Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two

by Short Story Anthology

  "They're his," stated Blake, his hands on his hips. "They're ours."

  "Legally, they belong to Evan," rejoined Lulu. Her hands trembled, and she clenched them. I wondered if this was not some kind of monster suit, though against whom was a rather dizzying conjecture.

  "I helped pick them out," Blake said with a stubborn, self-assured cast to his voice. "They're just as much mine as his."

  A deep weight settled in the center of my chest, and I found it hard to breathe. I knew exactly what he was talking about. The few pieces we didn't buy together, the Red Disc Pitcher, the Chartreuse Tumbler, and others, which Charles waltzed in with one day to surprise me with.

  "It's this woman's fault," continued Blake, pointing at Lulu. His sheer nerve was astonishing. Despite his beauty, despite his sheer sexiness—or probably because of it—I didn't like him. "We didn't know anyone else was living here. She might have killed us with that Walthur."

  "A Walthur?"

  "Confiscated Walthur," said Officer Hawks.

  Lulu's hair had gotten loose from a few of its combs and clips, perhaps from the force of the gunshot, and she shook it back from her face. "Where is Ambrose? Ambrose! Oh, look at him. He's a nervous wreck! This is not good for him at all." She scooped him up when he emerged from his hiding place behind his favorite indoor plant, the monstero delicioso, which was by now thoroughly imbued with his own comforting scent. Lulu's voice was edging toward hysterical, which was not at all surprising.

  "You didn't have to shoot him, Lulu. For God's sake!" I tried to sound comforting, but I was mad. A gun, in my own house, used to shoot my own lover. It was too preposterous, too sudden. And Blake. That was preposterous and sudden as well, and much more painful.

  "It's just his knee," Lulu said matter-of-factly.

  "She's right," said one of the paramedics over her shoulder as she knelt next to Charles.

  "Please, Miss Thibideaux, tell us exactly how this happened," said Officer Hawks.

  Lulu held Ambrose too tightly and stroked him. She flung her head back and stared at us all. "I intended to shoot him in the knee, and he knows it, and that's what I did. I told him I would, but the other burglar laughed and said, 'A pussy like you?'"

  "She's a bitch," said Blake. "A lying, fucking bitch. I never talk that way."

  "I did neglect to mention that I practice target shooting once a week."

  That and line dancing and law school, too? No wonder she was too tired to clean her room.

  "But Lulu—" That was about all I could manage with my lover lying at my feet in a pool of blood.

  She snapped at me. "I didn't know he was Charles. And the gun is not illegal. I have a concealed weapon permit. Since I was fifteen, in fact. My Mama was frantic about me living unarmed in Miami and made Papa pull some strings. Miami is one circle removed from hell, she used to say, and that circle is mighty thin. Rapists, gangs, robbers, and murderers just running rampant. An unrelenting and horrific hellhole of unimaginable and unsightly mayhem. And it's everywhere. Everywhere. People can be absolutely and totally evil. God! Nobody knows this better than me! I just never … I just never thought—"

  To my complete amazement, she fainted. Just kind of gracefully sank to the floor, her eyelids fluttering. Her head hit the floor with a thump, and Ambrose leaped from her arms and stood looking at her doubtfully, as did I. I didn't think that people really fainted.

  "Excuse me," said paramedic number two, a husky young man. We all stepped back while he and his partner lifted a bandaged, IV'd Charles onto a telescoping gurney and then attended to Lulu with the kind of pungent ammonia capsule my grandmother used to use. Her eyes opened wide. She coughed. "Just lie there for a moment, miss," said the paramedic.

  She burst into tears, which Ambrose proceeded to lick frantically. "Ambrose," she said. "Ambrose. I'm so sorry, Ambrose. I'm so sorry." She crossed her arms over her chest and scrunched up on the floor. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

  "Well, you should be," said Blake. "You're in a hell of a lot of trouble."

  "That's enough out of you," Officer Hawks told him. "You have the right to remain silent—"

  "What? You're arresting me? She's a killer!"

  "Breaking and entering."

  "We didn't break and enter! We have a key! This is our fucking stuff, lady—"

  Officer Hawks snapped cuffs on him. "Shut up and go sit on the couch. Now."

  "Charles," I said, kneeling next to his stretcher. "Charles, are you—"

  The rest of my sentence went unsaid. He knew I was asking him if he was coming back, which I suppose was odd, considering the circumstances, but I couldn't think of anything else. I saw the minute shake of his head as his eyes slid to Blake, and it finally hit me. Please, he was saying. He doesn't know.

  He didn't even know.

  "Step back, sir," said the paramedic.

  "I'm sorry," Charles whispered.

  He was sorry, Lulu was sorry, and now I was pretty damned sorry, too.

  I just looked away and stood up. More might come later. I didn't know. It seemed that he would live, though.

  Lulu still sobbed uncontrollably. I got her some Kleenex, and she blew her nose but did not stop crying. "I told Mama that I shouldn't keep that gun," she said in hiccupping staccato. "I told her that it was bad luck. I told her. But it all comes back. It never stops. Never. Thank God for you," she said, drawing Ambrose onto her lap. "It's all right, baby. It's all right. I know you told me it's all right, and it's all right. I know it's all right."

  Officer Hawks surveyed us and sighed heavily. "Listen, I can't get any backup, and I need to go to the emergency room with burglar number one."

  "He's not a burglar!" said Blake heatedly, jumping up from the couch, then sitting back down after Officer Hawks gave him a look. "This is his house. He had a key. This is our goddamned stuff! He rented a room from this guy, and this guy threw him out because he's gay and kept his stuff!"

  "Is that what you think?" I asked him. "Really?"

  "You're coming, too," Officer Hawks told Lulu. "Can you give her some kind of sedative?" she asked the paramedics.

  I waited for Lulu to object, and when she didn't, I was truly alarmed. But she did become somewhat catatonic after her shot. She scrambled to get up, and I helped her. "Just wait, miss, we'll get a wheelchair for you," said the paramedic, but Lulu sleepwalked into her bedroom.

  "Ma'am, we need to go," said Officer Hawks, raising her voice, but Lulu paid her no attention.

  "Maybe she's getting her insurance card," I suggested.

  "Or her other gun," said Blake.

  I heard her tossing things around. A pile of books crashed over. Officer Hawks made for the bedroom and after a moment led Lulu out by the arm. Lulu held out a piece of paper to me and said tonelessly, "It's Wednesday. Take him."

  "Take who?" I asked, not understanding.

  "Ambrose."

  "You need to stay here, sir," Officer Hawks told me, "until I can round up some detectives to come over here. And meanwhile, don't touch anything."

  "I need to come to the emergency room—"

  "No!" said Lulu and Officer Hawks at the same time.

  "The address is there," Lulu said in a bizarre monotone muffled by the aftereffects of tears. She pointed to a hand-scrawled annotation. "Hurry. I'm late."

  "You'd better not go anywhere, or I'll arrest you, too," Officer Hawks warned me as she climbed into the ambulance once their haul was safely stowed in back.

  I held Ambrose and watched the ambulance scream away, lights flashing.

  I looked down and read the much-folded-and-unfolded flyer.

  LECTURE AND PSYCHIC READINGS

  "ANGELS AND BRING YOU DOGS"

  Random Psychic Animal Readings

  by

  Jack Martin

  $10 in Advance

  $20 at the Door

  Visa, MasterCard, or Checks With Fl Driver License

  · · · · ·

  It took me fifteen minutes, some emergency
map reading, and backtracking to get to the place where angels purportedly crossed paths with dogs. On the way, I kept seeing Charles, his leg bloodied, and wondered who would pay for getting him tennis-worthy again. But mostly I thought about Blake, and though betrayal and disappointment were uppermost in my roiling emotions, the spasms of jealousy I was programmed to feel were missing. In their place was something I didn't really understand, a luminous space filled with possibility. In this luminous, betrayed state I passed the place and had to turn around.

  The penciled address beneath the original had led me to a rundown U-Store-It facility on the west side of the railroad tracks. It was getting dark. I thought for sure that I was in the wrong place. The only person I saw was a man in a bedraggled dark suit pacing back and forth in front of a bin with a rolled-up door, one hand on his hip. His hair was pale, and he wore plain metal-rimmed glasses; his tie was loose. While I squinted at the address, he tossed his cigarette down and came over to the car window. Ambrose was all wags.

  "You're late. I was just going to leave. Where's Lulu?"

  "Are you Jack?" I held up the flyer.

  He pointed to the brass name tag pinned to his jacket. It said Jack Martin. Below that it said Bellows Used Cars. "Yeah. Damn, I hate that flyer. My secretary left the 'r' out of 'Your.' She thought I'd made a mistake. So, where is she?"

  I told him as little as possible, something about the emergency room, I think, and no further details. But I was rattled and rambling, and I still don't remember exactly what I told him.

  "Okay," he said. "All right, I've got it. Come on. Let's do this. I promised my kid I'd take him to McDonald's tonight, and his mom is going to pitch a fit anyway if I tell her what I was doing. She hates for me to do this."

  "Do what?"

  "My channeling work. She thinks it's spooky."

  "Oh."

  He opened the passenger door and grabbed Ambrose.

  "Do I, uh, need to be here?"

  Jack's glance was impatient. "Yeah. He's gotta have somebody to talk to. He likes to relate. You can tell Lulu what Ambrose says."

  "What Ambrose says?" I knew what he said already. Yip-yip. Yap-yap. And standard variations thereof.

  Jack stopped walking, Ambrose beneath his arm. "You don't know."

  "I don't know anything. I just know that Lulu goes out with her dog every Wednesday evening and that tonight she was just about hysterical about not being able to come and gave me this address and told me to come." And what about those angels, I wanted to ask, but didn't.

  "I'm a channeler. I channel dead people. In this case, Ambrose X. Thibideaux."

  "Ambrose is a dead person?"

  "Look, maybe we shouldn't do this. I'm in a hurry. You're sure this is okay with Lulu? There's professional confidentiality involved in this situation."

  "Who is he?"

  "You really don't know."

  "Like I said. Lulu rents a room from me. I know that this dog is not fully housebroken and that he bites my clients on the ankles and that Lulu is crazy about him."

  "Ambrose is her husband. No, no," he raised his free hand as if stopping traffic. "That's not what I mean. Ambrose is in another place now. He went there six years ago." He stroked the dog and looked toward the far side of the parking lot absently. He frowned. "He has a lot to say right now. I gotta do this. Damn. It's gonna cost me an extra half hour in PlaySpace Hell."

  "You can get him a toy."

  "I gotta do that anyway."

  Ambrose was not as he seemed? I smothered a laugh that would have been exceedingly rude. But the underlying sense of deep sadness I was feeling about Charles was overshadowed by an even stronger sense of pity for Lulu. I hadn't realized that she was insane, although I supposed her parents had tried to tell me. "Okay. All right. Where?"

  "Right over there." Jack gestured toward the open storage bin, which was faintly lit within.

  He went inside the bin, and I followed. Two-thirds of the space was filled with furniture and boxes roped and tied up all the way to the ceiling like captives of a moving rodeo. The pile looked dangerously unstable. TWO MEN AND DOG CRUSHED IN TRAGIC STORAGE-CHANNELING MISHAP. On the narrow, free floor space was a black blow-up mattress. A trouble light hung from the back of a crooked wooden chair, a thick yellow electrical cord snaking away. Jack gestured toward a low, green-striped beach chair in the corner. "You can sit there. You got a good memory?"

  "Fair. Why?"

  He pulled some torn shower curtains hanging from a wire across the door together for privacy. "I guess I should record this." He fiddled with a boom box next to the mattress. "That will be an extra three bucks for the tape."

  "Couldn't you just tell her?"

  He shook his head and lay down on the black mattress without taking off his wing-tips. I noticed they were scuffed. He had Ambrose lie down next to him, paws parallel in the manner of a miniature Mexican sphinx. "I don't remember. I mean, I'm not here. I have to make room for the being I'm channeling. Did she give you a list?"

  "A list?"

  "Of questions. I guess not. Ask him whatever you want, then. Damn, my head. This always gives me a headache. All right, let's get this over with."

  I had about fifteen more questions to ask Jack, but he placed one hand over Ambrose's back and closed his eyes. His face and rumpled suit were washed by the bare light bulb. His breathing deepened and slowed. A car prowled by inside, and I wondered if I had locked my doors.

  When he spoke, it was in a striking Southern accent. Similar to Lulu's, but lacking that influential Little Havana childhood.

  "Lulu, honey."

  "I'm her friend, Evan."

  "I know. I'm talkin' to the recorder." The voice was rich, slow, utterly different from Jack's. I had to respect talent like that.

  "She had to shoot again tonight." A tremble passed over Ambrose, then stilled. Visions of Lulu as a serial killer tumbled through my mind. I couldn't remember mentioning the shooting to Jack, but I must have. "I'm tryin' to think what to tell her. To make it all right. What you think, Hambone?" Ambrose started, but did not otherwise move. "We need to keep her from goin' crazy again. That was dark. Too dark. She was riverbound herself." Silence. Then, "Nobody died this time, mister?"

  "No," I said, strangely drawn to answer. "Nobody died." Nobody but me, but I was luminous now, so it was all right. "Lots of blood."

  "Yeah. That would bring it all back, for sure. My poor girl."

  "Bring what back?"

  "The wreck and all. When she shot me. I drove off the bridge and into Lake Pontchartrain. Made the evenin' news in six states."

  "Was, uh, Hambone there?"

  "He was just a pup. Good swimmer and all. Lulu and I were purely nuts until she figured out that she could talk to me and I could talk to her. Thanks to Hambone. You're her friend?"

  "Yes. Evan."

  "Well, you take good care of my girl. She's gonna be a mess for a spell after this. Don't you try to talk her out of what you can hear with your own ears is true. You'll kill her if you do. Tell Lulu that I love her for ever and ever and not to worry."

  "How … old were you?"

  There was a grin in the voice. "Nineteen, and a wild son of a bitch. Damned sorry to go."

  "Why did she shoot you?"

  The voice laughed. "Lulu didn't mean to shoot me. She was tryin' to shoot Jason Lewis Scumbag Parker, the just-released-from-serving-time bank robber who hopped into our truck on Wisteria a block from First Federal and told me to drive or die. I drove. Lulu was on the front seat between us, and her Walthur was in her purse next to me. The last thing she said was 'No!' It was a year before she spoke another living word. Hospitals, bunch of drugs, the works. They kept telling her to accept that I was gone and all that bullshit. But she didn't have to accept it. I'm always here, and that's what matters. It'll be better this time. It's gonna be all right." He paused. "Gotta go; this clown is closin' up shop. Tell Lulu to tell her mama I love her and not to drink so goddamned much. Now, I want you to help her out. Help he
r out as good as you know how. Thanks for comin', mister. It was the right thing to do."

  I sat in silence for a moment. Ambrose, or Hambone, popped up and instantly resumed his eternal quest for urinary bliss but, after glancing at me decided that maybe the storage bin qualified as forbidden territory. "Good choice," I told him.

  Jack's eyes flew open. He sat up and straightened his glasses and popped the tape out of the boom box. "Here you go. That'll be thirty-three bucks."

  "The flyer says ten."

  "That was an introductory session. You know, to get some customers. I even rented a back room in a cafe. Couldn't really bring them here the first time. This is a private session. Twenty-five plus five for being late and three for the tape. Tell Lulu to call me next week; if she doesn't cancel in advance, I'll have to charge her."

  He got up and yanked on his suit jacket. He switched off the trouble light so that we were suddenly in darkness, lit only by the mercury arc lamps making the shower curtains with their dolphins and stars glow. He lit a cigarette. I picked up the dog—I didn't know what to call him now—pushed the dolphins aside, and went out into the parking lot. It felt big and free and weirdly safe, even though for all I knew Jack was a robber, too.

  Actually, he was. I got out forty dollars and asked for change. "Don't have any. I'll give it to Lulu next week."

  Right.

  Ambrose-Hambone and I got in the car after he anointed the tires, and I drove straight to the hospital. On the way I called Dr. Lozano to give him hell.

  · · · · ·

  It was not difficult to get into the backside of the Emergency Room. I bypassed the zooish waiting room and followed a nurse through an automatic door she coded open, then walked to the nursing station. "I'm supposed to see Lulu Thibideaux and bring her her stuff"—I gestured at the health club bag which I'd emptied so as to accommodate Ambrose-Hambone—"but I can't remember where they told me to find her."

  The nurse glanced through a list and pointed. "She ought to be over there. The third cubicle. Are you related to her?"