Innocent Blood

by Graham Masterton

  ‘So what’s the score?’ asked Frank. ‘Is there any point in us finishing the next script? If they’re going to cancel, we might as well go play some golf.’

  ‘You shouldn’t even be here,’ Mo told him. ‘Lizzie and I can manage. We’ll send you the first draft by email and you can tear it to shreds in the privacy of your own home.’

  ‘I wish. Margot’s thrown me out.’

  ‘She’s what?’

  ‘She’s thrown me out.’ Frank explained about the séance and Impressions In White.

  Lizzie waved aside a cloud of smoke. ‘Are you sure you didn’t deface those paintings? Me, I can’t tell you how often I wake up in the night with an insatiable urge to paint swastikas and vaginas all over the wall.’

  ‘It wasn’t me, Lizzie. I don’t know who the hell it could have been, but it wasn’t me.’

  ‘What about this séance?’ asked Mo. ‘I got to tell you, Frank, it sounds to me like you’re very close to cracking up. Why don’t you stay with Naomi and me for a while, just until you’ve got your head back together?’

  ‘Oh God, just what he needs,’ said Lizzie. ‘Chicken soup and old Zero Mostel jokes.’

  ‘Thanks for the offer,’ said Frank. ‘I think I need to spend some time on my own.’

  ‘You’re not going to do anything stupid?’

  ‘What, like sit in the bath and drop a hairdryer in it? No, Mo, I’m not going to do anything stupid. I just need to rearrange my head.’

  He drove to Venice. On the car radio, the chief executive of NBC was repeating his determination not to be intimidated by terrorists.

  ‘The very first amendment to the American Constitution guarantees freedom of expression and a free media. We at NBC value this freedom beyond the price of gold or rubies. We are not going to allow a maniac minority to destroy the legacy that our founding fathers handed down to us.

  ‘On the other hand, we are taking every precaution to protect our employees and our property. Everybody who enters an NBC office or studio for whatever reason will be thoroughly searched, and if this causes delay and disruption – well, I’m afraid that’s the price we have to pay for vigilance.’

  Newscaster Will Chase said, ‘In spite of these redoubtable words, a wave of blind panic continues to sweep through Hollywood. Extra police and deputies have been brought in to guard all major TV networks and movie studios, including Fox, Universal, Sony, Warner Brothers, MGM/Pathé and Disney at Burbank.

  ‘Fashionable restaurants and nightspots frequented by movie and TV celebrities are reporting that business has fallen off overnight. At the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Polo Lounge was described today as a “mausoleum,” and Rodeo Drive as a “ghost town.” Personal protection companies are reporting a desperate shortage of bodyguards and security experts available for hire, and Armet, the Florida-based company which produces “discreetly bomb-proofed” cars and SUVs, say they have been inundated with inquiries from Hollywood’s rich, famous and scared.

  ‘There is no question about it, the TV and movie industry is living in fear, and nobody doubts that there will be another bomb outrage very soon. The only questions are when, and where.’

  Frank parked outside Astrid’s apartment building. He sat behind the wheel for a few minutes, trying to decide if he was doing the right thing.

  He was still sitting there when the old man in the long-billed baseball cap suddenly appeared around the corner, wearing a sagging pair of maroon jogging pants and a faded yellow T-shirt. The old man hesitated for a moment, looking screwy eyed from right to left. He licked his finger and lifted it up as if he were testing which way the wind was blowing. Then he came loping over to Frank’s car and tapped on the window.

  ‘How’s it going, Frank?’

  ‘Not too good.’

  ‘Shouldn’t lose your nerve, Frank. No good never came of losing your nerve.’

  ‘I haven’t lost my nerve. I can’t decide what to do next, that’s all.’

  ‘Maybe it ain’t your decision.’

  ‘Oh, really? Then whose decision is it?’

  ‘Fate, karma, call it whatever you like. Sometimes we’re destined to play a part in history and we don’t even know it. In which case all we can do is put one foot in front of the other and keep on following that road and see where it takes us.’

  ‘I’m burying my only son on Wednesday.’

  The old man laid his hand on the roof of the car. He wore a silver ring on every finger and his nails were blackened and broken. He smelled, too – of urine and alcohol.

  ‘There’s a reason for everything, Frank. It’s not always a reason we can understand, or a reason we approve of. But there’s a reason all the same.’

  ‘So what do you think I should do next?’ Frank asked him. He was being bitter, but at the same time he really wanted to hear what the old man had to say.

  ‘You don’t have any choice, Frank. You crossed the road. There’s no turning back now.’

  Frank knew that he was right. He couldn’t go back. Yesterday was closed for business. He sat staring at the Buick emblem on his steering wheel and he could almost feel life’s rug being dragged out from under him.

  After more than a minute of silence, the old man coughed and spat. ‘That’s a ten spot.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Spiritual guidance. Warnings I give for nothing – especially dire warnings; that’s my philanthropic duty. But I’m sorry. Spiritual guidance I have to make a nominal charge for.’

  Frank opened his billfold and gave him a twenty. The old man grinned and showed his four mahogany teeth. ‘You’re a generous man, Frank. Your generosity will pay you back one day. Not this year. Maybe not next year, neither. But one day, when you least expect it.’

  He went hobbling off along the sidewalk and disappeared around the next corner. Frank told himself that his appearance had been nothing more than a coincidence. After all, he must spend all day panhandling up and down the coast, annoying people. And what kind of spiritual guidance was ‘put one foot in front of the other’? You could get better advice out of a fortune cookie.

  Frank climbed out of the car, went across to Astrid’s door and rang the bell. There was no answer so he waited a minute and then rang it again.

  ‘Who is it?’ said a voice over the intercom.

  ‘It’s Frank. I’ve come to see Astrid.’

  ‘Astrid? There’s no Astrid here.’

  ‘Is this apartment three?’

  ‘That’s right, apartment three.’

  ‘You must be Carla. I’ve come to see the girl you share with. I think she must have given me a different name.’

  ‘There’s nobody here but me.’

  ‘You mean she’s out? Can I leave her a message?’

  ‘I mean nobody lives here but me.’

  ‘Excuse me? There has to be. I visited her yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘You must have made a mistake. Maybe another apartment. Nobody lives here but me.’

  ‘Listen – please. She has short brown hair and blue eyes. She wears rings on her toes.’

  The intercom clicked off. Frank pressed the bell again, and then again, and then again, but Carla wouldn’t answer. He stepped back and tried to look up to the second story, but the dark green shutters were all closed. Eventually he climbed back into his car.

  What the hell is happening here? I know I didn’t make a mistake. Not unless Astrid didn’t really share the apartment at all. Maybe she found out that Carla was away in Europe for a few days, and crashed in it without asking.

  The trouble was, he had no way of contacting Astrid now. He didn’t know her telephone number. He didn’t even know her surname. It suddenly occurred to him that he might never see her again.

  He drove back to Hollywood, to the Sunset Marquis Hotel on Alta Loma Road, a short, steeply sloping street that climbed from Holloway Drive to Sunset.

  ‘How long will you be you staying with us, Mr Bell?’ the receptionist asked him. She had tightly braided blonde hair an
d unnervingly wide-apart eyes.

  ‘I’m not sure. At least a week. Maybe the rest of my life. It all depends on . . . you know . . . fate.’

  ‘Fate,’ the receptionist repeated. She didn’t seem at all mystified. A lot of rock stars stayed at the Sunset Marquis.

  His second-story room was sunny and painted yellow, with splashy floral prints on the wall. He opened all the windows so that the warm midday breeze could blow in, and then he took a can of beer out of the icebox and sat in one of the big stripy armchairs and closed his eyes.

  Shouldn’t lose your nerve, Frank. No good ever came of losing your nerve.

  He was woken by a quiet rapping at the door. For a split second he didn’t know where he was, and he thought that it was Margot rapping on the door of his study.

  ‘What time is it?’ he asked. But of course it wasn’t Margot, and he was still here, in his room at the Sunset Marquis.

  The rapping was repeated. He heaved himself out of his chair and went to answer it.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Room service.’

  He opened the door. It was Astrid. She stepped straight past him into the room and did a twirl.

  ‘Hey! Nice place! She said that I would probably find you here.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Your secretary.’

  ‘My secretary? You called my office?’

  ‘I went round to your home first but your wife said that you’d packed your bags and moved out.’

  ‘You saw Margot?’ Or rather, he thought, Margot saw you, with your tight white T-shirt and your tan leather mini-skirt and your tan leather ankle boots with the high spiky heels.

  Astrid laughed. ‘Oh, yes, I saw Margot all right. What happened between you two?’ She put on Margot’s snappy don’t-talk-to-me-like-that tone. ‘“I don’t know where Frank is and quite frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Or words to that effect.’

  ‘We had another row. It’s the shock, I guess, and the grief. It’s a goddamned mess. It’s going to take us a long time to get over losing Danny.’

  Astrid looked in the icebox. ‘You don’t mind if I help myself to a glass of wine?’

  ‘Sure, I’ll do it.’ He took out a bottle of Chilean rosé, pulled out the cork, and poured her a glass.

  She lifted it up and said, ‘Mud in your eye.’ For the first time he noticed that she had a sprinkling of light-brown freckles across the bridge of her nose. She looked into his eyes while she was drinking as if she could tell exactly what was thinking.

  ‘I was looking for you,’ he told her. ‘I went to Carla’s place first.’

  ‘I thought you might.’

  ‘So why did you make out that you live there when you don’t?’

  ‘I did live there. It’s just that I don’t live there now.’

  ‘I see. So where have you moved to?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘No, I suppose it doesn’t. Maybe I’m just being old-fashioned.’

  She sat down on the couch. Her leather skirt was so short that he could see a triangle of purple lace thong. ‘You’re not old-fashioned, Frank. Not at all. You have wings but you’ve never learned how to fly. You were successful too young, you were married too young, you became a daddy too young. All that responsibility. All that weight. You’ve never had the chance to be you.’

  ‘Well, that’s not so easy. How can I be me when I don’t even know who I am?’

  She reached out and traced a circle around the dimple on his chin, around and around. ‘I think it’s time you found out, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s Danny’s funeral on Wednesday. Maybe when that’s over . . .’

  ‘He’s gone, Frank. I know how much you loved him, but you have to start thinking about what you’re going to do next. You.’

  ‘Yes, I understand that. The trouble is . . .’ He felt exhausted and confused and he was finding it very hard to swallow. They drank their drinks in silence for a while. Then Frank said, ‘We held the séance.’

  ‘Oh, yes? I was going to ask you about that.’

  ‘It worked. He did it. Nevile Strange. He actually put us in touch.’

  ‘You talked to Danny’s spirit?’

  ‘Much more than that. We saw Danny, actually saw him, standing outside the window. We all did. Margot, Nevile, me, Margot’s friend.’

  ‘That’s unbelievable. You’re sure it wasn’t a trick?’

  ‘If it was, I can’t think how the hell it was done. But the worst part about it was that Danny told me that he couldn’t forgive me.’

  Astrid carried on stroking his cheek, and then she ran her fingers into his hair. ‘You shouldn’t take it to heart. Nevile Strange is probably a fraud, in any case.’

  ‘Astrid, I saw Danny with my own eyes.’

  ‘You thought you did. But maybe he was only a projection, something like that. I mean, he might have looked as if he was standing outside the window, but supposing Nevile Strange was shining an image on to the glass?’

  ‘It was Danny. Where was he going to get hold of an image of Danny?’

  ‘He probably didn’t. But you wanted the image to be Danny so you believed that it was.’

  ‘No, I don’t buy that. It couldn’t have been a projection. Besides, he didn’t have any equipment with him, not even a briefcase.’

  ‘Maybe he set it up beforehand, outside in the yard. Maybe he hypnotized you.’

  Frank got up and popped open another can of beer. ‘I know what I saw, Astrid.’

  ‘And Danny didn’t forgive you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So why do you think that Danny didn’t forgive you?’

  ‘Because I left him in the back seat of my car, didn’t I? Bleeding to death. He called me and called me but I didn’t come.’

  ‘Maybe Danny’s spirit wouldn’t forgive you because that was a sure-fire way for Nevile Strange to persuade you to go back for another séance?’

  He slowly shook his head. ‘I thought I was cynical.’

  ‘I’m not being cynical, Frank. I’m being realistic. Before you lost Danny, did you believe that dead people could come back and talk to you? Did you believe in spirits?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘You believed that when people died, that was it, that was the end of them?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But now you’ve changed your mind, just like so many other people change their minds when they lose somebody they love.’

  ‘I know what I saw, Astrid. I know what I heard.’

  ‘If you say so. But Nevile Strange is a very clever man. He knows how to play on people’s expectations. Even the police. Do you really believe that people leave a psychic resonance in their sunglasses?’

  ‘I’m very tired, Astrid.’

  She knelt up on the couch and took his can of beer away from him. ‘You should rest,’ she said, and she started to unbutton his shirt.

  ‘Hey,’ he said.

  She paused for a moment and stared at him. ‘You need this, Frank. You need somebody to take care of you. For once in your life, stop trying to be responsible for everything that goes on around you.’

  He could have told her to stop. He could have told her to go and leave him alone. But somehow he couldn’t find the strength, or the will. When she carried on unbuttoning his shirt, he didn’t resist. He just lay back and watched her eyes, as if they would explain why she wanted him so much. But her eyes were as pale blue as ever, as empty as a windy sky, and they gave away nothing at all.

  She unbuckled his Gucci belt and tugged out his shirt tails. She smoothed her hands over his bare chest, rolling his nipples between finger and thumb. ‘I love skinny men,’ she said. ‘All those ribs. They feel like Jesus.’

  She lifted him up off the cushion and pulled his shirt over his head. Then she kissed him on the forehead, three times. ‘I anoint thee. I anoint thee. I anoint thee.’

  She twisted around, lifted up his legs one after the other, and took off his bright red socks. �
�You know what red socks mean? They mean you’re going to travel to hell and back.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘That’s because you’ve never been there.’

  Next she drew down his zipper and began to work his pants down over his hips. Under his white Calvin Klein shorts he was stiffening already, but she ignored it until she had taken his pants off completely and bundled them over the back of the couch. Then she sat next to him, and gently laid her hand on his erection. She looked at him and he looked at her.

  ‘You’re not used to this, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s about time you allowed other people to take charge of you, once in a while. You can trust them, you know.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘If I told you, you wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Try me.’

  She leaned forward and kissed him on the tip of the nose, and then on the lips. ‘First of all, I want you to enjoy being with me.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘That’ll do for now.’

  Without explaining herself any further, she pulled down his shorts, so that his cock rose up into the air, steadily beating in time with his pulse. She took hold of it in her left hand and squeezed it hard, so that the glans turned dark purple and the opening gaped.

  ‘Eve was tempted by an apple,’ she said, smiling. ‘But I prefer plums.’ She stuck out her tongue and licked him all around, until his glans gleamed with her saliva. She lifted her head and stared at him, and there was still a trail of saliva connecting the tip of her tongue to his cock.

  Then she ran her tongue all the way down his shaft until she reached his tight, wrinkled balls. She lifted each of them up in turn, and took them between her lips, and gently sucked them. Frank slid his fingers into her hair, but she gave an impatient little shake of her head to indicate that it was her turn first, and that all he was supposed to do was lie back and enjoy it.

  She slid her tongue upward again, then opened her mouth wide and swallowed his cock so deeply that he thought it was going to choke her. She sucked him up and down, the tip of her tongue pattering, and he closed his eyes. God, what’s happening to me? In the midst of all this grief and unhappiness, bliss.