by K. K. Beck
* * *
In a lonely rooming house in another part of the metropolis, a slave of Kali-Ra lay on a narrow bed, consumed with longing. It has been years, thought this wretch, gazing up at the naked lightbulb and the cracked plaster ceiling. I have waited so long to hear the sacred gong. But surely my mistress knows I await her summons. I must not lose my faith. Sighing, blinking back tears, the pathetic figure rose and went to the closet to admire the things that had been prepared for so long and that never failed to produce an exciting shiver. The coils of stout rope and lengths of fine chain from Home Depot, the yellow silken garment in which to appear at the holiest ceremonies in the Temple of the Chosen, and most thrilling of all, the sacred dagger, encrusted with jewels, little more than a narrow spike, but strong enough to penetrate armor and sharp enough to inflict a fatal wound in the blink of an eye. Like the Queen of Doom herself, this weapon was as deadly as it was beautiful. How wonderful it would be to wield it in the service of the one whom it was a joy to serve. Surely this day would come soon! The idea of this dagger doing its work, being pushed into human flesh, was intoxicating.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SLAVE OF KALI-RA
Melanie sat in her office going through the mail. First, she opened this week’s packet of clippings from the service. Nadia had them delivered here to the house, on the assumption that her publicist, Karen, was dishonest and would destroy anything negative.
There were some local newspaper stories about Nadia’s attendance at an adult literacy benefit and the pale green Armani she’d worn to it. There was also an article on Beauty Tips of the Stars in a downmarket women’s mag that said Nadia made her own skin-care products out of things from the fridge for just pennies, a homey little fancy dreamed up by Karen and approved by Nadia. There was also, Melanie noted with horror, a tabloid story with a picture of Nadia biting her knuckles while wearing a black negligee. It was a still from the infamous weed-whacker scene in Nadia’s very first movie, the low-budget cult classic Terrorized Three: The Slaughter Continues. The tabloid headline read “Sad Saga of Sexually Frustrated Beauty. Desperately Lonely, Nadia Wentworth Tries and Fails to Seduce Pool Man.”
Oh, hell, thought Melanie, reading on. “Screen legend Nadia Wentworth may be every man’s dream date, but the sad fact is the sultry star hasn’t had a real date in six months. Hot and bothered, the negligee-clad beauty burst into the servants’ quarters and tried to climb in bed with her startled young pool man. Engaged to his childhood sweetheart, he failed to give in to her hysterical demands for sex.”
This was not good. In fact, Melanie could hardly think of anything worse. It would have been better if they’d said the pool man had been unable to resist and would now die happy.
Sighing, she telephoned Karen. “Did you see the same tabloid story I saw?” she asked.
“Those bastards never called me for a comment or anything,” said Karen. “There’s no way in hell I could have known. Am I fired again?”
“Yeah. I’ll call you when you’re not.”
“Okay. Meanwhile, I’ll make some calls and see where this came from.”
“I’d be pretty surprised if it came from Manuel. His English isn’t good enough and he’s smart enough to know he’d be fired. In fact, I think I will fire him for a while too. Talk to you soon, Karen.”
Sighing again, she hung up and opened another letter. It was written on an old-fashioned typewriter with a carbon ribbon. It began primly enough, Dear Miss Wentworth, but then quickly escalated to full rant. You dare to portray Kali-Ra—she whose very name is too precious to be uttered by mere mortals in any tones but those of adulation and worship! When you speak her name, you must tremble. Kali-Ra, the beloved, the powerful, has seen your performance on the Sandy Shipley Show, and is displeased. Her willing slaves will reach out and smite any such as you who have the arrogance to think they can imitate her! Stop now, you foolish woman, or prepare to suffer such exquisite tortures as only the Queen of Doom can invent.
At the bottom of the letter was a drawing of an Egyptian scarab, presumably the same one tattooed on the left breast of Kali-Ra and all her slaves, and some strange writing that Melanie guessed was probably an example of what Valerian Ricardo referred to as those ancient symbols, words from a tongue that goes back to the mists of time and has been kept alive only by the initiates of Kali-Ra. To reveal its secrets would, needless to say, result in lingering death by unspeakable torture.
Melanie smiled. It was hard to be terrified by a displeased Kali-Ra when you were informed at the same time that the Queen of Doom watched daytime TV. Melanie imagined Kali-Ra taking in the Sandy Shipley Show, putting her tired feet up on an ottoman and sipping a Diet Coke, perhaps in some Orange County home for retired arch villainesses. In Melanie’s vision, Kali-Ra’s once beautiful but now haggard face was heavily made up with rouge circles and circumflexed eyebrows, there was an artless dye job on her thinning hair, and she had become one of Southern California’s large contingent of old gals who tarted themselves up well into their eighties so that they looked like retired prostitutes instead of dignified old ladies.
But then Melanie remembered that according to Raymond Vernon, Kali-Ra possessed the secret of eternal youth. She had been running her sordid operation for centuries, never quite managing to take over the world completely. Through it all, her skin had remained perfect, “a luminous, creamy alabaster”; her lips were “soft and red and curved into a smile both cruel and full of promise”; and her hair was “abundant, fine, and black as a raven’s wing.”
Melanie knew all this because she had been asked to make a file of all the physical descriptions of Kali-Ra so Nadia could work out a look for the character. Nadia was particularly fond of the passage where it was explained that Kali-Ra had the freshness of youth and the slim and supple body of a young girl, with the carriage of a goddess who was also a woman. It was only in her remarkable eyes, eyes which seemed to change color with her every mood, radiating simultaneous passion and wisdom, that one could see she was ageless, that she had seen more pleasure and more pain than anyone else alive on earth.
“See!” Nadia had said. “You were trying to say Valerian Ricardo was a shitty writer, but he had it figured out all along. The eyes change. Kind of like the screen saver on your computer.”
Until stumbling across the passage from The Punishment of Kali-Ra describing the mutable eyes, Melanie had taken satisfaction in pointing out that Valerian Ricardo had never managed to get his character’s eye color consistent. Sometimes Kali-Ra’s eyes shone with a cruel green light. At others they exhibited an inky darkness like a bottomless pool of evil. Once they had flashed with the coldness of sapphires, and several times they were described offhandedly as an unusual color, as violet as an amethyst or the dawn. Old Valerian had probably come up with that lame story about her eyes changing in response to complaints from irate readers.
Melanie wished that her job had not made it necessary for her to become an expert on Kali-Ra. She wished she had never dragged the damn book upstairs back at the Hotel Splendide on Boola Lau. Why couldn’t there have been some Dickens or Trollope or something in the lobby?
Nadia padded into the office in bare feet. This morning, she looked nothing like Kali-Ra. She wore tights and a sports bra, her face wasn’t made up and it seemed a little blotchy, and her hair was pulled back from her face and scraped into a frizzy ponytail on top of her head.
She was carrying her morning postworkout mango flip in one hand and a spray bottle of mineral water for continuous skin hydration in the other. The tightness in her features softened momentarily, as Nadia glanced fondly up at the portrait of Valerian Ricardo.
Melanie followed her glance and tried not to shudder. “We got a letter from one of the followers of Kali-Ra,” she said.
“Really?” said Nadia, clearly interested, setting down the mango flip. “Let’s see.” She snatched the letter and began to read. Melanie watched her silently moving lips.
“Wow,” said N
adia. She pointed at the writing beneath the drawing of the scarab. “I wonder what these letters mean.”
“It’s supposed to be in that weird language . . .” Melanie began patiently.
“I know. The one only Kali-Ra and her followers speak,” said Nadia solemnly.
“It’s a made-up language,” said Melanie, feeling just a little snappish. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“How do you know that?” demanded Nadia.
Melanie sighed. “Even in the books Raymond Vernon says scholars from all over the world couldn’t crack it.”
“Yes,” quoted Nadia dreamily. “Wise men from all over the world, the finest scholars, men of genius, all were baffled yet strangely intrigued by this language like no other, but those few who had heard it spoken remarked on its queer, hypnotic power to thrill.”
She looked back at the drawing. “But maybe there’s someone who can translate it,” she said.
Melanie heard her voice rising and forced it back down to a normal register. “It’s all made up! Valerian Ricardo made all this Kali-Ra stuff up, for God’s sake!” She stopped herself from adding that Nadia sounded just like the nut who wrote the letter.
“People can speak Klingon, can’t they?” said Nadia triumphantly. “They have Klingon dictionaries at Barnes and Noble and everything. If people can speak Klingon, a language of the future, why can’t they speak the language of the Ancient Ones?” With a victorious air, Nadia flung the letter back at Melanie, then slouched out of the room. “When my aromatherapist arrives, send him to the cabaña,” she said over her shoulder.
“All right,” said Melanie, glancing back down at the letter. That reference to “exquisite tortures” made it clear they were dealing with a hard-core Valerian Ricardo fan. It also made Melanie uneasy enough to put the letter right into the stalker file. It would be forwarded to Tom Thorndyke, the security expert who was paid a retainer to protect Nadia from various drooling psychopaths, incarcerated killers, demented suitors, people who thought she was their long-lost daughter, and an old classmate who kept insisting, more and more forcefully, with unkind references to her reputation in high school, that she invest in his ostrich ranch.
Melanie returned her attention to the more pressing tabloid story. With the aid of a dictionary, she drafted a memo to Manuel in her strange, self-taught Spanish, based in part on the Latin she had studied. “I know you are upset with the way Miss Wentworth has been angry with you a lot,” she said. “She is sorry and wants to send you on a vacation back home to visit your family. Please accept her apologies and this check for the airplane ticket. Don’t thank her in person in case she changes her mind. We know how unpredictable she can be.”
To the clipping itself, she attached a Post-it note that said: “Nadia: Look at this trash! I got a hold of Karen and Manuel and fired both their asses immediately.”
Then, sighing, she reread the latest fax from the production manager in Costa Rica. “When do we get a final script? Is the handmaidens’ bedchamber set in or out? What about the torture of the tiny chains? The chains have to ship by next week at the latest. And what do we tell the tarantula wrangler? He’s getting unpleasant.”
CHAPTER IX
AN INVESTIGATION BEGINS
A week later, Duncan Blaine, a lean, tanned, and ravaged-looking Englishman of forty-two who appeared much older, sat in his black convertible Jeep in Nadia’s circular driveway. He reached into the glove compartment, removed a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka and a Styrofoam cup, and poured himself a stiff one. He was having another script meeting with Nadia Wentworth.
He would have preferred gin or whiskey, but Nadia was one of these American health fascists. If she caught a whiff of booze on his breath at ten in the morning, she would not only fire him but probably also follow up with a court order forcing him to check into the Betty Ford Clinic against his will. It had to be scentless vodka. One had to adapt to the customs of the country.
Melanie Oakley let him in. “I liked the last draft a lot,” she said over her shoulder in her usual rushed sort of way as she led him through the dimly lit hall toward the terrace. “Very lively and fun.”
This was good news. Duncan hoped Nadia felt the same way. But Melanie continued ominously, “I think Nadia may take the material a little more seriously than I do.” She stopped for a moment, put her hand on his arm, and giving him a level gray-eyed gaze, said, “The trick is in the pitch. You’ve got to pretend you don’t know the stuff is crap. She’ll miss most of the irony you get into the script. We’ve got to get a final script as soon as possible.”
Duncan replied with a noncommittal “Mm.”
“I think you’ll also find,” Melanie continued, “that Lila Ricardo is still very much involved.” As he emerged through the French doors from the living room he saw that both Nadia and the ghastly Lila creature were waiting for him on the brick terrace by the lily pond with its gurgling fountain of fat dolphins. The two women were eyeing him like a pair of carnivorous birds, ready to peck at his flesh and gnaw on his bones. He sat down in one of the hideously uncomfortable cast-iron lawn chairs, and gave them both a big smile.
* * *
Back in her office, Melanie sighed. At least she’d warned him. Poor Duncan. It was a pretty good script. But how long could it stay that way?
Taking advantage of the fact that Nadia was in conference and wouldn’t be bursting in, she called Tom Thorndyke and asked him for an update.
He sounded more serious than usual. “First of all, this Kali-Ra thing seems to have set off a real wacko who’s been obsessed with the character for years. This is a potentially dangerous situation.”
After the first threatening letter with its scarab symbol, Nadia had received three more. All were written in florid Valerian Ricardo style and suggested that various punishments should be meted out to anyone connected with the picture, especially Nadia.
“I’m concerned for two reasons,” he went on. “The frequency of the letters and the fact that they’re mailed from Los Angeles right to the house.
“This individual is obviously following things closely. They seem to be reading the trades. They know about casting, script rewrites, location scouting. This indicates a pretty deep obsession that may be moving from Kali-Ra to Nadia.
“And finally, there’s a quality to the letters that goes beyond just that. In this business you sometimes hear bells ring and you’re not sure why.”
Melanie nodded. “I know. I’ve been freaked out myself by the intensity of the writing. This nut believes Kali-Ra is for real.”
“I was kind of hoping you could give me some background. I want to come up with a profile. I need to be able to think the way this individual thinks, and it seems clear to me that all they think about is Kali-Ra. Know anything about it?”
Melanie sighed. “I’m afraid so. Nadia had me research every aspect of the character. I’ve read about twenty of the novels. It’s driving me crazy, to be honest.”
Tom cleared his throat. “I kind of figured from the letters that the books are way out there.”
“No kidding,” said Melanie, rolling her eyes. “Kali-Ra is some kind of cruel dominatrix with a lot of slaves. The books keep talking about the beauty of evil, and there’s a strong sadistic erotic element.”
“I guess your boss is no fool. With material like that she’ll probably make millions.”
“To tell you the truth, she is kind of a fool,” said Melanie, who appreciated the fact that the success of Tom’s business relied on his complete discretion and he would never repeat anything she said about Nadia or sell any dirt to the media. “I mean,” she went on, “she’s bought into the whole thing herself, just like the fruitcake who’s writing these letters.”
“Nothing would surprise me. I work with a lot of these creative-type people.”
Tom was always so reassuring. Melanie promised to FedEx him a few of the books.
“Great,” he said. “And is there any organized Kali-Ra fan club or anything? Maybe t
hey’d know about someone who’s just a little too far into the whole thing.”
“Valerian Ricardo has been mercifully forgotten for years. But there is a website with a chat room, www.kali.com.”
“I’ll check it out. I also talked to that professor you told me about, Dr. Pendergast. He says that when his book came out he had some weird letters from someone who sounds just like our guy. He didn’t keep them. He thinks they came from Moose Jaw, or it might have been Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Apparently, they petered out. But stalking a college professor isn’t nearly as much fun for these kinds of folks as going after a movie star. I’m recommending increased security for Nadia. How would she feel about having a guy on the premises?”
Melanie sighed. “You know how she is. No problem spending thousands on that old fraud Lila Ricardo, but if it’s anyone else’s idea, she thinks we’re trying to bleed her to death.”
“Well, it’s your call,” said Tom. “But you’re paying for my advice.”
“Oh! I know how to do this without bothering Nadia,” said Melanie. “We can get him to replace Manuel, the pool guy. He’s on a little vacation. Manuel doesn’t live in, but your guy can have the apartment over the carriage house. He has to mow the lawn and supervise the other gardeners who come by twice a week and keep the pool clean, though.”
“No problem,” said Tom. “I’ve got a real sharp young guy. Former Navy SEAL. Completely trained. Putting himself through graduate school working for me. I’ll have Kevin over there in a day or two.”
“Great,” said Melanie, who found herself wondering what this Kevin was like, and what kind of degree he was pursuing. In the three years since she’d come to Hollywood to work twenty-four hours a day for Nadia, she hadn’t met any guys outside show business. Even Tom Thorndyke, who seemed reasonably down-to-earth, had capped teeth and a hundred-dollar haircut, and was rumored to sleep with a lot of the gorgeous actresses he protected.