The Ultimate Frankenstein

by Byron Preiss (ed)

  Polly crossed her legs abruptly, jerking temptation out from under her employer's sweaty palm. Her full, red lips jutted out in a pout that had caused more than a few casting directors to lose their heads but not, unfortunately, all the really juicy movie and TV roles in their keeping. Seductive lips and a dollar twenty-five will get you a cup of coffee in Malibu when the aforesaid lips are incapable of delivering lines more complex than, "Look out, Steve! He's got a chainsaw! EEEEEEE!"

  "The press are all jackals anyway," Dr. Shelley continued. "How appropriate, therefore, that they take this tasty little morsel in their teeth and run with it." The streetlights slipped glimmering over his thick rimless glasses and hairless pate. When he smiled, his spit-slick teeth reflected the passing multicolored neon flow outside the speeding limousine.

  "I don't care." Polly crossed her arms under her sequin-encrusted breasts. "I had just as much of a hand in this as you did. You even said you couldn't have done it without me! So why aren't I getting any of the upfront credit, huh?"

  "My dear," Dr. Shelley purred. "You shall have this and more upfront, I promise you. In the meanwhile, remember what all this publicity will do for your own career."

  Polly remained unmollified. "Publicity, sure, only these dumb fucks act like you did the whole thing and all I did was hump around your la-bore- atory drooling, 'Yessss, mawster. Igor go get brain now, mawster.' "

  "Igor drop brain, too." Dr. Shelley chuckled and leaned forward to open a fresh bottle of champagne from the in-limo bar. He passed Polly a crystal flute of Moet et Chandon and tried to make light of her complaints.

  "My precious girl, no one appreciates your help more than I. The advice you offered me, based on your—aha—intimate knowledge of so many, so very many of Hollywood's brightest stars, was irreplaceable when it came to selecting which specific physical attributes my creation should—hrrum —annex from which sources."

  Polly glowered. "Are you calling me a bimbo, too?"

  "Not in the strictly pejorative sense." He raised his glass in a toast to Word Power while she struggled to figure out whether or not she'd been insulted.

  "This has not been an easy project for either of us," he went on. "Science demands her sacrifices. Proper credit is the least of it, be assured. Have I not endured the gibes and sneers of my fellow academics? The shortsighted fools. They could not see the magnitude of what I dared, what I had undertaken in the name of humanity! They called me mad—mad, do you hear? They dared to laugh at me! To snicker up their sleeves, to chuckle in their chairs, to titter behind their test tubes! Well, we shall see who laughs last. I swore I would make them pay, pay dearly, and now that my hour of triumph is at hand—ha! Hahahahahaha!"

  "You're foaming at the mouth again." Polly passed him a handkerchief the size of a pillowcase. "Don't worry, your old ivy-covered buddies are paying plenty dear to keep up with your shenanigans, Doc. Have you seen the price of movie tickets lately?"

  "Yes, yes; just so." Dr. Shelley looked sheepish as he wiped away generous dollops of frothy slaver. He sipped his champagne and tried to recapture his air of pseudo-European urbanity. "I beg your pardon; I do tend to get carried away by the Muses at times."

  "Great, as long as the Muses remember to bring a straitjacket," Polly muttered. "You miserable, patronizing, stuffed-shirt loon, I'll show you publicity. Just let us get there and I'll show you more than you bargained for."

  "Did you say something, Polly?"

  "Nothing, Dr. Shelley." She drained her champagne.

  The limo took a sharp right turn and sent its three passengers canting violently left. The doctor gave a horrified squawk as the full weight of the monster's body fell heavily on top of him.

  "Off! Get him off me! Off, off, off!" His incongruously dainty feet in their patent leather evening shoes kicked like a baby's.

  "Yes, Dr. Shelley." Polly sighed and reached into her rhinestoned purse for the one instrument capable of controlling the monster.

  Four and a half choruses of the Oscar Mayer Weiner song later, just when Polly thought she was about to blow her brains out through the red plastic kazoo, the monster responded. Rubbing his eyes to clear them of sleep, he inquired, "Are we there yet?"

  "Soon. Meanwhile, get the hell off Dr. Shelley."

  "Ohhhh." The monster's soulful blue eyes widened. "I am sorry. I'll just move then, shall I?"

  "Mn'nghah!" Dr. Shelley concurred.

  Very slowly, yet with a peculiar agility partially his own, the monster levered himself upright. Dr. Shelley's glasses were twisted a quarter-turn around his head, his tuxedo was the worse for wear, his shirt front awash with bubbly, but on the whole he was glad to be back among the air- breathers.

  "Next time I make a creature, I'm going to use track-star parts where it counts," he huffed, adjusting his spectacles. "Why can't you move any faster?"

  The monster bowed his head with the fabled little-boy charm that had made its former owner big box-office. "Sorry." Polly knew how readily those tears now rising in the monster's eyes would spill over. Hadn't she insisted that Dr. Shelley "shop" for eyes and tear-ducts separately? Much more microsurgery, but oh, how it paid off! Those baby blues were gorgeous on their own; combined with weeping capabilities "borrowed" from a long-gone actor synonymous with male sensitivity, they were wide- screen dynamite.

  "Ach, don't cry, don't cry! Save it for the press, damn it!" Dr. Shelley urged his own huge handkerchief into the monster's hand. "You don't want to look bad on camera."

  The monster shuddered. "Camera . . . camera bad."

  Polly gave him a fast elbow to the ribs. His entire thoracic region had been—Polly liked the term "appropriated for the Ages"—from a late twentieth-century muscleman famous for massacre-your-way-to-Justice movies. She and the doctor had been damned lucky to find enough cultivable tissue in that one's tomb to grow back a mass so big. It would take a piledriver to make any impact on that barricade of beef, but the monster flinched at her touch anyway.

  "Cut that 'Camera bad' retro-crap," she snapped. "Camera good. Camera, just fucking mah-vellous, got it? No camera, no movies; no movies, no money; no money, and you might as well be dead, in this town."

  "I know." The monster's wonderful eyes started shipping on water again.

  "Now cool down—" her voice dropped to a whisper "—and remember what we planned."

  "Look! Look! There it is!" Dr. Shelley exclaimed suddenly. He pointed at a blur of brighter light ahead, just barely visible through the double

  barrier of smoked glass windshield and plastic partition separating passengers from chauffeur. Traffic thickened. The limo fed itself into a parade of its peers. Classic black, sheik-of-Araby white, flashy silver, trashy gold, and a slew of Caribbean Sunset pastels, the limousines nudged their way forward, an automotive species motoring upstream to spawn.

  There was a lengthy bout of stop-and-go as they waited their turn; then the moment Polly had dreamed of every time she went to the movies, including all the heels-high screenings she'd attended with Devoe Jenkins: the door beside her was opened; the first battery of flashbulbs set off their dazzling barrage; the uniformed security troops strained to keep the crowds of celebrity-stalkers from surging forward as Polly Doree stepped out onto the plush red carpet leading in to the Academy Awards.

  Only they're not here to see you, said a still, small voice inside her. Bites, don't it? It was a major-league snotty, still, small, voice.

  Up yours, she informed it. Pretty soon I'm. gonna be the only one they'll want to see.

  Cameras clicked, more flashes strobed off her rigid smile. Microphones bobbed in her face until her canine teeth threatened to snag on the foam head-covers. They were all around her, the hungry little mediacrats, faces upturned to receive any sacramental sound-bites she might choose to let fall. Power. Dear God, yes, it was better than sex.

  Over just about as fast, too. The monster emerged, Dr. Shelley hanging on his arm, and Polly Doree turned invisible in front of an audience of millions. She didn't li
ke it one damned bit.

  That's all right, she told herself. I can wait.

  Inside, the hall was a buzz and a murmur, a huge shell containing hundreds of excited conversations. The general hubbub effect was like listening in on a school of piranhas chowing down. As the three of them made their way to their table past rows of staring eyes, Polly picked up various snips of malicious chatter:

  -—lower budget than my kid's bar mitzvah video."

  "You're surprised? They were lucky even to find a cheap producer who'd take the chance. You know how hard it is getting insurance on a corpse?"

  "Uh-huh, but if he gets the Oscar, they'll be standing in line to offer him jobs and kiss his dead ass."

  "Whose ever that used to be."

  "Hey! think he still gotta pay taxes?"

  "—heard of voting the graveyard, but this—!"

  "Whaddaya expect? You can always count on the Academy to put up at least one sympathy nominee."

  "Yeah, sure, but that's only supposed to be for some old-timer who's as good as dead."

  "As good as? Baby, this guy goes it one better."

  A woman shrieked with laughter. "—know how they love showing support for comebacks."

  "—acts about as well as he did before."

  "Whatcha mean he? Don'tcha mean they?"

  "—see how I've got a chance at the Oscar when I'm up against a one- man fucking ensemble"

  The crowd settled down. The camera-ready smiles were strapped in place. The ceremonies began. At the monster's side, Polly checked the contents of her evening bag and almost panicked when she couldn't find the papers. She dumped the entire contents onto the table before breathing a sigh of relief: there they were. She only had time to tuck them away before the Best Actor category came up and every television camera in the house swivelled on her table.

  He won. There had never been any doubt of it. Polly overheard one or two bushels of sour grapes behind her:

  "Sure, they voted for him: professional courtesy. I always said the Academy was a bunch of old stiffs!"

  "Now, now, maybe they just did it so no one could accuse them of prejudice against a minority group."

  "Since when are the dead a minority?"

  "Listen, you—" An immense wave of applause crested and broke, drowning out all further comments.

  "O.K., babe; now." Polly stuck her arm through the monster's and stood, beaming at the audience. In full control, she steered him towards the stage.

  Dr. Shelley scuttled after. "Stop! Stop! What are you doing? We agreed that I was to accompany him to accept the award! I warn you, Polly—!"

  She looked at him briefly, over one shoulder. "And I'm warning you, Fatso: the game's changed. Clear off. Now."

  But he didn't. He followed them all the way up onto the platform, yapping like a Yorkie on speed. He even grabbed hold of the monster's other arm and hung on. The creature gave him a pained look, but kept walking.

  The glittery guest-emcees at the podium were showbiz veterans, hard- timers from the trenches of Tinseltown. They held their ground at the monster's approach, although the keener cameras focused on the lady's knuckles turning white as she clutched the Oscar and the gentleman's teeth beginning to splinter under the pressure of his forced smile. The statuette was nearly dropped during the hand-off as they skittered rapidly away into the wings.

  The monster stood at the podium, Polly on his left arm, Dr. Shelley on his right. In his hands the Oscar gleamed. "I—uh—I want to thank everyone who made this possible."

  "Don't you mean every body?" someone shouted from the audience.

  The monster blinked, flustered. Dr. Shelley saw his chance and lunged, seizing the statuette. "Thank you, thank you all for this vote of confidence in my great work. And I want to assure you that, although the newspapers have made an unnecessary to-do over the exact post-mortem legal rights to which my—ah—creation is entitled, I will do everything in my power to safeguard his interests in all future cinematic projects we undertake—"

  "That's the right word!"

  "—on his behalf. It is the least I can do for a being whose very existence serves as living proof that my theories are viable. Now let them scoff at me! I spit upon their smug preconceptions! They called me mad—mad, do you hear! But I showed them; I showed them all! I—!"

  "I married him," said Polly, very softly, right into the other microphone.

  Cameras zoomed in, newshounds swooped, Dr. Shelley suffered a temporary loss of eyesight when he made the mistake of looking directly into all the flashes that went off, illuminating the Las Vegas marriage license and wedding photographs Polly produced from her handbag. She took the opportunity to relieve him of the Oscar.

  "Vegas? you took him to Vegas?" the doctor wailed, hands groping wildly for her throat. "You said you were just going out to see if his legs could still breakdance after you dropped his brain!"

  "I lied," Polly said too quietly even for the mike to pick up. In a much louder voice she added, "Look out! He's got a chainsaw! EEEEEEE!" and booted Dr. Shelley off the stage onto a table of screenwriters. They kept drinking.

  She put her arm back around her new-to-slightly-used hubby and prepared to field questions from the press. Her lashes were demurely lowered, as much for stage effect as to preserve her own eyesight from the neverend- ing photographic flares from over twoscore sensationalism-crazed shutter- bugs. She had just revealed that the terms of her hard/soft book deal prevented her from describing the honeymoon when a loud, throaty growl rent the air.

  "Camera bad! Camera bad!" the monster thundered. He flailed his arms at the encroaching media.

  "Darling, please—" Polly went unheard. The monster swiped the Oscar and laid about him, smashing every camera he could reach. "Oh, crap." She sighed. "Now I'll probably have to wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener six times before he calms down." She dove into her purse for the kazoo.

  Which wasn't there. If the flashbulbs had allowed, she might have seen it 'way back on the table, where she'd left the other contents of her purse while searching for her wedding evidence. In desperation, she tried singing the magical control-song, but it wasn't the same.

  "Camera bad/ Camera bad! Camera always get my bad side! You know what that does to a guy in this business? Camera bad!" Six more Nikons bit the dust. Polly grabbed him by the elbow; she didn't even slow him down. And then, when she imagined she saw her whole dubious career going down the sure-enough toilet, things did what they have a habit of doing when it seems they can't get any worse:

  They got worse.

  "Conrad! Baby!" A starlet in blue bugle beads leaped onstage, seizing the moment and the creature's other arm.

  "Eric! Honey!" A second chit, this one hermetically sealed in mauve satin, followed suit, glomming onto the monster's right knee.

  "Brad, how could you? After all we meant to each other! After all the time we lived together!" This little bonbon lost half her green lame minidress in a heroic slide for the ankles.

  It was pretty obvious what was going down. You're not the only bimbo in this burg who knows a great PR gimmick when it leaps out of the grave at you, the still, small voice gloated. How many different—um—contributors did you and old Doc Shelley use to make this patchwork prima donald?

  What the hell does that matter?

  Well, honey, it looks like each of your pieces had a past, and here they all come back atcha!

  "Somebody get these bimbos out of here!" Polly screamed. Whether she hoped to outshout that annoying inner voice or she really thought she'd get some help, she failed. A fourth young-and-tender female sprang out from the wings, a fifth from behind the curtained backdrop, a sixth and a seventh staged a photo-finish race for the podium and latched onto their chosen portions of the creature like suction cups to wet glass. More followed. The monster staggered, dripping with women like a raw corn-dog with batter. He dropped the Oscar. It landed on Dr. Shelley's head, splattering it open like the soft-boiled egg it resembled and giving one of the screenwriters a gre
at idea for a new script.

  And on the stage, the starlets kept coming. Every one called the monster by a different name, every one had some claim to make on some part or portion of his being, every one held fast to whichever prime cut she viewed as her lawful property and every one had no trouble at all pronouncing the words "sue," "lawyer" and "palimony." It was bad.

  Then the agents joined them and it was all over.

  Something had to give, and it did. There was a moist, meaty, tearing sound. The arm in Polly's grip went suddenly limp, and then she was falling backwards, the combined weight of the creature and all his components' Significant Others avalanching down on top of her. The last thought that went through her mind before the lights went out for good was, I told him to double stitch the seams, but would he listen? Noooooo!

  She really should have known. Planned. Anticipated what is common knowledge. You see, the thing about Hollywood is this: You get the smallest sliver of success under your skin and the next thing you know, everybody wants a piece of you.

  They'll get it, too.

  That's showbiz.

  LAST CALL FOR THE SONS OF SHOCK

  David J. Schow

  ▼▼▼

  BLANK Frank notches down the Cramps, keeping an eye on the blue LED bars of the equalizer. He likes the light.

  "Creature from the Black Leather Lagoon" calms.

  The club is called Un/Dead. The sound system is from the guts of the old Tropicana, LA's altar of mud wrestling, foxy boxing, and the cock- tease unto physical pain. Its specs are for metal, loud, lots of it. The punch of the subwoofers is a lot like getting jabbed in the sternum by a big velvet piston.

  Blank Frank likes the power. Whenever he thinks of getting physical, he thinks of the Vise Grip.

  He perches a case of Stoli on one big shoulder and tucks another of Beam under his arm. After this he is done replenishing the bar. To survive the weekend crush, you've gotta arm. Blank Frank can lug a five-case stack without using a dolly. He has to duck to clear the lintel. The passage back to the phones and bathrooms is tricked out to resemble a bank vault door, with tumblers and cranks. It is up past six-six. Not enough for Blank Frank, who still has to stoop.