by Greg Herren
The knob turned. The door opened a couple inches and the kid peered past the frame.
Maybe I should have played the favorite, Gus thought and motioned for him to come inside.
“Why’d you pick me? You don’t seem a queer.”
“Maybe I don’t like uppity dames.” He tapped a bit of ash over the side of the bed. “Or maybe I like kids that are scared of me.”
“I’m not scared.”
Gus patted the edge of the bed. “Then you better get over here.”
Carl walked over to the bed and lifted the pack of cigarettes from the sheets. He tapped out one and set it between his lips. Then he plucked the lit cigarette from Gus’s mouth to set his own smoldering. “You trust Moiren?”
Gus let loose a laugh. “Kid, I don’t trust anyone.” He stroked Carl’s thighs through his trousers. He normally didn’t play with rabbits, but the kid was begging for it. “Some don’t worry me, though.” Moiren, though, Gus had to admit, something about the man worried him.
“I asked Moiren why he—”
“Hired you?” Maybe the kid was no chump after all. “What’d he say?”
“That Jove Lunge had a connection with all his comrades. If Lunge didn’t have feelin’s for Timothy, then the paintin’ would be insincere.”
“And pairing us up is supposed to start feelings?”
“Like a couple of real nancies.” Carl laughed, but he kept those brown eyes on Gus.
Yeah, begging for it. “I can feel you shaking.”
“Am not.”
Gus grabbed at the kid’s crotch, squeezing tight, not enough to cause pain, but staking his claim. The kid definitely trembled.
Moaned a little, too.
“Maybe you don’t trust me.”
Carl reached out to touch Gus’s bare chest. His fingers lightly tugged the curled hair, squeezed the hard slabs of pectoral muscle. “Honest, you’re bigger than I’m used to. I think it would be like wrestling a bear.”
Gus let go of the kid’s crotch but grabbed his arm and pulled him down into bed, onto him. “Get ready to make me growl, kid,” he muttered before his lips took on Carl’s.
*
While the kid slept, Gus slipped out of the bed. He opened his bag. His only change of clothing was a thick black sweater and dark trousers—he didn’t intend to stay for breakfast. At the bottom of the bag was a pair of brass knuckles. He didn’t like guns, delivering the goods over the last six years without having to resort to one. He slipped the heavy brass into a pocket.
He found the door locked. Not much of a surprise. He could force it easily, but that would be tipping his hand too soon. And he still didn’t know where Samantha was staying in the mansion.
That left the window.
He glanced back at Carl. If Gus did find Samantha and did throw her into the back of whatever sedan Moiren kept in his garage, where would that leave the kid? A loose end. Saul hated loose ends. Gus wasn’t fond of them, either. But coming back for the kid would be a mistake. You don’t wager on a slow horse.
The window latch turned without effort and Gus stepped out on to the ledge. He was thankful that the bitterly cold night air lacked a biting wind. He inched along, wary of his step, peering into the other windows he passed, but saw no sign of Samantha.
As he neared one set of eaves, he noticed an old barn a couple hundred feet away from the house. Moonlight showed fresh footprints in the snow leading back and forth. That made Gus curious. He didn’t care for the feeling—he wasn’t paid to be inquisitive, he was no flatfoot or private dick—but everything about Moiren left him on edge. Not knowing what was in the barn seemed like a mistake. Mugs like him didn’t outlive mistakes.
He jumped off the ledge, his landing cracking the semi-frozen surface of the snow, before rolling to his feet. He looked over his shoulder. The mansion remained dark and still.
The padlocked barn doors looked ready to collapse inward. Gus took hold of the latch. The muscles in his arms strained as he tore it free of the doors, which buckled but didn’t fall.
Gus didn’t step inside until his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The old scent of hay couldn’t disguise a new odor. Musky, like a kennel—which meant some animal or animals, big and furry. His ears caught the rattle of chains from deeper in the barn. Cautious, but curious what the hell Moiren was keeping inside, he crept forward.
A moment before he noticed the crimson eyes high off the ground staring at him, Gus heard the rumble. A growl.
Heavy paws pounded the packed earthen floor of the barn. The heavy chain warned him, and he stumbled back, slamming against the doors, as massive jaws began snapping the air where he’d stood seconds earlier.
Black wolves aren’t supposed to be the size of Packards.
A hand reached in through the cracked doors and pulled Gus back into the open. The shivering butler held a lantern. Moiren, dressed in a heavy fur coat, cradled an elephant gun in his arms. He wore another ridiculous hat, a Revolutionary War tricorn, and a tremendous smirk.
“So, Mr. Lunge, would you say this night is fit for neither man nor beast?”
“What is that thing!?”
The butler shut the doors.
“A lusus naturae. A fantoccini created especially for my art.” Moiren looked over his shoulder at the house. “Shall we head back, or would you prefer to reenact something I painted ages ago?”
Gus nodded. He felt like someone had changed the landscape on him, tossing him off a map of the real world and into the pages of a nightmare book.
As they trudged through the snow, Moiren rested the rifle against his shoulder.
“Are you a good shot?” Gus asked.
“I’ve studied the male anatomy all my life. There are entry wounds that will never heal properly, leaving a man crippled for life. I suppose I could aim to be kind, but what sport is that?”
Gus’s guts told him Moiren wasn’t boasting. He no longer seemed like the silly fool Gus had thought he was. The danger level had just doubled. Gus paused and turned back to the barn. “How many Lunges have there been?”
The other two men stopped. The butler began counting on his fingers.
“I mean, have you ever used the same fella twice?”
Moiren wheezed that awful laugh. “Twice? My good man, I’d be astonished.”
“Sir, might I recommend some brandy and Benedictine to warm us?” said the butler.
Gus thought a stiff drink might be the only thing sane waiting for him back at the house. The job wasn’t going to be easy anymore.
*
“Were you frightened?” Moiren asked as he sipped his drink from a flame-warmed snifter.
“I think when you see a wolf the size of a city bus, you’ve every right to sweat a little.”
“Well said. You are not only a man of action—scaling walls and trudging through my backyard tundra—but also a man of sense. Both admirable qualities in a hero.”
“Heroes are short-lived.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Lunge. You’ve faced some terrible things—the Hindoo Rahu, Captain Dream and his Zeppelin Marauders, even the Sons of Caqueux in Brittany…a favorite of mine, I must admit. Just picturing their weaving nooses from the sleeves of condemned criminals leaves me quivering.”
“But they’re only stories.”
“Only? Your modesty is a disservice.”
“But you know I’m not really this Lunge fella.”
Gus looked at the butler, who gave a tiny nod of disapproval. No—of warning. Too late, because Moiren threw his snifter against the wall.
“You are Jove Lunge!” Moiren ran a hand through his hair, dislodging his tricorn hat. The butler picked it up and brushed the felt with his sleeve. “Don’t you see…I need you to be him.”
But Gus didn’t see, didn’t follow him…because the edges of his vision had grown cloudy. He looked down at his own glass and fell forward off the chair.
*
The headache, the awful dryness in his mouth, the reluctance of his eyes t
o open wide enough to see right all told Gus he had one mother of a hangover. Only he couldn’t remember having more than a glass. Guess his only inheritance from his old man wasn’t proof against a Mickey Finn slipped into his drink.
He groaned and rolled over, felt someone warm next to him, cracked his eyes again. Some young guy, dressed like a Boy Scout, started rubbing Gus’s stomach.
“Please tell me you didn’t help me cross the street and into a bar.”
The kid’s hand drifted lower than Gus’s waist. “I did my good deed. Twice last night. But today…”
Gus wiped his face with one hand. Despite the way he felt, the kid was managing to wake the rest of him. “Carl, right?”
The kid nodded. Looked even a bit hurt.
“Why are you dressed like that?”
“That butler knocked on the door an hour ago and brought us our costumes.”
“Any chance he brought a cup of joe—or better, a beer?”
“Moiren wants us in the greenhouse.”
Gus sat up and winced. Then other memories from last night came back to him. Sneaking outside. Seeing the largest mutt in the world chained up in the barn. The Mickey in his drink. The butler must have carried his unconscious body back to bed—not that the guy looked like he could handle a sack of potatoes, let alone a dead weight of over two hundred pounds. Maybe he’d had help. Gus looked at the kid. That guileless face smiled at him even as he stroked Gus’s dick.
Maybe he wasn’t so innocent after all.
“Not now, junior,” he said, and took Carl’s hand off him. He rose from the bed and went over to the washbowl. He dipped his head into the cold water to chase away the fog behind his eyes.
“Go down and tell Moiren that I’m not stepping into that vegetable soup he calls a greenhouse without breakfast.”
Carl left. A few minutes later, the butler brought into the room a tray with cold meats and warm eggs. More importantly, there was a coffeepot.
“Do get dressed quickly. I’ve never seen the master so eager to begin painting.”
I bet, Gus thought.
*
The clothes were khaki, short-sleeved and short-legged. A bit snug around the thighs. The hard hat, which the butler insisted be referred to as a pith helmet, felt ridiculous. Gus missed his regular derby.
He followed after the butler on the way to the greenhouse when a thump stopped him. To his right was the drawing room, the door ajar. He opened it and saw Samantha resting atop the divan, one arm stretched down to the floor. A crystal tumbler lay on a damp patch of the Oriental rug.
“I’d watch what you sip here,” Gus said, and sat her up. She looked pale, her eyelids fluttering like a caged bird’s wings.
He glanced over his shoulder. The butler remained in the doorway, his face turned in the direction of the room’s frosty windows. Decorum, or lack of interest?
“Mr. Lunge.” Samantha rested her head on his shoulder. “Do…do you want to know my hidden…my…my secret?”
Her perfume had faded. Only by being so close against her flushed skin could he catch a trace of its former elegance.
“He promised me…Moiren said, ‘Your father will never forget how I paint you.’” She slipped an arm around his neck, but the gesture seemed not to be seductive, but rather so she could lean against his chest for strength.
“Listen, I don’t think you know the truth about Moiren’s paintings.” Gus thought back to the massive beast kept in the barn.
But she nodded, a sloppy, drunken gesture. “I want that cold bastard…Daddy to be…haunted.”
Gus began to wonder if returning all those girls had been for the best. He’d never failed before. He could deal with Saul’s fury at not bringing Samantha back, but he’d have to confront Moiren first.
The butler cleared his throat. “She’s for later, Mr. Lunge. Master Moiren is considering…well, the unheard of. He thinks you may be worthy of two paintings. You should feel honored.”
“Honored?”
The man adjusted his black jacket a moment. “Save the tempest for the greenhouse, sir. As for her—” The butler kicked the fallen glass under the divan. “She’ll do for the sequel. The Last Libation.”
“Who writes these books, anyway?”
The butler gestured for Gus to return to the hallway.
“Damn it, who writes them?” Gus yelled. He wanted to grab the guy by his monkey suit’s lapels and smash him through a wall.
“Don’t you know?” When the butler grinned, his scar rippled like a snake across his face.
*
Moiren stood by an easel in the heart of the greenhouse. He had traded one odd hat for another, a soft Frenchie number. His smock was stained, mostly in shades of an ugly brown. Gus told himself it had to be paint, not dried blood.
The surrounding plants were bloated and mottled. One had black thorns seeping a clear fluid that could have been tears. Another resembled a gigantic trombone or Englishman’s pipe.
“I do hope you both come to appreciate my Nepenthes rex. I’ve spent the last decade cultivating it from seedlings found in the Amazon.”
“Listen, pal, I think you should know I didn’t come here to be your inspiration.”
Moiren smirked. “The Marquis once wrote, ‘Truth titillates the imagination far less than fiction.’”
“I don’t know what your game is—”
“Art. Rooted in suffering is art.”
Gus nodded at Carl. “C’mere, kid. Sorry, Moiren, but I think your guests have had enough of your hospitality.”
The familiar click of a safety made Gus’s head turn. The butler had leveled the elephant gun first at him, then at the kid.
“I have painted Lunge with bullet wounds in the past.” Moiren lowered his voice, perhaps to sound soothing. “You will all be free to go once I am finished.”
Gus cursed. He shouldn’t care about some gunsel, but the way Carl looked at him, like a dog fearful it would be kicked to the curb, stopped him from tackling the butler. “Fine.”
“Wonderful. Now, young Timothy, would you please take a few steps back.”
Carl nodded and slowly shuffled backward until he bumped into the swollen body of one of the plants. Emerald vines snapped around his limbs and he was lifted off the ground. Carl struggled and fought to free himself but it happened so fast. The next moment the tendrils dropped the kid into the gourd belly. There came a splash and Carl began screaming, in fear, in agony.
“Not yet, Lunge,” shouted the butler, who turned the rifle to Gus. An elephant gun would blast a hole through him.
“It’s eating him alive!” Adrenaline rushing through his blood, Gus grabbed at several of the twisting, coarse vines, his ham-sized fists squeezing sticky fluid from them as he tore them apart.
“Yes, yes. Enzymes and mutualistic insect larvae and all that jazz.” Moiren waved a paintbrush in bored annoyance, and then turned back to his canvas. “Now whatever happens, don’t move.”
A Letter to My Brother,
relating Recent Events with
Unintended Consequences
Carol Rosenfeld
Dearest Rick,
I’ve gotten myself into a rather awkward situation. I hope you won’t be angry with me; it wasn’t my fault. Truly, dear.
You know how I am about trends: I was listening to torch songs while other girls were screaming for the Beatles. And I still haven’t gotten one of those nuclear physicist phones like the one you have. When I drape myself on my chaise to chat with someone, I simply must have a phone cord trailing through the fingers of one hand.
A couple of years ago Anne Rice was all the rage and then this whole Twilight thing started and I simply could not understand the attraction, the excitement. But I thought maybe if I did a vampire scene with someone, I might get a glimmer of what all the fuss was about. You know what I mean by a scene, dear—make-believe for consenting adults. So I posted an advertisement on some list that begins with a C. Crone’s List? No, that’s something else. A
nyway, I made it known that I was seeking an opportunity to play—play being the operative word—with a vampire. Meaning, of course, someone who found it stimulating to simulate a vampire. And I made my sexual preference quite clear.
I received a lovely e-mail from someone named Marty, offering to introduce me to the delights of “neck nibbling.” Full sentences, no undecipherable acronyms or abbreviations, perfect spelling and grammar—I e-mailed my phone number and waited for Marty to call.
That night, while I was lying on the aforementioned chaise, the phone rang and someone with a low, sultry voice and some sort of East European accent began speaking. Well, you know how I am about accents; one word and I’m in a muddle, one sentence and I’ve melted into a puddle. Remember that exquisite Bridget from Dublin and my luverly Maggie from London? And Diana, that splendid Australian I had a fling with when we were in Sydney for the Olympics. Not to mention Merit, that divine Egyptian archeologist we met during our visit to the Valley of the Queens. If you don’t remember Merit, I am sure you remember her brother, Minkabh!
Marty and I had an early dinner at a very good steakhouse. Thank heavens it was fairly dark inside, because Marty liked her—his?—but more about that later—steak rather rare, and you know I can’t bear to see any red at all in my meat, just a tinge of pink. Well, she—he?—was very gallant—sort of a goth Fred Astaire. The cape Marty was wearing worked very well for the opera, of course—because sometimes a night at the Met is not unlike going to The Rocky Horror Picture Show: there was a man in full cowboy gear last year at The Girl of the Golden West.
After a wonderful performance of Don Giovanni, I invited Marty back here to our cozy penthouse on Central Park West for a nightcap. I remember raising my glass of brandy to my lips, but things get a bit vague after that. Actually, more than a bit. To be completely truthful, I can’t remember a damn thing.
When I woke up the next morning the sun was so bright, I thought the ozone layer had vanished altogether, I simply don’t understand these climate change deniers. I didn’t feel very well. I desperately needed William Powell to bring me “pixie remover,” as I believe it was called in My Man Godfrey.