Let There Be Linda

by Rich Leder

  He’d left the small yellow house, driven to Ross Baker Towing in Northridge, arrived at one in the morning, and tied the poodle to a tall metal shelving unit directly across from his desk in the open area in the middle of the converted tire warehouse that was Shuler’s LAPD Office of the Bizarre, UnGodly, and Otherworldly. He’d put out a bowl of water and a plate of treats and said to the poodle, “If that was the climax, then what’s left is the denouement.” And then he’d said, “Chao, Chachi,” and left the dog alone, laughing out loud while writing the joke in his pocket pad as he went out the door.

  He’d driven to Mike Miller’s house, seen the LAPD squad car in the driveway, slipped around the back and into the garage, where Judd Martin was on the floor with the chainsaw sticking through his back and out his chest, took a picture of the dead zombie with his cell phone—a visual reference for when he was writing the scene later—and then went through the mud room, into the kitchen, and into the living room.

  He’d told the uniformed cops that he’d received a 9-1-1 about a zombie home invasion and that he’d checked the garage—since it was a known fact the undead congregated near automotive parts—and was pleased to say it was a zombie-free zone. The older officer had rolled his eyes and looked at the younger one and said, ‘Doughnuts and coffee; you’re buying,’ and they’d exited stage right—or maybe stage left. (Gary hadn’t yet decided how their departure would best play in his act.)

  Then he’d left the Miller brothers alone, not even bothering to tell them to keep quiet—What in the world would they say?—and he’d driven home to catch a few hours of sleep because he’d sensed today, Monday, was the first day of his reign as the King Cop of Comedy, and he wanted to be sharp for his coronation later tonight.

  He’d returned to his office at eight thirty and spent the next three hours finishing and finalizing his act, going from his desk to his stage and back and forth for three straight hours. In all that time, the poodle had stood facing him, staring at him, growling low, almost inaudibly low—three hours of inaudibly low growling and laser beam staring—and it had not once touched the water or the treats. Not a sniff.

  At eleven forty-five, Shuler hung up the phone, looked at Chachi, and said, “You don’t know it, Chachi, but you are about to become the greatest comedic prop in the history of stand up. Pat Paulsen would have loved you.”

  The poodle growled.

  “Cheer up,” he said to the dog, taking an Oreo four-pack from his top desk drawer. “It’s a good day to be alive, especially considering what you were yesterday, which was dead. Plus, I just booked the eight thirty slot at Ha Ha—the Monday night Next Comic Standing show—and confirmed three top late-night agents: one for Kimmel, one for Conan, one for Fallon. By nine o’clock, we’ll be on the road to famous.”

  The poodle growled.

  Shuler popped an Oreo in his mouth, crossed to a small fridge, removed and drank directly from a carton of milk, then carried the milk to his personal comedy club stage, stepped into the spotlight of his mind’s eye, ate the second Oreo, followed it with a swig of milk, and imagined himself in front of the Ha Ha audience.

  They loved him. Oh, how they loved him. They had never heard a story like his before. Dwarves, giants, zombies, killer poodles, cokehead dentists, voodoo queens, and con man agents! They pounded the tables, roared with laughter, begged him to stop, and then begged for more. He felt goose bumps on his arms. I’m a supernova, he thought.

  And then he ate the third Oreo and thought it was possible he’d lost his mind. He’d seen an undead woman murder a real estate developer with a chainsaw and considered it a comedic event, a joke to add to his routine, the super part of his supernova. For a comic, that could be crossing the line between sanity and insanity. For a detective, it could be something more than that.

  He decided he’d gone crazy and gotten funnier at the same time and was pleased with that outcome, and then his ex-wife, Maryanne McCarthy, appeared in a vision before him, wearing a stylish tennis outfit, the same one she’d been wearing when she left him. “You used to be weirder than the crimes you solved, Gary Shuler Vista. Now you’re a danger to the community you’re sworn to protect.”

  “I’m also sworn to make them laugh,” he said aloud, as though she were really standing there. “Sometimes it’s hard to know which way’s which.”

  “When you come to a fork in the road,” she said, “take it.”

  “Yes, yes, Yogi Berra,” Shuler said, laughing. “One of the great catchers and comedians of all time. The relational subtext is why the joke works—I’m one of the great cops and comedians of all time.”

  And then the vision of his ex-wife faded, and he thought there might be some wisdom in their exchange, but he let it go, ate the final Oreo, and walked to the poodle.

  “So I’ll take you on stage with me, and you’ll sit there through my act, building comedic tension, dramatic tension, story tension, all kinds of tension,” he said, drinking from the carton. “You’re the first character they meet, and then you die a horrible death, and then you come back to life, and then you die a horrible death, and then, well, I don’t have to tell you; you were there. So at the climax, the part where I see you raised from the dead with my own eyes, after they’ve been hearing about you and looking at you all night…forget it, homerun, thank you, Yogi, for the baseball tie-in.”

  The poodle growled.

  Gary kneeled before the dog and patted its head. He wasn’t sure he believed it was possible, but he thought he saw the poodle narrow its eyes.

  THE WORLD’S NOT READY FOR YOU

  “Who murders their mother in the middle of the day?” Danny said.

  “We do,” Mike said. His eyes were heavy with exhaustion because he’d been unable to sleep after Shuler left the house because he couldn’t erase the vision of his chainsaw ripping through Judd Martin’s chest a few feet in front of his face. If anyone had asked him a week ago what would be the most unlikely thing he could imagine happening one week later, Judd Martin being cut in half by his Makita-wielding, undead mother in his own garage would be near the top of his list. It might have been the very top of the list except for what was happening right now: he and his brother about to storm the house where they’d been raised to kill the mother who’d raised them.

  They were in the Pathfinder across the street and two doors down from the small yellow house in Canoga Park. Judd Martin’s beat-to-hell Ford pickup was in the driveway. Linda had looked out the window and seen the Pathfinder and drawn all the shades. There was no way to know what she was doing in there. Waiting for us, Mike thought, that’s what she’s doing in there.

  It was noon on Monday. Twelve hours since Linda had escaped. Four and a half hours since Jenny had murdered Maggie again, this time with Mike’s belt in the crooked Northridge kitchen. It was one hundred thirteen degrees. A breeze like a blast furnace was blowing across the San Fernando Valley—an unseasonal Santa Ana from hell.

  “I don’t think there’s an angle for something like this,” Danny said.

  “I have Mom’s front door key and back door key,” Mike said. “I forgot to give them to Mrs. Alemi.”

  “She sucks,” Danny said.

  “Mom or Mrs. Alemi?” Mike said.

  “Both,” Danny said.

  “Mom doesn’t suck,” Mike said. “Mom’s dead.”

  “Not dead enough,” Danny said.

  Mike handed one of the keys to his brother. “I take the front, you take the back, we meet in the middle.”

  They got out of the car and walked to the small yellow house. Mike still wore the blue and red plaid golf shorts, the blue Ralph Lauren polo, and the blue, slip-on sneakers he’d worn at Jenny’s. Danny still wore his black board shorts, red V-neck T-shirt, and flip-flops. His hair was back behind his ears as always, but his sunglasses were in place to protect his eyes from the burning glare.

  “Why do I get the back?” Danny said.

  “She has to defend both doors,” Mike said. “It’s fifty-fifty
she’s waiting for you either way.”

  “Did you bring weapons?” Danny said as they reached the driveway.

  “No. Did you?” Mike said.

  “No,” Danny said.

  And then Danny went down the driveway, past the Ford, and around the house, and Mike went to the front door.

  As he slid the key in the lock, Mike remembered Linda giving him his own key to the house when he was ten years old, after his flim-flam father had left for New Orleans and she had registered for bookkeeping classes. “This means you’re the man of the house, Michael,” she’d said. “I don’t like asking you to grow up at the age of ten, but I don’t have a choice. This is your life right now.”

  If I’ve learned anything in the last thirty years, Mom, Mike said in his head, I’ve learned it’s always your life right now.

  “Mom,” Mike said, stepping into the house and shutting the door behind him. There was no entry hall per se. He was in the living room. “It’s Mike. Your son.”

  “I know who you are,” Linda said. “And I know what you’re doing here.”

  Mike had forgotten the house was empty, that all of Linda’s possessions had been trucked to Mrs. Alemi’s self-storage facility in Chatsworth. He had vague memories of the house being empty like this the day they’d moved in, but it had not seemed nearly so small as it did today. Back then, he’d thought the vacant rooms were expansive, and he and Danny had run through them like wild animals. Now, he thought they were shoeboxes buried underground—because the lights were off and the shades were drawn—and that he might suffocate from lack of oxygen.

  “What’s that?” Mike said. He figured the lights were off because Mrs. Alemi had cancelled the power until a new tenant could be found. That’s why the house was so hot, because the air conditioning was turned off too. If it was one thirteen outside, then it was a hundred thirty-five in the house. The House From Hell, Mike thought.

  There were no clothes in the closets, so Linda was still dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein. Fortunately, she did not have a weapon either.

  “You’re taking me back,” Linda said.

  “The world’s not ready for you,” Mike said. “You’re not supposed to be alive. You’re going to scare people.”

  “I’m going to do more than scare them,” Linda said, taking a few steps into the room.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Mike said, moving away.

  “You’re afraid of everything. You always were,” Linda said. “A little fairy boy afraid of his own shadow.”

  It was true. He’d been afraid of everything his whole life.

  “Do I scare you?” Linda said. She was cornering him, like she’d done in his kitchen when she’d whipped the cast iron pan past his head.

  “Yes,” Mike said, backpedaling.

  “Good,” Linda said. “The one who’s scared is the one who dies. It’s me or you, Michael, so that means it’s you.”

  She was on him in the next instant, so fast he didn’t have time to blink. Her hands were around his neck. She was incredibly strong, much stronger than him. He gripped her arms and tried to pull her off his throat. His eyes darted behind her, to the doorway.

  “Danny’s not coming,” Linda said, reading his eyes. “He never comes through when you need him. He’s probably driving to New Orleans as I choke you to death. He’s a flim-flam man and a coward like his father.”

  Mike thought about fighting back but couldn’t get himself to do it. Somewhere under the beehive hair and the toga splattered with zombie blood and the dead, black-pit eyes was his mother—who’d had a heart attack and died in Northridge Hospital. She was in there. She had to be. And he couldn’t hit her. He was the good son. He couldn’t do it.

  He fell to his knees, and she squeezed his throat. He looked up at her face. She wasn’t an undead demon; she was Saint Linda rubbing Vicks VapoRub on his chest and neck when he was seven and had a bad bronchial infection. If that’s my last memory, he said to himself, so be it.

  And then Danny came screaming into the room and jumped onto Linda’s back, which knocked her hands off Mike’s neck. Mike fell backwards on his ass and watched in wonder as Linda, his recently deceased, seventy-two-year-old mother, carried his thirty-seven-year-old brother like a bronco throwing a rider or, because it was Danny, a thoroughbred trying to toss her jockey.

  Danny had his arms wrapped around Linda’s neck and was holding on for dear life. Linda couldn’t shake him loose. She bucked back and forth and then ran from the living room into the kitchen.

  Mike heard a crash that sounded like someone bashing into the cabinets followed by Danny screaming in pain. Then he heard another crash like someone smashing into the refrigerator followed by Danny screaming in even more pain, and then he heard struggling, fighting, gasping.

  “Move, legs,” Mike said out loud, and his legs moved, and he stood and went to the kitchen.

  Danny was on his back. Linda was sitting on him, straddling his chest, choking him to death. Danny’s feet were pointed at the open fridge, and Mike realized that Linda had whacked him hard into the cabinets, loosening Danny’s grip, and then cracked his back into the refrigerator, knocking him off her and onto the floor, where he’d bounced hard and twisted so that his feet were in front of the open fridge door.

  Linda’s hands were around Danny’s throat. He was kicking and fighting and trying to get her off, but she was inhumanly strong, and he was loosing steam.

  Mike walked to the fridge and stood behind his mother and knew he had to kill her, but he couldn’t do it. He ran every other possibility up and down the flagpole in his mind. The scenario he liked best was the one where he took her captive and kept her chained in his garage until she died peacefully of natural causes. Or tied her to his four-post bed and poisoned her slowly over time so she could die peacefully in her sleep.

  It was the dying peacefully part that appealed to him. He didn’t want his mother to suffer any more than she already had. For God’s sake, Mike thought, the woman was resting in peace before she was jarred back to life. And now look at her…she’s the Bride of Frankenstein killing my brother.

  And then he looked at Danny dying on the kitchen floor of the small yellow house in Canoga Park, where their imaginations had run wild inside and out, where they had been cowboys and astronauts and firemen and magicians and monsters and soldiers and ballplayers and neighborhood hooligans, and he remembered shooting baskets and riding bikes and climbing trees and jumping fences, growing up side by side celebrating birthdays and holidays and other fun family festivities, and doing homework and going to Little League games and movies and parties and backyard barbecues and remembering all of that made Danny’s failures and fuck ups fall away until all that was left was his little brother turning blue and dying on their childhood kitchen floor.

  “Leave him alone,” Mike said, and he stepped in and grabbed Linda’s beehive and ripped her off Danny with the strength of a young parent lifting an automobile off a trapped child. In the same motion, Mike whipped her backwards so that she spun around and fell face forward into the open refrigerator. And then he slammed the fridge door closed on her neck.

  And then he slammed it again. And then again.

  Linda howled like a wild, wounded animal.

  Mike slammed the fridge door one more time and held it there, pushing it as hard as he could against Linda’s neck. She made terrible noises, horrible, frightening sounds—roars and groans and screams from some parallel, paranormal plain.

  “Release me from The Oath,” Mike said to her.

  “Burn in hell, fairy boy,” Linda said, growling like the devil.

  Danny sat up, rubbing his neck, and said, “She’s a beast.”

  And Mike said, “Lord of the Flies.” They had read it together when they were about the same age as the boys in the book, and they had both been empowered by it.

  And Danny stood and moved to Mike and helped him pushed on the refrigerator door.

  The brothers looked at each other
as they leaned hard and heavy on the door and, as if by telepathy, began to chant. Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!

  “Release me from The Oath,” Mike said. “Release me from The Oath. Release me. Release me. Release me…”

  “I release you from The Oath,” Linda said.

  And then there was the sound of her neck breaking, and she stopped moving and was silent, and she died again—one week after she had died the first time.

  SURREAL ON TOP OF SURREAL

  “I’ve been thinking about the porn party plan,” Paul the Pervert said, turning his truck onto Chatsworth. “What we need to get us going is a movie of me doing my sex thing, so they know I’m one of them.”

  “A movie of you doing your sex thing is the last thing we need,” Danny said, staring out the open passenger window. The truck had no air conditioning, but Paul had hung a thermometer from the rear view mirror so anyone riding with him (as if anyone would ride with him) could know exactly how freaking hot they were. And right now the mercury was pegged at one fifteen. Danny looked at his watch. Coincidentally, that was the time too: one fifteen. “Maybe the last thing anybody needs.”

  “I’m not talking full-length feature film, just a highlight reel of me getting it on with your mother. Porn party people see that shit,” the clown said, “your phone will light up like Christmas.”

  “My mother’s dead in the back of your truck,” Danny said. “She has a broken neck.”

  “Yeah, I don’t usually get naked with broken neck dead chicks,” Paul said. “But I’d make an exception for your mother.”