by Various
The three of them stood listening for a moment, then Guff unmuted the TV and Wally slapped his arm.
“The goddamned Escalade, man!”
In five minutes they were out on the front porch. Wally had his gun, a big .44 Magnum with an unbelievably long barrel he'd bought after OD'ing on Dirty Harry movies (“It's the most powerful handgun in the world,” he told everybody, though nobody cared and it probably wasn’t anymore). Frank grabbed his arm as soon as they flicked on the driveway lights.
Their red Escalade was sitting right where they'd parked it, only it was utterly trashed. It was flat on the pavement, the axle snapped in two, and the rear tires broken off. The windshield was spider webbed and the top mashed down almost to the steering wheel. The hood was lying in the trendy Zen garden and the engine block was torn open, as though it had just given birth to a terminator. The truck's vital fluids were being washed down the drive by the rain, and the DOH 437 license tag had been shoved halfway into the grill so only the DOH showed, mockingly, like a stamped word balloon trickling out of the lips of an anthropomorphized vehicle in a Sunday comic.
Oblivious of the rain, Guff and Wally ran to their beloved vehicle, shouting a flurry of curses and touching the twisted chassis lovingly, as though it were their passing grandmother.
"What the hell happened?" Frank called from the dryness of the porch.
"Jesus, there are goddamned fist marks in the frame!" Guff said.
"What?" Frank and Wally said at the same time.
Frank stepped off the porch and ran out into the downpour. Sure enough, beat into the sides of the truck were fist marks; little ones, about the size of baseballs. He could even see the indentations of the knuckles.
Suddenly Wally was shooting into the dark, the gun sounding like a pirate cannon in his ear. Frank slapped him on the shoulder.
"What're you doin’, you asshole? You wanna bring the fuckin' cops down on us?"
"I seen something!" Wally shrieked. "Somethin' over there, runnin' through the bushes."
They went to investigate. Frank fingered the pancake-sized holes in the side of his house. He took out his keys and picked one of the hot, flattened bullets out of the hole and tossed it at Wally, making him flinch.
"Nice job, asshole," he said. “My goddamned house’ll never bother you again.”
"Frank, what the hell's goin' on?" Guff whined.
"Damned if I know, but we're just getting wet standing out here," he said.
They went back into the house.
"I cain't see how the Duke Boys are ever gonna get outta this one," said Waylon ‘the Balladeer’ Jennings.
Frank flicked off the big television.
"Hey!" said Guff.
"Shut up. I need to think," Frank said, running his hand over his mouth.
"Yeah, but…," Guff tried again, gesturing to the TV.
"Shut the fuck up, Guff!" Wally almost shrieked. He was jumpy, and he still had his gun.
Frank went to the glass wall again. Lightning danced across the wave tops down below for an instant. It was the first time he'd ever heard thunder in the eight years he'd lived here.
Then the lights winked out.
"Shit," he muttered. Great time for the power to shit the bed.
Wally gasped. Frank could see the outline of his gun.
"Put that damn thing away. So help me if that thing goes off in my house I'm gonna stick it up your ass, Wally," Frank snarled.
"Hey!" said Guff.
"What?" Frank almost yelled. "What what what? What's so goddamned important?"
"I thought I saw something go by the window just now."
Frank whirled. Nothing but nothing and more of the same.
"I don't see anything." He went to the sliding door and opened it, poking his head through. The wind whipped his wet hair and he could smell the ocean. Nobody on the patio.
"It wasn't there," Guff said. "It went by like something falling or flying."
"Oh Christ," Frank said, whisking the door shut. "Probably just a freakin' gull."
"No, it was too big," Guff said.
"Hell, man," Wally broke, unable to keep the anxiety from his voice. "What the fuck's out there? What happened to the Escalade?"
“Maybe we should call the cops?” Guff suggested.
“You dumb fuck,” Wally muttered.
"Chill out," Frank said, going to the kitchen. But he didn't know what had happened to the Escalade. He rummaged through one of the drawers and got out the flashlight. He tossed it to Wally, not letting either of them see that he had taken out a steak knife too.
"Get down and take a look at the fuse box."
Wally caught the flashlight and shined it all over the place as anyone who picks one up for the first time does.
Frank blinked as the light shined in his face like the sun. He didn't know why people felt the need to do that.
"Come with me, Frank," Wally said.
"It don't take three."
"Whaddaya mean three?" Wally stuttered.
"You, me, and that goddamned hand-cannon. Don't tell me you're afraid with that pocket howitzer you got."
Wally snickered.
"Yeah. Alright. Be right back."
The light moved off down the hallway like a will ‘o wisp and was gone. He heard the basement door open. Wally's steps tumbled down the unfinished plywood stair. The house was half on a hill, and the architect had gotten cute and sunk a basement into the hill. It wasn’t a proper sized basement, so he hardly ever went down there.
Lightning flashed, and the shadow of the rain cascaded up the wall for a minute like drops of oil. For a half an instant, a small, quick shape, like the profile of a bird, flitted across the wall.
"Didja see that?" Guff stammered.
There was a thumping as Wally came jogging back up the stairs. The will ‘o wisp reappeared. Wally's stocky silhouette, like a man pointing the ass of a big firefly.
"Man, the fusebox is fucked!"
"What?"
"All the wires and shit are hangin' out!"
"Oh jeez," Guff began repeating it like a mantra, "oh jeezohjeezohjeezohejeez."
In a minute they were all shouting back and forth.
"Wally!" Frank yelled.
They were quiet. The baby was crying again.
"Go get the kid."
"What for?"
"Just do it!"
Wally hesitated. The spotlight of his flash swung around the room and stopped.
"Jeez," said Guff.
Standing in the kitchen, just a little more than shoulder high to the counter, was what looked like a kid in a Halloween costume. All green, with a pointed hat. Like Robin Hood.
"What the fu—," Wally began, the hammer clicking back on his .44.
He never finished it. The slight form in the kitchen moved out of the light, and Frank noticed a glitter of something bright flash across the room. There was a sound like a leaky tire followed by a gurgle from Wally. He fell back, choking. The flashlight rolled in a circle on the floor and stopped next to his face, so close his right ear glowed red. There was the handle of a knife stuck up under his chin, and blood was pouring, red as a melting Christmas candle.
"Wally?" said Frank.
Guff had his gun out then. He didn't advertise it the way Wally did, but he kept an old snub nosed .38 tucked into his sock. Frank didn't know why they insisted on carrying those guns around. Didn't want to know.
Frank heard something running across the room, and saw a low, fast shadow streak past the doorway to the dining room.
Guff saw it too and was shooting, the report inside as loud as Wally's gun had been outside.
Frank ducked behind the couch, clutching the measly steak knife, suddenly wishing he had a gun himself.
Two more shots from Guff's gun, and he saw the light flashing yellow on the ceiling. There was a pane rattling roll of thunder, and Guff shouted, "Come on out, you little son of a bitch!"<
br />
Bang! Another shot, and Frank could smell it now. That smell like the Fourth of July back home.
Then there was a sound like bones cracking.
Guff screamed.
Frank dared to peer over the edge of the couch, and saw Guff go flying across the room end over end. He struck the TV and there was a smash as it came off the wall mount. He lay there in a heap. Heineken bottles rolled across the floor.
Frank looked around, backing away from the couch. The door to the garage was just off the kitchen. If he could reach it, he could get to the motorcycle. But the baby. What would happen to the baby if he left?
Would the thing get him? Well, he'd have to get the kid then, too.
His palm sweating around the handle of the steak knife, he ran for the back hallway, and stopped short.
Lightning flashed as he reached the edge of the hall. The thing was standing in the doorway of the baby's room with its hands on its narrow hips. It was a kid, or looked like one, or was the size of one at least. Just a skinny twelve or fourteen year-old kid, but in some kind of wet, green, leather shirt, with a pointed hat and…was that spandex? The kid’s eyes flashed behind the holes of the mask.
"Give me that baby, you little shit!" Frank hissed, storming down the hallway with the knife raised in his hand.
Then the figure moved. It seemed to jump right at him, but instead of bowling him over, it struck him with such force that all the wind went out of his lungs. He lost the knife, and then he was flying down the hall. The head of the little figure was pressed against his chest, two fists gripped his shoulders. He was off his feet and speeding toward the glass wall.
Then he was through it. He felt the dull pain in his back and heard the wall shatter all around him. Glass rained down, and then it was real rain, and cold, whipping wind, and they were going right off the deck. Jesus, they were gonna go right over the cliff!
They did. And Frank could hear the surf crashing, and everything above was black streaked with silver lines of falling rain, falling as from nothing. He was soaring over the water. He could see the boat shack like a chalkboard eraser far below. The wind rippled the cuffs of his slacks.
Still the little figure held him. His small fists snatched Frank by the shirt front, and he was staring into his face. It looked like a kid, still, though behind a sharp nosed cowl. And that was indeed a red feather bobbing over his right ear. The smooth chin ran with rainwater, and the lips were in a tight line. Blue eyes stared into his, intense and grim, as though they didn't fit in that young face. The kid let him go.
Frank fell. Screaming all the way. He'd often wondered if he fell from a great height if he would scream like they did in the movies. He'd never screamed on rollercoasters, but he screamed now. He turned over, and faced down. Those mad waves were smashing and foaming underneath him, rushing up fast. The wind of the fall shot down his throat, stealing his breath, threatening to over-inflate his lungs like party balloons. He was going to hit the water like a slab of concrete, but he couldn't close his eyes.
A foot from the impact he felt a painful jerk of his ankle, and he was hanging there upside down, the splashing, brewing waves spraying his face with foam. The kid was hanging there in the air, holding him by the foot. Then the water was rushing by. He closed his eyes. His face smacked wave after wave, the tide dividing around him as his head skimmed the surface of the dark, churning water. Then he was dumped on the wet beach, spluttering and shivering.
He was on his hands and knees, and felt sick. The surf was breaking over his soaked ass. A saltwater colonic. The kid had saved him seventy bucks at any hippy salon down the hill.
He looked up, and saw the kid standing in front of him, arms folded across his chest, legs straight out in an upside down V. He was all in green leather but for his thin white arms, which were sheathed in slight, adolescent muscle. His hands were hidden in green leather gauntlets. The knife he’d killed Wally with was belted around his waist.
"You're Frank?" the kid called in a high voice, still loud enough to be heard over the waves.
Frank nodded, blinking back the stinging water in his eyes.
"Who are your buyers, Frank? Give me some names."
"R-rolodex. On the kitchen counter. By the phone," Frank spluttered. Most people kept encrypted files and external drives and all that. Frank didn’t know jack shit about computers and iClouds and iPads.
The kid nodded. Then he was streaking into the air, as if an angel had reached down and grabbed him by the scruff. Frank watched the slight form go flying up, and disappear over the lip of his rear deck, hundreds of feet above. He knelt there for a minute in the wet sand, the surf lapping, then got to his feet. He'd lost a shoe. It was terribly cold.
In a few minutes, the little figure came soaring out again. In between the flashes of lightning, Frank could see him. It was like he was dancing across the air, sledding on the invisible gusts like Peter Pan.
The figure hovered there for a minute, then launched itself straight at him. He flinched, but the kid grabbed him by the shirt again, one handed this time, and in fifteen seconds he was on the front driveway, puking beside Wally's smashed Escalade while the kid stared down at him.
When Frank finished heaving, he looked up. The kid had the baby and the Rolodex in his arms. He held the baby out to Frank.
"Hold him," the kid said.
Frank took the baby.
The kid in the green costume took off again, and passed over the roof.
Frank looked down at the baby, shielding him from the rain. He was crying. Why hadn't Zita come with the goddamned formula?
There was a loud metallic banging then, like somebody beating two big pipes together. Then Frank heard a gigantic rumbling sound. He noticed the whole house was shaking. What a time for a fucking shaker!
But then the whole house started pitching and moving. The foundation cracked, and then it shifted. The front of the house jutted upwards, tearing free of the basement, and Frank could see the plumbing jutting out of the ground in right angles, quivering like metal roots. Then the whole house slid backwards and went tumbling off the cliff with a tremendous crash.
There was an explosion somewhere far below, as the house crashed into the boathouse and black smoke started billowing up. The only thing left was a big patch, the bases of the supports, and the plywood stair leading down to the smallish basement.
Out of the smoke came the kid in the green costume, descending lightly, like a guy on a wire.
He landed right in front of Frank.
The kid took the crying baby from his arms.
"Careful," Frank muttered. "He's hungry."
"Where did he come from?" asked the kid.
"Naranja Coast Memorial," Frank answered. “Out in Geyser Valley.”
The kid nodded.
“I’ll take him back. How do you get them out?”
“We got a couple OBGYN’s and neonatals all over SoCal. They’re in the Rolodex. The buyers, too. The adoption agencies.”” Frank felt relieved. Unburdened.
“Do you know what happens to the ones that don’t go to the adoption agencies?”
Frank swallowed. In truth, he had never wanted to know, but he had heard. Zita mainly handled all that. Those babies were like the dogs at the pound that nobody came for. He didn’t like to think about them, but they went somewhere. Of course they went somewhere.
“Yeah,” he said. Because what point was there in lying?
“That’s why I’m here,” said the kid, rain drizzling off him, eyes blazing behind the mask.
“I’d been meaning to get out of it,” he said, and wished he hadn’t. It sounded so lame, so cowardly. He sobbed. Christ, what a mess he was.
The kid cocked his head.
Frank heard it, too. The sirens coming up the hills.
“They’re coming for you, Frank,” said the kid. “Zita was barbequed on the loading dock of LF County Hospital an hour ago.”
He lowered his
head like a penitent, surprised he was going to live to see the cops.
"Wally and Guff?" Frank asked.
"They liked to shoot bums down in the culvert in their off time," said the kid. "You should’ve screened your employees better. They’re how I found you in the first place. See ya, Frank."
Then he was up in the air and gone.
Frank stared into the sky for a long time, blinking at the falling rain, his shriveled hands in his pockets. It was cold, but the rain felt clean. He watched the smoking hole that had been his house, at the broken plumbing that spouted water in the rain like the torn capillaries of a severed arm.
He watched it till the sirens were wailing in his ears and the water in his driveway began to flash red.
THREE
Nico watched the serious-faced reporter in the Bogie raincoat and umbrella gabble on in silence on the news, fingers to his ear like he had M. on the other line and Blofeld in sight. Nico’s house was flooded with The Pet Shop Boys’ What Have I Done to Deserve This, rendering the television effectively mute, but he didn’t need to hear that artificial cadence to know that Pan had got his baddies somewhere up in Malibar.
More than a little bit of him thrilled to see the ruins of the porn star stilt home lying at the bottom of the rainy cliff, and it was only partially because of the line of work the owners had been in.
One of the dubious charms of living in LF was the near constant reminder of economic inequality. The distance between the opulent colonnaded homes of the haves and the slave quarter, roach infested flats of the have-nots was negligible. The sports cars of overpaid actors, the econoboxes of hardscrabble PA wannabes and the tool-laden pickups of bleary-eyed, overworked illegals all met at the stop lights, and they all ignored the same ruddy faced mental cases hopefully holding cardboard signs along the freeway exits.
Nico had been fortunate most of his life to occupy the rare and nebulous middle space somewhere between moderate success and catastrophic failure, thanks to a steady influx of residuals from his brief time as Slightly the Lost Boy, Peter’s right hand man on the hit show Peter `N Wendy, and a recent string of schlocky direct-to-video horror movies that had attained a second life in the streaming and rental market thanks in no small part to his previously mentioned appearances on several embarrassing celebrity drug rehab shows, and culminating in his fifteen-more-minutes-of-fame on Celebs under the Knife.
