her—”
“Fine,” said Aaron. “Two Bens and a General Grant.”
Stokes sighed. “I’ll never get the moment back. Hold on.”
Ninety seconds later, he returned to the line, voice clearer. “You’re getting a bargain, dude. And I don’t want to be associated with any part of this. No matter how many dead prezzes show up for the party.”
“Who owns the house?” said Aaron.
“You don’t know?”
“If I knew, why would I be calling
you?”
“Verification,” said Henry.
“I can’t verify something I don’t know, Hank. And as you always remind me, I can always drive down to that moldy archive you guys keep and find out myself—”
“Not exactly,” said Henry. “This case, you drive down and paw through the ledgers what you’re gonna learn is that the deed is owned by a holding company called Malibu Sunset Trust. And that’s
all
you’re gonna learn.”
“You, on the other hand, know that…”
“Aaron, you really need to promise me this isn’t going to go anywhere public. And that you
don’t
tape.”
“I promise,” said Aaron.
“I mean it, dude.”
“I
promise
.”
Henry said, “The tax trail leads from this Malibu Sunset outfit to Vision Associates, Inc., of Beverly Hills to Newport Management Trust, then clear out of state. Seven Stars Management, Las Vegas.”
“Your basic paper chain,” said Aaron. “Now give me a person.”
Henry breathed hard.
“Vegas,” said Aaron. “You’re worried about some mob thing? Don’t sweat it, the place is all corporate now. People in stretch pants and Bermuda shorts lining up at the buffet.”
Henry said, “Lem Dement.”
Aaron checked his own surprise. His mind swelled and pulsed and raced.
Henry said, “Now’m going back to sleep, maybe if I really behave, Paris and Kathy will show up again. Hey, maybe the sister, whatsher-name, will also put her little—”
Aaron hung up and switched off the voice-activated tape recorder.
The Internet could be Aaron’s best friend, but with someone like Lem Dement, overkill could render his computer useless.
A single jab at the
Enter
button flushed out page after page of blogo-crap.
He started with Wikipedia and fanned out.
Lemuel Houston Dement, born in Flint, Michigan, fifty-four years ago, had been raised by a UAW organizer and a Ford Motor secretary, both admirers of Trotsky. Houston and Althea Dement despised capitalism on general principles, loathed their respective jobs in specific, raised their only child with a borderline-paranoid worldview.
Taught that school was just another bourgeois trap, young Lem obliged with chronic misbehavior and rotten grades that belied his IQ. A month after high school graduation he was riveting axle bolts on the Ford assembly line. Ten months of that lit up the
Exit
sign in his head and he gave community college a try. Decent grades enabled a transfer to Wayne State, studying sociology for three years, then transferring to U. Mich-Ann Arbor, where he talked his way into the film school. Once in, he chased women, smoked dope and dropped acid, did minimal work, barely passed.
Cursed with a sluggish metabolism that heaped on pounds, and a face reminiscent of a boiled potato, Dement was compensated with a sour yet strangely appealing charisma that made him moderately successful with women, a gift for dialogue and the ready quip, and, most important, an innate understanding of how to lie with a camera. Nearly thirty and broke, he slept with the right woman and lucked into a gig directing industrial safety training loops.
By day, he shot his close-ups of snarling machinery spliced with stock footage of mangled limbs. Nights were spent on his art: pseudo-documentaries starring friends and neighbors that highlighted the malevolence of Every Corporation.
In a
New York Times
interview, years later, Dement described those days: “I never spent a second in therapy but I sure understood my true motivation: My parents thought what I did was fascist-lackey
“Fine,” said Aaron. “Two Bens and a General Grant.”
Stokes sighed. “I’ll never get the moment back. Hold on.”
Ninety seconds later, he returned to the line, voice clearer. “You’re getting a bargain, dude. And I don’t want to be associated with any part of this. No matter how many dead prezzes show up for the party.”
“Who owns the house?” said Aaron.
“You don’t know?”
“If I knew, why would I be calling
you?”
“Verification,” said Henry.
“I can’t verify something I don’t know, Hank. And as you always remind me, I can always drive down to that moldy archive you guys keep and find out myself—”
“Not exactly,” said Henry. “This case, you drive down and paw through the ledgers what you’re gonna learn is that the deed is owned by a holding company called Malibu Sunset Trust. And that’s
all
you’re gonna learn.”
“You, on the other hand, know that…”
“Aaron, you really need to promise me this isn’t going to go anywhere public. And that you
don’t
tape.”
“I promise,” said Aaron.
“I mean it, dude.”
“I
promise
.”
Henry said, “The tax trail leads from this Malibu Sunset outfit to Vision Associates, Inc., of Beverly Hills to Newport Management Trust, then clear out of state. Seven Stars Management, Las Vegas.”
“Your basic paper chain,” said Aaron. “Now give me a person.”
Henry breathed hard.
“Vegas,” said Aaron. “You’re worried about some mob thing? Don’t sweat it, the place is all corporate now. People in stretch pants and Bermuda shorts lining up at the buffet.”
Henry said, “Lem Dement.”
Aaron checked his own surprise. His mind swelled and pulsed and raced.
Henry said, “Now’m going back to sleep, maybe if I really behave, Paris and Kathy will show up again. Hey, maybe the sister, whatsher-name, will also put her little—”
Aaron hung up and switched off the voice-activated tape recorder.
The Internet could be Aaron’s best friend, but with someone like Lem Dement, overkill could render his computer useless.
A single jab at the
Enter
button flushed out page after page of blogo-crap.
He started with Wikipedia and fanned out.
Lemuel Houston Dement, born in Flint, Michigan, fifty-four years ago, had been raised by a UAW organizer and a Ford Motor secretary, both admirers of Trotsky. Houston and Althea Dement despised capitalism on general principles, loathed their respective jobs in specific, raised their only child with a borderline-paranoid worldview.
Taught that school was just another bourgeois trap, young Lem obliged with chronic misbehavior and rotten grades that belied his IQ. A month after high school graduation he was riveting axle bolts on the Ford assembly line. Ten months of that lit up the
Exit
sign in his head and he gave community college a try. Decent grades enabled a transfer to Wayne State, studying sociology for three years, then transferring to U. Mich-Ann Arbor, where he talked his way into the film school. Once in, he chased women, smoked dope and dropped acid, did minimal work, barely passed.
Cursed with a sluggish metabolism that heaped on pounds, and a face reminiscent of a boiled potato, Dement was compensated with a sour yet strangely appealing charisma that made him moderately successful with women, a gift for dialogue and the ready quip, and, most important, an innate understanding of how to lie with a camera. Nearly thirty and broke, he slept with the right woman and lucked into a gig directing industrial safety training loops.
By day, he shot his close-ups of snarling machinery spliced with stock footage of mangled limbs. Nights were spent on his art: pseudo-documentaries starring friends and neighbors that highlighted the malevolence of Every Corporation.
In a
New York Times
interview, years later, Dement described those days: “I never spent a second in therapy but I sure understood my true motivation: My parents thought what I did was fascist-lackey
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