by Hal Bodner
“And the lining’s torn,” Troy added helpfully.
Chris urged her not to forget the churches and synagogues; if the culprit was as old as they suspected, he might be counting on a vampire’s supposed inability to enter holy ground to protect his hiding place. And so she spent one morning, along with four deputies, prowling around the innards of West Hollywood’s religious buildings, accomplishing nothing other than seriously injuring the rector of the West Hollywood Community Church on San Vicente Boulevard.
Two of the deputies exited the basement boiler room and inadvertently knocked against a stacked pile of old wooden school desks that were illegally stored. The desks collapsed with a crash, and the two men, anxious to be free of the dark, dank room, decided between themselves not to mention the incident and tiptoed quietly upstairs, pretending nothing was amiss.
Unbeknownst to the two officers, however, the rector had followed them downstairs to the basement, prepared to offer his assistance in the search, and become distracted by the discovery of a pile of discarded hymnals for which he’d been searching for some time. Arms laden with musty old books, the rector reached the door just in time to greet the leg of one of the falling chairs with the side of his head. As he passed silently into unconsciousness, he dimly heard the ominous click of the lock on the basement door as the deputies locked it behind them.
Awakening an hour or so later, confused and disoriented, the rector stumbled around in the dark, not quite able to remember where he was. Reduced to speechless terror as a result of imagined noises in the dark, he barked his shins painfully several times on the scattered furniture and finally tripped over a cluster of abandoned paint cans that had been stacked near the boiler. The lids of two of the cans popped free, and within ten minutes the rector was entertained by a huge whoosh of flame as the fumes, ignited by the open flame of the boiler, began to provide him with light.
He began pounding frantically on the basement door with a splintered chair leg, dangerously close to a heart attack. Fortunately, the janitor heard his screams for help at about the same time as the antiquated sprinkler system in the basement went off. Fred Delaney and his crew of firemen showed up in minutes, rescuing the unfortunate clergyman and depositing him into an ambulance. As the paramedics made their final preparations for rushing the rector off to Cedars-Sinai, Delaney took the opportunity to slip more than $2,000 worth of citations for illegal storage of combustible materials into the pocket of the hyperventilating man’s cassock.
Happily, the rector survived his ordeal with few aftereffects, and the next day he sued the city. The city manager, predictably, hit the roof and threatened to hold Clive personally responsible for the damages, vowing to make his life even more miserable for the next several weeks than it already was.
Burman was convinced to accept the “Dracula Complex” theory for lack of anything better. She alternatively begged with and bullied the various city council members until they passed a resolution authorizing Clive to conduct searches of the basements of all city buildings, reasoning that the lunatic, if his delusions held true, might have holed up in one of them during daylight hours. Ed Larsen gleefully picked up on Burman’s resolution, and soon the Gay Gazette was running the story, complete with a full-page, full-color cartoon of Pamela Burman, dressed in a gold-and-blue polka dot gown and wearing bright green track shoes, holding a slavering, red-eyed monster at bay with a pink umbrella as a terrified city council, all carrying dogs and pooper-scoopers, hid behind City Hall in the background. Gazette sales skyrocketed, the murderer was redubbed the “Dracula Killer” and the city went into a quiet panic. Burman was less than amused.
The Coalition for Economic Survival, a local renters’ rights group, sent a delegation to Daniel Eversleigh demanding that sheriff’s deputies search the basements and storage areas of their apartment buildings to save them from the hideous beast who undoubtedly lurked within. As CES formed the largest single bloc of voters in the city, Eversleigh hastened to comply with their wishes and Clive Anderson was immediately summoned to the Mayor’s office and ordered to comply.
The debate on the cancellation of the Halloween Parade continued; Burman was something of a bulldog on the issue. Nevertheless, the city council refused to be swayed by her arguments, bowing instead to pressure from West Hollywood’s business community to permit the festivities to go on as planned.
Finally, on the Thursday evening before Halloween, something was found.
The West Hollywood Prop-a-teria was a small two-story gray building located on the west side of Fairfax Avenue between Willoughby and Santa Monica. Designed by a man who had been the art director on several of the old Universal horror films, the building was a well-known West Hollywood landmark, easily recognized by the two imposing granite gargoyles mounted on either side of the front door. Run by a pair of older gentlemen named Biffy and Brucie, retired set dressers who were obsessed with movie memorabilia, a large part of the annual income of the business was earned during the months just prior to Halloween.
At about 6:30 that evening, working late, Biffy had gone into one of the storerooms in the basement to retrieve a just-remembered set of ancient candelabrum from The Buccaneer, which he felt were an absolute must for the finishing touches to the ambiance of Mrs. Beidersheim’s very exclusive Halloween costume party to be held on Saturday night. Eagerly counting the additional income from the outrageous charges the twelve candelabra would warrant, Biffy failed to notice that the storeroom door, normally kept locked, had been opened.
All thoughts of Mrs. Beidersheim’s nice fat checks vanished, however, as Biffy entered the room and noticed that not only had the inventory been shifted around but two of the candelabra showed signs of having been recently used. Not having been in the storeroom since just after the previous Halloween, Biffy was first puzzled by the half-melted candles and the matchbook from a restaurant that—he knew for a fact since he and Brucie had celebrated their fortieth anniversary at the restaurant’s opening in late August—had only been open for two months.
Holding the matchbook in one hand and a used candle in the other, Biffy’s realization was swift—a bloodcurdling scream the result. Brucie came running down the stairs to find the unconscious Biffy, sprawled artistically on the storeroom floor, having passed out from the shock.
Less dramatically inclined than his mate, and much more conscious of his own instinct for self-preservation, Brucie immediately sized up the situation and, in a burst of frantic terror, ran screaming up the stairs and out of the shop. Fortunately for Brucie, moments later he saw two deputies from the West Hollywood bicycle patrol peddling down the boulevard. Running down the street after them as fast as his varicose veins would allow, he drew their attention with his shrieks of anguished terror and practically castrated one of the unfortunate young deputies as he bodily pulled him from his bicycle and began to haul him back up the street to the shop. Clive was immediately summoned. Stopping only to order his secretary to call Burman and Becky and tell them to meet him at the Prop-a-teria, he dashed out to his car and raced down the boulevard to Fairfax, nearly running down a dozen pedestrians.
Entering the basement, accompanied by Brucie and the two deputies, Clive ignored the still prostrate Biffy, his attention immediately drawn to the coffin in the corner.
“That’s not ours,” Brucie whispered, pointing.
The casket was partially hidden by a pile of half-rotted fabric draped across its lid, and Clive had a sinking premonition that, at last, the killer’s lair had been found.
He ordered one of the deputies to remove the two men from the basement. Biffy had recovered and the two were now wrapped in each other’s arms, Biffy clutching Brucie and Brucie clutching Biffy, alternatively moaning quietly and whimpering loudly.
Drawing his gun, and trying to concentrate over the noise made by the two terrified civilians in the hallway, Clive motioned for the remaining deputy to cover him. He moved toward the coffin and used an old wooden walking stick that he found leaning a
gainst the wall to sweep the curtains and costumes from the casket’s lid. He crouched next to it, carefully positioning the end of the walking stick underneath the lid’s slight overhang. Then, using the stick as a lever, with a mighty shove, he lifted the lid of the coffin and pushed it to one side where it slid to the floor with a resounding crash.
At the sound, Clive could hear a renewed chorus of wails from the hallway and rolled his eyes in exasperation. The deputy covering him grinned nervously.
Clive stood and carefully looked into the casket’s interior. At first, bitter disappointment struck him that the box was empty. After a moment however, his eyes widened in triumph as he saw that the coffin contained a pillow, dented in the middle as if someone’s head had recently rested there. Further careful examination revealed a small bag at the casket’s foot that contained some clothing and from which one sneaker protruded.
“Get forensics out here stat,” he snapped at the deputy, who hurriedly pulled out his radio to make the call.
Clive’s narrowed eyes carefully swept the rest of the room, searching the dark corners for the coffin’s former occupant. The room was so tightly packed with a miscellany of objects that Clive could see no place for anyone to hide. He did, however, notice an oddly shaped pile of dust that had not been stirred by the crash of the coffin lid.
Puzzled, he holstered his gun and carefully wiped his sweat-covered hands with the ever-present handkerchief before donning the pair of lightweight leather gloves he always carried. He knelt on the floor, careful not to disturb the strange mound, and examined it closely. His eyes widened as he saw what appeared to be charred pieces of bone. Now, wavering between thorough confusion and the glimmerings of an extremely disquieting memory, he looked around the room again, praying silently he would find signs of fire. There were none.
By the time Becky arrived, the basement was swarming with forensics people and the police photographer had come and gone. She knelt with Clive as they both peered closely at the mysterious pile of dust.
“That’s bone, isn’t it?” asked Clive.
Becky removed a large pair of tweezers from her bag and, grasping a single sliver, held it up to the light of the single light bulb that provided the basement’s only illumination.
“Yep,” she replied, carefully placing the sliver into a plastic bag.
“Is it human?” Clive asked.
“Hard to tell.” She carefully used a small brush to sweep the contents of the dust pile into a larger bag.
Over the past week or so, Clive had noticed her increasing reluctance to speculate. Coupled with the stirring of memories he would prefer to keep buried, his annoyance got the better of his normally restrained demeanor.
“Goddamn it, Becky! Tell me something!”
She looked up at him, calmly.
“I’m sorry Clive, but I don’t know anything.” She turned back to her work. “Assuming, for the moment, that these are fragments of human bone, I’d say this was a body once, wouldn’t you?”
“It looks like it’s been burned.”
Becky sighed. “I know. And I have eyes too, Clive. There are no scorch marks in this room. Obviously it was done somewhere else. Don’t ask me why, how or where. I don’t know. I may have a better idea after the tests.”
“Try to keep hold of the results this time, will you?”
“That was uncalled for!” she snapped and then relented, feeling not a small twinge of guilt at the necessity of hiding the extent of her full knowledge from him. “Look, Clive, I’m as lost as you are. I know you’re under a lot of tension, but so am I. I promise, as soon as I can give you answers, I will.”
She closed her bag and, picking up the samples, trudged out of the basement and up the stairs. She emerged from the prop shop a moment later and, looking around carefully to be certain she was unobserved, she pulled out her cell phone and punched in Chris’s number. She considered hanging up when the machine answered but decided to leave a message anyway.
“It’s Becky. Remember that Peter Cushing film? Is there any truth to this turn-to-dust stuff? ’Cause I’d bet dollars to custard donuts we just found the remains of a body that matches up with Pamela’s head.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Much later that evening, in fact well into the next morning, Chris and Troy had their own stroke of luck. For more than ten nights they had dutifully made the rounds of every gay bar and disco in West Hollywood. Between them they had agreed that the most likely place to catch sight of their hitherto invisible nemesis was in one of the dance clubs—at least two victims had met their fates there. As many vampires had favorite hunting grounds, perhaps the rouge preferred to stalk his prey accompanied by a dance mix.
Against Chris’s better judgment, they starting their evening back at Hunter’s. Fortunately, this time there were no difficulties with the clientele. They left the bar rather quickly and began to work their way westward along the boulevard. Troy had promised to keep his drinking at a minimum and had been remarkably true to his word. Aside from a narrow escape from a bitch-fight between Troy and a large drag queen brandishing a gold lame spiked pump whom Troy had insulted at the corner of Santa Monica and Orange Grove, the early part of the evening went largely without incident.
The only other unpleasantness involved Troy and a piano bar. Chris blanched upon Troy’s announcement that he would bestow his talents as a chanteuse upon the accumulated crowd of mostly middle-aged drunks by performing his own stylized rendition of “Moon River.” Pulling Troy aside, he reminded him that, although he undoubtedly possessed many valuable talents, singing was not one of them. He assured Troy that his wit and acuity with a barbed comment were unsurpassed, that his figure was that of the proverbial Greek god, and that his face was tantamount to that of the handsomest matinee idol, worthy of immortalization in oil by the likes of Titian. However, Chris was quick to add, should Troy attempt to impress the gathered onlookers with his great lyrical style and golden throat, he would undoubtedly spoil the effect of his other attributes and be left dateless for the evening.
Troy, who had not failed to cruise the entire bar within thirty seconds of their entrance, loudly proclaimed that this was not a consideration as he wouldn’t be caught dead dating any of the assembled patrons anyway. Chris tipped the piano player, an extremely tall, emaciated young man in leather chaps, vest and chains, who had been playing Cole Porter and Barbara Streisand medleys all night, with fifty dollars in return for his developing a sudden urge to utilize the men’s room for the next twenty minutes or however long it took Chris to get Troy back out onto the street—whichever came first.
Eventually, Chris was able to save the ears of crowd from further insult by promising Troy a spending spree at both Tower Records and at the Hollywood Movieland bookshop at the first available opportunity and they were able to proceed down the boulevard once again.
They ended up at Studio One, a dance bar on Robertson. Chris finally relented and permitted Troy a quick succession of straight scotches. Troy then decided to entertain the rest of the club’s clientele as the belle of the ball by performing a long, seductive striptease in the middle of the dance floor while Chris remained on the sidelines, scanning the crowd.
Chris tried several times to drag Troy from the dance floor, but Troy had made the loving acquaintance of two erstwhile individuals, one an attractive blond real estate salesman in a white spandex jump suit, the other a shirtless muscle-bound personal trainer in leather pants. Both were plying him with drinks in an effort to get him to remove the size-twenty-eight bikini underwear that barely covered his pubic area, the rest of his clothing having long since vanished.
Unwilling to cause a scene with the now totally plastered Troy, Chris fumed silently until the bar finally closed at two in the morning. As Troy, bleary-eyed, made his final swoop around the bar, loudly kissing his newfound friends goodbye, insulting his new enemies with bitchily deadly accuracy and gathering up his stray garments from total strangers who showed various attitudes of l
ust, amusement and irritation, Chris deftly liberated him from the grips of both realtor and personal trainer and led him toward the exit.
Out in the street, Chris yanked Troy into a dark cul-de-sac, and began tucking him back into his clothes. Getting him back into the tank top was no problem, but Troy continued to protest that it was too hot out for him to wear anything else. While Chris was attempting to turn Troy’s ripped jeans inside out in preparation for stuffing Troy into them, if necessary, Troy decided the neighbors could not possibly go to their graves happy unless they had heard him sing the entire score of Cabaret at least once.
He easily slipped out of Chris’s grasp and darted across the parking lot, causing several of the departing club-goers brief moments of dismay or delight, depending on their predilections, as the scantily-clad Troy gaily darted between the bumpers of cars lined up to leave the lot, crossed the street, ignoring traffic, and swaggered into West Hollywood Park.
Chris followed more cautiously, apologizing to irate motorists and holding up his middle finger to one particularly inebriated fellow who loudly inquired if, for fifty dollars, Chris would mind lending out Troy to serve as the entertainment for a dinner party he was hosting the following night.
Once in the park, Troy led Chris on a merry chase through the playground, up the slide, across the sandbox, and weaving in and out of the swing set before Chris finally ambushed him with a flying tackle near the teeter-totter. Clapping his hand firmly over Troy’s mouth to keep him from loudly vocalizing the fate of his dear, departed girlfriend, Elsie, yet one more time, Chris none too gently crammed his legs into the jeans and zipped them up, ignoring his yelp of pain when a few strands of his pubic hair were caught in the zipper.
Utilizing his more-than-human strength, he lifted an astonished Troy over his head, and slammed him down upright on his feet. Before he could recover, Chris managed to get the silk shirt back onto him by alternately flinging each of Troy’s arms up into the air after the other and slipping the sleeves onto him as they came down.