by Ron Renauld
Eric paused for effect, then announced, chest swelling with pride, “She’s a famous actress.”
“And who might this famous actress be?”
Eric allowed for another dramatic build-up.
“Marilyn Monroe,” he said, blowing smoke in Berger’s face.
“Oh, shit!” Berger said, disgusted. He tossed away the wrapper to his sandwich and held his palm out. “Hand over the keys, Binford!”
“The name’s Cody, got me?” Eric said, tilting his chin out and giving Berger a faceful of Cagney.
“Oh, snap out of it, punk! You name’s not Cody—”
“Cody Jarrett and don’t you ever forget it!” Eric snapped as he moved in to rough Berger up, ganster-style.
“You keep your goddamn hands off me!” Berger repeated, more violently. “Get the hell out of here! You’re fired!”
Eric smiled malevolently as he slipped back into a vague resemblance of his normal self.
“Too late,” he informed Berger. “I quit”
Eric headed for the opened rear door.
“Okay, so where the hell do you think you’re going?” Berger demanded, rushing over to block the doorway.
“Outta my way,” Eric said calmly.
“This is my place of business and you’re not going inside!”
“Mr. Berger,” Eric said patiently, yet dramatically, like a lawyer about to interrogate a star witness. “My posters . . . are valuable originals . . . and I want them.”
As he spoke, Eric wound his finger around the tip of Berger’s tie. He’d been waiting months for a time like this. Berger yanked his tie away and thrust his face upward into Eric’s.
“Well, you forget them, because anything that’s inside belongs to me. It might help to pay for some of your screw-ups!”
Eric quickly calculated his chances of getting by Berger to his booth and decided they weren’t good. He pushed at Berger lightly and then walked away. After three steps, he whirled about and gave Berger one last Cagney.
“Nobody pushes Cody around. You’ll be sorry, big Ed!” Berger wasn’t about to be intimidated any more. He took a step toward Eric and pointed past him to the rear gate, where Sam was watching the confrontation warily, torn between allegiances.
“You get off my property, you little jerk!” Berger bellowed. “Who needs you! This is the best thing that could have happened to me!”
Fuming, Eric went over to the Vespa and shoved it over on its side, then headed for the gate.
“Why, you rotten sonofabitch!” Berger roared, “I’ll have your ass for this! Your ass, you hear me? You little bastard! Where do you get your nerve! Where do you get your goddamn nerve!”
Eric’s rage was just as intense, but he kept it to himself.
CHAPTER • 24
Roy, Franco’s parole officer, lived in a funky house in Ocean Park. Originally a small, one-story affair like the other homes in the neighborhood, the officer had added on a second story and extended the ground floor to include a large den. Roy, Franco, and Moriarty sat together in the paneled room, surrounded by a menagerie of musical instruments. Beer cans rested on almost every available flat space, a testament to the parole officer’s favorite way of beating the heat. The sun had just gone down and a breeze rustled through the house’s opened windows.
“Okay, Franco, let’s try it one more time,” Roy said. He was short and swarthy, a naturalized Algerian wearing cutoff Levis and a fishnet jersey that bulged outward around his belly. He spoke flawless English. After taking a long, last draw from his Budweiser, he wound up the metronome and set it in front of Franco’s drum kit. It began to tick in rhythmic sweeps of its bamboo hand. Franco kept his eyes on the metronome and matched its beat on the drums.
Roy picked up his guitar and laid down a bass line. Twelve bar blues, Chicago-style. Moriarty joined in on the harmonica and they played out a ten-minute jam. Nothing adventurous, but sophisticated enough to test Franco’s progress and give him a chance to toss in a few frills on the cymbals and snare.
When they finished, Roy leaned over and pulled another beer out of the cooler in front of him, passing it over to Franco, who was sweating heavily.
“You’re doing fine, Franco,” Roy said. “I think you’ll be able to hold your own. As for you, Jerry . . .”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Moriarty said. “I need more practice.”
“Not much, though,” Roy said. “Spend as much time kissing that harmonica as you do women and you’ll be back to form in no time.”
Franco wiped his forehead with a towel and took a drink of beer. He was growing a beard over his tattooed jaw, and his hair was longer, too.
“Can we practice to some of those records I brought over?” Franco asked. “That’s the kind of stuff they’ll want to hear at the audition.”
Roy picked up a thin stack of 45s off his amplifier and sorted through them. They were mostly by local bands, recording on obscure labels.
“Sure, Franco,” Roy said, grinning. “Only I can’t charge you for lessons on these. I’ll be spending all my time trying to learn this music myself.”
Roy got up and made his way through the other instruments to the stereo.
“I’d like to stay and give it a go myself,” Moriarty said, “but I still have another visit to make tonight.”
He finished his beer and rose to leave.
“Wish me luck,” Franco said.
“Good luck, Franco,” Moriarty told him. “I’m betting on you to get the job, but if you don’t, make sure you leave the paring knives at home, all right?”
Franco grinned.
Excusing himself, Moriarty left the house and stuck a piece of gum into his mouth as he hopped on his bike and started wheeling his way to Rose Avenue.
He felt odd, caught up in a sense of déjà vu that had come over him while they were playing. Berkeley memories came back to him, unfettered by the incident with his brother. Part of it was Venice, too. The environment here was the closest to the ferment of the late sixties that he had come across since turning his back on that period. He wondered if he should look for a place to live here. It was so different from Pacific Palisades. Here life seemed less superficial, more charged with a special vitality and uniqueness. For all its drawbacks, it seemed like home.
When he came to Marilyn’s, he walked his bike up to the porch, then climbed up the steps and knocked.
Marilyn answered the door, buttoning the top of her blouse.
“Marilyn?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s right.”
David came up behind her, barechested, staring over her shoulder at Moriarty.
“Marilyn, I’m with the Venice Police Department, and I’d like to ask you a few questions about the vampire as—”
“Let’s see a badge,” David interrupted.
“Beg pardon?” Moriarty asked.
“If you’re a police officer, you’ve got a badge, right?”
Moriarty sighed, then remembered that he’d kept his letter of introduction to Gallagher in his wallet. He took it out along with his driver’s license and handed it to David.
David skimmed over the letter and shook his head.
“Sorry, pal, but that’s not good enough for—”
“David . . .” Marilyn interrupted, “The man’s only trying to help. Come in, mister . . . I mean, Doctor.”
“You can just call me Jerry,” Moriarty said. “I’m not too keen on titles.”
He stepped into the living room. They had apparently been watching television. The Mummy was on. Boris Karloff in bandages, lusting after Zita Johann.
“I realize you’ve already talked with the men at homicide, Ms. O’Connor, but I hope you won’t mind if I go over the ground again with you. I’m sure you’re aware there’s been another murder probably committed by the same man who assaulted you.”
“He didn’t assault me,” Marilyn corrected. “He just scared me half to death.”
“That’s assault as surely as a physical at
tack, Marilyn. Now, have you thought of anything you might have forgotten when you first explained it to the police?”
Marilyn thought, then shook her head.
“No, I—”
“How about that one guy you were telling me about?” David interjected.
“Oh, no, David. He might have been angry, but murder’s a whole other thing.”
“Who was it?” Moriarty asked. “You have to realize that any lead will be helpful.”
Marilyn shrugged her shoulders.
“Well, there was this guy . . . Joey. Joey Madonna . . .”
CHAPTER • 25
Approaching midnight, Berger was still at work, armed with a ledger and adding machine against the swarm of paperwork huddled on the desk before him. He labored under the dim glow cast by an old gooseneck lamp. He had pulled down the shade in front of the desk, shutting out the world. No phones were ringing. The scowl on his face had softened some, having no one to use it on. He seemed almost content. Retirement might not be all that bad after all, he thought.
Finishing a series of figures, he cranked the vintage adding machine and ripped off the tape, setting it down on the desk next to the ledger.
The shade before him snapped open abruptly.
Berger jumped back in his chair.
Sam stood before the counter, smiling at Berger dimwittedly beneath his frayed service cap.
“Mr. Berger, sir,” he said sheepishly.
“Jesus Christ, Sam,” Berger said, recovering. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Could I go out for some coffee, sir?” he mumbled, like a kindergartener telling his teacher he has to go number two. “I’ll only be a minute.”
“Yeah, all right,” Berger said, still feeling edgy. “Go ahead. You better get me a cup, too. I’ll be here half the night correcting these invoices Binford loused up!”
“Yessir,” Sam sputtered, backing away from the window and starting back across the aisles of the storage room.
“And, Sam,” Berger advised. “For God’s sake, wear a bell!”
Berger drew the shade and went back to the invoices, cursing to himself when the figures didn’t match up.
Outside, the spotlight illuminating the loading dock snapped off. The lamp continued to glow orange a moment, then was engulfed by the darkness that filled the lot.
Several minutes later, Berger heard a scuffling of feet out in the storage room. He frowned and leaned forward, pulling the shade aside.
“Sam, are you still here?” he called out to the darkness.
There was no answer.
Berger moved away from the desk and stood-up to investigate. Leaving the office, he turned on the switch for the hall lights, but they didn’t come on. He stood in the doorway; annoyed.
“Is anything working right around here?”
There was another noise.
Berger was flustered.
“Is anybody there?”
He’d spent enough of his life in this building to know the floorplan, and he made his way blindly in the darkened hallway.
Control yourself, Berger, he chastised himself. Goddamnit, get a hold of yourself.
In the storage room, Berger made his way down the rows of shelves stocked with film cannisters. There was enough of a moon outside to throw light through the uppermost windows, giving Berger a dim view of the separate aisles.
He was halfway down one row when three cans suddenly tumbled off the shelf directly in front of him. He flinched with an audible gasp.
“Shit!”
No sound followed the dying echo of the fallen cans.
“Is anybody there?” Berger called out anxiously, unnerved.
The room remained silent aside from the drone of the air conditioner. He stared at the cannisters, trying to let anger replace his fear.
“Goddamn stock boys!” he swore.
Making his way back to the office, he found that the blackness had claimed that room as well.
“Where are the lights now? What the hell is going on here?” he swore aloud, crossing the room and pressing the button of the gooseneck lamp. Something popped and the lamp spat sparks and a quick puff of smoke. An electrical shock launched Berger’s hand away from the lamp with a force that carried him backward several steps.
Groaning with pain, his nerves on end, Berger regained his balance and slumped over his desk. Breathing heavily, he went through the drawers, coming up with a bottle of bourbon down to its last few shots.
“Sam,” Berger deduced weakly, staring at the bottle.
He stood up and unscrewed the bottle, tilting it back to drain the last of the amber fluid.
An arm wrapped in tattered strips of yellowed gauze exploded through one of the movie posters covering another of the windows directly behind him. Bandaged fingers clutched at Berger’s throat, dragging him back against the wall with a strength that almost wrenched him off his feet.
The arm vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Freed, Berger staggered back into the center of the room, trying to mouth words his fright held balled up in his throat.
A fist-sized hole in the poster was the only sign of his attacker.
Still reeling in shock, Berger turned slowly toward the scuffling sound that came down the hallway toward the office.
“W . . . wait . . . no, don’t come in!”
He stared at the doorway, through which a mummy-clad figure limped toward him, one arm extended stiffly outwards, the other held bent in a gauze sling. A gurgling sound rumbled in the back of its throat.
Berger leaned back onto his desk, pulling himself up onto it in fear. The mummy continued in slow pursuit. Berger threw aside the shade and clawed his way out the window into the storage room.
“Sam!” he shouted, receiving no answer.
Back among the aisles of film cans, Berger moved quietly. If he didn’t betray his position, he was certain he could elude the attacker long enough for the night watchman to return.
From around the corner just ahead of him, the mummy pulled himself into the aisle and came at Berger with its slow, stiff-limbed gait, beaming a flashlight in his eyes.
The chase went on, with Berger unable to put enough distance between himself and his pursuer to do anything but run. Several times he pulled down neatly stacked pillars of film cans to block the mummy’s progress, but the wrapped aberration merely dragged its feet through the obstruction.
Berger finally found himself cornered near the locked rear entrance. He threw himself on the door desperately, tugging futilely at the locks and handles.
There was a fire axe bracketed to a nearby wall. Berger clutched at it and brought it over to the door. His frenzied swings punctured slits in the metal, but did nothing to better his chances of escaping. All the while he could hear the mummy coming up behind him.
He finally turned to face his attacker and raised the axe high, ready to assume a last-ditch offensive.
His features suddenly twisted themselves in a visage of pain. He slowly lowered the axe, then let it drop to the floor. He fell, reaching at his failing heart. Unsteady fingers clawed at his pockets. He withdrew his pills, but lost his hold on the vial. It rolled away from him on the floor, toward the mummy. Before he could regain his hold on the pills, the mummy gently kicked the vial aside.
As Berger’s heart beat its last, the mummy began to laugh, an eerie cackle of self-amusement.
CHAPTER • 26
Three burly men in white uniforms like hospital orderlies walked up the steps to Eric’s front door. One of them knocked.
Eric opened the door momentarily.
“Mr. Jarrett?”
Eric nodded. “Come in,” he said, holding the door open for them.
The men walked into the kitchen, cluttered with unwashed dishes and take-out food containers.
“Over this way,” Eric said, walking over to the doorway leading into Aunt Stella’s bedroom. They followed him and looked in.
“Everything?” one of them asked.
“Ev
erything but the vanity,” Eric said.
The three men stepped into the room and surveyed it.
“May as well start with the hardest and be done with it,” their leader said, walking over to the bed and methodically pulling off the sheets and covers. While he folded them, the other two hefted up the mattress and carried it out through the living room and kitchen to the door. Eric held it open for them and watched as they carefully brought the bed down the steps and into the back of a white truck parked in front of the house. The lettering on the truck’s side panels read Venice Community Thrift Shops.
Eric propped open the door with one of the terracotta pots containing the brown, shriveled corpse of a coleus. Back in the kitchen, he turned down the heat under the kettle and asked the others if they wanted any coffee. He poured out three cups and brought them into the bedroom, setting them down on the makeup table and taking an occasional sip as he helped the men clear out his aunt’s room.
It was shortly after ten in the morning. Eric had reported to work earlier, figuring Sam would not have let on that he had been fired by Berger the previous evening. He had been right, but was still told he wouldn’t be working today. Andrews, Continental’s grim-faced foreman, had told Eric and the others that the plant was going to be closed for the day due to the death of Mr. Berger. As Andrews had explained it, Berger had suffered a massive heart attack the previous night. Eric had been relieved by the explanation. After his encounter with Berger, he had set back all the overturned film cans and takeup reels and taped a poster over the hacked slits in the back door before putting the axe back, but he had been plagued by the nagging fear that he had left some telling clue behind. He had innocently asked Andrews a few more questions to assure himself that no one suspected murder, then had come home, ecstatic.
They finished the moving in a little over an hour, leaving Aunt Stella’s room barren except for the vanity.
“Well, I guess that will about do it, then,” the head man in white said as his co-workers carried out Aunt Stella’s wheelchair.
“Actually,” Eric said meekly. “If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like you guys to help me move something in there.”
