“Have some more of my sauce, Lauren.”
I gladly took a few more tablespoons of it.
“Good girl,” Gabri said as I finished my last morsels of meat. “Seems like brain matter agrees with you.”
I laughed, but as odd as this sounds I can not remember hearing any laughter.
I cleared my throat. It didn’t work.
“Take a sip of wine, my dear. You look pale,” Gabri said.
I reached for the stemware. My hand trembled so fiercely the red wine sprinkled across my white blouse.
Gabri lifted the wine glass from my hand and then took me by my arm. Strong. She pulled me from the chair and lifted me to her sofa. I remember she wrapped an afghan over my trembling arms and legs.
“I think I need a doctor,” I moaned.
“Yes, of course you do. How about I call your good friend Dr. Coal?”
I shook my head.
“All good things must come to pass,” she said. “As for me and my cousin, boy, did we ever have one helluva good ride.”
I tried to reach for my face to wipe away tears that weren’t there. My arms didn’t move.
“He’s quite a talent, you know. A great therapist, a great artist”.
She nodded toward the kitchen painting of her grotesque nude body. “If you look closely at the painting Nathan’s signature is plain and clear. But he’s such a trickster. I mean, he knew no one would dare look too closely.
“And he’s an all around great cousin. Second cousin, to be honest.
“I understand you’ve met Gramps. That can’t be good.”
Chapter Ninety
Friends
“COAL?” I CROAKED the word. His name.
“Oh darling. Yes. Harlan Coal, and before that something else and before that something else. I can’t keep track anymore. I’ve always known him as my Nathan.”
Nathan Judd. Harlan Coal. All spinning words.
“Armand’s the one who got us into trouble, you know. That idiot couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. He was nothing but a dogsbody. Great journalist that you are, do you know what that means?”
I tried to shake my head but only shuddered.
“I didn’t think so. Armand was the guy that did the dirty work. The grunge work. The shit work, really. He did clean up some messes. Big ones. That girlfriend of yours in Tucson. Smart cookie, that one. She found out what was going on and Armand took over to—well—clean up the mess.
“And he was a great toxicologist. I’ve borrowed some of his tricks, as you can see.”
That was a great problem. I couldn’t see anything but a kaleidoscope of color. It reminded me of the rainbow wrapping on the gift I thought Geoff had sent me. The gift that proved to be a decoy to my attention.
Geoff. I needed him. I needed his Obeah Voodoo grandmother and I called for her in my mind. My eyes fell to the floor and then I did see clearly. I saw the tattoo on Gabri’s left ankle. It was the same Chinese symbol of friendship Carly, Sterling and I wore on our left ankles.
Gabri caught my stare, I think. She continued with what was her soliloquy; her back now turned to me. “I wanted to be your friend, Lauren. Your good friend. I was so jealous of all you girls. You’re all so bubbly and pretty and smart. Well, except Carly. I don’t think that one was so smart. You inspired me. I hated the vermin of people you wrote about. Sometimes I think I hated them more than you.
“Don’t you see that’s why I did it? That’s why I had to do all of it. I took up your causes. I got rid of the bad guys for you.”
I heard new words as if they were coming from inside my throat. Since my lips could barely mouth words any more I knew this not to be true.
“The potion is in you. You took it. It lives in you. It resides in your heart. You will live, and tomorrow you will awaken with a new dream that is forever yours.”
The imagined voice faded. I felt it fade.
Gabri whipped around holding a large knife. Large enough to be a sword, I thought. The glare from its bright surface further blinded me.
“Armand is gone. Nathan will disappear again, and that leaves just you and me. It’s time for my fairytale to end and for your nightmare to begin. You see, the only way to end this is to end you. By ending your life, I can put an end to my madness.
“My name is Moon Blade. At least it is in my beloved fairytale. Oh, to tell you more. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm weren’t even close to penning a real grim fairytale. I own that market, not that little children should read my fairytale.”
Moon Blade? Grimm’s fairytales? My body collapsed to the floor, kneaded and knotted like a pretzel yet to bake. A puddle of twisted dough.
Gabriella used my weakness to her advantage. From her pocket she wielded a roll of duct tape. She carved off a piece with the knife and secured it around my mouth. Pulling more from the roll, she then bound my wrists together.
“I’d ask you if you have any more questions because you deserve to know but I guess you can’t ask,” she cackled.
“All good things must come to an end. You, my dear, are a very good thing. Now don’t mind me, if you have a mind left at all. I just want to start by whacking off that pretty red hair of yours.”
Chapter Ninety-One
Fairytales
MY LEGS REMAINED free, if only they could rise up and kick or even move. They failed me. I saw the gleaming blade coming at me from all sides as Gabriella yanked at my hair and slashed at the roots. She seemed to squeal a few times when she took a chunk of scalp with her cuttings.
“Oh, and don’t let’s forget that cute little belly piercing of yours,” Gabri said. “I know. Real diamonds. That Sterling is some good friend of yours. Only in L.A. would a woman hide four carats of diamonds under her clothes.
“I suppose I could get one. My stomach has shrunk but the skin is folded over like some kind of origami. Folds and folds of it…” Gabri’s voice fell into a hushing lullaby.
And then she screamed.
“It’s ludicrous. Wasteful. Do you know how many starving children those diamonds in your flat belly could feed? Why the hell didn’t you write about yourself and your wastefulness? Your selfishness?”
She pulled at my arms until I lay flat on my back. She yanked at my blouse, tearing at the buttons, and then she yielded her weapon again, carving out the jewelry with precision. Almost as if with care.
I writhed in pain and only a muffled moan but this time I heard it. I heard me dying.
“Come on,” Gabri puffed. “I can’t leave you here to bloody up my beautiful living room. No good home can sell with blood on the damn floor. Get to your feet,” she yelled.
My raw pretzel body didn’t obey.
“I told you I was strong. I’ll fucking drag you by the stubs of hair you have left,” she yelled. ‘We’re going to try the moat for you. I’ve let my beloved Shubunkin fish go to the new piranhas. An experiment that worked beautifully. If my piranhas don’t take care of you in time, the acid bath will.”
My hair lay in puddles of color beside me. Red hair and red blood. And Gabri couldn’t get a grip. She had nothing to drag me by until she finally grabbed my bound arms.
Together those arms had energy. I thrashed at her. I tried to knock her off balance.
She held tight and brought me up to my wobbling knees.
“Stupid bitch,” she said. “I’ll just have to clean up after you.”
The doors burst open. Gabri’s sentry—her suit of armor—was no match for the fury in Detective Wray’s eyes and no match for the Glock pointed at Gabri’s heart.
“Gabriella Criscione. It’s over. Toss that knife to the ground or you’re a dead woman.”
Gabri froze, not moving the knife now in carving position at my neck.
“You’ve miscalculated me and my motives,” she said. “I think I’m good and gone and most ready to die.”
She looked down at me and said, “It’s the end of my fairytale, right, Lauren?”
Detective Wray didn’t fire. He move
d in, but not before the knife slashed at his face.
The blow came from behind me. I saw the knife careen to the floor, but Gabri had told me my nightmare would only begin. I saw the black leather gloves.
The man at my front porch with the wolf-dog! He had come to finish me off.
Gabri slumped to the floor, her head cracking as it hit the top of her nautiloid cocktail table.
Detective Wray, now with only a whisper, “I should have known you’d be stupid enough to show up here.”
The gloved hand reached for my mouth, pulling my body into his wrath.
“Shhhh. It’s over. It’s all over,” Brock said as he gently removed the duct tape from my mouth and hands, and then cradled me forever.
I collapsed in his arms, and I slept.
Chapter Ninety-Two
Priorities
BUZZING AND BELLS and even voices tried to enter my dream, but they were not allowed.
I am running through a jungle. The hungry Tiger is chasing me. I scream. I cry. I run faster. I pray and scream aloud to God to spare my life but God doesn’t answer me.
After grueling hours of pain and loss of limbs and vision, I asked of God, “Where were you? I needed you. You almost let me die!”
The Higher Power, or whatever it was, cast hurt eyes upon me and spoke.
“You were looking for me to be somewhere out there in front of you. You were calling for me from outside of your being. If you’d only come looking for me where I reside inside your heart, think how much faster I could have arrived for I was with you all the time.”
The nurse gently pulled at my arm. “You’re awake, Ms. Visconti.”
Brock stirred from the nearby chair where he was sleeping. His old injured shoulder and now his arm, bandaged.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
The nurse responded to me. “You’re in the hospital. We admitted you overnight for observation. You took some good gashes to the head but you’ll be fine. There’s no sign of any concussion. As soon as we can get the paperwork ready you can leave this joint.”
DETECTIVE WRAY HAD his cops all over LAX and all flights going to Wichita, direct or indirect. He even advised the authorities to cover John Wayne International, just in case. All highway patrolmen had a headshot and a make and model of a car. A name was useless, Wray deduced. He could be anyone today and someone new tomorrow.
The call came in at four o’clock that afternoon. Nathan Judd, a.k.a. Dr. Harlan Coal, had been apprehended at the bus station.
Still hooked up to machines in the E.R., Wray began his own discharge by pulling out the I.V. and shimmying into his khaki pants.
Brock and I pulled the curtains surrounding his bed in time to see him zipping up his privates.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I asked.
“Well, look at you and your new do,” Wray said, responding to the sight of my now shaved head wrapped in bandages.
“Lauren’s going to bring the turban look back into style,” Brock said as he held his own bandaged shoulder near to his chest.
“Seriously,” I said. “You can’t just leave here.”
“The hell I can’t,” Wray retorted. “I only took two slashes to the face, right next to the old ones. The nurses tell me if I can get me one more I could have myself a W branded on my face in keloid scars.”
“Will that stand for Wray or wrangler or just weird?” I joked.
Detective Wray laughed and reached for his shirt. “I gotta get myself down to the station. Seems I have a half-assed would-be psycho-shrink taking a room there courtesy of us tax payers. The fucking bus station. Clever little bastard thought he could slip his royal ass out in a bus.”
“We’ve heard. It’s all over the news,” Brock said. “I can’t talk Lauren out of going down and seeing the schmuck for herself.”
“Well, damn it! I sure can!” Wray said. “She has something far bigger and better to do.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
Wray gestured to the bed table as he tucked his shirt in and fiddled with his belt. “Grab that yellow note pad. Take a look at the second page.”
I found a name and an address. Anthony S. Find of Mount Laguna, California.
“It’s about an hour or so east of San Diego. Last time I knew anything the population was at about sixty people,” Wray said.
“I don’t understand,” I said. I handed the notepad to Brock who shrugged with his one good shoulder.
“Your old Hollywood producer buddy, Jack Helms, came through for you. That’s the name and address of Payton Doukas’s missing brother. The kid got away from the fucking cult, changed his identity, and lives down there with his wife and three kids,” Wray said.
“He must have wanted to be found,” I said.
Brock said, “Let’s go find Mr. Find. It is a bigger and better thing to do than go visit a jail cell.”
Chapter Ninety-Three
All About the Diamonds
HEARING BROCK PULL up the driveway, I ran out to greet him. He’d told me to plan for a long afternoon. I understood. Mount Laguna was about a three and a half hour drive and he said he couldn’t pick me up until after eleven. He also told me to pack an overnighter, ‘just in case’.
“What’s all this?” I said, climbing into the high front seats of the white Range Rover.
“This is the makings for one fine gourmet picnic.”
“We’ll never get there in time,” I said.
“They’re not expecting us until after six, and that’s when Sterling figures she’ll be arriving.”
“Brock, why didn’t you tell me? I could have worked for another couple of hours, and besides, we’ll never make it back tonight.”
“I thought you said you were all clear on the work front.”
“I’m not sure I’ll ever use those words for CoverBoy, but things are pretty quiet. Geoff and Sukie flew up to Victoria to get some model shots. I’d rather run with more skin than more of those damn investigative reports. Still, I didn’t think we’d actually be gone the night.”
Brock turned down the music, my favorite Sheryl Crow CD. “Mike—now Anthony Find, owns a small bed and breakfast. Actually, just a few cabins. They’ve made them up for us. They’re really excited to meet you, Lauren.”
“They’re excited to meet all of us,” I said.
We headed toward The Hollywood Hills. I guessed that Brock planned to picnic at Griffith Park. Alarm set in as we neared the old Centre.
“I hope this isn’t some sick joke,” I said, as Brock drove around the backside of the all too familiar grounds.
He pulled around the corner to what was the main entrance to the compound, then shut off the engine.
“Now what?” I asked, forcing my voice to sound stable.
“I was at the dealers, ready to order myself a Mercedes Maybach. Then I got to thinking. It just made no sense to me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“All that money for four tires. Money that could be put to good use.
“Come on,” he said, pulling the blanket and basket out of the back seat, along with a set of architectural plans.
I felt panic. And I felt trust.
We walked to the heart of the grounds and I admit I felt saddened at the sight of once tended gardens, already succumbed to the heat. The lawn hadn’t been mowed. It now looked more like wheat than grass.
Brock spread out the blanket and set about pulling food from the basket.
“What’s this?” I said. “You call this gourmet?”
He unwrapped two hot dogs and then opened a large bag of potato chips.
“This is prime property, you know. Prime and perfect. It’s going to make a great baseball park. There’s a lot to work to do, but every owner in here will get more than an equitable price for their lot. My new Realtor has talked to all of them and you can bet all of them want to move. And I’ve already been assured by Detective Wray that most of the proceeds can go to the Victim’s Assistance Fu
nd they’re setting up.”
He unrolled the blueprints. Although rough, three baseball diamonds had been sketched, along with the much needed parking lot and even some concession stands.
Brock said, “There’s no decent baseball park around here because the dirt is too damn expensive. And you and I both know poverty isn’t too far away from all these white mansions around the block.”
“When did you have time to do all this? It looks like you’ve been planning it for years,” I said.
“Because I have been planning. I just never found the right property. But it has to be good with you, Lauren. I don’t want to do it if you feel this property is stigmatized.”
“You mean with my curse?”
He shrugged, but again with only one shoulder.
“That’s it, isn’t it? Your shoulder? You’re not going back next season?”
I watched his face carefully for signs of regret, anger, and even pain. Instead Brock flashed me a full dimpled smile with his chin dribbled in yellow mustard.
“I don’t want to just own the dirt and a fancy sign with my name on it. I want to be out here with the kids, giving them something of me,” he said.
“Hell, we all know it’s my shoulder. But I’ve been ready to give up the groupies throwing their panties at me for a long time.”
He laid out flat on his back and stared straight up, then turned to me, “Are you okay with this?”
I nodded. A nod with a smile.
“Great!” He jumped up. “Reach into that basket. We need a drink to wash all this junk down.”
I pulled out the bottle of chilled champagne and two plastic glasses. Inside the bottom of one was a miniature leather catcher’s mitt.
“I hope I’m not supposed to catch little tiny balls with this,” I said.
He laughed and held the glove out for me to see. “You don’t have to catch anything unless you want it. But you need to know my plans always called for diamonds.”
“You were lucky to get three on this parcel.”
CoverBoys & Curses Page 25