by Hal Bodner
“Where are you going?” Becky cried.
“I’ll be sure and let you all know,” said Rex pleasantly as, Troy tucked under one arm, he vanished down the hall.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Becky was devastated. As she numbly cleaned up the wreckage in the morgue, she realized she was too upset to drive. So she prevailed upon Scotty to drive her back to Chris’s to tell him the news. This was a major mistake as Scotty had only minimal experience with a manual transmission. Proceeding in a series of jolting starts and jarring stops, they drove down Santa Monica accompanied by the nerve-racking sound of gears grinding together.
Scotty sensed her distress and sought to cheer her up with what he thought would be an interesting comparison of the different types of edible garbage discarded by the various four-star restaurants in Chicago. Becky was unable to pay attention, and Scotty was soon quiet, concentrating on the stick shift, which had a mind of its own.
When they arrived at the apartment, Chris met them at the door.
“Where’s Troy?” was his first comment.
After a series of false starts, they managed to fill him in on the morning’s events. By the end of their tale, Chris was in a white-hot rage.
“I’ll kill that son of a bitch!” he said as soon as Becky and Scotty stopped talking. He grabbed the car keys from where Becky had dumped them on the coffee table and headed toward the front door.
Becky quickly darted in front of him and positioned herself between Chris and the door, blocking his exit.
“You can’t go out there.”
“Get out of my way,” he growled. “I’m warning you.”
“You’re warning me?” Becky asked, hurt that Chris was clearly going to walk straight through both her and the closed door if she didn’t move. “Fine, asshole,” she said and stepped out of the way. “But don’t come running to me when they scrape what’s left of you off the sidewalk. It’s bright daylight out there, you idiot! Do you want to end up looking like the Toxic Avenger?”
Chris was brought up short, his anger evaporating abruptly as he came back into the living room and sank down into a chair, head buried in his hands. “What am I going to do?”
Becky put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “There’s nothing we can do until he lets us know where he is,” she said.
“That’s right,” added Scotty. “You can count me in, too. Troy’s a little flaky, but he’s awfully fun to be with. I mean, for a renf...uh, well, you know. Anyway, he promised me we could watch both Mames, Rosalind Russell and Lucy. We just have to get him back!”
Chris looked up at Becky, ignoring Scotty’s inane comments, anguish on his face. “Troy could be dead by then.”
“I don’t think Rex wants to kill him,” Becky said. “At least not yet. We have time.”
Chris looked at her, unconvinced, with such a grief-stricken expression that Becky didn’t know what else to say.
“We’ll need help,” Chris said. He turned to Scotty. “Would your friends be willing...”
Scotty nodded eagerly. “Yeah, just let me at that guy one more time and I’ll...well, I’ll...”
Becky gave him a glance somewhere between disgust and amusement. “You’ll hide under the table again, right?”
Scotty at least had the courtesy to look slightly ashamed as he replied defensively, “I was the one who opened the cabinet with the acid, remember?”
Becky relented, seeing his crestfallen expression. “Yes, dear, you did.”
Scotty beamed proudly.
“What if we got some of the normals involved?” Chris asked him, “and made sure they didn’t know about you?”
Scotty nodded again, slowly and hesitantly.
“Let’s get to it then,” said Chris, picking up the phone. “I’m going to call Sylvia first and fill her in. Then you and Scotty...”
Becky gently took the receiver from his hand and replaced it.
“There’s something even more important.” she said, “You need food.”
Chris snorted impatiently. “There’s no time for that. We’ve got to find Troy.”
“Listen you,” said Becky as she shoved the surprised Chris down on the couch, “You’re absolutely no good to him if you turn into Johnny Torch because you’re weak from hunger.”
“That was a cool comic,” Scotty chimed in. “The Torch guy was hot!”
Becky shot him a withering glance and turned back to Chris. “Tell me what to do.”
“What do you mean, tell you what to do?” Chris looked at her, confused.
“Food! Food!” she shouted, irritated. “What do you need? Aside from blood, I mean. I assume that if it was just the blood you needed, I’d have been bringing doggy bags home from the morgue by now.”
“Doggy bags?” Scotty looked at her, intrigued. “You could do that?”
“This is not the time, Scotty!” Becky snapped. She turned back to Chris. “Do they have to be guys? I mean, I know you’re gay, but does that make a difference?”
Chris’s expression showed that he still didn’t get it.
“I am offering,” said Becky with forced patience, “to deliver vampire take-out.”
“You’re out of your mind,” said Chris, uncertainly.
“Probably. But you need to eat. You can’t go out. Domino’s Pizza is obviously out of the question. So, tell me what to do.”
“Well, Troy usually...” Chris’s voice broke for a moment; he couldn’t go on.
“Look,” said Becky firmly, “you’re starting to make me crazy. One minute you’re rushing madly out the door, trying to turn yourself into a french fry, and the next you’ve already got Troy dead and buried. Now, you can sit here, pissed at Castillian and feeling sorry for yourself, wasting the whole fucking day starving to death. Or we can get cracking. Which is it?”
Chris was silent for a long moment. When he finally was willing to meet Becky’s gaze directly, it was with an expression of unspoken gratitude.
“They don’t have to be guys, but it helps.”
“Why?” she asked.
Chris just looked at her dumbly. “Why?” he repeated.
“In an ideal world,” Becky said, “I know I could just walk out on the street, grab some stud, and ask him if he’d mind being the main course on Dinner with Dark Shadows. Somehow, though, I don’t think I’d have many takers. If you explain why—exactly what you need—maybe it’ll help me figure something out.”
“You’re right. It’s more than just the blood,” began Chris uncomfortably. “There’s got to be, well, I don’t know...” He stopped a moment.
“Go on.”
“This is rather personal, you know?”
Becky waited, silently.
“There has to be some kind of strong emotion. Fear is good. So is pain. That’s what Rex probably uses. But it’s also dangerous unless you kill the victim,” he said grimly.
“What about friendship?” asked Becky slowly, unconsciously rubbing her throat.
Chris smiled at her. “That’s very sweet.” His expression grew serious. “But friendship’s not strong enough. It’d be like eating Chinese food. An hour later...”
“So, it’ll have to be sex?”
“It’s one of the strongest emotions humans have,” said Chris.
“And you like boys, to my unending dismay.” She smiled.
“The more strongly attracted I am, the stronger the response I can evoke in him.”
“OK.” Becky stood up, clapping her hands together sharply once. “Boys it is then. You,” she indicated Chris, “Wait here. And you,” she commanded, “are coming with me.”
Scotty blanched. “Why me?” he whined softly.
“Because, my friend, in this town, you’ve got a better chance of bringing him breakfast in bed than I do!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Thirty minutes later, a reluctant Scotty firmly in tow, Becky was beginning to appreciate the difficulty her gay friends had in that elusive sport known as “cruising.”
First, they’d driven to the parking lot behind the Gold Coast bar, hoping to find someone looking for a little mid-morning action. They did. But the five men they encountered were all strongly vetoed by Scotty as being members of, as he so tactfully put it, “the troll patrol.”
Next, they tried the Pleasure Chest. They browsed through the aisles of leather whips, harnesses and masks, past the stacks of flavored lubricants and racks of condoms in a variety of designer colors. It proved educational, but unfortunately the only other people in the store at this time of the morning were the counter clerks. The two of them hastily conferred next to a display of manacles and restraints and decided to hang out for a few minutes in the hopes that a more easily available, preferably appetizing, gent would make an appearance.
However, after Scotty started playing with the buttons on a display of battery-operated dildos, causing them to writhe spasmodically in mechanically simulated orgasm, they started to get strange looks from the man behind the massage oil counter. Becky figured it would be better if they drew as little attention to themselves as possible and decided to leave, dragging Scotty behind her, deaf to his protests that it wasn’t as if he’d broken anything.
They finally positioned themselves strategically in front of the plate glass window fronting the weight room of the Boys’ Town Gym. Becky had unbuttoned Scotty’s shirt three quarters of the way down the front and left him to “window shop” while she ran across the street to a liquor store to buy him some mint-flavored chewing gum. His breath, she had been forced to admit, left a lot to be desired. Undoubtedly, she thought with a shudder, it’s because of his diet.
Feeling rather peckish herself, she purchased not only the gum but also a York peppermint patty and, in a slight assuaging of her guilt, several reduced-calorie Milky War bars. Darting back across Santa Monica clutching the paper bag of goodies in one hand, she crammed one of the Milky Ways into her mouth and noticed with satisfaction that Scotty had taken matters into his own hands with marked success.
Not only had the ghoul removed his shirt entirely, revealing broad shoulders, a well-muscled chest, and a surprisingly small waist, but he’d also managed to pull the cotton slacks he’d borrowed from Troy so low around his hips that Becky could almost swear she glimpsed the top of his ass crack.
And I thought he was tubby, she marveled. Stepping back on to the curb, she looked down at her own rather frumpy clothing and considered her own eating habits, wondering if perhaps...and gave the idea up with a self-derisive snort.
Scotty was proving to be in good form, stopping every exiting athlete with a request for the time, directions, or details about the gym until he’d managed to capture the continued attention of two stunning young men. In fact, she doubted that Troy, at his best, could have gathered such a remarkably good-looking duo in as short a time. She sidled up to the small crowd, not wanting to seem too obviously in Scotty’s company so as to frighten away Chris’s prospective lunch, wondering if she could eavesdrop and pick up a few tips to improve her own sadly deficient love life.
Scotty had enmeshed the more gorgeous of the two lads, the blond, in a spirited discussion of the merits of isotonic as opposed to isometric exercise. She listened in amazement as Scotty rattled off a series of statistics, interspersed with a rather technical commentary on the kinesthetic effects of both forms of exercise. She also noted that Scotty had unbuttoned the top two buttons of the slacks, revealing a perky little curl or two of pubic hair and the most obvious object of his attention was having a hard time concentrating on the conversation. The other boy, a short brunette with eyes so green that Becky was sure he must be wearing colored contacts, seemed intent on dragging the blond away from the conversation and edging in on Scotty himself.
Probably the lover, thought Becky. They’re both wearing identical outfits. Squaring her shoulders, she marched past Scotty and his new friend, intentionally jostling the green-eyed boy.
“Oh, excuse me,” she said, batting her eyelashes flirtatiously. “Do you belong to this gym? I’m thinking of joining.”
She chose to take his grunt of response as an affirmative, and as he turned back to renew his tugging on the blond’s arm, she tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sorry?” she said. “I didn’t hear you.”
“I said I work there,” he repeated gruffly.
Somebody up there likes us! she thought, rolling her eyes heavenward in silent thanks. “I was wondering if you knew what the price was for a year membership. It can’t be more than, oh, say a couple of thousand, can it?”
Becky watched with thinly disguised delight as the green-eyed boy warred with the conflicting emotions of lust for Scotty, the desire to get his friend to leave, and greed. The employees of the Boys’ Town Gym, Becky knew, worked on commission, and Becky had intentionally quoted a fee twice that of the normal rate.
“Maybe you could take me in and talk to me about signing up?” she hinted.
Greed finally won out, and she was escorted into the club, first making sure to catch Scotty’s eye as she dropped the car keys into a planter by the entrance. She had a brief second of concern as she noticed a bit of drool starting to form in the corner of Scotty’s mouth as the blond removed his shirt to demonstrate the proper way to do a particular exercise.
I’m sure he won’t touch him while he’s still alive, she attempted to reassure herself. She could almost see the wheels turning in Scotty’s head as he considered pushing the young man into passing traffic and dining on the result.
“Are you coming?” the green-eyed boy asked Becky irritably.
“I hope you have a weight-reduction program,” she said hopefully as she went inside, first stopping to pull another Milky Way out of her bag.
An hour later, she managed to extricate herself from her guide. He was determined, especially since Becky had probably spoiled his relationship with the blond and any chance he may have had to shack up with Scotty, on selling her a membership—whether she wanted one or not.
Finally, after accepting a two-week free trial membership, signing a contract, and swearing she was going straight to the bank to get her host the yearly fee, in cash, she bolted out the door, relieved to see that Scotty and his friend had vanished.
She raced to the corner as fast as her legs would carry her and, digging wildly in her purse for the correct change, managed to catch the bus. Chomping into the last candy bar to fortify herself during the ride, she disembarked on the corner of Harper and Santa Monica and raced up the block to Chris’s apartment building.
She burst through the front door eagerly to find Scotty seated calmly on the couch, munching contentedly on a plate of raw hamburger meat.
“Shh-h-h!” he cautioned. “He’s gone. Chris is resting.”
“I brought you some gum,” she said, for lack of anything better and tossed Scotty the pack, which he examined with distaste.
“Well?” she asked, hands firmly planted on her hips. Scotty looked up, questioning. “How the hell did you know all that?”
“All what?”
“The stuff you were spouting to that blond. That’s second- or third-year med school.”
“Oh, that,” Scotty said blithely. “Basic anatomy.”
Becky still looked confused so he explained further. “I’m a ghoul,” he said proudly. “Mama was teaching me anatomy before I learned to read.”
Becky refused to allow her distaste to show. “You didn’t...?”
“Nah, I saved him for Chris.” He bent to lick the juice from the plate. “You should’ve heard them in there!” He belched lightly and added, “Pity the guy won’t be able to remember it.”
“You’re back,” said Chris as he appeared in the doorway.
“How’d it go?”
“Much better,” he said as he pulled the curtains aside and stood in the full onslaught of the sun with no ill effects. “I’m still a little tired, though.”
“Well, you had a full meal.”
“Yeah,” he said, and grinned. “Ful
l is the word all right.”
“Did you get his number?” asked Scotty hopefully.
“Why?” Becky snapped. “In case he gets hit by a bus or something?”
Scotty looked properly chastised.
“Aren’t we forgetting about someone?” she added, testily. “Like Troy?”
Chris looked at her angrily. “Fuck you.”
“You too, dear. Ah shit, I’m sorry. I’m just feeling a little stressed, I guess. I just spent an hour with Arnold Schwartzenegger junior and something like a thousand dollars on a membership to a gay gym.”
Apologies accepted, they got down to business. After some discussion, it was agreed that Becky would take Max’s photograph of the painting of Rex and speak with Clive. Scotty and his friends would spend the day searching for Rex’s new lair, and Chris would stay at home, trying to get some much-needed sleep and waiting for Rex to contact him.
“Remember,” Chris told them both as they left, “concentrate on public buildings and businesses. He can’t enter a residence unless he’s been invited.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Leaving an exhausted Chris behind, Becky dropped Scotty at his hotel to rendezvous with his friends, stopping off at her office briefly before driving to the sheriff’s station. She marched into Clive’s office clutching several file folders, face set with determination, and discovered him in the middle of a meeting with a sergeant and two deputies.
“Get out,” she said to the startled officers.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” asked Clive.
“This is private. Get them out.”
Clive motioned to the others to leave. He closed the door and turned to Becky. “What’s going on?”
“Get Pamela over here,” she commanded.
Clive bristled. “Look, you. You’ve been giving me nothing but attitude for the past week. Who the hell do you think you are, coming in here and...”
“I know who the killer is,” said Becky softly.
Clive stopped in midstream, mouth gaping. “But how? Who?”