “Fuck me, Pauley.”

  “Later, babe.”

  “Promises, promises,” cooed Celeste. She winked at Seam. “Beats the Sunday paper.”

  Although he couldn’t remember a thing about the experience, Seam had read the entire Chronicle every Sunday for as long as he could remember–including this Sunday already, which was today–in the course of which he’d been promised everything except what Celeste and Pauley appeared to be promising each other. Stung by a gibe so near the mark, he redoubled his affected dismay that these two people could so lightly exercise battery on a $52,000 car he esteemed so heavily, but the girl’s lavish reward system brought him up short–although, if he’d thought about it, he might have realized that B.F. Skinner had gotten pigeons to do much fancier things for a mere handful of grain. Much later that afternoon he would conceive the riposte, How can you make snappy remarks with that ring in your lip? as he climbed the stairs to his apartment. But even then, hours after the fact, he would lack the nerve to say it aloud. Except when Retail demanded his loquacity, and especially when he felt physically threatened, Martin was the silent type.

  But as he never lacked for desperations, he stuck doggedly to the one at hand. “Yes. I mean, right, fifty-two thousand dollars–no! I mean eighty-five thousand, yes, original miles. Eighty-five thousand. Yes.…” If he’d had a handkerchief he’d have mopped his brow.

  “Ah-ha,” said Pauley, propping the hood open over the idling motor.

  “Of course,” Martin added quickly, joining him at the front of the car for the viewing, “she runs as if she had only half that.” He gazed at the welter of vibrating tubes and ticking machinery, watching, for all he knew, particularly animated decomposition in a can of garbage.

  “Do tell,” Pauley said mildly. He placed a sneaker on the front bumper and leaned on his knee, studying the engine.

  As Martin opened his mouth to prove he had no reply, the black $52,000 BMW chirped to a halt in the street behind Pauley. This vehicle was a snappy little two-door coupé, brand new, very shiny, with gold-stamped wheels and tinted windows and a tell-tale cellular telephone antenna mounted just behind the sunroof. The engine, purring like a basket of kittens, set the little coiled antenna to quivering like a rectal thermometer.

  Martin Seam experienced amatory aphasia when in the presence of shiny black brand-new $52,000-and-up European coupés, of whatever marque. This particular example looked and hummed as if it had nothing to do but sit all day in the street slicing olive loaf, extra thin, and to Martin this seemed an extremely utilitarian pinnacle of chic.

  The tinted window on the driver’s side slid halfway down, electric.

  “Hey asshole,” said a voice.

  Martin Seam’s heart nearly stopped. He didn’t know this guy Pauley very well at all, but it had never so much as occurred to Martin to call him an asshole, or that somebody else might think to do it, even if that somebody originated from among that mysterious race of beings who numbered among their blessings $52,000 European coupés.

  Pauley didn’t so much as turn to look at the dark vehicle whose driver had so rudely addressed him. His eyes narrowed a little.

  “That you throwing shit at my ride, hippy?” inquired the voice a little more loudly.

  “That’s right, Jack,” Pauley replied suddenly, in a hard voice, still watching Martin. “I’ve been standing here with a piece of shit in my hand for a week, waiting to throw it at you.”

  It might have been that this incident would not have consisted of much more than an exchange of remarks in the street concerning an insignificant misunderstanding, had not the driver determined that the wiser course would be to activate his car phone, which emitted a loud tone, and punch in three numbers, and only three.

  Pauley might have been in a good mood up to this point. But his smile faded and his eyes opened as he explained to Martin Seam, in a very reasonable tone, “He believed me. Check it out. I throw something into the street. A half-block away a guy runs a stop sign and gets T-boned. It could have been a truck. But no, it’s something too small to even see, and that’s bigger than the damage done. But hey, it’s a shiny new car, so somebody’s got to pay.” Pauley spread his hand between himself and Seam. “Give us a cigarette, babe.” Celeste handed him a cigarette. “See what a state I’m in,” Pauley said, showing Seam the cigarette. “I don’t even smoke.” He pointed the cigarette over his shoulder. “I tell him I got nothing better to do than stand here in the street throwing stuff at his car, implying by my tone it’s on account of my inner rage at the apparent disparity between his lot in life and mine, and he believes me. Because for him it’s true. This guy is shot through with angst that he’s better off than I am, he wants to do something about it but he doesn’t know what, but while he’s working on the problem, what do I do? I throw something at his car. Now, be fair. Is that gratitude? I ask you. He asks you. So, he’s left with no choice.”

  Three more beeps came from the car.

  “He dials nine-one-one. F-sharp, D, D. Hear that?”

  Seam started. “You have perfect pitch?”

  “No. A perfect arrest record.”

  Martin didn’t want to talk about arrests. He stuck to his point. “Then how come you know the touch-tone pitches?” he asked hopefully, thinking, I’ll just string this guy along until I get my keys back, then run like hell. I’ll come back later and close the hood.

  Pauley’s eyes focused on things not visible to Seam. “Musician, used to live next door, he taught me. Played the touch tones on his guitar. He liked to pretend he was phoning his dead wife.”

  “Oh,” said Martin, rather nervously. “I’m sorry.”

  Pauley continued to stare at nothing Martin could see. “Did you know that your garden variety American dial tone is almost a perfect B-flat?”

  Seam blinked.

  From the BMW came an enraged shout. “Busy again! Christ! Busy!”

  The tones were redialed, clearly audible.

  Pauley whistled along, softly.

  “It’s a unique sound,” he said suddenly, as if returning to the present. “I know it well. The suit’s
calling nine-one-one and he’s going to lay some bullshit on these poor cops that’ve got better things to do, genuine crime to deal with. Some bullshit about an assault on his car–which, as we all know, is an assault on an extension of himself.” Pauley shook his head, his mouth tightening perceptibly. “And here stand I, an eight-tray loser. Do you think this guy has any idea of the risk he’s taking, calling the cops on an eight-tray loser? Let’s see. If the cops did show up, and if they did check me out, one thing would certainly lead to another, as it always does with the cops. The upshot being that I might never bask again in unfiltered daylight. And at what risk to this suit in the Beemer? A bruised ego? A little tick of paint gone off his car door? Don’t you think I’d be better off to stuff that phone up his ass next to his brain, to steal his car, to fence it in Mexico, to take my chances on the randomness of the crime, rather than risk having to put my rap sheet up against his stock portfolio in front of a judge?”

  The Pauley-guy’s voice had raised discernibly in pitch. Martin stared at him.

  “Don’t you?” Pauley demanded loudly.

  Martin’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.

  “I mean come on,” Pauley said, his voice suddenly, unnervingly, reasonable again. “I got a case here. It’s his fleck of paint against my fleck of freedom.”

  Feebly, Martin began to shake his head, meaning no, then began to nod it, meaning yes.

  “But the logic I restrain myself by and pose to you is,” Pauley pointed the cigarette at Martin’s chest, “what cop is going to buy this glitch as an emergency? Huh? What cop?”

  Martin Seam hadn’t felt so faint since he’d succeeded after waiting eight hours to touch the sleeve of a pop singer called Madonna as she left her limousine to go into the Academy Awards in Hollywood nearly three years ago.

  “Us,” Celeste had time to say aloud. “He’s calling 911 on us.”

  “Yep,” agreed Pauley, “it’s a regular clutterfuck.”

  Clutterfuck?

  “How times have changed,” Pauley continued. “Hey.”

  Seam started. “Hey?”

  “Hey.”

  “Me?”

  “You.”

  “Me.…”

  “You think the cops are going to take the time to deal with this guy?”

  “I-I-I-.…”

  “He might pay lots and lots of taxes, you know.”

  “Y-y-y-y-.…”

  “You scared of cops, kid?”

  “Y-n-y-n-y-n.…”

  “I hate ’em myself.”

  “N-y-n-y.…”

  “But they gotta work, too.”

  “N-y-n-y-n-y.…”

  “How about guys who drive forty-thousand dollar cars? How do you feel about them?”

  “Y-n-y–. Fifty-two-five FOB Long Beach,” Seam blurted.

  Pauley regarded Seam sourly.

  “Tax and license,” Seam continued lamely, “extra.”

  Pauley shook his head. “Skip it. Got a match?”

  Before Seam could recollect that he did not smoke and never carried matches, Celeste handed Pauley a kitchen match. Pauley snapped the head off the match with his front tooth. The phosphorous burst into flame, and he cupped it in his hand to light the cigarette.

  Smoke leaking from his nostrils, Pauley tossed the match over his shoulder. It ticked onto the BMW’s sunroof, still burning.

  Martin Seam couldn’t believe his eyes.

  A lot of yelling came out the window of the $52,000 car, but the driver hadn’t noticed the match melting a dimple in his Lexan sunroof. It appeared he really was under the impression that because he paid a lot of taxes and drove an expensive car he was entitled to emergency backup from the police. But no, he had to admit, he hadn’t been actually, physically assaulted.… But what the goddamn hell.… No, to tell the truth.… Well, the damage to the car wasn’t.… extensive. He could see it. No, sounding disappointed, nobody was injured. Yes goddamn it, he realized that this is a major metropolitan area with real goddamn crime committed on real victims and by real goddamn criminals, and what was that supposed to mean, goddamn it, he was as real as the next goddamn citizen, and no, officer, he hadn’t meant to curse on Sunday, but–

  The conversation abruptly ended, the carphone announcing the severed connection with a bleat. “He cut me off! The cocksucker cut me off!” the driver yelled, and he slammed home the receiver with a fresh curse.

  Pauley smoked and listened, tapping a fingernail occasionally on the point of the raised Toyota hood. When the conversation in the car had ended, he blew a thin stream of smoke at the tip of his cigarette, rotating the coal which glowed appreciatively. Then he looked over the coal at Martin.

  Though he’d never had trouble with his eyes before, Martin squinted nearsightedly.

  Pauley winked and flicked the cigarette under his arm, straight through the open window of the BMW.

  In spite of livid fear–fear of what, exactly, he couldn’t have said–Martin Seam had the wherewithal about him to think, if the guy in the Beemer has a gun, and if he uses it, will the bullet pass through this skinny Pauley guy? And if it does, will it strike me with enough residual energy to penetrate my $150 shirt?

  Celeste must have been thinking approximately the same thing. “Oh, Pauley, that was perfect,” she was saying. “You always know just what to do. Hospital, prison, mortuary–I don’t care–I’ll visit you every day.”

  A stream of thick curses coursed from the black BMW, punctuated by thumping noises, the sounds of well-stuffed leather upholstery flailed repeatedly by an open palm. And in the midst of these gesticulations, while trying to track down the hot cigarette end before it burned a hole in something expensive, the driver must have inadvertently allowed his foot to slip off the clutch pedal because, its engine still running, the BMW leaped forward and buried its left front fender in the right rear quarter-panel of a 1958 Chrysler parked directly in front of Martin’s Toyota.

  Parked incongruously, this Chrysler, considering the tony neighborhood; but parked there it was. Perhaps someone was visiting.

  At least, it looked like the $52,000 car had buried its fender in the rear quarter panel of a $750 car. But as, with apoplectic curses and an equal number of gear-grindings and a tinkle of headlamp glass the BMW driver separated the two vehicles, it was immediately obvious that by way of barely embellishing the $750 Chrysler’s venerable patina of dents and scratches, the $52,000 car had absorbed almost the entire impact of the collision.

  “Type-A guy,” Celeste offered tentatively, “could be back for more.…”

  “He’s getting pretty far down in the game,” Pauley observed, “but, so far, his insurance will cover it.”

  “He’s lucky the airbag didn’t detonate,” Martin Seam added thoughtfully.

  The BMW roared down the street, its crushed fender audibly gouging its left front tyre.

  Pauley and Celeste looked at Seam, then at each other, and burst out laughing. “Yeah, right!” Celeste said. “The airbag didn’t detonate! Hey!” she yelled down the street, “Come back! Come back!” She waved her hand. “Yoohoo! Your airbag didn’t detonate!”

  Martin Seam curled his upper lip, and his skin briefly crimsoned. They were making fun of him.

  The BMW driver must have been too rattled to shift gears, because his engine wound up until it sounded like a vacuum cleaner with a copy of Playboy magazine caught in its throat. The sound of this distress diminished into the distance.

  Tyre, Martin thought wistfully, following the retreating BMW with a longing gaze. That’s the way they spell it at the Michelin garage, where they put them on $52,000 cars: tyre.

  The Toyota’s engine was still ticking over, with only a little valve noise in evidence.

  Pauley listened to it, tapping his fingernail on the point of the raised hood.

  “I like this truck, kid,” he said finally. “I have a good time when I’m around it.”

  He lowered the hood support rod into its clamp, then dropped the hood with a ba
ng that made Martin jump.

  Pauley patted the sheet metal with the flat of his hand. For the first time Martin noticed the hands of the man with the tear tattooed at the corner of his eye were calloused and thickened by labor. Martin smiled inwardly.

  “Six hundred dollars, huh?”

  Seam looked straight into the pale blue eyes and said yes.

  Chapter Five

  CRATED AND UNCRATED, ASSEMBLED AND DISASSEMBLED, FINISHED and unfinished, torture racks crowded the basement workshop. Undelivered torture racks had accumulated to the point that very little room remained for their actual construction. They were screwing up his schedule. Pauley had been oppressed by this glut for a couple of weeks–ever since the old Econoline had devoured its own transmission. He had nursed the delivery van for three months with no second gear, but finally first and reverse had gone too, and that was the end. You can’t drive a truck in San Francisco without low gear.

  Devouring its own entrails. That’s a little extreme, he thought, shouldering aside a boxed Torquemada model for the second time. But it suited his mood. First you remove them, then you devour them. Working for a living, even under his own terms, was hard enough without allowing the product to metamorphose into an obstacle to subsequent production. Each move he made involved a complex series of prefatory moves. The basement resembled one of those puzzles whose letters consume all but a single square within its perimeter, the object of which is to spell and unspell and then spell again certain combinations of words, viz., it starts out looking like

  R*YMPH

  OU’UUC

  EKCFDE

  –with an apostrophe and everything. But you, dummy, you proceed as if you don’t have a clue. All day every day you patiently trade letters in and out of the blank space as if you’ve never seen them before. You’re telling yourself you’ve never seen them before. Think of the blank as an allegory for the mind, and the puzzle as an allegory for the day. The day goes by, the blank mind migrates across it. And then, just about quitting time, the cryptogram once again makes sense.