I left the kitchen and switched off the light. Kleks continued to stand beside Bobik’s basket, not moving. He didn’t even look around as I crossed the living room to Mazey’s bedroom and very quietly opened the door. I thought: well, he’s Rick’s dog, if Rick isn’t worried about him, why should I be? Maybe he’s just an insomniac.
Do dogs suffer from insomnia? I asked myself. Do dogs have nightmares?
The red numerals on the digital clock shed just enough light for me to grope my way to my bed. Mazey had taken off all the clothes that had been heaped on it, straightened the comforter and plumped up the pillows. She was asleep now, whistling through one nostril as she breathed. So much for her asking me if I snored.
I took off the towel that I had wrapped around my middle and hung it over the back of the chair. Then I climbed into bed and lay there, staring up into the darkness, thinking of everything that had brought me here – of Mrs Ratzenberger’s bracelet and Father Zapata’s self-mutilation and the nuns who had appeared in my bedroom, but most of all of Matchitehew and Megedagik.
The night was very quiet. All I could hear were cicadas and the muffled sound of traffic and Mazey’s repetitive whistling. It was hard for me to believe that the past two or three days had actually happened. In fact, I was trying to convince myself that my encounter with the nuns and Misquamacus’ two sons had all been the result of my overactive imagination and too much Jameson’s whiskey.
I knew, though, that it had all been real. I had seen Native American magic at work more than once before, and it was earth-shattering. You have to remember that every tree and every rock and every river from one side of the country to the other harbors a Native American manitou. This is still their land, spiritually, even if we took it away from them. It’s like a haunted house. You may own the deeds, but the house itself still belongs to the ghosts.
What frightened me most of all was that Matchitehew and Megedagik wanted me, out of all the millions of people in the USA, to warn the whole country of what they intended to do. I couldn’t – like, how could I? – but what would they do to me if I didn’t? If they had found me once in Coral Gables, then there was every likelihood that they could find me again, here in Hollywood.
I was beginning to think that nuns and wonder-workers and blood-vomiting priests were going to keep on whirling around in my mind all night like some hideous fairground carousel and keep me awake until morning. After less than ten minutes, though, my exhaustion caught up with me and I fell asleep, and very deeply, too, as if I had fallen down a well.
I don’t know if I dreamed or not. I don’t remember any dreams. But I was suddenly aware that I could feel breathing against the right side of my face. Soft, quick breathing, like an animal panting.
Jesus! I thought. One of the dogs has climbed into bed with me!
I sat bolt upright and flapped my arms around and shouted out, ‘Scram!’ mainly because I had no idea what the Polish was for ‘get the hell out of my bed, you mutt’.
Immediately, though, I felt an arm around my waist and a fluting little voice said, ‘Shh! It’s only me. Don’t wake everybody up!’
I twisted around. It was Mazey. She was lying right next to me, and as far as I could tell in the darkness, she was completely naked. ‘Mazey!’ I hissed at her. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m giving you a cuddle, baby, that’s all!’
‘You’re what? We hardly know each other!’
‘That doesn’t matter. You’re a friend of Rick’s, aren’t you, and you smell nice.’
OK, I admit that I did smell nice. I had sprayed myself with Ralph Lauren Polo after my shower. But I didn’t really see how being a friend of Rick’s could possibly make me sexually attractive to any woman – especially a big-breasted blonde beautician who was probably fifteen years younger than me. Rick was the most unreliable scuzzball I had ever known, apart from my father, but that’s another story. ‘You’d best go back to your own bed,’ I told her. ‘I don’t want to cause any ructions on my first night here. I mean, what will your sister say?’
‘She won’t mind. In any case, it’s none of her business, and we don’t have to tell her. What happens in the spare bedroom stays in the spare bedroom.’
‘So far, Mazey, nothing has happened in the spare bedroom except that you have unexpectedly gotten into bed with me.’
‘That’s a good start, though, isn’t it?’ she said, in that squeaky little voice. She took hold of my penis, which was already half-erect, and she massaged it firmly and slowly up and down.
‘Mazey—’ I started to say, but I didn’t try to pry off her fingers or push her away. Temptation is temptation, after all, and there’s only a certain amount of temptation that any man can be expected to resist, especially with those big soft breasts squashed against me.
I lay back flat on the bed, and she continued to massage me. I have to admit she really had a gift for it. Maybe it was her experience as a beautician, but whatever it was, I had never felt as hard as that in my life.
She dipped her head down and licked me, just one lick, but it was then that I started to get panicky. Irrational, I know, but I couldn’t help a picture of Father Zapata flashing into my mind’s eye, doubled over on my bed with his penis in his mouth – and then that crunch as he bit into it. I flinched and pressed my hand flat against Mazey’s braided hair.
Mazey raised her head. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked me. ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’
‘No, no – it’s just that—’ I didn’t know how to explain it to her.
‘Hey, you’re not shy, are you?’ she teased me.
‘Shy? Me? No, of course not!’
She propped herself up on one elbow, so that her breasts tumbled to one side. ‘You’re not gay, are you? I mean, if you’re gay, God, I’m so sorry!’
‘Mazey—’ I began, but I was interrupted by a howl from right outside the bedroom door – a hollow, agonized, self-pitying howl. It sounded exactly like one of those movies when a man turns into a werewolf. Immediately after the howl had died away, there was a heavy thump against the door panel, and then another thump and a scrabbling, scratching sound.
‘Oh my God!’ said Mazey, rolling off the side of the bed. ‘What the hell is that?’
I bounced off the bed too, pulled open the closet and tried to find my chinos. The wire coat-hangers jangled, and some of them dropped on to the floor. ‘Light, Mazey! Turn on the goddamned light!’
She clicked on the dim little fluorescent wall-lamp over her bed. At the same time there was another howl, even longer-lasting and more agonized than the first, and more feverish scratching at the door. Then Kleks started barking, and this time he didn’t stop. I heard Rick’s bedroom door open and Rick say, ‘What the fuck? Jesus!’ Then he called, ‘Dazey! Get your ass out of bed and get out here!’ Then he knocked furiously at our bedroom door and shouted, ‘Wizard! Mazey! Are you guys awake?’
Mazey had pulled on a tight white T-shirt with shocking-pink lettering on it, while I had just about managed to fasten the belt of my pants. I opened the bedroom door, and there was blood everywhere, as if it had been thrown around out of a bucket. It was splattered all the way up the walls and all the way across the floor in a twisting trail that led from the kitchen.
Lying on his side in the middle of all of this glistening red action painting, his hair soaked, his eyes glassy, one lip raised up in a snarl, was Bobik, the Labrador Retriever. Kleks was standing close to him, barking with all the monotony of a blacksmith’s hammer.
‘Oh my God, what’s happened to Bobik?’ said Dazey as she appeared in her bedroom doorway. ‘Kleks hasn’t gone for him, has he?’
I bent over Bobik and peered at him closely. I didn’t want to kneel down because there was so much blood on the floor. I waved my hand in front of his eyes, but Bobik didn’t blink, and I couldn’t hear him breathing, although it was hard to tell with Kleks barking so loudly. His chest didn’t seem to be rising and falling, and although his tongue was hanging ou
t he wasn’t panting. I guessed those were pretty clear indications that life was extinct.
‘Is he dead?’ asked Rick.
I nodded. ‘I think so. I don’t know how many liters of blood dogs have in their circulatory system, but it looks to me like Bobik’s lost most of them.’
Rick was wearing nothing but some baggy old black sweatpants and a sleeveless A-vest. He hunkered down next to Bobik and placed his hand flat against his flank. ‘I think you’re right, man. I can’t feel him breathing.’ He ran his hands all along Bobik’s bloody body, and then turned him over. ‘He don’t seem to have no injuries noplace. No bite-marks or nothing. I just don’t get it. Where’d all this blood come from?’
He stood up, shaking his head. Kleks was still barking, so he turned around and shouted, ‘Shut the fuck up, Kleks, will you? Zamknij sie!’
Kleks kept on, so Rick took him by the collar and dragged him through to the kitchen. ‘My God,’ I heard him say. ‘There’s blood all over. It looks like a fucking massacre.’
I went into the kitchen too, to take a look. Rick had opened the door to the back yard and pushed Kleks outside. When he closed the door again, Kleks stopped barking, surprisingly, although he continued to scratch at the door and whine to be let back in.
From the state of the floor right beside Bobik’s basket, I could see that he had projectile-vomited blood all the way across to the base of the sink units. A haphazard pattern of paw prints suggested that he had then staggered out of his basket and made his way out of the kitchen door, vomiting blood three or four times on the way. More paw prints circled around the main trail of blood, which must have been made by Kleks as he followed his dying companion across the living room. It looked as if Bobik had been trying to find a human to help him, but by the time he reached our bedroom door he would have been beyond saving – and anyhow, what could we have done? I knew from experience that emergency veterinary clinics have blood banks for dogs and cats, because I once had a tortoiseshell cat that was partially flattened by a Humvee on 13th Street. But even if we could have found a vet at that time of night, it would have been too late for Bobik.
Dazey retreated into the bathroom, and we could hear the sound of her pepperoni pizza coming back up. Mazey clearly had a stronger stomach because she went into the kitchen and came back a minute or two later with a yellow plastic bucket filled with hot soapy water and a squeegee mop.
‘Thanks, Maze, you’re amazing,’ said Rick. ‘Wizard – I’ll go find an old blanket or something. Maybe you can help me carry Bobik out to the yard.’
‘What are you going to do with him, Rick? Don’t you think you need to take him to a vet and find out what he died of? Supposing Kleks comes down with it? Supposing humans can catch it? I saw a priest in Coral Gables dying of a hemorrhage, and believe me it wasn’t pleasant.’
‘Kleks looks OK. If he was going to catch it he would have been showing some signs of it by now, wouldn’t he?’
‘How should I know? I mean, maybe it’s not infectious. Maybe Bobik had an aneurysm or something like that, but I’m no expert.’
Rick looked blank.
‘A weakness in one of his arteries,’ I added. ‘My uncle had one in his brain. Killed him in mid-sentence.’
Rick looked down at Bobik’s bloodied body, and then at his own bloodied hands. ‘The thing of it is, Wizard, I don’t have the necessary license to operate this business. If I take Bobik to a veterinary clinic they’re going to want to know what he’s been exposed to. Maybe it was the cypermethrin that made him sick. Maybe he got bitten by the bedbugs and they gave him something. If it was anything related to him being a sniffer dog, then they’re going to report me to the DPR and that’s me finished. You know how much that goddamned van cost me, and getting it all customized like that?’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘So what do you intend to do?’
‘What else can I do? I’m going to bury him.’
I looked down at Bobik’s body, and then I looked across at Mazey, who was mopping the living-room floor now, squeezing pink water into her bucket. Mazey shrugged. If Rick had to close down his exterminating business, who was going to pay the rent and put pepperoni pizzas on the table? The lettering on the front of her T-shirt said ‘This T-Shirt Was Tested On Animals But It Didn’t Fit Them’, but right then I wasn’t in the mood for jokes.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘I never went to a dog’s funeral before, but I guess there’s always a first time.’
TWENTY
We carried Bobik’s body out into the back yard, and Rick switched on the floodlight so that we could see to dig him a grave. Kleks stopped whining as soon as we came out of the back door, but when we laid the bloodied blanket on the patio he sat close beside it and kept his eyes on us, as if he wanted to make sure that we treated his dead companion with respect.
There was a narrow flower-bed on the right-hand side of the yard, which contained nothing much but weeds and cigarette ends. Rick found a shovel in the small storage bunker at the side of the house and started to dig. He hadn’t watered the yard since he and Dazey had moved in, and the ground was cracked and dry, like broken terracotta pots. He cursed with every chunk of soil that he managed to pry up.
‘Christ Almighty, Wizard! How about you taking a turn, in lieu of rent?’
‘Your dog, man. Besides, my cards said I had to beware of strenuous physical exertion.’
‘Oh, yeah? You watch out for Mazey, in that case.’
In spite of that, I helped him to dig, and after about an hour we had a reasonable grave about two feet deep. Between us, we lifted up Bobik’s body in his makeshift shroud and lowered him in. Kleks came and stood next to us, and although I don’t believe that dogs have emotions, not the same as humans do, I swear he looked grief-stricken. His ears were flat and his tail was down, and when he looked up at me his eyes were glistening as if he was trying not to cry.
‘Well,’ said Rick, ‘if there’s a doggy heaven, let’s hope that’s where you are, Bobik. Przynien´ patyk.’
‘What does that mean?’ I asked him.
‘“Go fetch a stick.” I don’t know any prayers in Polish.’
He picked up the shovel and covered Bobik’s body with soil, patting it down flat. Kleks looked a little bewildered by this, but he followed us obediently back into the kitchen, where Mazey had just finished mopping up the last of the blood. Kleks climbed into his basket and curled himself up.
Rick switched off the outside floodlight and said, ‘I’d better make sure that Dazey’s OK. Mazey, thanks for cleaning up. You’re an angel. If I hadn’t of met your sister before you—’
Mazey gave him the finger and said, ‘Don’t even think about it, Ricardo.’
We went back to our bedroom, although Mazey returned to her own bed. She didn’t take off her T-shirt, and she didn’t try to continue where she had left off. I was too exhausted to be disappointed. I almost felt as if I had been digging my own grave instead of Bobik’s.
‘What do you think was wrong with him?’ Mazey asked me, in the darkness.
‘I have no idea. I’m just hoping that it’s not infectious. Or contagious. Or whatever.’
‘Yeah,’ said Mazey. Then, after a while, ‘I think we’re going to be friends, you and me.’
‘Is that all?’
‘You don’t really want more than that, do you? You’ve still got somebody else on your mind.’
‘How come women can always see through me? Sometimes I feel like I’m transparent.’
‘You’re tired, Harry. You need to get some sleep.’
‘I just can’t help thinking about that priest who died, back in Coral Gables. He was bringing up blood, just like Bobik.’
‘Oh, come on. One was a priest, and one was a dog. And they’re so far apart. I mean, like, geographically.’
It occurred to me that I had never before been lying in bed after burying a dog and heard a young big-breasted beautician use the word ‘geographically’.
‘Yes, you’re right,’ I
said. ‘And I do need some sleep. So, goodnight.’
I turned over and tried to empty my mind. The trouble was, my mind wouldn’t stop making connections. I kept seeing those nuns standing in my bedroom and the nun who had been sitting on the plane. I kept hearing Matchitehew’s rasping voice, saying, ‘Your spirits know your ways. They know your magic. They know what diseases can make you sick.’
Early next morning my shoulders had seized up from that all that grave-digging, and both Rick and Dazey looked frowzy and unfocused, with puffy bags under their eyes and their hair sticking up, as if they hadn’t slept at all. We sat in the kitchen looking like three worn-out zombies, although the irrepressible Mazey did her best to bring us all back to life by whipping up omelets for us and perking coffee and singing ‘Mexican Wine’.
I sat on one of the kitchen bar-stools, watching her beating eggs in a bowl with her breasts bouncing underneath her T-shirt, and I thought that she was a girl with real character. I would have bet that most of the guys she went out with never appreciated how strong and funny she was, and how perceptive. I guess a lot of men would have felt angry and frustrated with her, but I really liked the way that she had teased me, but then realized that was not the way for either of us to go.
‘Hey, Wizard, I have a job at eleven thirty in Van Nuys,’ said Rick, with a shred of omelet dangling from his unshaven chin. ‘How about it, man? You want to come along? I’d appreciate the help.’
‘Urrghh … OK. But this afternoon I must start looking for someplace to live. And I have to start advertising for clients, too. I need to find myself some rich old widows, and quick.’
‘… and the sun still shines in the summertime,’ sang Mazey, her voice so high that I thought my glass of orange juice was going to shatter. ‘I’ll be yours if you’ll be mine …’
Plague of the Manitou Page 22
