The Face

reserved for four big top-of-the-line plasma-screen TVs and associated equipment. The other such wall was in the bedroom.
        A pair of plasma screens hung side by side, and a second pair hung side by side above the first. A DVD player and a videocassette machine served each screen; that equipment, plus eight speakers and associated amplifiers were racked in low cabinets under the screens.
        Mick could run four movies simultaneously and switch, as whim struck him, from one soundtrack to the other. Or he could-and often did-play all four soundtracks simultaneously.
        Usually when you stepped into the Sachatone living room, you were greeted by a rude symphony of sighs, grunts, groans, squeals, squeaks, hisses, and cries of pleasure, by whispered and growled obscenities, and by a rhythmic rush of heavy breathing in one degree of urgency or another. With eyes closed, you could almost believe that you were in a riotously inhabited jungle, albeit a jungle in which all the tropical species were simultaneously copulating.
        [438] This afternoon, sound accompanied none of the four porn films. Mick had muted all of them.
        “Janelle was so special,” Mick said tenderly, nodding toward the video wall, referring to his lost girlfriend. “One cool swingin’ chick.”
        Although his Bart Simpson pajamas might seem frivolous, Mick dwelt in a somber memorial mood. All four screens featured classics from Janelle’s extensive filmography.
        Pointing to the upper-right-hand screen in the four-screen stack, Mick said, “That thing she’s doing right there, no one- no one -ever did that in film before or since.”
        “I doubt anyone else could,” Corky said, because the eye-popping trick in which Janelle was vigorously engaged involved her legendary flexibility, for which perhaps she alone among all humanity carried the necessary gene.
        Referring to his gal’s costars in the upper-right-hand video, Mick said, “Those four guys love her. See that? Every one of those guys just loves her. Men loved Janelle. She was truly groovy.”
        Mick’s voice swelled with wistful longing. In spite of all his Hefnerian hipness, he had a sentimental streak.
        “I just got back from Trotter’s in Malibu,” Corky revealed.
        “You kill the son of a bitch yet?”
        “Not yet. You know I need him for a while.”
        “Oh, look at that.”
        “She’s really something.”
        “You’d think that would hurt.”
        “Maybe it did,” Corky said.
        “Janelle said no, it was fun.”
        “She do a lot of stretching exercises?”
        “Her work was stretching exercises. You will kill him?”
        “Promised you, didn’t I?”
        “I expected to grow old with her,” Mick said.
        “Really?”
        “Well, older, anyway.”
        [439] “I shot up his current collection of porcelains.”
        “Expensive?”
        “Lladro.”
        “Will you torture him before you kill him?”
        “Sure.”
        “You’re a good friend, Cork. You’re a pal.”
        “Well, we go back a long way.”
        “More than twenty years,” Mick said.
        “The world was a worse place then,” Corky said, meaning from an anarchist’s point of view.
        “A lot has fallen apart in our time,” Mick agreed. “But not as fast as we dreamed it would when we were crazy kids.”
        They smiled at each other.
        Had they been different men, they might have hugged.
        Instead, Mick said, “I’m ready to execute the Manheim package,” and led Corky to the back of the house, into his work rooms.
        Instead of video porn, the walls here were lined with computers, a compact printing press, lamination machines, a laser holography imprinter, and other high-tech equipment necessary for the production of the finest quality forged documents.
        At his central work station, Mick had already positioned two chairs before the computer screen. He settled in the one directly in front of the keyboard.
        Corky took off his leather jacket, hung it on the back of the second chair, and sat down.
        Eyeing the bolstered Glock, Mick said, “Is that the rod you’ll use to waste Trotter?”
        “Yeah.”
        “Can I have it after?”
        “The gun?”
        “I’ll be discreet,” Mick promised. “I’ll never use it. And I’ll drill out the barrel so it can’t be matched to any of the rounds you kill him