“Well . . . yes.”
“Good! I’ll pay you this—” Jean-Claude wrote a number on the front cover of the topmost magazine. “If you break those two up as soon as you can.”
The figure was high; I had to ask why he was so invested in the breakup.
“I made some inquiries, and I found out some things about Tyche Shaw,” Jean-Claude said, his eyes turning to saucers for a moment. “Don’t ask me what they are, but let’s just say she’s not the sort of person my son should be seeing. Save him. If not for the money then at least out of human decency.”
“I’ll gladly do what I can. But have you tried asking the concierge or my mother about this?”
“Yes of course, but they say it’s only in their remit to handle requests that can be fulfilled on the premises.”
“I see . . . Well, don’t worry, Jean-Claude. I’ll deal with this.”
“Music to my ears, Freddy. That’s the Barrandov Way!”
—
I WAS GOING to have a lot of money soon, but the prospect didn’t excite me. Perhaps I’d get more excited as I went along. Aisha introduced me to Chedorlaomer without too much prompting: If anything she seemed amused that she’d discovered the fanboy in me.
Any friend of A’s is a friend of mine . . .
Chedorlaomer Nachor had been famous for years. He’d grown accustomed to living well and to feting his playmates; if you said you liked anything of his he gave it to you, even if that meant taking the item off his own body and putting it on yours. He was deliriously happy too—that was part of it. He freely admitted that Tyche was his first love, admitted this to anyone who’d listen. Wherever he was, the delectable, ambrosial Tyche Shaw wasn’t far away. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other. A blended scent rose from their skins—sulfurous, sticky, sweet. Wasn’t he rather old to be falling in love for the first time? And who was she? Since Jean-Claude wouldn’t tell me what he’d learned about her, I did some research of my own. She was a puppeteer, and very far from a well-known one, though she did associate with the likes of Radha Chaudhry and Gustav Grimaldi. Aisha added in an offhand manner that Tyche also did odd jobs and invocations. Odd jobs? Was Aisha hinting at prostitution?
Chedorlaomer seemed like a nice person and so did Tyche; if either one was ill-natured they hid it very well. But it didn’t matter; I was there to end their romance. They were in love, and laughed at everything, and assaulted me with the odor of all the sex I was being denied. I know I said denied, as if I had a right to it. But those two filled my brain with the filthiest helium—I watched their wandering hands and I watched Aisha’s Deadly Beige and when I blinked diverse, divine contortions appeared to me, all wrapped up in satin sheets. The bodies I saw and felt combining were mine, Aisha’s, Chedorlaomer, Tyche’s . . . even the puppets got a look in. I propositioned Chedorlaomer, but the typical halfheartedness of my attempt aside, Jean-Claude’s son was immune to my charms. He talked about Aisha and explained that anybody who hurt her wasn’t going to find it easy to live with all the injuries he and Aisha’s stepdad would inflict upon them. He made these remarks in such dulcet tones that it took me a few minutes to realize he was warning me.
After that I had to let Aisha in on my project, before Mr. Protective told her. Once I’d told her everything she looked at me with the most peculiar expression.
“So you have a tendency not to want anything more than you already have?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And you think that’s a problem?”
“Clearly it is: It’s a difference that’s slowly estranging me from my family!”
“What if I told you that I know both Ched and Tyche well enough to be fairly sure there’s no need for you to break them up?”
“I’ve still got to do it. My word’s my bond. I told Jean-Claude—”
“As for Jean-Claude,” Aisha said, stirring her tea with sinister emphasis.
“Oh, don’t.”
“All right, forget Jean-Claude for now. Listen Freddy, you’re my guy, and together we can accomplish anything. Here’s how you break them up . . .”
“Your guy . . . accomplish anything . . . anything, your guy,” I said, thinking I was talking to myself. But she heard me, and asked if I was OK.
“Me? Yeah? I mean . . . yeah. Always. I— Sorry, I interrupted you, didn’t I? Go on.”
Aisha knew a man who gave “relationship-ruining head.” She suggested getting together with this man and Tyche one evening, giving them both a lot of wine and letting nature run its course. So we did that; I pretended to find it funny when I discovered that this giver of relationship-ruining head was my flatmate Pierre.