Something for Nothing by David Anthony Page B

his comedy albums, or maybe on Johnny Carson. It didn’t matter—it was better hearing it live. He hadn’t been able to see the guy Rickles had targeted, but he could just imagine the look on his face. Martin had practiced the look he’d have on his own face if Rickles chose him. It wasn’t one of those big, stupid smiles. No, he’d just sort of fold his arms and chuckle, nodding, as if saying “Okay, okay, you got me.” Rickles would like that better, he thought. A little more self-contained—that was always better.
    Val’s house was in the foothills. It was built into a steep part of the hillside on three different levels—very modern and Frank Lloyd Wrightish. Sunken rooms, big windows, high ceilings—the works. The view from the living room was really nice, especially at night, when you could see the lights of Pleasanton (and the fair when it was under way in the summer). Linda loved the place. She really went for the “nice lines,” as she put it, and the slick furniture.
    Martin liked Val’s house, too, though he’d predicted more than once that the whole thing was going to come sliding down the hill someday, after the next big earthquake hit the Bay Area.
    â€œBefore the year 2000,” he’d say to Linda. “Mark my words.”
    â€œOkay, Martin,” she’d say. “If you say so.”
    He knew she thought he was jealous of Val and his house . . . and maybe he was. But he really did think that someday a huge quake was going to show up people like Val, who had their houses perched in impossible places, hanging there as if in defiance of gravity (to say nothing of the San Andreas Fault).
    However cool and modern Val’s house was, Martin was actually most taken by the eucalyptus trees. They surrounded the house and ran throughout the whole of his property. He had about twenty acres. It was split into two parcels, one at street level, where he kept most of the horses that he worked with, and then another section up higher, on a sort of plateau that was either natural or that had undergone some serious grading at some point. This was where his house was, and where he did a lot of training work with the horses. All of it had a forestlike feel, but not the kind you got up at Tahoe, surrounded by pine trees, or maybe in Muir Woods, surrounded by 200-plus-foot redwoods. This was different. Val had explained to Martin the way eucalyptus trees had been imported to California from Australia as a possible substitute for pine trees and redwoods, and whenever he went to Val’s, Martin felt as if he were stepping into a kind of exotic forest. The long, thin eucalyptus leaves were all over the ground, some in piles one or two feet high, and they smelled incredibly sweet, almost like some sort of spice.
    Martin drove up and parked just past the carport and next to the big wire fence that ran along the house—around the pool and lawn area, reaching back to a couple of work sheds just shy of the stables. Val had put the fence in a few years ago to keep his scary 190-pound Great Dane from attacking unsuspecting guests. Its name was Rex. It was one of those tiger-striped things. And it was huge—easily the biggest dog Martin had ever seen. He’d seen it stand and put its paws on Val’s shoulders, and when it did, it was taller than Val.
    The dog was also vicious. Martin had heard over and over that Great Danes were gentle, but that was a bunch of bullshit, at least when it came to this dog. When Martin or anyone else came to the house, it barked and slathered and generally made it clear that it wanted to bite your face off. Val had told Martin about the time the dog had actually gone through a sliding glass door after some landscaper who’d been teasing it. According to Val (who heard it from the landscaper’s boss, who’d heard it from another worker who’d been right there), the guy thought the dog couldn’t