The Failure Part 1

The Failure.

James Greer.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

This book would not have been written, much less published, without the inspiration and support of Stephanie Sayers. Thanks also to Tad Floridis at Canongate for the t.i.tle and general editorial guidance. Everyone at Akas.h.i.+c-Johnny Temple, Johanna Ingalls, and especially Aaron Petrovich-has been from first to last both supportive and helpful to an unreasonable degree. Thanks to Dennis Cooper, for his initial belief in my writing and continued encouragement. To Robert Pollard for the power of suck, etc. To Steven Soderbergh for s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up my life in exactly the right measure. To Randy Howze for listening. Finally, a general thanks to everyone who has managed to put up with my self-absorbed, ill-humored, and monkish habits, allowing me to write the only way I know how: stony-hearted and alone.

The failure is unaware of himself as a failure.

To fail at failure-even to be aware of having failed- could be construed as a kind of success.

-G. M. Holliston, The Science of Fear.

1. HOW GUY FORGET.

ENDED UP IN A COMA.

Guy Forget-careening across Larkin Heights in a stolen Mini Cooper-suffused with bloodl.u.s.t and baring a grin full of teeth, failed to hear the polyphonic belling of his cell phone. This was a mistake, for two reasons.

Had he heard his phone, and answered the call, Guy would have learned three things: that his wealthy, boorish father had died of a heart attack; that his wealthy, boorish father's will had provided Guy with exactly enough cash, after taxes, to fund the prototype for Pandemonium; and that his wealthy, boorish father had included in his will a personal message for Guy to the effect that, despite their differences, and their less-than-communicative relations.h.i.+p over the years, Guy's wealthy, boorish father did, in his own unspectacular way, love his second son.

Had he heard and answered his phone, Guy would also have been distracted sufficiently from his murderous thoughts to lay off the accelerator, and would therefore have slowed down sufficiently to avoid the near-fatal collision awaiting him around the fourth curve of the bendy road down which he was driving too fast.

Because he did not hear or answer his phone, Guy Forget was in a coma from which he was not expected to recover. His surviving relatives-his mother Laura, tense, brittle-framed, already shaken by the recent death of her husband, who, even though she hated him, represented a kind of vital force that helped make sense of her life; and his older brother Marcus, balding, self-absorbed professor of theoretical physics at M.I.T., whose adherence to the code of abstraction respected by all professors of theoretical physics everywhere extended to forgetting, from time to time, his wife Constance's existence-were divided on the question of whether to pull Guy's plug and end what remained of his corporeal viability, or, to be plain, of himself.

Laura was a seriously lapsed Roman Catholic who felt a distinct unease at ending Guy's life "without at least asking him," as she put it to Marcus over coffee at the hospital commissary in Los Angeles.

-Mom, he's in a coma. That's the whole sort of coma issue, replied Marcus, patiently. He was used to treating everyone, especially his mother, as if they were children, and needed to have even the most basic concepts explained simply.

-People come out of comas.

-Not people with Guy's level of brain activity. Or inactivity, more precisely. He's a vegetable. There's nothing about Guy that makes him human anymore.

-Mrs. Sanderson said that she read about this one ...

-Mrs. Sanderson is not a doctor. People magazine is not, I'm pretty sure, a peer-reviewed medical journal.

-Those doctors don't get everything right. What about AIDS?

-What about AIDS?

-Well, they were wrong. It doesn't even exist.

-I'm sorry?

-It's like you live in a hole. You didn't hear about this?

-Mom, that's so utterly bizarre I'm going to refrain from comment.

-Saying that doesn't make it any less true.

-I suppose. In crazy world. Marcus reached across the table and wrapped his mother's tiny hands in his own, almost invisibly pale palms. -Whatever there was of Guy, his essence, has dispersed back into the universe. If it's any comfort, recent research has led some in the scientific community to believe that quantum consciousness exists independent of physical being-at very basic levels, on the Planck scale. In that sense- -Marcus, interrupted Laura, I don't want to pull the plug. I just don't.

Marcus shrugged. -Okay. He looked at his watch. -I've still got time to catch the red-eye back to Boston. You staying, or ...

-G.o.d, no.

2. INTRODUCTION OF THE VILLAIN SVEN TRANSVOORT, UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, SEVERAL WEEKS AFTER THE KOREAN CHECK-CAs.h.i.+NG FIASCO.

My name is Sven Transvoort. Obviously, that's not my real name, but it's the one everyone who knows me thinks is my real name. Reason: it's actually my real name. See? I lied! I do that a lot. I am an inherently trustworthy person. I am, in a word, villainous, and I don't have to explain myself to you, or anyone, because for all you know I may be one of Hegel's world-historical individuals who doesn't have to play by the rules. Like Napoleon. I have certain things in common with Napoleon. I'm not French, this much is true. Not a military strategist, or an army man of any sort. In fact, guns make me nervous. If guns didn't make me nervous, there would not be much to this story, in fact. Because guns make me nervous, I am forced instead to rely on my cunning. On my devious nature. On my villainy. I'm pretty sure Napoleon, from what I've read, possessed a certain devious streak. And there are, to this day, countries who consider him villainous.

Consider this my confession. I brought Guy down, you see, I p.r.i.c.ked his pretty bubble. I don't feel guilty-but I do feel that if I don't say something I won't get the credit I deserve, if I don't speak up. The squeaky wheel gets the credit, or something, right? Am I right?

Guy didn't know me as Sven Transvoort, of course. He knew me by that name, but not as Sven Transvoort the guy who'd sell his own sister down the river for a nickel, whatever that means. He knew me as someone he trusted, which is to say he didn't know me at all. What kind of a fool would trust me? I wear a T-s.h.i.+rt with the name of a punk rock band called Reasonable Sleep five or six days out of the week. I have wild, curly dark hair, thick-lensed gla.s.ses, and a gut you can hide things in. Seriously. You can tuck three grapefruits in my belly fat, no problem.

On the other hand, I might be dangerously thin, a consequence of my ongoing battle with prescription painkillers that has no effect whatsoever on my work, on the quality of my work. I could be a computer engineer student at Caltech, also an artist, and while we're at it a gallery owner. It's just a little gallery, really just one room in Chinatown, but my loft s.p.a.ce downtown is pretty sumptuous. Certainly more so than you'd expect from a student/artist/small-time gallery owner. Or maybe I'm none of these things. Maybe I'm a private detective. Or a cop. Or a jewel thief. Or a product of Heidegger's "question of being," which both he and I believe to be the central question of our time, and may explain everything about what happened to Guy Forget. Or nothing.

I am, whoever I am, a dangerous character. I am the last person you would suspect. But I am the first person you should avoid. I hated Guy Forget with intensity, with white heat and black magic. I hated him from the moment I laid eyes on him. I would have done anything to bring him down, and I did.

The fulfillment of a life's ambition is rarely so sweet as the antic.i.p.ation of its fulfillment. I think that's a quote from the writer Fiat Lux, I don't know if you remember, the one who disappeared off the face of the earth a few years ago. Hardly anyone remembers her anymore.

What did Fiat Lux know? I used to wonder. I don't wonder anymore.

3. GUY AND HIS BEST FRIEND BILLY DRINKING IN A BAR LATE AT NIGHT, THREE DAYS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CAs.h.i.+NG FIASCO.

There's no dirt in this bar. It's very clean, said Guy.

-You say that like it's a bad thing, said his best friend of five years, Billy.

-It kind of is. You don't go to bars for hygiene.

-Well, no, obviously. But this is Los Angeles. Everything's clean.

-That's not true. There's a sheen of grit over the whole city, it gets into your pores even. I'll bet right now you have a body-dirt ratio of about nineteen percent.

-I took a shower before we came out.

-That's why it's so low. I didn't take a shower. My ratio's probably more like fifty-fifty.

-You're gross.

-Sure, blame the messenger.

Lucy, the bar maid, brought two pink drinks to the table, set them down, picking up the empties and the sodden napkins.

-Thanks, Lucy.

-Hey, Lucy, said Billy. -I got a new one. It's good.

Lucy rolled her eyes.

-Okay.

-Okay. Here goes. Hey, baby, your legs are so long I'd have to take a cab to kiss you.

-That's ...

-Taxi!

-Sorry about the mess, said Guy, nodding toward the tangle of melted drink straws in the center of the table.

-Pretty, said Lucy.

-It's art! said Billy. -It's straw art. Bring us more straws so that we can express our feelings with straws.

-Can we pay for our drinks with straw art? asked Guy.

-Someday it might be valuable.

-Since when do you guys pay for drinks? said Lucy, walking away.

-She has a point, said Billy.

-Okay.

-You want to try reading minds on some girls?

-Not tonight. It's too much effort.

-How is that too much effort? Anything that involves girls is worthwhile. That's a direct quote from your brain.

-I never said that.

-I said from your brain. Maybe I can read your mind.

-There aren't even any girls.

-What bar are you in?

-Your standards are appallingly low.

-Yes.

Lucy came back over to the table with a handful of drink straws.

-You can have these, but no more melting them in the candle. It stinks up the whole place.

-Guy was just telling me it's too clean in here. Weren't you just telling me that, Guy?

-I was just telling Billy that.

-If Gregory comes in I'll get yelled at and you guys will get thrown out.

-I'll handle Gregory, said Billy. -He won't throw us out. He's got a crush on me.

-You wish, said Guy.

-Just ... no melting, said Lucy.

She turned back to the bar.

-Without melting, there's really no point, said Billy, sadly.

-There's twisting and bending and fitting the end of one into the end of another, or the end of one into the other end of itself, creating a triangle, which can then be linked with other triangles.

-Yeah.

Guy drained his drink. The ice cubes clattered in his gla.s.s as he set it down.

-All right. I'll do mind reading. But only for one more drink. And you have to go get the girl.

Billy got up out of the banquette immediately, headed to a nearby table occupied by five drinking girls, where he pulled up a chair and engaged in a brief but intense conversation with an attractive young woman in a black dress. Her hair was dyed bright blond, and she made slits of her eyes as she listened to Billy.