Nine Deadly Lives

by Livia J. Washburn

  In fact, I was on my way to do a little job for the studio at the moment, or I was supposed to be. I didn't think Mr. Gober would appreciate my helping out the Easter Bunny.

  "Where are you working?" I asked Ernie.

  "Rick's place. Kid's party. All I can ge' 'ese days."

  He shut his eye and began snoring again. I hunkered down beside him and slapped him on both cheeks, gently. That didn't work, so I shook him. Gently, of course.

  "Stop," he said. "Stopstopstopstop."

  "Not until you wake up."

  "Can't wa' up."

  He slumped forward into my arms, and I shoved him back against the car. He opened one eye again. "Gotta ge' to Rick's. Gotta be bunny a' party."

  I couldn't just leave him there, so I dragged him around to the passenger side of the car and held his head up by the ears to keep it off the street while I opened the door. Then, I tried to get him inside. It was like working with a very heavy dummy filled with flour dough, but I finally managed it. Of course, his feet were in the seat and his upper body was in the floor, but at least he was in the car. His head was practically up under the dash.

  I shut the door and looked down the street at my own car. It would be all right where it was for a while. I could drive Ernie to Rick's house. Maybe he would sober up on the way.

  Sure he would.

  And maybe MGM would call me to replace Robert Taylor in some big-budget foreign intrigue film because I was so much better-looking than he was. My nose has been broken twice, I'm going bald on top, I'm a little overweight, and my eyes are too close together. You figure the odds.

  I sighed, walked around to the driver's side of the Chevy, and slid in. As it happened, the little job I was supposed to do was at Rick Torrance's house. It seemed that there was some kind of dispute going on, and Mr. Gober wanted me to settle it. He hadn't said what it was, which is why I wasn't in much of a hurry. It apparently wasn't an emergency, and I didn't like settling arguments. That wasn't my idea of what my job was all about.

  But I was going to do it. That's what I got paid for.

  o0o

  Rick Torrance lived not far off Sunset in Beverly Hills. I'd been to his place once before, when some starlet had nearly drowned in his pool, where she'd fallen after being goosed by a chimpanzee that had wandered in from Rick's private jungle.

  The house was a big three-story stucco job, painted pink and set back from the street behind a pink stucco wall on a couple of acres of ground, only a little of which was given over to a well-manicured lawn and a drive lined with bougainvillea bushes. The rest was covered with the jungle: three or four kinds of palm trees, banana trees, creeping vines, climbing vines and a few varieties of exotic flowers.

  God only knew what the water bill was, but it didn't matter to Rick. The studio paid it. The jungle was good publicity, giving the place the semblance of the kind of terrain Rick Torrance was supposed to prefer.

  Anyone familiar with Rick knew that he actually preferred the terrain of a nice shady bar to a jungle anytime, but most of the ticket-buying public didn't know Rick at all. Instead, they read about his private jungle in the fan magazines and had fantasies about him running around among the palm trees with his shirt off. Most of his pictures didn't require big wardrobe. He never wore a shirt if he didn't have to, and I didn't blame him. If I had pecs like his, I'd go shirtless, too.

  I stopped Ernie's Chevy at the gate in the pink wall. The gatekeeper, an old geezer with bifocals and white hair growing out of his ears, recognized me from the last time I'd been there. He was willing to let me inside, but he wanted to know who was in the floor.

  "The Easter Bunny," I said.

  The geezer wasn't surprised. "Oh, yeah, him. He's late. Mr. Torrance and Mr. Gober are having a fit."

  "He's a little under the weather," I said. "You say that Mr. Gober's here?" I hadn't realized that Gober was calling from Rick's place.

  "In the flesh," the gatekeeper said. "He's the kid's godfather, or something. He's fit to be tied because the bunny hasn't showed up. If I was you, I'd do something about your buddy, there, and get him ready. Mr. Torrance and Mr. Gober, they don't want the kid to be disappointed."

  I didn't want the kid to be disappointed, either, and I didn't want Ernie to get into any trouble. But I didn't know what to do about it.

  The gatekeeper had a suggestion, however, which is how I wound up in the bunny suit, walking up the drive with a basket of colored eggs in each hand. The eggs and baskets had been in the Chevy's back seat, and now and then, I stopped along the drive to hide an egg or two in a bougainvillea bush.

  I was careful not to wander off into the jungle. There was no telling what was in there. I thought I could hear spider monkeys calling to one another, and then there was that chimp. So I stuck to the drive.

  The gatekeeper and I'd had a hell of a time getting Ernie out of the bunny suit, and I was having a hell of a time wearing it. It was hot, it was too tight, and it smelled a lot like Ernie. I wasn't a happy bunny when I hammered the brass knocker against the front door of Torrance's house. Ernie, lying asleep in the gatehouse in his underwear, was considerably happier than I was.

  No one answered my knock on the door, so I tried the knob. It was open, and it swung back into the house.

  I looked inside just in time to see a familiar-looking man hurtling down the hallway toward me. He had a cat in his arms, a huge tabby that was dark and light gray on top, with a lot of orangey gold mixed in, and a solid white stomach. It was colored almost like an egg—sort of an Easter cat.

  I thought maybe it had something to do with the party, and I was trying to get a better look when there was a thunderous explosion and the door frame shattered above my head.

  Maybe the little dispute Mr. Gober had called me about was more serious than I'd thought.

  I looked around for a place to run, but before I could move, the man from the hallway crashed into me. I'm pretty sturdy, but I don't think I slowed him down much. It was hard to tell. I couldn't see very well because I was lying flat on the tiles in front of the door. There were colorful hardboiled eggs all around me.

  There was another explosion and I raised my head cautiously. I could see Rick Torrance back in the hallway. He had an elephant gun to his shoulder. At least, it looked like an elephant gun. Maybe it was only a .30-.30. Pistols, I know a little bit about; rifles are something I don't generally have to deal with.

  I squirmed out of the way before he could run over me, too. He ran past me and headed down the drive. Then Mr. Gober, who must have been behind him, came outside. He stopped and looked at me.

  "You're not Wiggins," he said. Studio heads have to be perceptive.

  "No, sir. I'm not."

  He recognized me then. "Damnit, Ferrel, what are you doing in that outfit?"

  He always says that. "Damnit, Ferrel," I mean. I'm thinking of having my first name changed, since he can't seem to call me anything else.

  "I'm taking Ernie's place," I said, standing up.

  I started gathering up the eggs. Most of them were cracked, but I put them in the baskets anyway.

  "Damnit, Ferrel!" Gober said. "You're not supposed to be playing with Easter eggs. You've got to stop Rick. He's going to kill somebody if you don't."

  "What about the party?" I asked. I didn't want to disappoint the kids, not after I'd gone to the trouble of getting dressed like a bunny.

  Gober, however, didn't care about the kids. He was more interested in his star. "Forget the party. The kids have waited this long; they can wait a little longer."

  "Where are they?"

  "They're in the back yard. Peggy's with them. They're fine. Now, get going!"

  "I need to know what's going on here, first," I said.

  Mr. Gober took a deep breath and tried to control himself. Patience wasn't his strong suit. "The guy that ran you over is Lawrence Berry. Rick's going to kill him."

  I didn't think so. It was widely known that Rick was a terrible shot. But I was curious. "Why?
"

  "He got Felicia pregnant, that's why. Now—"

  I interrupted him. "Felicia? I thought Rick's wife was Penny Turnage."

  Gober's face was turning a truly amazing shade of red. It was almost the same color as Ernie's nose. I wondered if Gober had been drinking. He took another deep breath.

  "Felicia's the cat," he said. "Rick's cat."

  "And Larry Berry got her pregnant? Illicit pregnancy is one thing, but bestiality? And cross-species breeding? Wow! Wait till the fan mags get hold of this one! Not to mention Scientific American!"

  Berry was a well-known womanizer who generally played the villain's role in films. He'd been in a couple of Rick's pictures, playing an evil white hunter in Kent of Kilimanjaro and a murderous guide in Clive of the Congo. Or maybe he was a guide in Kent and a hunter in Clive. As I said, it's easy to get confused. The pictures are a lot alike. Plenty of shots of Rick with his muscles showing, and lots of stock footage of crocodiles sliding off sandbanks into rivers—things like that.

  "Not Berry, you idiot!" Gober yelled. "He didn't get Felicia pregnant! His cat got her pregnant! Berry lives next door, and the cat comes sneaking over the wall to assault Felicia."

  "Was that his cat Larry was holding?" I asked.

  A rifle boomed.

  "Yes! Now are you going to do something to earn your retainer, or do I have to turn things over to the Continental Agency?"

  I handed him the Easter baskets. "Hold these," I said.

  o0o

  As an Easter Bunny, I was more of an urban-type of animal. I didn't really belong in the jungle.

  For one thing, my ears kept getting caught on the vines that dangled from the palm trees. It wasn't so bad if I realized what was happening in time to extricate myself, but once or twice, I'd nearly jerked my own head off.

  For another thing, the ground was squishy and wet underfoot. Rick had some kind of irrigation system for all the plants, and it was doing a very efficient job. Water dripped down out of the palms and soaked into my fur.

  And for still another thing, I didn't like the noises, especially since I didn't really know what kind of wildlife Rick Torrance had stocked the place with. There were rumors in the fan magazines that monkeys weren't the only things in there. Pythons had been mentioned more than once. And boa constrictors.

  Of course, snakes don't make noises. That's one of the things I don't like about them. They're very sneaky, snakes are. But lions make noise, and one article had hinted that Rick had a lion on the property. I wondered if lions liked to eat rabbits.

  Even though I wasn't exactly an old jungle hand, it was easy to follow along behind Rick and Larry. They were crashing along like a couple of rhinos in rut, and now and then, Rick would let off another volley with his cannon.

  When he did, a screeching like nothing I'd ever heard in real life would arise, and the trees above me would come alive with terrified monkeys. They weren't any more terrified than I was. I was afraid that if Rick saw me, he'd shoot me. He probably didn't have any rabbit heads mounted on his trophy wall.

  Larry was probably even more frightened than I was. Rick was actually trying to kill him, which he'd done often enough in the movies, but never before in real life. It was pretty stupid considering the circumstances; but then, Rick probably hadn't taken the time to think about that. Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference, even if he had.

  There was a sudden frenzied fluttering off to my right, and I jumped about five feet straight up. I was a credit to the bunny clan. It wasn't a lion, however; it was only a bunch of colorful birds that were no doubt as scared as I was. They were cockatoos, which reminded me of my last case for Gober. That one had involved a cat, too. I was beginning to think that everyone at Gober's studio was nuts, though even that wouldn't be big news in Hollywood.

  I looked down at my shoes, which I'd managed to force onto my feet over the bunny costume. They were ruined, naturally. I'd put them on the expense account, but I was still upset.

  What with the noise and my shoes, I momentarily lost track of Rick and Larry, but then I heard something that sounded the way Tarzan might yell if he pulled a hernia. When I looked up, Larry was swinging toward me on a thick vine that he had gripped in his right hand. He had his multi-colored cat cradled in his left arm.

  This time, I was able to get out of his way, but I didn't really have to. From somewhere in the jungle a rifle roared, the vine parted, and Larry splatted on the wet ground, flat on his back.

  He didn't fall far, but he was stunned. He lay there in the dappled shade with his eyes rolled back into his head. His cat, demonstrating the loyalty for which cats are renowned, took off for the tall timber.

  Rick Torrance came crashing through the undergrowth, his rifle at the ready.

  "All right, you son of a bitch," he said when he spotted Larry, "say your prayers."

  "That's more like a Monogram Western than a jungle epic," I said.

  Maybe Torrance had seen me on his stoop, or maybe not. At any rate, he seemed pretty surprised to see a six-foot bunny in his jungle.

  "Jesus Christ," he said, and I didn't bother to reprimand him for it. It seemed appropriate enough, considering the season.

  What didn't seem appropriate was the barrel of the rifle that he had leveled at me. It might not have been an elephant gun, but the bore looked big enough to stuff a python into.

  "Who the hell are you?" Rick asked.

  "Bill Ferrel, private bunny."

  He didn't laugh. "What're you doing in that outfit? I thought Ernie was supposed to be here."

  "It's a long story. Why don't you give me that rifle and we'll talk about it?"

  "Forget it." He aimed the rifle at Larry's head. "I'm going to plug this varmint."

  "Monogram again," I said. "Or maybe Republic. Have you ever starred in a Western?"

  "No, but I like to watch 'em. Now, why don't you just get out of here and let me do what I have to do?"

  Larry's eyes were no longer rolled up in his head. They were wide and bulging as he stared into the rifle barrel. I think he was holding his breath. He'd looked into plenty of rifle barrels in his movies, being a villain most of the time, but he wasn't used to them when he wasn't acting.

  "Killing Larry would be bad publicity for the studio," I said. There was no need to bring morality into it; stars don't understand morality. So I was appealing to his practical side. "And bad publicity for you, too. What about that picture you're working on now?"

  "Manfred of Madagascar? What about it?" He moved the rifle, pointing it at the wet ground, and Larry let out a slow hiss of air.

  "Think how it would look to the fans if you murdered your co-star," I said. "Larry's in the picture, isn't he?"

  "Yeah, he's in it, but I wouldn't call him a 'co-star.' He's just the bad guy. I don't have co-stars."

  "Right. But it still wouldn't be a good idea to kill him, not over something as silly as a pregnant cat."

  The rifle barrel came up. Now, it was pointing at me again. Right at my pink bunny stomach.

  "There's nothing silly about a pregnant cat," Rick said. "Especially not about Felicia. She's a pedigreed Siamese, really expensive. Very classy. I've got all the papers on her. And now, she's been polluted by alley trash."

  "You should've kept her up. That's what people usually do."

  "She was in the back yard. She likes to get out a little in the daytime. Get some exercise. There's a fence, so she should have been safe. Besides, Berry's the one who should have taken precautions."

  Torrance turned the rifle barrel back toward Larry. I have to admit to feeling a guilty twinge of relief. But I can never resist asking questions when I shouldn't.

  So I said, "What precautions?"

  "He could have had his alley cat fixed."

  "I thought about that," Larry said.

  His voice, always firm in his movie roles, quavered just a little. Not that I blamed him.

  "But I just couldn't do it," he continued. "If I had a wife, she could probably h
ave had it done, but I just couldn't."

  It was clear that Larry had certain psychological problems that we weren't going to be able to resolve for him. Or, it was clear to me. Rick seemed to think he could resolve them easily enough.

  He pointed the rifle in the general direction of Larry's reproductive organs and said, "I could fix you right here, and take care of the cat later."

  While Rick was focused on Larry, I made my move. I'm not generally a very quick guy, but maybe the bunny suit inspired me. I jumped to Rick's side and grabbed the rifle, trying to twist it out of his grasp.

  He didn't want to give it up, and he twisted back, which caused both of us to fall to the squishy ground. Luckily, I landed on top.

  We thrashed around for a while, but neither of us could get the advantage. Rick's muscular chest wasn't just a movie illusion, though. He managed a powerful roll that turned the two of us over and put him on top. Then he began slowly wresting the rifle from my grip.

  I thought that if I could hold out long enough, Larry would get up and help me out, but I was wrong about that. You can never trust a villain. I heard the frantic rustling of palm fronds, and I knew that Larry was leaving the area. Possibly, he was extremely worried about his cat and wanted to find him as soon as possible. More than likely, however, he didn't really care what happened to me, just as long as it didn't happen to him.

  I could tell it was going to be up to me to rescue myself, so I resorted to low bunny cunning.

  "Rick," I gasped.

  He didn't stop trying to get the rifle, but he said, "What?"

  "Are there any tarantulas in this jungle?"

  "No." He sounded a little nervous, which was good. "Why?"

  "Well, there's a couple of big hairy black spiders on your back. I thought maybe—"

  "Spiders? Spiders?"

  Rick let go of the rifle and jumped to his feet, brushing wildly at his back with both arms.

  "Did I get them? Where are they? Step on them! Step on them!"