Love Me or Kill Me (The Cable Denning Mystery Series Book 2)

by James P. Alsphert

  Saturnalia and the Purple Mists

  That night I decided to be with Adora. Even though she’d told me she had been feeling bad, I chose to be at her side and to comfort her. When I got into bed with her that night, her beautiful but now pale face greeted me with incredible love. I held her without a word through the night. The next morning I asked her to dress because I was going to take her to a doctor’s office. An ex-client’s father was the son of a man who once said if I ever needed a specialist, I should call on him. I had no clue as to what he was a specialist of, but I called ahead and got Adora in early that morning. She had cramped a good portion of the night and told me she was still bleeding profusely.

  “Mi amor, muchas gracias for being with me last night. I know I am no fun for you este momento—but I get well soon. Promesa!”

  As I smoked out in the hall outside the doctor’s office, I thought all kinds of things, not the least of which was my lover’s health and well-being. What an irony! Here we were, the two happiest people I knew for the past year—and now this strange malady that seemed to be increasing in intensity. When the doc came out after giving Adora a series of in-office tests, he looked grave and took me aside as my Latin beauty dressed. “Your wife is quite ill, Mr. Denning. It appears her loss of blood is symptomatic of some deeper disease. Unfortunately, I must submit the blood samples I’ve taken to a laboratory and it will be a few days before we know what’s what. But I’ve given her an iron tonic to build her blood back up a bit. Give her as much lean meat as she can handle. Also, she must rest and have no stress. Be with her as much as you are able, but of course she will not be able to participate in any marital intimacies at this time. Be patient. I will call you. Do you have an office number I can reach you at so we may speak confidentially?”

  “Yeah, doc.” I scribbled down my office number just as Adora came into the waiting room. She looked drawn. “Hey, babe, we’re gonna build you back up with iron, steak and a lot of me!” I said.

  “Me sorprende, señor—but it makes me happy…” She looked sadly at the doctor, as if the two of them knew something I didn’t. “Gracias, médico Gilbert…”

  I got her home just in time for me to leave to the office to meet up with the unique Sarah Mapleton at noon. “Now, are you sure you’re okay until I get back?”

  She looked up at me with those soulful dark eyes of hers as I lay her head down on the pillow of our bed. “Sí, mi querido. También, ten cuidado en este día, my love. Come home to me. You hold me last night and I sleep better. Ah, dormir…sí, dormir…te amo, my Cable…” Soon she closed her eyes and I got to the phone immediately and called her mother. I told Elisa the truth and asked if she would please watch over Adora during my work absences. She happily agreed and that made me feel a lot better.

  Just as I got into the office, the phone rang. “Yeah, Cable Denning here…”

  “Cable—Cable…this is Sarah Mapleton. I’m sorry to call you so late, but something terrible has happened. Can you meet me downtown at the Bard’s Eighth-street Theatre? You know where it is?”

  “Yeah, what’s up, Sarah?”

  “I can’t tell you over the phone—please know it’s important—and come just as soon as you can!”

  I hung up, dashed out of my office and took a streetcar to Broadway and Seventh. I walked from there to Eighth. It was one of those huge show houses planted in the Merrick Building, a department store popular in the 1920’s. There was talk that it will be renamed the Olympic Theatre in honor of the coming 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games. The box office had just opened and I noticed the marquee as I approached the Merrick Building’s Eighth-street entrance. The movie house was showing a William Powell and Jean Arthur film called Street of Chance. I kind of felt like every street from now on would hold a dark secret and plunge me into something that no sane man would take a chance on. But it was the stuff that made the blood rush through my veins.

  I inquired at the box office for Sarah Mapleton. The lady seemed stumped and directed me to the manager’s office just inside the theatre. I guess she knew I wasn’t going to sneak in for a free ticket. I started for the manager’s office when Sarah spotted me and took my hand and we all but ran downstairs, onto a landing, past the restrooms and to an elevator that stood at the far end of that corridor. “I sure hope this is worth missing lunch for,” I quipped. “Or better than the movie upstairs.”

  She squeezed my hand. “I’m just glad you’re here, Cable Denning.” She seemed nervous. I had no idea this elevator descended twelve floors beneath the theatre! We got out at Floor-12 and the minute I stepped onto the concrete something hit me hard and I went out like a light.

  When I came to, it was as if The Three Bears had been playing hardball in my head. A greenish glow emanated all around my blurry vision and I was being dragged feet-first down a long corridor into a strange golden contraption, shaped like an egg but with doors that parted from the middle out. Vaguely I recall it being another elevator that seemed to go even further down, only real fast, and my stomach began heaving Mozart’s Requiem as we rushed toward what I thought must be the center of the earth. I tilted my head around looking for Sarah Mapleton. But it was just me and the lousy Three Bears. It occurred to me in a silly sort of way that I might vomit on them and by the time they cleaned the barf off their hoodlum clothing, I’d be gone. But who was I kidding? I was too damn hazy to even sit up! By the time we got to the bottom of wherever we were going, I was shaking and probably as white as a ghost. I felt like warmed over shit and my head was throbbing the main drumbeat to Stars and Stripes Forever. As soon as we landed, a rather serious appearing nurse shot me in the arm with a needle big enough to be used as a straw in a soda at Squibb’s Drug store. I hurt like hell, but soon I was smiling as the stuff took effect and again I lost consciousness.

  I thought I had either died or been transformed into something or someone else. I felt good as I awakened to a cozy little cottage with only a glowing fire in the hearth. I could think straight, my breathing was clear and my head didn’t hurt. I sat up. It felt great. Then a soft, feminine voice gently called out to me. “There is a magic to fire light…in this cottage in the hills by the sea, time loses its meaning…the fire light holds you in its presence…all unpleasant things are suspended, and you can be anything, do anything, go anywhere the heart desires—with whomever you desire…you are at last…free…but when the first lamp is lit, time resumes and you are caught once again in the helpless, mortal state of meaningless nothingness…for the passions that thrill love, and lift you high to heaven, are the passions that kill love, and let you fall to hell…” Then she scooted on her knees closer to me. Her red-amber eyes glowed like coals from the fireplace. “For an earthman you are fair, primitive, rough—but possess the heart and spirit of Those Who Remember. Welcome…I am Rhea, also known as Saturnalia.” She was a tall babe with electrifying red hair that ran to the bottom of her spine and glowed in the firelight. Her skin was exquisite and almost as white as chalk. Her body was equally endowed with marvelous curves and shapely breasts that stood out high and proud. Her toes and fingernails were a bright orange-red, more or less matching her shiny, long hair. She wore a diaphanous gown with lots of see-through places and a wonderful flower essence poured forth from her body, drifting into my olfactory senses and all but entrancing me.

  “So…the first thing someone’s supposed to ask is, where in the hell am I?" I said, realizing my voice was in fine fiddle.

  “Does it really matter?” she murmured. “Mortals are always either leaving something or going to something else. What about here? Now?”

  “I don’t think we’re made that way, Rhea or Saturnia—”

  “—Saturnalia—please, at least pronounce my name right.”

  “Yeah, okay…so where am I?”

  “In a beautiful little cottage by the sea—any sea—does it matter? You are with me, mistress of Cronus-Gor. He is also my husband, lover and I’ve born him seven children—all of whom he devoured.”
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  I was thinking fast. I must be dreaming—yeah, that was it! That shot the nurse gave me when I fell out of the elevator. I couldn’t act surprised, I had to go along with the dream—this drug-induced fantasy—until I could get out at the other end of it. “That—uh, that’s a bit unusual, don’t you think? Aren’t you a little disturbed that your lover ate your kids?”

  “Karma…just karma, nothing more. It is the ravenous picnic to which only the children are invited. Cronus-Gor isn’t all dark and evil—just mostly dark and evil—and add to that…bad tempered. He fought with his son Zeus, for dominion of the earth—and lost. But I stayed with him. Every twenty-nine of your years I change my mind, but he always persuades me to stay. So I go into another phase of my self.”

  “I see,” I said, thinking I must be sitting at the table of the Mad Hatter’s tea party. “I’m but thirty years old—compared to you, I know so little—I need a little help now and then so I don’t bump into the wall. So what am I doing here? I—I, uh, suppose I’m a prisoner of yours?”

  “Thirty, thirty-thousand, three-hundred thirty thousand. What is the difference?—the self of your self is timeless. You’re only a prisoner if you suppose it in your mind. What does your mind suppose? That’s the most important.”

  I thought I’d better try to grab the upper edge of the conversation. “Ha! What does my mind, or my imagination suppose? Well, to tell you the truth, a cozy cottage with a nice, warm fire, a doll like you—you can guess what a man like me might be thinking.”

  “Oh, yes, you desire me, human male animal. I like that. You can have me—for a price. Isn’t that how it always is? There’s always a price to pay…isn’t there?”

  “Hmmm….let me guess. It’s something I’ve seen, maybe touched, knew a little about—it was probably gold, fairly small, contained priceless knowledge and—”

  “—oh! that almost gave me an orgasm! You are soooo perceptive, whatever your name is—do you have a name?”

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  “I guess I never thought of it concerning lesser beings. But I like your sass…stimulating—even if somewhat assuming.”

  “And I like your ass…so that makes us even, right?”

  “Not quite. You see, sex is a bonding, uniting pleasure experience for me that quite exceeds your low and base standards of momentary ejaculatory release. I pity human females. They have barely begun and you selfish, petulant males are already finished, thinking about the next mammoth hunt with your crude jokes and spears.”

  I was having fun in this dream. “I wouldn’t put it exactly like that, lady. You see, primitive is basic, instinctive, solely for the procreation of the species. Only more advanced folks get the drift of sensual pleasure as an ongoing recreation. And you know, even then it can get boring.”

  “Aren’t you bright and revealing, whatever your name—”

  “—Cable—just call me Cable. Since you don’t have last names, neither do I in this little dream fantasy you’re creating here for me.”

  “Oh, but this is no fantasy, Cable. For example, notice that you have not seen Sarah or Rebecca, have you?”

  “Well, I've never met Rebecca and I barely know her sister, Sarah—”

  “—just as well, for she’s in the mists already.”

  “In the mists?”

  “Yes. Cronus-Gor insists on abundant spraying of the purple mists on a nightly basis. You see, the First Age of your planet was gold—and your species stole our phrase and called it The Golden Age. But, as I said, after I gave birth to Zeus and he defeated his father in vying for dominion over the earth, there appeared a legend that he and Zeus had been fallen angels in previous incarnations—and rather than father and son—became what you might call Devil Brothers together. But soon dissension caused a rift—you know, the usual rivalry between siblings, etcetera—very boring to me, actually.” Then she looked at me in the flickering firelight. “May I kiss you now—to test your male prowess?”

  I did a double take. “How in the hell can you want to kiss me in the middle of a really good story—that I happen to be enjoying?”

  “Because I’m selfish that way. I am an impulsive goddess. Saturn is my home planet. I was born a Titan. Millions of years ago Cronus-Gor stole me from my native planet and mated with me. For the first several hundred thousand years I hated him, fought him, scratched him, bit him—and when he ate seven of my children so they wouldn’t compete with him, I was beside myself with grief and anger. But then he made me a goddess—and eventually I forgave him. It’s all karma, Cable, just fucking karma.”

  “You’re a little rougher around the edges than I thought yourself, Rhea. So am I to meet your husband-lover or whatever he is?”

  “To be sure. I’m the ‘soften-him-up’ crew. I’m supposed to lull you into thinking this is a dream, fantasy or whatever your little head is supposing at the moment. That way you won’t go completely crazy when you learn the truth that you’re not dreaming and that Cronus-Gor really does want something from you—which you have already most generously confessed you know quite a bit about. You see, when Zeus tired of ruling over the little earth people, he left this dimension. My Cronus-Gor at last got his wish and now rules over your pretty little blue planet with his obedient minions.”

  “So now we’re getting down to it, aren’t we? Now I get it—your Cronus-Gor is the real brains behind that Oculus Pyramis Mandatum so many humans have already died for, or been beaten into submission as victims of his selfish will and been tempted into material riches to the point of unstoppable greed, lust and power-mongering.”

  “Bravo! As your kind would say. Actually I have incarnated a few times. In the scope of your memory, I loved Verdi and Rossini—got a little soppy at Puccini—adored the crazy Beethoven, the struggling Schubert, the insane little genius child Mozart—and on and on. But your race went downhill musically from there. Except for some Chinese folk music, maybe.”

  “Hey, now you’re trotting on sensitive soil, babe. I happen to be a fan of Gershwin, Berlin, Porter and a few other famous guys who made their own brand of great music in our little world down here—or up there or wherever in the hell we are.”

  “Hell…that’s a good one, Cable…I think I’m going to like breathing you in during an evening of the purple mists.”

  “And there’s another thing I’ll defend on any planet or in any dimension, lady—you talk about atmosphere? Saturn here, Jupiter there, on Mars or the Moon, titans, gods or goddesses—heaven or hell, there’s nothing like stepping down into a crowded nightclub late at night when the blue smoke fills the room, people are happy and drinking and talking to each other like life really matters—that something makes sense other than the day to day shit out there in the factories and sweat shops. Then a beautiful babe comes onto the stage in a red, knockout gown glittering with sequins and lets us have it with a song that makes us laugh or cry or clap or jump or shout or dance! That’s freedom, Miss Saturn, that’s a kind of happiness you purple people eaters can never compete with. You know why? Because long ago you concluded that coveted power was happiness, limited interaction born of revenge and hatred, power-mad demagogues and mistresses like you who have every name in the book except love. That’s the one you forgot. And without that…you’ve got nothing on us humble, groveling humans…because every once in a while someone gets through the golden ring and experiences real love, the kind that doesn’t tarnish in the halls of the gods, but stays clear and free and simple…that a touch…just one quiet touch…is the whole world…”

  My hostess had tears in her eyes. “Now I have to breathe you in, Cable…I have to have you swirl ‘round me in the purple mists until all that you ever were or will be…shall be part of me, too…”

  “Good luck, Saturnalia. You’ll also absorb the rotten part of me, the violent, negative cynic, the guy who smokes, drinks too much and chases skirts, and one who has enough balls to taunt the gods by striking out against the subjugation you and your kind have caused. You want t
o absorb that from your purple mists?”

  “You never know…”

  “Humans have it tough enough—they didn’t need your other-worldly chaos, confusion and domination turning them into half-awake zombies battling over territory, a sexual pecking order and power for a place in the sun.”

  She smiled a wry smile at me. “By the gods, Cable, I love the way you talk. Will you be my pet muse? I could implore Cronus-Gor to spare you—after you’ve given him what he requires—and you and I could dwell in perpetual bliss.”

  “Naw…I wouldn’t want you to put yourself out for little ol’ me. Somehow I don’t think I’m cut out to be one of your minions, lady……”

  “—well, I could always put you in…I have this feeling you would be a fabulous lover, a wild, passionate animal, bent on conquering me.”

  “Dream on, doll—take me to your leader and let’s get this shit over with. I’ve already missed my lunch and I’m getting a bit ravenous. I don’t suppose you have any of your kids hanging around I could eat?”

  She laughed. “I sure like you, Cable. Are you positive you won’t consider coming away with me after Cronus-Gor extracts what he wants from you?”

  “Yeah, I’m not the ‘kept’ type. Besides, I suspect there won’t be a hell of a lot of me left—depending on your boyfriend’s methods of ‘extraction’.”

  “So never say I didn’t offer you perpetual life as a pleasure model for my court. Perpetual life is better than mortal life—but not as good as immortal life.”

  “What’s the difference? I can’t imagine hanging around in bliss for the next million years or so screwing my brains out with ditsy dames like you. What’s the point? Remember that mammoth hunt you were talking about? Well, men like me have to do that regularly as clockwork as their in-breath of life, then resting in the arms of a babe when he brings home the bacon, tusks and all. So, perpetual, immortal—what the crap difference does it really make—if you’re happy and doing what you want to do in this or any other life?”