Carrion

by Gary Brandner

  “Mr. Kruger, we have to expect aftereffects. Unfortunately, there is no way of predicting what form they will take.”

  “But she seemed so … normal at first. But as the days pass, she seems to be getting worse.”

  Dr. Maylon took off his glasses and cleaned them. “In what way, specifically?”

  “Well, our — ” Kruger cleared his throat and started over. “Our sex life, for one thing. At first it was wonderful. Even better than before. But now it’s erratic. Sometimes she seems insatiable. Other times she won’t even let me in the bed.”

  Maylon felt his face burning. He thought surely Elliot Kruger must see his guilt, but the old man was focused within himself.

  “And there’s something else.” Kruger hesitated. “I know it’s old-fashioned of me, but I find it hard to talk about these personal details.”

  Maylon nodded, not trusting his voice.

  “The thing is … Leanne has an odor about her.”

  “An odor?”

  “Yes. An unpleasant smell. She bathes several times a day and tries to cover it with perfume, but it’s there, and it’s getting worse.”

  Dr. Maylon leaned forward. “Mr. Kruger, at the time you called me in, I recommended that your wife check into the hospital for more extensive tests. I still think that’s what you ought to do.”

  “No.” Kruger shook his head vigorously. “I don’t want a lot of people involved. The press would love to get at her. Ever since the business with McAllister Fain and that boy in East Los Angeles, they’ve been all over me. I will protect my wife’s privacy at all costs.”

  “There is only so much I can do, Mr. Kruger. I want you to feel free to call in another doctor anytime.”

  “No, no, I don’t mean to imply I’m not satisfied with you. Things are piling up on me, that’s all. Not only do I have Leanne on my mind, but my son is behaving oddly, too.”

  “Your son?”

  “Richard. He suddenly stopped coming around the house. And just when I thought he and Leanne were starting to like each other. But don’t let me burden you with my personal problems, doctor. You’ll see my wife tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Maylon. “Same time tomorrow.” He rose and walked to the door like a man carrying a load too heavy for him.

  • • •

  On the other side of the city, Alberto Ledo came home from work to find his wife sitting in their living room crying.

  “What is it, Maria?” he said, dropping his lunch pail on a table near the door.

  “You’re home early,” she said.

  “The planer jammed again; it will take the rest of the day to fix it. But what is wrong here?”

  She got up and started for the kitchen. “Are you hungry? I will make you a sandwich.”

  “I still have the sandwich you made for my lunch.” He took hold of her shoulder and turned her to face him. “Maria, I want you to tell me right now why you were crying.”

  She dropped her eyes away from his. “It’s Miguel.”

  “What happened? He isn’t painting the wall again?”

  “No. He hurt little Juan Ramirez.”

  “His friend next door?”

  “Yes.”

  Alberto gently squeezed his wife’s plump shoulders. “That is not so serious. Little boys fight all the time. Then they make up.”

  “It was no fight,” said Maria. “Miguel cut him.”

  Alberto’s face darkened. “Cut him? With a knife?

  “Yes.”

  “Where did he get a knife?”

  “From the kitchen. He took the butcher knife.”

  “Dios! Is the other boy badly hurt?”

  “They took him to the doctor. He will be all right.”

  “Where is Miguel?”

  “In his room. What are you going to do, Berto?”

  “I am going to punish him; what do you think?”

  “Berto, he is not the way he was. Not since he was … hurt and brought back.”

  “That is no excuse for using a knife on his friend.”

  “Please,” she said.

  “All right. But I will talk to him.”

  He walked past her to the small second bedroom at the rear of the house. The door was closed. Alberto opened it and walked in.

  The room was unnaturally dim for the time of day. Alberto saw that a blanket had been hung crookedly over the window. He walked over and took hold of the blanket.

  “What’s this for?”

  Miguel was sitting on the narrow bed, his head against the wall, his feet straight out in front of him. He said, “To make it dark.”

  “I can see that. What I’m asking you is why.”

  The boy shrugged and went on fiddling with a robot that could be folded into a star fighter.

  Alberto ripped the blanket away from the window. The boy flinched from the light.

  “When I talk to you, you answer me,” Alberto said. “You understand?”

  The boy nodded.

  “I hear you been using a knife. I hear you cut the boy next door. Little Juan Ramirez. What do you say about that?”

  “He wouldn’t let me ride his bike.”

  Alberto stared at his son. “He wouldn’t let you ride his bike, so you used a blade on him? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “It was my turn. He said I could ride next, and then he didn’t let me.”

  “You have your own bike.”

  “Juan’s is better.”

  Alberto clenched his fists and breathed deeply. With an effort, he relaxed the taut muscles in his back and shoulders. He went over and sat on the bed with his son. “Miguelito, are you feeling all right?” He took the boy’s hand and examined the healed burn mark across the palm. “Since you were hurt the other night, do you have any pain? Something you haven’t told us?”

  “No, I’m okay.”

  Alberto released the boy’s hand and ruffled the thick black hair. “Miguel, using a knife on another person is a bad thing. They put people into prison for that, and they keep them there a long time. I know, because when I was a boy I came very close to going to prison myself. I want you to promise me that you will never take a knife from our kitchen again. And that you will never cut anybody.”

  Miguel looked away and did not speak.

  Alberto felt the anger rising again. He took hold of the boy’s chin and turned his head so that they were facing each other. “I want you to answer me.”

  “I won’t do it anymore,” the boy said. “I won’t take the knife.”

  “And you won’t cut anybody.”

  “An’ I won’t cut nobody.”

  A long moment went by as father and son faced each other. Then Alberto said, “Okay, then, it’s finished. But if you do anything like this again, I’ll whip you. Do you understand?”

  A nod.

  The father waited for the boy to say more. When he did not speak, Alberto finally stood up.

  “This room stinks,” he said. “Open your window.”

  He went out with a feeling in his gut that there was more wrong here than he could understand.

  Chapter 18

  His first look at Eagle’s Roost came when the F-A limo rounded the last twist in the private road that led up off Mulholland Drive. McAllister Fain immediately hated the place.

  The house was gray stone, three stories tall. It was a humorless house with towers and arches and parapets and dark, sullen windows. A perfect setting for a low-budget horror movie, thought Fain. In fact, the exterior had been used in several such productions. Warner Echols reeled off the titles of several screamers from the sixties and seventies. Fain was not impressed.

  The interior of the house made him feel a little better. At least half of the forty or so rooms had been sensibly sealed off. Once you were past the vast entry hall, which was furnished in Frankenstein Gothic for atmosphere’s sake, the rest of the house was done in a comfortable contemporary style. Fain decided he could live with that.

  He perked up considerably when
a van brought his recliner from the Echo Park apartment along with a few of his books and familiar things. He found a downstairs room into which they fit nicely, and it was there he spent most of his time.

  As the days passed, Fain felt himself gradually growing into the house. Victoria Clifford was most helpful; she proved that her talents were not limited to secretarial tasks. With his upgraded wardrobe and a plentiful stock of good food and liquor, he began to feel like a true lord of the manor.

  And he was kept busy. Warner Echols, using the resources of Federated Artists, had him on a full schedule of personal appearances, local talk shows, meetings with studio chiefs, and sessions with a team of writers who were preparing a biography. He was already booked for the Today show, and talks with Johnny Carson’s people were under way.

  At least three producers were bidding for an option on his life story. Robert De Niro was being mentioned for the lead. Fain saw himself as more the Clint Eastwood type, but De Niro was not chopped liver.

  There was a steady stream of visitors to Eagle’s Roost, all carefully screened by a private security force hired by Federated Artists. Armed guards prowled the grounds and manned the gate on the private road. Nobody who could not further McAllister Fain’s career in some way was allowed in his presence. There were times, in spite of Echols’s busy schedule and Victoria’s recreational ideas, that he felt a little lonely.

  One morning a week after they moved in, Warner Echols stomped into the house, brandishing a rolled-up newspaper like the Olympic torch.

  “Damn it,” he said, “this kind of thing isn’t going to do us a bit of good. Did you know what she was up to?”

  “Who? What?” Fain stuttered. It was the first time he had seen the unflappable Echols not in full control.

  “This!” The agent thrust the paper on him.

  Fain unrolled the tabloid to see the familiar masthead of the L.A. Insider. From page one his own face peered back at him. It was one of the photos Olney Zeno had taken in the first session at his Echo Park place. Not a bad shot, Fain thought.

  He looked up at Echols. “Publicity?”

  “Yes, but not ours. Read on.”

  The headline said, “Crystal Gazer to Christ Figure — the Miraculous Rise of McAllister Fain.”

  Christ figure?

  The byline was Ivy Hurlbut’s. A box indicated that this was the first of a two-part story. Fain scanned the article quickly. Although Ivy had exaggerated some events in his life and written the whole thing in the florid style of the tabloid, he found nothing libelous or patently untrue. If she made him sound a little freaky, he could not really blame Ivy. After all, he had not been completely fair with her.

  “So what’s the problem?” he asked.

  “The problem,” Warner Echols said patiently, “is that this rag is ripping us off. This … this” — he snatched back the tabloid — “this Ivy Hurlbut is using you without paying us a dime. You’re a commodity, Mac. We don’t give you away any more than Kellogg’s gives away cornflakes.”

  “A flattering analogy,” Fain said.

  “You know what I mean. I’ve already got Nolan Dix on it. We’ll come down on these pirates with more lawsuits than they can shake a stick at. We’ll break this sheet and send Ivy Hurlbut back to writing copy for dildo catalogs.”

  “No lawsuit,” Fain said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that. I don’t want any lawsuit.”

  “Hey, Mac, did you read that junk?”

  “Ivy only used the stuff I gave her, with a little journalistic license. The pictures I posed for. They’re kind of flattering, actually. No reason to sue anybody.”

  “An article in one of these rags isn’t going to do the image any good.”

  “Let Jesse worry about my image. I can’t see where this story can do me any damage.”

  “That’s not the only problem. If we let this go by, next thing you know somebody will put you on a Mac Fain T-shirt, without any royalties to us.”

  “When the T-shirts hit the streets, you can sue,” Fain said. “But I want you to leave Ivy Hurlbut alone.”

  Echols threw up his hands. “If you insist, but I think you’re making a mistake.”

  “It won’t be the first, and I’ve survived before.”

  “All right, Mac. I’ll go call off Dix, and then I want to talk some business with you.”

  “Anytime,” Fain said agreeably.

  On his way out, Echols passed Victoria Clifford coming in. She wore a maroon velour top and tight silvery pants. Her rich brown hair was tossed into a carefully windblown arrangement. She gave Echols a look, then came on toward Fain.

  “Something bugging Warner?” she asked.

  “He wanted to sue somebody, and I didn’t agree.”

  “Warner usually knows what he’s doing.”

  “Good for him. I just thought it was time I made a decision about something. I don’t even get to buy my own clothes anymore.”

  Victoria stepped close and kissed him on the lips. She tasted of cinnamon. “Macho man,” she murmured against his mouth.

  “Go ahead,” he told her. “Make my day.”

  “Love to,” she said, then took a half step back. “How about a little brunch? I make a sensational omelet.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” Fain told her, loosening up the Clint Eastwood squint, “but I’m not hungry.”

  “How about something to jog your appetite? I’m good at that, too.”

  “Yes, I know, but not right now.” He showed her the copy of the Insider. “I want to read about myself.”

  “Maybe later, then,” Victoria said. “You know where to find me.”

  “Sure.”

  Fain watched her walk away, the fine high buttocks rolling nicely under the silver stretch pants. He sighed and wandered into the stone-cold entrance hall, its vaulted ceiling lost in the shadows high above. Muddy oil paintings of people long dead hung on the walls. He avoided the tall straight-back chairs, which must have been built for some purpose other than sitting in.

  “It reminds me of mine castle back in Transylvania,” he said in a bad Bela Lugosi impression.

  “Balls.” He walked to one of the tall leaded windows and gazed out at the small clearing in front and the thick scrub pine that pushed up to the edge of the road.

  Feeling depressed, he walked back into his personal room and sat in his recliner to read Ivy Hurlbut’s story thoroughly. He also read about the feud between two female stars of the top nighttime soap. He read about a lamb born outside Butte, Montana, with a perfect image of the Christ child in its wool. He read about a woman in Hartford who cooked her husband’s beagle and served it to his poker cronies. He read about the miracle diet that kept half of Hollywood’s glamour queens looking good. He started to read about an African tribe that worshiped toads, but that was too much, and he tossed the paper aside. “Balls.”

  McAllister Fain, sensation of the tabloids, sought after by talk shows, possible subject of a biography in Brentano’s window, about to be portrayed on the screen by Robert De Niro, was bored and lonely. How would that look in one of the tabloids?

  But it was true. Despite the comforting presence of Victoria, he missed Jillian Pappas and their little personal jokes, their small fights and large reconciliations. He had called her half a dozen times since moving into Eagle’s Roost but had gotten only the recording. He had left messages, but there had been no return of his calls. Now that he was finally on the brink of making it, he didn’t have anybody to share it with.

  “Balls.”

  To hell with this line of maudlin self-pity, he decided. He levered himself out of the recliner and started for the grand marble stairway that led to the bedrooms and Victoria Clifford. He was halfway up when Warner Echols called to him from down in the entrance hall.

  “Hey, Mac, are you ready to go to work?”

  “What’s up?”

  Echols held up a handful of envelopes in assorted sizes and colors, most of them hand-addresse
d. “You had a lot of mail at the F-A office. I brought some of the more promising applications for your services. Thought we might go through them and select one or two lucky winners.”

  Echols led the way into a large sitting room with twelve-foot sofas and a deep spongy carpet. They sat side by side, and the agent spread the mail out on a massive coffee table.

  The letters were addressed to Fain in care of local radio and television stations where he had appeared. Some had been sent to his old address.

  “There will probably be a bundle more mailed to Insider,” Echols said, “but I don’t suppose we’ll get a look at those.”

  Fain chose several of the letters at random and scanned the contents. He looked up at Echols. “These are from people who want me to bring somebody back from the dead.”

  “Sure they are. That’s your shtick, isn’t it?”

  “I thought you didn’t want me doing it again.”

  “We don’t. I mean, not the whole routine. But we need something right now to keep you from cooling off. If we announce you’re going to animate another corpse, we get your name back in the papers, and your price goes up.”

  “What do you mean, ‘announce’?”

  “You’re not actually going through with it, of course. But we pick some deserving person, get you together for the cameras; then you tell them you’re sorry but for one reason or another you can’t do it this time.”

  “I see. What reasons did you have in mind?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. Bad vibes. Planets in the wrong conjunction. The moon’s out of phase. You’re the master of the occult; you should be able to think of something.”

  Fain read through one of the letters. It was written in a shaky hand, the lines drooping toward the right side of the page. When he was finished, he looked up at Echols.

  “Here’s one with a damn good reason for not trying. The lady wants Henry, whoever he is, brought back to life. The trouble is, Henry died in 1935. He’d be nothing but a pile of bones, for Christ’s sake.”

  “No, you’re right about that,” Echols said. “I should have screened that one out.”

  Fain picked up another. “And this one … the guy died only a couple of days ago, but he was ninety-one years old.”