Zero history

9. FUCKSTICK

When she opened Cabinet’s front door, pinstriped Robert was not there to help her with it.

Due, she saw immediately, to the jackbooted advent of Heidi Hyde, once the Curfew’s drummer, in whose assorted luggage Robert was now draped, clearly terrified, back in the lift-grotto, next to the vitrine housing Inchmale’s magic ferret. Heidi, beside him, was fully as tall and possibly as broad at the shoulders. Unmistakably hers, that direly magnificent raptorial profile, and just as unmistakably furious.

“Was she expected?” Hollis quietly asked whichever tortoise-framed boy was on the desk.

“No,” he said, just as quietly, passing her the key to her room. “Mr. Inchmale phoned, minutes ago, to alert us.” Eyes wide behind the brown frames. He had something of the affect, beneath his hotelman’s game-face, of a tornado survivor.

“It’ll be okay,” Hollis assured him.

“What’s wrong with this fucking thing?” Heidi demanded, loudly.

“It gets confused,” Hollis said, walking up to them, with a nod and reassuring smile for Robert.

“Miss Henry.” Robert looked pale.

“You mustn’t press it more than once,” Hollis said to Heidi. “Takes it longer to make up its mind.”

“Fuck,” said Heidi, from some bottomless pit of frustration, causing Robert to wince. Her hair was dyed goth black, signaling the warpath, and Hollis guessed she’d done it herself.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” Hollis said.

“Neither did I,” said Heidi, grimly. Then: “It’s fuckstick.”

At which Hollis understood that Heidi’s unlikely sub-Hollywood marriage was over. Heidi’s exes lost their names, at termination, to be known henceforth only by this blanket designation.

“Sorry to hear that,” Hollis said.

“Running a pyramid scheme,” Heidi said as the lift arrived. “What the fuck is this?”

“The elevator.” Hollis opened the articulated gate, gesturing Heidi in.

“Please, go ahead,” Robert said. “I’ll bring your bags.”

“Get in the fucking elevator,” commanded Heidi. “Get. In.” She backed him into the lift with sheer enraged presence. Hollis nipped in after him, raising the brass-hinged mahogany bench against the back wall for more room.

Heidi, up close, smelled of sweat, airport rage, and musty leather. She was wearing a jacket that Hollis remembered from their touring days. Once black, its seams were worn the color of dirty parchment.

Robert managed to push a button. They started up, the lift complaining audibly at the weight.

“Fucking thing’s going to kill us all,” said Heidi, as if finding the idea not entirely unattractive.

“What room is Heidi in?” Hollis asked him.

“Next to yours.”

“Good,” said Hollis, with more enthusiasm than she felt. That would be the one with the yellow silk chaise longue. She’d never understood the theme. Not that she understood the theme of her own, but she sensed it had one. The room with the yellow chaise longue seemed to be about spies, sad ones, in some very British sense, and seedy political scandal. And reflexology.

Hollis opened the gate, when the lift finally reached their floor, then held the various fire doors for Heidi and the heavily burdened Robert. Heidi seethed her way through the windowless green mini-hallways, body language conveying a universal dissatisfaction. Hollis saw that Robert had Heidi’s room key tucked for safekeeping between two fingers. She took it from him, its tassels moss green.

“You’re right next to me,” she said to Heidi, unlocking and opening the door. She shooed Heidi in, thinking of bulls, china shops. “Just put everything down,” she said to Robert, quietly. “I’ll take care of the rest.” She relieved him of two amazingly heavy cardboard cartons, each about the size required to contain a human head. He began immediately to unsling Heidi’s various luggage. She slipped him a five-pound note.

“Thank you, Miss Henry.”

“Thank you, Robert.” She closed the door in his relieved face.

“What,” demanded Heidi, “the fuck is this?”

“Your room,” said Hollis, who was arranging the luggage along a wall. “It’s a private club that Inchmale joined.”

“A club for what? What’s that?” Indicating a large framed silkscreen that Hollis herself found one of the least peculiar articles of decor.

“A Warhol. I think.” Had Warhol covered the Profumo scandal?

“I should have fucking known Inchmale would come up with something like this. Where is he?”

“Not here,” Hollis said. “He rented a house in Hampstead, when Angelina and the baby came from Argentina.”

Heidi hefted a wide-based crystal decanter, unstoppered it, sniffed. “Whiskey,” she said.

“The clear one’s gin,” Hollis advised, “not water.”

Heidi splashed three fingers of Cabinet Scotch into a highball glass, drank it off at a go, shuddered, set the decanter down and flicked the crystal stopper back into its neck with a dangerously sharp click. She had a spooky gift for aiming things; had never lost a game of darts in her life, but didn’t play darts, just threw them.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Hollis asked.

Heidi shrugged out of her leather jacket, tossed it aside, and pulled her black T-shirt off, revealing an olive-drab bra that looked as combat-ready as any bra Hollis had ever seen.

“Nice bra.”

“Israeli,” said Heidi. She looked around, taking in the contents of the room. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “The wallpaper’s like Hendrix’s pants.”

“I think it’s satin.” Vertically striped, in green, burgundy, ecru, and black.

“What I fucking said,” said Heidi, giving her Israeli army bra a tug, and sat down on the yellow silk chaise longue. “Why did we stop smoking?”

“Because it was bad for us.”

Heidi sighed, explosively. “He’s in jail,” she said, “fuckstick. No bond. He was doing something with other people’s money.”

“I thought that’s what producers do.”

“Not like that, it isn’t.”

“Are you in any trouble yourself?”

“Are you kidding? I’ve got a prenup thicker than fuckstick’s long. It’s his problem. I just needed to get the fuck out of Dodge.”

“I never understood why you married him.”

“It was an experiment. What about you? What are you doing here?”

“Working for Hubertus Bigend,” Hollis said, noting just how little she enjoyed saying it.

Heidi’s eyes widened. “Fuck me. That asshole? You couldn’t stand him. Creeped you totally out. Why?”

“I guess I need the money.”

“How bad did the crash do you?”

“About half.”

Heidi nodded. “Did everybody about half. Unless you had somebody like fuckstick doing your investing for you.”

“And you didn’t?”

“Are you kidding? Separation of church and fucking state. Always. I never thought he had any sense that way anyway. Other people did, though. Know what?”

“What?”

“The salt of the fucking earth never tells you it’s the salt of the fucking earth. People who get scammed, they’re all people who don’t know that.”

“I think I’ll have a whiskey.”

“Be my guest,” said Heidi. Then smiled. “Good to fucking see you.” And started to cry.