Incubus

by L. J. Greene

  There was an overflowing vase of white flowers between them, ludicrous in its height. The scent of them wafted far enough for me to catch their heavy, honeyed notes, and I was carried back to my father’s funeral just as the smell became oppressive.

  “Get rid of them,” she hissed at Monsieur Antoine. She brushed past me and out the door towards the pool, but I went after her. My curiosity was piqued.

  “So you do speak English,” I said. She snapped something rapidly in Spanish and continued walking, but I kept up with her pace. “Come on, dollface. You might as well talk to me as anyone else.”

  “Breeze off, buster,” she said. “Can’t you take a hint?”

  I was only teasing, but I stopped immediately I saw that her mouth was trembling. I’m not the world’s most tactful man, and I lay no claims to being clever, either. The booze had done for me there some years back. “Say, you’re really scared. What’s got you so bent out of shape? A few flowers?”

  “White lilies!” she said, and when I looked at her blankly, and she added, “Funeral flowers, dumbbell.”

  I said, “Golly, I’m sorry. Is someone sending you condolences?”

  She replaced her sunglasses and turned her back on me, making her way towards the gated path that led to our bungalows. I let her go. I didn’t want to startle the rabbit any more than I had already. But on my way up that same path, I spotted something white in the bushes. I fished it out; it was a crumpled florist’s card, with a Hollywood Flowers logo embossed in gold on the front. It might have been anyone’s, of course. The message inside was printed in neat block letters as though the writer didn’t want the recipient to misread a single word.

  DON’T BREAK YOUR MAMA’S HEART.

  It might have meant anything, but a cold gripe clutched my gut as I stood there reading it. I tucked it in my pocket and when I got back to my bungalow, I ripped it into confetti before I set a match to it. I can’t say why I did that, but somehow I felt I ought to see it obliterated.

  Later that day, when words wouldn’t come and staring at the walls around my typewriter was making me stir crazy, I figured I might as well try again. I did it the right way this time; I grabbed one of the bottles of bourbon that had started to stockpile in the liquor cabinet, and headed to her bungalow. It was muggy outside. A storm was threatening, and I heard a grumble of thunder overhead as I reached her door. I knocked and knocked until my knuckles were sore.

  “Look, I know you’re in there. I came with an olive branch.”

  Still no answer.

  “Okay, honey, I’ll beat it. I’m sorry about what I said before, didn’t mean to hit a nerve. Thought maybe you could use a friendly ear. But I’ll leave this here and go back to my own life, staring at my four walls and not writing.” I put the bottle down and began to walk away. Behind me, I heard the door squeak open.

  “You’re a writer?”

  “Sure am,” I said, turning back.

  “That explains a lot.” What it explained to her, I never found out.

  For the first time I was seeing her without that hat in her face, and she was even prettier than I'd figured, though I saw then that her white-blonde locks were dark at the roots.

  She said: “I’ve seen a fella visit you sometimes. Tall and dark. Dangerous-looking.”

  So much for Mancini’s private entrances. But I shrugged. “He’s not so dangerous. Not compared to some.”

  “He your sugar daddy?” She was leaning against the doorframe now, her arms crossed and hip cocked out. Her feet were bare and she wore no pantyhose under her white dress. Her eyes were puffy and looked sore.

  “Well, now, I…I guess he is.” We seemed to be making friends, so I saw no point in disabusing her of the notion if it pleased her—as it seemed to.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Coleridge Fox. Call me Cole.”

  “I’m Bella.”

  “No last name?”

  “Just Bella.”

  “Pretty name. Suits you, bella.”

  She bent to pick up the bottle. “Bourbon’s not my drink.”

  “Then I’ll take it back.”

  I reached for it, but she pulled the bottle away. “I been making some changes in my life lately. Try’na get brave. So why not?”

  “Care for a drinking partner?”

  “Nope.” She slipped back into her bungalow, but at least she was smiling at me. The storm broke overhead just as her door shut. I sighed, and hurried back to my own place, where I resumed staring at walls. I made some headway through another bottle of bourbon, too.

  Chapter 12

  Close to midnight, I heard a key in the door. Mancini appeared out of the downpour, his hat drooling a lake onto the tiles in the entrance. I sprang up from the couch, throwing aside an unread book, and went straight to him. My first instinct was to grab him by the shoulders, but he winced when I did, so I backed off, let him hang up his soggy hat and coat. He looked drawn and ill, the crease between his brows more prominent than only a few days prior. He had missed, in his shaving, a small patch on the curve of his jaw.

  He gripped me and held me still and looked me over. “I’ve missed you,” he said, and caught up my hands. He kissed my knuckles up and down, and pressed his lips to my palms as well. His nose was cold. I was so relieved I found myself laughing at his fervor.

  After he kissed my mouth, he said, “I couldn’t get away. I’m sorry. And I couldn’t get word to you, even though I knew you’d be worried. I can’t trust anyone in that house; they’re always listening at doors, on the telephone.”

  “Did he hurt you?” I demanded.

  Mancini said simply, “He did.”

  “And...what about Alice?”

  He paused, as though he wanted to spare me, but then said, “Yes, she was there too. It wasn’t so bad this time, thank God. He just took exception to our liking you.”

  I led him to the bedroom. “How’d he string that bow? You threw me in the goddamn drink for laying a finger on him.”

  He shrugged, and winced again. “Maybe I have a tell.”

  My heart was beating fast. I liked the idea that he couldn’t hide his regard for me, even if it got him tortured. I felt like a heel. “What’s he done to you?”

  He removed his shirt slowly, and turned. I can’t remember if I gasped or cursed. All I remember is seeing his pure bronzed flesh made into a mess of stripes and bruises. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said over his shoulder. “He only leaves marks when he’s being half-hearted about things. The worst tortures he’s devised are the ones that leave no outward signs at all.”

  “I’ve never seen a mark on you before,” I whispered, and he turned back to face me.

  “No,” he said, a world of meaning in the word. “I’ve done my best to be a very good boy since we arrived in Los Angeles. Our time in New York was rather frightful, you see. And when he did leave marks, I stayed away from you. But I couldn’t anymore—I had to see you, and besides, what would be the point trying to hide it? You know what he’s like now. You’ve seen it for yourself.”

  I went straight back to the bar in the lounge, poured myself two fingers of bourbon with bad aim, and put too much ice in it. “Leo,” I said, before I had to rub at my eyes and compose myself.

  He came close and wrapped himself around me from behind. “There, you’re finally calling me by my name. We’re real friends now.”

  “Is that what we are?” My voice trembled, and he turned me to face him.

  “Be brave, dear heart. There’s probably worse to come.” I’d never hated his ironic bent more than I did then.

  “You have to go. If he knew you were here—”

  He shrugged. “Reggie doesn’t usually mind if I roam, so long as I come back when he tugs at the leash. He just wants me to know who’s boss—to carry that thought with me. It pleases him to know I take my prison with me wherever I go. But for now, let me put him out of my mind. Come to bed with me, so that I can forget.”

  I did my best, b
ut I wasn’t like him: I couldn’t coldly put aside my fears and worries. My body refused to cooperate and my mind was elsewhere, but I made sure he had some relief. Then I went right back to talking about it.

  “What are we going to do?”

  He set the ashtray in the small of my back this time, because I was lying face-down, my head turned to rest on one arm so I could look at him. It wasn’t until he’d smoked his cigarette half down that he replied.

  “I don’t see what we can do. There’s no way to escape him.”

  It struck me that I was well-placed to make a difference. "I'll crucify him in the press, that's what I'll do! I'll set up him in my article so Vice come sniffing—" But Leo was shaking his head.

  "It won't do, lover. That would only end up hurting Alice, and...and me. Besides, he'd buy off Vice. He's rich as Croesus. You seem to keep forgetting the power that money brings." He leaned down to kiss my shoulder.

  A dark thought was swirling around in my head, so I said it, even though it felt like I was cursing the man: “If only he would die.”

  “Yes. If only.”

  “But he’s quite healthy, you said.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, and there was a pause. “But people die all the time. Not always of—of natural causes.”

  I said nothing. What could I say?

  He added, “Sometimes there are accidents.”

  “Leo—” I said, and then I jerked at a small shot of pain, high up on my thigh.

  “Sorry.” He’d flicked his cigarette with too much vigor, and a hot ash had landed on me. He leaned over to lick it, and I spread my legs for him as he nosed higher. He took a moment to grind out the cigarette and replace the ashtray on the bedside table before he really got down to business, lapping and slurping at me like I was a fine sorbet. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t done before, but this time was different just the same: he was marking out ownership with his tongue, nipping at me and working my flesh until I was panting and groaning for him.

  When he fucked me again—just as I was, face-down on the bed—there was nothing tender in it, and it seemed to work better for me. I filled out, my balls aching, as he shoved into me. He pulled my head back by my hair and whispered in my ear; wild things, nonsensical; asking me something without saying the words outright.

  Would you—?

  I gasped Yes, yes, yes as I spent myself, and we both knew what it was I really meant.

  He turned me over then so he could take me face to face. Gentle, this time, and slow like he wanted me to remember it. The sheets were wet under my back but all I cared about was the heat of him, and feeling full of him, body and soul. He put his hands on my face. “You would do that for me?”

  I wanted to grab on to him, to pull him close, but I didn’t want to hurt him more than he’d been hurt already. He came when I whispered his name, Leo, like it was his cue.

  He lay on top of me a long time after, and I felt his heartbeat decrease from racing to steady. “I’ll plan it out,” he said at last.

  “God forgive me,” I sighed.

  “Us,” he corrected me, but it seemed to me there wouldn’t be enough forgiveness for the both of us, not for something so wicked.

  God forgive you, I thought. If you can find Paradise, that’ll be enough for me. See, I’d been of the opinion that there were some people in the world I’d be happy to burn for if it meant their salvation: my old Ma, my sweet sister and her kids. And now Leo.

  What a magnanimous soul I was back then.

  Chapter 13

  It’s a simple thing to decide to murder a man, but it’s not so simple to come to terms with it. I felt dazed the next day, when Mancini—Leo. My Leo—when he left me. He promised he’d come back that evening, since Cresswickham was going to the theatre with Alice. The storm had passed overnight, so I had a day of bright sunshine to think about the fact that I was going to stop the breath of a living creature, make a heart to cease beating and two eyes to stop seeing. That spark of life that galvanizes us all—that was the thing I proposed to snuff out.

  By eleven I’d decided I had to get out of the bungalow. It was time to lean on Fred King and find out exactly what he knew. He’d been dodging my calls again, and I hadn’t had him chasing me up for the article on Cresswickham. Reticence was not among King’s personality traits, so the whole thing was beginning to seem fishy.

  I didn’t bother to call again. I just turned up at his office. His secretary hemmed and hawed and put me off. I stared at the shut door proclaiming FREDERICK KING in brass letters. I knew he was in there. Probably listening at the door. I didn’t want to make trouble for poor Joan—she was a good kid—so I camped out on the park bench opposite his office. I’d taken a hipflask with me for something to do while I waited. I was still planning to ease up on the booze, but not that day. Not after the night I’d had.

  King came out of his office a little after noon, like I’d gambled he would. He wore his hat low and pulled his collar up, but his rangy shoulders and broad chest were recognizable anywhere. I tailed him down the sidewalk, relieved he’d chosen lunchtime to make an appearance. I wasn’t good at being discreet, but the bustling streets helped hide me. King’s obliviousness helped, too.

  When I realized where he was going, I dropped back some. I knew it all too well: Jimmy Wu’s Hollywood front shop was just down the street. It was a down-market tailor on the sign out the front, and out back was where Jimmy ran his business. He knew Hollywood was where the best pickings were: fools like me with more need for the rush of a win than sense in their head.

  Just like I thought, King ducked into the tailor. I wondered whether to follow or wait. Jimmy liked order and quiet and he didn’t put up with quarrels on his turf. He maintained his neutrality, and that was how he did so much business, so I waited. I didn’t like my chances at the business end of the hardware Jimmy’s men favored.

  There was a newsstand on the opposite side of the street, just a little ways down, so I headed there. The Incubus was front-page news on every rag, moniker and all. I picked up the Los Angeles Times to give the competition a look. The police chief was quoted saying something appropriately vague and there was a blurry photograph of six grim-looking officers searching a field.

  “Hey, Mac, this ain’t a public library,” the newsie groused at me, so I put down the Times and paid for the Examiner.

  They had a new glamor headshot of the latest victim, making her out to be more a star than a wannabe. Lynette Rochelle, platinum blonde jazz singer, trying to break into the pictures. Her agent had given the paper an interview (EXCLUSIVE with the Man Who KNEW HER BEST) but it was an inside story, page two. Before I could turn to it, Fred King stepped back out into the street, so I rolled up the Examiner.

  King mopped his brow before he replaced his hat. But he seemed relieved, happy even—he stuck his hands in his pockets and sauntered off whistling. I thrust the paper under my arm and watched. Freddie was making his way back to his office, so I waited until he was opposite me, and ran across the road to fall into step with him.

  “Hello, friend,” I said.

  King started as though he thought I meant to do him harm. Maybe I did.

  “Long time, no see,” I continued, pulling him along by the elbow.

  “Mate, it’s not a good time,” he said nervously.

  “No? You were happy as a clam at high water just a second ago. What’s changed? You suddenly remembered that article you need from me on Lord Reginald Cresswickham?”

  “Damn it, Fox,” he hissed.

  “Why, don’t say it’s me making you look so sour. We’re friends, Freddie. Mates. Right?” I pushed him into an alley behind a stack of crates, and made him look at me. He shook my grip off, but I blocked him in by bracing my hand against the wall next to his shoulder. “Don’t try to make a break for it, shitbird. I’ve got some questions, see? And you have some answers.”

  “No, I—”

  “Oh yes, you do.” I grabbed his shirtfront and he put his hands up.
r />   “Alright, alright, fair cop. Don’t rough me up. I’ve got a date with Joanie tonight and she doesn’t like a scrapper.” I let him go and he smoothed down his shirt, shrugging it back into place under his coat.

  “Joan deserves a lot better than you.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “I saw you that day.”

  “What day?”

  I held up a fist again and he ducked. “Alright, bloody hell. I’ll tell you what you want to know; I’m not a mind reader, though. What day?”

  “The day you gave me that Cresswickham job,” I snarled. “Having words with someone in a town car.”

  “Ah.”

  “Well? Who was in that car? Was it Cresswickham? Was the whole article job a set up?”

  He looked shifty then, and I knew I’d said too much. But he said, “Yeah, mate. Yeah. The article was a set up, and I’m sorry about that. I know you wanted to see something in print, but I would’ve paid you anyway, God’s truth. How—how’d you find out?”

  “I’m asking the questions. Why’d he want me to take it?”

  “How should I know? I was just told to make sure you took it.”

  He might have been lying, but it didn’t really matter. I knew why Cresswickham offered me the job, or thought I did. He wanted to try me out, see what I was like close-up, see if I would fit in his collection. The interview put-up had been my audition, but he must have been watching me for longer than I thought.

  I wanted to howl; I settled for grabbing King by the lapels and slamming him into the wall. His hat fell forward over one eye. “You’re a rat, Freddie King. You sold me out and you don’t even know why.”

  “I’m sorry, mate, I really am.” He pushed back his hat, and laid a pacifying hand on my fist, still clenched on his coat. “But you don’t know—you can’t know what it’s been like.”

  “You better make me know.”

  He talked fast, like he knew I meant business. “Jimmy Wu had the tip of a lifetime for me, the kind that could see me set for the decade. He loaned me some capital to lay on, but—”