by Hal Bodner
A jet of blood shot from his stomach and Rex sank to the floor, clutching at the broomstick. His hands scrabbled futilely on the blood-slicked wood of the broom.
“Not so easy...” he breathed, and then grinned and began to try to stand up.
Unnoticed by any of the others, Burman stood up in the corner and then paused thoughtfully for a moment before unbuckling the strap of one of her wooden wedgies. As Rex struggled to rise, Burman crept up from behind with exaggerated stealth. Just as he regained his feet, she let loose with a shout which was half war whoop and half growl, and she slammed the heel against the vampire’s skull with all the strength she could muster.
Castillian went down again. The weight of his body drove the broomstick clear through his abdomen; the broken tip emerged from the small of his back. When he shook his head to clear it and rose to his feet once again, Chris saw that Pamela’s heel had become lodged in the vampire’s temple. The effect was horrifying yet comic.
Pausing only to catch her breath, she stooped to retrieve the other half of the broken broom. With only a grunt this time, she gritted her teeth and shoved the wooden spar into the center of Rex’s back. Chris watched Rex’s eyes widen in shock as the tip of Burman’s makeshift spear passed through his heart and emerged from the front of his chest.
“Funny,” she remarked, panting from the physical effort, “I always thought the heart was on the left, too.”
The eyes of the two vampires met. Chris’s gaze was filled with unutterable sorrow; Rex Castillian’s eyes were filled with something else.
“So long...” he gasped. “So many years...”
He collapsed to the floor. Turning his head to meet Chris’s eyes one final time, he breathed, “At last...” His eyes closed.
Suddenly, there was a huge rush of air as if the room had been invaded by a Kansas tornado. Becky, Pamela, and Troy shielded their eyes from the wind; even Chris was forced to blink.
A moment later, the windstorm ceased, as abruptly as it had began. The two halves of the broken broomstick clattered to the floor with Pamela’s wedgie between them.
There, where Rex had been lying seconds before, was nothing but a pile of dust, already disturbed by the breeze from the broken glass door, and the clothes he had been wearing. Of his body, there was no sign.
“Well,” said Burman with satisfaction, as she went over to Rex’s remains and kicked at them, scattering the dust even more, “That’ll teach him to fuck with Pamela Burman!”
She picked up her shoe and stopped, her eyes surveying the wreckage of the room. Finally, her gaze came to rest sternly on Chris who was standing over Becky’s and Troy’s still prostrate forms.
“What I want to know now is this,” she said, brandishing the shoe threateningly. “Which one of you three bozos is gonna pay for my stuff?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Two weeks passed; it was mid-November. Troy had shown up at the morgue several days earlier, interrupting Becky’s autopsy of a young woman who had been a member of a film crew shooting scenes for the remake of Bringing Up Baby on location in West Hollywood Park. The deceased, one Sheryl “Duke” Ambrose had been a leopard wrangler on the set, enticing the leopard up a flight of stairs so that the director, a gruff-voiced Italian who was already three weeks and several millions of dollars over-budget, could get a particularly difficult shot—the camera having been hidden in one of the stair risers in order to shoot the leopard’s underbelly as it went up the stairs.
The leopard, a gentle creature affectionately dubbed “Penny” by the film crew, refused to be enticed, preferring to lounge at the foot of the stairs, soaking up the late-fall sun. The film crew had tried everything; Penny merely glanced disdainfully at the choice hunks of raw meat they waved at her. Finally, the unfortunate wrangler had put her shoulder to Penny’s hindquarters and began to physically shove her up the wooden stairway.
As Penny’s paws hit the first set of stairs, she changed her mind, deciding that sunbathing opportunities might be better at the top landing after all. She suddenly bounded up the stairs, taking everyone by surprise. The startled Ms. Ambrose had, unthinkingly, grabbed onto Penny’s tail and had been hauled up after her. At the top, disoriented from banging her head repeatedly against several of the stair treads, Ambrose relaxed her grip and fell.
The unit nurse examined her and discovered a broken leg, a dislocated shoulder, and a possible concussion. The ambulance had been summoned and Ms. Ambrose was loaded onto the gurney by the paramedics in preparation for going to Cedars-Sinai. Unfortunately, however, the paramedics had difficulty with the rear ambulance doors; they refused to open.
Leaving their patient strapped to the gurney by the curb on San Vicente Boulevard, both attendants began to haul on the doors. The doors flew open, spilling one of the paramedics onto the curbside grass and sending the other backward to slam against the gurney. The wheel locks on the gurney failed and, still bearing the unfortunate Ms. Ambrose, it rolled into the middle of San Vicente Boulevard without warning.
Surprised motorists swerved to avoid it as it raced south on the gently sloping street, past the Pacific Design Center, and soared toward the intersection at Melrose. By rolling her body from side to side and shifting her weight, the resourceful Ms. Ambrose was able to direct the escaping gurney off to the side of the road and toward a business specializing in ornamental ironwork. Zooming up the driveway with barely slackened speed, the gurney burst through the glass doors of the shop and sailed across the showroom floor as the sales clerks looked on in surprise at the unconventional arrival.
The gurney finally came to rest, slamming against a decorative iron gate with a distinctive art deco lily pattern that was displayed on the far wall of the showroom. The shop’s employees raced to the aid of the screaming Ms. Ambrose, but they stopped as the loud groan of tortured metal filled the air. Slowly, the weight of the gate pulled the nails upon which it was hung from the wall. Everyone watched in horror, none more so than Ms. Ambrose, as the gate came crashing down, obliterating both the gurney and its occupant
Ms. Ambrose had been brought in to Becky, D.O.A., with the imprint of a calla lily still visible in the middle of her dented forehead.
The film company was suing both Penny’s owner and the paramedics. The paramedics were suing the ambulance company. The ironworks was suing the film company, the paramedics, the City of West Hollywood and Ms. Ambrose’s estate. The city was suing the film company. Ms. Ambrose’s eighty-five-year-old mother was suing everyone.
Troy burst into the morgue as Becky was just finished taking a plaster cast of the offending lily. He hoisted himself up onto the adjoining table and, swinging his legs back and forth like a small child, watched Becky’s actions with interest.
“What happened to her?” he asked, curious.
“It’s a long story. Almost three blocks long. What’s up?”
“I need your help,” Troy said.
Becky almost dropped the plaster cast.
“No way!” she said. “There is no way I’m gonna get involved with any more vampires, ghouls or...or...whatever!” She placed the plaster cast carefully on the counter. “Every time I pass so much as a palm reader, I get chills up and down my spine.”
“But Becky...”
“No buts about it! Clive Anderson is still half crippled, we had to rebuild the front entrance to City Hall, and Pamela Burman is fighting with her insurance company trying to explain how her apartment got trashed. Apparently,” she said dryly, “insane vampire killers are exempt under the Acts of God clause in her policy.”
“It’s nothing like that.”
“It better not be,” she said sternly.
“It’s Chris.”
“What’s wrong?” Becky was suddenly concerned.
“Well, nothing,” Troy replied. “Well, if you call turning two hundred forty-something nothing.” His nose wrinkled in a frown. “Or maybe it’s two hundred fifty-something.” He waved one hand airily. “A lady never likes to revea
l her true age, dontcha know.”
“His birthday?” Becky asked.
“I want to give him a surprise party before we go back to Philly next week.” Troy made a face of disgust. “Philly! Yuk! I’ve been trying to get him to stay, but, you know how he is. Do you think you could...?” He stopped, looking at her, measuring her probable response. “No, I guess not. After all, he’s only known you ten years. If I can’t...”
“Is that what you came here to talk about?” Becky asked, hoping he would come to the point quickly so she could finish work and get to lunch.
“No,” he conceded, and cleared his throat in preparation for his sales pitch. “It’s just that, well, since Scotty and all went back to Chicago, we don’t know many people out here. Except for my tricks, I mean, and I really couldn’t invite any of them.”
Troy picked up one of Becky’s clamps to get a better view and began opening it and closing it in fascination.
“What’s this for?” he asked.
“Not for you.” Becky gently removed it from his inquisitive little hands.
“Well, excuse me, Miss Thing!” said Troy saucily and went on. “Anyway, would you, ah...I mean...do you think the police guy and the old lady would mind coming?”
“If you call her an old lady to her face she will.” Becky picked up a scalpel and turned back to her work. “I’ll ask. Now shoo!”
The party on the fifteenth was sparsely attended but very successful. The guest list was not limited to Burman, Clive, Becky, and Troy. Hanna and Gustav were also in attendance. The German vampire had spent two days in her kitchen preparing and stood by the dining room table in Chris’s apartment beaming with pride as the three normals complimented her on her culinary expertise.
Becky, seeing the huge dining room table laden with food, including some orgasmic looking pastries, felt as if she’d died and gone to heaven. She judiciously sampled the salads and main dishes Hanna had prepared and then shamelessly loaded her plate with luscious-looking desserts and dove in.
Troy had managed to keep Chris ignorant of the party by turning the stereo up and climbing into the coffin with him at dusk until he was certain that the guests had all arrived. Chris emerged from the bedroom, showered and dressed this time, to be greeted by an enormous sheet cake bearing so many candles that Troy would later spend an entire afternoon getting the smoke stains off the living room ceiling and the wax out of the carpet.
All of the guests had taken undue care with their choice of gifts. Hanna and Gustav gave him a small oil painting of a young, muscular Moses, leading the Israelites out of Egypt. “It’s a Botticelli,” Gustav explained. “We bought it from Sylvia. It reminded us of when we first met you.”
Chris, who was so touched he would have wept had he been able to do so, immediately sent Troy to fetch a hammer and nail and hung it directly over the sofa in a place of honor.
From Clive, he got a little fourteen-carat-gold stake on a gold chain to hang around his neck. “I started out looking for a silver bullet,” the captain told him shyly, “but I remembered in time.”
Burman offered him a long, flat package wrapped in bright red and silver paper. “Sorry about the color,” she grumbled, “I had no idea it was gonna clash with the furniture.” Troy shot her an irritated glace which she pointedly ignored.
Chris unwrapped it to reveal a framed lobby card from the Broadway production of Dracula starring Frank Langella. So as not to show favoritism, he hung it next to the Botticelli.
“Now mine!” said Troy, with barely concealed excitement. He scuttled under the cloth covering the dining room table and emerged tugging at a huge crate.
“Gimme some help here,” he complained. Gustav and Becky moved to assist him. “I got a crowbar too,” he said proudly.
Much effort and several splinters later, the gift was uncrated to reveal a gorgeously lacquered antique coffin.
“After I got the idea from Becky, I took a loan from Sylvia,” said Troy. “It’s the one from the museum. Bela Lugosi used it on Broadway. I had it refinished and relined.” He flung open the lid to reveal a spanking-new scarlet satin lining.
“What is this with him and red?” Burman asked Clive, sotto voce.
Finally, Becky approached Chris with a plain cardboard box, surprisingly heavy for its size. She handed it to him with a serious look in her eyes. “I had no idea what to get you,” she said. “But I wanted it to be something, you know, meaningful.”
Chris opened the lid. The box contained moist black soil with a few small pieces of rock. He looked at her, a question unspoken on his face.
“It’s from West Hollywood Park,” Becky said. “I’ve been educating myself. I hope, in time, it will be as kind to you as the other.”
She opened the antique coffin and folded back the lining covering its bottom. Reaching into the cardboard box, she withdrew a huge handful of earth and spread it out mixing it in with the Massachusetts soil that was already there. She turned to face Chris once again. “Do you understand?” she asked softly.
Chris nodded as the others, one by one, Clive first, followed by Hanna and Gustav and, finally, Burman, silently took a handful of soil from the box and added it to the bottom of the coffin.
“Well,” said Troy, barely restraining his happiness as he added his own clod of earth to the casket, “I always knew she’d come through if I asked.”
Becky’s eyes never left Chris’s and, although she knew it was impossible, she would almost have sworn that, in the corner of his right eye, she saw a small, red-tinged tear.
THE END
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
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