“What, you just walked into a house where she was?” She paused, and I was stunned to realize she was wondering whether to believe me. “This sounds like Doctor Steel’s synchronicity control.”
“Yeah, he was there outside the house, trying to act like my mentor while he sends every sicko in the country after me.”
“When did this happen?”
“I just escaped them a few minutes ago. In fact, I should probably get out of this parking lot in case they’re hunting for me.”
“What? Get off the phone then. Call me when you’re safe. Deets, I’m so scared. Maybe I’m just a coward for not going with you.”
“Nope, don’t believe that. You’re the reason I keep pushing through this mess. I just want to get back to you, Teresa.” Feeling imprisoned by an ache for her and a duty enforced by Pan and his rivals, I opened the glass and steel folding door and took a breath of sea air. Doubt was vibrating through my veins instead of blood. To never see her again. To fail a god whose methods and plans were unfathomable. What happened if I couldn’t achieve my own or the universe’s goals for me?
“Please deposit seventy-five cents for one minute.”
A faint goodbye. A click.
My head felt heavy. I was regretful about prices being paid—about Teresa gone again.
But I could hear Pan’s flute nearby. It played a persistent melody that danced over the nearby sounds of the surf.
Ray found me sitting on the beach. He had my knapsack over his shoulder and a bottle of Pepsi for me. I recognized he was a person to be trusted, but I feared for him. Too many people who had hung out with me ended up with their life threatened sooner or later.
He pointed to silent shapes gliding and diving just past where the small waves were curling.
“Dolphins.”
There must have been two hundred of them, dipping rhythmically through the moonlit water. We watched in awed silence for about forty-five minutes as they moved northwards.
But I saw a pair of fins on a thinner body moving in the midst of them. Fish Man. With Monkey Man up in the hills and Doctor Steel back in action, I knew they were rallying just as they had in the Andes. Something major was going to happen. I climbed up some rocks and looked across the highway to the diner’s parking lot. Sheoblask’s eyes smoldered behind the steering wheel of the demon Cadillac now idling there.
Ray sensed my apprehension. “Trouble?”
“You wouldn’t believe how much.”
“Dangerous?”
“Probably not tonight, and I’ve got back-up around somewhere. Ray, look through my drawings for the creature on the collapsed bridge.”
“Yeah, I saw it.”
“That’s who’s in that car.”
Ray’s expression surprised me. I expected him to laugh or scream in terror, or tell me I was crazy or hallucinating, maybe try to talk me through a rough part of my trip, but instead he grinned recklessly. “I’ll get my car, pick you up, and you can crash at my place. In the morning, I’ll introduce you to Mister Mandrake.”
“Mandrake, like in magician?”
“No, but he’ll think you’re one when he sees your art.”
Chapter 26
I called Teresa collect from a phone booth near Ray’s apartment. She said she hadn’t gone back to sleep, and I told her I was coming down off of my trip.
“Crazy bunch of nuts forced acid on me, then tried to kill me. Kind of stupid to waste a tab if they were just going to kill me anyway. This Ray guy seems okay. I get good vibes from him. I was thinking how many people or spirits or cartoons or whatever they are, are watching out for me. Amelia, Pigeon, and Jenny have all provided me with help or information. Fish Man and Monkey Man seem to be guarding my flank, and Johnny gave his life for me to have a chance of survival. Tonight, some guy in a cowboy hat just happens to be on a stretch of road to save me from crashing, and this Ray is right behind me to help when I finally do crash. Then there were the frog people in the Ohio River, and even Doctor Steel has finally explained what’s happening to me. And, most of all, there’s you.” My breath caught. I brushed at a wet spot under one eye. “I regret so much how much I’ve hurt you.”
“Just stay alive, do what you have to do, and then we’ll talk. Frog people?”
“They pulled me...” And I told her most everything that had happened to me since we had bought the VW. I guiltily left out Audrey even though I imagined Dan was probably sleeping right next to Teresa as we talked.
“So you’ve been following a path that, though your own, Steel and others can manipulate. It’s odd, I mean Pigeon has been around the Village for years.”
“Well, their perception is obviously different than your average earthling. I might have been subconsciously signaling I was going to check out Monster Alley long before I arrived in New York. I can’t wrap my head around the whole time-bizarreness. I mean, the tunnel mess is connected to a pigeon blowing up four hundred years ago and some sainted woman staggering onto a beach. What’s that about? The way the insanity is explained, time itself hasn’t been affected, just the gods ability to jump where they want to throughout eternity. But whatever, that’s what steered me to Venezuela, then onto your mountain dream, and to finding your dad living in the same river valley as Pan.”
“Seems ordained. They don’t do things simply, these gods and immortals, do they?”
“Simple, no way. I mean Doctor Steel is checking me out by seeing what happens when someone tries to kill me.”
“Or rape and kill me.”
And we both knew that Poconos weekend had been the beginning of strengthening our love while at the same time the impetus to the unravelling of our relationship. Yes, we loved each other. But the recklessness that had grown inside us in the healing from that horror had ended up destroying our path together.
I tried to absolve our shared pain with some witticism that sounded lame. “But we showed them that night. You’d think Steel’s exams would have just stopped then.”
“I still hear the gun going off. I wish I could get it out of my mind.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your doing. You saved me. Don’t apologize. I love you more for how you reacted. Wait, hold on.”
I heard a clinking sound. “What’s going on?”
“I’m painting. Just have to clean my brush.”
“What are you painting?”
“It’s a watercolor. The room’s kind of dark with just this bedroom lamp, but I just couldn’t sit up and worry for you.”
“What’s the subject?”
“That jaguar that guided you up the mountain to my Dad. She’s on a jungle mountain path, looking dangerous but surrounded by beautiful flowers. She must be one of those creatures watching out for you.”
“Sounds cool.”
“The flowers are open, facing skyward. I’m trying to suggest they’re prayers.”
I was stunned. It never occurred to me that Teresa prayed for me. “Wish I was there with you.”
“And Deets, don’t forget the dog who shadows you. Don’t lose sight of her. The others may be watching your every move, but she’s loyalty.”
“Are you going to do a painting of her?”
She didn’t answer. I heard the paintbrush clink against glass.
“I guess I better call my family.”
“Do it now, don’t worry about the time. It’ll be dawn here soon.” She yawned. “One other thing.”
“What?”
“That girl, Audrey, that you spent a few weeks in a tent with? She came to see me in February.”
“Audrey? She’s alive?”
“Yes, she survived. She thought you had drowned. She traveled to New York to meet me. She had her child with her and told me how much you helped her by sharing your story with her. She explained how important it was that you had only
told it to me before, and that fact made her feel loved more than anything else in her life. So please, in the future just tell me the complete story of what happens to you. Otherwise, how am I really going to be able to help you? Leaving your time with her out is crucial, Deets. I understand why you did. I have my own secrets, but I’m not out there on some god’s errand. I mean, I’m on your side too, along with Monkey Man and the others. When you don’t tell me you helped this girl, no matter what else you two were doing, it not only hurts, it interferes with me trying to understand what’s happening with you. These adventures of yours are not easy to digest and analyze, but just tell me anyway, if you value my input.”
“I was ashamed. It was freaking me out. The whole mess felt all wrong.”
“Well, you’re always screwing yourself up with women. She’s very schizoid, very forthcoming. Didn’t leave out a detail. Let’s forget that. The reason I brought this up was to ask you if the Shadow Creature was around. It always appears at a healing of some kind.”
“Yeah, it told me to love her with honesty instead of just...uh, indulging in our crazies.”
An edge of irritation crept into Teresa’s voice. “How can you not tell me then? How can you not be honest with me? The Shadow Creature is essential. Pan’s family doesn’t know about it, Sheoblask doesn’t. The only reason I want to believe why you didn’t tell me is maybe you think the less I know, the chances that some demon enemy of yours will bother me aren’t as high. But I know that isn’t true. Not this time.”
“Of course I try to protect you from the creeps that bug me. And yeah, I think the shadow spirit’s information is like a blank hole that only I can see. I just didn’t want to hurt you by mentioning what happened between me and Audrey. If I had told you the Shadow Creature had appeared, I would’ve had to tell you it came to me with advice on how to heal her.”
Something snapped in the line between New York and Los Angeles, causing me to jerk the phone away from my ear. I brought it cautiously back to listen.
“I know that. So don’t worry next time. That’s not the point anymore.” Her voice was constrained, but I knew her well enough to hear the fury underlying it.
“What do you mean?”
“Just go. Go find Sam. Have your fling with her and whoever she’s shacked up with. Pan isn’t placing his bets on you because you’re a saint. A saint would’ve been as honest with me as he was when storytelling in his little tent.”
“It wasn’t a betrayal of you.”
“Oh, spare me. That’s all you do.”
“Teresa, what is wrong with us? We’ve spent two days together in the last year and a half and we’re still hung up on each other.” Right then, I should’ve let her respond or said goodbye or told her I was bagging everything and returning to New York. But I didn’t. “We’ve both been with other people. You said you wanted me to leave, that maybe you’d go to England with Dan.”
“You were in that girl’s pants before I’d even had a moment where I wasn’t thinking about you.”
“I never know how I’m going to end up helping someone.”
“Oh, listen to yourself. Just be a human like the rest of us when you fuck someone.”
“Stop it. I didn’t mean it that way. I was wrong, weak, didn’t know how to help.”
“So you convinced yourself she needed you to ball her as her great savior. Christ, Deets, she’s not only deeply disturbed, she’s a dimwit too.”
“You say one thing like you understand and are okay about her or Sam, then freak out all about it.”
When she answered, the phone began to bubble and melt in my hand from her heat that had just seared three thousand miles of wire.
“You can help me best by just leaving me alone next time you resurrect from the dead. Don’t bother calling or jumping in bed with me.”
And she hung up.
Los Angeles seemed a lonely place at three in the morning.
The call to my parents ended on a happier note, but I didn’t tell them the detailed truth either. Rescued downriver and trapped in a backwoods winter cabin was a good enough explanation to send them into jubilation. I promised to write them regularly. Stephanie cried and laughed and screamed with joy. I answered my dad’s questions about escaping from Bellevue, but he never mentioned any police investigations about nurse Pumpkin being attacked, so maybe I was in the clear about that. I could feel his lecture had been put off to the future and that thankfulness and relief choked his words. My mother told me I should stop galavanting around the world and getting into trouble and blubbered that she never doubted that I wasn’t still alive.
“It’s like that time your kindergarten teacher thought you had disappeared, and the principal was apologizing to me as the police arrived to begin a search. I just looked around the room and opened the art supply cupboard. There you were, curled up, sleeping with a box of crayons pulled up to your heart. I knew this time you were out there somewhere, probably lost in your drawing.”
Chapter 27
Mandrake’s Folly was an art gallery on Sunset Boulevard. My rescuer, Ray, was a graphic designer who worked part-time for Mister Mandrake.
After laying out my work on a large worktable, Mandrake stuck a cigarette, a Kool, into a long thin holder and asked, “So Mister Deets Parker, where do you come from, do you know how awful you smell, and why do you accessorize your hair with twigs?”
“New York. I guess the stink is from standing under the New Mexican and Arizonian sun. I just hitched across the country and haven’t bathed since the mountains of Tennessee.” I picked at my hair, crumbled a dry leaf in my fingers. “Twigs or leaves or branches seem to sprout from my head at least once a year.”
The artwork had held up from the cross country trip, Cranston’s thievery, and the motorcycle wreck better than I had. A few of the drawings had creased edges but, all in all, they were clean and still taped to their tracing paper protective sheets.
Mandrake wanted seven of my pieces to offer to some local clients and proposed sending the rest to his gallery in San Francisco where he had available wall space for a show in June.
Used to doing business with Daisy, I told him the Hoodoo Gallery would sometimes take care of my framing and asked if he could do the same. We haggled, finally settling on a deal where Ray would do the framing for the show through the gallery. Mandrake also guaranteed me a loan to be deducted from my sales.
After we had negotiated, we went to a local tavern for lunch. I took a bite of a tuna sandwich and watched as the bartender turned off the radio behind him and fiddled with something under the counter. Suddenly the room was filled with a choir bellowing.
“God save our gracious Queen
Long live our noble Queen
God save the Queen
Send her victorious
Happy and glorious
Long to reign over us
God save the Queen”
A door to a back room opened, and a few men came out and sat at the bar. Then two guys came in the front door, walked through the place, pausing to look over Mandrake, Ray, and myself.
Cops.
They sauntered over to the bartender and ordered beers. After about fifteen minutes, they left.
The music stopped. The volume of conversation leaped. Two men jumped off their bar stools, hooked arms, and kicked up their legs rockette-style, flashing the peace sign and ending their lively dance with a kiss on each other’s lips. Most of the people in the place hooted and laughed at the performance. The bartender produced a silver boa, wrapped it around his neck, poured himself a shot-glass of some pink liquid, and raised his glass to his customers.
I scratched the top of my head as I processed this celebration into the realization that I was in a bar for homosexuals.
Mandrake looked at me with an air of insolent expectation. He waited for my reaction but didn’t care what it was goin
g to be.
I leaned across the table and whispered, “You may be able to help me.”
Mandrake arched his eyebrows, blew a thin stream of smoke at me. “I know you and I are not from the same planet, so what do you mean?”
I told them about Sam. Mandrake’s attitude was Los Angeles was a big city and why bother, anyway, to find the child until after it had grown past the potty training stage. I pulled out my sketch pad, visualized Sam in my mind’s eye, and while Ray and Mandrake ate, I drew a satisfactory likeness of her.
Ray gushed, “She’s a beautiful girl. She shouldn’t be hard to recognize when dressed as a man.”
Mandrake studied the drawing, his eyes flickering from the paper to me, then back again. Finally he handed the portrait to Ray. “Get copies made, then send them out through the network with the message that I need her to model. Deets, as payment for my help, I keep the original. But realize, it’s a big city, and you have no sure way of knowing she’s even here. My suggestion to you is, search for your dyke sweetheart for a week or two, then if you don’t make a connection, hire a private dick to go through birth records, telephone lists, diaper purchases, whatever.”
“Okay, I’ll have to find someplace to stay.”
“We can’t have you wandering the streets. I get the awful feeling you are trouble, but you can stay in the room above the gallery, for say, four months, if we agree that I get an extra fifteen percent commission on the seven drawings I don’t send to San Francisco.”
“You pay for the framing of those seven and front the money for a detective.”
“Done. Welcome to the city of angel’s neighborhood of fairies.”
My front window overlooked the wide boulevard. A palm tree partially blocked my view, but I set up a large panel of plywood with a three by eight-foot sheet of cotton rag paper taped to it and worked on a rendition of tar and brick and sidewalk cracks, manhole covers and awnings, neon lights and overhanging signs.
As I drew, the inhabitants outside jumped into my drawing.
Miracles (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 3) Page 16