Aftertaste

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Once he’d boxed his stuff up, all that remained of his tenancy were white rectangles of cleaner wall edged with bits of double-sided tape, the bare IKEA furniture he would be donating to Goodwill, and that stain on the bedroom floor that would probably cost him his security deposit. He looked at his watch: two o’clock. Julie and her brother would be here soon.

  Two o’clock turned into three, which turned into four, and Malcolm realized his phone had died. He found the charger in one of the boxes and the phone rang practically the moment he plugged it in. “The van broke down,” Julie said, relief clear in her voice, “but Brad got it working again. We’ll be there any minute now.”

  By the time they had loaded his boxes into the van, the sun was low in the sky and the shadows had already begun to move on their own.

  “Shit,” he said, and Brad nodded grimly.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Julie said.

  The complex was locked when they got there, but Brad had phoned ahead and two guards with shotguns were waiting for them by the gate. He slowed the van down as he took the curve leading up to the complex, and Malcolm heard the engine cough and die, the van shuddering to a stop a hundred yards from the first barricades. Brad turned the key again but the starter just whirred.

  “Leave it,” Malcolm said.

  They had barely left the van when they heard shuffling behind them, and when the screams started they ran full-bore toward the gates. Malcolm kept Julie in front of him, safe, knowing at least he would see her before he died. But then they were at the gates, and it seemed an eternity before they opened; then they were inside and everything was quiet again. “You cut it a little close there,” a bored guard told him. “You’re safe now. You can get your things tomorrow.”

  But there was little left of the van the next day, and Malcolm knew the rest of his world was gone.

  “It’s just stuff,” Julie said, giving him a little hug.

  “It was just my fucking van,” grumbled Brad.

  Here he was, Malcolm in domestic bliss. And it wasn’t so bad. He hadn’t lost himself after all; it had only been stuff. It felt good to wake up to a warm bed, to roll over and kiss this woman beside him, to know this was their place—and, hell, after a few weeks her cat was even their cat, the damn fuzz ball loved him, started purring whenever he entered a room. A place with two other beings and neither of them trying to kill him.

  Could this be happiness?

  There were hiccups every now and then when things didn’t feel quite right, didn’t feel real. Like now. The cat was looking at him oddly. That’s what cats did, he knew, but right now it bugged him, got under his skin. Malcolm went downstairs to turn off the lights and use the bathroom, and it was still looking at him. Making his teeth ache.

  He went into the bathroom to wash up and the cat followed him around the edge of the door, looked up at him again, and purred. “Okay already,” he said, and reached down to scratch behind its ears.

  It happened then, the world blinking red just for an instant.

  Blink, and the cat was gone, and something wet and red had taken its place.

  The face in the mirror was his all right, but he saw bits of fur between his teeth and tasted blood in his mouth. He touched the reflection and his trembling fingers left behind a red smear.

  “Everything okay down there?” Julie called down to him.

  “Fine. I just have to take a shower,” he replied, and shut the door.

  There wasn’t much left of the cat to flush down the toilet, and between the heat of the shower and soap, he felt better again, he felt normal, and then he didn’t really remember so much. Why wouldn’t he feel normal? He felt great, and full. He went upstairs and lay down, and it all felt so right.

  No more dates, no more searching.

  He shut his eyes and breathed in the scent of Julie’s hair, felt her warmth beside him, and soon fell into a deep sleep untroubled by dreams or even the faintest meow.

  Typecast

  JEFF RYAN

  Linda opened the door and saw a dozen psychopaths waiting for her. One had a half-torn straitjacket. Two wore long straggly beards. One man, bald, scraped his pate clean with an immense serrated knife. A fat deviant in overalls and no shirt held a pitchfork adorned with doll heads. One man was immaculately attired in a charcoal suit drenched in caked blood.

  “Make a hole, people,” Linda said, barging into the sea of crazies. They immediately parted, hugging the wall and lowering their eyes in respect. Three men in chairs contorted their legs so she could walk unimpeded past them. Linda’s combination of perfume, hoop earrings, scarves, and an array of bracelets made her intrude on all five senses at once whenever she made any motion. Two steps behind Linda, June tried to catch up.

  “Air! I need air!” she exclaimed, walking out into the humid summer day. The baking sun of Los Angeles was an immediate reminder of what this land wanted to be: desert. “Oh, God, it’s Thailand out here. This is intolerable. We’ve got to go.”

  June followed in the morning sunshine, taking small amusement in literally being in Linda’s shadow as the casting director left the production office. “Where are we going?”

  “Do you have to ask?” Linda said, pointing with one bebangled arm across the street to a coffee shop. “I mean, seriously, June, you need to pay more attention.” She crossed the street, oblivious to the honking of traffic and, in one lane, an actual squeal of brakes. “Pedestrian!” she yelled! “Eat my cheese!”

  Linda pushed open the door as if expecting photography and held her pose for a moment. “The eagle has landed,” she exclaimed upon entering the air-conditioning. “There, that’s a proper temperature.”

  “This is nicer,” June said in agreement, sneaking in before the door slammed. Linda didn’t hold doors.

  “No it’s not,” Linda said, changing her mind. “It’s a meat locker in here. This is where we should be having auditions for our serial killer. After they kill us they can keep us in cold storage.”

  “I thought Kevin, the one who was barking, was good.”

  “Amateur hour,” Linda said. “They don’t understand the business. They’re trying way too hard to go way too deep. I mean, barking. Anyone can bark.”

  “But he was really good. I mean, he was off book and everything.”

  “Sweetie, you don’t need to be off book for auditions. You don’t really even have to act. You have to be. Especially for a showy role like this. People act too much, too much. One day a producer will listen to me and I’ll be able to audition people in a soundproof room. All I need is a glance, and I know who you are.”

  There wasn’t a line; the morning rush was over. “What can I get for you today?” the woman behind the counter said.

  “Take this woman, for example,” Linda said, turning to face her. “You’re obviously an employee here, and I’m sure you’re good at your job, but—I’m a casting director—I wouldn’t cast you as a barrister, or whatever Italian word it is you invented to make pouring coffee sound hard, in a million years. Midforties is not what we’re expecting to see in service roles. I put you up on-screen dressed like that, the audience is filled with questions: Is she married? Divorced? Kids? Can she support them on this salary? Is she the manager? Is this what she really wanted to do in life? It all draws attention away from the principals.”

  “Can I , um, help you?” the woman repeated. Linda was right, June could see: this was the face of a mom of a troubled teen. No, the mom of a genius kid. Definitely not a romantic lead. As awful as Linda was, she was always right.

  “Pour one-third soy, one-third half-and-half, and one-third skim into a grande cup, swirl it around, empty it out, and then pour black coffee in it. I’ll know if you do it wrong. The milk should be swirling around the coffee, not through it.”

  “Of course,” the woman said without batting an eye, then hit the “special order” key and went to confer with another drink maker. June got whatever on the menu was closest to $2.50, which was all the cash she
had. Linda never paid for others’ drinks.

  After supervising the production of the drink, Linda took the coffee to the condiment station and added skim milk and a stack of Splendas as thick as a Twilight novel. “They never get it right, so I don’t even bother trying anymore,” she said. “It’s like every store in the world saves its incompetent employees for me.”

  “Sounds like The Truman Show in reverse,” June said, then gulped. She had learned not to bring up any movie or TV show, because . . .

  “That movie was garbage. Casting was atrocious. I mean, Laura Linney? You see any gas station putting up pictures of Laura Linney on their tool racks? And Jim Carrey has the depth of a puddle of urine.” She never liked anything she didn’t cast.

  “Laura Linney is a pretty good actress.”

  “If you want any sort of a future as a casting director, June, you’ll refrain from saying ‘pretty’ and ‘Laura Linney’ in the same sentence.”

  June found them a table and sat down in her chair. Linda descended into hers. “Someone left their copy of the Times here. Maybe they sneezed all over it before so graciously leaving it for us.” She tipped it to the floor with the press-on nail of her left index finger.

  “I think—” June began. “Well—” she continued. “That is—” Finally, she figured her best rhetorical route of attack and asked, “Who do you think the show runner would be happiest with, of who we’ve seen so far?”

  “The show runner can gargle my discharge. If he cared so much about casting he’d attend the damn casting.”

  Was this a test? “But he was there. He’s still there now.”

  “Honey, he’s not going to stay all day. He’ll make up some BS story about being needed back on the set or in the writers’ room. One guy even told me his wife had been hit by a car. There’s dedication for you: I can’t do my job because someone somewhere in the world is hurt.”

  “He might leave while we’re on break,” June said, wishing they were back doing their job. Linda blamed any delays on June’s sloppiness. “There’s craft services coffee.”

  “I’d rather drink septic overflow. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what’s in those silver urns. And we’re not on break. I haven’t taken a break in thirty years.”

  June knew where this was going. “Okay, so: Three o’clock. Man with BlackBerry. Who’s he?”

  Linda smirked. “Medical show. Doctor. Secretly gay. Wife and kids. They don’t know. Has to operate on his gay lover but not let anyone know he cares.”

  “And the two women sharing the dessert?”

  “Cell phone ad.”

  “The mom with the baby stroller?”

  “Ditch the kid; no one wants to think her cleavage is a result of lactation. Then she’s a craft store clerk with a husband fighting overseas. She cheats on him and shows her rack in the love scene. Otherwise she wears floral print.”

  “The older guy with the tea?”

  “His daughter is dying.”

  “The guy in the Lakers jersey?”

  “Troubled teen, covering up his brother’s crime by taking the heat himself.”

  “The woman with the big soda?”

  “Small-town racist.”

  “And the man coming out of the bathroom?”

  “Wealthy dogfight sponsor.”

  “What about me?”

  Linda paused. “Darling, no.”

  “Come on.”

  “Very well,” she said, and took a beat. “Katherine.”

  “Katherine?”

  “Yes, as in The Taming of the Shrew. A production set in the South, the 1960s. You’re the plain brat who they need to marry off so your beautiful younger sister can marry the lumber magnate. Your male costar would slap you a lot, and the audience would love him for it.”

  “Oh.”

  “You bring it on yourself. All the arguing, all the demands. You can’t act, of course, but if you could a bad casting director might suggest you for a variety of parts with fat comedy leading men.”

  June held her tongue, then thought of something else. “And you?”

  Linda took two beats to process this. Then she did not hesitate: “Hogwarts professor.”

  June realized they never told anyone where they were going. A building full of hopeful maniacs was in limbo. “Maybe we should get back to—”

  “Shut up,” Linda said with a strange detachment. “Shut up, shut up shut up, silly.” She was staring out the window.

  “Oh, did you see—”

  “What part of ‘shut up’ was unclear, dearie? Use your ears for once: I’ve just cast our part.”

  “Someone . . . someone you just saw on the street?”

  “Yes, you Delphic oracle, someone on the street.” She started charging out of the coffee shop, leaving her purse behind, a miasma of scent and sound and bauble and sparkle. “Pick up your phone, it’s ringing.”

  June looked down; like all good assistants, she was scrupulously aware of her cell phone. Different ring-tones for each VIP, a beep for texts, and vibrating for personal calls, which were rare. It was silent.

  Then it went off. Miss Gulch’s theme from The Wizard of Oz began to chime. That was Linda’s ring-tone, of course, June’s one crack in her wall of nonchalance about how Linda treated her. She answered before the second du-duhn du-duhn da-da-da.

  “You’re late,” Linda chirped. “Answer the phone when I call. Especially when I told you not five seconds ago to answer it.”

  “Where are you?”

  “One block away. I’m reeling in a whale over here. He’s everything the runner wants, everything I want, even everything you would want, if your opinion counted.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “He’s Harrison Ford at forty. What do you think, girl? Stupid question.”

  “Have you, um, ever done this before?”

  “Cast someone in an acting role? Let’s see, I think maybe I can remember doing so once or twice.”

  “No, I mean picking someone off the street. I mean, he might not even be an actor.”

  “L.A., dear; he’s an actor and a screenwriter and he’ll hit himself with a riding crop beneath Venice Pier for twenty bucks if I offer.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, this is like Lana Turner.”

  “Let’s not try to be the expert on the studio system, my dear. It was Veronica Lake who was discovered in a drugstore. She was probably there stealing speed.”

  “But just a guy off the street . . . !”

  “Acting is like politics: the only people who want to do it are thus constitutionally disqualified from actually doing it well. George C. Scott was a delivery boy and they put a uniform on him, and Patton. Look it up, it’s true.”

  “But this role has a lot of acting . . . I mean, in the script we know he’s a serial killer but we don’t know if he’s killed the girl everyone’s looking for.”

  “Worst comes to worst we’ll put peanut butter in his mouth and hire Frank Welker to dub him in post. That’s how they did it with Mr. Ed and Matt LeBlanc.”

  June was outside now, with two purses in tow (Linda’s looked like Liberace’s toilet seat cover), and Linda was nowhere in sight. “Where are you? I can’t see you. You’re too far ahead.”

  “That seems to be my assistants’ collective mission statement in life. I’m about four blocks ahead, and one over. He’s cutting through an alley now. I’ve been waiting until we’re alone to give him the role.”

  “Are you sure this is—” June started to say, and then heard the ruffle of fabric. Linda had slipped her phone in a pocket of her jacket. The jacket dialed her by accident about five times a day, so she knew its muted ruffles by heart.

  “Hey, you!” she heard Linda say. “You, slow down! What, are you late for a Klaus Kinski lookalike contest? I’ve got to tell you something. I know who you are. I can see it in your eyes, that head, that lurch—my God, it’s like undead Shel Silverstein. Hey! Don’t go away! I’m talking to you! This is important, crucially important! Ho
w’d you like everyone to see you? That’s right, everyone will know who you are. Want to know what I see in your future? Murder. I see you digging holes in your backyard, burying girls facedown so if you didn’t kill them dead enough they still can’t dig out. I see you being pulled into a holding cell by a racially diverse group of young cops. I see your face in the teaser for next week, over the line ‘He’s a killer . . . but is he our killer?’ Want me to make that happen for you? . . . Yes, exactly, just like that! That’s precisely what I want to see . . . Whoa, hold up, Olivier, save some for Gary Sinise . . . Geez, off book already? Your character doesn’t use a knife, you ham, he—”

  Making the Cut

  A Close Shave Story

  MIKE RESNICK AND LEZLI ROBYN

  It’s been a busy night at the Close Shave. I’ve already given a trim and a shampoo to Harvey the Yeti, of whom there is an awful lot to trim and wash. Mildred the Lamia comes in looking for Leonard, her almost-husband, and decides to have some feathers plucked while she is here, and as the clock strikes midnight I am giving Basil his nightly shave and trim. He hands me a pair of books, one on dog grooming and one an illustrated copy of Kipling’s Jungle Book, and suggests that he wants to look exactly like Akila, the leader of the pack, and I point out that everything I do is ephemeral because come morning he will look like an aging, overweight Mowgli again.

  “In fact,” I say, “if the moon goes behind a cloud, you will probably forget to be a wolf even while I am trimming your whiskers.”

  “What do you know about werewolves?” he says contemptuously. “We’re a unique and noble race.”