Cut to Hawley and the faux Russian babe at le outdoor bistro, up comes the waiter—young Emil in a red bow tie, pressed white tux shirt, and black tux pants with the satin stripes, carrying a silver tray of espressos. My heart surged at the sight of him; I raised a hand to my mouth.
Cut to a private jet for no discernible reason.
Cut to Hawley letting the dame into the limo—classic flirtatious rock video back-glance. But no sooner does the limo door close, then we cut to them in bed, her naked back, his ecstatic face, still wearing sunglasses, she’s on top.
Then the door flies open and it’s…a bust of some sort—Feds, guys with cameras. The dame slips off Hawley wrapped in the sheet, revealing that he’s chained to the bed. Cameras flash, Feds throw a trench coat around the temptress and they’re gone, out the door, leaving Hawley Junior to thrash in slo-mo fade while the cameras flash.
I tried to tune my ears to the song, but in my drunky state, the volume and the spy flick conceit was so heavy, I could barely focus on it—the rhythm was assaultive, the riff forceful, manipulative, but even from my buzzed vantage, I knew it wasn’t the music that was bothering me; I’d already heard it. No—it was the whole operation, a change in sensibility, from the human to theatric, life to larger-than yet also thinner-than, teenage experience to false innocence, and in a flashing swell of rage I hated them for it, all of them, Bahari and the band, hated them for this—and for betraying Cinnamon. Then the video came to a close, the screen went white, Bahari went subdued. Without exchanging a single word, he’d taken in the full range of my disgust, like it was written all over my face.
“I helped them go large,” he said without apology.
“What…what does that mean?”
“It means I taught them to stop being cowards. I dared them to widen their scopes.”
I drank from my full goblet. I was for sure drunk now, unmoored. I didn’t want to be rude, but the wine had loosened my tongue. “Is that what you call that? A widened scope?”
“I gave them vision.”
“More like…” I gave him the drunky smirk and wiggled fingers. “You hypnotized them.”
“Hypnotize? Oh, you are a corny one, Adam. They came begging to be a part of all this, they were dying for success.”
“Yeah,” I said, “literally. So you, like, axed the drummer and sent the singer on his way.”
“They wanted the drummer out,” Bahari said, defensive now. “They said he could not keep time. And as for the singer—him I met. A totally unprofessional asshole. Or rather, what I should say is, he was a professional self-saboteur.” Bahari pointed at the white screen. “He would’ve buried their career right at the starting gate.”
“Who is singing on that thing anyway?”
“That’s Devon, with the aid of some effects. We couldn’t have Emil do harmonies, his accent was too strong—but his guitar playing was ben zonah.”
“What’s…ben zonah?”
“Hebrew—for son of a whore.”
“Is that some kind of badge of honor, to be ben zonah?”
“Absolutely. The son of a whore…doesn’t know from petty civilities. A son of a whore is a living byproduct of the bitterest truth—sexual hunger. Like the old song—born free, no unnatural code to uphold. Just life.” Bahari pointed at me. “Emil Elkaim had the life force by the balls.”
“Yeah, okay, I get it, I’ll change my name to ben zonah, but that”—I pointed at the screen—“sorry, but that was false, that was…” I was frenzied, really buzzed now—the homemade wine was some serious liquor. “A sellout.”
“You got it, kiddo. And that’s why I wanted you to see it. Because I understand your struggle. And your disappointment. Your heroes, your precious idols—well, I got bad news for you.” He pulled his bathrobe closed like a trial lawyer. “They were desperate to sell out. And had Emil not gotten caught up in all that ugliness, they would have succeeded.” He looked up at the blank screen. “You know, I was furious at first—all my plans, my hopes. After all, I made them, invested. I owned them, contract and all. And I could have sued the shit out of them—”
“So why didn’t you?”
But Bahari wasn’t listening, he was fiddling with the remote. The red velvet curtain came down slow and smooth. Then he turned to me in a gearshift down to grim.
“The real question is,” he said, “why do you care about this band so much? After all, Daily Telegraph is before your time, isn’t it? How old are you, anyway?”
“Thirty-seven.”
“You’re a pup. And the truth is I am really very moved that you want so badly to understand all this. Don’t forget, I knew Emil Elkaim.” He drank and I took another sip—the wine was deeper, stronger in the second round. “Emil is not a figment to me—the thought of his living being still tears me apart in the middle of the night. Sometimes I think that’s what’s strangest—not that he died, but that he ever lived.”
“I do know what you mean, Doctor,” I said, sounding buzzed and desperate. “That’s why I’m searching for the truth.”
“Of course. But…if I had to guess, Adam, I would say that you and I look at the-search-for-the-truth differently. See, there is one thing of which I’m certain—” His voice went bolder, direct. “In order to understand whatever happened to Emil Elkaim, you are going to have to understand what happened to Adam Zantz.”
“Well—”
“No, not well. Yes. To look at yourself, see yourself. That is your final truth, Adam, be certain of it.”
“With all due respect, Doc, I didn’t come here for therapy. I—”
“God, I hate that word—therapy. I never practiced therapy. Hand lotion is therapy. Massage is therapy. I’m in the business of helping people take the lunge toward reality—and that’s something you can use.”
“Okay, but—”
“No, hold on, hear me out. You didn’t just magically appear on my property. Uh-uh. You brought yourself to this place. You made a decision—to climb up or maybe fall down to the truth. Okay, it’s admirable. But in the end, this isn’t about Emil or his band or his father, it can’t be. It’s about you.”
After a long pause, I said, “About me?”
He nodded comically.
“Fine,” I said, “it’s about me. I buy it.”
The stentorian voice let out a goofy laugh-squeal that was part Egyptian, part Brooklyn. “I am glad you do. Because you don’t look like a dick to me, a private eye. A real private eye is always…outside reality. Fact, that’s what a snooper is—a kind of peeper, a coward on the fringes. But you’re right in the middle of this one, kiddo.”
“I am?”
