It took me a moment to figure out what.
She lay back on the pillow, carved ivory on a hill of snow, gave me a searching look. “It’s my breasts, right? Too small?”
I almost laughed out loud. “Your breasts belong in a museum. All of you belongs in a museum. You must know how incredible you are.”
“What is it, then? Are you afraid?”
I was surprised. “Yes.”
“That I’ll bite you?”
“Yes.”
She giggled. “Has Mitzi really convinced you I’m one of them?”
“That’s not the kind of bite I’m talking about. I’m afraid that if you do bite me I’ll never want you to stop.”
“Ed. How sweet. Is this a proposal?”
“A confession. I’m falling in love with you. No, I am in love with you—“
“Ed…” she began softly.
“See, that’s what I’m afraid of, that you won’t even let me finish. And of your next line, which starts with, ‘Ed, I’m very fond of you…but…’”
“Ed---“
“You probably knew I was in love with you before I did. I mean, look at you, you could have anyone. Even Alicia.”
She did laugh out loud at that one. “Oh, so I’m a vampire lesbian now! You’ve been watching too many old foreign films, sweetie. Roger Vadim.”
“That’s the part that scares me the most. That you could be a vampire or a lesbian or a member of Al Qaeda and I wouldn’t care. I wouldn’t care.”
I shook my head, stupidly feeling sorry for myself. “In some ways I wish you were a vampire. If it would make me part of you.”
She smiled warmly, “Let’s take care of that part of it right now, then,” reached up and drew me down. Her mouth closed over my neck, hot as a furnace. ‘Oh God…” I heard someone moan who turned out to be me.
She drew back and looked into my eyes. “Any blood lust yet?”
“Oh, yeah.”
She reached down between us. “Mr. Magee! Is that a stake in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?”
She placed me, started to push--but I caught her hand. “Why, Clancy? Why me? Why now?”
She was beginning to flush both exasperation and anticipation. “Ed, I’m all for foreplay, but you’ve fulfilled your job!”
“I mean it. I need to know how you feel.”
She sighed impatient breath across my cheek. “Eddie, my love, sometimes we just don’t know how we feel! When you sample a couple of grapes at the grocery store before buying a bag, the manager may not like it, but there’s no law against it.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that the damn dog isn’t going to sleep forever!” and she slid me home.
“Wow,” she moaned throatily, “you can make a decision…”
I have no particular qualms about describing in detail how great the sex was; the problem is—newspaper reporter or not—it was….well, indescribable. You had to be there. And I’m so glad you weren’t.
It was just me and Clancy. No one else on Earth. I wasn’t even certain at times we were still on Earth. I do recall thinking at some point: now this…this is the way to go. Take a little trip to heaven before you die.
The more prurient among you are wondering things like: how many times? Well, none of your business. I will say that the motel thermostat was set at 68 degrees and before we finally fell asleep we were both running a sweat.
--at least Clancy fell asleep.
I lay there on the sheets next to her staring up at the ceiling, listening to Mitzi snoring loud and drunkenly over in the corner. Thinking what a god-awful hangover she was going to have in the morning.
But mostly thinking of something not quite so humorous. Mainly that I’d never gotten a direct answer to my question from Clancy. But that I had a sad, uneasy feeling I knew what the answer was.
Maybe she did love me. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she didn’t yet but was learning to. But that wasn’t why she’d elected to make love to me on the night before flying to K.C. with Alicia.
It was because she felt there was an even chance we’d never see each other again…
FIFTEEN
We said little over breakfast the next morning.
We ate our eggs and toast at the motel café next door (Mitzi still snoring obliviously in the room) and then I drove Clancy to the small private airport outside town, (Mitzi now in the back seat still snoring).
Alicia had her own Cessna, her own hanger waiting at KCI airport and, apparently, her own way with a private plane and years of experience. How many for a vampire, I wondered? Clear back to the Wright brothers?
Clancy thought my driving her to the little airport was too dangerous, even though technically Alicia had no reason now to suspect me of anything; but I insisted. Clancy agreed, probably against her better judgment, but hopefully because she wanted to see the man she’d made love to the night before as long as she could before heading into the unknown.
Even so she made me stop at a McDonald’s before we reached the tarmac. She insisted on calling a cab to take her the final two miles to the airport. “I’m not taking any chances,” she said, kissing my cheek when the cab pulled up. She winked and told me not to worry, she’d call, then hurried all the way back through the restaurant to kiss me again, this time hard and on the mouth.
“I already miss you,” I croaked.
She nodded against my cheek, whispered “Be patient, love,” in my ear and then she was through the restaurant door, jumped into the cab and was gone.
I sat in the McDonald’s booth on the south side of the building until I saw the speck of Alicia’s black (what else?) Cessna climbing west toward K.C. I said a silent prayer over my coffee, finally paid the tab and walked the gravel lot to the car. Mitzi was still out like a light in the back seat.
We were about halfway back to Topeka—me in a decidedly somber mood—when the poodle bounded over the rear passenger seat to the seat beside me, tail thumping the old Chevy’s threadbare upholstery.
“Well now,” I sighed at the windshield,” look who’s up! How’s the head?”
“Fine! Roll down the window, huh, I want to stick my nose out!”
“Why do all you dogs like that so much?”
“Why do all you humans bathe so much? Did you know that since the 1920’s dogs have had to track humans by the scent of their frigging deodorant? I mean, there’s practically no real human scent left! How does your species ever propagate?”
“Maybe it’s mainly visual acuity.” I cranked down the window. “I don’t get it. You were smashed last night. Dogs don’t get hangovers, that it?”
She sniffed ecstatically into the wind, furry ears bantering. “Of course we do.”
She pulled her head in, panted happily at me. “Like flying without the effort!”
“The hangover?”
“The nose out the window. Say, this is kind of nice, isn’t it? Just the two of us again! Roaming the country, looking for adventure!”
“We never roamed the country, and I think the adventure found us.”
“Nice though, huh? Like the old days!”
I glanced at her. “Without Clancy, you mean?”
She was silent a minute. I thought she was going for the open window again. Then: “Couldn’t wait two minutes before bringing her name up, could you?”
I sighed. “I’m worried about her, Mitz. Look. You may as well know I’m in love with her.”
“Oh. Well. Gee. What a newsflash. I’d never have intuited it.”
“She’s a nice girl, Mitzi, even if she is a vampire, which she isn’t.”
“Nothing about that sentence made sense.”
I grinned at her behind the wheel. “I’m touched, you know…”
“You’re telling me?”
“--that you’re jealous, I mean. You are jealous. And it’s sweet, Mitzi, it is.”
“Wow. ‘Love,’ ‘jealous,’ and ‘sweet,’ all in one morning. Eddie, I hardly knew y
e.”
“I don’t know if she feels as strongly about it as I do, but—“
“You got that right, bud.”
My cheeks went hot. “Hey! What do you know about it?” Amazing what being in love can do to your temper.
Mitzi settled in the seat. “I don’t know, you said. That’s the part you got right. You don’t know jack, Sport. Especially about her.”
“And you do, I suppose.”
“I know women. I know sex.”
“Right.”
“Hey, pal, I’ve done it with three-legged dachshunds in the basements of abandoned manure factories! Try that sometime!”
I snorted. “Nice image. You don’t know human women, is the point.”
“I am a human woman! The vampire half, anyway. And you blew it last night.”
I felt a pang of doubt. “I…really? You think—“
Then I caught up and nearly slammed the brake. “Hey! How the hell do you know about last night?”
Mitzi’s turn to snort. “Do I look like I’m hung-over, Eddie?”
“You were awake last night? You were listening to us? That’s sick!”
“It was pretty vomitus.”
“Why the hell would you—“
“To keep an eye on you, stupid! You think I didn’t know it was headed for the boudoir? She started spinning her web the second I began faking I was drunk back there in the alley. I heard that evil little mind of hers working.”
“I’m going to fucking kill you! No! I’m going to give you back to Alicia!”
“You do that, hot pants. Meanwhile, learn how to make love sometime, huh?”
“What! I know how to make love, goddamnit!”
“Uh-huh, right.”
“Well, I know what goes where! And why!”
She lifted her head, gave me a piteous look. “That’s not making love, stupid, that’s boffing. Gophers boff, Ed. Earthworms boff.”
“Is there a relevant point here?”
“Yeah, it’s called talking!”
She did a really terrible impression of me whining, or maybe it was just the state of my mind at the moment. ‘“That’s the part that scares me most, Clancy—you could be a vampire, or a lesbian, or’—for the love of God—‘Al Qaeda!’”
“Yeah? So?’
“Ed. Please. Look at me. And trust. Women want to know how beautiful they are, not how they look in a hanoush!”
“I was only trying to—“
More whiny impressions: “’I mean it, Clancy—I need to know how you feel now!’”
I fumed at the wheel. “Well, what’s wrong with that?”
“Why not jamb a little pressure down her throat! Maybe she needs to know how she feels, for chrissake! I mean, really! God, how does your species conceive?”
I gripped the wheel, tight-lipped. “What I said last night to Clancy came from my heart!”
“Well, you weren’t getting into hers!”
“I got into ‘hers’ just fine!”
“And another thing--about the sex—“
“Don’t even go there, I’m warning you!”
“Next time try…”
She trailed off as I hit the brake, slowing quickly. Mitzi sat up alert, craned over the dash. “What’s the matter?”
“Look at this mess ahead. Oh, Lord…”
We were at the edge of downtown. It was bumper-to-bumper. For as far as the eye could see. And Topeka, Kansas is never bumper-to-bumper.
“What the hell’s going on?”
Mitzi shrugged. “Football game?”
“The Chiefs play in KC, Mitzi—in the fall.”
“Maybe it’s Arbor Day or something.”
“No. Look there.” I pointed east. “Something’s happening at the Capitol Building. Look at the steps.”
“Whoa. That is a lot of people for Topeka.”
“That’s a lot of people for Cincinnati. Geez…look at that mob. Everybody and his damn dog…”
She turned to me.
“It’s just an expression.”
She flopped back down in her seat. “You guys and your expressions. ‘Dog Days of Summer.’ What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
I shrugged. “Something about the heat, I think.” I craned past a big RV in front of us. “Man, we are going nowhere for a while…”
Mitzi sighed annoyance. “I’m hungry.”
“Yeah, you would be.” I turned to her sharply. “Speaking of eating, you need to go back to rabbits. Fast!”
“Can’t do that anymore, Ed.”
“What! Why?”
“Just can’t. Gotta be human blood now.”
I flopped back against the headrest amid a chorus of cranky horns. “Great. This is just great. We’re low on gas and the air conditioner won’t work without the motor. This is how it all ends. I’m going to die in a traffic jam in Topeka, Kansas, never write that novel, never see the Orient. That’s how my tombstone will read. ‘Shriveled up and died of heatstroke beside a blood-sucking poodle’.”
I opened my eyes in a moment. Glanced over at the passenger seat. Stared.
Mitzi lifted her head. “What?”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I wasn’t looking at you. Looking at you like what?”
“You know like what.”
“Enlighten me!
“That way.”
“What way?”
“Like I’m a side of beef.”
She flopped back down. Shook her head in disgust. “The rump portion certainly. That part of the cow commonly known as the asshole! I’m your dog, Ed! I’m your best friend! Thanks for the slap in the face!”
I grumbled and settled back in the seat. The RV moved two feet ahead in front of us, went back to idling. I yanked impulsively at the wheel. “Well, I’m not sitting here roasting in this damn traffic all day!”
I goosed us out of line, scooted around and nosed the car to the curb under a shade tree beside a No Parking sign. I cut the engine.
“What are we doing, Eddie?”
“If you’re going to suck my neck I’d like to be in the shade.”
“Seriously.”
I opened the door, stepped out into the heat.
“I don’t know.” I said. “This mess isn’t going anywhere. May as well walk up to the Capitol and see what’s going on.”
* * *
I strode up the sidewalk toward the Capitol, shouldering my way through the thickening crowd—maybe a bit belligerently; it was hot, and I was back in Topeka and Clancy was out of my life again. I’d been in a better humor.
There was a sea of onlookers, pushing and rubbernecking for a better view amid little islands of TV and radio vans, guys on the top of the former shooting video for the evening news.
“Hey, Sport! You forgot something!”
I turned sullenly to find Mitzi racing between a forest of legs with my sunglasses in her mouth.
I gave her my back. “I don’t want those damn things!”
But her cold nose pushed urgently into my palm. “Wear them anyway. Don’t be an idiot. The hills have eyes.”
I grabbed the glasses from her teeth and shoved them atop my nose in time to get a closer view of the Capitol steps ahead; a makeshift podium had been set up outside the rotunda. A young man in tan suit pants and coatless arrow shirt was approaching a microphone affixed to the podium, his tie askew, sleeves rolled like a guy campaigning for something. Behind him were a phalanx of dark-suited bodyguards with sunglasses and earphones like those men who trot beside the presidential car. There was an American flag to the left of the podium, a State of Kansas flag to the right, PA speakers beside each. The man behind the mike spoke in deliberate, commanding tones that squeaked with occasional feedback.
“—and I want to assure each and every one of you that the culprit or culprits behind this tragedy will be caught and brought to justice! In the hours since the remains of the Mayor and his constituents were found, state and local law enforcement has worked
tirelessly with the Topeka Sheriff and forensic departments in apprehending these fugitives. And workers have been successful in not only pulling a number of fingerprints from the location of the Mayor’s last whereabouts, but in matching them to our prime suspect.”
I felt a double dose of ice fill my brain—half from mine, half from Mitzi’s beside me. “Oh, crap,” she said in my head.
Behind the man at the mike, an assistant handed him a large forty-by-thirty hard stock photo of my favorite human being. It was the picture they had of me on file at the newspaper office. There was even one of me on file at the police station itself that I’d used in case I needed quick I.D. for a story in progress. I couldn’t have made it easier for them to trace me if I’d tried.
The man behind the mike held up the photo, swept it before him in a slow arc at the surrounding throng. “This is the man we believe responsible for these crimes! His name is Edward Magee, a former writer and newsman for a local newspaper The Topeka Courier. His whereabouts are currently unknown. If you have seen or have any information about this man please report it to the Sheriff’s Department at once! There is a five thousand dollar reward for any information leading to this man’s conviction!”
I just stood there as if I were growing up from the sidewalk.
Everything began to blur slightly before me, as if glimpsed through gelatin: the Capitol steps, the crowd, the hot eye of the sun. I’ve never fainted before…is this what it felt like?
Gradually I became aware of moving backward almost magically—slowly, step by step—through the heavy crowd. That something was pulling gently at my pant leg.
“—one step at a time, Eddie…” someone I was pretty sure must be Mitzi was saying in my head, “…one foot behind the other…very nonchalant, hands in your pockets like you’re bored with the whole thing…easy does it now…back to the nice shady car…”
Step by step, inch by inch back down the sidewalk the way we’d come.
It might have worked, too.
If someone hadn’t stepped on Mitzi’s hind paw.
She let out a C sharp yelp—the kind only an injured animal makes.
It snapped me out of my fugue and I whirled around to look without thinking--
“Sorry, pooch! You okay?”
--whirled so fast I collided with a heavy-set guy next to me, jarring my teeth, knocking off my sunglasses.
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