The Magic Bullet

by Andrew Neiderman

  When he drove out there, he sat in his car on the street, hesitant. It was almost more his dislike of Taylor than his greed that had brought him here. The kid ran Demi’s life too much and therefore him. When he was Taylor’s age, he couldn’t even look at his father the wrong way, much less mouth off. The old man was capable of whacking him with a baseball bat and once punched him so hard in the shoulder that he had a black and blue trauma for over two weeks.

  The kid was just being a horse’s ass about this blood thing. If he gave a damn about anyone else, he wouldn’t have hesitated. He could have made things easier for his own mother, too. It was unfair. Why hadn’t anything as easy as this fallen into his lap? Warren thought. Why did a little spoiled bastard have this opportunity?

  The longer he sat in his car thinking about it, the more his reluctance slipped away. He soon worked himself into a rage and practically ripped the handle off the door when he lunged at it to get out. He slammed it shut so hard that the car shuddered, and then he walked to the gate and pressed the call button. For a long moment, he had no response. Then he recognized Frankie’s goon’s voice.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m here to see Frankie.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Name’s Warren Moore. I worked on his patio a few years ago.”

  “No shit. Frankie ain’t seeing anyone right now. He’s sleeping.”

  “You gotta wake him up.”

  The silence was deafening. He waited and then he pressed the buzzer again. This time Tony came out of the house and lumbered down the sidewalk, trying to eat a piece of limp pizza as he approached.

  “What the fuck do you want?” he asked through the gate.

  “I got something to tell Frankie, something important, something he wants to know.”

  “What?”

  “It’s complicated. I gotta talk to him.”

  “Complicated? Something about the patio is complicated?”

  “It’s not about the patio. It’s about his fight with cancer,” Warren said.

  Tony stopped eating.

  “What about it?”

  “Look. If you don’t let me in to talk to him, he’s going to be angry enough to have you put under the patio.”

  Tony grimaced. “Smart guy, huh?”

  “It’s pretty damn important, especially to Frankie,” Warren said.

  Tony looked back at the house as if the answer was written on the front door, and then he gobbled the remaining pizza and opened the gate. His cheeks bulged as he chewed.

  “It better be like you said, important.”

  Warren didn’t reply. He followed him up the walk to the front door. Tony hesitated, looked at him, and then opened the door.

  Frankie Vico’s home was a renovated house built in the late’50s. It had low ceilings compared to the homes built in the desert now. The decor was opulent, gaudy, and ostentatious, with too much glitter, cheap imitation bronze fixtures, and imitation leather furniture. Except for the tiled entryway, the rooms were thickly carpeted. The walls were a sickly green. Probably the original color, Warren thought. He could see the kitchen at the end of the hallway. A slim Mexican woman was cleaning up.

  “Wait in there,” Tony said, nodding at the imitation black leather settee in the living room.

  Okay”

  Warren went in and sat, gazing at the eclectic mix of artifacts, vases, and inexpensive art that looked like it belong on the walls of a cheap motel. The only outstanding feature was a limestone fireplace that was obviously recently constructed. It was too big for the room, however. As Warren gazed about, he did a mental list of what he would rip out and replace. He might not be a high-rolling famous doctor, but he had talent when it came to construction.

  Frankie appeared in the doorway. He was wearing a white robe, and his hair was unbrushed. He did look like he had been woken out of a deep sleep. The sight of him put the first pang of fear into Warren. What if he didn’t believe him, or what if he didn’t think the news was important enough? He would turn that bull on him for sure.

  “Who the hell are you?” Frankie asked.

  “Name’s Warren Moore. I worked on your place a few years ago.”

  “Yeah? And?”

  “I heard about your illness.”

  “Oh yeah?” He turned to Tony. “Good news travels fast.” He looked at Warren again. “I ain’t dead yet, so some people oughta watch their mouths.”

  “Forget that. I know you saw a patient get better pretty fast in the hospital, a patient with the same cancer.”

  Frankie relaxed and walked into the living room. He lowered himself slowly to the easy chair. Tony stepped closer as well.

  “How’d you know that?”

  “The doctor who cured the guy told me,” Warren said.

  “Why would he tell you?”

  “I’m living with the woman whose son’s blood was used.”

  “Blood?”

  “Yeah. There’s something unusual about it, maybe because his father was exposed to serious radiation before he screwed his wife and made her pregnant.”

  Frankie nodded and then stopped.

  “Why’d he tell you about me? You here to strong-arm me or threaten me?”

  “Hell no.”

  “So why did he mention me?”

  “You paid him and the other doctor a visit.”

  Frankie smiled. “So?”

  “He wanted me to keep my mouth shut about it all, especially from you.”

  Frankie looked at Tony, who nodded.

  “He told you that? He said keep it especially from me?”

  “How else would I know about you?”

  Frankie smiled.

  “What I tell you, Tony? I smelled a rat in that place. Told you they think they’re gods or something.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Tony said.

  Warren relaxed and sat back. This was going as well as he had hoped it would.

  “After he told me to keep it all To myself, he offered us fifty thousand for a pint of the kid’s blood,” he added. He had almost said seventy-five but thought quickly that too much greed was dangerous at this point.

  Demi was actually trembling when she reentered the salon. She put on the brave face for the doctor, but inside she was a shambles. Thankfully, she was finished doing the main work on Mrs. Cutler. She would just brush her out and spray her so not a strand would break loose. It would look like a helmet, but that was the way women like her wanted it.

  “Is everything all right, Demi?” Mrs. Cutler asked.

  “Yes. It was nothing,” she said quickly. “Thank you for being patient.”

  “I’d give you more time, but I don’t like rushing on these roads. There are so many reckless drivers these days, and not only from Mexico.”

  Demi nodded and started to brush her hair. She glanced at the clock. It wasn’t until then that she fully realized what Doctor Parker had told her. If he had gone to see Warren to warn him, why hadn’t Warren called to tell her? Why didn’t he think it was important enough?

  Fortunately, she was running ahead. She could go to the phone without Kiki complaining. The moment she finished with Mrs. Cutler, she did just that. Warren didn’t pick up. The answering machine came on, and she told him to call her immediately, but she quickly called his cell phone and again, he didn’t pick up. She left a message for him there, too.

  Maybe he’s on his way here, she thought. Her next customer, Lila Norstrom, entered the salon. Lila was much younger than Mrs. Cutler and liked to talk. She resented it whenever Demi didn’t respond or listen. Half of the work here was to behave like a therapist and listen to her clients’ complaints and problems, feigning sympathy. Few cared to hear about her problems, or if they did, they used it as a launching pad for their own.

  Demi put away her dark thoughts and managed a smile. What else could she do? Taylor was in school. She had to work. She had blown off Dr. Parker. Work was salvation. She wouldn’t think about anything else.

  At leas
t for a while, she concluded.

  While Lila was under the drier, Demi walked to the front of the salon. Kiki was on the phone laughing and no longer paid any attention to her. She paused at the door and gazed out. Another hour or so and Taylor would come by to go home with her. He had no debate practice today.

  Looking to her left, she caught her breath. Dr. Parker was still there, sitting in his car and staring ahead. He looked frozen. Slowly, he brought his hands to his face and then leaned down so his arms were on the steering wheel. She wouldn’t swear to it, but it sure looked like he was sobbing. It frightened her, and she actually stepped back from the window abruptly enough to capture the interest of Sharon Harmon’s client, who could see her in the mirror. She made Sharon pause and then she turned.

  “Are you all right, dear?” she asked.

  Demi shook her head and retreated to her chair. Lila, not skipping a beat, continued her tale of woe about her fingernails. No matter what she did, she couldn’t keep them from breaking.

  “And you know me, Demi. I don’t lift a pillowcase, much less anything that could possible damage a fingernail.”

  She laughed.

  Demi worked out a smile. It was nearly an hour since she had called Warren, and he still hadn’t returned the call. He could be in a bar, but this felt different.

  Call it a woman’s intuition.

  Call it a mother’s instinct.

  Something’s not right, she concluded. Something’s terribly wrong.

  “Would you mind if I just made a quick phone call, Lila?” she asked when she paused for a breath.

  “No, dear, of course not. Go right ahead.”

  “Thank you,” she said and practically snuck her cell phone out of her purse and went behind a hair shampoo poster to call without Kiki noticing. This time she called her sister.

  “Lois,” she said as soon as she answered. “Would you do me a big favor?”

  “Sure, honey. What do you need?”

  “I’d rather Taylor not walk to the salon from school today. He’ll be getting out in…oh, damn…ten minutes. You might miss him leaving, but pick him up on the way here, okay?”

  “Of course, but what’s up? Is he sick?”

  “No, it’s not that. I’ll tell you later. It’s probably nothing, but…”

  “It’s all right. You don’t have to explain. I’ve been there many times,” her sister said. “I’m practically out the door. Don’t worry.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll see you in a while.”

  Demi snapped her phone closed and, feeling a little relieved, turned back to Lila Norstrom, who nearly brought her to real laughter by picking up her last sentence as if it had been dangling in the air, just outside her mouth.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Taylor usually walked with Rube Martin and Jack Gibson to downtown Palm Springs, but both of his classmates had joined the afterschool intramural junior basketball team. Since the practices conflicted with the debate team, Taylor didn’t go along, not that he was particularly interested in playing basketball anyway. Despite his clear indifference to sports, however, it gnawed at him that he had this attitude. Warren’s teasing and not so veiled accusations of a lack of masculinity, while seemingly easy to dismiss and ignore, irked him enough for him to question himself and wonder if he was indeed deficient in that regard.

  A second arena in which Warren liked to play was Taylor’s relationships with, or rather lack of relationships with, anyone of the opposite sex. He didn’t have girlfriends in any sense other than friends who happened to be girls, and only those who were either on the debate team or in his accelerated classes. No one girl stood out or occupied his special attention. In fact, the girls who hung out with Rube and Jack and the others either ignored him or in some way mocked him. Rather than win them over, he simply ignored them as well, which only confirmed their whispered opinions.

  He was aware of it all and successfully floated above the din, enjoying his studies, his debate victories, his safe, private world. Only lately, it had begun to show some cracks and Warren’s heavy shadow had begun to gain weight. He felt as if he was retreating to a smaller and smaller space, wallowing in the sanctity of his computer, his reading, his music, and private journals. In fact, he had visions of himself actually shrinking and wondered if anyone else had realized it.

  It was precisely this sense of himself, this idea that he was indeed different that made it possible for him to now accept the astounding possibility that his blood carried some alien agent making it possible for it to cure incurable cancer. He hadn’t fully processed the meaning of all this. He saw the fear in his mother, and some of that fear invaded his thoughts. He had a nightmare in which he saw himself in a hospital bed attached to tubes draining his blood while he was kept under sedation. He was in a real sense being mined for doses and doses of cures. When he woke up with a start, his arm actually ached.

  Of course, he would never mention such a dream to his mother, who was already far too nervous about it, but it was like a nasty secret eating away at him. He wished he could tell someone and get it out. He didn’t think that Dr. Parker was the one in whom to confide. Despite the kind way he spoke and treated him, Taylor thought he could see the absolute lust for his blood in the doctor’s eyes. It was truly like looking at a real vampire. He had done a very good job of hiding all that from the man, but boy, it was there in the back of his mind.

  All of these thoughts, these conflicts, wrestled each other for dominance in his brain as he walked to town. His conscience was also troublesome, however. There were people, children Jodi’s age and younger, who would die today, and he could have saved them, perhaps with a drop of blood, yet here he walked, seemingly impervious to it all, concerned only with his insignificant little selfish interests.

  It also occurred to him that Dr. Parker might be right about how all this occurred. His father suffered a nearly fatal dose of radiation and somehow through the miracle of genetics passed on this magic. Was he in a real sense betraying his father by totally ignoring all that now? If there were spirits that looked down at the living, was his father’s spirit unhappy, disappointed, even ashamed?

  Taylor thought that maybe if Warren hadn’t been so directly involved, clearly exhibiting his own greedy interests, he would have not been so determined to refuse Dr. Parker. If that was so, was he permitting his dislike for Warren to influence him and in the end hurt someone else, some desperate child fighting to breathe?

  It did look like his mother was thinking seriously now of ending the relationship with Warren. Why not give that time to occur and settle in before revisiting all this, he thought. The idea eased his conscience and put some more pep in his gait.

  Taylor had a habit of walking with his head down. He was well aware of where he was at in terms of the road and sidewalk and such, but anyone watching him would think he had eyes at the top of his head. He was able to turn off the sounds and sights around him and concentrate on his own thoughts this way. He had only a vague awareness of people walking by or cars flowing in either direction, so at first he thought the voice he heard was calling to someone else. He didn’t realize it was Warren until he actually hit the horn.

  “Jesus, Taylor, you really are in your own world most of the time.”

  Taylor stared at him. Here he was thinking about Warren and just that suddenly, he appears. He had pulled close to the sidewalk and rolled down the passenger side window. He was leaning toward it and shaking his head.

  “Seems like a better world than the one you’re in,” Taylor replied.

  “Ha, ha. C’mon,” Warren beckoned. “I have to talk to you about something.”

  Taylor stiffened. “What?”

  “I’m not going to do it shouting through a damn window, Taylor. Move your ass.”

  “I’m walking to town To meet my mother. She’s waiting for me.”

  “So I’ll drop you off.”

  “I’d rather walk.”

  “It’s important, Taylor.
I wouldn’t be coming around looking for you if it wasn’t, would I?” Warren said, his tone not so antagonistic. Taylor took a step closer.

  “Well, what’s it about?”

  “It’s about me and your mother, mostly your mother, okay? Just get in.”

  He opened the door and swung it out.

  Taylor looked at it. Something instinctive caused him to hesitate, but he felt silly and, more important, weak. He certainly didn’t want to exhibit any fear, not to Warren. He looked down the street once and then reluctantly got into the vehicle.

  “Shut the damn door, for chrissakes,” Warren ordered. “You close it like a little girl.”

  He opened and slammed it harder.

  Warren drove off.

  “What?” Taylor asked immediately.

  Warren turned abruptly left.

  “There’s someone I want you To meet first. It’s important,” Warren said.

  And he sped up.

  Lois was nearly to Palm Canyon Drive, the main street of Palm Springs, and she still had not spotted Taylor walking along the road. Before she turned to go down the one-way street to reach Kiki’s Salon, she flipped her cell phone open and speed-dialed Demi.

  “Lois?”

  “Is he there, Demi?”

  “You didn’t see him walking from school?”

  “He isn’t there?”

  “No.”

  “I’m almost there myself. Why did you call? Why did you want me to pick him up? What happened?”

  “Just come in, Lois. I’m cleaning up,” Demi said.

  Lois parked as closely to the salon as she could and hurried down the sidewalk. She was moving as quickly as she could, but somehow Demi beat her to the door and stepped out, her face flushed with concern.

  “What’s going on?” Lois asked.

  “I can’t drive. I’m shaking too much. Just take me to your car,” Demi said.

  “Up here,” Lois pointed and led the way.

  Demi was happy to see Allan Parker was gone. It was the only relief she felt at the moment. But then she was suddenly struck by the thought that perhaps Allan had intercepted Taylor. Was he capable of kidnapping her son? After all, he did confess to doing a medical procedure that was not proper. And he did look just that desperate. Perhaps he had made up the entire fable about Frankie Vico, too.