He kept coming until the whites of his delirious eyes were but a few feet from me. “I told you I was going to kill you. I have come to lift the abomination from the world. Your bullets won’t stop me before God permits me to cut you down, smote you with his thunder for your trespasses against his commandments.”
I did recognize the voice as the crazy who had threatened me on the phone some time ago. “Remember what I said to you then, stranger, ‘let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
He stopped within six feet of me, glowering at me in the dark alley, a dim bulb from a transom light barely lighting his face. “For the righteous shall serve as judge to the fornicators, as the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God.”
I hated Bible slingers and this guy was a fanatic. “So, buster, you’d better tell the accused just what and who he’s offended.”
“Ha! Your abominations leave you weakened in the face of God’s hand.”
“Well, not exactly—I’m giving you a chance to show me you’re not completely crazy—just a little left of upset and demented…” I taunted him. His eyes grew wild and he started for me again, then suddenly stopped, the knife flashing in his hand.
“Just as Sodom and Gomorrah, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality, did serve as example by undergoing punishment of eternal fire and damnation.”
“You got one more chance before I fire and blow your shoulder off—who are you and what am I accused of—and with whom?”
He seemed unstoppable. He rose up to full height and spoke like from a pulpit on Sunday morning. “He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips, he shall slay the wicked!”
With that he lunged at me. I was a lot faster and dodged his advances, but he came at me again, slicing away with his very sharp blade. But as he came, I sidestepped him and clunked him on the head with the handle of my .38. He fell to his knees but kept helplessly slashing away. Finally I bashed his knife hand and he let out a yelp. The knife went clanging to the alley floor. I picked it up, tossed it into my pocket and trained my gun on him. “Now, buddy, suppose you tell me what this is all about, huh?”
He began sobbing, rocking below me on his knees. “You deflowered and committed sinful acts with my Ginny! You defiled her in the presence of God without benefit of matrimony and left her to have your way with other Jezebels who would partake in your…your abominations!”
So that was it! Ginny’s Dad was the old ex-pastor! I got it and kicked him over onto the alley floor. “You stupid son-of-a-bitch. Your daughter is a grown woman and can make her own decisions.” I suspected he did not know about the latest development of Ginny’s pregnancy. “Whatever she has done, for whatever it’s worth to you, she did with love—”
“—never! It was lust that brought her to you! I know my Ginny. You are evil incarnate and she fell under your spell. You seduced her like you would a harlot, cast upon the wicked shores of fornication—”
“Whoa there, old man! Let’s not make the judgment crap too thick. Now…I’m going to let you get up and walk down the alley. If I ever so much as see you around me or Ginny again, or if you call me with your liable threats, I will come looking for you, hunt you down and kill your ass! Is that understood? My plate is kind of full right now, Mister, and I don’t have time for gospel-slinging idiots.”
He slowly got up on his feet. He said nothing but walked away down the alley, back toward Franklin Avenue. My heart was racing and sweat poured down my face and my chest was wet with perspiration. I followed the big man until he got onto a yellow car heading south and I went on toward my office.
It was about 9:30 when I climbed the stairs to my humble abode. When I reached the top landing, I could have cried at the sight I beheld. There sitting on the floor, leaning against my office door was Adora! She had dozed off. I went to her, bent down, took her head and clutched it to my breast. “Babe…babe! I’m so happy to see you…thank you…thank you for coming to see me.”
“Mi amor!” she exclaimed. “I could not live another day without you!”
Her lips clung to mine with a desperate passion and I returned the joy I felt with her by holding my own lips to hers for the longest time. Finally, I lifted her up, took her hand and opened the door.
Once inside I locked the door behind us and we stood in the middle of my office as the phone began to ring. We stared in the semi-darkness at each other, neither of us wanting to let go of the magic of our fingertips touching in the dark. I knew in that instant part of me was inseparable from this beautiful señorita whose love filled places in me no other had ever come close to.
I let the phone keep ringing as I took her hand and led her into my little bedroom. She was breathing hard as if she had been suffering all day on a cross and now she was cut down from the agony to face her beloved, who adored her, the one who would heal her wounds. She immediately took her dress off and dropped it to the floor. She was wearing nothing underneath. I said nothing but sat at the edge of the bed and took my shoes off while she unbuttoned my shirt. “Usted está mojado, mi querido. Qué pasó?” She noticed my perspiration….
“Not much, I—I just met some weird guy in an alley who was knifing for me.” Finally the phone stopped ringing.
“Ay! Fue aterrador? Oh…mi amor, la luz de mi vida!” I wasn’t sure what she said, but somehow it didn’t matter. She grabbed my body and pulled me to the bed, unzipping my trousers and pulling them off. She was trembling and moved her body over on top of mine, placing her warm lips onto my still sweating head. “Yo ayudo…ay, te amo, te amo…!”
“Whatever—whatever you’re saying, Adora, yes, yes, yes! I do want you—and I can’t let you go—no matter how I try, I’m stuck on you, kid!”
She wrapped herself around me and soon we were merged into each other, as our lovemaking reached new heights of delight and fireworks. It had become the glue that held us together and I knew I would never want to be without it or Adora Moreno.
Chapter 20
LUNCH ON THE MOON
Adora stayed all night and we had slept the sleep that lovers sleep. I awakened to subdued sunshine coming in through my faded yellow pull-shades and the phone incessantly ringing again. We kissed and embraced and I sent her into the shower as I staggered to the phone. “Yeah, Cable Denning here,” I said, my voice an octave lower than usual.
“Cable? Cable? Is that you? It’s Ginny…my God, Cable, my father came late last night and….” she cried, her voice faltering. “He—he told me he tried to kill you! He was inconsolable. I tried to explain we did what we did, you know, and I consented to our making love. That made him all the more furious and someone called the police because he was yelling in my room.”
“Where is he now?”
“In jail—my father’s in jail.”
“He probably needs to cool off for a while, Ginny. He’ll be okay. I don’t think I hurt him all that bad.”
“Thank you, Cable. I’m—I’m so sorry he attacked you. Did he injure you?”
“Nope. Just made me sweat a lot. Look, Ginny, I’ve got a big day ahead of me and I’ve got to run. Don’t worry about your old man. He was probably just more attached to you than either one of you thought. Without realizing it, he may have been re-directing his devotion for the one lacking with your mother. I’ve seen it before. Just makes it worse that he is a Bible slinger—and an ex-pastor to boot.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s right. Well, please call me—soon?”
“Will do, babe, so I’ll see you—”
“—oh, and Cable…my stomach’s even bigger today! It ached a bit and I didn’t go to work. Please call me later.”
“Yeah, sure, Ginny.” We hung up and I looked around the disheveled room. It was much like my life, cups, dishes, files, reminder notes and stale-smelling ashtrays, full to the brim, were strewn about. Just then the beautiful Adora came out to greet me, her face glowing in the golden morning light. She was wearing a lig
ht-pink dress with black, patent leather shoes and coral necklace hung around her neck.
“I am standing here, mi amor. But I cannot get my feet to walk. I do not want to leave you. I am torn apart to leave you, mi querida. What am I to do? Ay, tengo dolor, mi precioso.”
“What can I say, beautiful? You gotta go home and help your mother and sister at Todo el Mundo. I promise I’ll call you in a day or two. By the way, come here, you…”
She smiled as I drew her to my still-naked body. “I’m glad I still have the blinds drawn…because this…this is the best way I know…to hug you…”
She melted into my arms and kissed me as if she would have to leave her lips behind, if she had to go. “Hasta la vista, mi amor.” I gave her a buck for the streetcar and she glided out of my office. I stood there semi-paralyzed, finding it almost impossible to change gears and face another day in the life of Cable Denning, P.I. A life that at best was a string of dangerous misadventures. Only my little Mexican doll brought sanctuary to me—like a canteen of refreshing water on a blistering summer’s day in the middle of this torturous desert called—L.A.
I connected with Honey and told her I’d be up to my ears in backlogged work for a couple of days, but I’d come over and spend the night with her soon. She grumbled a bit but her own career was going great guns and she told me Columbia Records had definitely made a bid to buy out her Brunswick contract. I told her I was glad for her and would talk to her soon. No sooner had I hung up the phone than it rang again. “Yeah, Cable Denning here.”
“Mr. Denning? This is Dr. Marvin Kalmisch over at Hollywood Hospital? I understand you know a young woman by the name of Ginny Fullerton, is that correct?”
“Yeah, sure—is she okay? What’s happened?”
“Well, if you can, I would advise you to get here as soon as you are able. Miss Fullerton is undergoing the most bizarre physical events I have ever seen. I thought you may be able to shed some light on it, since the lady in question mentioned in her delirium that you were the father of her child.”
“Yeah, doc, I’ll be right there!” I tossed on some clothes and ran out the door. I had to see this thing to the end and Lord knows what bizarre things poor Ginny’s body might be suffering!
The hospital was at Vermont and Fountain and the yellow car stopped right in front of it. I ran to reception and asked for Dr. Kalmisch. Soon a burly man of medium height and glasses came out to greet me. “Mr. Denning?” He shook my hand. “I’m glad you’re here. Please…follow me.”
He led me down to a basement corridor where special rooms existed, I assumed, for the containment of ‘special’ patients. It looked more like a looney bin than a hospital. We entered a room with an orange tag taped to the door and the name “Fullerton” written on it. Ginny lay in a bed being attended by three nurses. Gobs of greenish fluid were being sponged off of her naked body and she was twitching back and forth on her bed. The doctor took me aside. “Frankly, Mr. Denning, we are baffled at the color and prolific amount of the amniotic fluid—”
“—amniotic what?” I asked, totally puzzled.
“Amniotic fluid. It is a special water, if you will, contained in the sac in which the baby is suspended and is able to breathe—and, we believe, maintains the pre-respiratory balances of the fetus.”
“Oh. So the weird green stuff isn’t normal, I take it. Ginny did mention to me over the phone that she had a green discharge.”
“The green amniotic fluid with a consistency of a very light cooking oil is well...unheard of, Mr. Denning. Such things simply don’t occur with humans. And yet…we are standing here witnessing the impossible. That’s why I was hoping you might shed some light on the subject, since you seem to have known Miss Fullerton.”
I glanced at Ginny’s naked body and quickly observed that her stomach was no longer distended. “All I can report for sure is that she complained of some kind of unusually fast expansion of her stomach. She even asked me if I had giants in my family—that’s how fast she was swelling out.”
“What is amazing is the fact that she was not even into her first trimester. But that isn’t the only thing that baffles us, Mr. Denning. Follow me.”
We wound down even more stairs until we entered a laboratory where a very frail looking Oriental man greeted us. “Oh! This is man?” the little fellow in the white medical robe inquired.
“Yes, Dr. Arthur Okamura, this is Cable Denning.” Dr. Kalmisch said. We bowed in acknowledgement.
“In Japan, where we believe in many strange things, none more strange than what we find in Miss Fullerton, Mr. Denning.” He led me to a gurney that had a sheet covering a small, oblong object. “In one moon cycle, Miss Fullerton gave birth, if I may use term, to fully-developed—ah, something!”
“What he means is that the fetus was not human—well, not entirely. I know I’m sounding ridiculous, but take a look for yourself,” Dr. Kalmisch said.
Dr. Okamura lifted the sheet from the object on the gurney. My breath stopped as I beheld a light-yellow pod, blotched by green stains, perhaps no more than eighteen inches in length and six inches across. The alien object had a knob at one end where it looked like the umbilical cord had been attached. A small groove went from that point to the slightly larger “head” of the object, which lay open and to my shock and amazement, a tiny human-like head with beautiful shiny black hair rested in the cavity! I had no words, but stood there knowing in my heart it was Lei-tao’s last attempt to bring something that represented “us” into the world.
Finally the little Japanese doctor spoke up. “I studied botany for a time at university. This…what we see here, Mr. Denning sir, is technically edible seed of plant genus known as Nelumbo nucifera, found prolifically in the Orient and in Colombia, South America. For most of us, it is recognized as Lotus seed and is eaten raw by millions of people.” Then he pointed to the little skull and the abundant, lovely black shining hair. “But…as you can plainly see—a human-like creature has been formed from within seed-pod itself.” He started to cover it up.
“Please!” I said. “One minute…please…” I wanted to cry and in that moment realized how nature herself fought to keep perpetuating her own— against all odds strove to modify and mutate until she had produced something new. That was her game. The adventure of new species from old, populating a universe of oddities no human mind could even begin to understand. The two men stood there with me. “Okay. This will sound crazy—even impossible. But this is my understanding of it, okay? I don’t want either of you fine doctors to go through the rest of your lives without at least hearing what I have to tell you about this thing. Sometime ago I met a Chinese woman who, for the want of better words, was born of a lotus pod at the bottom of a very cold lake in China. I could go into greater detail, but the bottom line is that a beautiful other-dimensional creature came forth from this lotus pod. We met and I crossed into her dimensional world with my own carnal desires. She succumbed and fell in love with me. She wanted to have my baby but when she modified her physiology to accommodate conception, she became violently ill and could not survive giving birth to a human hybrid child. So, her solution was to transfer the fetus while still in its very early stages of development, into the womb of Ginny Fullerton, whom I had recently been with intimately. No one knew how rapidly the fetus would grow.” I stopped, took a finger and ran it through the black, luxuriant hair of the little head poking out from the seed. “Sometimes love is selfish, even though it doesn’t mean to be. It only means to express itself because one someone cares a hell of a lot for another someone. Even if it crosses over the line of the impossible, love finds a way, and if it dies in the process, the original intent and feelings remain.”
Both men stood there looking at me, their eyes wide in disbelief. “I’m a Jew, Mr. Denning,” Dr. Kalmisch informed me. “Sure, I go to Temple and hear the ancient scrolls read and we are asked to believe many fanciful and mythological tales. But science? I see no science in the religious codes that
men make to maintain an orderly society.”
“That’s too bad, doc. Neither did I until I met Lei-tao. But all that changed for me. Now I’m a believer. Your proof lies right here on the table. Take it or leave it.”
“And it was your sperm that fertilized this Chinese vegetable woman?”
“Yep. She was a shape-changer and appeared to me as some babe…” I stopped. I saw the uselessness of it all. “Well, suffice it to say, gentlemen, I was the donor of the sperm.”
“You will be asked to maintain the highest priority of secrecy about this, Mr. Denning,” Dr. Kalmisch said. “Even if some aspects remain scientifically unexplained, you understand we must destroy this thing.”
“Who’s gonna believe me? Neither of you do. So let’s drop it. Will you bring me to Miss Fullerton’s room? I need to say good-bye to her.”
“Yes, please follow me,” Dr. Kalmisch said.
We entered Ginny’s room and she was propped up in her bed. She recognized me and gave me a weak smile. “Cable…Cable…” I came over to her and took her hand. “I’m sorry, Cable, I lost our baby, didn’t I? She grew so fast, my body couldn’t keep up…”
“It’s okay, Ginny. You’re a bit weak just now. You need to rest up. I’ll check up on you every day. If you’re good and don’t chase after the doctors, maybe some flowers and a box of candy will come your way, huh?”
She tried to giggle. “Oh, Cable, don’t make me laugh! It hurts…but…I love you…and think you are…you are…the best man…I’ve ever known…” She closed her eyes and one of the nurses signaled for me to go. I exited out into the hallway, climbed the stairs and eventually made my way back to the waiting room. I entered the smoking room where expectant fathers puffed away in their nervousness. I looked out through the glass windows at the reception desk. A medium-tall woman with dark hair run through with lots of silver was talking to the receptionist. I lit up. The woman seemed nervous and began to take out a cigarette. The receptionist pointed her to the smoking area where all the other nervous people stood around in a cloud of smoke. She entered and lit up. I noticed the book of matches she was carrying said “Big Bear Lodge” on the cover and when she glanced at me, I could see Ginny’s eyes. I approached her. “Are you by any chance Ginny Fullerton’s mother?”
Golden Throat Page 48
