Dead Space

by Lee Goldberg

  Then he realized what he was leaning against. His eyes fell on the Grill-Master's propane tank and he smiled.

  * * * * * *

  When Artie first saw Canoga Stor-All, he was certain he had the wrong address. Again. But Bev Huncke, a former postal worker who now worked at the Department of Motor Vehicles, gave him the address and even got him a picture of his target.

  He was pretty certain the guy he saw running out the back door, his ass on fire, was Charlie Willis. Even if it wasn't, Artie was having way too much fun to give a shit. His homemade flame thrower was better than anything Chief Engineer Glerp ever came up with. Artie couldn't wait to try this sucker out on a gas station somewhere. But first he had to toast Charlie Willis.

  And that was going to be easy, because the stupid jerk was just standing there in the open, beside a trash dumpster.

  Artie smiled. "Eat hot death."

  He squeezed the trigger, shooting a stream of fire at Charlie Willis.

  An instant before Artie exploded, he saw the hissing propane tank a few feet away from him and wondered what it was doing there.

  * * * * * *

  Charlie dived behind the dumpster, landing hard on the asphalt, the ground rocked by two strong blasts. Flaming chunks of flesh, metal, and mortar rained down all around him.

  He was still lying there, his face against the ground, when a yellow, plastic eyeball rolled under the dumpster and came to a stop against his cheek.

  ACT FOUR

  Chapter Twenty

  "Maybe you ought to let the paramedics take another look at you," said Harvey, the police artist.

  "I'm fine," Charlie sat in the back of his golf cart, holding an ice-pack to his forehead.

  Harvey sat in front of Charlie on a tiny, folding chair, a sketch pad open on his lap, staring skeptically at what he was drawing.

  Charlie glanced at the sketch.

  "The ear was more pointed," Charlie said, "and the eye looked like this."

  Charlie reached into his pocket and pulled out a scorched, plastic eye with a yellow marble rolling around inside it.

  Harvey abruptly closed the sketch book. He had enough. "Is this some kind of joke?"

  "Do you see me laughing?" Charlie said.

  Firemen were still hosing down the blackened remains of his apartment, and a dozen coroners were picking up chunks of the killer off the pavement. As of now, he was homeless, jobless and pointless. There was nothing funny about it at all.

  "I'll work on it," Harvey said. "When I'm done, we can beam the picture into space and wait for word from Mars."

  The artist walked away.

  Charlie dropped the ice pack, resigned to the fact the police weren't going to do a damn thing. So Charlie considered the bright side. He and McGarrett survived. Most of his belongings were in one of the storage units, all of which came out of the blast relatively unscathed, except for a few gore-splashed and fire-scorched metal doors.

  "What the hell happened here?" Lou LeDoux staggered up to Charlie in a shocked daze.

  Charlie watched the coroners, who were dragging sacks of scorched body parts alongside them as they moved slowly and methodically over the pavement "This is what happens when someone tries to kill you with a flame thrower and you fight back with a propane tank."

  "No shit," Lou whistled.

  "Isn't that why you're here?"

  "I came to see Gharlane," Lou glanced. "He wasn't hurt, was he?"

  "He wasn't here," Charlie said.

  "What about his magazine collection?" Lou looked gravely at Charlie. "It wasn't damaged, was it?"

  "No," Charlie said.

  "That's a relief," Lou said. "Because I did that favor you asked for. I've been huddling with the lab boys and a team of anatomists at UCLA. They studied the nipple Stipe bit off, the bruises on his face, the amount of mass necessary to smother him, and did some calculations."

  Lou reached into his blue-checked jacket and pulled a snapshot from the pocket of his orange shirt. "They came up with this."

  It was a photo of a clay model of a woman's breasts.

  "The murder weapon," Lou declared proudly. "Think Gharlane can ID'em?"

  It was a ridiculous idea, but everything that was happening was so crazy anyway, it seemed to beg for craziness in response. Besides, nothing else Charlie tried seemed to be working.

  "It can't hurt to try," Charlie said.

  "Easy for you to say," Lou replied. "You don't have to explain it to my Captain."

  * * * * * *

  It would have been the perfect sexual experience, if only Zita hadn't got her hair caught in Melvah's Orgoglian mating clip.

  Writhing passionately atop Melvah, Zita tossed back her head and accidentally tore the ring out of Melvah's nostril. Melvah screamed, blood spurting all over her face.

  While Melvah went to the bathroom to stop the bleeding, Zita spent the next fifteen minutes trying to untangle the bloody ring from her hair.

  It was a real mood killer.

  Both were hoping that a little sex would soften the inevitable confrontation, that it would be a pleasurable reminder of what each of them could do for one another when they worked together. Neither one of them wanted to upset their alliance, but they each had clear, separate goals that were already beginning to clash.

  Instead, the sex had gone wrong. They were both weary, bloody, and frustrated. Not a good combination for rational discussion and compromise.

  Melvah marched out of the bathroom naked, a wet rag pressed against her nose, and stood in front of Zita who, in frustration, had started sawing off her blood-matted hair with a steak knife.

  "Eddie Planet cast Charlie Willis as Captain Pierce," Melvah said. "For that he must die."

  "I already told you, he's a potential client. He lives."

  "I'm supposed to become the producer of Beyond the Beyond," she said furiously, tossing the bloody towel aside and revealing her torn nose. "That was the deal, remember?"

  "You're are a producer," Zita said, "But if you are going to make it in this business, you're going to have to grow up."

  "What is that supposed to mean?" Melvah grabbed Zita but the jaw and jerked her head up. People were always telling her that and afterwards most of them either walked with a limp or ate through straws.

  "You're in the real world now, Melvah. If we kill Eddie Planet, another show-runner will be hired to replace him."

  "I'll replace him."

  There were many things Zita liked about Melvah. Her strong sense of self. Her devotion to her art. Her ability to kill with ease. But Melvah had no clue how the television business worked. She had to learn that Beyond the Beyond, more than anything else, was a business.

  "No, you won't," Zita took Melvah's wrist and wrenched her jaw free from her grasp. "The Company has power, but not enough to accomplish that. Neither the studio nor the network are going to give the series to someone they have never heard of, no matter how many people we blackmail, torture and kill. There's too much money at stake. You're going to wait and be satisfied with being the power behind the throne, for a while any way."

  Melvah face flushed with fury. "Eddie Planet doesn't know a thing about the universe. He's illiterate."

  Still holding Melvah's wrist, Zita gently began stroking it with the sharp edge of the knife. Just enough so Melvah could feel it, not enough to cut her.

  "I know how you feel, Melvah," Zita said softly. "Eventually, you will get the show, the same way I finally got The Company. The only reason Clive Odett is still alive is because he may have a few secrets I don't know about. But I'm being patient and methodical, just like you have to be."

  Melvah's eyelids fluttered, the stinging caress arousing her, tempering her disappointment. "All right."

  "I knew you'd understand," Zita ran the knife over the back of Melvah's hand and along each finger.

  "Charlie Willis has to go."

  "Of course he does," Zita said. "He's cost us several clients, and thanks to him, the police are asking questions ab
out Clive's disappearance. But more importantly, we want Dustin Woods for the part."

  Melvah yanked her hand away, causing Zita to slice her. But Melvah was oblivious to the pain, to the blood dripping from her hand onto the floor. Seeing her standing there like that, naked and bleeding, skin flushed with rage, excited Zita so much it momentarily took her breath away.

  "There is only one Captain Pierce," Melvah balled her hands into fists, causing the blood to stream out of her wound, "and it's Guy Goddard."

  Zita knew she had to handle this delicately. This would be, perhaps, the hardest reality of all for Melvah to grasp. However, the fact that Melvah used the actor's name was a good sign, one that Zita took as encouragement.

  Zita dropped to her knees in front of Melvah, picked up the bloody towel and wrapped it around Melvah's hand, pressing firmly to stop the bleeding.

  "One day, Beyond the Beyond will be yours, but Guy Goddard will never, ever, be Captain Pierce again," Zita said. "I know how much you admire him, but he appeals to a very narrow, very old, demographic. If Beyond the Beyond is going succeed, if the universe is going to prosper, you have to draw in young viewers, and he won't."

  "He is Captain Pierce," Melvah whispered, her voice quivering.

  "And Captain Pierce would sacrifice himself to save the universe," Zita said. "Wouldn't he?"

  Melvah nodded, a tear rolling down her cheek. Zita pressed her face against Melvah's stomach and gently licked her navel ring.

  Melvah ran her fingers through what was left of Zita's hair and cried. She saw the future clearly. She would save Beyond the Beyond, and keep the universe alive, but it would cost Guy Goddard his life. He would kill anyone who tried to be Captain Pierce, so Zita would have to kill him.

  But Zita was right. It was the universe that mattered. And Melvah Blenis was its protector now, she had to make sacrifices.

  Right now, with Zita's tongue moving from her navel ring to one just a bit lower, the sacrifice didn't seem so hard to make.

  * * * * * *

  Charlie's new home had one bedroom, one bath, power steering, and a view of Soundstage 9.

  The decor of the Winnebego, Charlie's dressing room on the Pinnacle Studios lot, was modern American passenger jet, coach class. The cloth upholstery on everything resembled a plaid, shag carpet. The matching curtains were closed over the windshield and the driver's seat was turned to face away from the dashboard, so the seat was now considered "a deluxe armchair."

  Charlie sat in the passenger seat-cum-deluxe armchair, feet up on his built-in dinette set, reading the pilot script for Beyond the Beyond and not understanding a word of it.

  He was wearing Pinnacle logo sweats and a Muck Thing t-shirt, an ensemble he bought for $45 at the studio store. The rest of his clothes, taken from the wardrobe department, were hanging in the tiny closet that separated the bedroom from the kitchen.

  The refrigerator was filled with soft drinks and sandwiches lifted from the Beyond the Beyond snack table, which was in the adjacent soundstage. The remains of his Dominos Pizza dinner were on the stove.

  The only things he brought back to his new home from his storage unit at Canoga Stor-All were his gun and, for some crazy reason, his badge. Sitting on his built-in night-stand, right beside his built-in bed, was a melted, miss-shapen lump of lucite with Esther Radcliffe's bullet in it.

  He didn't know how important that paperweight was to him until he thought he'd lost it. He spent three hours sifting through the ashes of his apartment before he found it. Somehow, the fact that it was melted by the fire only made it more valuable to him — it now immortalized two near death experiences.

  He was concentrating on his script, trying to make sense out of the Captain's line...

  "If that quantum singularity is a tachyon particle disbursement field, then it's possible the Nerglids exist in an alternate dimension in the space-time continuum!"

  ...when there was a timid knock at the door. Charlie parted the curtain and peered cautiously out the window. Alison stood outside. He opened the door and motioned her in.

  "Isn't it a little late to still be at the studio?" Charlie asked.

  "I just came back, I had an errand to run." She dropped a leash on the table. "I went by the vet and picked up McGarrett for you."

  The vet, Dr. Gaston Grospiron, was an old friend of Charlie's and offered to board McGarrett for free until Charlie found a place to live. It wasn't the first time Dr. Grospiron had come to McGarrett's aid. Several years ago, he wrote a very moving letter to the court on McGarrett's behalf. He explained that McGarrett was docile and kind, and only raped Boyd Hartnell to death because the studio exec was covered in excrement and had a head of Golden Retriever hair implanted in his scalp.

  Under ordinary circumstances, the vet promised, McGarrett was no threat to society.

  "That was very nice of you," Charlie said, "but he'll be more comfortable with the vet. There's barely room for me in here."

  "I know," she said, "that's why I got him a place of his own."

  Charlie looked confused, so Alison held out her hand to him. "Come with me."

  She led him back outside into the warm, still, Los Angeles night. They walked around the soundstage towards the back-lot, the acres and acres of fake storefronts and building facades where exteriors of countless movies and TV shows were shot.

  "Where are we going?" he asked.

  "Not far."

  That was a shame, because Charlie liked the feel of her hand in his and wanted it to last.

  They walked down Madison Avenue, casting long shadows on the dark, plaster facades. It was so realistic, for a moment Charlie fantasized that they were the last, living couple on earth after some horrible plague.

  The street ended and became a frontier town in the old west. Now, Charlie and Alison were time travelers, hurled through some quantum singularity or tachyon disbursement field and emerging in the past.

  She led him between the Sheriff's office and the frontier store to a lush, green patch, roughly a quarter acre, surrounded by a tall cyclone fence. A waterfall cascaded into a tiny river that ran past a tall oak tree, a bright red fire hydrant, and a Tudor doghouse with a redwood deck, sliding glass doors and an air conditioner. Charlie looked closer, and could see McGarrett inside the dog house, sleeping peacefully on a sheepskin rug.

  "This used to Boo Boo's home," she said, referring to the late, beloved celebrity dog. "Pinnacle has kept it up as a sight-seeing attraction on the studio tour. I figured, why let it go to waste?"

  "The dog is living better than me," Charlie said. "Think he'll trade?"

  She laughed, and he realized how much he had missed the sound of it these last few days. They walked back to his motor home in silence, hand-in-hand. But it was a comfortable silence, each enjoying the simple, intimate pleasure of being together.

  When they reached his Winnebego, he turned to her to invite her for a drink, and saw the tears running down her cheeks.

  "What is it?" he asked.

  She didn't know if she was crying because she was relieved that Charlie was safe, or because she'd almost lost him. Either way, it surprised and unsettled her.

  "Don't just stand there, Charlie," Alison sniffled and wiped away her tears. "Kiss me, you idiot."

  * * * * * *

  They tumbled into the motor home, locked in an embrace, hands all over each other.

  Alison fell back into the driver's seat. Charlie supported himself on the arm-rests and mashed his lips against hers. She opened her mouth, taking him in hungrily, while her hands found the waistband of his sweats and yanked them down.

  Charlie tore open her blouse, the buttons popping off in all directions, and buried his face in her breasts, pulling and sucking on each nipple until she gasped.

  Her hand found his erection and squeezed it, feeling him throb with each of his moans. Charlie dropped to his knees, and she lifted herself up, allowing him to pull off her jeans and her panties.

  He propped her legs on his shoulders and d
evoured her.

  She ran her hands through his hair as he licked her, his tongue searching for her clit, trapping it between his lips.

  Alison moaned, the pleasure so intense it bordered on pain. She arched her back, bringing herself up to meet his hands, his lips, his tongue. As her breathing quickened, he strummed her clit with his tongue and slid two fingers inside her as fast, and as deep, as he could, bringing her to the edge of orgasm.

  Then he stopped and stood up. She launched herself at him, knocking him back against the table, which would have tipped over if it wasn't nailed to the floor.

  She put her arms around his neck and lifted herself up, wrapped her legs around his waist and took him inside her, riding him slowly at first, then faster as her hunger and his need took over.

  His fingers dug into her buttocks and forced himself into her even deeper, beyond her point of endurance into a shuddering, quaking orgasm.

  She bucked against him, tossing her head from side-to-side, grimacing as the pleasure rocked her. It was more than Charlie could stand. He came in a sharp, powerful jolt, thrusting as deep as he could, his legs shaking.

  When it was over, they remained entangled in each other, their bodies slick with sweat.

  "Is that the best you can do?" she asked, a mischievous smile on her face.

  "That was just foreplay," he said. "Hold on tight."

  She buried her face in his neck and he carried her to the bedroom, where they both soon discovered there were some advantages to having a bed that was nailed to the floor.

  * * * * * *

  Charlie Willis wasn't the only one whose new home had four wheels.

  Thrack of Oberon moved himself into the Hummer, now dubbed Shuttle Craft Three, which was parked in the driveway next to the starship Endeavor.

  He was laying on the backseat, eating cheese doodles and surfing the net, his laptop plugged into the car's built-in modem. Thrack was flaming a couple fuckhead writers from the new Beyond the Beyond because they thought the Endeavor security guards wore red uniforms, when everybody knows they're blue.

  He just finished threatening their unborn children, and was about to elaborate on his plans to defile their wives with his super warp plasma pleasure warhead, when Melvah opened the door and slid in beside him.