 
###

### WINTER

###

### DREAMS

Short Stories

&

First Chapters

By

DAVID L. RUGGERI

Winter Dreams by David L. Ruggeri

Copyright 2012 by David L. Ruggeri

Smashwords Edition

### DEDICATION

For Kelly and Sean, my children,

with all my love

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Winter Dreams

Expiation

A View From The Sanctuary

Lemmenkov's Lament

From Beginning To Beginning

Radzinsky's Lunch

A House In The Suburbs

Breakdown

The Tenant

Charlie's Big Trick

Christmas Past

The Last Christmas Tree

FIRST CHAPTERS

Author's Note

The Other

Father Everlasting

In Hopes Of Heaven

The Luxembourg Amendment

Let Us Do Evil

The Haunt

Forbidden Flowers

The Projectionist

A Faint Cold Fear

The Fanatic

A River Of Time

Nightangel

Two Cats In The House

#

#

# WINTER DANCE

## For My grandfather Victor

## "Sons-a-bitches! Goddamn sons-a-bitches!"

Victor Clemenza slammed his hand on the kitchen table. Coffee spilled and his daughter-in-law jumped at the sudden noise.

"Look at them!" He stabbed the paper with a gnarled finger. "They're all leaving me. The inconsiderate bastards! What kind of friends are they, anyway?"

By now Linda should have been familiar with the routine. Every morning the old man wheeled his chair out of the large ground-floor bedroom and, before anything else - including his first cup of decaffeinated coffee - he turned the paper directly to the obituaries. There, he would carefully peruse the roster of the recently departed in search of old acquaintances who had the effrontery to die and abandon him in what he perceived as the rapidly dwindling club of the still living. "Papa," Linda said, as she always did, "you should just be thankful that you're okay and you still have your health." The old man slapped the wheels of the chair to which he had been more or less confined for seven years. "You call this health!" He banged on the hard rubber with both fists. "I'm a damned invalid!"

"You can take care of yourself, and that's what counts," she pointed out with an encouraging smile. "You mean you and Lorenzo don't have to wipe my ass yet," he grumped at her.

And I'll be damned if I'm going to, Linda thought. She'd let her husband or a rest home take care of that little chore when the time came.

"Larry loves you, Papa. We all do."

"Besides, if I can take such good care of myself, why did Lorenzo insist that I come and live with you?" "We just wanted to make sure that nothing happened to you."

Victor had lived with them for the last seven years - since his stroke. They all knew it might have been worse; he could have been totally debilitated when the small blood vessel on the right side of his brain burst in the middle if the night and he woke in his solitary bed to find that parts of his body no longer functioned as he expected. But this was bad enough. Because of his father's incapacity, Larry - Linda refused to call him Lorenzo as the old man persisted - invited his Victor to sell his small house in San Francisco and come live with them a few miles down the peninsula in San Bruno. They gave up their downstairs master bedroom and moved upstairs near their three daughters.

The twins, Laura and Katharine, now bunked in together and the older child, Melissa, still had her own room. "After all," Larry had said in a morbid attempt at practicality when they discovered how much it disrupted their lives, "how long will he last? And he is my father." But now, seven years later, Victor Clemenza was still the tenacious survivor of what his doctor called "a medical inconvenience." Sometimes the two-story house in San Bruno seemed much too small for all of them.

"I should have gone up to see them," Victor said, shaking his head and wistfully looking out the window at the morning fog, which was just starting to draw its gray tendrils back over the hills separating them and nearby San Francisco Bay from the ocean.

The old man tried to finish his breakfast before the children came down. He loved his grandchildren dearly but dreaded the noise and confusion of them all in the kitchen at the same time. Besides, he still found it supremely annoying to hear them call him: "Nono."

"Nono" was reserved for old farts. It's what he had called his grandfather. He wasn't a "Nono." It was bad enough that Linda called him Papa, but when she insisted that the children call him Nono, he thought the ethnic reminder of his advanced years was just a bit much.

When he heard the first thrum of footfalls overhead, signifying that the tribe was rising, Victor asked Linda to push him out onto the front porch. He could have wheeled himself, but he felt the sudden need for a quick exit. Even though the morning chill and damp was still prevalent in the misty air, he preferred the possibility of an ache in his bones to the guaranteed one in his ears.

On the porch, he brooded silently: Damn, another one was gone. Luciano Ramello. The man wasn't that old, was he? Larry Clemenza's house was on the top of a steep hill with a huge palm tree that harbored owls. It once harbored rats, but when the owls took up housekeeping with their mournful cries in the wild center of the tree, there were no more rats - or any other kind of vermin.

On a clear day, Victor could look out across the bedroom community of San Bruno and see the hills of South San Francisco. Just beyond, he knew was the great city itself, where he had spent most of his life.

Although the object of the obituary in today's paper, Luciano Ramello, wasn't exactly a friend, he was a part of Victor's life. It was Luciano who had broken his nose in a fight when they were both fifteen. The damned beak never did heal right! And from then on his Roman nose roamed off to the side with an independence of its own. He remembered Ramello as a contentious teen-ager who grew into an arrogant man and eventually an obnoxious old grouch.

But that was all in the past now. Ramello was gone, and another link in the chain of his own mortality had been dissolved.

Victor recalled growing up in San Francisco. He had come with his mother and two brothers from Italy when he was twelve, two years after his father preceded them to establish a home and life in America for his young family. Victor looked down at the legs which were now only good enough for one or two wobbly steps at a time. He had to smile.

They were good legs - once. Fast legs. He used them up and down the hills of North Beach, running numbers - literally running the numbers from the shops and homes on the steep slopes of Broadway and Columbus just north of Chinatown. He ran them down to the little capo, Aldo Malatesta, who held court at Mike's Pool Hall on Broadway.

"You don't walk around with no money for more than two hours," Malatesta warned the twelve year-old. "Every two hours you come to Mike's and give me the bag, you hear? And learn the language!" he added.

Victor understood and did as he was told. He was lucky to walk off the boat and get any kind of job. But that's why his father had come to the States, to establish a place for the family. The old man in the wheel chair smiled again. North Beach back in the thirty's - before the bosses abandoned it to the night clubs and the topless joints. What a place to grow up! That's where he first saw Lucia.

He had been running the numbers for three years, and Malatesta trusted him to drop the bag only once a day now. He saw her in the small bakery right off of Broadway and Taylor where her father bought a two-bit ticket every Friday. He must have been going into that sweet smelling place for almost a year before he happened to be in there one day when school was out and she was working behind the counter with her father.

Ma che Christo! What a beauty! Like an angel! She was busily stacking fresh rolls in the large wooden bins and it was the most noble of all occupations because her hands touched each miniature loaf and blessed the bread as if it were the very staff of life. Victor's heart was lost the moment he saw her. She had the face of a Madonna, the figure of a movie star - Victor liked the American movies, he had been raised on them in Italy - and the voice of rippling water over the ancient bricks on Lombard street when winter rain washed the world clean and wonderful.

Malatesta spotted it the minute the boy came into Mike's

that evening. The capo looked into his runner's eyes and knew

that something was different. If he didn't know the Clemenza

family better, he would have suspected that the kid was

skimming the take, neglecting to record some bets, figuring to cover the stake himself if the numbers hit - which they never did. But Victor was too smart to steal. It had to be something else.

"Vittorio, 'smatter? You look like you seen a ghost." Victor liked it when they called him Vittorio. It made him feel like a man. "Aye, Aldo, I have seen the most beautiful woman in the world!"

Malatesta laughed. The kid was fifteen, what did he know from women? But then he saw the hurt on the boy's face and immediately passed the laughter off as something to do with things other than his runner's statement.

The capo got serious. "So, Vittorio, tell me about this woman."

"She is an angel! A saint! The most bellisima!" "I am most impressed. And where is this wonderful creature?"

"Ricci's Bakery. Her name is Lucia."

Aldo Malatesta's eyes widened and he placed his thumb and the first two fingers of his hand to his lips for a noisy kiss. "Ah, yes Lucia Di Lammermoor! Che bella!"

"You know her?"

"Does a priest know the names of all the saints? Of course, I know her." He smiled. "As you say, Vittorio, she is an angel!"

"I shall marry this woman!"

Malatesta tried to hide the return of his laughter. "Of course you shall. But for now, get back out there and take care of the shops on Grant. As long as the Chinamen are too proud to run their own numbers we'll continue to relieve them of the burden.

He ran off with the thought that "Lucia Di Lammermoor" was the most beautiful sounding name in the world; it whispered through his head like the wind and fog horns of a stormy night through the Golden Gate.

Victor was seventeen years old, and had spent two years in ignorant bliss, hovering around the bakery without saying a word to the girl before he discovered that Di Lammermoor was not her name but the title of an opera by Donezetti. Actually, her name was Lucia Milano, and he thought that was even more beautiful than Di Lammermoor.

He accused Malatesta politely - for it did no good to irritate such men - of misleading him.

"Ah, Vittorio, I fancied you knew I was just joking about the name. I thought you knew that "Lucia Di Lammermoor" is an opera."

Victor felt sheepish. "I must have forgotten." "Yes, of course." The capo did not get where he was by treating hardworking employees with any less respect than he himself would expect. "Come, Vittorio, I have a treat for you." The boss put a large hairy arm around the young man and led him into the back room of Mike's Pool Hall and there, in the small office reserved only for Mike, the owner, and Malatesta, he put a record on an old Victrola and introduced Victor Clemenza to the sound of his first opera. Next to furtive glimpses of Lucia Milano, the opera in the back room of that pool hall was the most heart-achingly exquisite experience of his young life.

Eventually he married Lucia, and he also began a life-long affair with the musical wonders of grand opera. Now, an old man in a wheel chair, he was limited to dreaming about Lucia and her beauty, long lost in the dusty corridors of his memory and the damp earth of the Italian cemetery just outside of San Francisco, a city with no cemeteries of its own.

On Saturday mornings now he sat in his bedroom and listened to the Texaco broadcast of opera from the Metropolitan in New York. It was a special time. And every couple of years, when they did a new production of "Lucia Di Lammermoor," he would remember the young girl with flour on her cheeks in Ricci's Bakery who would become the love of his life - and Aldo Malatesta's little joke. They were all gone now. Almost all gone, except him. "He was at it again this morning." Linda said to her husband.

"So, what can we do about it? I suppose it's normal for old people to start thinking about their friends who have passed on."

Victor could hear them talking. It was well into November, but the weather was unseasonably mild and he had had Linda wheel him out onto the back porch so that he couldcatch the late afternoon sun. The warmth still lingered in the enclosed porch like the waning heat of the blood in his own veins.

His son was home early. "Larry" the accountant! Listen to them talking in there, as if he wasn't out on the porch, hearing every word. He could be a piece of furniture for all the consideration Lorenzo and his skinny wife gave him!

"It concerns me," Linda said. "He gets angry and depressed."

"How can you get angry and depressed?" "Larry, let's not turn this into a lesson in the precision of semantics. Your father worries me."

"Well, he doesn't worry me."

"You're not home all day with him."

"Ah, that's the crux of the matter, isn't it: you resent him." "I don't resent him! I'm just troubled about him. And you should be concerned."

The old man tuned them out. He'd heard it all before and would rather not hear it again. If there was any resentment, it was his - at being forced to depend on these people, even if they were family.

Familia! Those days in North Beach we were all family! If you were Italian, you were family. If you were scamming the Chinks or the Polacks or the Spics out in the Mission District, you were a member of the inner circle of the family. When he and Lucia were married, and it was not easy to get her father's permission when the man found out that his prospective son-in-law was working for Aldo Malatesta, he had to make some important decisions.

Massimo Milano glared at the young testa dura - hard head - who asked for his daughter's hand in marriage and knew that he had a choice: throw the boy out, or agree to the union with certain conditions.Considering Vittorio Clemenza had been mooning around the bakery for almost five years now, and seeing his daughter under chaperoned conditions, of course, for the last two of those, in spite of his objections - there would be little accomplished by sending the suitor on his way. Making it impossible for them would just make the relationship seem more attractive to the couple. Therefore his decision was to make it as reasonably difficult as possible. There would be no marriage as long as Victor worked for that dilinquente Malatesta. There would be no more number running or taking bets from the Chinamen on Grant Avenue. Vittorio Clemenza would have to get his high school diploma and a real job - a legitimate job.

Such a sacrifice! But worth it for the dear angel who looked at him with the deepest dark eyes of longing equivalent to his own.

Victor got a job driving a truck for Wonder Bread and began night classes for his high school diploma at the age of twenty.

The week after he received the paper from the Department of Adult Education, he married Lucia in St. Peter's and Paul's Church. A month after that, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and, unaware Lucia was pregnant, he was drafted. Italian speaking soldiers were valuable as both cannon fodder and translators so he was shipped to the European theater of operations where he remained through the first three year of his son Lorenzo's life.

Upon his return from the war, Victor used his mustering out pay and whatever he had been able to save to buy his own bread truck and subcontract to both Wonder Bread as well as some of the local bakeries. His territory was North Beach and he now found himself delivering bread to the stores and homes where he used to run numbers and pick up bets for Malatesta. Soon he was again an integral part of the community and his and Lucia's friends were numbered in the hundreds. He got religion, and went to church with his family at least twice a year - Christmas and Easter. When approached, he even became a member of the Knights of Columbus and the Italian Catholic Federation.

So many friends, so very many good friends. And now they were all dead or dying, the aggravating sons-a-bitches!

"Keep the newspaper away from him," was Larry's suggestion. "If he can't see who's died, then he won't brood about it."

"You try to keep the paper away from him," Linda retorted. "If he's up before either of us in the morning, he wheels out to the porch to get it himself. I think he's even bribed the paper boy to make sure it gets onto the porch instead of in the bushes."

"Then we'll just have to live with it," Victor's son said with the wisdom born of avoiding difficult confrontations where both his father and his wife were concerned. It might just be a welcome relief to get the Alzheimer's, the old man thought. If it wasn't for the fact that he would probably still understand the inane babble of his family, the disease could well be a blessing.

At least he would be relieved of this constant agitation over the precipitous departure of his old acquaintances. Perhaps Lorenzo was right: Don't read the paper. It was the damn paper from San Francisco that printed the obituaries and made him aware of all the passings. If he didn't have access to the newspaper, then his friends would still be alive, wouldn't they? Their breath would still bloom with white misty clouds in the early morning light on Taylor. Not a single footfall would be diminished on the steep hills of Columbus and Stockton Streets. Hell, even Mike's Pool Hall might still be open for business rather than the parking lot it had become - according to the newspaper!

Victor knew he would be unable to avoid the paper. His time spent daily with the Chronicle - except for the obituaries - was one of the few pleasures he had left. And he also knew that if he read the rag, then it would be impossible to avoid turning to the dreaded page of the dead. The clarion call of old comrades looking for some last recognition would be too hard to deny.

"Isn't it getting cold out here, Pop?" Larry asked flipping on the overhead porch light.

"Huh... uh... oh, yes... I suppose so. Must have drifted off."

He didn't want his son to know that he had been listening to their conversation. The more he kept the two of them thinking that he was dumb and semi-senile, the longer they would continue to talk nearby and he would be able to tell which way the wind was blowing. Ever since he moved in with them he sensed the changes his presence had made in their lives and their household, and he wouldn't put it past the accountant's wife to want to have him thrown into a rest home. So far it was the frugality of the accountant himself - and probably his own ability to still wipe himself - that had prevented the feared move.

"Did you have a good day, Pop?"

"Sure. A great day. I ran ten miles, and then made wild passionate love to that old crow next door until she couldn't walk."

"Linda said you've been reading the obituaries again." "I always read the obituaries. There's no again, except for those thoughtless idiots in the city who insist on dying." "Don't read that part of the paper. Read the sports or the society section or something."

Larry was wheeling him back into the kitchen so they could have their dinner together and the kids could call him Nono while Linda worried about whether or not her cooking might obstruct his bowel movements.

"Somehow," Victor said, "I don't have much interest in charity dinners and tea dances."

"Who knows, maybe you'll spot a few of your old cronies who are still living, rather than reading about... about the ones that are dead."

This gave Victor food for thought which provided much more nutrition for his spirit than Linda's unimaginative cooking did for his body.

The next morning, once the obituaries provided no new revelations, and after he checked on the box scores for the Giants, Victor did turn to the society page. He had never found much use for this section of the paper, believing that it was intended for a class of citizen far and away different from his own. Here were pictures of the well-dressed - evening gowns and tuxedos - smiling and preening for the camera and whoever cared enough to read about their own select group of the rich and famous, or perhaps the poorer wannabe's who could do nothing but dream about such things.

With interest, he noted that, although a number of the articles were regular features provided by the newspaper's own columnists and writers, there were shorter pieces evidently submitted by representatives of social groups and various clubs reporting on their own organizations' activities. As he spent a chilly morning out on the front porch before the noon news on television, Victor ruminated about the paper and his discovery of the society pages.

What a bunch of self-serving, stuck-up swells! It was bad enough that the newspaper took the time, effort and waste of resources to write about their activities, but to actually sit down and write your own. The unmitigated arrogance! If the paper didn't check out the facts someone could write anything he wanted. The opportunity for self-aggrandizement was enormous.

The old man had to laugh aloud when he thought about writing an article for submission to the paper. He'd arrange to have his function attended by... by whom?" Someone famous. Maybe a movie star. Or perhaps one of those hot popular singers that the kids were always going on about. Wouldn't they be surprised to read about Nono tripping the light fantastic with Paula Abdul or someone like that! Maybe Madonna - she was Italian. Uh-huh. That would be a nice touch, an Italian-American dance of some kind.

"Something is wrong with your father."

Larry glanced toward the closed bedroom door with alarm. He had just arrived home from work; it was late and the insurance company audit his firm had him working on was not going well.

"Did you call a doctor," he asked.

"It's not that kind of problem."

Larry Clemenza sighed. "Now what is it?" "I think he's been writing his will. He must be feeling like he's going to die or something."

"His will?"

"Uh-huh. He came to me yesterday for a pen and some paper, and today he borrowed the Remington." "The old typewriter?"

"No, an electric razor. Of course, the typewriter! I think he's trying to get his affairs in order."

Always a pragmatic man, the accountant thought that this showed a tremendous amount of prescient consideration, and appreciated the fact that the latent genes of practicality had finally manifested themselves in the old man. Just to make sure, however, that everything was in order, he thought he'd better look in and offer any serviceable suggestions while it was still a timely proposition. "Hey, Pop, what's up. Linda said you've become a hermit or something."

"Been busy." Victor barely looked up from his hesitant hunt-and-peck on the old manual typewriter. The floor about him was littered with discarded partially typewritten pages and the balled up remnants of sheets from a legal yellow tablet filled with scrawled handwriting.

"What're you writing, the great American novel?"

"Article for the newspaper."

"Letter to the editor?"

"No, a piece for the society page."

Victor Clemenza had long ago mastered the art of sarcasm, and his son was appreciative of his father's skill with a razor-sharp tongue.

"No, really, Pop, what is it?" Damned if he'd let the old man get all the way through a complete draft of his will without some professional input!

Victor leaned back in his wheel chair. It looked like he welcomed a small reprieve from his efforts at the keyboard as he held out a page to his son. "I'm just polishing it up." "What is it?"

"They didn't teach you to read in that fancy school I sent you to?"

Larry sat on the edge of the bed they had brought over from the old house when his father came to live with them. He should have had a hospital bed, but the old man insisted that someday he was going to die in his sleep, and he wanted to go in the same bed he had shared with his wife. The same bed in which life had been conceived would be good enough to absorb his own when the time eventually came.

The younger man was surprised to see that his father hadn't been pulling his leg. The typewritten piece was indeed an article designed for the society page or the gossip column of some local newspaper:

ITALIAN-AMERICAN FEDERATION

HOLDS WINTER DANCE

Last night the Italian-American Federation held its annual Winter Formal Dance in the VFW Hall on Taylor Street.

It was a gala evening of good music, good food and old friends getting together.

The chairman of the event, Bernardo Ricci, said that this year's turn out was the best in a number of years. Many members of the Italian-American Federation and Knights of Columbus from the old North Beach Civic Society were in attendance, insuring a lively reunion.

Music was provided by Mario Sereni and The Four Amici. Their special blend of old country melodies and modern hits from Glen Miller , Harry James and Duke Ellington provided the enthusiastic crowd with dance music until well after midnight.

Noted among the revelers were such old friends of North Beach as Aldo Malatesta, Luciano Ramello, Massimo Marino, Lucia Clemenza...

Startled, Larry looked up from the paper. "What the hell is this?"

"An article for the Chronicle. It's for the society page. I told you that."

"But... but..."

"They accept announcements from all different organizations and print them."

"But..."

"But, what?"

"These... these people... they're all... they're..."

"They're what? Dead?"

"Well, yes."

"Most of them are dead only because the newspaper says they're dead. And now they can be alive again because the newspaper says they are. Who's to know, eh?" "Yeah, Pop, I know, but.."

"That's a big important word you learned in your college classes: 'but.' It should stop me, or something?" "I guess you're right. Go on with your article." After all, Larry thought as he went back to report to his wife, what harm can it do? If the old fool wanted to relive the past, well, let him. What else did he have left to occupy his time?

Victor watched his son leave the room and knew exactly what he was thinking. The kid never did have an imagination. That's why he became a goddamn bean counter. Carefully he read over the article. Pretty darn good, if I say so myself! It seemed to have that same rhythm and pattern like all the other ones he had read recently. With a little luck some idiota at the paper would take a quick look and think it was legitimate and print it. Wouldn't that be a hoot! He had to laugh. The old VFW Hall burned down twenty years ago - along with half a block of apartments. He didn't even know if there was an Italian-American Federation, but it sounded good.

Then, there were the names. He tried to include only the ones he knew were dead. No sense giving some old Mustache Pete down by the Bocce Ball courts in the Marina a heart attack when he read the morning paper and suddenly discovered he was dancing with ghosts the night before! It wasn't hard to make up the roster of the departed. Their names had become more precious to him in the last few years. He considered carefully before including Lucia's name with all the rest. But the thought of her on the dance floor again, her long dress swirling up to reveal delicate thin ankles and petite feet, was too hard to resist. He could almost feel her in his arms, her thin waist encircled by his large hands as she leaned back, dark hair swishing around them both like a fine dark mist, laughing out loud at his clumsy attempt to imitate Fred Astaire. It was almost worth his while, this exercise in creative falsehood, just to create a once familiar scene and dance again with Lucia in the empty halls of his mind.

Somehow he talked Larry into faxing the article to the Chronicle.

And then, it must have been a slow news day or a tremendous need for filler, but three days later the story about the Winter Dance of the Italian-American Federation appeared in the paper.

This morning instead of cursing the obituaries, the old man chortled over the Society page. There they all were, the old paisanos and gumbas. Every one of them dancing and dining in the old VFW Hall that no longer existed! What a great joke, what a prize!

Linda was incredulous, and Larry was outright embarrassed and mortified with the fear that someone would find out that he had abetted this hoax which his own father had perpetrated. Finally he had to admit that it was quite a harmless little prank, and yes he did indeed find it a most delicious secret. That night, for the first time since any of them could remember, Victor sat out in the living room with the family and enjoyed the NBC comedy lineup all the way to bedtime. He laughed as heartily as the rest while again reminding them that there was still nothing comparable to Fred Allen or Jack Benny for real comedy.

It was sometime in the middle of the night when Victor awoke and wondered why the hell they had left the television on. The living room was right outside the door of the master bedroom, and any sound or conversation was easily heard from his bed.

He lay quietly, knowing that sleep was now flown into the disturbed night, and there would be nothing to do but wait in the darkness with the hope that it might return before the insistence of dawn required him to get up. The music from the front room was not in the least unsettling, in fact its delicate melody and gentle orchestration became a subtle background to the lovely voices singing in Italian.

It didn't take him long to identify the duet from "Lucia Di Lammermoor," Ah! Verranna a te sull'aure...

The music reminded him of the back room of Mike's Pool Hall in North Beach. It also reminded him of all the beauty in the world when every opera he ever heard spoke directly to his soul. It reminded him of Lucia, his beautiful Lucia of the raven hair, olive skin and deep black eyes into which a man could fall forever.

Ah, it was so wonderful to hear the lovely songs again. Victor closed his eyes and allowed his mind to sail the winds of shimmering skies and summer days.

He must have drifted off to sleep, because the next time he opened his eyes the music had changed and the door to his room was open, spilling light across the foot of his bed like a waterfall of bright silver shadows.

What is that music now?

Yes, that was it. "Take the A Train." Ba-da-ba-da-da-da.

Who is that standing in the doorway?

"Aldo, is that you?"

"Where have you been, Vittorio?"

"Malatesta?"

"Si, Vittorio, Aldo Malatesta."

"But how...?"

"It's you, Vittorio. You did it. The Winter Dance. We are all here, all except you."

"Except me?"

"That's right. We've all come for the dance.

"Everyone?"

"Yes, Vittorio, everyone.

"Lucia?"

"Yes, of course, Lucia also."

Victor Clemenza throw off the covers and slips his feet into the slippers on the floor by his bed. Without a thought to the hated chair and its large rubber wheels he reaches out to take Aldo Malatesta's waiting hand.

"You know, Aldo," Victor says as they walk toward the light and the music in the living room. "Her father does not like you."

"That was a long time ago, Vittorio, a very long time ago.

He likes everyone now."

Aldo Malatesta puts his hairy arm around his old friend's shoulder and pulls him from the darkness of the bedroom as he had once led him into the back room at Mike's Pool Hall. "Come on, Lucia is waiting and the dance has just begun."

# EXPIATION

Before gravitating together, we were scattered throughout the classroom like so many brown mushrooms, proudly wearing the remnants of our uniforms — fatigue pants, shirts and coats with our names and ranks still sewn on.

Vietnam and its horrors were still fresh in our minds, and we were desperate for something that would replace the memories of humid jungles and fallen comrades. Exercising our minds seemed the best way to fill the void and exorcise our demons.

I was surprised to see Ernie Palomino there. We'd been in the same artillery unit; but big outfits, being what they are, we never got to really know each other.

Palomino still wore that haunted look many of us had exchanged for one of survivor's relief. He sat quietly in his own corner of the classroom, neither questioning the professor's statements nor answering the man's questions, the incessant sound of his pencil, an accompaniment to the teacher's instruction.

At least, I thought, someone is taking good notes. I knew from high school that my own scribblings usually bore no relevance to the test questions, which would eventually stump me at the end of each quarter, so I determined to reintroduce myself to my comrade-in-arms and hopefully, establish a relationship that would give me access to his. "Weren't we in the same division at Qui Nhon?" I said one day as we pushed our way toward the hallway.

Palomino stared right through me for a moment and then kept walking. As we moved past the door, he crumpled the pages he had been working on and dropped them unceremoniously in the trash.

I lagged behind long enough to pick the coveted notes out of the bin, and rushed to the next lecture hall, anxious to unfurl the purloined papers and review my academic windfall. I was amazed to find that they weren't notes at all, but drawings — pencil studies. I knew nothing of art, but what I held, rendered with such exquisite precision, must certainly have been the equal to anything in the local galleries. I'd barely had time to rifle through each page and marvel at my discovery, when a hand reached over and snatched the artwork from my grasp.

It was Palomino.

Embarrassed at being caught, I waited uncomfortably through the lecture to approach the man with my apology. Palomino ignored my excuse for such shabby behavior and glared at me with an intensity that caused me to look away. "How many Charlie did we kill in 'Nam?" he asked softly.

"I don't know."

"One? Ten? A thousand?"

"I don't know."

"What did they look like?

I shrugged. "Hey, we were artillery." For me, the war was coordinates and calibrations, the statistics of impersonal mayhem from a safe distance.

"You sorry you did it that way?" Palomino asked. I hadn't thought of it as one way or another; it was how I had been trained to wage war.

"You gotta car?" He suddenly changed the subject.

"Yeah."

"Gimme a lift."

"Sure." Anything was better than his eyes and uneasy probing.

There was a light rain falling as Palomino steered me across town to a section of urban blight and rows of clapboard houses, condemned to make way for a new freeway. The first four houses on one block were blackened shells.

Palomino indicated I should pull up in front of the fifth, one still untouched by fire. He got out without so much as a "thank you," and headed up the walk.

Impulsively, I rolled down the window and yelled after him, "mind if I come in?" I still felt compelled to justify my having taken his drawings out of the trash and wanted to ask about them.

"Suit yourself," he replied, without turning back. I found him in the bare-boards living room. The fixtures had been long removed, but the walls and ceiling were newly whitewashed. In the corner I could see a military surplus sleeping bag and a small Sterno camp stove next to a sturdy wooden crate.

Palomino ignored me as if I weren't there. Without a word, and to my embarrassment, he took off all his clothes and rolled them into the sleeping bag.

I felt extremely uncomfortable. Was this some a come on?

Was he going to suggest I follow suit?

Before I could verbalize my apprehension or even think it all the way through, he jumped onto the box and, with a large piece of charcoal, started to draw on the wall in great confident sweeping strokes, charcoal dust raining down on him like black snow. It would have ruined his clothes.

I watched in awe as he began to fill the space with a giant crucifix. Even before finishing the face of the Christ, Palomino was already sketching Roman soldiers and mourning women. He seemed unable to complete one scene without jumping to another; back and forth he darted as each figure rapidly took shape in bold black against the white wall. Ignored, I moved out of his way so that he could continue the magnificent panorama. The only sound was the patter of rain dripping from the roof, Palomino's labored grunts, and the constant scratch of charcoal.

I decided to check out the rest of the house. The walls in every room were filled with stunningly realistic charcoal drawings. In the master bedroom, he'd depicted Torquemada's Inquisition. In another bedroom, a barbed-wire fence held starving concentration camp survivors, broken mouths and dead eyes, screamed at me in silence. In the hall and bathroom, innocents burned at stakes and other explicit executions decried centuries of injustice and horror.

By now the sun was down. I fumbled my way back to the living room where, by the flickering light of candles, Palomino had finished his latest mural: Christ on the cross, Christ carried to His sepulcher, Christ in the arms of Mary, a pieta of such incredible poignancy I wanted to cry. Like every other suffering figure in that house, Christ and his mother had almond eyes, Asian features.

The sweat-matted, charcoal-covered artist crouched in a corner, scooping a sharp-smelling goop from one of the Sterno cans. Without a word, Palomino spread it on the wall, struck a match, and watched the combustible gel flare up before he carefully packed his belongings in the wooden box and carried it toward the door.

Outside, Palomino squatted in the rain and watched the flames eat their way through the old wooden structure. I looked down the street and realized the other burned out houses must also have been his work.

I don't know if it was the rain, or if the naked man was crying as charcoal sludge ran from his face in thick dark rivulets, but his voice was strong.

"No matter how many we killed, and whether we could see them or not, they had faces.

They always had faces."

### A View From The Sanctuary

Actually, it was my wife who suggested that I join the church choir.

The idea was resplendent with promise.

It had been many years since I last regularly attended Church, and I wouldn't have gone back if it were not for my stepdaughter, Priscilla making her first communion. Priss was part of the package when I strayed unwarily into matrimony with her mother, Bridget-The-All-Consuming. Nothing had changed in the Church. There was still an annoying amount of kneeling and sitting and standing and suffering through unending sermons with little or no application to the realities of life, except for the repetitious pleas for funds.

By joining the choir I would be able to sit in the high loft in the back of the church and avoid the calisthenics inherent in Catholic ceremonies. I could exercise my baritone voice —which I must admit is quite adequate — and sit with some of the more attractive members of the congregation, who seemed to gravitate toward the choral arts.

It is my intention to be completely honest in this narrative, even if it is at the expense of my own dignity. So, if the truth were to be known, I really joined the choir because ignoring a suggestion of Bridget-The-Queen-Of-Connemara would probably lead to more recriminations than my pacifist soul could endure in the battlefield of our relatively recent nuptials.

It would also allow me at least one night out a week for

rehearsals. And I would not have to put up with the irritating whisper-hiss of Saint Bridget's incessant soto voce prayers during mass.

Besides, it wasn't as if I was going to miss the Sunday football games on television. Her Ladyship had already declared televised sports anathema in our living room. Choir proved to be a mixed blessing. The delightful young ladies I'd spotted before joining all seemed to be in the process of phasing out and moving on to boyfriends, husbands and pregnancy — not necessarily in that order (even Catholics transgress). The newer recruits were so old they were probably greasing the skid of their downward slide into senility with healthy dollops of Geritol and Metamucil. Soon we were banished from the anonymous bliss of the choir loft, high in the back of the large church. The pastor hired a real musician to direct the choir — the last director having run off with a lovely Eurasian soprano, who was married to some naive soul in the bass section who could never understand why his wife was getting all the solos. He was completely unaware of her duets.

Adrian Donatello immediately announced that the setup of a choir loft and organ in the back of the church, and everything else in the front, was thoroughly inadequate, archaic, and an insult to his integrity. He was damned if he would direct the requirements of musical worship from the outer reaches of the universe.

He was probably right. But when he ordered us down from our heavenly refuge, and indicated that from then on we would sit in the sanctuary, I could only mentally rebel. Remember, I had been cohabiting for over a year, under the guise of blissful matrimony, with Her Highness Bridget-The-Most-Righteous, and silence before any throne of power had already become second nature.

I kept my mouth shut and traipsed down the stairs, through the nave of the church, and onto the carpeted expanse of the sanctuary with my folding chair tucked under one arm and my music under the other just like everyone else.

There would definitely be no nose-picking, sermon-

sleeping, leg-crossing, or dirty joke telling with the choir fully

exposed in front of the whole congregation. I would definitely have to find something else to distract myself during those portions of the service when we were not required to perform. I told myself, trying to put a positive spin on things, that there should be more than enough entertainment available in watching the congregation. So, I set out to find one or two of the more attractive young ladies in the assembly to fixate on and pass the time productively when not singing or in humble prayer.

I said I would adhere to a most honest and forthright accounting of these events, regardless of the light cast upon myself. But, it should be understood that appreciating the female of the species is not necessarily mutually exclusive with piety and a deep spiritual experience. After all, they are God's most glorious creation — with some Bridgitarian exceptions. This new Sunday avocation, along with the maestro's willingness to abandon much of the standard liturgical rote and replace it with the works of Mozart, Vivaldi and Beethoven, was a satisfactory palliative to keep my participation in the choir alive. This would also necessitate my continued absence from the pew next to Bridget-The-Pious and her darling little witch-in-training, my stepdaughter.

It was an amazing revelation to discover that the congregation had faces. However, on the very first Sunday we were remanded to complete exposure in the sanctuary, I was disappointed that I didn't see even one sweet young thing over whom I could fantasize. My attention, instead, was immediately taken by a man and woman in the front row, sitting directly on the center aisle: two little people — midgets. For all I knew they could have been coming to church here for years. My prior attendance at mass, until this stint of service in the choir, was as meager as my sins were numerous; and from the choir loft it was completely impossible to identify anyone in the front pews.

These two were completely similar in size and diminutive perfection, even to their weathered faces, which, though wrinkled by age, still retained a luster of youthful complexion. There could not have been more than an inch difference between the two of them, and that inch would still be well under four feet.

y first reaction was: how remarkable two such perfectly matched individuals could meet, bond and continue their extraordinary existence together in a world of curious and unsympathetic giants.

Both moved with such grace and ease that I thought immediately they must once have been circus performers. Perhaps they had moved to our city to retire from the rigors of show business, and here sought the anonymity of a community, which would allow them privacy, far removed from a sideshow environment. I chided myself for this terrible stereotyping and put it aside.

I assumed them to be married; a blissful union, which most of us, who labor in the vineyards of marital turmoil, have long since surrendered to the weeds of reality. Of course this was all conjecture on my part. But it certainly occupied my time between hymns

Each week the choir would gather forty-five minutes before services to put on our gold robes — St. Malachi's was big on gold and gilt — and rehearse in the sanctuary. I noticed that the dapper miniatures would appear well before the beginning of mass, either to secure their places in the front row, or perhaps to enjoy the entertainment value of our vocal exercises. After all, dear Adrian, our director, had much more hair and talent than patience, which added to the mystique of a musical force-majeure, providing spirited histrionics during each of our rehearsals.

The choir season, beginning in September, was well underway when my fascination with the midget couple was distracted by the lovely young thing, who now sat in the middle of the same front pew each Sunday.

I say "lovely young thing" advisedly, as she was one of those eternal creatures unique to her sex, who would forever be of indeterminate age. She could have been fifteen or thirty-five. It was impossible to tell with the awkward covert glances I allowed myself from my vantage point in the Sanctuary.

The girl had a luscious café con leche complexion which was

much more leche than café. It was smooth and glowed with vitality. But what attracted my attention the most were her eyes. That sloe-eyed, heavy-lidded look of idle curiosity just sucked me right into any number of decidedly unliturgical fantasies, so that I often had to shift my gaze over to the little people just to divert myself.

By the seventh week of the choir season, the girl and I had become quite adept at playing eye tag. She would look at me, and I would pretend to be otherwise occupied; and whenever she looked away, or became involved in her worship, I took advantage of the moment to study her lovely face and the more mysterious delights of form and figure.

Not that anything would have ever come of this harmless flirtation. I was still intent on honoring the letter of the law regarding my marital vows — no matter how difficult or unrewarding being married to the deposed Queen of Ireland might be — and would never presume to advance this dalliance-from-a-distance to the next level of encounter. In the meantime, I noticed that the alternate objects of my attention, the little people, were not doing so well. Admittedly, the midgets were both well advanced in age, the years finely etched on their brows as if a master craftsman had been commissioned to depict the mortality of all our years on their small faces. But now they looked much older than I had first noticed. Especially the woman. Lines and creases appeared to be incised into deeper rivulets of time and her complexion had turned pasty and sallow. She had lost ill-afforded weight, and looked emaciated. The little fellow by her side appeared thin and weary, however his reservoir of internal fortitude seemed to partially ward off the ravages of whatever it was that infected them.

Now, as they entered the church to watch our pre-mass vocal gymnastics, I could see that the woman had to lean heavily on her mate's arm to make it all the way down the aisle to their appointed places.

But one thing to their credit, there was never a compromise in either their dignity or their impeccable apparel. He was always dressed in a neatly pressed suit with a natty matching bow tie, and she wore a variety of mature dresses, which were so delicately tailored to her size that they had to be original creations made especially for her.

Finally, there was the Sunday when only the little man made his way gingerly down the aisle to take his place in the audience of our musical-exercises.

I wondered about the woman's absence, but my knowledge of these two was so recent that I had nothing upon which to base a judgment regarding her well-being. Perhaps it was a bout of influenza, and soon she would be back to join our happy convocation.

She wasn't. Over the next two weeks only the little man appeared; thin, but still resplendent in his suit, crisp white shirt and invariable bow tie. I have to admit that he wasn't looking so spunky.

During this time, I noticed that my unwitting partner in unilateral licentious fantasies, the sloe-eyed girl, had adjusted to the new dynamics of the front pew and frequently sat next to the little man.

Jealously, I watched as she engaged him in conversation while waiting for services to begin, and covertly I once saw her give him a sociable hug and kiss on the cheek. Who could resist that miniature cheek!

Then suddenly, the girl too was gone from Sunday worship. I assumed this was some change in her personal circumstances or, perhaps, a desire to avoid the raucous exuberance of our choral manifestations. Two weeks after the girl abandoned my solitary flights of fancy, the small woman returned.

Maybe it had been a trip to the spas of Palm Springs, or an extensive rehabilitation under expert care, but the little lady had put her weight back on and was positively glowing with health. And for that matter, so was her hubby. Both of them sported blooming revitalized complexions. The creases and lines had faded and no longer threatened to slice parts of their faces into small islands of unattached expressions.

Their Sunday jaunt down the aisle was now as sprightly as that of two teenagers, and it was only their dignified demeanor that identified them as adults rather than children dressing up. I welcomed the woman back with a slight nod of my head when I thought that I could get away with the movement under Adrian's scrupulous gaze. And she, in turn, bobbed slightly in my direction to acknowledge my salutation.

The liturgical calendar moved from Ordinary Time into the new year of Advent, and we began preparation for Christmas. The tiresome tedium of Sunday services was broken by an occasional anthem of seasonal familiarity — and my constant search for a replacement for the sloe-eyed girl, who never did return.

At last someone else as attractive as my lost fixation decided to move up and take an exposed berth in the front pew. She was a pretty little thing in that wholesome middle-America sort of way. Immediately I pictured her shucking corn, clucking to the chickens, and slipping her delicate warm hands up and down eagerly waiting teats as she gave bossy relief from a full udder.

With that last vision, you can certainly see how sexually charged my once innocent reveries had become. Don't forget, I promised honesty in this recitation. To say my not-so-innocent flights of fancy had little or nothing to do with Frigid Bridget's companionship in our marriage bed would be misleading. The fact that this girl braided her hair and usually came to church in bright spring gingham, even in the midst of winter, made her seem all the more appealing. She brought a bright ray of sunshine into a cold church, surrounded by winter's snow and the frozen embryos of springtime.

The young lady did not seem to notice my attentions, and whenever her eyes would move toward the choir — just on the off chance I would be caught staring — mine shifted over to the next tableau available: the two perfect little Munchkins in their Sunday best.

Around Christmas I noticed that the little Missus was starting to look peaked again and attributed it to the severity of the season. Indeed, we had been suffering through storm after storm, which left many stranded or house- bound. Even the church on Christmas Eve, when the back-sliders were usually stacked in the aisles, lacked its normal population.

But, alone again, the little man was there in a coal black suit

with a bright red bow tie. He looked like he shouldn't have left his or his wife's sick bed for these ceremonies. I was worried. Whatever his own recurrent affliction, it was worse this time. But I didn't have long to dwell on this since the object of my latest daydreams, Miss Middle-America, was there also. For this special night she had abandoned her I'm-Dorothy-from-Kansas outfits in favor an off the shoulder number so that her spectacular attributes graced the first row of the church next to my sickly little buddy.

I was overcome by a sudden depression when I realized that once we had sung everything from "For Unto Us A Child Is Born," to "The Hallelujah Chorus," I would have only the bleak prospects of going home to our over-decorated house and there, share cups of hot chocolate with Peat-Bog-Bridget and the petulant Princess Priscilla, who would be whining to open her presents.

The Sunday after Christmas saw the weather better, but attendance in church depleted by the New Years doldrums. And the front pew was no exception. None of my little first row flock was there to hear my vocal incantations. And wouldn't you know it, we did a piece that allowed me the opportunity to let rip a particularly vicious arpeggio which both incurred the wrath of Maestro Donatello and left no doubt as to who was singing it. I had no one for whom to show off my little party piece, but the intrepid Battleship Bridget and her destroyer escort, Priscilla.

We took two weeks off from choir after our Yuletide labors, and when we returned to the sanctuary all was again right with the world. Adrian was his usual insufferable, perfectionist self, demanding more than mediocrity out of our begrudging group, and the front pew during mass was again occupied by the diminutive duo who looked to be in the finest fettle of glowing health.

Miss American Pie had evidently decided that the choir was more than she could tolerate and sought the haven of another parish, because I never saw her again.

We worked through the rigors of lent and began

preparations for the more monumental demands of Easter, all with little or no relief for me, who could find no one in the front rows of the church worthy of attention other than Mr. and Mrs. Little, who were less and less of a curiosity as the weeks went on.

As Easter approached, I noticed a repetition of their cycle of declining health, which invariably resulted in the woman's rapid disintegration, preceding that of her companion. Then again a few weeks later, there was the almost miraculous return to health, and the two of them were suddenly back at their usual station, looking as if they could both go out and do cartwheels through the parish grounds. For the rest of the choir season, scheduled to end in June, I was unable to affiliate my attention with anyone special during mass, and therefore seldom noticed the revolving population that shared the front pew of the church with Tom and Mrs. Thumb. But I noticed they were never at a loss for words with their fellow congregants; and those who sat nearby appeared to be anxious to go out of their way to treat the two little people as other than sideshow oddities.

Admittedly, I am not a very religious person, finding my spirituality in music and my own counsel. Therefore, when summer — the choir's off season — succumbed to heat and humidity, I tried to avoid regular services, but Commander Bridget conceded that we could go to church in the cool of the evening. That is probably why I didn't see the two Dresden Doll people until we cranked up a new season the next September.

There they were, at their normal station, and I must admit that they were looking as chipper and spry as any two could. The bloom of health and happiness appeared to go as hand in hand as did the two of them. It was really quite touching to see such devoted affection between two people (as inexperienced in the phenomenon as I was).

My attention from the midget couple each Sunday was pleasantly distracted for a while by a tall, lithe young lady next to them. Strictly for the fantasy file. This one had the mark of money, class and a savoir-vivre, which was well beyond my realistic expectations, but I could do much worse to occupy my time and daydreams.

Sometime before the bounties of Thanksgiving, I noticed that the cycle of degeneration had begun again for my delicate little friends. The small woman's face changed from week to week, like one of those dried apple dolls; you know, the ones that have crinkly withered features and are always dressed like fugitives from the Ozarks.

The man was not doing much better. And when he appeared alone in church, to sit next to my stunning beauty, I could not help but think he would be better off in an oxygen tent or on a life-support system.

By Thanksgiving, a service of sporadic and eclectic attendance, there were no familiar faces in the front pews. Sadly, I was forced to concentrate on the sermon and my singing. Even Adrian Donatello for once complemented me on my attention to his musical direction.

By the second week in December, and well into the wonderful melodies of Advent and Christmas, the dynamic duo were ensconced back in the front pew, having once again, through some miracle, regained the flowers of springtime in their cheeks and a sprightly bounce to their walk. I could not help but stare when they reappeared. To hell with Donatello's glare at my lack of concentration! I was incredulous at the change that had brought renewed vigor and youth to these two unique creatures.

The little man caught me watching him — my tall, lanky beauty having moved on like everyone else — and he acknowledged my curiosity by laying a finger against his lips and presenting me with a huge wink. As disconcerting as this recognition was, it was nothing compared to the similar blink and smile I received from his Lilliputian wife. For the rest of the mass, Maestro Donatello received my undivided attention.

"You know how crowded midnight mass is," I pointed out to Bridget-The-Bombardier. "You should come as early as possible and sit right up front where you and dear little Prissy will be

close to me and we can share everything." I explained to my wife that she and her foal could come to church early with me — rehearsals were at least an hour before midnight services —and thereby, secure their rightful place in the forefront of the Christmas activities.

And that's how it came about that Bridget-The-Sow-Of-Sligo and her lively little piglet, Priscilla, came to sit in the front pew at Midnight Mass next to the little people. I could see that an immediate bond was impending, and reverted the reverence of my supplications to the Almighty that the new friendship might become firm and fast with this first contact.

Apparently, the power of prayer does still manifest itself in the realm of our daily lives, for after that Midnight Mass, Bridget-The-Devout betook her and her offspring immediately to the first pew each Sunday, and there renewed her acquaintance with the pint-size couple.

Patiently, I waited through the weeks after Christmas, watching the little people deep into the heart of winter. Just as I expected, the decline began again.

This time it took only two weeks and the little lady looked positively terrible: weak and wan. The Mister appeared to expend every ounce of energy just to help her down the aisle to secure their proper place in the front pew. God love her! When she saw the state of the little people, Saint Bridget-Of-The-Icy-Heart found some remnants of compassion. I could see her leaning over to express whatever concern she could muster for the two ailing little people. It was a splendid ceremony, which I sang with such astonishing purity of voice and concentration, that Donatello even congratulated me throughout the service by the succinct raisings of an eyebrow and nods of encouragement when he required a double forte or the most subtle of exquisite pianissimos.

After mass, the choir was required to stay behind and receive its critique from the maestro. Therefore, when this recitation of our musical sins and transgressions was completed, and the house of worship almost empty, I was surprised to find the little man waiting for me by the door.

For the first time I could see that his eyes were of the most guileless baby blue. They appeared to be completely out of place in the creased and seamed old man's face. "You sing very well," he said in the strange high-pitched voice that miniature vocal cords give to a fully mature man. "Thank you." I did sing well. What else was there to say? "Your wife and daughter have accepted our invitation to dinner. They've gone on ahead with my wife. Won't you join us?"

I looked at his smile, appreciating for the first time how his sharp, bright, tiny teeth glistened in his wizened face. "Well, I...uh..." I fumbled politely.

"We're having something Irish," he interrupted. "Perhaps you would enjoy it."

"I don't think so," I replied, knowing how completely indigestible the Irish could be.

"Ah, then we shall have to proceed without you." He didn't appear to be particularly disappointed as he made his way carefully out into the weak, wintry sunlight. "Bon appetit!" I called after him as I prepared to go home to my very quiet house and enjoy the Sunday football games for the first time in three years.

### LIMMENKOV 'S LAMENT

Madcrap Limmenkov was crying, and it scared the hell out of Nails O'Leary. She'd never even seen Madcrap dejected; she'd seen him mad, but never sad.

Madcrap got his nickname one day when he'd stormed into Big Louie's Bar & Grill, raving: "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." He'd just seen Network on the late show and was so impressed with John Finch's rant that he'd adopted it as his own.

Louie The Lip, sitting at the end of his crowded bar, completely taken aback by Bernie Limmenkov's angry harangue, had asked loudly: "What's this 'mad' crap, Limmenkov?" Someone in the had crowd shouted, "Hey, it's Madcrap Limmenkov!" Although no one could ever remember what had incensed the dapper little guy that particular night, the name stuck. Limmenkov had been called many things in his day, including, "Lemmon Drops." So he found this new moniker reasonably acceptable, especially as it seemed to have a connotation of fierceness he found extremely satisfying. Now, Madcrap was sitting in a booth at the back of Big Louie's, large crystal tears magnifying the creases along the sides of his nose. Uncomfortably, Maureen "Nails" O'Leary studied the rainbow across her long acrylic fingernails, wondering if she should reverse the colors and begin the sweep of violet to bright red from the right instead of the left. Change was good, Nails decided. She'd heard two of her customers drunkenly discussing shifts in their personal circumstances one night and was quite taken with the concept of change.

She pushed the double scotch closer to the quietly weeping man.

"Drink up, Bernie." Nails was one of the few who remembered Limmenkov's first name.

Limmenkov stared at his liquor, unable to summon enough thirst to drink.

"Come on, Bernie," Nails whispered. "It can't be that bad."

Madcrap nodded. "Yeah, it is."

Nails was sitting across from Madcrap, a wary eye on the door to Louie's office. The Lip didn't like his waitresses off their feet with the customers — unless it was in the back room where he got a cut of the action. Even though Madcrap was another of Louie Lipinsky's army, that wouldn't excuse her dereliction of duty.

"Whassa matter?" Nails asked.

Madcrap looked up with watery eyes. "I'm in love, Nails.

For the first time in my life, I'm in love." "Hey," the waitress brightened. "That's great! Ain't nothin' like a little push-push to make a guy feel good." "It ain't like that." Madcrap shook his head sorrowfully. "She don't do that kind'a thing. She's a friggin' saint, an angel, a paragon of virtue."

"A pair a what?"

Madcrap should have known better than to wax eloquent in front of Nails O'Leary. After all, what could you expect from someone whose current reading list was limited to nail polish brands with fruity colors? He prided himself on being a well-rounded person, reading constantly and willing to watch black and white movies on his 12-inch television. "This woman is a lady, Nails," Madcrap tried to explain.

"And I ain't a lady?"

"Yeah, sure; you're a real fine lady, Nails, but she's...she's something special."

Nails decided not to take further offense at Madcrap's exaltation of another woman. She genuinely liked Madcrap —one of the few men she knew who treated her with respect. "Nail's, I'm forty-five-years old and I ain't never been in love before, 'cept maybe for Brenda Braverman in the fourth grade. But never like this."

"So why're ya cryin'?"

Madcrap looked around at the late afternoon interior of Big Louie's. The evening crowd of drinkers was already filtering in, mostly familiar faces: regulars. Smoke hung heavy in the air and Madcrap wistfully watched a middle-aged couple, half hidden in the haze, holding hands in one of the other booths. This brought freshets of tears brimming to his eyes. "'Cause, like I said, Nails, she's untouchable. She's a goddess and I'm merely mortal."

This worshipful concept was well beyond Nails, but not her solution to most mortal male problems: "Whyn't you and I go inta the back room later, Bernie, and I'll make you feel better."

Madcrap smiled wanly. "Not this time, Nails. Nothing's going to make me feel better this time. It's hopeless." "You two got nutten better to do?"

Neither of them had seen Louie Lipinsky waddle out of his office and approach the booth, the sweat of his efforts already shiny on his round face.

Madcrap wanted to scowl at his boss for interrupting this unprecedented confession of love, but no one glowered at Louie The Lip without severe repercussions. "Don't you need to swamp out the back room, Nails?"

Louie asked, glaring at his waitress.

"It ain't my turn, Louie; it's..."

"It's your turn now, O'Leary; unless you want me to save you a little time when you get around to painting your nails again by ripping a couple a those claws off with a pair of pliers."

Madcrap Limmenkov stared into his drink as Nails slipped out of the booth. He knew better than to interfere when Louie was pissed. He could hear his boss wheeze with effort as the big man squeezed into the booth.

"You take care of that little business we talked about, Madcrap?" Lipinsky asked.

"I'm workin' on it," Madcrap said, trying to avoid the sight of his employer's belly spilling over the edge of the table. "Whad'ya mean 'you're 'workin' on it?' I sent you over to collect from that putz a week ago."

"He was a bit short, so I gave him a little more time."

"You what! When did you start rewritin' my paper, Madcrap?"

"I ain't rewriting your notes, Louie. It's just that I figured you'd rather get it all at once rather than bits and pieces." Louie Lipinsky was the unofficial banker of a ten-square block area of Queens, and his terms were inflexible: 10% a week interest, and no extensions when it came to the principle. Madcrap Limmenkov had worked for Louie The Lip going on fifteen years. He handled routine collections and, as necessary, persuasion for delinquent accounts. Madcrap ran a few numbers on the side, and The Lip let him, as long as it didn't interfere with his regular duties.

Lipinsky waggled a sausage-like finger in his collector's face. "Lissen, Madcrap, that shmuck ain't even paid his vig for

the last month; and I know his shop ain't doin' so good, so he ain't ever goin' to be able to pay the principle, which was due three weeks ago."

The subject of their conversation was Salvatore Urbano, who owned a small dry cleaning front on 69th. He took in cleaning and laundry, contracting it out to a larger factory and pocketed the mark-up. Lipinsky had sharked Urbano $5,000 to buy equipment so he could process the laundry himself and just farm out the dry cleaning. This way, at least he could maximize his profits on that part of his business.

The Italian had misjudged the potential. He was now too far behind to ever pay The Lip back without forfeiting more than half of his income for the next two years just to cover the interest on the original loan.

"Did you tell 'im, I said to sell that crap he bought?"

"He says they won't take it back."

"Let 'im sell it somewhere else."

"No one wants it."

Lipinsky's fat finger stirred the air again in front of Madcrap Limmenkov's face. "I don't need no Guinea bastid makin' me a laughing stock on the street. I want my money, Madcrap, and you were supposed to get it for me. How'd ya think it would look if I had to go over to 69th and collect it myself?"

Madcrap almost smiled at the vision of Louie The Lip lurching down the street to collect on his own loan. It wasn't ever going to happen, not as long as there were people like Madcrap Limmenkov available to do The Lip's dirty work. And there were always candidates for that.

"Time to teach 'im a lesson," Lipinsky said, a certain demented delight diverting the rivulets of sweat on his face into puddles between his chins.

"You want I should rough him up, Louie?" Madcrap knew that if The Lip thought he was being screwed, he relished retribution almost as much as repayment. Lipinsky stared off into the smoke of the bar as Madcrap pictured small, rusty wheels of thought creaking in the fat man's brain.

"Nah. Do the daughter."

"His daughter?"

"Yeah, do the kid."

"She ain't a kid, Louie; she's a grown woman." Lipinsky shrugged. "So? Cut her in front of the old man and show 'im we mean bidness."

Madcrap shook his head. "I don't know Louie. I don't think —" "That's right, Madcrap; you don't think. That's why you're there," Lipinsky pointed at the booth, "and I'm here." A whole fist-full of fat fingers waived toward the bar. "You gotta problem doin' what I tell ya?"

Madcrap barely hesitated. "No, Louie, I ain't got no problem."

"Good. You go on up to 69th and rearrange the broad's features with somethin' sharp and the old fart'll come up with the money. Tell 'im he's got a week. I want it all, and double the vigorish" — the interest owed was already more than the principle — "for the extra time he's made me wait. I don't like to wait."

Awkwardly, Louie Lipinsky hauled his bulk from the booth and stood over Madcrap, sweat dripping on the table, the determination in his eyes evident. "Remember what I said, 'I don't like to wait.'" Madcrap looked at the amber liquid in his untouched glass. "I'll get right on it, Louie; just let me finish my drink."

"You do that, Madcrap," Lipinsky glared. "You just do that."

Scotch was Madcrap Limmenkov's favorite libation. He could savor its pungent, smoky bite for hours, discovering new delights in every dram. But now, as he sipped and watched Louie The Lip wobble back to his office, the dense liquor tasted terrible.

"I wish that slob was dead," Nails O'Leary said, sitting back down in the booth across from Madcrap. They both knew The Lip would need a rest before he could regenerate enough energy to come back out and make his hourly check of the till. Louie didn't trust anyone. "He's a walking corpse, Nails. It's just a matter of time." "He's been like that ever since I've known him," Nails complained. "Even then it couldn't be soon enough." "Why don't you get out of here, Nails? Go, find a job somewhere else."

The waitress looked around for a moment. When her eyes came back to Madcrap's they were direct and sad. "Where would I go, Bernie? I been here almost as long as you." Nails slumped on the cracked Naugahyde bench. She ran her hand through her hair in frustration, and Madcrap could see dark roots beneath the dry platinum waterfall that tumbled to her shoulders. He wanted to tell her she needed a touch-up, but realized neither of them was in the mood for more criticism. "You could go somewhere else, Nails," Madcrap encouraged. "You still got...uh, got certain a-tri-butes." He didn't know how to express it more diplomatically. "Yeah, that's why you turned me down, right?" Madcrap reached across the table to touch the back of his friend's hand, marveling at the bright rainbow of enamel colors that sparkled even in the dim light of the bar. "It ain't got nothing to do with you, Nails. Like I said before, I'm really, honestly and truly in love for the first time in my adult life, and couldn't ever be unfaithful. "Who is this broad?"

Madcrap starred wistfully into his drink. "Just a fantasy, Nails, an unobtainable dream."

Nails O'Leary looked intently at Madcrap, as if this strange new illness might consume him before her very eyes.

She decided to change the subject.

"What'd Louie want? He don't come out of his office for nothin' – unless it's to count the take."

Madcrap shook his head. "Aw, he's just pissed 'cause he thinks I'm laggin' on a collection."

"Are you?"

Madcrap thought about it for a moment. "Yeah, I guess you could say I am."

Nails knew Madcrap's reputation for being tough and demanding on behalf of Louie The Lip.

"Why?"

The small man shrugged.

"You ain't never dragged your heels before, Bernie. Why now?"

"I guess I'm just gettin' soft. This Urbano, who owes Louie, has been workin' real hard tryin' to make a life for him and his daughter, and he's had some bad luck. Louie won't cut him no slack, so now he wants me to go teach him a lesson." "You gotta problem with that?" Nails echoed Louie. "Yeah, I've got a problem with it." Madcrap thought about the knife in his pocket and the delicate flesh it was designated to carve. "It ain't right. The girl didn't do nothin' wrong. It was her old man what borrowed the money." "You don't want to do it, do you?" It was more a statement than a question.

"No, I don't."

"Then don't."

Madcrap knew Nails O'Leary was slow, even maybe a little dimwitted, but he didn't think she was stupid. She knew exactly what would happen to anyone who crossed The Lip. Louie would never allow it to go unpunished, especially if he thought his reputation on the street had been damaged. Nails saw Madcrap's startled expression and immediately reached out to apologize for holding out a shred of irrational hope.

"I'm sorry, Bernie. I shouldn't a said that. I wasn't thinkin'. You know you gotta do whatcha supposed to.

Madcrap Limmenkov continued to stare at the waitress, his

eyes still wide in wonder. It had never occurred to him to go

against orders. Oh sure, he'd bend the rules a little here and there, take a few shortcuts but, bottom line, Louie The Lip's dirty little chores always got done.

"Get me another Scotch, will ya, Nails?" Madcrap tossed off the remainder of his glass and held it out. Nails didn't like the expression clouding the collector's eyes. She could tell he was thinking hard, real hard, and she knew that whenever she tried that, it usually got her into big trouble.

"Bernie — "

"Gimme a drink, Nails, and don't worry about it." Reluctantly, Nails slipped out of the booth. She paused for a moment, but decided to keep her mouth shut and do what she was told. She was used to that.

The establishment was getting crowded. Halfway to the bar, a table of hearty drinkers waylaid Nails with a monumental order. She'd learned a long time ago to take care of the full-paying customers before accommodating what Louie called the "discounts," such as his friends and employees who drank cut-rate.

It was almost ten minutes before Nails returned with Madcrap's drink on a tray, just like a regular customer. She sat back down in the booth.

"So whatcha gonna do, Bernie?"

Madcrap reached for his scotch and smiled. "I'm going to have this drink and then go see my girl." Nails checked her watch. "You better make it quick.

Louie'll be out to check the till in a few minutes."

Madcrap sipped, relaxed. "I don't think so." That's when Nails noticed the blood splattered cuffs of Madcrap's usually impeccably clean shirt. She looked nervously over her shoulder at Louie The Lip's closed office door. All was quiet. Suspicion darkened her brow as a thought swam up through the muddled murk of her mind.

"Say, Bernie, who the hell is this girl you've been talkin' about?

Madcrap grinned. "Mae Urbano. Salvatore's daughter.

### FROM BEGINNING TO BEGINNING

###

## This is for my daughter

In the beginning, as always, ours was a quiet love, an undemonstrative acknowledgment of importance to each other made most frequently in silence.

The night Samantha was born, while her dear mother slept in the valley of exhaustion, I held the tiny child in my arms like a schoolboy cradling a dozen uncrated eggs. When I pushed aside the cotton blanket, I could feel the velvet skin of her small chest and beneath it the rapid pulse of her heart. It was so fast, like a frightened bird beating for escape against the bars of her frail young life. For Samantha and I, life was a constant commencement of new beginnings: first steps, fumbling words, erupting teeth, scrapes and bruises, disappointments and accomplishments. I stood on the corner the day her mother took her to school for the first time, afraid to join them because it would be too difficult to leave her there in the care of strangers. But she survived this new beginning, as did I.

The time she fell from a swing and broke her arm, I rushed to her side, anxious to cuddle her from pain, but she bravely pushed me away.

"I'm a big girl now, Daddy. I can walk by myself." Silently, I swallowed my concern and drove to the doctor's office with my precious cargo courageously wincing beside me.

That dank gray day her mother died was not as brutal as

the rainy one on which we buried her. Samantha stood beside

me in the cemetery, twelve-year-old eyes filled like winter lakes waiting to drown the world in her sorrow, but she bore up quietly, gallantly refusing the arm I offered, enduring her grief alone as we both faced another new beginning in our two lives. There was a mettle in the child that solidified into a steel backbone as the years passed. Walking proudly through our divergent days, my beautiful daughter was the definition of independence as we moved from one new beginning to another. It was never in my mind to take that self-reliance from her. No matter how much I ached to have her rely on me, I could never tell her of this parental need.

The low-cut dress was much too expensive; her hair was piled and swirled around her head, coifed into a too-adult mound; the heels of her new shoes stilted a bit too steeply. But I praised her taste and complemented her appearance as she flitted nervously through the house in a delightful cloud of perfume, preparing for her senior prom. I tried not to resent or suspect the handsome young lad poised at our door in his rented tuxedo. I thought he was a bit too old for her on that night of slight excesses, but what could I say? Samantha had chosen him for this special event, silently reminding me that at this stage in her life, each beginning for her would be a small ending for me. It was the nature of things. I knew I had to let go, but it was hard.

I suppose public officials are schooled in the craft of imparting bad news, but the policeman who hastily called was either too tired or, perhaps, had become inured to the carnage that too often litters our streets with shattered hopes and fractured dreams.

The boy had been drinking and driving. He was going to be okay. But Samantha...

I wanted to laugh at the officer's panic, which was starting to become mine, and the doctor's diagnosis, which surely must have been precipitous.

Samantha lay quietly under a blanket in a room filled with plastic tubes and the low-pitched hum of electronic engines. Her perfection was evident even from outside the window of the Intensive Care Unit. There wasn't a mark on my lovely child.

"It's not what you see," the young doctor assured me sadly. "It's what you can't see: internal injuries." He shook his head as if he too regretted the circumstance that brought us together in this sterile atmosphere of invisible pain. "You'd better go to her; there's no telling how much longer..." His voice trailed off, reluctant to remind me how brittle life is, and this one in particular.

The air that washed across the alabaster skin of my daughter was vacuumed, clean and cool. The rhythm of pulsating machines measured life in green numbers and jagged lines. The neat white blanket, pulled up under her chin, contradicted the twisted fragile mortality that lay beneath. I didn't know how long it had been since I had actually touched my precious child. Perhaps as long ago as those treasured midsummer nights when she was still nursing at her mother's breast and afterward I would take her out to the darkened living room to rock her back to sleep as I sang Christmas carols, the only songs whose words I could ever remember.

But now I regretted the years of cool consent to her self-reliance, the months of inarticulate affection as she grew into a young woman, the days of passive acceptance when she thought she knew everything. And all the missed opportunities when I could have said I loved her.

I rested the back of my hand in the hollow of her throat and felt the faint pulse of life as it slowly ebbed. The despair that filled my own heart waxed and waned with its every diminishing beat. I remembered that day so many years earlier when I had clumsily held Samantha in my arms and felt her heart would burst free from her throbbing breast in exaltation of new life. Now that ancient fear became a reality.

She sighed one last time, sweet air vibrating against my fingertips as it whispered in her throat.

And we both embarked on another new beginning.

### RADZINSKY'S LUNCH

###

The truth was, whenever Radzinsky said, "the truth of the matter is," you could count on it being as far from the truth as possible.

When Pete Radzinsky told us he'd had lunch that day with Marilyn Monroe, and ended his tale with, "...so help me, God," we all knew that it had to be a bald-faced lie; but he told a good story.

Paddy Ryan snorted, "You know, Radzinsky, you're so full of it, if you tilt your head and it'll run out your ear." Radzinsky raised a liver-spotted hand in solemn pledge. "I swear to God; it's the truth."

"Marilyn Monroe's been dead for almost forty-five years, Radzinsky," Solly Molina stated.

"That's what everyone thinks," Radzinsky said, shaking his large mane of white hair. "It's just like Elvis and some of those other guys who got tired of being hounded all the time; she faked her death and she's living in North Hollywood." "And she just walked into Nate N Al's today and sat down next to you to have a pastrami sandwich," I said sarcastically. "Chicken salad, hold the extra mayo," Radzinsky replied matter-of-factly. "She's put on a few pounds, and really has to watch it."

Paddy and Solly both laughed and I just shook my head in incredulity.

Pete Radzinsky, Paddy Ryan, Solly Molina, and I were in Tom Bergen's on Fairfax, just down the street from CBS, having our usual Thursday night round of drinks. The four of us had been in the business since Hector was a pup. We'd all come out from New York in the '60's. I was still pounding out B movie scripts, rewriting other guys' novels for TV movies-of-the-week. Paddy moved from one sitcom to another; Solly was part of the army that wrote Leno's stuff over in Burbank, and Radzinsky freelanced his script-doctoring talents wherever he could get a gig.

"No, honest. It was Marilyn. She goes by her original name, Norma Jean. But she still thinks and talks like Marilyn. You know what she said when we were about half way through lunch?"

We all shook our heads, none of us wanting to dignify this nonsense with verbal approval.

"She said: 'Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.'" I think I had heard that famous quote attributed to Monroe years ago, but I didn't want to ruin Pete's story.

A week later, we all regretted the good laugh we'd had at Radzinsky's expense when he was killed, hit by a taxi on Rodeo Drive.

"I had to go and look at the spot," Solly Molina said that next Thursday. "I couldn't believe it; how many taxis are you going to find on any given day in LA. This ain't New York, for chrissake! Besides, you can't go fast enough on Rodeo without running out of street. Since I was over there, I went into Nate N Al's for a corned beef on rye. Had lunch with Radzinsky's Marilyn."

"Marilyn Monroe?" Paddy asked, bemused. "One and the same. Radzinsky was right. She's alive and well."

"And eating at Nate N Al's?" I added.

"Uh-huh. Nice lady. Won't talk about the Kennedy's, but willing to tell Billy Wilder stories 'til the cows come home." Paddy and I looked at each other over the rims of our glasses and our eyebrows wondered about Solly's mental stability.

Solly Molina died halfway through Leno's monologue on Monday night. Someone said Jay had screwed up one of Solly's jokes and Solly was so pissed, he choked on a roast beef sandwich.

Paddy Ryan and I faced each other over a very empty table in the bar at The Biltmore.

"What the hell's going on?" he moaned. "Two weeks and two gone. I know we're a bunch of old farts, but this is ridiculous."

"That's what comes from having lunch with Marilyn Monroe," I said grinning.

"You think?"

"I was kidding, Paddy. They were putting us on about Monroe. It's just coincidence that they died a week apart." "I don't know. They both seemed pretty serious. I think I'll stop in at Nate N Al's and check it out." "Tell La Monroe I said, 'hi,'" I chortled. Now, Paddy Ryan wasn't that old, and a heart attack was probably a very logical conclusion to his profligate lifestyle, but coming on top of Pete Radzinsky's and Solly Molina's recent passings, it was more than I could tolerate. After three funerals in as many weeks, I decided to go to Nate N Al's myself.

The famous restaurant on Beverly Drive was just as I remembered: large, well lit, crowded and permeated with the smells of good chicken soup and hot pastrami. Actors, agents, writers and wannabe's filled the Naugahyde booths, and I had to wait twenty minutes before some sweet young thing with casting couch aspirations could seat me.

There was no way, I thought, that anyone with any claim to fame could possible sneak in and out of Nate N Al's without causing a stir; and if the appearance of the famous or infamous were rare enough, it would generate a mention by Liz Smith or Army Archerd in their respective columns. That's probably why I was startled when she slipped unobtrusively into the booth across from me and blessed me with one of her famous pouting smiles framed in bright red lipstick. The small black mole on glistening white skin winked at me, and waterfalls of platinum blond hair cascaded about her shoulders — It was Monroe.

Solly was right, she had put on a few pounds, but then she always tended toward the chunky; that was one of her endearing charms. Still, she looked pretty damn good for a woman who would have been almost eighty — if she hadn't been dead for over forty years!

I was alarmed when she sat down, apprehensive as she addressed me by name, and even more disturbed when, in that familiar little girl voice, she calmly ordered a "chicken salad, hold the extra mayo" as if it were the most normal request in the world.

But when I looked over her shoulder and saw Paddy Ryan, Solly Molina and Pete Radzinsky out on the sidewalk, waiting for me to join them — that's when I really panicked.

### A HOUSE IN THE SUBURBS

###

"The primary purpose of the female of the species is to nurture and raise the offspring of the male," Howard Allwood frequently told the masculine sales contingent at his auto dealership. Then with a sly smile and a rapid shift of eyes to insure one of the few female employees was not within earshot, he would add: "And of course, a little of the ol' push-push." This latter addendum was usually punctuated with the appropriate hand gestures to leave no doubt as to what he referred.

Heavy with child and tired of the daily drudgery of hauling her growing girth downtown by bus to her secretarial job - her husband, the auto dealer, discouraged the high expense of driving and parking downtown - Carla Allwood prayed that she would never have to work again.

When Howard and Carla's first child, Leo, was born, Howard could do no less than support his own oft-phrased contention regarding women and insist that his wife stay home to properly care for, nurture and raise his son. Even though it meant an adjustment to the level of their income, Harry decided that it was his primary responsibility to secure for his son the best possible environment in which to be raised.

After some serious thought, he also felt that the child's developmental welfare could be appropriately attended to only by a move out of the city.

The reduction of income, along with the increased expense

of a new mortgage, would just have to be compensated for by a

Winter Dreams more economical approach to this new suburban lifestyle by his wife, who no longer contributed monetarily to the benefit of the relationship.

The rim of the bowl, which is the Los Angeles basin, is lined with small communities where pavement and long backyards dissolve into the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and the Angeles National Forest. Their varying degrees of wealth and luxury are in direct proportion to age and accessibility to the metropolitan area where most of the homeowners are compelled to make the vast amounts of money necessary to support the dubious splendors of semi-isolated weekend barbecues.

The tract in the foothills north of La Crescenta was just old enough and just far enough from downtown Los Angeles to be within Howard and Carla's newly reduced budget. The house was not especially large, however the pie shaped wedge of land, whose point upon which it was situated, was certainly big enough to support a small herd of sheep. In fact, Carla facetiously pointed out that it might not be a bad idea to buy a few goats just to keep the weeds in the "back forty" from inundating the small lawn and patio close to the house. A long rambling fence, an ugly amalgam of wood, chicken and barbed wire strung on metal posts, defined the rear of the property. None of which were effective in either the elimination or suppression of the wild brush and its covert population of rodents and other annoying varmints. The homes of the neighbors were all relatively close, occupying the hub of the wheel that widened out toward the uninhabitable hillsides behind them.

Carla remarked once that it would have made more sense if the hills had been bulldozed and the houses built back away from the street to maximize the larger portion of each parcel. Howard pointed out that it was probably prohibitively expensive and, if that were the case, then this particular dream of suburbia would have been way beyond their affordable means.

To which Carla could have responded that this was his dream and not hers. However she had learned long ago that her opinions had little or no value to her husband, and when they actually contradicted him she was begging for more trouble and abuse than the satisfaction of expressing an opposing view warranted.

When little Leo was born it was the happiest day of Howard's life and he thought it would be important to memorialize the occasion for both his wife and the newborn. Before the sweat was even off of Carla's brow and the blood wiped from the child's squalling face in the delivery room, Howard presented his wife with a Timex watch picked out with loving care from Timex's economy collection at the local K-Mart.

Little Leo, on the other hand, when he arrived home swaddled in blankets, was greeted by the terribly wrinkled and mournful countenance of a pedigreed Shar Pei puppy, which Carla thought was by far and away the ugliest thing she had ever seen.

"It's important that a boy grow up with a dog," Howard said, unaware of his wife's view that the dog's wrinkled skin was positively disgusting. "It teaches him responsibility and gives him a companion to count on until I get home each night." Carla intentionally neglected to point out to her husband that Leo would have plenty of companionship with his own mother until Howard arrived home with stories of the additional sales he was now required to consummate to continue providing her with the luxury of their new house in the suburbs.

Carla was a good mother. She knew now that she no longer had to go out and fight for a position in the world of secular ambition, that this is what she had been cut out for all of her life. She threw herself into the whole process of raising her child with the most advanced techniques of every book she could find on the subject, as well as the good old tried and true methods, which every child rearing support group she contacted was happy to recommend.

"You should see the woman," Howard told his sales force.

"She's got her damned teats hanging out all day. And he latches

right on there! You'd think the kid already appreciated what those things are really for." The leer on Howard's face left no doubt that he didn't consider nursing the female breast's primary function.

Carla wanted only the best for the child so she promised that, until he was six months old, nothing would pass his lips but the sweetness of her own milk. She even joined the La Leche League in an effort to learn everything about the art of providing Leo with the best nutrition possible. Howard thought it hilarious that a woman would have to join a club to learn how to suckle a child. But in a magnanimous gesture of liberal parenthood he tolerated her membership as long as he wouldn't have to be subjected to lengthy discourses on the subject and, most important, little Leo continued to show sustained growth and physical development on the "watery blue stuff." Much to his father's chagrin, he did. The Shar Pei also thrived with a steady diet of food, which the local pet store assured Howard, was well worth its costly price tag. "After all," Howard justified, "the animal is pedigreed and it is important to protect our investment," and keep him a fit companion for his son.

As he took most of his meals at work, and business luncheons were an integral part of his marketing budget, Howard seldom went without the delights of his favorite cut of steak or shellfish platter. And since his need to eat at home was limited to one or two meals a week, he saw no point in allocating too much personal finance to unnecessary grocery shopping.

It had taken quite a bit of education and training, but somehow Howard managed to help Carla live within her budget by making the shopping lists for her and then reviewing her purchases with a critical eye toward improving her technique. Naturally, while she went out to do this shopping, he took advantage of the time to play with his son and prove that he was indeed a conscientious father. His only requirement was that the child was cleaned and fed before she departed the house. And if this condition usually put the child into a torpor which brought on a nice long nap, Howard would gladly sacrifice his quality time with the boy to insure he received his proper rest.

Carla missed the hubbub and turmoil of the city. Never before exposed to the bucolic advantages of living in the country, she found this semi-gentrified existence, where open spaces consumed civilization at the end of their backyard, extremely uncomfortable.

Howard, as occupied as he was with factory rebates, vehicle inventories and flooring financing, appreciated the occasional opportunity to relax on the back patio and see nothing but green shrubbery rapidly turning brown with the new summer's heat.

Lying beside her husband at night with the window open, instead of the hum of tires on the road, sirens or other traffic noise, Carla now heard the wind rattling the elm tree by the side of the house.

Off in the distance, the sorrowful lamentations of coyotes accompanied the darkness of the night with unrequited yearning.

"What is that?" she asked the first time she heard the wailing cry as she tucked little Leo in closer to her warm body.

"Coyotes"

"This near to the house?"

"Sure. We're in the country now - sorta. I suppose you'll see raccoons, 'possums, skunks, and snakes up here too." "Snakes?"

"Yeah... uh, I meant to warn you. Don't go out back beating the brush. You could run into a rattler." "A rattle snake?" Carla asked, her incredulity matched only by sudden fear.

"Uh-huh. They'll start coming out now with the hot weather."

She didn't want to ask where the snakes had been laying in wait during the previous cool months as winter slipped unnoticed into Southern California's spring. She wanted to tell her husband right then and there that it was never her idea nor desire to move to the sticks! Instead, she shuddered, fixed the nipple, thrust between two steadying fingers, firmly into her son's eager mouth and listened to the wild canine cries coming from the nearby hills.

Howard didn't mind Leo's presence in their bed. In fact, he insisted on it. He took comfort in the boy's slight bulk between his wife and himself, and frequently during the night reached out to feel the gentle rise and fall of the child's life before he could go back to sleep knowing that all was right with his world. This was his heir. Leo Allwood, in all the glory of his regal name, would carry on the family line and insure Howard's eventual place in the pantheon of a fickle and forgetful universe. There was a certain amount of contentment knowing that his own immortality was a hand's breadth away. If this diminished the opportunities for intimacy between Carla and himself, then so be it! The woman was much too demanding anyway; and somehow, Howard admitted candidly to a male confidant, the thought of rooting around in an enlarged birth canal was less than stimulating. The small fleshy buffer zone between them was an appreciated relief from marital duties, which Howard planned to postpone as long as possible.

Carla anticipated the puppy would be a lively - if ugly - addition to their home. But the Shar Pei, named "Wrinkly" in a bust of unimaginative creativity by Howard, always seemed to move quickly and methodically uunderfoot when least expected There was no doubt in Leo's mother's mind that the inclusion of the dog into their household was greatly premature if it was meant to be a companion for the boy. But Howard justified his purchase, exclaiming how wonderful it would be to see the two smallest members of their family unit develop parallel lives into a magnificent friendship. This was all well and good for Howard, who was seldom present to witness the growth process, clean up the messes, and had yet to trip over the damn animal with an armful of laundry, dishes or even the child himself.

Carla found it was much easier to relegate Wrinkly to the backyard, rather than pick her way across an ever-moving minefield, which could unexpectedly tangle itself in her legs and cause irreparable damage to either herself or whatever precious bundle happened to be in her arms at that time.

When Howard got home each night his first priority was his progeny. Leo was immediately subjected to a number of nonsense language inquiries as to his well-being and present health and happiness.

Assured that all was right with his son, Howard would then attend to the child's pet and enjoy some of the puppy's undisciplined exuberance which neither little Leo nor his mother were able to appreciate.

This was the normal state of things when Howard came home slightly early one night to discover that it had been Carla's habit, when her he was at work, to keep the dog in the backyard. Rather than immediately scold his spouse for this insensitivity toward his son's companion, he decided to look after the puppy and reserve his rebuke until the quieter moments of the evening at which time he could concentrate with enthusiasm on an appropriate reprimand.

Much to his chagrin, the dog was nowhere to be found. Where normally the puppy would come wriggling and snuffling, leaking urine in unbridled excitement to flop over on his wrinkled back at Howard's feet, this time there was no such familiar response.

Feeling slightly foolish, and wishing that he had named the dog something more masculine and noble, such as "Rex," Howard walked around the length and breadth of his yard - at least as far as the brambles in the back allowed - yelling:

"Wrinkly! Wrinkly!"

He broke off his futile search when his next door neighbor leaned over the back fence to inquire as to the problem. "Coyotes," the neighbor said, nodding his head knowledgeably when informed that the puppy was missing from the enclosed yard.

"What do you mean coyotes?" Howard asked. "It's been a hard winter. They come down from the hills," he pointed at the rolling prominences rising in back of their houses. "And they're too hungry to be scared anymore. They'll come right over the fence and get the pets. Lost two cats myself until I wised up!"

"Howard shook his head with disbelief. "The dog weighed at least fifteen pounds."

"No problem for a couple of coyotes. They hunt in packs. Probably more than a couple. Dog wouldn't stand a chance, even a larger animal."

"But this is the city!"

The neighbor nodded at the tangled brush in the back of both of their yards and the hills beyond. "Not out there, it ain't."

Howard couldn't believe that this is what happened to the Shar Pei. Even though he fought his way through the brambles and found a spot on the fence smeared with fresh blood and small patches of crimson-soaked short brown hair, he still refused to admit that the animal was the victim of coyotes. While he changed his burr-filled trousers and foxtail riddled socks, he sent Carla out into the street, door to door, to ask the neighbors if anyone had seen the SharPei. After all, the small dog with the rumpled skin would be easy enough to spot. Not particularly fond of exercise on foot, Howard placed Leo in his car seat, and the two of them drove around the tract and up and down the roads in the hills above - all to no avail. The dog was gone, and Howard had to concede to himself and to his now well-reprimanded wife that the local coyote population had been treated to a meal - a very expensive meal! The only consolation appeared to be that Leo was not the bit least aware that his pet had provided sustenance to the local wildlife population. His mother, however, was made very much cognizant of the fact that her unconscionable transgression was akin to that of a homicidal maniac or at least the culpable equivalent of negligent manslaughter.

When Carla questioned the application of such a term as "manslaughter" to the disappearance of a dog, she was on the very verge of drawing Howard's physical wrath, and would have been subjected to it, had she not had the baby in her arms while she moved across the room just as the man realized that he might strike the child instead of the bewildered woman. After all, Howard Allwood told himself, if nothing else, he always knew how to control his temper. Which is really to say that he was tempted, but Carla probably moved too fast for him to react.

Finally, all he could do was shout across the length of the living room at his wife: "Why? Why? Why the hell did you put the dog outside?"

She thought about that for a moment and simply said, "I thought it would be nice if he had some fresh air." "Fresh air! Fresh air! Fresh goddamn air! What are you, stupid or something? Fresh fucking air?" "I thought it would be nice."

"You thought it would be nice," he mimicked, the sarcasm seeming to drip from his lips with the saliva of his incredulous anger.

That was just the beginning of it. For days he attacked her whenever he had a chance, reminding her that her feeble-minded, inconsiderate actions had cost him an expensive pedigreed dog and their son a good companion - certainly one he would be able to count on more than his dimwitted mother!

During the slow days well before quarter's end, Howard managed to come home by seven o'clock each night and there, after dinner, took up a defensive position on the patio with a newly purchased .22 rifle and his infant son in his lap. The hot-blooded need to extract some kind of revenge on something other than his wife was rampant in his veins. But no matter how late he waited patiently in the darkness, the coyotes refused to come down, and only the taunt of their crying chatter reached the backyard.

Howard took his frustration out on other wildlife. Two 'possums, five ground squirrels and innumerable birds, but nary a coyote meandered into his wavering sights. "I don't think you should have Leo out there with that gun," Carla ventured. She objected also to the weapon itself, but knew better than to voice this concern. Howard would never tolerate any challenge to his judgment; but hopefully, in relation to his son, he might be a bit less authoritarian and willing to recognize the potential for danger to his pride and joy.

"Nothing is going to happen to the boy. It's never too

early to learn that it's a dog-eat-dog world \- as I am sure you

have noticed," Howard said, stroking the thin barrel and plastic stock of the cheap rifle. "It's kill or be killed out here. A man has to protect his territory."

He looked at the sleeping child in his lap. "The sooner Leo finds that out, the better off he will be."

"But he's only six months old."

A smile of staggering determination suffused Howard's face. "If I have my way about it, the boy's going to grow up to be just like his dad: a man's man."

Carla realized that there was nothing she could do against such adamant masculine theology and resigned herself to watching through the sliding glass doors at the rear of the house with unabated apprehension.

But her concerns were unnecessary, and as the warm summer nights drifted through the phases of the moon nothing untoward happened except to small rodents and other wild vermin that had the misfortune of wandering into the yard whenever Howard was on duty.

Without the dog to occupy part of his time at home, Howard lavished even more attention on Leo. He instructed Carla on everything from what clothing the child should wear to the brand of baby wipes and diapers. And when she proposed to begin feeding the little rascal a bland mixture of mashed fruit and rice cereal, Howard flatly refused to allow it. There was no sense fixing something if it wasn't broken. "The teat's been good enough up to now; I see no reason to change a good thing. Unless, of course, you're starting to shrivel up like an old hag and can't suckle your son properly anymore." "Of course I can."

"Then keep at it until I tell you different."

The important quarterly adjustments to flooring and the balancing of the dealership's books came upon Howard faster than expected. Reluctantly he abandoned his post in the backyard and turned his attention toward the business and disposing of old inventory which would make room to accommodate the new models soon due.

Never one to shirk his responsibilities to the business - his

support and sustenance - Howard allowed his busy days to

stretch to twelve and fifteen hour marathons of sales, invoices, bookkeeping and accounting magic to pacify the bank as well as the factory.

But nothing prevented him from frequent calls to Carla, insisting that she place the small ear of their son to the receiver of the phone so that he could proffer absentee endearments to the most precious thing in his life. He also took advantage of these opportunities to obtain progress reports on everything from poop and pee to rash treatment and teething trauma. Carla listened patiently and obeyed all of her husband's instructions with the knowledge that somehow he would know what she did or did not do for the child, and hopefully his nightly critique of her care giving would not escalate into a tirade regarding her inadequacies as a parent.

The books finally balanced, surplus inventory marked down, and a healthy initial order for new models faxed to the factory, Howard arrived at home exhausted.

A slight chill in the air foreshadowed the coming of fall and he thought that he was about ready to be done with the heat of the Southern California summer and in need of the more temperate clime of winter. It was time to abandon the occasional trip to the beach and anticipate a foray into the peaks near Big Bear when the first of the season's storms came to the local mountains. He couldn't wait to see Leo's face light up when the child discovered the icy fluff of fresh-fallen snow. The soft yellow lights of the house were a welcome relief from the fluorescent fixtures of the office; and the smell of soup on the stove beat the hell out of cigarette smoke and ashtrays full of stale butts.

Carla sat quietly in the living room mending the seam of one of his favorite casual shirts he had ripped months ago. Howard felt a warmth in his heart and an unaccustomed appreciation for the hard-working woman. It was good, he realized, to come out of the night of impersonal commerce into the calm abode of hearth and home and loving family. "Did you have a good day?" Carla asked, her eyes fixed on the needle and thread between her fingers. "A long hard one. And it's good to be home," Howard admitted with uncharacteristic conviction.

He looked at his watch. Already ten o'clock. First he'd go in and give his sleeping child a kiss. Then, after a hearty bowl of homemade soup, he would treat his wife to a long-overdue reprise of the ardor, which had infected them both in the early days of their relationship. She deserved a treat. The crib used for naps in the nursery was empty, as was the bed in the master bedroom.

"Where's my main man?" Howard asked, returning to the living room.

Carla carefully drew the needle and thread through the soft velour of the shirt before staring blankly up at her husband. "Where's Leo?" Howard asked again.

Carla looked from the man standing before her to the pale reflection of them both in the closed sliding glass door leading to the dark outside and thought for a moment about his question.

She considered her reply and nodded as if suddenly remembering.

"I put him outside in his stroller. I thought it would be nice if he had some fresh air."

### BREAKDOWN

I can't remember her name.

She's sitting right across the goddamn table from me. Our regular Friday staff meeting — and I can't remember her freaking name.

What the hell's wrong with me?

"You hear what I'm sayin', Charlie?"

Uh-huh. Yeah, Jack. Every word — as usual. I suppose I should quit trying to remember the woman's name and pay attention to what Jack is saying. He seems pissed. "Well, you better pay attention, it's your district that ain't holdin' up its end."

Tell me something I don't know.

What the hell is her name? I've been working with her for two years, and suddenly I'm a blank. I'm sure I knew it five minutes ago. Never even occurred to me to think about it until we came into the conference room and sat down. Then, it just slipped out of my head. Like air leaking out of an old tire —you don't notice it until it's too late.

What I don't understand is I can reel off the names of everyone around the table without thinking twice. But not her's. It's not as if I don't recognize her. She's as familiar as an old pair of shoes. I see her every day here at the office. Talk to her, too — almost every day. I know everything about her: husband, two dogs instead of kids, slightly neurotic, sometimes bitchy, at others, standoffish, aloof, uncommunicative, insecure — a real priss.

But I can't recall her goddamn name!

What's happening to me, anyway?

"Charlie, I don't have your report again."

That's Jack. Hotshot. Mr. Stud. Young Turk. Go-getter.

A kiss-ass with limited intelligence and infinite ambition.

Always ragging on my butt just to let me know who's the boss.

I got your report, Jack; got it right here.

The briefcase on the table on front of me is a real comfort. Old leather, been the route. Just like me, seen some real years of service.

She's looking across the table at me with something like pity. She knows Jack's out to get me. He wants to hand my territory over to one of his buddies so he won't have to worry about me out-selling any of his hand picked stooges. It'd make him look bad.

If only I could remember her name, I could appreciate her concern. But I don't need her pity.

"Charlie, you haven't given me a report for three weeks." They're all looking at me now: Harvey, Phil, James, the others — and her. The only woman in the room and you'd think I'd at least remember her name.

I put the reports on your desk, Jack. Regular as clock work; right there in your freaking in-basket, just like always. "We'll talk about it later, Charlie. Uh-huh. You and I gonna need to have a long talk."

She's embarrassed now, turning away, as if eye contact with the sinking ship will drag her down in the whirlpool. If I could only think of her name I'd be able to get her on my side; but this way, I can't even talk to her.

It's all Jack's fault. If he wasn't out to get me, I wouldn't be feeling this pressure I can't do anything about. She's looking at me again. They all are. Did Jack say something I didn't hear? Their stares are like small pinpricks of light disappearing into a black hole deep in my brain, the same place where the woman's name has vanished. Jane? Mary Beth? Laura? Sylvia? None of them sound right, none of the names fit the mousy brown hair, too-white skin and wide nostrils that seem to quiver whenever she talks. There should be a perfect name to go with the perfect round red of her always-startled lips. But what is it? Why can't I remember?

Jack is rattling on again: "We're that close to making third quarter projections — except for Charlie's territory. We just need that little extra push."

Push, push, push. That's all I've been hearing: Bigger margins, smaller discounts, larger invoices, quicker turn-around. Hustle, sell, move it! Push. Push. Push.

God, I wish I had a cigarette! Can't even do that anymore. Have to go outside and stand like a beggar in front of the building to have a butt. Jack again. His orders. Tried to give me some bullshit about city ordinances, or something. Yeah, sure. He just wants me to have to leave the office whenever I need a smoke, so his cronies can take my calls, write my orders. No wonder I can't make my quotas. I watch Jack's mouth move. Every word hurtles directly into my head. Like sand shot into a too-full bucket, I can't hold any more. It pushes everything else out. Can't even think of the names of the others sitting around the table now, their criticism a clenched fist, squeezing my brain into a ball of pain. Her name. Their names. All gone. Disappeared into that black hole.

I can cheat and look them up on the agenda — Jack's big on written agendas — it's in my briefcase. Just need to open the old worn latches that hold the answers to all my problems. Maybe it'll relieve a little of the pressure if I can just get a couple of names straight. It's a start.

Ah, here it is — my agenda.

Names I can finally remember.

Smith and Wesson.

### THE TENANT

It was in an apartment in an old converted brownstone on the lower east side, and he thought he was damn lucky to get it. The real estate rental agent extolled the merits of the flat while Arthur Crenshaw inspected the ample attributes of the agent.

This rental would be his very first away from home, and the fertile possibilities of indiscriminate cohabitation were one of the benefits to be reaped beyond the pale of parental observation. Arthur's meteoric ascent into the stratosphere of an annual five-figure bonus was the fiscal freedom he finally required to leave the shelter of his mother's home. And now even the middle-aged rental agent began to qualify for one of Arthur's many erotic fantasies - until he saw the sparkling rock of marital commitment on her finger.

Arthur could not explain to his mother that financial consideration was the least of his concern now that he was a man of the world making the big bucks. The loving and watchful attention to his every coming and going, along with the continued solicitous supervision of his moral development were sufficient motivation for him to seek the liberation of anxious hormones in a world eager to accommodate his unencumbered needs.

Margaret Claymore of Creative Property Management, Inc. had taken him through the downstairs flat of the brownstone, joyfully pointing out everything from the new carpets (salt and pepper shag), a new water heater (Sears-Forty Gallon Energy Saver) and the sparkling off-white spray paint. Even the decorative molding around the juncture of the ceilings was a new powder blue flecked with gold, lending a delicate contrast to the mundane monotony of the white walls.

The rental agent explained that the entire building had just been completely renovated and redecorated over a leisurely two-year period and he was the first applicant since that time to appeal to the agency for residence in the renewed edifice. "This is not a party place, Mr. Crenshaw," Margaret Claymore warned.

"I am not a party person," Arthur illuminated the properly chastised property manager. "I am a stockbroker. I need my rest."

"Ah, indeed. Then you will appreciate that we strive to maintain a very quiet premises for professionals in a sedate neighborhood. If you desire, shall we say, a more... uh, expressive life style, I can refer you to a number of apartments we manage which cater to a... a younger clientele." "No thank you," Arthur reassured the woman. "This is exactly what I require."

The fact that the rent was more than reasonable was not the determining factor in his decision to take the flat, but it certainly contributed to the quiet appeal of the renovated premises with convenient subway access. Hastily Arthur signed the lease agreement and immediately made his arrangements to move in.

If peace and quiet were the criteria demanded of the occupants of the brownstone, Arthur Crenshaw insured that his part in the pact was maintained to perfection. He walked about in stocking feet, listened to his stereo or television with headphones, and only made liaisons with girls who moaned in ecstasy rather than screaming out their climax.

Whenever his need for an inundation of decibels grew intolerable, he went to one of the many nearby rock clubs until, ears aching, soaked in sweat, and exhausted beyond endurance, he was completely sated with enough noise to last a week or two.

Indeed, as the weeks passed, Arthur came to suspect that if he had any neighbors - and he had seen none move in \- they were also so enamored of the sound of their own silence, for all intents and purposes he could have been the only tenant of the building.

He was just considering an inquiry to the realty management company regarding this apparent isolation in the building when he heard the sound of footsteps overhead. Rather than expected annoyance, the lightly creaking thumps against the ancient wooden floor of the old building were a companionable comfort.

Immediately and instinctively, based on the delicate tread overhead, he determined that his upstairs neighbor was a girl and she lived alone. And for this reason also he tended to find the sounds not the least bit annoying, but singularly arousing. He waited in expectation for the of a flushing commode, the gurgling drain of the bath, or the grinding reverberation of the disposal in the kitchen sink. But evidently the insulation of the plumbing between the flats was far superior to that between the floor and ceiling, thereby sufficiently adequate to preserve the privacy of more personal occupations. Being only the beginning days of fall there was as yet no need for the steam pipes to sing into heat-carrying expansion, so Arthur did not know if his well-preserved quietude would be disturbed when his upstairs neighbor turned on her radiator. He suspected, with an eye to the ancient metal coils in each of his own rooms, that there could never be sufficient insulation to prevent the noisome clatter and clang indigenous to old buildings still heated by steam. Why the system had not been upgraded to something more practical, he couldn't guess. Perhaps the owners, after two years of no income, had finally said: "Enough is enough."

In those rare solitary evenings when Arthur was resting from the trysts of a constant parade of companions, he appreciated hearing the sounds of someone nearby to relieve the tedious silence of the building and reassure him that he was not the sole survivor of a final cataclysm in the streets outside.

Frequently, he silenced the electric cacophony of his compact disc player or television, removed the earphones and allowed himself to enjoy the shuffle of his neighbor across the length and breadth of her flat.

And then, unexpected one night, there was a guitar. The most delicately plucked and strummed rhythms floated down from above and he found himself transported on flights of shimmering fancy with the beauty of the music. Almost every night now the delights of the stringed cadences of that gentle sound bathed his apartment in warm melodies.

He stayed alert, but was unable to catch a glimpse of the tenant above. Which, although frustrating, provided the opportunity to create a vision from his own fertile imagination. He knew it was the insistent influence of the guitar that engendered images of a modern refugee from the 1960's Summer Of Love.

Her hair would be chestnut brown, long and straight, parted directly in the middle of her head, falling to softly curved hips. She would be given to wearing high-collared dresses, which dropped plumb down over high, well-hidden underdeveloped breasts to touch the tops of open sandals. Of course she would be named Buffy or Tammie - some such appellation appropriate to an era long past. The sound effects from above increased incrementally. First there had been the footfalls on hardwood floors, then the guitar; and now, on occasion, he could hear the sweet tinkle of feminine laughter, confirming with relief once and for all that his unseen neighbor was positively a girl. Laughter and the soft tones of conversation, murmurings so low he could not identify the second voice, conquered the infrequent long silences of autumn nights when Arthur had no company of his own.

Curiosity got the better of him, and he took to lingering by the window in the hopes of catching her or her conversational companion coming or going. Frequently he left his door ajar on the off chance that he would hear her at the foot of the stairs and could trigger an "accidental" meeting. Unlike his own well-marked mailbox in the foyer of the building, only the flat number rather than a name identified hers. No matter how often he loitered he never seemed to be there when she came to unlock the panel and retrieve her mail - if she did receive mail. He could never see anything through the small slots in the little metal door.

Arthur finally grew tired of the constant rotation of new talent into and out of his bed and, after one particularly drawn out relationship and its acrimonious demise, he swore off women and decided that the misogynistic life of a celibate was preferable to the aggravation and anxieties of another conquest. His vow of temporary chastity found temptation only in the chimeras of his unseen companion upstairs. He continued unsuccessfully to contrive ways to meet her until one night he could no longer restrain himself.

Indian Summer had given way to winter and fall failed to linger. The weather turned bad overnight. Arthur discovered one advantage of his downstairs location: he had inherited that portion of the building that harbored a fireplace. He assumed that his cozy quarters once incorporated the living room or parlor of the original home, and that he might be the sole possessor of the only built-in hearth in the structure.

On this particular night, the chilled rain turned intermittently to sleet, and the warmth of his fireside became enhanced beyond expectation by the sweetness of the guitar music that filtered down through the ceiling. Arthur was not a classicist by nature, but thought he recognized the tune and its harmonies as something by Bach. Or perhaps it was Schubert or Brahms. He didn't bother to analyze past his acceptance of its soft and warm bountiful beauty on this side of the dark storm beyond his window.

He must have dozed off from his best selling novel when the sudden silence occupied only by the crackle of dying embers brought him back to reality.

The music was gone.

He strained to hear another chord, the strum of strings with fretful fingers fine-tuning the instrument to begin another piece. But he heard no more music.

But there was something else.

For a while he could not tell what it was that he could barely hear until, in a passing moment when the wind abated and the sound of the rain's tears on the windowpane died away, muffled sobs replaced the storm. He could hear the very definite sound of someone crying in the room above.

Ineffable sadness became Arthur's first reaction as expressions of pain or sorrow replaced the yearning beauty of the music. His second was a sly appreciation for this opportunity to go upstairs and inquire as to whether or not he might be of assistance in the moment of distress. Which is exactly what he did.

Summing all of the recently gained confidence in his ability to satisfy the most intrinsic needs of the female of the species, Arthur made his way up the dimly lit stairwell and knocked on the door of the flat above his own.

Upon receiving no response, he tapped again, this time with a timidity, which was exactly the opposite of the urgency of his concerns. Suddenly, he was having second thoughts. It occurred to him that he was being presumptuous by intruding. Seeking her out in a time of affliction might be a mutual embarrassment, which would foredoom any possibility of their eventually getting to know each other. When his second knock went unheeded, Arthur took it as a sign that he had a reprieve from his intrusive effrontery, and quietly tiptoed back down to his own rapidly cooling suite. Perhaps it was his interrupting knock at the door, or just the normal sequence of sadness running its anguished course, but now he could hear no sound from above. Arthur had the impression that if he were to go outside and look up to the curtained windows above his own, he would find them dark and unmindful of either his interest or the inclement night which had returned with renewed fury.

Again it was as if Arthur had the whole building to himself. No footsteps, no guitar music, nary a muffled word spoken above him - and definitely no crying.

From outside the brownstone, the windows above his own remained darkly lidded eyes refusing to acknowledge his curiosity when he came home from the brokerage each night. It was almost two full weeks before his awareness of the renewed rustle and thump of activity upstairs signaled that all again might be right with the world. And soon, the lyrical tender melodies of the delicate guitar confirmed it.

There was no sound of voices and Arthur took a perverse and jealous pleasure in thinking his neighbor had ended a relationship. Perhaps she was lonely, and these were possibly fertile grounds for the seeds of a new friendship. If only he could meet her by accident - even a contrived one - or find some valid excuse to go up and introduce himself. No sooner contemplated than accomplished! The clarity of the night was unusually mild for November and a welcome respite from freezing temperatures. Thanksgiving was on the horizon, and the late October and early November storms of rain and sleet had become a faded memory laying its own subconscious preparations for winter. Arthur was unsuccessfully fighting off the ennui of an overly large solitary meal when the sound of shattering glass disturbed his torpor. He could hear it above and then tinkling onto the sidewalk outside of his rooms.

He ran to the window just in time to see an unruly gang of shaved heads running down the street, indiscriminately throwing rocks and bits of road debris at the buildings as they rapidly passed.

Noting that his own two front windows were intact, he realized that his upstairs neighbor's panes must have suffered damage and it would be a responsible act of kindness for him to check on her welfare.

For the second time Arthur remanded himself to the stairway to heaven and terminated the climb with a polite but, this time, assertive knock on the door of the flat above. The sound of footsteps and a hand on the doorknob rewarded his efforts.

With a sudden chilling breath of sickening intuition, Arthur pictured the hand on the other side of the door as being attached to a flabby arm protruding from a brightly colored Mu-Mu, which concealed the massive girth of an obese recluse who would destroy all of his illusions the minute she opened the door. How could he have been so stupid to think...? It was too late to back down. He was committed.

With the door open a minute crack Arthur could just make

out the timorous gaze of a single Mediterranean-green eye

above the heavy brass links of a security chain. The voice that accompanied the eye was as wonderfully melodious as the guitar harmonies he had grown to enjoy.

"Yes?" the voice quavered with repressed anxiety. Suddenly he was speechless. "Uh... I...uh, I'm Art, Artie Crenshaw. I... I'm your neighbor downstairs." "Yes, I know. I've seen you coming into the building." The thought of an unattractive behemoth now erased from his mind, Arthur was thrilled to hear that she had taken notice of him.

"I... I heard glass breaking and I wanted to make sure you were all right."

The space between the door and its jamb widened and now two green eyes shaded by a cloud of soft shinning auburn hair appraised him more closely.

"Oh, it's the window in the bathroom. I... I'm fine, but it startled me." He could see that she was still trembling and her vulnerability was almost palpable through the door. "I'm okay. Thank you for checking. Your concern is appreciated." Arthur thought that, under the circumstances, this was the most marvelous little speech, filled with all of the important information required in response to his quick trip up the stairs; and yet he found it sadly lacking in expectations of enough damage and disaster, which might require his immediate intervention. Although, only God knew what that could be. He realized that what he wanted was the stuff of heroic fantasies, but when faced with the cold hard facts of reality, he understood that there wasn't much he could do regardless of the situation.

"I was afraid you might have been hurt by flying glass, or something," he hastened to re-justify his presence at her door. "No, I'm fine, but the bathroom floor looks like a war zone. I suppose I'll have to get a glazier to come in and replace the window."

Ah, to slay dragons and win the hand of fair maiden! At last the hero could ride to the rescue. "Oh, that won't be necessary. I can fix it for you. Why don't you let me take a look at it?"

She seemed to hesitate for a moment and then, as if she had finally assured herself that she would be safe with him, the door closed so that there was enough slack in the night chain to unlatch it, and he found himself welcomed into the warmth of her living room.

So much for his image of a '60's folk singer! This was definitely neither a Buffey nor a Tammie. The girl, in her early twenties, graced Levi 501's with the contours of a modern model. The expected neck to foot dress and open sandals were instead a bulky sweatshirt that proclaimed "I ♥ N.Y." and a beat-up pair of Nike's. The hair parted in the middle and cascading to her hips did not exist. Arthur would have been hard-pressed to find the proper words to describe the cap of copper-colored tresses that curved around the sides of a delicate oval face.

He thought that she had the gentle waif-like features of an angel placed on earth to tempt him with the possibilities of celestial beauty far beyond his wildest imagination. "I'm Belinda McCauley," she said, holding out her small hand, completely unaware that her downstairs neighbor was thunderstruck with instantaneous love - or at least a bright burst of incipient lust.

"Arthur Crenshaw... uh, oh, I already said that, didn't I?" Just call me Artie." He didn't know why he said that. He hated the diminutive, "Artie," but somehow felt that on her succulent red, bee-stung lips it would he a hymn of endearment. He wanted to ask her a hundred mundane questions, including every cliché in the book: "Why haven't we met before?" "Where have you been all of my life?" Instead he fumbled out, "you play the guitar?"

Of course she played the guitar! How often had he heard it? And besides, the damn thing was lying against a chair right in front of them. What an inept conversationalist he had become in the face of beauty!

"Yes, I do, but I'm afraid I'm not very good. I just fuss around a bit," she said with a deprecating smile.

He wanted to tell her that it was the most beautiful "fussing" he had ever heard, that he had spent many evenings under the enchanted spell of her dulcet melodies. But since he had already asked the inane question, predisposing his ignorance of the music, he could only say, "I'm sure you are very good. I'd like to hear you play sometime." Her eyes sought sincerity in his, and when she saw no patronizing glint, she smiled and said, "It's your eardrums!" He found the bathroom littered with the diamond dust of the small opaque window that once permitted a subdued shadow of outside light during the day, but now provided insight into the harsher realities of the cold urban night. With a broom and dustpan, Arthur removed the debris. He measured the space with a ruler she provided and assured her that it would be no problem replacing the glass tomorrow. In the meantime, he helped her tape a piece of cardboard over the black hole.

He was rewarded for his efforts with the invitation to share a glass of wine. Although Arthur found little or no pleasure in the classic comforts of the vintner's art, he could hardly pass up the opportunity to spend more time within the heady sphere of the girl's exciting loveliness.

It was only after they were seated demurely apart that he finally noticed the gun on the table by the guitar. "Good Lord!" he pointed, "What's that for?" She looked in the direction indicated, and he could tell that she had completely forgotten it was there. "Oh, that! I took it out when the glass broke. I was frightened and didn't know what was happening. It was... uh...an old...er, an ex-boy friend who gave it to me for protection. He was a bit paranoid about living in the city." "I hope I never get that paranoid."

"I know," she said, looking at the pistol with mild disgust, "but taking it out was my first reaction. Isn't that terrible?" They talked about life in, and the ways of, the city, and Arthur tried to ferret out as much information from her as he could to use as ammunition for future fantasies and perhaps, with luck, the prelude to an eventual conquest. After all, he was still of an age when there were untasted delicacies which demanded attention lest he live long enough to discover that he had not had them all. Also, his sabbatical from the graces of the fairer sex was beginning to weigh heavily upon his temporarily deactivated libido.

He learned that she worked mostly at home, transcribing medical reports for a group of doctors and, although shunning any notion of the paranoia they both disdained, indicated that she appreciated the opportunity to earn her living without venturing much further than the mail box on the corner and an occasional foray to the local market.

All in all, it was a completely satisfactory evening and introduction to the most beautiful girl Arthur Crenshaw had ever had the privilege of spending time with in close quarters. The next night, laden with material from the hardware store, Arthur made his way up the stairs and found his knock on Belinda's door ignored. He would have sworn that, when he came home, he could hear her stirring above him, but a late November wind battered about the eves of the old building, and he rationalized that he could have been mistaken. Of course he conveniently forgot, for the sake of his bruised pride at the possibility of being snubbed, that she had told him she seldom ventured beyond the confines of her own rooms and the mail box on the corner, and assumed she was out. It was four days before her beautiful smiling face rewarded his nightly treks up the stairs. She made no remark about the short hiatus between his offer to repair the window and her willingness to open the door to him. But he was so pleased to be again in the presence of her radiant loveliness that he wouldn't even consider questioning her absence. The glass replaced and the mess cleaned up, they both surveyed the results.

"Take a razor blade in a couple of days and scrape off the excess putty on the window," he said, and then offered, "or I can come back and do it for you."

"Oh, that would be nice," she said, the sweetness of her acquiescence filling him with the hope of closer contact. If the anticipation of further handiwork was fraught with the specter of having to wait a number of days before she would again grant him access, that particular misconception was instantly relieved when she offered him another glass of wine. He accepted his recompense with the alacrity of a connoisseur invited to the epitome of the vintner's most coveted harvest, deciding that wine wasn't so bad after all. One glass led to another and conversation ticked away the muted clatter of the clock on the mantle.

When she offered to play the guitar for him, it brought both of their eyes again to the cold ugliness of the device for destruction, which still lay on the nearby table. "Here," she said, picking up the pistol by its chrome barrel. "Why don't you take this with you. I'm afraid it's making me more nervous than the reason for having it." Arthur didn't know whether he was more impressed by her willingness to give up the weapon or the unexpected weight and cold iciness of it in his hand.

He slipped the pistol into his pocket and, very much aware of its cold bulk against his thigh, settled down to listen to his private recital.

All thoughts of the weapon soon flew away on the wings of wonderful music. The vague familiarity of her tunes took on a new life now that he could appreciate them without the muffled intervention of her floor and his ceiling between them. Belinda stroked, strummed, and fingered the strings with such ease that it seemed as if the music were coming from somewhere else. It floated around the room, moving from an ethereal whisper of gentle delight to triumphant arpeggios of incredible power and beauty.

Arthur was enthralled. The perfection of the night was interrupted by nothing but the eventual realization that time once again had meaning and the hour was late. "Will you come back again?" she asked. "May I?" he inquired more politely than was his normal habit.

"Of course."

"Tomorrow?" he ventured.

Perhaps." But she cautioned, "I don't know...if... Why don't you come up and knock. See if I'm here." The next night he did and she wasn't there. It was little more than a week later when he finally found her home and she greeted him with an acknowledgment that neglected the fact it was not just the previous night when they last met.

Again, they sat and talked, drank long draughts of cool wine, and she played the guitar with an even more delicate touch and yearning appeal than before.

She seemed reticent to discuss more of her background and he honored her wishes, just happy enough to bask in the light of her presence and the wonderful music she shared. This time when they parted at the door, Arthur was sufficiently presumptuous to give her a goodnight kiss, which he placed first on her cool cheek before she turned her head in acceptance and allowed him access to her lips. He floated down the stairs to his own flat under the impression that he was really in love for the first time in his life, and that if he were not indeed in love, at least he would approach the possibilities of a carnal relationship with more consideration and delicacy than he normally employed. But Arthur discovered that the girl of his latest dreams was a most timid creature. Whether it was a racial incident on the west side of town, a well-publicized mugging in Central Park - which Belinda never entered - or the murder of an old woman three blocks away, it was all excellent rationale for her to stay locked within her apartment and not allow the filth of the world to rub off on her.

Perhaps, Arthur thought, she has a bit of agoraphobia. Which wasn't all bad because it should make her more available to him.

Each untoward event that came to her attention caused a combination of anguish and fear, all of which provided him with additional opportunities to comfort and reassure her. The constant reassurances eventually led him into the warm shelter of her bed where he discovered that she was a virgin.

Needless to say this physical condition was no hindrance to Arthur's seduction, and he found that, when he wished, he could be a gentle and thoughtful lover. This little bit of consideration was the least he was willing to offer to have the convenience of a girl immediately upstairs from his own quarters. It even occurred to him that the same advantage to his ongoing sexual conquest was a benefit to the girl.

When the time came, and it would he knew, to let her slip into the past along with the others who had come and gone since his freedom, he would have to confront her presence more frequently than he wished. Living in the same building had its disadvantages. He could only hope that her mild agoraphobia would continue to progress at its present rate and he would not have to suffer uncomfortable encounters in the stairwell or at their mailboxes.

That he was taking advantage of her vulnerability and need for companionship was not as yet a conscious consideration. But he recognized the inevitable eventuality of their parting, and he would try to let her down as gently as possible. After all, Arthur was not so reprehensible that he would use a woman and discard her with the callous custom of so many other young men. But that was the point, wasn't it: he was still young and had a lot of living - and loving - to do.

Once the decision was made to sleep together, he no longer found any resistance to his knock at her door. She was always there to accommodate him with the sweet innocence of a child trying to please. She made no demands upon him. If he didn't come to her for three or four days, there were no questions or recriminations; there were no jealous inquiries regarding his absence, only open arms and a warm loving smile. The only condition she placed on their togetherness was that he could not stay the night. Regardless of how warm and loving and cozy they were, snuggled under the covers against the depths of freezing weather, she made him get up and go back downstairs before the darkness was diluted by the watery winter sun.

A small price to pay, and since he had need of some sleep uninterrupted by their mutual sexual insistence, he readily acceded to her wishes.

It could have been an idyllic life if Arthur would only allow himself to forget the world and the pleasures he had yet to taste. But the lure of delights still inexperienced called to him with the clarion of possibilities that he was missing out on something, something so much more satisfying than the beautiful girl who had become too accessible. Yes, she was the most beautiful and wonderful creature that he had ever been with, but that was not enough, not while he could always dream that right around the corner there might be something better.

Eventually, he tempered his access to Belinda's body with the charms of others. He even had the temerity to bring them into the building when he saw her light was off and he thought that she might be already asleep.

On the infrequent occasions now when he marched up the stairs in a spirit of sacrifice to offer his obligation to the virginity he once took from her, she greeted him with the same placid smile and warmth as if the last contact were just the previous night. She never expressed doubt nor reservation, nor concern about his growing absences from her bed. Finally, even the intermittent voyages of duty into the quarters above his own stopped altogether, and for weeks he waited to hear her at his own door, knocking and asking where he had been.

But there was only silence. Not even the sound of her footsteps on the floor above.

And then, almost in a strange replay of when he first moved in, he heard footsteps across the length and breadth of the ceiling, and eventually the gentle reprise of familiar guitar melodies.

Arthur took this as a sign that she had gone through some private agony and then reconciled herself to the separation without their having to thrash it out like an old disenchanted married couple.

She was mature enough to know and understand that when something was over, it was over, and there was no sense dissecting and performing a post mortem over the corpse of the relationship. Good girl! Arthur thought, delighted that there would be no ugly scenes.

As strange as the cycle of Belinda's activities overhead, Arthur's awareness of it became positively focused when the deja vu of her weeping filtered down in the middle of the night. He remembered similar muffled sobs right after he first became cognizant of her; and now the repetition of the sad sound was even more poignant for his having known her so intimately.

Arthur tried to ignore the crying above him, but when it continued night after night, soft but insistent, he could no longer resist its supplication.

The door to her flat was ajar, as if she had been expecting him. He wondered if it had been left that way for the past few days until her tears on this blustery March night finally precipitated his appearance.

She was sitting in the chair used so frequently when serenading him with her guitar, the instrument of lovely sounds left unattended on the floor by her feet.

"Belinda?"

She kept her face buried in her hands, and he could hear the clear keening of a broken soul slipping along with salty tears through the slightly splayed fingers.

"Belinda? It's Arthur. Is there something wrong?" Of course there was something wrong! "Can I help?" The green glint of her eyes looked through the mist of tears and they seemed to swim in an eternity of twinkling stars where the light from the lamp beside her reached them. His heart went out to her, and he realized that he had committed a great injustice with his superficial infidelities. Not only was she the most beautiful girl he had ever known, but also her gentle heart was more than he could ever hope to possess from any other.

The pain in the pit of his stomach was a knife sharpened on guilt and self-recrimination for having treated her with such callous disregard, and he would in this moment of her anguish give up anything in the world to put the broken pieces of her life back together.

As he approached she looked up at him and said without preface, "I'm pregnant."

He didn't have to ask. Certainly he could be heartless and demand who she thought the father was. But he knew. He knew without equivocation or doubt that this was the product of their union and it could not be denied. Yet even in his own quiet acknowledgment of the seed now growing in the depths of her womb, Arthur also knew that he was not prepared to hear this information. His confusion of what to say or do was commensurate with the lack of maturity he had brought to this and every other relationship of his life.

All he could do was turn around and walk speechlessly away, and shut himself up in the cold, dim confines of his flat and try not to think about the implications of what he had just heard.

The next day, still in shock, but determined not to let the weakness of his own inability to cope with a complicated situation repress him, he went to work and did all of those things required of a rising young star in business to maintain his status as a potential partner of the firm.

It didn't take long for him to realize that there was a solution to this problem, and he regretted that the impact of learning about his impending fatherhood had not allowed him to think clearly enough when Belinda said the fateful words. He should have rushed to her and reassured her that it was the most wonderful news in the world! That's what he should have done, and that is what he would do the moment he got home from work.

There was no sign of imminent spring in the city as Arthur finished work for the day. A full-fledged blizzard was blowing through the corridors of financial power, and he had to fight his way to the subway through snow and sleet, as well as commuters now deprived of alternative transportation. By the time he got to the brownstone, the darkness of the building was only a blotch in the pale street lamps that struggled vainly against the storm.

Arthur rushed up the short stand of stairs which led from the street into the building and, pausing only for a moment at his own flat to throw off his wet coat, hat and gloves, took the stairs to the second floor two at a time in leaps and bounds of suppressed excitement.

Again the door was ajar, and the slim runnel of pale yellow light that wandered out into the hallway beckoned him with the promise of warmth inside.

But he found no warmth.

In the ochre light of the weak lamp he could see her on the chair by the guitar.

Even from the door he knew that she would never be ready again to greet him, nor would she ever pluck mystic music from the crimson saturated instrument at her feet. The thrust of the gunshot into her temple had flung her head over to the side and allowed the blood to drip from the copper-colored beauty of her hair into the instrument of beautiful melodies. Arthur stood and stared at the desecration before him. He had always been unable to comprehend the hopeless despair that could encourage someone to take this desperate escape from problems. But now he understood; and because of the irony that he was just now on his way up here to alleviate that lonely anguish with a protestation of love, he could finally fathom the mind which would seek absolution from life with the indifference of a single bullet.

He took the pistol from her cold but yielding hand, unable to consider how she had been able to gain access to it. Had she not given it to him? Yes, she had, and he had placed it in a dresser drawer, in the back, beneath clothing he seldom wore; and yet here it was, again in his own hand, heavy and cold, its destiny fulfilled.

Arthur didn't think to call anyone, nor did he even bother to close the door on her cooling beauty. Still in shock and consternation, he went downstairs and sat by himself in the cold darkness of his flat.

For the next week, he neglected his job and even the basic ablutions required to clean himself, as he pulled the shades and allowed the last of winter to wane away outside. In the dimness of day or the darkness of the next few nights he found no energy or coherent thought to accompany himself or the gun in his hand.

Idly, he wondered if the pistol had made love to her as gently as he would have been capable. He contemplated the singularly cold and impersonal piece of metal, which was Belinda's last friend and wondered if it was the only real link between them worth anything now.

Margaret Claymore opened the door to the second floor flat with a small prayer that this time it would be different. The two-year extensive remodeling of the building was complete now for over nine months, and so far she had been unable to rent the second floor premises.

The word must be out, she thought. But that was no concern to the principals who owned the brownstone. Their concern was occupancy and income, not insubstantial rumors and strange stories that caused potential tenants to shy away. The tall young woman next to the rental agent looked in over her shoulder and pursed her lips in surprise. "It's so big." "Yes. These old buildings lend themselves to a more spacious living environment than more modern apartments and condominiums. I'm sure you will find it perfect for your needs."

"Perhaps it's a little too large..." The girl hesitated. "But the price is right, and you can always take a roommate," Margaret Claymore suggested. "Oh yes, it is very reasonable. Maybe even too reasonable."

With the concern of a lost sale, the agent looked into the large dark eyes set deep within shadowed wells above perfectly arched cheekbones. She thought that the young model would be an ideal renter. Most girls in that profession were so hard working, on the go from morning to night, and in constant need of their "beauty sleep," that they were usually quiet and ideal uncomplaining tenants.

"I... we have some furniture in storage which we can let you use if you're concerned about filling the place up," Margaret urged.

"Is it true?" the girl asked apropos of nothing. Yes, the word was out on the street and there would be no denying with an innocent "is what true, dear?" "Is it haunted?" the model asked the rental agent, removing any doubt.

"No, of course it's not haunted. That's foolish nonsense," Margaret exclaimed with conviction.

"But I heard that... that..."

"Yes, the girl who lived here did commit suicide," the anxious agent admitted, knowing that she couldn't hide the facts. "That much is true. It's a very sad story. It seems that she was a very quiet and shy person when she met the young man who lived downstairs - a lovely boy - and they fell in love."

Margaret Claymore shook her head in sad memory. "Unfortunately, she became pregnant - it's a familiar story in this city - and for some reason or another could not deal with it. "She took her own life, and of course the life of her unborn child. When her lover discovered what she had done, he evidently took the pistol and, after brooding over the loss for a number of days, ended his own life."

The rental agent was surprised to see a small sensitive tear in the eye of the girl and hastened to reassure her. "But that was a very long time ago. At least two and a half years. Now the building has been remodeled and the flats completely refurbished.

"There's a very nice young man - a stockbroker - who lives downstairs. I'll introduce you to him when we have an opportunity. I'm sure he will be overjoyed to finally have a neighbor. After all, Mr. Crenshaw has been the only tenant in the building for the last nine months."

But, before I make any introductions, Margaret Claymore thought, I'd better check and see what that god-awful smell is on the lower floor.

### CHARLIE'S BIG TRICK

_This one is for my son_.

In the beginning, we bought Charlie, our ten year-old son, Dr. Bondo's Amazing Magic Kit to shut him up. He'd been pestering his mother and I for the toy for over three months and Sarah finally conceded with the provision that his first report card of the school year was all A's and B's.

Charlie came through like a champ with the most spectacular scholastic statement of his young life, and I took him to Ye Olde Mystic Magic Shop to pick out his reward. After a lengthy and secretive consultation with the doddering old fart who owned the cluttered store — to which I was not invited — Charlie picked a small box which contained nothing more than a tattered black velvet glove and a little leather-bound book.

"Twenty-eight-fifty," the old man croaked with a voice as dry as the dust that covered most of his merchandise. "That's a bit steep, don't you think?" I complained, inspecting my son's meager selection.

"Oh, please, Daddy," Charlie pleaded.

"Worth every penny," the old man affirmed. "Don't tell your mother how much we paid for it," I whispered to Charlie as I plunked thirty bucks down on the counter and watched the old man make it disappear into his cash drawer as quickly as any magician with a rabbit in a hat. Sarah wasn't impressed by our purchase, and even less enthusiastic when, after two weeks of practice, Charlie announced he wanted to show us his first trick. "Pick a card — any card."

Carefully, Charlie fanned out a deck of cards, his small, inexperienced hands fumbling with the pasteboards. "Go ahead," I urged Sarah. Maybe if she participated, she would be more prone to approve of our son's new hobby. Already bored with this display of amateur prestidigitation, Sarah impatiently pulled a card from the deck. "What's your card?" Charlie asked.

Sarah turned over the King of Diamonds. With a display of much ceremony, Charlie put on the velvet glove from his magic kit, held up the King of Diamonds in his gloved hand for all — his mother and I — to see, and slipped the card back in the deck. Awkwardly, he shuffled the cards with too-small hands and then held them out to his mother. "Find your card."

Sarah rifled through the deck, and when she couldn't locate the King of Diamonds, she spread the cards out on the table and went through them one by one.

No King of Diamonds.

Sarah acknowledged Charlie's trick with a small smile and told him to put as much energy into making the litter on the floor of his room disappear before he came back downstairs for dinner.

The next day, when my wife's friends came to gossip under the guise of their Bridge club, Sarah was perfectly livid to discover the King of Diamonds still missing from our best deck.

When Charlie was unable to produce the lost card, his mother roundly chastised him right there before the handmaidens of Oprah.

Two weeks later, Charlie insisted that Sarah and I sit again for another demonstration of his magical prowess. This time he had Michael Jordan, his pet hamster, in its cage on the dining room table.

"Get that filthy thing off of there and go do your homework." Sarah never did like the hamster.

"He'll be gone in just a minute, Mom," Charlie exclaimed,

taking off the bath towel he'd pinned around his shoulders like

a cape and throwing it over the hamster's cage. On went the

velvet glove. Charlie slowly moved his hand back and forth

over all sides of the towel-covered cage, and after muttering a sufficient amount of mumbo-jumbo, whisked off the cloth to display the empty container.

"Good riddance," Sarah sniffed as she left the room, unimpressed.

I was mildly surprised later that week, when I found Charlie had stored the cage in the garage, evidently not expecting a reappearance of the rodent. I could imagine the furry creature wandering lost in our crawl spaces until it died of malnutrition.

When I confronted Charlie with this possible result of his negligence, he said, "Oh, no, Michael Jordan's really gone —disappeared."

Nothing I could say would dissuade my son of his little conceit, and no amount of argument could get him to back down, nor return Michael Jordan to the bosom of his family. When Ruggles, our collie, vanished from the back yard I didn't know what to think. I have to admit I was grateful for the suggestion that the dog had run off during the previous night's windstorm. I know how animals depend on a sense of smell and, when lost in rough weather, frequently have no trail of scent to help find their way back home. Returning last night from a hard day at the office, I was surprised to find the house quiet and Sarah's usual culinary efforts absent from the stove.

"Hey! Anyone home?"

"No one here but us chickens," Charlie said, bounding down the stairs with his customary ten year-old's enthusiasm. "Where's your mom?"

Charlie shrugged.

I went to the study and lost myself in paperwork until Charlie came to announce that dinner was ready. Looking at my watch, I was startled to find it was almost nine o'clock. "Is your mom home?"

"Uh-uh." Charlie shook his head and added proudly. "I cooked dinner. Macaroni and cheese. I make good macaroni and cheese. I could eat macaroni and cheese every day." In the kitchen, Charlie spooned out two heaping plates of over-cooked yellow goop and we sat down across from each other, waiting for the artificially flavored pasta to cool and congeal.

"Charlie, where's your mother?"

"Gone."

"Gone where?"

Charlie shrugged. "Disappeared."

I stared from my son to the plate before me in silence. "You wanna see a trick?" Charlie finally said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the crumpled velvet glove. "No, I don't think so," I replied, wondering how long the two of us could live on macaroni and cheese.

# CHRISTMAS PAST

I first saw the old woman in the summer of that year — 1938 — my first in New York. She sat on a bench in the small park across from the diner like a delicate porcelain doll, her legs dangling a few inches off the ground as she fed the pigeons. The Great Depression grass had appeared greener on the other side of the country, so I rode the rails from the central-California town of my parents, convinced that I could make my career writing in New York City.

Finding even experienced journalists standing in line for copyboy jobs, I settled for long futile nights at a battered Underwood in a small room at the YMCA and considered myself lucky to barely make ends meet washing dishes and slinging hash at Bernie's diner.

In my efforts to engender at least an image of literary success, I had taken to smoking a pipe, which Bernie banished from the diner with an oath of disgust and suggestion that, if I were to insist on poisoning my lungs and polluting the environment, I should do so outside, where the air-quality was already beyond redemption. Therefore, during my infrequent breaks, I would wander across the street to the small park, a sparkling emerald of grass set deep among the drab tenements that crowded the narrow streets of lower Manhattan.

I didn't pay much attention to the old woman until, even in the growing humidity of summer, I noticed she continued to appear daily in a deep-blue, rhinestone-studded evening gown, black opera cape, and an outrageous floppy Easter-parade hat covered with bouquets of little multicolored silk flowers. At first she seemed to be just another New York character, and I was a wide-eyed small-town boy already grown cynical by Time Square street-preachers, preposterous panhandlers and outlandish Greenwich Villagers.

Curiously, I watched, as day after day she delved into a rumpled paper sack and pulled out slices of bread. She would carefully tear a piece in two, eat half, and pitch the shredded remainder to the eagerly waiting birds. When she was done, she would brush the crumbs from her hands, hold them out empty to the demanding fowl, and cluck sympathetically that their communal meal was finished.

At least, I thought, I had the luxury of working in a diner, where my meals were free, but the poor old lady appeared to be sharing a meager and bland daily repast on a park bench with a flock of unappreciative birds.

One day, impulsively, as the bird's benefactor opened her brown bag, I quickly slapped together a roast beef sandwich behind Bernie's back, wrapped it in wax paper, grabbed a fistful of stale bread, and headed out the door. Cheap tobacco-smoke pouring from the bowl of my pipe, like effluvium from the stack of an ancient train, I steamed across to the park. "Here, this is for the birds," I blurted out, as I handed her the discarded bread, uncomfortable with my own awkward philanthropy. "And this is for you." I proffered the sandwich. I was startled by the clarity and directness of her bright green eyes. Somehow I had expected that tired, rheumy, hangdog expression so often found in the old, but her bright gaze belied the translucent blue-veined parchment complexion that proclaimed she must have been at least eighty. She glanced from me to the wax paper package. "Who are you, and what's this?" she asked, her voice soft and musical. "I'm Warren Crawford, and that is a sandwich." I hastened to add: "I work in the diner across the street, and I saw you feeding the birds. I just thought you might like a little snack too."

"That's very thoughtful," the old woman said, unwrapping the sandwich. "Would you care for some of this?" She offered me — another lost bird — half of the sandwich. I laughed. "No, thanks. I get all I want on the job." And thank God for that with seemingly half the city standing in soup kitchen lines!

"Well, at least sit for a few minutes and keep me company. As you see," she indicated the fluttering birds, "I don't like to eat alone." She patted the seat next to her. "I'd better not." I held out my smoldering pipe in excuse. "Nonsense! I don't mind at all. My Harry smoked a pipe for forty years — and I've missed it," she added wistfully. With that reassurance, I settled down, accepted a handful of bread to feed the birds, and began my friendship with Victoria Clementine Hays.

She was a sprightly and lucid raconteur with endless stories of social swirls and acute observations on the character of the city and its endlessly fascinating denizens. Her husband, Harry Hayes, a minor municipal functionary had been dead for twenty years, and their single offspring — a son — was a mining engineer, gone to South Africa three years now with his young wife to make his fortune. I came to look forward to our daily encounter on the park bench. I hadn't had enough time to make any friends in this hectic city too preoccupied with its daily survival, so I appreciated Victoria's companionship as much as the grist her tales provided for my literary mill. I'm sure she must have been equally grateful for the food I brought in my coat pocket from the diner. I suspected it might have been her only meal of the day. At least, if Victoria and I were not becoming fat on Bernie's limited secret bounty, the local avian population was. Victoria took a particular concern in my struggles to write salable fiction, and offered to read my work with a critical eye — if I thought it might help.

"Fantastic!" I replied. "I never could get anyone interested in reading my stuff at home. It would be wonderful to have someone else's opinion."

She squinted at me in the late summer sunlight. "I warn you, Warren, I won't go light on you. You'll not get complimentary drivel from me. I have a sharp eye, and I'll tell you the truth."

"That's what I want," I said, hopeful that she might spot something in my style I could fix and thereby increase my chance of commercial success.

The next day, I gave her a carbon of my latest and proudest

achievement: a story called, Jazzman. The day after that, she criticized it to pieces. But every flaw, once pointed out, became evident and correctable. It took three weeks until she finally nodded and told me that the image of the old jazz trumpeter, playing his heart out on the large rock behind the skating pond in Central Park before laying down and freezing to death, brought a tear to her eye.

We both agreed that the story was ready to send off.

The season slowly changed. Leaves turned red and gold, the grass around the park bench grew brown as dust, and the impersonal island of Manhattan was surrounded by swirling winds that chilled to the bone. But Victoria appeared on our bench almost daily in her opera cape, and I continued to sneak food across the street, fretting about her welfare on those wet days she wasn't there. When the snows came, I worried even more.

I was startled one day in the middle of December, when Bernie announced that his mother in Florida was sick and he had decided to use the opportunity to close the diner and take his family south for the holidays. A week before Christmas, he handed me a $20 bill, wished me a happy holiday, said that we'd reopen January 2nd, locked the diner, and disappeared into the worst snow storm of the season.

The money could get me through the next two weeks, but that wasn't my primary concern — it was Victoria Hayes. It was bad enough that the weather allowed only sporadic opportunity for me to help her recently, but with the diner closed and the snow falling daily, even that little was impossible. I didn't see her again until the afternoon of Christmas Eve. For once, the sky was as clear and bright as a blue diamond and the temperature relatively tolerable. Victoria was perched on her bench when I got to the park, and I could see her dipping into her little paper bag, again sharing bread with the birds. I tried to explain and apologize for my impoverished circumstances and inability to help her, but she immediately hushed me and reassured me that all her wants were well taken care of. I realized then that we never actually had discussed her particulars, and I just assumed that she was as close to destitution as so many others — myself included.

"Well," she said happily, "then you shall just have to spend Christmas with me."

I could picture the two of us, sitting on the park bench throughout Christmas day, feeding the birds until we both froze to death like the jazzman in my story.

"You've been so busy writing," Victoria continued, "that I didn't want to interrupt your efforts and invite you over before. You most definitely must join me for Christmas dinner."

"Delighted," I said without displaying my reservations. How could I refuse? How could I express my concern that Christmas dinner would find us both rummaging through the garbage in search of someone else's edible castoffs? Later that day, I wandered through the shops by the YMCA, seeking a little gift to bring to Victoria's Christmas dinner. Finally, I settled on a large, exquisitely detailed, hand-painted nutcracker. Actually, it was part of a set that included Clara and The Prince but as I could ill-afford even the one piece, and the whole set was out of the question, I talked the needy shopkeeper into selling the nutcracker by itself. Christmas dawned cold and bright, and I worked at keeping my freezing fingers warm at the typewriter until the time came to meet Victoria in the park.

She was already there, feeding the birds, and I had visions my worst fears had been realized — that this was our Christmas destiny. But my concern was short-lived as Victoria, finishing her task, slipped off the bench, and with the wind beginning to kick up the powdered snow around us, took my hand and led me through a rabbit warren of nearby tenements to an old Brownstone a few blocks from the park.

I had never seen anything like it. Inside, it was grandly spacious and gleaming with polished woods. The soft glow of a coal fire in the hearth flickered on plush papered walls. Gas fixtures and oil lamps with neatly trimmed wicks lit the place with the warm solace of a summer sun. Beautiful antique furniture cluttered the place, encouraging comfortable conversation and relaxation. The air was redolent with spices and cooking food. I was embarrassed at my previous conceit regarding Victoria's circumstances.

"Light the Christmas tree, will you, Warren."

I looked around for the switch. Finding none, I inspected the well-decorated pine, only to discover that it had no electric lights, but instead, each branch held a small, cupped candle. It was all as old-fashioned as Victoria Clementine Hayes herself, and I delighted in this new experience that made me feel I'd stepped into the Victorian era with my gracious and charming companion.

What a grand evening! We feasted on succulent roast duck with great dollops of thick orange sauce, tiny roasted potatoes and buttered vegetables. Victoria cooed happily over her nutcracker, and refused to allow it out of her sight. Afterward, we drank brandy and sang Christmas carols by candlelight at an upright piano, which she played with surprising skill. Then she talked of gentle years with a loving husband, and a son thousands of miles away. I spoke of my hopes and aspirations to write wonderful stories that would touch the lives of millions. All the while, I never ceased being amazed at my comfortable surroundings. Who would have imagined this most fantastic of all Christmases!

Later, with the remainder of the brandy tucked under my arm and a large piece of duck wrapped in a cloth, I barely made it back to my distant room before the skies opened and a terrible blizzard shut down the city for the next two weeks. By the time I ventured out again, it was only because Bernie was back and I was willing to brave any weather to protect my precious job in a city of the unemployed. The bench in the park was buried in snow, and with the side streets barely passable, I knew I wouldn't see Victoria at her post, but I still looked out through the steamed diner windows with a longing for the warm companionship I'd found on Christmas day.

When the notice came in the mail, it was totally unexpected. The Saturday Evening Post had accepted Jazzman, and to prove it, I held a beautiful check for $350 — a veritable fortune! Not only was I flush with cash, but one of the most widely-read and prestigious magazines in America had confirmed my talent and opened the door to a very possible literary future.

I couldn't wait to share the good news with Victoria, but before I did, I went directly to the shop where I had purchased the nutcracker, and paid handsomely for the matching figures of Clara and The Prince.

It took me some time to find the old Brownstone, what with the snow and my poor sense of direction, and I thought that I was mistaken when a young woman, a few years older than myself, answered my insistent knock. "Oh! I'm sorry," I apologized. "I must have the wrong address."

"Who were you looking for?"

"Victoria Hayes."

"I'm Vickie Hayes."

Taken aback, I explained: "No, I was looking for Victoria Clementine Hayes — she's at least eighty years old." I hastened to describe the old lady I had grown to love like a mother. As I talked, I found myself describing an older version of the woman in front of me: the same unique green eyes, dimpled laugh-lines, slightly full lips. With a shock, we both realized the similarity at the same time. "You'd better come in," Vickie Hayes suggested. It couldn't have been the same Brownstone. The shape of the front room was identical, but the furnishings were definitely Art Deco knock-offs rather than the heavy Victorian pieces I lounged in on Christmas day. The walls were painted, rather than papered. Where the piano had stood, there was now a large Zenith multi-band console radio. The Christmas tree lingered in the same corner, but — as the rest of the room — it was lit by electricity. There wasn't a candle, oil lamp or gas fixture in sight.

Perplexed, I perched uncomfortably on the edge of a chair and recounted how I'd met Victoria Hayes, and everything that led up to our recent Christmas dinner. When I unwrapped the small package of Clara and The Prince to show her, my hostess went to a drawer in a large credenza and returned with a well-worn photo album. She opened it, and held the tattered pages out to me.

"Is that the woman you're talking about?" she asked, nervously.

The photo was brown and faded with age, but there was no doubt that the person in the picture, standing with the mustachioed, pipe-smoking man, was Victoria. "Yes...yes," I mumbled, confused. "That's her — that's Victoria Clementine Hays."

The young woman got up from her seat beside me, walked across the room, took something from the jumble of Christmas decorations on the mantle and pointed again to the picture in the album resting on my lap.

"My grandmother has been dead for almost fifty years, Mr. Crawford. She died on Christmas day in 1889. She was found in her chair by the fire, holding this." Vickie held out her hand to me.

In it was the beautiful handcrafted nutcracker that perfectly matched the two figures I still held in my trembling fingers.

### THE LAST CHRISTMAS TREE

## For my grandchildren

The crooked little tree shivered in the north wind. It was just before Christmas, and the small fir stood by itself on the side of the hill.

Until now it hadn't been so cold, but with Christmas close, the woodcutters had come day after day until all the larger trees that had protected the small tree from the winds had been taken. Now it stood exposed.

Could anything be as lonely as this? Especially after the summer when squirrels had played in the green branches, hopping from tree to tree while flocks of chattering blue jays and sparrows flitted back and forth from the Douglas firs to the conifers and the majestic silver-tip pines. Even the old bare oak, far away at the top of the hill, must have been aware of its own solitude. It stood vast and strong against the sky. But it had been standing there so long that, by now, there could be little surprise when, as in years before, the tree-takers came through, picking the biggest, fullest and straightest trees for Christmas, and then returned later for the inferior specimens — for those who could only afford less. So far no one took the little tree.

They planted the hillside each year to provide holiday trees for the village in the valley. The trees were nurtured from one season to the next just to be cut and brought down the hill. But the little fir grew too close to three others, and they had greedily sucked up the water and food from the ground better and faster than it could; so now the small tree stood, stunted and crooked, alone and rejected because no one would want to buy it when there were so many others which were taller and stronger. Now, with old snow banked against its thin trunk and the wind forcing it to bend over and kiss the cold ground, the tree waited patiently, but no one came to take it. The days passed toward Christmas and still no one came. The old oak, its summer leaves long fallen to muddy mulch, seemed to laugh in the wind at the unwanted little tree. The hillside was exposed, and usually there was always a breeze sweeping across it. In the spring the trees danced against the sky when the wild flowers bloomed; in summer, the sound of their branches was a rivulet of gossip on the warm air; and in the fall the trees rustled in eager anticipation of the Christmas harvest — for that was their purpose, the reason they were grown.

And now, the whispering winds from below carried music and laughter, the happiness of children.

Alone on the hill, the small tree dug the tendrils of its tiny roots further into the frozen soil, beneath the hard surface, drinking deep of the water there, waiting for another year, another chance to gladden someone's Christmas. For now, shunned and worthless, the runt would try to grow strong and tall.

A few days before Christmas, the sky darkened long before the complete disappearance of the almost invisible sun. The wind wickedly lashed the bare ground, and the small tree swayed wildly back and forth beneath the empty heavens. When the fresh snow finally came, it blew across the hillside and found only the solitary tree and barren ground upon which to settle. The old oak on the top of the hill hardly shrugged against the familiar winter onslaught, but the small fir bowed and shuddered under the unaccustomed weight of ice and snow.

Then, suddenly, two birds flew out of the icy white mists. Fighting vainly to stay aloft on capricious freezing drafts, they finally plummeted into the little tree, shaking a frenzy of snow from its thin, ice-laden limbs.

How long had it been since the great patterned flights of gray geese had flown overhead? Where now were the flocks of clamoring wrens, cackling jays and shrieking sparrows that had lounged in the summer leaves? And why — out of nowhere —had these two lost creatures, their feathers slick with frost, fallen from the sky?

The little fir's branches became a shelter for the birds. And during the storm, more came: a thrush, a goldfinch, a meadowlark, and even a cardinal, resplendent in his noble carmine cloak. They all nestled beneath the blanket of snow that covered the little tree like a tent as the wind swirled sleet, rain, and more snow about the naked hillside. Christmas day dawned bright and beautiful, the sky was a crystal glass filled with sparkling dreams. In the village, children laughed, slipping and sliding through the streets and ponds on new sleds and skates. And when they were tired of whooping and hollering, the children ran home, too tired to admire their blinking, glittering Christmas trees — which had already served their function. But, high on the side of the hill, overlooking the valley, the last little tree of Christmas found its purpose. It stood proud against the snow, branches filled with birds: glorious decorations that fluttered and sang to the yellow flower of the sun, the blue diamond of the moon, and the newborn Child of Bethlehem.

### AUTHOR'S NOTE

### FIRST CHAPTERS BONUS

Primarily, as a novelist, I usually avoid writing short stories. It's not that my ideas are always so grandiose that they automatically demand the length and breadth of a novel to develop them, but that short stories are just plain damn hard to write. You don't have the luxury of time to develop characters, the extravagance of chapter after chapter to spin out a leisurely tale, or the indulgence of many pages to snuggle up to the reader and make yourself a fixture.

No, short stories require the brilliance of a great idea presented in an economical and succinct style, yet as fully developed and complete in a few paragraphs as any novel requiring a thousand pages. You can see why I prefer novels. I'm not that disciplined.

However, in today's fast-paced and hectic world, a cunning novelist will try to grab his reader in the first pages, the first chapter. We novelists don't want our readers slipping away because of a malaise of words that don't intrigue and captivate. We don't need our audiences to sneak out to the television set and other more simplistic recreations just because we have failed to entertain you at the beginning of the book and saved all the good stuff for further on.

Therefore, I have included the first chapters of my novels, as well as a short summary of each book. Not just to tempt you to read the books which, of course, is an ulterior motive, but as brief entertainments, complete enough in themselves to be short stories worth reading.

Enjoy.

### THE OTHER

What does a man do when, for no discernible reason, his behavior patterns change so radically that he starts to act like a completely different person? Suddenly Thomas Henry Harper, Los Angeles bank president, happily married father of two, finds himself subjected to violent rages, abnormal desires and a temptation to use his position to embezzle. Discovering he has little control over these strange impulses, he sets out to discover their source.

THE OTHER (CHAPTER ONE)

Thomas really didn't know where he as going until he got there. It seemed as if his car, with all of its automatic controls and computerized devices had suddenly led him by itself to a rambling structure on Century Boulevard about halfway between the 405 freeway and Los Angeles International Airport.

"TOPLESS/BOTTOMLESS", the sign proclaimed as a series of lights raced around it in a mad effort to burn themselves out.

His thirst had become a secondary discomfort to the sudden pressure of anticipation in his groin as he stared at the sign and its pronouncement that the place was filled with, "ALL-NUDE GIRLS."

Thomas couldn't remember the last time he had seen a naked woman, other than Kathy, his wife.

Inside the club, the steady thump of a bass-driven sound system assaulted his ears in a darkness filled with the odors of old cigarette smoke, stale beer and cheap whiskey.

Thomas found the murky ambiance comfortably welcome, and couldn't comprehend why. He also couldn't understand why he didn't feel compelled to question it, but accepted this place and its lurid atmosphere as a part of his life—which it had never been before.

He took a seat at the bar, where he could see the small stage and the semi-nude girl gyrating around a brass fire pole as if it were a giant phallus of burnished metal.

The bikini-clad girl behind the bar sauntered over and asked, "Whatcha want?"

"Scotch. Dewar's."

"Call drinks are a buck-fifty more."

"Dewar's."

"You got it."

He watched the girl on the stage, unimpressed by her bored routine. Around him, the mostly empty club seemed to be inhabited by equally disinterested refugees from the nearby airport. He could see greasy flight line overalls mixed with skycap uniforms, a smattering of shirts and ties and an occasional suit or sport coat.

"Dewar's," the voice behind him announced. "That'll be seven-fifty."

Thomas didn't have the slightest idea what the average cost of a call drink was in a place like this, but nothing compelled him to protest the exorbitant tab. He fished a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet, laid it on the bar and picked up his drink.

Before the girl could pick up his money, he slammed his hand down on the bill.

"I said Dewar's," he snapped.

The barely-clad bartender looked at him in the dim light. "That's whatchu got." Her fingers grasped the corner of the bill.

"This is a well drink; it's some kind of slop, but it ain't Dewar's. Maybe you made a mistake."

The girl's mouth opened, but before she could contradict him she looked at his eyes.

He could see her suddenly decided that perhaps she had made a mistake.

"Sorry," she said, going through the motions of looking carefully under the bar at the source of his drink. "I guess I picked up the wrong bottle."

"I guess," Thomas replied with enough sarcasm to let her know that he knew she had tried to stiff him with cheap scotch for the price of the good stuff.

He watched as she went to the ranks of shelving loaded with mirrored bottles behind the bar.

She pulled a bottle of Dewar's Scotch from the visible inventory and carried it back. Placing a fresh glass in front of him, she tipped up the bottle and allowed the automatic pour spout to measure out California's legal one-and-a-half ounce shot. For just a moment she paused, looked up at the man watching her, and then tipped the bottle back over the glass to add an extra measure.

As Thomas's hand moved away from the bill, she again said, "Seven-fifty."

"Keep the change," he called when she was already five feet away, at the cash register.

Thomas looked at the brimming glass on the polished wood of the well-worn bar and ignored it as the music changed and a smattering of applause called his attention back to the stage in the center of the club.

The metal pole had disappeared into the ceiling, and a short girl climbed onto the platform, her body swaying rhythmically to the insistent beat of the recorded music.

Thomas watched with interest and realized that the girl couldn't have been more than a couple of years older than his sixteen year-old daughter, Christen, but where Christen was tall and willowy, this girl was short and compact.

Thomas wondered why he was comparing this slut to his daughter, but the uncomfortable feeling passed as quickly as it had come and he concentrated on the dancer.

She was muscular, evidently a product of too many hours dancing, her legs and chubby thighs were corded with sinews. Augmented breasts, even at this early age, had already begun to sag with their unnatural weight and implacable gravity.

With the small, jaded crowd disinterested in any kind of teasing, the girl didn't waste any time on foreplay and dropped her top while she circled around the stage in a red sequined G-string. The front of the tiny garment formed a neat pouch over her genitals and a thin thong disappeared between copious buttocks.

Idly, Thomas wondered how far the sequins covered the material between her legs, certainly not all the way. He thought of the small, sharp plastic disks grinding away in the hot moist area, which those sitting directly below her alone could observe.

He took a perverse pleasure thinking about the possible salt-sweat sting of the sharp little cuts the sequins might cause; otherwise he didn't find the girl an attractive or an arousing sight.

Thomas turned to his scotch. He sipped the musky, amber liquid and allowed the pungent flavor of malted barley to lay on his tongue and then warmly against his pallet like fine wine before he swallowed.

Then he gagged.

He hated scotch! It was a nauseating and cloying taste that had always brought bile to the back of his throat, and this time was no different.

Suddenly, the dark club reeked of urine and stale semen.

The other drinkers' faces, glowing in the swirling lights from the small stage looked like a leering gallery of petrified statues, glazed with summer sweat. Thomas thought they all looked sickly in the unhealthy lighting and wondered: What the hell am I doing here?

§ § § §

An hour earlier, Thomas Henry Harper had been sitting in his office at Hawthorne First National Bank when he had a sudden thirst for a large scotch, which was an incredible occurrence since Thomas detested the taste of scotch.

He'd looked out across the bank at the large, ornate clock on the wall, directly opposite the great glass doors. Light rippled across the marble floor of the old building and splashed like a high tide against the base of the wooden writing stands that stood like small, dark islands in the otherwise empty space of the lobby.

It wasn't even noon, an inappropriate time to take his lunch. Well, actually, since he was the president of the bank, no one would question what was or was not an appropriate time for him to absent himself from the premises, therefore this need for a sense of propriety was a strange stirring in the back of his mind.

Usually, Thomas had luncheon appointments lined up: other board members, who might be coddled into voting for such items as remodeling, an extensive advertising budget for a new loan program, or the need for more equipment, good customers, who needed to be convinced that HFNB was still their best option for service and favorable loan rates, as well as new prospects to be wooed away from the impersonal environs of Wells Fargo and Bank of America.

Today, Thomas Harper hadn't cared whom he was scheduled to luncheon with. He hadn't even bothered to look at the calendar that his secretary, Greta Thurgood had prepared for him in her meticulous penmanship.

"Greta, cancel my lunch appointment, something's come up."

From her desk in the carpeted and wood-rail defined space outside of his large glassed-in office, Greta Thurgood had picked up her appointment book and come to the door of his office.

"You are supposed to have lunch with Francis Burghardt."

"Cancel it."

Greta Thurgood was fifty-nine years old and had been an executive secretary for almost thirty-five of them. She was used to the whims and seemingly capricious orders of a long line of executives; she had learned not to react to anything they did other than with the most efficient and neutral professionalism. Her personal opinion regarding the suitability of her instructions had no effect on how she carried them out. But, being human, she was seldom able to avoid expressing her opinions by the slightest rise of an eyebrow, a twitch at the corner of her mouth, or the small inflections of approval or disapproval in her voice.

"I believe Mr. Burghardt was going to discuss his need to restructure the financing on the Anderson Building."

"I know why Burghardt was meeting me for lunch," Thomas had said, irritated. "It's more goddamn whining for dollars. Let McCutcheon handle it. Tell Mac to take the old fart to lunch and not to back down from the Prime-plus-two interest rate."

Thurgood had blinked at her boss's language. Thomas Harper never cursed in public and usually expressed only the most benign opinions about anything or anyone in his secretary's presence.

Thomas had enjoyed Greta's discomfort as she had made an effort to hide her shock at his language and the uncharacteristic impatient tone of his voice.

"I'll be out for a couple of hours," Thomas had announced.

Thurgood had taken the ever-present pencil from the flurry of gray hair behind her ear, and prepared to write. "Where can I reach you?"

"You can't."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I can't be reached."

"Yes, sir."

Thomas appreciated that Greta knew better than to remind any superior of policies and procedures, especially if they were his own. Silence was a virtue; presumption was not.

It was Thomas's own policy that, during banking hours, all officers were to be reachable. It was also prudent internal security, especially considering the high incidence of bank robbery and extortion in the Los Angeles area.

A friend of Thomas's, who was a branch manager of a large commercial bank, had gone out one day to meet prospective clients at a restaurant without telling his secretary or anyone where he could be reached. While he was impatiently waiting for the "clients", they were down at the bank, claiming to have kidnapped him, and were still in the process of making ransom demands when he walked back into his office. They should have made their phony luncheon reservations further away.

L.A. was the hold-up capitol of the world and Thomas didn't want either his or any other officer's unexplained absence to be used as a ruse for an extortion-kidnap threat to gain entry to the contents of the vault.

The craving for the smoky taste of good scotch had become almost overwhelming, and Thomas found it difficult to maintain his patience with this woman who was looking at him as if he were sprouting horns from the smooth skin of his slowly receding hairline.

The damn woman had an impertinent grimace of disapproval all over her face.

Was she actually criticizing his decision to cancel his luncheon and go do something for himself instead of the fucking bank? Who the hell did she think she was...?

Thomas had found himself becoming unaccountably angry at his secretary's attitude and vowed that he would replace her at the first opportunity.

Yes, that would be an excellent idea: supplant her with someone young and eager to do what she was told, someone who would be appreciative of the opportunity, someone better looking and easier on the eyes than this over-the-hill monument to stodgy conservatism.

"And, Miss Thurgood, please contact maintenance and have them do something about the odor in this office."

"Odor?" Thurgood had taken a step into the office, her nose twitching in search of Thomas's complaint. "I don't smell anything."

"It stinks in here. I don't know what they've been using lately to clean the place, but I don't like it. Tell them to change brands or I'll change cleaning services."

"Yes, sir, of course."

With a glare, Thomas had stalked out of his office and left his bewildered secretary in his wake.

§ § § §

In the acclimatized environment of the Town Car, Thomas took the quickest and shortest route back to the bank.

It was almost as if he were afraid to be out in the open after the nude club. He knew this feeling was ridiculous. He never thought of himself as being agoraphobic, but that was exactly how he felt with the current compulsion to get back into the marble sanctuary of the old bank building and its secure surroundings.

Regardless of his need to get back into the safety of his office, Thomas took a few moments, after turning the car over to the parking attendant, to go half way down the block to the small kiosk that specialized in newspapers, a few popular magazines, and a small selection of fresh flowers. He quickly selected a single rose and, without waiting for the vendor's offered baby's breath and green-leaf decoration, left a bill, and headed toward the office.

He placed the peace offering on Greta Thurgood's desk without comment and slipped quickly into his office before she could comment, question, or even read him his messages.

Startled, his secretary looked back at the closed door of her boss' office and he knew she must have been wondering what the hell all this was about.

That's what I'd like to know, Thomas thought.

With the door closed, it was her signal to leave him alone. Thomas seldom closed his door, reserving it for confidential meetings, private conversations, or just the need to have a few minutes of peace and quiet while he worked on a loan or budget problem.

Through the front window of the almost all-glass office, Thomas saw Greta start to rise, her fist full of blue and white telephone messages. He held up his hand before she could get out of her chair. He held up five fingers and flashed them at her twice: "ten minutes."

That's all he wanted right now, ten minutes and then the could get back to the normal business of running one of Southern California's premier independent banks.

He picked up the phone and punched in number 19 on the speed dial. He could hear the automatic bleep-bleep as the device dialed his wife's number at Sagen/Century Real Estate. He had to smile at himself as he thought about the number. Three more weeks and he would have to change the speed dial code from 19 to 20.

The speed dial had been one of his special little talismans ever since he came to the bank. The number was always the same as the number of years he and Kathy had been married. Almost twenty years now. Twenty years of good, solid companionship and a loving relationship, the envy of their friends, and a continuous cause for prayerful thanks on his part. Not many people he knew could claim the kind of love and trust that he and Kathy shared. They had discovered in the rocky early years of their marriage that as long as they communicated openly and honestly with each other, almost anything could be worked out.

Almost anything.

"Good afternoon, Sagen/Century; how may I help you?"

Suddenly, Thomas didn't think he was prepared to discuss today's strange adventure. He knew Kathy wouldn't understand or appreciate his strange foray into the naked darkness of the topless/bottomless club.

He hung up on the disembodied voice without identifying himself or asking for his wife.

What was he calling her for? What did he have to say? What was there he wanted to explain to her?

He couldn't even explain to himself.

He stared at the papers on his desk as if they were strange messages, the inconsequential detritus of someone else's life, someone else's responsibility.

What the hell was happening to him?

### FATHER EVERLASTING

When forty-five year-old banker, James O'Brien, loses the only job he has ever had, he discovers a number of harsh facts: his age and educational limitations reduce his value in a tough job market where many companies are downsizing, he has lost the esteem of his wife, unemployment compensation is an inadequate and finite resource, and the only thing genuinely important to him is his children. His fifteen-year-old daughter is exquisite, but her beauty conceals the mentality of a five-year-old. Her brother, is a bright twelve-year-old, but too young to fully comprehend what is happening to his family Jim and his kids are so devoted to each other that when the physical and legal loss of his children is imminent, he decides to take desperate and extreme action to resolve a seemingly hopeless situation.

FATHER EVERLASTING (CHAPTER ONE)

I wait.

I have no choice but to wait.

I wait for the other shoe to drop.

I am absorbed by the cliché because I know that I am about to become part of the modern American corporate cliché. Ever since the merger, we have all been waiting for the other shoe to drop, the one, which will spell out our fate with the new organization.

Why should I complain? Life is waiting: Stop lights, elevators, checkout lines, movie lines and restaurant lines. Life has a hold button for everything except the minutes, hours and days that eat away at the limits of my future.

I should be in the office, not here. But this is a command appearance. My new masters have called for me, so I have come to the Head Office half an hour before my appointed time lest I be late and make a poor impression.

God forbid I should make a bad impression.

The secretary in this outer office is young and Japanese. Japanese-American. She has no accent, no polite subservient demeanor in her obvious lack of embarrassment at having to keep me sitting here in anticipation. We are both captives in the small, stuffy room, the antechamber to the man on the other side of the door, the one I have been called to meet.

"Mr. O'Brien, Mr. Tsunamoto will see you now."

The secretary doesn't look me in the eye as she ends my twenty-minute torture.

I look at my watch. It is straight up ten o'clock: the time for my appointment. The secretary's perfunctory permission is automatic; she requires no notification from the office she so judiciously guards.

The dapper little Japanese, Hiro Tsunamoto, looks lost behind his large, executive desk. I wondered if they have imported him from The Land Of The Rising Sun.

"Good Morning, Mr. O'Brien, please have a seat."

No, his English is too good, unaccented and filled with California's neutral, flat tones—a Los Angeles local.

He blinks behind the latest modern affectation of too-small wire-rimmed glasses and fails to smile as I pull out the straight-backed chair in front of the desk.

The rumor mill has run rampant since long before the merger. I should have a good idea why I am here, but the word on the street is that they will keep many of the bank's employees so that they don't lose the Anglo customer base they have acquired. I'm hoping that I will be one of those saved. I have experience, skills and banking knowledge, which would help any bank.

Tsunamoto's quiet officiousness makes me nervous. He avoids eye contact as assiduously as the girl outside and flips through a folder in front of him.

"You have been with California State Bank for twenty-one years..." he begins.

"And Sakura National for a month," I add needlessly, reminding us both about the recent acquisition of my long-term employer.

He nods. "Yes, of course. Since the merger."

I fail to correct him. It hadn't really been a merger. A merger is a combination of equals. Sakura's takeover of California State was an acquisition, a completely different animal, especially when it comes to who is left in charge.

Tsunamoto buries his head in the file for a few silent moments as if he might discover something in there he doesn't already know.

"Mr. O'Brien—" The black eyes are out of the file and fixed on my own. "I'm sorry we have to meet like this." His words have no relationship to his steady, practiced gaze. But they are as chilling.

We both know that he isn't sorry; no more so than the chairman of the board who sits behind his desk in Tokyo, setting policy for his new amalgamated bank in America.

"As you are aware—" Tsunamoto continues what sounds like a familiar spiel. "When Sakura National bought California State, it was understood that there would be some downsizing and a number of branches would be culled from the flock. Not only does it make good business sense, but the State Banking Department and Justice Department made that a condition of the merger. A matter of competition, you know."

"No, I didn't know."

Like hell I didn't!

I stare blankly at my judge, jury, and executioner.

Don't give him anything, I think. Don't let him see you sweat. Don't agree to or acknowledge anything. Make this as hard for him as it is for you.

Tsunamoto smiles.

I am suffused with his artificial sincerity.

"Unfortunately, your branch has been targeted to close." He rushes on, afraid that I might fill any void with embarrassing and ineffectual protest. "And of course this will require a certain number of job eliminations."

Of course!

Although I have had my suspicions about why I've been called down to the hallowed halls of Japanese power, I had hoped the news might be otherwise. Now I am not prepared to interrupt this small, all-too commonplace murder of careers and hopes.

"Your branch will be closed in ninety days, after the minimum regulatory posting to the general public. Of course, we'd like you to stay on until that time. If you do, you will qualify for a very liberal severance package.

Beggars can't be choosers, I think. How much would my ninety-day care taking and twenty-one years, three months and fourteen days of service be worth? What is the going rate of exchange for two decades of hard work and loyalty?

I nod, noncommittal as I absorb this offer.

"We would also expect you to assist the branch manager and an officer from the personnel department in informing the other employees regarding the decision to close the branch."

Ah, so we will all share the same knife! By the time my turn comes, it will be hara-kiri and the blade will be sufficiently dull to reward me for my complicity in the massacre.

"It's going to be difficult," I point out, "to operate the branch properly as people start to bail out. And they will leave as soon as they get another job."

"Our experience has been that most employees want their severance packages so they hang on." With great morale, no doubt. "And then they find new employment concurrent with the end of their tenure. It's human nature to want to eat your cake and have it too."

I don't comment on his cynical corporate opinion of greedy underlings. As it is, I am already trying to figure how to work the system to my best advantage, last long enough to get my severance package and step immediately into another job.

"We expect any employee," Tsunamoto continues, "who is getting paid by Sakura National Bank to continue to dedicate all of his efforts to the company with no diminution of responsibility or energy. One can be fired just as easily now as at any other time during employment. And, of course, there will be no severance package if that happens. In short, we don't want or expect any attitude problems. The example you set will establish the temperament of the entire staff. We are relying on you and your maturity Mr. O'Brien."

I look around the office during this little speech, the majority of which is delivered by Tsunamoto with his head buried in the file before him. Evidently, constant eye contact with the victim of eventual joblessness is not a prerequisite for his job.

The small room is cold and impersonal. Sterile Japanese landscapes hang on the walls, their colors so muted and contained that even in the direct beam of morning sunlight they bleed boredom into flat, white walls.

The desk behind which Tsunamoto sits contains only a nameplate: "Mr. Tsunamoto." No first name, title, initial; just the surname—and a small stack of file folders—potential victims, I assume, isolated from the paperwork of their peers for sessions similar to mine. Tsunamoto's desk is totally unlike my own work station, which is littered with the detritus of years in banking: silly gadgets, office supplies, in and out boxes, computer reports and a small shrine of family pictures to remind me why I have put up with so many years of corporate indifference.

It strikes me that this office is an impersonal battlefield: Advantage to Tsunamoto; it is his turf. He and the others like him with the burden of laying off people and downsizing the new consolidated corporate giant probably share the office, take turns as they each confront their case-load of victims.

I wonder if they get together over a beer at the end of the day—or would it be corporately warmed Saki—and commiserate with each other about the difficulties of eliminating positions and displacing so many people. Do they feel sorry for themselves because it is stressful, confronting the desperate faces of so many who are suddenly aware that soon they will have no paycheck or benefits?

"Just exactly what does comprise the severance package?" I ask, hoping that the practicality of my question will mask my sudden fear about the future.

"Of course, it varies, depending on title and length of service. As an Operations Officer—"

"Operations Manager. Vice President and Operations Manager," I correct.

"—You are entitled to four weeks salary, plus a week's salary for every year of service—"

Mentally I add it up: twenty-five weeks, a little over six months of salary continuation—half a year.

"Needless to say, your benefits, such as health insurance will continue until the severance package runs out."

Not "needless to say" at all. Say everything! I want to hear it all, every straw of survival I might eventually have to grasp.

No! This isn't the right mental attitude. I'm not going to let desperation become a factor in my life. It's inconceivable that I won't find another job within a twenty-five week time frame, especially with my many years of banking experience. Perhaps, if I play my cards right, I'll be able to get a little paid vacation out of this whole experience, save a little of the severance, and cap it all off with another job in a higher position at a larger salary.

One way or another, I intend to turn this to my advantage. How many times have I heard it: when one door closes another opens.

### IN HOPES OF HEAVEN

Adam Blake, an easy-going stockbroker, living with his girlfriend, Yvonne, in Venice, California, wakes on his 30th birthday to find he has suddenly acquired the ability to perform miracles. After unrewarding research, Adam attends a Pentecostal revival to observe the laying on of hands. Aimee Lee Blaize, who dances in the services with wild religious abandon, fascinates him. He returns night after night, riveted by the apparent miracles he witnesses--and Aimee Lee's voluptuous dance. After they meet and Aimee Lee seduces him, she promises endless delights if Adam were only part of her father's ministry. Hooked, Adam resigns his job and abandons Yvonne to become the Reverend Billy Blaize's investment advisor. But the Reverend is determined to use all of Adam's talents. Justifying it for the furtherance of his ministry and the glory of God, he talks Adam into performing small private healings for sizable donations and Adam's descent into moral bankruptcy has begun. [Explicit material]

IN HOPES OF HEAVEN (CHAPTER ONE)

Adam limped up the stairs of the front porch. He tried to open the door without smearing it with sweat and blood. He looked around the neighborhood, fearing he would alarm anyone who might see him entering the house.

All he wanted now was to find his way quietly to the shower and clean up. But he wasn't going to be so lucky.

Earlier that morning, as Adam Blake woke on the morning of his 30th birthday, little did he realize that his life would never be the same.

He glanced sleepily at the clock. With a start he began to throw the covers off, and then sighed contentedly as he remembered it was Saturday morning. No work. Nothing to do but whatever he wanted to do.

He rolled over, pulled the covers around his shoulders and about his neck in the chilly room and slipped back down into the warm valley of the old swayback mattress. He smiled at the sleeping girl next to him, her hair sprayed across their pillows like a golden sunrise. Adam was sure the real dawn, still an hour off, wouldn't be half as lovely.

His smile slid easily into a huge grin as he remembered last night's lovemaking. He and Yvonne Johnson had known each other for nine months and been living together for the last three. He supposed that the six-month courting period was sufficient for a late-nineties romance to legitimize the arrangement.

Their intellectual compatibility was as well-suited as the meeting of their supple bodies. They enjoyed each other's company and relished experimenting and finding different ways to give and take delight in the act of sex.

Adam snuggled into the small of Yvie's back, enjoying the morning's warm lethargy. He knew that his jogging compulsion wouldn't let him linger too much longer. But he could enjoy the warmth for now, before guilt nuzzled away at his consciousness like a pig rooting for truffles.

He woke an hour later to find that Yvonne hadn't moved. The lazy, early light of a gray, foggy dawn filtered across the dark corners of the room. This time Adam swung his feet over the side of the bed. The cool air caressed his naked legs. Reluctantly, he unfolded his lanky, six-foot-two body from the side of the sleeping girl. He regretted leaving her soft, warm vulnerability, but he refused to deny himself his other most favorite sensual pleasure, the one reserved for most evenings and every weekend morning: running.

In the bathroom, Adam ran his hands through what he was afraid might be thinning brown hair, indulged in a great, jaw-aching yawn, and brushed his teeth. He ignored Yvonne's scale in the corner, knowing he'd be the same 180 pounds he had been since high school. Starring at himself in the mirror, Adam shook his head in amazement. Just an ordinary-looking guy. Nothing special. He couldn't believe how lucky he was. Everything was going his way. His career was perking right along, and he was working at something he really enjoyed. Yvonne was a never-ending source of wonder and delight. He had his health and wasn't hurting financially. God was in His heaven, and all was right with the world!

Back in the bedroom, sitting on the side of the bed, Adam laced up his favorite Nikes. He glanced over his shoulder at the sleeping form. Even with his coming and going, Yvonne hadn't stirred. With a kiss on the back of her neck, to which she responded, "Umm," he stepped into the living room of the small rented house and picked his way through the welter of furniture. His and hers.

Too much, Adam thought for the umpteenth time. He smiled. It was okay. What the hell was a little additional clutter, when Yvonne came along with it.

Outside, the barely risen sun had yet to burn off the morning fog. Living in Venice, between Santa Monica and Marina Del Rey, Adam had learned to appreciate the puppy-tongues of moist air during his morning runs; it was refreshing.

Being a weekend, the beach walk was already teeming with morning exercisers, running, walking, skating, bicycling, or just sitting on the sporadically spaced benches. Later, the crowds would grow even larger as Venice Beach's colorful informal carnival came to full life and both tourists and residents flooded the area with their cacophony and teeming excitement.

Adam turned from the street onto the beach walk, trotting slowly north, allowing his muscles to gently warm and lubricate themselves before he began the serious heart-pounding effort of his normal pace.

He synchronized his breathing with the rhythm of his legs in counterpoint to the slap of his shoes against the sandy cement concourse and reached the limit of his stride. Arms bent at the elbows, he swung lightly clenched fists back and forth easily until his whole body was a smooth-moving machine.

On good days like this, Adam felt he could run forever. As the automatic rhythm and pulse of his body replaced the analysis and logic of his brain, the day was as close to perfect as he could wish. If there were only some way of combining the endorphin rush of running with the adrenaline rush of sex he thought he could bottle it and make a fortune!

He ran past Rose Avenue and resented having to break the cadence he'd developed to swing around and head back on the lap going south. With the return trip, he noted that the traffic on the walk had already increased measurably.

With luck, he'd do fourteen laps, a good seven miles. Not bad, he thought, considering his current life style! Who said sex depleted athletic energies?

Although Adam had a wonderful faculty for putting his brain into neutral while running, it continued to function on an autopilot awareness that allowed him to assess his physical performance and continually monitor his surroundings. And a great part of those surroundings was girls. One of the definite advantages of jogging at the beach was the female population—California's special treasure.

Adam's relationship with Yvonne had not yet solidified into what he could call love. But he was very fond of her. And faithful. It was never a practice of his, regardless of how active a sex life he pursued, to be unfaithful. Basically, he was monogamous. One at a time. Start a relationship and end it before beginning another one. This philosophy, however, did not prevent him from looking at other women, enjoying them and allowing them small roles in his active fantasies. While Adam ran, he appreciated the live scenery. It was innocent and harmless.

Ahead of him, running in his direction in the rapidly clearing mist, he could see a jogger, who stood out from the rest. Even from this distance, while the figure was still small and blurry, he could tell it was an attractive girl.

He ran toward her in appreciative anticipation, relishing the sight of her tall form and smooth-running litheness as her figure grew larger and clearer, their combined speeds rapidly decreasing the distance between them.

She wore a tight, bright red sports halter, displaying an expanse of tanned tummy between it and black Speedos. The tight shorts looked spray painted on her body. As she came closer, Adam could see the highlights of her hips and thighs through the thin material of the spandex.

The girl passed, and Adam fought the urge to turn and chauvinistically watch her backside, knowing it would be spectacular. It wasn't so much a matter of self-control, as a desire not to break stride, tinged with just a little guilt as a picture of the lovely, willing girl, even now in his own bed, flashed across his conscience.

Suddenly, behind him there was a loud noise, followed immediately by a scream. The sound brought Adam to a halt as he whirled around to see what had happened.

In the middle of the path, the girl, who had just passed, lay tangled in a bicycle. The bike rider was sprawled on the side of the cement, half in the sand. Evidently someone had zigged when he or she should have zagged.

Brushing the sweat out of his eyes, Adam ran back to the scene of the accident.

The frame of the light aluminum bicycle was bent and a wheel still rotated in the air with a clicking noise that seemed louder than either the nearby surf or the flock of gulls circling a nearby trash can, looking for their breakfast.

Somehow the girl's leg had become entangled in the spokes of the other wheel. The sharp wire rods appeared to have sliced deeply into her calf where her Speedos failed to reach with their protection.

She was sitting up, whimpering and crying, tears pouring down her cheeks as she tried to push the bike off her body. She was unable to shove the machine away and pull her injured leg from the tangled metal. Her calf was pushed so far through the spokes of the wheel, that every move caused one of them to dig deeper into her wound. The bicycle rider was struggling up to his elbows in the sand, apparently too stunned to help.

Immediately, Adam dropped to his knees next to the girl. He grabbed her hands, which had been scrabbling ineffectively at the wheel with the cutting spokes. Her hands were covered in bright red blood.

"No! No! Stop! Don't! You're only making it worse." Adam pulled her hands away from the bicycle, pushing them down into her lap. "It'll be okay," he reassured her.

A small crowd had begun to gather. They stood around, helplessly watching.

Adam looked at the blood covering his and the girl's hands and the ground, then up at the gallery of blank faces.

"Call 911," he said to the group.

No one moved.

"Call 911!" Adam repeated. "Get an ambulance, or the paramedics, or something!" He tried not to show his panic, knowing the girl needed all the reassurance he could give.

Finally, a half-frightened teenager held up his hand as if he were in school, asking permission to leave. "I'll go," the kid volunteered.

"Hurry up!" Adam turned back to the girl. "Don't worry. It's going to be okay."

"Jesus," she cried in pain. "Get this fucker off of me!"

"Yeah, sure." Adam patted her bloody, fluttering hands back down into her lap. "I'll take care of it."

Carefully, he surveyed the situation. Blood dripped thickly onto the sand-strewn cement. Adam couldn't tell how badly the girl had been injured, but he knew the wound had to be deep to cause so much blood. He could also tell that as long as her leg remained lodged in the spokes of the wheel, she would continue to aggravate the injury and lose a lot more blood.

"Okay," Adam said more calmly than he felt, "I'm going to bend the spokes apart, and when I do, you pull your leg out. Pull it straight out. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, yeah. Just hurry the fuck up. It's killing me."

Adam got up into a crouch so that he could steady the wheel while he spread the spokes apart. He could feel the thin wires branding his hands as he curled his fingers around the slender rods. They bent easily enough, but their tight spacing didn't provide much room to maneuver the girl's leg out of further danger.

"Okay, pull your leg out. Straight back. Good! Yeah! That's it," Adam encouraged. He kept bending the spokes apart as the girl slid backwards on the cement, extracting her injured limb.

"It's out." The girl sighed, a fresh blossom of tears welled up in her eyes.

Adam glanced over, giving a moment of attention to the bike rider who was now up and assessing his own personal damage.

His attention was called back to the girl as she moaned, "Jesus Christ! I'm bleeding to death!"

Adam didn't think she was in any danger of bleeding to death, but blood continued to well up alarmingly and obscure the wound. He needed to do something to stem the flow, but he couldn't find anything to use as a compress. He would have used his shirt, but it was sweat-soaked and filthy. Somehow, he didn't think it was an appropriate or hygienic first-aid tool.

"I'll take care of it," Adam continued to reassure with more confidence than he felt. "It's going to be okay. Just fine. Don't worry. You'll see; it'll be okay. Help is on the way." He realized he was rambling in his effort to console the wounded girl.

"Where the fuck's the ambulance? Look what the shithead did to my leg." The girl glared at the bicycle rider, now brushing sand from his backside.

"Come on," Adam said. "Let's get you a little more comfortable." He slipped an arm around the small of the girl's back, and clasping a hand over the bloody gash in her leg, he lifted her from the cold, sandy sidewalk and carried her over to a nearby bench. She was heavier than he'd expected. He was glad the bench was close.

Gently, he set her down lengthwise. Crouching in the sand by her side, he continued to compress the wound with his hand.

As blood dripped down his arm and off his elbow into the sand, Adam talked softly to the upset, weeping girl. "You're going to be just fine. It'll all be okay. I'm going to make sure you're okay. A couple of stitches and you'll be as good as new. No permanent damage. Just wait and see. A few days from now and you'll never know it happened."

To himself, Adam was saying: Christ! I wish she'd stop bleeding. Please stop bleeding! Or at least get some professional help here NOW!

In the distance, he could finally hear the sound of an ambulance. As it came closer its siren bounced between the shorefront buildings and spun itself out onto the open beach. Adam was never so relieved to hear anything in his life.

He continued squeezing the girl's calf, thankful that the flow of blood had finally seemed to slow. He was thankful that medical help was close by; his hand and arm were beginning to shake from the constant strain of the pressure he had to apply to keep the wound closed. His entire body was vibrating from the unaccustomed stress of crouching in an awkward position by the bench.

"Here they come now." Adam could see the yellow fire department paramedic truck turn onto the cement path from an alley access. There could be no doubt as to where they were heading; the crowd defined the problem.

With relief, Adam relinquished his hold on the girl to a blue-uniformed fire department paramedic, who had grabbed a large cloth compress as soon as he'd assessed the situation.

"Good job, buddy," the medic complemented when he saw the amount of blood on the girl, Adam and the bench. "I've got it now."

Adam watched as the paramedic replaced his hand with the compress, slipping it quickly over the girl's leg. He was shaking now more than before. His body felt consumed by an undulating wave of fever. The stress and strain of the past minutes, along with the adrenalin rush, had thrown his whole system out of kilter. He glanced over at another paramedic, treating the bike rider for a small cut on his forehead.

Thankful that his responsibility in the unexpected emergency was finally over, Adam got shakily to his feet. Right now his only priorities were getting home and showering off the sweat, sticky blood, and gritty sand that covered his body.

As he turned to leave, Adam heard the paramedic exclaim, "Well, goddamn, will you look at that!"

He looked over. The young man was standing beside the girl, staring down at the swatch of cloth in his hand and the calf of her shapely, tanned leg.

There was almost no blood on the compress and just a long, deep scratch on the girl's leg.

"Where the hell did all the blood come from?" The medic had forgotten his professional detachment for a moment.

He gave the girl a cursory examination as Adam stood by, watching in bewilderment. Although he hadn't directly examined the wound, Adam had assumed that it was quite long, deep, and serious. He could have sworn he'd seen one of the bike spokes deeply imbedded in her flesh. He, the girl, and the surroundings were covered with enough blood to attest to that fact.

"I don't know how you could have gotten so much blood out of that!" the medic said, surprised. He stared down at what he'd expected to be a severely damaged leg.

"I guess," the girl sniffled, "it wasn't as bad as we thought." She smiled wanly up at Adam, who was as startled as the other two.

"Got lucky," Adam said, still puzzled.

As he turned to leave, Adam gave a short shout of pain and almost fell.

Concerned, the paramedic started toward him. But Adam waved the young man off.

"It's nothing. I think I gotta charley horse. Just a cramp in my leg. Probably from squatting too long without cooling down after my run. Nothing a little walking around and a hot shower won't cure."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. No problem. I'll be fine."

"Hey mister!" It was the girl, her face, dirt and tear-streaked, eyes rimmed red. "Thanks."

"Glad I could help. Hey, I told you it would be okay. Right?"

"Yeah." She looked down at her leg, shaking her head in amazement. "You sure got that right."

"You take care now." Adam waved and limped painfully toward home.

Yvonne was up and had filled the house with the smell of fresh coffee and hot rolls. Adam had complained before about the counter-productive effects of sweets after a morning run, but it hadn't fazed Yvonne, who continued to ply him with homemade goodies.

Yvonne, like Adam, was one of the lucky individuals who could eat anything and everything without wearing it on her hips for the next six months.

Adam had chided her continually about her eating habits, which consisted almost entirely of sweets, junk food, pasta and red meat. If it was a fruit or a vegetable it wouldn't pass her lips unless sprinkled with sugar or drenched in cheese sauce.

When Yvonne saw him disheveled and covered with blood, she dropped the pan of hot rolls on the kitchen floor with a clatter.

"Oh my God!" she gasped.

"Don't worry, I'm okay." Adam looked down at the crimson stains covering the front of his shirt and shorts as well as his hands and arms. "It's not my blood," he reassured her. "There was an accident."

Massaging his aching leg muscle and wishing he were already in a nice hot shower, he explained to Yvonne what had happened.

"...And you know, the funny thing is," he said, limping toward the bedroom stairs as he began to take off his smeared shirt, "when all was said and done, she only had a scratch."

"Maybe the blood came from the guy riding the bicycle."

"Nah. He was thrown seven or eight feet away from the girl and the bike. Probably went head first over the handlebars and out into the soft sand. That's what kept him from getting any more hurt than he was. From what I could see he only had a small cut on his head."

"Head cuts bleed a lot."

"This one didn't bleed enough to even dribble down the side of his face. And he was nowhere near the girl. No," Adam mused, "either the girl was hurt somewhere else that the paramedic didn't find, or she's a real bleeder."

"That could be possible. Maybe she's a hemophiliac."

"I don't know much about medicine," Adam said, "but I do remember that movie, Nicholas and Alexandra. Their son was a hemophiliac. According to the film, the female carries the gene, but it affects only male offspring."

"Maybe she's some kind of exception."

"I guess. Who knows? After all, I'm getting my medical expertise from Hollywood." Adam shrugged that he didn't have an answer. "Why don't you whip up another batch of the rolls you've used to decorate our kitchen floor, while I take a shower and become human again."

"You've got it, Mister Rescuer! Coming right up. After all, we don't want you to lose all of your strength with the day barely begun."

Adam started up the stairs with a smile.

"Hey! You're limping!" Yvonne called.

Adam paused to rub his leg. "Yeah, gotta cramp or something in all the excitement. Just gonna have to work it out."

Yvonne leered. "Maybe I should come up and take a shower with you. I can take your mind off that cramp."

Adam laughed. I'll bet you could!"

### THE LUXEMBOURG AMENDMENT

In this fast-paced thriller, young lovers and broken vows stand between a Pope's terrible secret and the destruction of the Catholic Church. The most terrible secret of WWII has been found in the Vatican Archives and whoever has possession of The Luxembourg Amendment could wield incredible and devastating power.

THE LUXEMBOURG AMENDMENT (CHAPTER ONE)

LAST NIGHT

Martin Donohue was drowning.

He knew he was going to die. His mouth was filling with water and he couldn't move his head. Pain engulfed his skull like a blinding vice that kept him from moving.

In an incomprehensible flash of agony that seemed to cause bright bolts of lightning to shatter the darkness, Martin knew that he was going to die, drowned in a goddamn Roman gutter from a mouthful of rain and mud. No matter how he hard he struggled against the fear and throbbing pain, he couldn't move from the wave of filthy water that swept against him.

With the sudden, sickening realization that he would never fullfil his vows or even see the blessing of another sunrise, Martin succumbed to darkness just before the hands of a passing policeman pulled him onto the sidewalk and cleared the debris from his airway so that he could breathe.

Hours later, when he awoke, he was surprised to note that he was dry now. His mouth and nose weren't full of water. But his head still hurt like hell, and whenever he tried to open his eyes, the light was as painfully incandescent as the lightning flashes in the storm outside.

"Per piacere, Signore... Signore! Can you hear me, Signore?"

"Hmmm," Martin Donohue managed through clenched teeth. Even that small vibration caused the pain in his head to swell.

"Signore, guardi!" A cold finger pushed up Martin's eyelid and, as if the lights in the room weren't enough to destroy what was left of his brain, the beam from a small flashlight pierced his retinas like a knife.

"Ah, bravo, Signore!"

Martin heard a jumble of incomprehensible Italian in which he had no interest. His only desire was peace and quiet and the eventual relief of death.

"Ecco, Signore! Can you speak?"

"Hmmm."

"Ah, do you know what you are called? Your name, Signore?"

"Hmmm." God, the pain was incredible.

"Signore, can you tell me your name?"

"Mugged," Martin barely mumbled.

"Signore Mugged? Are you sure that is your nome: Signore Mugged?"

There was another rapid exchange of Italian just beyond his closed eyelids, and Martin was relieved to hear someone explain on his behalf: "No, that's not his name; he's saying that he was mugged, attacked; someone accosted him.

"I know his name, dottore; I want to see if he knows his name."

"Gotcha."

Martin wanted to nod in agreement, but he had no energy, nor inclination to rile any further the demons pounding rocks inside of his skull.

"I need to know your name, young man," a voice without an Italian accent asked in a comfortable southern twang.

"Mar--tin."

"Martin! And your last name, Martin?"

"Donohue."

"Excellent! That's exactly what your driver's license says. Can you open your eyes for a few moments, Mr. Martin Donohue?"

Slowly Martin opened his eyes to slits, squinting against the brightness of the hospital room. When he discovered that the glare probably wouldn't kill him, he allowed his eyes to open all the way.

White. Everything was a blinding shade of white, except a small blotch of light green moving across his peripheral vision. He expected more fireworks from the pulsating pain inside his head as he followed the movement, but it was no worse--or better--than before. The blob of green evolved into a pretty nurse passing by, while white shadows separated themselves from the overhead lights and

turned out to be two doctors, one extremely tall and the other just as short.

Medical Mutt and Jeff, Martin thought.

The older and tallest of the two spoke with a Texas drawl: "Hello, there youngster; Doctor Willie Dean Douglas, Dallas Texas," he introduced himself.

At twenty-five, Martin didn't consider himself a "youngster," but was willing to accept the diminutive instead of chancing a painful protest.

The Texan held up four fat sausage fingers. "How many?"

"Four," Martin muttered.

"And now?"

"Two."

"Blurry?"

"Uh-uh."

"Follow my finger with your eyes. Don't move your head."

"Not about to." Martin forced his aching eyeballs to track back and forth with the movement of the tall doctor's hand.

"You'll live, Martin Donohue," the American proclaimed after penetrating his patient's brain again with the small penlight.

The short, and much younger, Italian doctor with a thin mustache--either that, or he had three lips, Martin thought--nodded his head in rapid agreement.

The only one to disagree with this prognosis was Martin himself. "That's debatable. Where am I?"

"The Rome-American Hospital\--Via Emilio Longoni," the Texan replied. "What the hell happened to you?"

"I was mugged on the way home;" Martin repeated what the doctor already knew. He looked toward the Italian doctor, who evidently took this glance for the young American's criticism of Roman hospitality.

"Ah, Signore, it's a very great shame. So many homeless. Too many ladroni\--how do you say? \--Crooks!"

"Yeah," Martin confirmed," a real Bonny and Clyde got me: musta been a twelve year old girl--begging in the rain; and when I reached for a few lire\--" he winced at the persistent rhythms beneath his scalp "--another kid popped me on the head. The next thing I knew I was drowning in the street."

"That's quite a gully-washer we got goin' for ourselves out there," the Texan confirmed.

"I am so sorry, Signore." The Italian doctor appeared genuinely apologetic.

"Coulda been worse," his American counterpart chirped with what Martin thought was too much good humor. "You got off easy with just a concussion and a little five-finger discount, son."

"Easy! Ouch! Damn, that hurts!" Martin complained as

Dr. Douglas prodded his scalp.

"Stay still and let it run its course," the Texan advised.

"Can I have a painkiller?"

"You can have a couple of Tylenol in a few minutes."

"I need something stronger than that."

"Not until we make sure there's nothing worse than a mild concussion."

"This is mild?"

"Listen, buddy, I've been workin' trauma centers all over the world for the last fifteen years. Yeah, it coulda been worse. Like I said, just a little bang and burgle."

"Oh shit! My briefcase." The realization brought Martin up off the pillow and the pain put him right back down again.

"Sorry, pal. No briefcase. Only an empty wallet with your Massachusetts drivers license, emergency notification, and organ-donor card." The doctor leaned forward and spoke softly with a huge smile and a larger wink. "You don't know how you disappointed these Eye-ties here. They had the organ harvest team on standby until they discovered you were an American. Useless. They figure Americans got no heart and no balls." He laughed at his own joke.

Martin ignored the man's attempt at humor. "Damn! My computer was in my briefcase, so was my passport. But it's the computer--."

"Hey," the Texan looked pointedly at his watch, "that was over three hours ago. Your computer's probably been sold three times already."

Knowing what he had foolishly left on the hard drive of the small laptop, Martin felt sick to his stomach.

### LET US DO EVIL

Jeremiah looks up to 16-year-old "Beans", a natural leader and master manipulator, who points out to his younger friends that they are all helpless, at the mercy of a system which releases rapists and criminals from jail to prey again, a society that doesn't effectively protect its children from abuse. Beans reminds them that adults have all the power, which they repeatedly abuse. The group begins a series of "vigilances" to avenge their society's wrongs. Understanding the need for ritual and mystery, Beans requires them to meet in a strange forest glade and provide primitive offerings to insure their success. Their covert actions continue to spiral beyond harmless mischief. Although hesitant at times, Jeremiah and his new-found love, Timothea, feel compelled to follow Beans' dictum that "the punishment should fit the crime" as their merciless retributions escalate from innocuous pranks to violence and mayhem. [Explicit material]

LET US DO EVIL (CHAPTER ONE)

The glade in the woods scared Jeremiah more than any place he could recall, more even than the house when his father came home drunk. He was ready to believe that a place like this might not only harbor evil spirits, but they could easily possess an unsuspecting soul.

He wouldn't be here if Timmie Wrather hadn't told Beans Crudello that her brother had tried to rape her. After only a month in Santa Inez, Jeremiah was already falling in love with the fourteen year-old with the funny name, Timothea, and he would do anything for her.

The whole gang had rousted him out of bed an hour ago with a sense of urgency and purpose he'd never seen in any of them before.

* * * *

"What's up?" Jeremiah had asked.

"We got problems," Beans had said, his handsome sixteen year-old face grim and determined. "Timmie's got problems," he clarified, flipping a thumb in the girl's direction.

Jeremiah had looked at Timmie and noticed for the first time that her eyes were blood-shot and red-rimmed, her delicate, soft blond lashes, still wet with tears.

"What the hell's going on?"

Timmie had shaken her head, unable to talk.

"Let's get to The Special Place and we'll talk about it," Beans had encouraged, picking up his pace.

"What's The Special Place?" Jeremiah had asked, puzzled.

"You'll see. Come on."

Without effort, Jeremiah had increased his pace to match Beans' and stay abreast of the girl. Behind them, Melvin Spurling, whose round, twelve year-old, pie-shaped face (responsible for his nickname, the Pieman) was already slick with sweat, double-stepped in an attempt to keep up. His little brother, Petie, easily kept up from a distance.

Hesitantly, Jeremiah had touched Timmie's shoulder just to acknowledge her distress and let her know that he would stand by her--whatever the problem.

He had been partially gratified by her wan smile of acknowledgement.

The cool mountain mists of mid-June in the foothills of the Sierra Madres vied with the warmth of summer for a foothold in the air, but the bright sunlight that had greeted Jeremiah when he had left the house gave way now to a fog rising up from the damp ground between the trees. Just four blocks from his neighborhood, the edge of the woods crept up to the abandoned railroad tracks and a different world lay before them.

Behind Beans' lanky form, the small group had picked its way up the gravel embankment and marched along the tracks into the misty forest. They'd clambered quickly across the old wooden trestle. For once, the Pieman and Petie caught up as they'd compacted themselves into a rapidly moving scurry of feet until they were over the trestle, down the embankment and into the trees.

Although they all knew that the tracks had been long-since out of use, the thought of phantom locomotives on that unforgiving bridge had still been frightening.

Brush and foliage masked the path Beans had seemed to sense rather than see. Without hesitation, he'd left the tracks and picked his way trough the brambles into the forest.

Jeremiah had noticed rabbit and other small game trails crisscrossing their own. If it hadn't been for Beans' guidance, he would have been tempted to follow one of the animal tracks, supposing it had a greater purpose than the seemingly arbitrary direction of the tall boy leading them.

Single file through the thick brush, the trees growing close together, Jeremiah had followed Timmie, who followed Beans. He hadn't been able to see the older boy, but assumed that Timmie could. And if she couldn't, hopefully she knew their destination. Behind Jeremiah, the Pieman snapped twigs and stumbled over dead branches and exposed roots as he bulldozed through the brush, leaving a path of noise for his younger brother to follow.

Beans had led them across a number of brackish creeks, hopping from rock to rock or tightrope walking across fallen logs and Jeremiah had imagined that somewhere far down the mountains these small tributaries all emptied into Lake Cachuma.

They'd cut a path of undisguised noise through the woods and, until the group came to silence them with the threat of human presence, birds sang, frogs croaked and insects sang songs of undisturbed solitude. As the sound of crashing feet faded, the creatures of the woods had reclaimed their habitat and resumed their incessant chatter.

Almost half an hour into the forest, Jeremiah had been brought up short when he bumped into Timmie. He had been looking at the ground, concentrating on not letting the vines, dead branches and thick brush trip him up.

Beans and Timmie had stood quietly, side by side, neither of them looking at Jeremiah. Behind them, the foundering Pieman, breath rasping, had finally caught up and Petie had approached closer than he was usually allowed.

Gazing ahead between Beans and Timmie, Jeremiah had seen that they were on the edge of a small glade, probably a hundred feet in diameter, almost perfectly round. The ground was covered with small grass-covered hillocks that looked like undulating waves of a minor, velvet green sea.

In the center of the glade, a gnarled, silver tree looked almost fossilized as it stood lone guard over the bare clearing. It had been many years since this tree had known the warmth of sap or the youth of leaves. Around the trunk of the misshapen tree, a sprinkling of wild flowers made a sharp contrast to the rolling green around it.

Along the circumference of the clearing a number of brown, rotting tree stumps stood like the broken teeth of an old man; some had been cut and hewn from the surrounding woods, others were evidently the remains of trees corrupted from within and torn apart by the elements.

With the exception of the Pieman's hoarse breathing, everything was quiet. It was as if the denizens of the forest—the birds, insects, small animals—had all agreed not to intrude on this place.

Here too, the mists of fog that had accompanied them almost all the way from the train tracks, refused to invade; it stopped short of the open glade, hovering among the trees.

Even at a first glance, Jeremiah felt that an ominous miasma of dread pervaded this primeval place. The clearing could easily have been a peaceful refuge, a place of solace and comfort away from the outside world, but it wasn't; it was a setting of dread.

* * * *

"Petie," Beans called softly to the youngster hovering closely behind the rest. "Petie, you stay here and stand guard. Let me know if anyone comes."

The Pieman's mother had saddled him with Petie for the summer: "You want to go out? Bring your brother." "Aw, Mom..." "Don't 'aw Mom' me. Take your little brother with you or stay in the house."

Petie nodded at the older boy, a grin spreading across his face at this assignment of responsibility. Beans didn't acknowledge Petie very often, even though he was always hanging around now, and Jeremiah could tell the boy was eager to please.

"Come on," Beans' hushed voice instructed the rest of them as he picked his way around the circumference of the glade, leading them single-file.

Jeremiah followed Timmie, noting that Beans was very deliberate in his efforts to stay on the edge of the grass, out of the glade. Their shoulders brushed the limbs of the bordering trees as they wound around to the opposite side of the open space.

Here, a cluster of tree stumps made a natural amphitheater where they could stop and finally sit. Across the brightly lit glade, in the dimness of the woods, Jeremiah could barely see the swatch of color that told him Petie was on duty at the head of the path.

"I don't want Petie to hear this," Beans began. "He's too young to understand. And he don't need to know about such things yet."

The other three waited in silence. Jeremiah looked at his companions. The Pieman, busy wiping sweat out of his eyes with the corner of his moist, filthy shirt, was still struggling to regain his breath.

Timmie sat, her hands folded between her legs, looking at the ground as if afraid to raise her eyes and confront the rest of them.

Timothea Wrather. Such a God-awful name for a girl. Parents sure knew how to fuck up a kid's future. Jeremiah could relate to that! At fourteen, the same age as himself, and a year older than the Pieman, Timmie was just beginning to show the promise of future womanhood, but for now, it was still well-hidden by loose jeans and a floppy flannel shirt all topped off by a pretty freckled face and a cap of short-cropped blond hair.

Jeremiah wanted to reach out and comfort her, but sensed it was neither the time nor the place.

Beans beamed with the effort of their trek and the task at hand.

"We got a problem," he said, looking at Jeremiah and the Pieman. "A big problem,"

The two boys waited.

Beans' voice softened. "It's Timmie. Her brother tried to put it to her last night."

"Put what to her?" the Pieman asked, still wiping the moisture from his guileless, chubby face.

"Jesus!" Beans barked. "Are you stupid or something? Gary tried to stick it to her!" He saw the blank look still on the Pieman's face and clarified: "Gary tried to screw Timmie--to rape her!"

Jeremiah looked at Timmie. With her head bent, he couldn't see her face, but he could see the tears that fell from under her brows. Helpless, he watched as they splashed unheedingly on her hands and knees. This time he didn't resist. He reached out and touched her shoulder, squeezing it gently, acknowledging her pain.

Jeremiah recalled an image of Timmie's brother. Gary was a big, gangly boy of seventeen. Afflicted with acne and an obnoxious, aggressive personality, Gary had a reputation as a real party animal. His drinking was well known by everyone except his mother, who had long ago given up trying to control her son. It was evident the woman had abandoned the boy to his own ways in favor of a daughter who was not yet beyond redemption.

"What happened?" Jeremiah asked, directing his question to Timmie.

It was Beans, who answered. "Gary came home late last night while their mother was working a late shift, and he was drunk as a skunk. I guess he didn't get his girlfriend to put out for him, so he went looking for Timmie instead. She says he came into her room while she was sleeping and tried to climb on top of her."

Jeremiah could hear Timmie hiccupping back tears as Beans recounted the event.

"Timmie kneed Gary in the balls and knocked him off the bed. She was barely able to push him out into the hall. Then she locked herself in her bedroom until this morning."

Jeremiah was shocked. He had little concept of incestuous urges. He thought of his own eighteen year-old sister, Jodi. Definitely a good-looking girl, but he couldn't conceive of being sexually attracted to her. Oh sure, there had been the few furtive glances at her in the bathroom, or as she prowled around in her bra and panties. But he'd had enough guilt for even this healthy curiosity to know what was right and wrong. Rapidly, his shock turned into a flash of anger.

"The goddamn son of a bitch!" Jeremiah exclaimed. "I'd like to cut off his pecker."

"Yeah, cut his pecker off," the Pieman echoed.

"Sure," said Beans calmly. "Cut his pecker off and throw it to the dog. Then the asshole will bleed to death and you'll be in jail for the rest of your life for murder."

"It's worth it." Jeremiah insisted.

"No it's not," The Pieman said.

Jeremiah jumped up, ready to fight. "That was our Timmie he was after!"

"Hey, J.C., I know, I know. But it's not as if he actually did anything." The Pieman held up his hands to defend himself.

"He tried!" Jeremiah couldn't get too mad at the Pieman. After all, the boy had called him J.C. instead of Jeremiah, which he hated.

"Yeah. You're right, he tried," The Pieman finally nodded in agreement.

"And he might try again," Beans pointed out, watching Jeremiah's hand move back to Timmie's heaving shoulder.

Jeremiah wanted to wrap the girl in his arms and protect her from anything in the world that could harm her.

"Yeah, he might attack her again," Beans mused aloud, repeating himself. "That's just what I'm afraid of. We need to do something. That's why we came to The Special Place, to The Haunt."

"The Haunt?" Jeremiah asked.

Beans waived his hand at the open glade before them, now warm with noon sunlight. "This place is haunted. That's why I call it The Special Place. I come here whenever I've got a problem. The spirits of this place will give you answers, if you just ask them.

"Is it really haunted?" Jeremiah asked.

"Nobody ever told me we were going to a haunted place. It ain't haunted. There ain't no such thing," the Pieman said, still worried.

Beans winked at Jeremiah before answering. "Oh, yeah, it's haunted, all right."

"You mean real ghosts?" The Pieman looked ready to run.

"Spirits. The place has spirits. It's their place. They let us come here. Like I said, The Special Place can help us take care of things that need taking care of."

"What kind of things?" The Pieman wanted to know.

"Like this problem with Timmie's brother. You'll see. Before we leave here we'll know just what to do and how to do it. The Special Place takes care of things like that."

"But how..." Jeremiah began.

"I'll tell you all about it later," Beans interrupted. "Now we got us a problem to solve."

"Maybe we should talk to Timmie's mom," Jeremiah suggested. "Timmie, did you tell your mother?"

The girl shook her head and wiped her nose on the back of a sleeve. "No. She won't listen."

"Just tell her what happened."

"Listen, J.C.," Beans said, "Timmie's mom gave up on Gary a long time ago. She works double shifts and doesn't have time to deal with this bullshit." He turned to Timmie. "Didn't your brother hit your mom the last time she tried to chew him out?"

Timmie nodded, the tears beginning to dry up. "Yeah. He gave her a black eye. She said she fell down in the garage, but I knew he hit her. She's been scared of him ever since."

Jeremiah shuddered at the thought, his mind racing to home to his own abusive father. His anger increased and he focused it on the girl's absent brother. "We can't let him get away with this."

"Oh we won't," Beans assured.

"No we won't," the Pieman echoed.

"What are we going to do?" Jeremiah asked the open air, looking out at the woods surrounding them and the serenity of the spooky glade.

"Hey!" The Pieman jumped up, excited. "Maybe we can make him wear a big red "A" like that lady in the book we had to read last year in school."

"The Scarlet Letter," Jeremiah said, automatically. He loved reading and devoured everything, even school assignments. "That's The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne. We had to read that too."

"It's bullshit," rattled Beans, who read as little as possible. "I saw that flick on cable and Demi Moore didn't even take off her clothes like she did in Striptease. We ain't gonna get Gary to sew a big fat "A" on all his shirts and walk around town like that. Besides, we'd have to use an "S.H." for shithead."

The conversation degenerated into a number of fantastic schemes for retribution, each one a bit more far-fetched than the previous.

"Come on," Beans finally interrupted. "Let's get real. We've got to take care of this. That's why we came here: To take care of things."

"I have an idea," Jeremiah said. "I think I know what we might be able to do. And, we can get away with it too."

"I know we brought you for a reason," Beans said. "What's your idea?"

"It's pretty simple..." Jeremiah began.

As he talked, Jeremiah looked across the glade. With a portion of his mind he noticed that, although the birds flitted back and forth in the nearby trees, none flew over the open space. The glade was silent except for his voice, to which the others listened with rapt attention.

As he unfolded his scheme, Jeremiah was pleased to see Timmie's face become more animated. Soon she was smiling as widely as Beans at his suggestion.

"See, I told ya," Beans exclaimed. "Come to The Special Place, and everything gets taken care of. It inspires you."

"Do you really think we can do it?" Timmie asked.

"Sure, why not?" Beans nodded. "But we need to work together as a team. All of us."

"Petie too?" the Pieman asked, concern on his face.

"Yeah, Petie too," Jeremiah said. "As I figure it, we need all five of us. Any less and we can't control the asshole. And if we can't hold Gary down, someone could get really hurt."

"I don't know." The Pieman hedged at the mention of possible injury. He looked across the glade at his younger brother, still sitting quietly on duty by the path. "Mom would blow a gasket if she ever found out."

"She's not going to find out," Beans insisted. "No one's going to find out. This is just us, okay?" He held out his hand, palm up. "Okay?" he insisted again.

"Okay," Timmie said, placing her hand on Beans' open one.

"Fine by me," Jeremiah chimed in, placing his hand over Timmie's, feeling its warmth for the first time.

"I guess," the Pieman conceded, adding his hand to the group. "Yeah, okay. Petie and me are in."

A slight breeze came up and rustled the tops of the trees, but didn't seem to touch the ground. Jeremiah heard it whisper overhead as the four comrades sealed their bargain.

"Now," Beans said. "The offering."

"The offering?" Jeremiah questioned.

"Yeah. We need to leave an offering. It insures our success."

The Pieman looked nervously around the glade and the surrounding woods. "Who...who...what are we leaving an offering for?"

Beans shrugged. "For the spirits."

"What spirits do you keep talking about?" Jeremiah asked, forgetting about Beans' earlier wink.

"Shit, J.C., I don't know." Beans was impatient with his inquisitors. "I just know that we need to leave an offering. It's what we gotta do, or things are gonna get all screwed up."

"What kind of offering?" the Pieman asked.

"It's gotta come from Timmie." Beans turned to the girl. "You got anything we can use?"

Timmie patted her pockets, shaking her head. "I didn't know I was supposed to bring something, but I guess..."

"That's okay," Beans assured her. "We'll find something." He watched as Timmie pulled a small handful of coins from her front pocket and an old, battered man's wallet from the rear.

Beans reached for the wallet and flipped through the cracked yellow, plastic photo folder. "Perfect!" he exclaimed, pulling out a much-weathered color photo. It displayed an informal family scene.

Looking over Beans' shoulder, Jeremiah could see a picture of what must have been Timmie four or five years ago. Beside her, a grinning older boy stared defiantly into the lens of the camera. Behind the two of them was Timmie's mother, who looked much older and more tired now. Next to Timmie's mother, a tall handsome man gazed off slightly to the right. It must have been Timmie's father. Before the divorce. Long before last night.

Beans took the photo and carefully began to tear it apart.

Timmie's hand shot out to stop him.

He stepped back, away from her reach. "It's okay, Timmie. I won't ruin your mom or dad. But we need Gary."

She let her hand fall to her side and watched apprehensively as Beans rotated the picture in his fingers, tearing out the picture of the young boy, removing him from the family.

Beans handed the mutilated photo back to the girl. "Sorry, Timmie," he said softly, conciliatory. "But we need a suitable offering. Give me your change too. The more the better. It can't hurt." He held out his hand for the small fistful of coins she still clutched. "J.C., Pieman, give me your change."

The two boys dug into their pockets and handed Beans whatever small change they had between them. From his own pocket, Beans added three quarters and a number of pennies.

"Here." Beans held out the money and the fragment of photo to Timmie. "You'd better do this. It's your problem; it should be your offering." He dumped the lot into the girl's cupped hands and stood aside. "Take it out there." He pointed toward the center of the glade, to a spot near the twisted, dead tree. "There's a hole under the big rock at the bottom of the tree."

They watched as Timmie stepped hesitantly out into the light of the glade. Her footfall made no sound on the soft grass. Around them the silence grew as the air in the trees died along with the bird chatter, which had been incessant since their arrival had momentarily interrupted it.

In the hush, Timmie walked slowly to the center of the glade.

She seems very small and fragile out there, Jeremiah thought. With chin held up, shoulders squared, back straight and hands cupped before her, she looked like the celebrant of some religious ritual. The sun sparkled in her short light-blond hair, causing it to glow almost white, like the halo around the head of a saint.

Watching Timmie walk across the glade, Jeremiah felt a tug at his heart. She looked so vulnerable in the open space. At any moment he expected to see wild men or savage Indians rushing toward her from the dark woods. It was a slow motion movie. But there were no wild men or Indians.

Across the glade, Jeremiah could see Petie, standing now, watching the girl as were the rest of them.

Exactly in the middle of the open area, next to the tree, a small hillock covered in grass rose up about two feet. This mound wasn't much different from the many others around the glade, except that, perched on top, was a large black rock.

From where he stood, Jeremiah guessed the stone must have weighed 30 or 40 pounds. He watched Timmie approach until she was standing beside the rise in the ground.

She looked back at the three of them.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jeremiah glimpsed Beans nodding to the girl as if giving her permission or encouragement.

Holding her small treasures in one hand, Timmie reached over and, with considerable effort, lifted up one side of the large stone. Carefully, she placed the piece of photograph and the coins under the rock. She let the rock settle back on top of everything and brushed off her hands on the legs of her jeans. She held them out in a what-do-I-do now gesture.

Beans waved her to come back.

Timmie returned faster than she had gone. It was as if, now that her chore was done, she wanted to be out of the limelight and away from the glare of the open space.

Simultaneously, the three boys reached for the girl as she approached. It was as if together they wanted to retrieve her from the open glade before it could pull her back and claim her for itself.

"Good job!" Beans whispered, welcoming Timmie back into the fold with a pat on the back.

"Do you think it'll work?" she asked.

"No. We'll work," Beans said. "The offering is just insurance. It'll help, but we still gotta do our job. Come on, let's get out of here."

The tall boy led the other three back around the edge of the clearing as quickly as possible. On the other side, Petie waited, still silent. Although the four older kids had never been out of his sight, the small boy's relief at their return was evident.

Beans patted Petie on the head. "You're okay, Petie. Think you can lead us out of here?"

Petie beamed and grunted. "Yeah." Whirling around, the youngster headed back into the underbrush and began picking his way confidently through the trees.

### THE HAUNT

After the birth of their third child, Kevin and Karen Marsh rent an unseen vacation seaside cottage in distant, isolated San Sebastian. Even before they can settle in, their dog balks and runs. Seventeen year-old Gillian claims she hears noises under the house. On their first morning they discover the rotting corpses of a dead cat's kittens, and when Kevin sends twelve-year-old Scott out to dispose of the bodies, the boy returns with a picnic basket of homemade goods he found on the porch. Karen marvels at the friendliness of their neighbors. Little do the Marsh's know how friendly the villagers will become over the summer. Karen becomes obsessed with cleaning their cottage while Kevin tries to finish writing his long delayed novel. The teenagers find their own diversions and peculiar new friends, unaware that they are all being woven into a web of horror the village and its dowager leader have designed for them. [Explicit sex and violence and supernatural terror]

THE HAUNT (CHAPTER ONE)

Kevin Marsh felt bile in the back of his throat.

Oh God, he thought, what the hell is that awful smell?

The unfamiliar crash of invisible waves beat against the shoreline in the darkness behind him, back beyond his family, waiting at the fence that separated the yard from the beach.

What the hell have I gotten us into? he wondered as he pushed at the door of the cottage. He tried to hold his breath against the sickly-sweet odor.

He was tired, irritable--and worried about Karen. Her pregnancy had gone well up to now, but the uncomfortable, day-long trip from the desert to the coast--from unbearable heat to an incredible damp chill--with two bickering kids, a suckling child, a nervous cocker spaniel and a fluttering parakeet had been rougher than he'd expected. Now she was standing with the kids between the house and the waves, in the middle of a wind-scrubbed nowhere, while he investigated the huge house on the beach.

Instinctively he'd thought it better that Gillian and Scott wait at the gate with their mother and the baby while he went ahead and scouted with their only flashlight what the advertisement had called a "cottage."

In the shadows by the gate, Kevin had expected his wife to protest, as if keeping them all together were more important than individual safety, but he was surprised when she just nodded and reached out to pull Gillian and Scott closer. She was a strong-willed woman and often more capable than he of making quick, firm decisions. But this time she deferred to him with silent acquiescence.

As Kevin begin to move away, he noticed Scott shift into the crook of his mother's arm, whereas Gillian shrugged off the gesture with her usual I'm-too-adult-to-need-that-kind-of-kid-stuff teenage contempt.

The yard was suitably large, spread out in a dark dirt veldt between the house and the fence, on the other side of which sand took over from the lush grass. The path from the front gate to the house was paved with flagstones that led across the dark yard like a river of stone.

Kevin braced his hands against the door. It was stuck on something.

He pushed harder.

The smell he had noticed when he'd first stepped onto the porch became worse. It was as if someone had torn open a bag of rotting offal; the odor enveloped him.

The cottage had looked so neat and perfect in the last bit of light that reflected off rapidly lowering clouds. It was far beyond anything he had expected from the ad on Craig's List. That was before he'd smelled the noxious odor that had brought him up short--almost as much as the obstinate door.

He turned away to get his breath. In the gathering darkness, he could see everyone still standing by the gate at the end of the large yard. Seventeen year-old Gillian stood with her arms crossed, long, blond hair swishing across firm shoulders, her impatient, trim figure, stalking back and forth, exuding attitude.

Scotty was holding his mother's arm, not because at twelve he needed comfort, but because he probably felt she required his. A thin, gangly kid with a mop of unruly hair like his father's, Scott already came up past his mother's shoulder.

A warm feeling swelled inside of Kevin. He couldn't imagine life without Karen and the kids. Gillian was a royal pain in the ass sometimes, but she would grow out of it; Scotty had a compassion far beyond his years. And now the little Joshua had increased the circle of their love.

He waved.

"I'm freezing my butt off out here," Gillian shouted.

Kevin turned back to the door and gave it a mighty shove. Reluctantly, it swung open into another darkness, releasing a palpable explosion of dank, sickening air.

He swallowed hard and slipped into the room. He could see very little by the small, weak beam of the flashlight as he ran his hand along the wall beside the door until he found a light switch and snapped it up and down without effect. Maybe the bulb was out.

Now that he was inside, the foul odor didn't seem to be as bad as it had been at the door, but it still lingered, rising up behind him like an invisible wall between himself and escape to his family.

Pulling the door partially closed behind him, he looked behind it with the flashlight--and retched.

A huge, yellow calico cat, one paw trapped against the floor, the other caught in the wood at the bottom of the door, glared up at him with sunken, empty eye sockets. The cat was dead.

It looked to Kevin as if the animal had died horribly, trying to scratch its way out of the house. Even in the limited glow of the flashlight, he could see splinters in the cat's paws, a torn-out-claw, trailing bits of dried, bloody flesh lodged in the hard wood of the door.

Kevin was startled when the dead animal began to writhe with life. He moved the light down the long, desiccated body to a nest of wriggling white maggots in the cat's belly.

He barely made to the edge of the porch before a greasy hamburger and soggy French fries, put down three hours earlier, came back up.

"Kevin! Kev! What happened?" Karen shouted. "No! You two stay here," she told the children as she handed the baby to Gillian, threw open the gate and rushed up the path to Kevin's side.

He tried to spit his mouth clean.

She moved toward the open door that yawned at them, the mouth of a dark cave.

"Don't go in there!" Kevin grabbed his wife.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"A dead cat. Probably got trapped inside. Go on back with the kids; let me clean it up and check the rest of the place before you guys come in."

He watched Karen make her way back down the path, her figure svelte again after her latest pregnancy, looking ten years younger than her thirty-nine years. From the moment he'd met her back in college, he'd considered himself the luckiest man in the world. That had never changed, and never would, he thought.

He moved back into the house, avoiding the dead cat, imagining the sickening sound his shoe would make on brittle bones and fat maggots.

He made his way past the covered furniture in the living room and tried the switches in another room without success. He could see bulbs in the fixtures.

Why hadn't the electricity been turned on? No sense bumbling through the place without decent lighting.

Back near the front door, Kevin grabbed a dust cover off an old wing-backed chair and wrapped up the body of the cat and its squirming inhabitants. Holding the bundle at arm's length, he carried it to the fence on the right side of the house and dropped it in the sand.

"It's okay now," he said, returning to his family.

"Yuck!" Gillian wrinkled her nose. "You hurled all over the place."

"Was it really gross?" Scott asked, indicating the white lump of the shrouded cat.

"Yeah, pretty much." Not wanting to dwell on images of the cat and the white feeding frenzy on it, Kevin turned to Karen. "The power isn't on."

"We should have gotten here earlier," she said.

"I really expected the inn to be open. How was I to know they roll up the sidewalks at sunset? Even on a Saturday night." He shrugged, helpless. He had the key to the cottage the rental agent had mailed him and a note that their contact in town would be Angus MacAndrew, the owner of the White Horse Inn. But when they'd driven through San Sebastian an hour earlier, the inn had been as dark as the other shops on the short, steep main street.

"They probably close everything at sundown to avoid the vampires," Scott exclaimed.

Kevin ignored his son's fantasy. "The rental agent said that the tourist season doesn't really start until after the Fourth of July. Maybe that's it."

"And then they roll up the sidewalks at nine," Gillian muttered.

"The Fourth is two more weeks away; today's only the twenty-second--"

"Hey! The longest day of the year, the first day of summer," Scott exclaimed, proud to show off his knowledge.

"What do we do now?" Karen asked.

Kevin shrugged. "I suppose we could go back out to Highway One and see if we can find a motel."

"I don't remember seeing anything for the last sixty or seventy miles," Karen said.

"Maybe, if we continue north... We're only about a hundred miles south of Monterey."

"Screw that noise!" Gillian said. "Like, drive another hundred miles to find a Motel 6? No way, José!"

"I doubt they have Motel Sixes in Monterey," Karen said, smiling with her normal tolerance for their daughter's usual inability to agree with any family plan.

"Or we can camp out here," Kevin said. He shinned the flashlight on a stack of wood by the side of the house. "We can build a fire and get all cuddle-cozy warm, and--"

"Where'll we sleep?" Gillian asked.

"Well put mattresses on the floor and--"

"Okay, let's hang at a Motel 6," Gillian sighed.

"Kevin, I'm too tired to drive anymore today," Karen said. "Let's just stay here and make the best of it--at least for tonight."

"Awesome!" Scott said, giving Kevin a high five. Relieved that he had another ally, Kevin responded with an additional slap to his son's open palm while Gillian looked on with disgust.

As Kevin led them into the house, Gillian stopped in the doorway and wrinkled her nose. "It stinks in here."

"It just needs to be aired out." Karen went over to a window and, with some effort, balanced Joshua in one arm, and raised it a few inches. A freshening breeze rippled the curtains. She brushed dust from her hands. "The place is filthy."

"I'm sorry." Kevin felt compelled to apologize, although everything looked pretty good to him. "I guess it's been empty for a while. A little GI party, and we'll have the place as good as new."

"Yay! A party!" Scott clapped his hands.

"What's a GI party?" Gillian asked, suspicion clouding her face.

"When I was in the army, whenever we were expecting an inspection in the barracks, we'd have an all-night GI party: Scrubbing, cleaning, polishing--you know, good old-fashioned housekeeping."

"That's what I figured," Gillian grumbled.

"We'll all pitch in tomorrow--whip this place into shape in no time," Kevin said. "For tonight, though, Scotty and I'll get our stuff and the menagerie out of the car."

"And we girls'll get things organized in here," Karen said. "Gillian, you help me push the furniture to one side so we can make room for some mattresses in front of the fireplace."

"It'll be fun," Kevin said.

"I get to make the fire!" Scott shouted.

"Sure, Mr. Boy Scout." Kevin grinned. "But later. For now, I need your muscles at the car."

"Mom," Kevin heard Gillian ask as he and Scotty headed out the door. "Where are we going to put Billabong's cage?"

"We can stick it anywhere. I'm not ready to worry about the bird yet. Come on and help me with this furniture. And see if you can find a broom or something. This place makes my skin crawl."

Kevin heard the exhaustion and discouragement in Karen's voice and a wave of guilt washed over him. So far their vacation was turning into a disaster. And it was his fault. Karen might have been the one who'd insisted on a real summer vacation after the baby came, but he was the genius who'd committed them to six weeks at an unseen beach cottage in an unknown village that wasn't even on the Triple-A map.

* * *

Kevin had had to park the car in a flat, sandy space near the beginning of a poorly-defined path between the sand dunes. The worn rut was almost a hundred yards long and wound around the contours of the dunes until it finally meandered next to the crooked, white picket fence that surrounded the cottage.

"Let's leave the word processor in the car," Kevin told Scott. "I'll bring it in tomorrow." As he spoke, he realized that making the word processor their last priority was indicative of his attitude toward the scholarly writing he should have been doing for the last ten years. Well, not this time, he promised himself as he began to pull luggage out of the back of the old station wagon; this time he was going to buckle down and write his major thesis. Not an easy one--A Comparative Analysis Of Obsession In Les Miserables and Moby Dick. He'd publish and obtain his long overdue promotion. The status quo of his career had gone on for too long. Without tenure, his job was as secure as the next round of budget cuts. Besides, the extra money was the least he could do for Karen and the family, especially since it was his fault she had become pregnant again!

"What about John Henry?" Scott asked, indicating the blonde cocker spaniel they'd tied to an outside door handle of the vehicle when they'd arrived.

The dog had been an integral part of the family since Scott was two. They had grown up together. Putting the dog in a kennel during their extended vacation hadn't even been an option. Not only would the cost have been prohibitive, but neither Scott nor the dog would have flourished during a long separation.

With his long ears flopping and tail beating a steady tattoo against a rust spot on the station wagon, John Henry looked like he couldn't wait to find a bush, raise his leg and stake a claim to this new territory.

"Leave him until we get everything moved. You can come back and get him when we're done," Kevin said, his arms full of boxes.

* * *

By the time Kevin and Scott had emptied the station wagon, Karen and Gillian had set out a half-dozen candles they'd found in an old chiffonier. The house glowed with a warm, dim, yellow light that fought the dark sea-chill that permeated air now, even in the cottage.

"I'll go with you," Kevin said, as Scott headed out the door for a last trip to retrieve the dog. "Maybe I should bring the word processor in after all. It's pretty damp out there." He felt proud of his resolve to get his thesis done, and finally bringing in the computer was a symbol of that new determination. Besides, he wasn't completely comfortable having the boy out by himself in the darkness of an unfamiliar place.

Kevin watched affectionately as his son led the way with the dying flashlight back to the car. He had been looking forward to spending quality time with both Scott and Gillian on this vacation now that the baby took up so much of their mother's time. He didn't know how successful he would be with his daughter, who was at an age where she thought all parents were mired in stupidity and lacked even a rudimentary understanding of the teenage mind. But Scott was fertile ground for new ideas and life-lessons. It was a joy watching him absorb new experiences.

John Henry pulled eagerly at his leash, his nose already leading him down the twisting sandy path of family odors mixed with strange new ones.

"Hey, wait for the old man!" Kevin shouted as Scott and John Henry disappeared with the flashlight around a bend in the path. The word processor was heavier than he'd expected. After hauling in the luggage and boxes, his arms ached and he was slowing down.

Ahead in the darkness, the dog give a small yelp and Kevin came upon the scene just in time to see John Henry veer sharply away from the path, almost jerking Scott off his feet. Scott had wrapped the leash around his hand and the dog was pulling violently back toward the car.

"Hey, John Henry, hold on. You're going to choke yourself," Scott said, wrenching the leash back hard.

Kevin could hear the cocker's breath rasping in short, harsh coughs as his collar constricted the animal's throat.

"Hold on Scotty, don't let him get away," Kevin shouted, trying to walk faster with his burden.

"Come on, boy. We're almost there," Scott cajoled the now frantic dog. "Let's not get too excited."

They'd come to the corner of the yard and Scott was trying to pull the dog toward the gate. Despite the boy's efforts, John Henry had firmly and stiffly planted his legs in the sand, refusing to budge any farther.

Kevin hurried toward them.

No matter how hard Scott pulled and coaxed, the dog would not move forward. Even in the dim light from the flashlight, Kevin could see the dog's muscles, corded and frozen.

"Hey, John Henry, it's okay. Everything's okay. Come on, let's go get some food. Dinner bell!" Scott sang the familiar call the dog was used to hearing whenever he was fed.

"Dinner bell, John Henry!" Kevin urged. He was surprised to see the dog's wide eyes fixed and glazed.

John Henry wouldn't budge.

Kevin looked over at the house and its soft-lit windows. The light through the curtains was weak; it fell no more than a foot beyond the walls. The comforting shadows of Karen and Gillian moved around inside.

"Dumb hound," Kevin heard Scott mutter. "Come on, we can't stand out here all night. You might not want dinner bell, but I sure as hell do!"

Kevin shifted the heavy word processor in his arms and suggested, "Scotty, pick him up and carry him. He's just confused."

Scott lifted the dog and tucked him under his arm. At first the cocker was as stiff as a statue, but as they moved toward the house, Kevin could see John Henry begin to growl and squirm.

"Hey, buster! This is home for a while, so you'd better get used to it," Scott scolded.

"Hang on Scotty. I'll help you in a minute." Kevin tried to walk faster, but the sand was deep, his feet kept slipping, and the computer wasn't getting any lighter. He didn't want to set it down until he got to the house. That's all he'd need, a machine full of sand--and the closest repair shop probably hundreds of miles away!

The closer Scott and John Henry came to the cottage, the louder and more violent the dog's protest grew.

Catching up, Kevin could see John Henry's muzzle pulled back, teeth glinting wetly in the darkness, saliva dripping from his mouth.

"It's okay, John Henry," Kevin tried to comfort the crazed animal with a soothing voice.

Suddenly, the dog's growls turned to pitiful whines. Kevin wished he could reach out to reassure him; the poor mutt seemed genuinely frightened by something.

At the porch, John Henry became frantic again; he tried to wriggle out of Scott's arms, every muscle concentrated in an effort to escape.

"Hold on, Scotty!" Kevin shouted.

As Scott tightened his grasp, the dog turned his head and began snapping viciously at the boy's unprotected stomach. Scott dropped the dog before it could do any damage.

John Henry landed on all fours and, without looking back, dashed past Kevin through the still-open gate and out of the yard into the darkness, leash trailing behind in the sand.

* * *

After he'd put the word processor safely in the house and told Karen what had happened, Kevin joined his son on the beach. They could find no sign of the John Henry. They checked the pathway back to the car, but the dog hadn't returned to the familiar vehicle.

"He's probably out in the sand dunes, chasing after his dinner," Kevin reassured Scott. "He'll come back when he's good and ready. Come on, let's get inside before we freeze to death. Besides, you've got to make the fire, remember?"

Scotty's worried face brightened a bit, and back inside the cottage, as promised, Kevin let him lay the fire, and set it ablaze--with minimal advice and maximum supervision.

At least, Kevin thought, they wouldn't be cold. The sea air had an unexpected bite to it. Coming from the high desert, where summer's heat had already permeated everything, they were not too well prepared for damp weather. The fire took off the chill.

Karen made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pulled juice boxes out of their small supply of food before she settled down to start nursing Joshua.

"Don't worry about John Henry, son," Kevin said, waving away a sandwich, his stomach still in tumult over the memory of the maggot-infested cat. "He knows who feeds him. He'll be back when he gets hungry."

Scott shook his head sadly. "If we were at home, he'd know where to come. But this is all new to him. He's going to get lost."

"He'll be okay," Karen reassured him.

"This is sort of fun," Kevin said, anxious to change the subject. He looked around the room, a strange, shadowed landscape with the furniture still covered--white lumps of small icebergs in a mysterious black sea beyond the fire's light.

Karen said, "Cleaning up this place is going to be a major project. I can see why it's so cheap."

"It'll do," Kevin said. "It's right on the beach, and we've got a forest at our back door. Exactly what you ordered."

He couldn't believe their luck. What the ad had called a "beach cottage" had turned out to be a huge, over-built, rundown two-story Cape Cod, nestled between rolling dunes on a pristine beach. Two dormer windows on the second floor looked over the large yard, while the deep wooden porch invited them to long, relaxing afternoons in the fresh sea air. He was quite pleased with his deal--until he'd found the rotting cat stinking up the place!

* * *

Warm firelight fought the deeper cold from the ocean breezes outside. Kevin enjoyed the unaccustomed opportunity to sit around and talk with the kids. They seldom had a chance back home, where they all had so many distractions. Here they had only the night and it's darkness, the fire and its warm light--and each other.

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm tired," Karen yawned finally, looking at her watch. "Kev, what time is it? My watch has stopped."

Kevin twisted his wrist toward the fire. "This can't be right. It's gotta be later than seven."

"That's what I've got too," Karen said.

"Mine stopped too. Looks like it was just about the time we got here."

"Do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do." Scott sang the theme song from The Twilight Zone, one of his favorite programs on the Sci-Fi Channel.

"Not hardly!" Gillian scoffed.

"Must have been the sudden dampness after the desert," Kevin said. "But we don't need watches. We're on vacation! We'll eat when we're hungry, sleep when we're tired..."

"...And change the baby's diaper when it's full," Karen laughed, waving an imaginary odor away from the sleeping child.

"I'd sure like to watch a little TV," Gillian said.

"No electricity," Scott pointed out.

"And probably no TV," Kevin added.

"No TV!" Gillian and Scott chorused.

"I don't really know. We'll have to take inventory tomorrow," Kevin promised.

"You guys can do with a little less television," Karen

said. "We don't need to have MTV blaring at us every waking minute. We should take advantage of this opportunity to spend a little extra time together--talking."

"What're we gonna talk about?" Scott asked, curiosity written across his innocent face.

"Whatever we want. We can get to know each other better," Karen suggested.

"Now there's an idea that boggles the mind," Gillian sulked.

"I think it's a great idea," Kevin said, moving closer to Karen. He put his arm around his wife and pulled her close. "I can't think of anything I'd like better."

"I'm think I'm gonna be sick," Gillian said, grimacing at the sight of her parents' intimacy.

This display of affection didn't bother Scott in the least. He had other concerns.

"Hey, Dad, d'ja think we could go out just one more time and see if we can find John Henry?"

"Sure, no problem. If he doesn't come back tonight, he'll be back by morning when his belly gets empty."

"At least I wasn't stupid enough to let Billabong get away," Gillian crowed, looking at the bird on a nearby table.

"Yeah, big deal," Scott retorted. "The bird's locked in a cage."

"Gillian and I'll get this place ready for bed while you two guys go see if you can find the dog," Karen said, interrupting the beginnings of battle.

Kevin appreciated Karen's unfailing ability to spot pending outbreaks of youthful combat. Whereas, he usually found himself on the edge of the battlefield, frustrated until his own anger spilled over, Karen seemed to be able to anticipate and contain the situation before it got out of hand.

* * *

Kevin felt like a bloody fool, yelling: "John Henry! Dinner bell! Dinner Bell!" as he and Scott headed along the moist, compacted sand of the unfamiliar beach.

He could see no lights in their immediate vicinity, but assumed that there must be other houses somewhere around. With their lights off, he and Scott might as well have been on the other side of the moon. Then he spotted a dim flicker off in the distance. Someone had either a campfire on the beach or a bonfire on distant cliffs, but some kind of life definitely existed in San Sebastian! Somebody was having a good time. Even from a distance, he could see shadows moving around the fire.

A cold wind penetrated Kevin's light jacket. He hoped that, as they moved deeper into summer, the weather would turn warm enough for a few night swims. Karen had promised that they'd make extra time for each other on this vacation, and a little midnight skinny-dipping was just what the doctor ordered. Doctor Kevin. He smiled. He'd shrivel up in the cold water, but Karen would take care of that! She could bring the dead to life; a little bit of cold water wouldn't deter her!

Although they'd been married over twenty years, and his kids thought that, at forty-five, he was over the hill, he and his wife still found each other attractive--and sexy.

Kevin shook his head in the darkness. There was never enough time to do the things he really wanted to do--relax, read, travel, make love with his wife. He remembered how, as a kid, he'd envied adults their freedom. Little had he realized then that, with the responsibility of adulthood also came an inevitable loss of freedom.

"Dinner bell, John Henry!" Scott shouted.

"The damn hound's probably off chasing a rabbit," Kevin said. "Come on, I'm freezing my buns off out here. Let's go back. When he gets hungry enough, he'll be home in a flash."

* * *

Inside, Karen had banked the fire to the back of the hearth, and both she and Gillian were already tucked under piles of blankets, the baby sound asleep in his little port-a-chair. An orange glow suffused their part of the room where dark and shadowed corners encroached on them slowly as the fire died away.

"Any luck?" Karen asked.

Kevin shook his head. "John Henry's probably chasing the local wildlife."

"I wish I was chasing some local wildlife," Gillian giggled.

"Never mind that, young lady," Kevin said. His daughter had enough admirers at home to worry him without picking up a few more here.

"Do you really think John Henry will be okay?" Scott asked, disinterested in his sister's current social dilemma.

"Sure." Kevin said.

"I'll go out and look for him first thing in the morning," Scott promised.

Taking off his shoes and jacket, Kevin crawled under the covers next to Karen.

"He'll probably be pawing at the door before sunup," he said.

Outside, a brisk wind came up, whisking sand against the wooden sides of the old house. Kevin could feel tendrils of cold air on his face from the open window. The single candle they'd left burning flickered and went out as the wind found its way to the flame. The building rattled and creaked like a three-mast schooner, giving him an unsettling sensation of movement that caused his already upset stomach to grow queasier.

It had been a long haul, he thought drowsily. All the way from Barstow to the coast. He had been so exhilarated at the idea of having found exactly the kind of place Karen wanted, he had failed to plan their arrival properly. He'd expected the inn to be open on a Saturday night, that the electricity would be on, and the place would be clean and neat. On the other hand, they'd gotten so much more for their money than anything they might find around Southern California, where the cost of six weeks in San Sebastian would buy them a couple of weeks on the bland beaches of Oceanside. They shouldn't complain about a little inconvenience.

He'd promised Karen this vacation, and she had promised him that she was over her shock at being pregnant and giving birth again. He knew that the vasectomy he'd had two months ago was too late, but at least he'd finally done it. If he'd only gotten it immediately after Scott's birth, as Karen had begged him! But that was all water under the bridge, or rather, he thought, a new baby in the bassinet.

All he had to do now was get his butt in gear and take the steps he needed to secure tenure at the university where he was an associate professor in the English department. The way things had been going, he couldn't count on any kind of stability unless he had tenure, and to achieve that he had to write. One thing in academia never changed--publish or perish. Well, he'd be damned if he were going to perish when survival was--along with his seniority--just a well-written paper away.

Kevin sighed quietly. He felt sleepy and snug, spooned against Karen's backside, his arm holding her unresisting body against him. Whatever the case, worrying about the politics and requirements of his career wasn't going to help now. He was tired. So...very...very...tired...

* * *

Kevin was almost asleep when he heard Gillian whisper. "I hear something under the house."

"It's just the wind," he said, his voice soft, not wanting to wake Karen and Scott who were already asleep.

"No, it's not," Gillian protested, her fear evident in the darkness.

"Gillie, you're just getting the willies in a strange place. There's nothing under the house. Go to sleep."

"I can hear it scratching."

Kevin put his ear to the cold floorboards. He could feel the wind as it beat against the walls of the house, setting up a thrumming vibration throughout the whole structure, as if it were a living, breathing thing. But he could hear nothing else.

"Go to sleep. It's probably just sand blowing through the air spaces under the house."

"Maybe it's John Henry. I still hear it."

Gillian was about six feet from his and Karen's mattress.

Reluctantly, Kevin pushed back his warm blankets and crawled across Scotty's mattress to reach Gillian. He put his head next to hers on the floor, but felt only the vibrations he'd noticed before.

"I don't hear anything but the wind," he said after a few moments.

"It's gone," Gillian said. "It stopped when you moved."

Kevin rested, his ear still to the floor, Gillian's soft breath, sweet and gentle on his face. His heart ached to reach out to her, to take this moment of dependence to reestablish the bond they'd had when she was younger and less self-assured. But the moment passed.

He sensed nothing unusual under the house. He didn't want to tell her it was only her overactive imagination, so he simply said, "I guess it's gone. Come on, time to go to sleep. We've got a big day tomorrow." He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. "Good night, baby; sleep well."

"Ga'night, Daddy," she murmured, sleep already creeping into her voice.

Kevin crawled back to the comfort of his own blankets and reflected on how long it had been since his rebellious daughter had called him, "daddy." How long would it be before he'd hear it again?

Under the blankets, Karen's familiar body-heat welcomed him back. His eyes grew heavy. Outside, the waves on the beach beat a steady metronome pulse in the night, providing a soft cushion of sound that caused the creaking of the floorboards and the settling of the house to fade away as he drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

Until the screams woke him up.

### FORBIDDEN FLOWERS

Until now middle-aged Walter has been satisfied to watch the school girls who giggle past his West Hollywood shop, mentally selecting those who will occupy the hours of fantasy and dreams that make his mundane life bearable. Walter begins to hatch an elaborate plan to kidnap one of his stepdaughter's teenage girlfriends with the intention of breaking down her resistance through sensory deprivation while he covertly watches her increasing vulnerability. His intense craving for sweet, young flesh turns his tormented mind into a battlefield of compulsion and restraint as both Walter and his captive descend into their own form of madness where nothing is predictable. (WARNING: Explicit Material)

FORBIDDEN FLOWERS (CHAPTER ONE)

WALTER

The potent aphrodisiac of their adolescence runs in my veins. It is not my drug of choice--it is the narcotic of necessity.

More simply put: I like young girls.

Let me re-phrase that: I love young girls.

No, not those giggling, pre-adolescent yammering lumps of formless dough inhabiting the local elementary school yard. God forbid! I certainly wouldn't be perverted toward a pre-pubescent jellyfish!

To put it into proper perspective and take the license of a literary shorthand, you might say that I am afflicted--dare I say blessed--with something similar to the Humbert-Humbert syndrome. That fabrication from Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita broke the ground of universal recognition and paved an understanding path to those sweet, young, nubile confections, which constantly hover on the edges of conscious desire.

Recently I revisited Mr. Nabokov's masterpiece, an attempt to resurrect our mutual worship in the delights of succulent youth, only to discover that Humbert Humbert was actually a despicable pedophile with no moral fiber, and his only redeeming feature was a desire to possess the essence of young girls as embodied in the adolescent Dolores, whom he called Lolita.

Regardless of his chief protagonist's spineless servility, Nabokov's narrative has a certain rhythm and mastery of language which infuses that aging sycophant with an undeniable charm. Discounting the flaws in his character, I suppose the casual observer would think that Humbert-Humbert and I have much in common.

Not at all.

Regardless of any similar propensity toward the desires of the flesh, there is the honest fact that I have never committed an inappropriate act!

Lolita, that cold, calculating little vixen had no redeeming value except for the amoral availability of a devious but vacuous mind in a delectable body.

Oh, if she had only possessed the blush of innocence! I am lost in a world that doesn't understand the meaning of innocent sensuality.

No! No Lolita for me.

Evangeline, Longfellow's maiden of seventeen summers, would be more the fount of my desires!

"When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music."

Surely I could never be so base as to actually reach out and caress or--dare I think it--possess the flowering innocence of sweet delicate youth, which blossoms only once.

How could I ever be so callow as to steal away the beauty of the blush of purity and bring a wintry destruction upon that which must be worshiped and adored?

I often wonder, though, what would happen if some young flower were to open herself to me, one who would freely offer--offer without the possibility of remonstration, without the propensity of recrimination, without the possibility of prosecution...

Who knows? Who really knows?

### THE PROJECTIONIST

The genesis of a serial killer begins when 12-year-old William Jarrett considers himself "abandoned" by his parents in an all-boys' summer camp and boarding school. Afterwards, the institutionally-inclined young man joins the US Navy where he finds a special joy as a part-time projectionist for his shipmates movies and sexual satisfaction murdering prostitutes while on shore leave. Demobilized, he finds a job as the projectionist in a dieing art house Los Angeles movie theater and continues to pursue an unrequited illusion of what he regards as "True Beauty." Of course, he feels compelled to destroy those who don't meet his expectations. William's murderous obsession becomes easily confused with the dramas he projects nightly on the silver screen and his descent into madness will culminate in his finally discovering the object of all his desires. [Explicit sex and violence]

THE PROJECTIONIST (CHAPTER ONE)

The Pacific Coast Highway wends its way along the Southern California coast like some giant ribbon wrapping a sunny, warm delightful package of erotic goodies into a perennial birthday present.

No road in California provides sensual delight like PCH.

I love it.

I thrive on it.

I get horny just thinking about it! From Santa Monica through Malibu to Zuma Beach, there's more bare flesh per square foot than any man can savor at one time. And I have a right to all of it. It's mine for the taking, the having, and throwing back when I am done.

† † † †

Hitchhiker.

I made a couple of U-turns and went past her twice just to make sure she was alone. Too often, when couples hitchhike, the guy will hang back, letting the girl stand at the side of the road, thumb out; like bait in a trap--succulent, sweet-smelling, young bait. You stop the car, and then out pops the boyfriend—surprise! "Can you take us...etc....etc..."

There were no guys lingering in the sand dunes behind this delectable tidbit. This one was mine. All mine.

She stood hip-shot, legs slightly spread, her orange tank top—the stretchy, spandex, nipple-showing kind—caught my eye. Flip-flops and cut-off jeans, the legs frayed, cut even with her tight young crotch: a California ensemble. The inside of the pockets of the shredded denims hung down like small white flags against the dark brown of her thighs.

Beach bunny blond, pouty lips with purple gloss, eye shadow daring the world to look past it into her eyes; her make-up was part of the costume. And she was tan, tan, tan. I would bet that she was tan all over, luscious tan without white lines. Surely, the sun had kissed every part of her, caressed her tender young skin and the shadowed places I could only dream about—for now.

Someone's boy toy was going to go riding with the three Willies today!

I smoothed the Mustang over to the side of the road, a few feet from those sexy brown legs.

"Wanna lift?" I asked.

"Yeah! You going far." She smacked gum, her head waggling toward the northbound lanes.

"How far do you want to go?"

Was I leering?

It went right over her head.

"I need to get to Zuma."

"No problem. Hop in." I reached over the passenger seat, unlatched the door, and pushed it open.

She slip-skidded into the seat, the hot leather sticking to her sunny skin. There was a faint odor of chewing gum and sweet girl-musk.

Afternoon aphrodisiac!

Her pouting little lips pursed into a small, squealing "Ow!" as the heat of the seat sucked at the backs of her young legs.

I could almost feel that same warmth prickle the backs of mine as I got that familiar sinking feeling deep down where the groin meets the pit of the stomach, like a roller coaster falling out of the sky.

"Ow! Ow! Ow!" she chirped.

"Hot?"

"Jesus H. Christ! I burnt the friggin' shit outta myself."

"Here; get up a minute."

She arched her back, pushing the tight neat package of her crotch upwards. I reached into the back seat, grabbed a handy towel, and spread it across the seat under her clenched little ass.

Chew...Snap...Snap...Chew. Sharp, bright, little white teeth went up and down on the gum in her mouth, pulling it apart and filling it with little bubbles of air so that it popped. Chew... Snap...Chew.

"Is that better?" I asked solicitously, smoothing out the end of the towel.

"Yeah." She breathed a Juicy Fruit sigh in my direction.

I pulled out into the road and headed north.

PCH is a slow summer road. You can't go too fast. You really don't want to. Lots to look at. Lots of traffic too, with traffic cops and tickets. No sense rushing.

"Willie," I said.

"Huh?"

"That's my name, Willie."

"Yeah?"

"What's yours?"

"Huh?"

I was getting a bit exasperated. "What's your name?"

"Oh...uh...Julie."

The art of conversation is lost on the younger generation. I am an intelligent, educated man. Perhaps it's the generation gap. Not that there was much of a gap between us, not really. She could have been seventeen or eighteen to my thirty-five. Other than an insurmountable chasm between our IQ's, there was no gap at all, as far as I was concerned. All she would need to do would be keep her mouth shut until it was needed.

"Seat belt."

"Huh?"

"Put your seat belt on." I looked over at her. Nice, soft profile. Clean lines. A little baby fat still under the chin-endearing childlike flesh to be chucked and stroked.

"Don't like them." Petulant.

"Put it on, please."

"They tie me down."

Yeah, that's the point my sweet beauty. Mentally I twirled a melodramatic Simon Legree mustache.

"If you want a ride to Zuma, you'll have to put on your seat belt."

"Shit!"

The girl fumbled with the device, pulling the strap around her waist and over her shoulder until I heard a final click.

I glanced over with my warmest and most paternal smile. "Thanks. Now you're safe." Oh yeah, sure she was.

In the slanting afternoon light, I could see the soft blond down on her upper legs and arms. I imagined the goose bumps if I were to run my fingers across the tip of each little hair. Would she shiver in delight or shudder in disgust?

No rush.

Hold on.

Don't blow it now.

It was a glorious late summer day, even with the traffic pressed almost bumper to bumper.

Prolong the moment.

No need to rush now.

The need could wait.

Sit back and enjoy the ten-mile ride. At this rate it would take at least forty-five minutes.

The scenery was fantastic. Sand, surf, girls. A fresh warm breeze off of the Pacific made me momentarily regret my decision not to purchase the convertible when I bought the used Mustang. But at least I'd gotten the Mustang. Mustang! A powerful name—wild, free. Like me. But a guy needs privacy now and then—like this afternoon—so I'd passed on the ragtop.

"What's at Zuma?" I asked.

"Huh?"

"I said, what's happening at Zuma beach?"

"Oh, nothing. Just meeting some kids."

"Go there often?"

"Yeah."

Oh well, who needed intelligent conversation? That young body cuddled into the seat so close to me spoke loud enough and well enough—for the time being.

She raised her right leg and perched a foot on the dashboard above the glove compartment.

I almost said something about this, when I realized I would be sacrificing the view of soft, tanned under-thigh. Armor-All would take care of the dashboard, and I would take care of the caressable thigh eventually.

I felt the tightness growing at the bottom of my belly. Was she trying to tease? No, it didn't look like it. With the ignorance of youth, she had no idea of the effect she was having on me. On Willie Junior too.

She was looking out of her window at the passing scene, cud-chewing gum as if I didn't exist. She didn't have the foggiest idea that Willie Junior had taken as much notice as big Willie sitting beside her. And as the pressure in my groin began to grow, I knew that Willie Junior was restless. The two Willies enjoyed the sight as I glanced at the warm little shadowed valley between the girl's legs.

Very properly I kept my hands on the wheel at the recommended ten and two o'clock positions. I hummed to myself. Something from the Beach Boys.

Appropriate. Non-obtrusive.

She didn't pay any attention. Her eyes were closed, blond hair spread on the headrest, foot still up, thigh exposed to the cooling breeze, her jaw moving slower as she pushed the gum around her soft, warm mouth with a delicate small tongue.

The two Willies were enjoying every moment of it.

I could see the soft hollow at the base of her throat where her neck curved into freckled shoulders. The orange tank top seemed to prove the old axiom that for every action there is an equal reaction as her pert little breasts pushed against the tight material, spearheaded by marble-hard nipples.

Willie Junior enjoyed. I enjoyed. Wee Willie Winkie would enjoy!

Soon.

The traffic thinned just past Malibu and we got closer to Zuma Beach. The afternoon sun was low on the horizon ahead of us.

I pulled over to the side of the road.

"Huh!" Julie's eyes popped open. She seemed a bit disoriented.

"Sun is right in my eyes," I complained. "I need my shades."

I twisted my body awkwardly toward the girl, reaching for the glove compartment with my left hand instead of my right. This brought me against her left side. My right arm was squeezed between us. I fumbled with the latch on the compartment and let my right hand slide down between the seats.

She tried to lean away, either to give me more room, or avoid being touched. But the seat belt held her tight.

That's what seat belts are for.

The fingertips of my right hand brushed against Wee Willie Winkie, where he waited, stashed and sheathed in the back of the passenger seat. I pulled him out, slipping my palm around the comfortable handle I had fashioned long ago. The Wee-one felt good in my hand.

I introduced little Julie Hitchhiker to Wee Willie Winkie, inserting the sharp-tipped rod just under her lower left rib. I thrust him upward, wriggling and twisting the long skewer up, up through her sweet, delicious organs and left lung.

Into her lovely, unsuspecting heart.

My other hand cupped the hot pubescence between her legs as that delicate flesh puckered and throbbed in sympathetic shock.

Julie's eyes opened wide in surprise, no longer squirming away from my closeness now, but from Wee Willie's dear metallic invasion.

Her jaw dropped open and a great dollop of chewing gum rolled off her tongue unto the floor. I made a mental note to pick it up later, before it got crushed into the floor mat.

Everything seemed to flicker step by step down into slow motion.

Leaning over the girl, with all my weight burying Wee Willie Winkie further into the warm depths of her sweetness, I clamped my mouth over hers. Two lovers dallying by the side of the road. Young lovers too impatient to wait, needing to stop, kiss, confirm their love for all the passing world to see.

At first she tasted of Juicy Fruit and sunshine; and then bitter copper blood stained her breath. Deep within her a low, growling moan rolled up from that dear broken heart. The sound pulsed through her and fell from her lips like the piece of gum; it rolled into my mouth, binding and bonding us together in my ultimate act of appreciation for her loveliness, frozen for all time at the peak of perfection.

Ah, consummation! I was wet and warm where Willie Junior spewed his spreading joy, acknowledging our act in the hot swamp of his effluvium.

Wee Willie Winkie had ceased his own vibrations as Julie's feet stopped thrumming against the floorboards along with the last beating of her heart.

For the longest moment I held perfectly still, locked together with the girl as the evening breezes, gentle zephyrs, caressed our fevered skins. Willie Junior's rapidly cooling stickiness melted into wrinkled stillness.

My right hand was still pressed deep against the girl's side. I could feel the small flow of thick warmth that had trickled blood from Wee Willie Winkie's joyful entrance. His thin elegance prevented much leakage. With my left hand I reached down to stroke between her legs and confirmed that, with the sudden ardor of our lovemaking, she had wet herself. Her bowls had probably released also, but I couldn't tell. That's why I had her on the towel. I'm a good Boy Scout—always prepared.

Surrounded by all of these liquid proofs of my devotion, I again heard the sound of the sea and the swoosh of cars passing by.

Too bad.

With all of her potential, she didn't have an intelligence worthy of True Beauty. Yet, even in her shallow corruption, I knew that her sacrifice would help to form the foundation upon which I could build a proper altar for my continued worship of perfection.

I sighed and Julie seemed to sigh along with me as I drew my lips from her mouth. I closed her eyes and chucked her with a forefinger under her adorable chin to close her sagging jaw.

"Now, Julie, wasn't that nice? Don't you feel relaxed and calm? Look at that sunset. You know, I think this is my favorite time of the day. How about a little ride? No need to go all the way up to Zuma Beach now, is there? Let's head back down toward Santa Monica so I can get this last bit of sun out of my eyes."

I had to laugh. "I guess I won't need my sunglasses, after all."

I pulled out back onto the road and headed the way we had come. Such a glorious evening. Off to my right, I could see silhouettes of the surfers in the setting sun. The long white beach, now glowing like a wide phosphorescent highway, streaked on forever.

There was still a lot of summer activity on the beach. I looked, but not with any particular notice. I wouldn't want to insult Julie by appearing too interested in other girls. Just an occasional glance out the window; an appreciation for the passing parade.

As we wound back down the coast, I gave Julie the grand tour. I pointed out each attraction: The Sea Lion Inn (good fish), the old Getty Museum (great art), and far off in the evening mists, the Santa Monica Pier (lots of fun).

"Have you ever been on the Santa Monica Pier, Julie? No? It's something special. And even better at night. They've got arcades, fast foods, fancy restaurants, even a merry-go-round. Or is it a carousel? I never could tell the difference. You know, I've seen that merry-go-round in so many movies. It's almost like a character on film.

"Do you like movies, Julie? I love them. In fact, for someone who loves movies as much as I do, I have the ideal job. I'm the projectionist in a movie theater. The Mayfair. You know, the one out on Wilshire, in West LA. Great place. You should see the projection booth. It's my home."

Julie sat quietly, listening. She was a good listener now. I liked good listeners. Such a rare pleasure.

Near the Santa Monica Pier we paused, overlooking the Pacific swells, enjoying the sea breeze—the one that blows the smog off the coast, deeper into the basin, so even the communities high in the San Bernardino Mountains can share the pollution.

"That was so nice," I said, patting Julie's bare knee. "Let's drive it again. Are you getting cold?"

I took a blanket off the back seat and tucked it around her legs. Of course, she'd be cold where she'd wet herself.

"Have you ever seen or felt such a night? No, of course you haven't. How could you? This day is unique, isn't it? Something very special. Very, very special. For both of us. You ready to go 'round again?"

I felt like giggling, I was so delighted with myself and my companion.

I could tell that the other drivers and their passengers were jealous of me. They could see Willie in his sexy Mustang with good-looking stuff in rapt attention next to him. Cruising down the coast. They had to be jealous. We made a most handsome couple, Julie and I. The California girl and her California fellow.

I'm nothing to turn your nose up at. A little over six feet tall from stocking feet to the top of my crew cut. One hundred and eighty-five pounds ever since I got out of the Navy. I don't work out, but I keep myself in shape. It's not all brains here. There's some good looking brawn, too.

I tooled my muscle machine back up the highway toward Malibu. I had the luxury of time now, to be spent like pennies in a candy store. All of the time in the world to see and be seen on this promenade of youth.

Let the creeps know I was as good if not better than any of them!

There was plenty of time to relax and enjoy the delightful silence of my companion: a communion of souls. Words were no longer necessary. We understood each other so well. We understood the world around us and its needs.

The beauty of the night swallowed us up into the darkness.

### A FAINT COLD FEAR

For Byron Carmona, a miasma of dread seems to emanate from the old Cornwall house next door. Three years previous, Billy Cornwall tried to rape Byron's 12-year-old sister, Shelly. And then in the winter of 1963, the Cornwalls all died by carbon monoxide poisoning when Billy's father was crushed while putting snow chains on the car in the garage. The Gebhardt family has moved into the Cornwall place and strange things have begun to happen. Byron's 16-year-old world should have been filled with the wonder and awe of young love when he falls for his new neighbor, Ali Gebhardt. Instead, that summer of 1964 becomes the culmination of a series of horrors that began in 1849, when survivors of the ill-fated Donner Party and their children died under bizarre circumstances in the small mountain community of Glenoaks.

A FAINT COLD FEAR (CHAPTER ONE)

Closure is important.

That's the real reason I'm going back. I'm old enough now, with almost-grown children of my own, so you'd think I should be able to look back on it all with a different perspective. But I still can't shake the memories of that summer, the summer of 1964, when I was surrounded by death.

Kennedy's assassination was as fresh in my mind as the cold black and white television pictures of Jack Ruby killing Lee Harvey Oswald. They broadcast it over and over until it became a surreal morbid curiosity.

Winter memories of dead neighbors were as tangible as the spring bodies of small birds on our front walk. Even my father, who should have been my rock of understanding in this world of seemingly casual extinction, also lay dead and buried for five months already.

Mother had grown fragile and childlike from her inability to reconcile the remainder of her life with the eternal absence of her husband, and all-too frequently I felt as if I were the only sane person in a world gone strangely mad.

* * *

"There are more dead birds on the porch, Byron."

Cigarette smoke blossomed upward and wreathed Mother's reflection in the streaked glass of the kitchen window where she stood, her back to me.

I buried my face in a bowl of Wheaties.

"Did you hear me? You need to clean up the mess on the porch again."

"Uh-huh." I ate fast, before the cereal got soggy, before Mother thought of more chores for me to do.

"I'm putting up a screen next year."

"Uh-huh."

Dad had said that every spring. Now Mother took up the refrain none of us took seriously.

"Those birds are filthy. They mess on the porch and the steps--and every year we get dead chicks all over the walk."

Each spring a flock of mountain blue jays built new nests in the trees around the front porch. Occasionally, we'd find small, naked hatchlings on the steps, probably plucked out by the mother bird protecting her brood from the weak or dead sibling. Or some little chick had become too anxious to try its fledgling wings and had plummeted to the hard ground and inevitable death.

Although nature's scavengers, the cats, possums and raccoons, usually devoured this unexpected bounty, whenever they didn't it became my responsibility to dispose of the tiny corpses.

Mother squinted through a stream of smoke and spoke softly. "We're getting new neighbors."

"Oh yeah?"

"Someone's moving into the Cornwall house."

I felt a chill.

"It isn't right." Mother shook her head, her voice still early-morning dry, scratchy from smoke and restless, drugged sleep. "The bank must've sold it. There aren't any surviving relatives that I know of--except Ellie, of course. And she's..." Her voice trailed off.

Mother was talking about the big house down the street, the one on the corner, the Cornwall place--a house of recent, tragic death.

* * *

It had been the week before Christmas last. Tom Cornwall had roused his family--wife Mary, seventeen year-old Becky, twelve year-old Ellie, and Billy, who had just turned eighteen--for Sunday services at the Episcopal church. With the first big freeze of winter hard upon our mountain valley, and snow piled in five-foot drifts, Cornwall had gone to put chains on their old Ford station wagon in the dry, relative comfort of the cold garage.

Afterward, no one could believe that he had been so foolish as to leave the engine running while he laid out the chains behind the rear wheels. But he had. Somehow--though the auto dealer said it was impossible--the transmission had slipped into reverse and the car rolled backward over Cornwall, crushing his head.

For weeks after, visions of the horror in that garage kept me awake at night. My fertile imagination conjured up images of Tom Cornwall, behind the old Ford, struggling with the latches of the cumbersome metal chains. Had he moved the vehicle back and forth to get the tires positioned over the them? Was that why he'd left the engine on? Concentrating on his task, had he even noticed when the worn transmission slipped into reverse? And, if he had, was it the last sound he ever heard before the sharp crack of his own shattering skull had echoed through the garage?

Unfortunately, Cornwall's final act had set an even greater catastrophe into motion. The snow packed against the garage door trapped the car's exhaust in the garage, where the central heating unit's intake vent--illegally placed, according to the newspaper--sucked deadly carbon monoxide into the whole house. The rest of the family had been overcome in a matter of minutes. Mary Cornwall and Rebecca were found at the bottom of the stairs in their Sunday clothes, purses and prayer books in hand. Billy was sprawled in the doorway between the garage and kitchen. Ellie--I remember she was always late for everything--was still dressing in her upstairs bedroom. She hadn't been killed outright, probably because she was so far from the source of the deadly gas. But by the time the fire department arrived she was unconscious and barely alive. Now, six months later, Ellie was still in a coma. Mother told us that her friend Martha Flaherty, a local medical clinic nurse who worked in a hospital down in San Bernardino on weekends, said that Ellie was a vegetable. They could find no relatives to authorize the doctors to pull the plug and release the girl into the communion of death with her family.

* * *

"That house shouldn't have been sold," Mother persisted.

Finally I got up to look out the kitchen window where I could see the distant, large red letters of a moving van through the trees.

The four houses that made up our isolated neighborhood were far apart, scattered in a forest of pines and Douglas firs above a steep gully. Our house and the Cornwalls' stood at the two ends of the street. Across the way, buried in the trees, were two more homes. All four lots at the top of our wooded hill were grandly named "Ridgecrest Hollow."

"I suppose you can't let a perfectly good house go to waste," I said.

I couldn't muster up any enthusiasm for what would at any other time be the exciting prospect of new neighbors.

"There's nothing good about that place," Mother muttered.

"What place?"

I turned at the sound of my sister's voice. At fifteen, a year younger than I was, Shelly had even more resentment and anger about the Cornwall place than either Mother or I.

I pointed toward the window. "We're getting new neighbors."

"Fuck 'em."

Shelly and I both turned to look at Mother, expecting her normally sharp retort to any use of profanity in her hearing, especially the dreaded "F" word. But Mother stood quietly looking out the window as if my sister hadn't said a word.

I shook my head, reminding Shelly that we had an unspoken agreement not to aggravate our mother unnecessarily. Since Dad's death, things had changed drastically and both of us had been forced to grow up a hell of a lot faster than we'd wanted.

Shelly rushed on to needle me and fill the void her obscenity had left in the smoky air. "Hey, Percy, maybe there'll be some girls you can actually meet and date."

Calling me "Percy," a literary companion name to Shelly, Byron and Keats (our cat), was my sister's annoying response to my silent admonition. She knew I hated the nickname. What she didn't know was that Billy Cornwall had overheard it one day and used it whenever he wanted to harass me.

"I've got more than I can handle already," I lied self-consciously. Both of us knew very well that I was so shy when it came to girls that I had never had a real date. "Besides, if they look anything like you, I don't think my eyes could take the strain."

My sister was not a morning person. Her ratty terry-cloth bathrobe complemented a tangle of sleep-spiked blonde hay still matted with yesterday's hair spray. A fold in her pillowcase had left a long red crease across her soft cheek. It was hard to believe that this early-morning gargoyle could turn into a beautiful girl whose social calendar was as full as mine was empty.

Shelly glanced at Mother to make sure she wasn't watching us, and then flipped me the bird.

"Oh, that's just lovely," I said. "How ladylike!"

Shelly ignored this feeble comeback when she saw that Mother's distracted gaze still hadn't wavered from the window.

I shrugged helplessly at her puzzled look. Moments like this, when Mother seemed to slip away into a world of her own, were becoming more and more frequent.

Although we could bicker with the best, Shelly and I shared a real concern for our mother. Ever since my father's death four months earlier, this warm, loving, assertive woman who had always seemed so strong and self-sufficient had become a lost soul.

* * *

Dad's last assignment had been at Norton, a Military Air Transport Services base near San Bernardino. "San Berdoo" was about ninety miles east of Los Angeles, and the minute he saw it, Dad said, "Not on your life!" He wasn't going to have his family live in that "cesspool of pollution!"

One of his new buddies on the base told him about the small community of Glenoaks in the mountains above San Berdoo, and it was the first place he looked for a home before he brought the rest of us out to California to join him. It was a ninety-minute drive down the steep mountains to the air base, but Dad said he'd rather drive "the hill" every day than have us all live in the "brown air of the flatlands."

Although he always tried to get home every night, occasionally, in the winter, snow storms closed the mountain passes and he had to stay in the bachelor officers' quarters on the base until the current storm passed and the county crews could clear the roads.

But the prospects that February of spending the long 1964 Washington's Birthday weekend by himself on the base was probably too much for him. He decided to drive home after dark, even though snow and ice had plagued the mountain passes for two weeks. The biggest storm of the season had almost isolated Glenoaks from the rest of the world, and even school had been suspended, much to our--mine and Shelly's--delight. We might not be able to go to school, but we didn't have to remain indoors. Snow was a novelty. It was also a killer.

And snow isn't the only thing that can kill on a mountain road. Black ice is worse. Black ice spreads a clear glaze of treachery across the road. It looks like clean, dark asphalt, but it's not.

Dad called about six o'clock to say he was leaving the base. He assured Mother that the roads were fine, all cleared and very passable, and he should be home in about two hours. But the two hours passed and the wind began to whip new snow through the trees.

"Your father should have been here by now," Mother finally said around nine-thirty.

"Maybe he decided not to try the drive, what with the storm and all," I suggested feebly.

She shook her head. "He would have called again."

I picked up the phone, expecting nothing. Service was never reliable in the mountains. It was especially erratic in the winter when ice coated the lines. But the dial tone was loud as ever.

"It's working," I said, wishing that the silence from my father had been justified by downed telephone lines.

Mother called the air base. "B.O.Q., please, extension thirty-six."

The base operator put her through and Shelly and I sat quietly while the phone rang in an empty room on the other end.

Mother hung up and dialed the base again. "May I have the Officer of the Day, please." Mother was soft spoken and polite, even when she looked like she was about to cry. "This is June Carmona. My husband is Tech Sergeant Walter Carmona. I wonder if you could tell me if he's on base. We expected him over an hour ago. Glenoaks. Yes, I know, but he..." Mother began to shake. "...He said the roads were clear. Yes I know there's a new storm. But it's just begun. He should have been here by now. Maybe he turned around and signed back in."

The Officer of the Day said that Dad had signed out hours earlier and had not checked back in.

As Mother put down the receiver, Shelly began to cry.

Mother pulled her close and hugged her. "Don't worry, baby. Just because our phone's working, it doesn't mean that he's not stranded at some gas station or restaurant where their phone isn't."

I could see the expression on Mother's face. She was more worried than she sounded.

"Byron," she said, "Maybe we'd better call the Highway Patrol, just in case..."

This brought fresh sobs from Shelly.

"Yeah. But I'm sure it's okay," I said wanting to cry too. I forced a laugh for Shelly's sake. "Dad's probably sitting in some restaurant on his tenth cup of coffee, just waiting for the plows to clear the road."

I called the highway patrol. They had no reports of accidents, but the weather had turned so bad, they had been unable to patrol most of the mountain road between Barton Flats and Glenoaks. Yes, of course, they would keep an eye out for my father's Chevy and notify the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department if they found him.

Desperate to be doing something, I got the phone book out and, trying to remember every rest stop, restaurant and gas station along the winding mountain road that led to Glenoaks, proceeded to call them all. Without success.

My father had disappeared.

And then began the most miserable week of our lives-- until the Highway Patrol finally found his car, overturned in a steep canyon filled with snow and ice and deep brush.

Black ice had probably been the cause.

That's what they said at the time.

At first, no one could tell us how long Father must have lain, still alive, pinned beneath the crumpled steering wheel of the old Chevy. The County Coroner eventually said it could have been hours before the freezing fingers of the mountain cold finally reached in and turned his heart to ice.

The Coroner's Report, a little sheaf of papers filled with all kinds of horrors, said that by the time the Highway Patrol had located the wreck, winter-hungry scavengers had gotten there first. Birds had pecked out Father's frozen eyes and ripped his face to shreds. Wild dogs or coyotes and mountain lions had feasted on his flesh. His bones had been gnawed and cracked so that even the frozen marrow could be sucked from them.

Life would never be the same for us again.

* * *

Mother continued smoking at the sink, a long lost habit she'd picked up again since the funeral. Her paint-smeared fingers ferried the unfiltered cigarette from ash-flicks over the drain to her mouth. The stains were a regular part of her anatomy now, ever since she had been forced to transform her part-time hobby into a thriving business that provided a steady flow of drawings, watercolors and acrylics to Hallmark Greeting Cards. She worked on a freelance basis, and they always paid well for whatever she sent.

"I miss Mary," Mother said, still staring out at the Cornwall house, her distracted tone all too-familiar.

The milk almost soured in my mouth. I couldn't say the same for Mary Cornwall's son, Billy, who had once been my best friend. And I was sure that Shelly felt even stronger about him after what he'd tried to do to her.

"It was such a shame," Mother continued. "So very sad, so stupid!"

Mary Cornwall had been one of my mother's closest confidants, even after that unforgettable night three years earlier.

Shelly looked out the window in the direction of Mother's gaze and I could se her shudder.

For both of us the Cornwall house had become a symbol of all that had gone wrong in the world.

I watched the blue smoke spiral into Mother's hair as she continued to stare through the trees.

"It's not right," she said. "That place is not right. They should have burned it down."

Silently, I agreed. I would have struck the goddamn match myself if it could have wiped the Cornwalls from my mind forever.

### THE FANATIC

Famous movie star Millie Swann has committed the most grievous Hollywood sin: She has gotten older. In a fit of rage she brutally murders her long-time agent, leaving him with his genitals in his mouth. He has controlled her career with astute negotiations, drugs and pornographic blackmail since she was a teenager. An adoring fan witnesses the murder. Letters from the fan, who has become a stalker, reveal a growing psychotic fixation on the movie star as Swann learns that her murderous act was observed. Vince D'Amato, newly appointed to the Westside Division of the LAPD, is assigned to work the homicide. Vince is fighting his own personal demons: lack of self-confidence and peer acceptance, an over-bearing mother, and his inability to sustain a meaningful relationship. But all this changes when he meets beautiful production assistant, Samantha Brinkman and finds himself immersed in Hollywood's cesspool of sex, drugs, obsession and murder. (Explicit Material)

THE FANATIC (CHAPTERS 0NE & TWO)

Miss Millicent Swann

c/o Topaz Studios

1222 Gower Street

Hollywood, CA 90046

Dear Miss Swann,

Just a short note to say: hi! I saw your new film, "Paris Fog," Saturday night and thought it--and you!--were just super fabulous.

I certainly admire the way you've overcome your personal difficulties and risen above them to become such a great star.

Keep up the good work. I'll look forward to following your career and seeing "Summer Of Passion" when it comes out next year.

\--Your #1 Fan

I know the difference between fantasy and reality. It's simple: Fantasy is when Millie Swann shoots Pierre Nevsky in the forehead. She does it at least four times a day on each of three thousand screens. Pierre dies an average of twelve thousand times each twenty-four hours--and that's just in the United States!

Reality, is when Millie Swann stabs Harry Melnick in the throat, stomps on his balls with her Gucci pumps, and then stuffs his penis halfway down his throat.

That's reality--and it only happened once.

CHAPTER TWO

Vincent D'Amato rests his feet uncomfortably on the corner of the desk in his workstation. The position causes an irritating pressure on his tailbone, but he's damned if he'll give up the casual air he is trying to achieve.

Around him, the squad room bustles with morning activity. Everyone is busy except Detective Third Grade Vincent D'Amato, who leafs calmly through a copy of Daily Variety. Vince wants to make sure his reading material is noticed.

It is.

"D'Amato!" A voice barks from over his shoulder. "You don't have anything to do?"

"Just waiting for you, boss," Vince grins at the hairy bear of a man who has addressed him. "Taking a little break, and waiting for my next assignment."

"You take care of that weenie wagger down by Saint Mary's?"

"Locked him up, and threw away the key, Lieutenant."

"Which means he'll be back out on bail before you finish the paperwork."

Vince shrugs. He's been a cop long enough to know that some efforts are the equivalent of pissing up wind.

"Where's the report?"

"On your desk where it's supposed to be, boss."

"Wise ass. What about the B & E at the Mason Lodge? Did you cover that like I asked?"

"Sure did. One of the thirsty brothers, or sheiks, or whatever they call themselves, went in through a bathroom window after closing time. Tried to drink the place dry and must have fallen into the shelves behind the bar. Made a real mess."

"We know about the mess, D'Amato. That's why the Grand Poo-bah called the po-lice. We are the po-lice, you know," the large Man grinned.

"That's right boss, we are the po-lice."

"How did you catch the perp.?"

"Like I said, it was a mess, but no vandalism was intended. He left his signature."

"His signature?"

_"Yeah. On a check. I guess, when this guy woke up and realized his midnight drinking expedition had caused so much damage, he wrote a check for the breakage, and left it on the Grand One's desk. The top man called us before he'd checked his office. The wayward brother more than covered what he drank_ and _what he destroyed. The lodge has withdrawn the complaint."_

"Is that all you've been working on?"

"A few other file numbers: the missing teenager over on Cedar Drive--probably selling it on Hollywood Boulevard by now, if her friends have it right. And then there's always the fifteen hundred stolen vehicle reports--if I want to go out to LAX and walk around the parking structures for a few days."

Since Vince's recent transfer to Operations, West Bureau, West Los Angeles Division, Lieutenant Brad Sullivan has kept him hopping from one section to another on a variety of cases. To see where he fits in best, Sullivan said. More to make sure his new detective knows his place and pays his dues, Vince suspects.

"I can see I've been greatly remiss in attending to your assignments, D'Amato." The lieutenant shakes his head in mock dismay at his own inefficiency and looks out at the squad room. "It looks like everyone is busy around here except you and me. And my job is to make sure I stay that way and you don't."

"Well, boss-man, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

_"Uh-huh, yeah, sure! You couldn't wait for me to get in and re-stack your caseload, right, D'Amato? That's why you were just kicking back with your_ TV Guide _and planning your social schedule."_

_Vince waves the paper. "It's_ Daily Variety _."_

"I don't care if it's toilet paper for your daily dump, D'Amato. Get off your ass and see Gruber about a few files." Lieutenant Sullivan lets a disarming smile play around the corners of his mouth. "That is, if it's not too inconvenient for you."

Sullivan disappears into his office, directly across from Vince's workstation.

"Shit," Vince mumbles, feeling he has missed his best opportunity to plead for the case he wants. He hasn't had a chance to work homicide yet, and that is his ultimate goal.

"D'Amato!" Thunder rolls out of the Lieutenant's office. "Get in here!"

Vince jumps up, eager to have another shot at his special request.

Sullivan shakes a sheaf of papers in the air. "What the hell is this?" he demands.

Vince leans forward to catch a glimpse of the moving pages as they passed back and forth under his nose. "My reports," he says simply.

Sullivan stops waving the papers and leafs through them.

"Where's your forms? Where the hell's Form 86, and your PD35's? The only thing that looks official here is the booking sheet on this Myers guy."

"That's the weenie wagger."

"I don't care if he's the freaking mayor of Beverly Hills—where're your forms?"

Vince is eager to explain. "They're there! Well, actually their equivalents are there. I converted them on my PC at home and transferred all the information into a standard format. If you look, you'll see all of the info is there. It just looks different on the computer paper."

Sullivan inspects the reports, reading random pieces of information. When he speaks, he appears to be partially mollified, but he is still on the attack. "Is this the kind of crap they taught you down at the Hollenbeck?"

Vince runs his fingers through his brown, curly hair. "Shit, Lieutenant, they don't even know how to write down at the Hollenbeck. You know how things are in that division. They threw away the book the day they opened up. Why do you think I transferred out here to the Westside?"

"I understand it was personal reasons. Now I can see what they were: You think your shit don't stink! You're a fuckin' prima donna. Too good for the uniforms down there, eh?" There is no rancor in the older man's voice as he sits down wearily in his chair, scanning the reports.

Vince feels compelled to defend himself. "No, I'm not a prima donna. There was an opening here for a Grade Three, and I'd just passed the exam. Besides, I needed to be close to my family in Santa Monica. There's some illness." He doesn't want to explain that it's his mother. He is too old for apron strings, and he doesn't need to start his career on the Westside with a reputation as a mama's boy

"Don't put your blues into mothballs yet, D'Amato. As far as I'm concerned, you're still on probation in this division."

Vince nods. "Can I ask a favor, Lieutenant?"

"No."

"I'd like to work the Melnick case."

"No."

"You know, the agent across Sunset? The one murdered last week?"

"You mean the prick with his dick in his mouth?"

"Yeah. That's the one."

"No."

_"I could do a good job; I know the business." Vince waves his copy of_ Daily Variety _, trying to attract his superior's eyes away from the reports._

"What business?" Sullivan asks, not bothering to look up.

"Show business."

"No."

"I know who all the players are," Vince exclaims.

"It's Jazinski and Goldberg's squeal. They're working it. I don't think they need to turn it into a three-handed pinochle game."

"That's what I wanted to tell you. Jazinski's out."

Lieutenant Brad Sullivan's eyes glare up from under heavy brows. "What're you talking about?"

"Maternity leave."

_"D'Amato, Jazinski's_ wife _was pregnant; not him. She dropped her foal last week."_

"Yeah, I know. But he's put in for three-month's family leave."

"The hell you say!" Incredulity flashes across Sullivan's face.

"Federal law. Got to give leave to the poppa as well as the momma."

"I suppose the federal government is going to come in here and hold our hands while the crime rate goes through the roof and the city goes into the dumper?"

Vince can tell that Bradley Sullivan isn't particularly impressed by the care and keeping provided by his elected representatives in Washington. The good Lieutenant is of the old school.

Vince continues rapidly. "Jazinski needs to stay home with his wife a while. She's not doing too well."

Sullivan shakes his head in bewilderment. "You know, D'Amato, in the old days a man's job was to feed 'em, screw 'em, and then pay child support for the next 18 years. Now you're expected to stay home with 'em and change the goddamn diapers."

"What about the Melnick case?"

"What about it?"

"I can work with Goldberg."

"Why? You want into her pants?"

"Rachel Goldberg's not my type. I just think I've got enough show business savvy to contribute something special to this case. And you need another man on it."

_"I need an experienced man, D'Amato, not a rookie. You're just looking to plank some starlets. Don't give me that '_ I've got something special to contribute _' bullshit."_

"They don't have starlets any more."

"Oh yeah? Did their tits and asses fall off all of a sudden?"

"They had starlets in the old studio system--back when they had contracts. No one calls them starlets in the industry now." Vince is trying to sound knowledgeable.

"Whatever they call it, a cooze is a cooze. You out lookin' for a little easy pussy, D'Amato?"

"No sir. I just thought I had something extra to bring to the table?"

"Is that what they do down at the Hollenbeck, bring everything to the goddamn table?"

Vince thinks it's time to shut up. Every time he opens his mouth, Sullivan puts his foot in it. At this point, there is no sense opening his mouth just to wash his toes again.

Sullivan reads a few moments longer before looking up again at his recent acquisition from the Hollenbeck Division.

"You still here?" the lieutenant growls. "Don't you have a way to get to LAX? After all, you, yourself said there are fifteen hundred cars waiting to be found."

"How about the Melnick case?"

The large man moves his full "IN" basket from the corner of his desk to the middle. "I'll look into it."

"Thanks, Lieutenant. I'd appreciate the opportunity."

Vince is already back in the squad room when Sullivan shouts after him. "These reports look okay, kid. But from now on use the goddamn forms the city provides."

~ ~ ~ ~

Rachel Goldberg is a stunning blond. At forty, she can put women fifteen years her junior to shame. Vince has seen her around the squad room for the past three months but they've never officially met.

For Vince, Rachel Goldberg has that intimidating combination of good looks, regal bearing, self-confidence and arrogant assertiveness that effectively removes her from his most remote fantasies. The fact that she is also a cop doesn't make her any more approachable. The difference in their ages, fourteen years, doesn't hurt, either.

Gazing at her across the squad room, or at roll call at the shift change, Vince finds it almost impossible to find her flaws. There are none. She is perfect. At five-foot-nine, Rachel Goldberg seems tall compared to the other women around them. She is muscular, but not hard or thick. Her short, dark blond hair frames a usual expression of inquisitive severity that would turn aside any advances Vince might be foolish enough to make.

And she is one hell of a cop! Rachel Goldberg's reputation in the division is legendary. If anything derogatory ever comes up, the source is usually a jealous male whose masculinity has been threatened.

The idea of working with Rachel Goldberg might be intimidating, but Vince wants to be involved in a high-profile case. It could give him credibility on the Westside and a helluva a foundation for his future career.

~ ~ ~ ~

"Detective Goldberg?"

Rachel looks up from her neatly organized desk.

Vince holds out his hand. "I'm Vince D'Amato."

"I know." Her hand is hard and dry, strong and confident.

"Sullivan sent me over to work with you on the Melnick case."

She looks at him without expression. "So he said."

"I guess Jazinski decided to take a little time off... uh, the baby and all...I guess." Vince is suddenly uncomfortable under Rachel's unblinking gaze, and already starting to self-consciously stumble over his words.

"I guess," she says.

"It's nice he can stay home and help his wife," Vince adds, hoping this woman will appreciate his sensitive side.

"He's just lazy, D'Amato. His wife did all the work-- and now he needs a rest." She looks at the files on her desk. "Sit down, you're blocking my light."

Vince pulls out the chrome and naugahyde chair. For a moment he is tempted to stretch out his six-foot length, in casual comfort. Instead, he sits straight, like a kid waiting for the principal.

Although he really doesn't mean it, Vince says, "Sorry you lost your partner on this one."

Rachel shrugs. "No big deal. We've been together only a year. With his wife pregnant most of that time, he's been a basket case. Your wife isn't pregnant, is she, D'Amato?"

"Uh...I'm not married."

"Not ever?"

"Almost--once, right out of high school. I went into the Air Force instead."

Rachel's perfect eyebrows raise evenly. "You a fly boy?"

"Air Police."

"Ah."

Vince can tell she knows what prompted him to join law enforcement. Once you had a taste of it--even for the amateurs in the military--it got into your blood.

"How did you talk Sullivan into letting you work this case?"

This time its Vince's turn to shrug. "I guess he thought it might help to have someone working the case who has a bit of show business background."

"You a frustrated actor, D'Amato?"

"No. It's just a hobby."

"A hobby? And I suppose playing cops and robbers is a hobby too, huh?"

Rachel's condescending tone angers Vince, but he hides it well, sensing that this woman is trying to rattle his cage just to see what he's made of.

"No. I'm in for the duration," Vince replies.

"Sullivan said you came from the Hollenbeck. What's the matter, it get too hot for you over there?"

"You mean the land of chaos and confusion?" Vince shakes his head. "I liked it okay. Things are always roaring at the 'Beck. But I've got a sick mother, who lives in Santa Monica, and I need to be closer here on the Westside."

Vince instantly regrets mentioning the reason for his transfer. He thinks she will probably slot him into the same malingering category as Bob Jazinski.

"I don't let my personal life interfere with my work." Vince feels compelled to add.

"It already has, hasn't it?" Rachel says.

He leans forward to emphasize his point. "We live in Santa Monica. I just want to be closer in case there's an emergency. The day I can't do my job, I'll tell you--before you can tell me!"

"Hey, D'Amato, you don't have to convince me. Hold up your end of the investigation, and we've got no problems."

"I'll do that. And just because I write up my reports at home on a PC, and not on these old clunkers," he pats the IBM Selectric on her desk, "it doesn't mean I'm not working."

"I don't give a damn if you prepare your reports standing on your head in a toilet bowl--as long as they get done."

"They get done," Vince says, a slight testiness in his voice.

"Then we'll get along just fine, D'Amato."

"Call me Vince." Vince waits for her to reciprocate, but when she ignores his peace offering, he continues. "What have we got so far?"

Rachel paws through the series of manila folders neatly stacked on her desk. Flipping one open, she peruses the contents for a moment before handing it to him.

"One dead body," she recites. "Male. Caucasian. Sixty-six years old, five-foot seven, 180 pounds. No, make that 179½ without his eight ounce dick."

"Harry Melnick. Agent to the stars," Vince says.

"You know him?"

"Of him. Melnick was pretty well known."

"Yeah, evidently everyone knew and loved Harry Melnick. I've been on the case for a week, and I'm discovering that your buddy, the agent to the stars, had more enemies than friends."

"That seems to be pretty par for the course in this town. You don't drop the soap in the shower in Hollywood. Everyone always seems to be stabbing everybody else in the back."

"Well, this time it was in the throat instead of the back." Rachel reaches over and removes the file from Vince's hands, flips pages for him and hands it back, turned to the Crime Scene Photographs section. "Stuck it in, twisted it around, and tried to pull it out sideways; a couple of times, at least. Made quite a mess." She points to one of the 8 X 10 photos.

"Jesus!"

"Actually, the poor fucker choked on his own blood before he could bleed to death. After she stomped his balls, she cut them off and jammed them into his mouth."

"Ouch." Vince grimaces. "You said, 'she?'"

"That's right. According to the coroner's examination, there's a nice neat, indelible imprint of a woman's high heel right in the middle of Melnick's scrotum. You know, that little metal plate at the bottom of the heel? Evidently, she ground it in good and firm, a perfect impression of the Gucci logo with a little chip in the side of it. If we find the shoe, we'll find the perp; and it'll be a woman."

"Or a cross-dresser or a transvestite," Vince suggests with a smile.

"They got those over in the Hollenbeck too, D'Amato?" I thought we had the franchise in West Hollywood."

We had everything at the 'Beck. Any suspects?" Vince asks, starting to feel more comfortable with Rachel Goldberg.

"Sure," Rachel laughs as she reached over to the corner of her desk. She pushes a stack of computer paper over to her new partner. "Take your choice."

Vince leafs through the report. There are over 30 pages of names and addresses and phone numbers as well as other codes and remarks.

"What's this?" he asks.

"It's from the computer in Melnick's office. His secretary did it up. It's his client list--past and present--the short form. Just the basics. Each of these entries--" Rachel reaches over to tap the top page with a manacured finger nail"--is supported by a separate computer file as well as a stack of traditional paper."

"This guy's been busy."

"Uh-huh. He was in the business for over fifty years. A lot of water under the bridge."

Vince reads some of the names on the list. "And probably a lot of broads trough the bedroom."

"Jeez, D'Amato, do they still call us broads? Or have you just been reading too much Raymond Chandler?"

"Sorry." Vince tries to cover up for his chauvinist statement by rushing on. "There are some pretty famous names on this list," he points out.

"Some greats from the past and present," Rachel says. "Probably more past than present. I scanned the list and could recognize only half the names."

"Have you followed up on any of them?"

She shakes her head.

Vince notices that her hair swings evenly back and forth with the movement of her head, each strand in place and attached to its neighbor by a copious application of Clairol Extra Hold. Vince realizes that Rachel Goldberg is as much dependent on a little help with her perfect looks as the rest of the women he has known. Somehow it makes her a little more human.

"Jazinski and I were busy following up with the neighbors and co-workers. I've typed up my notes." She points to another manila folder on the desk. "That asshole, Jazinski's, got a few scraps of papers in the file. They don't mean squat, but at least he's filled me in verbally. He might be home burping the baby, but I'll get him to type up his notes and send them over so that you have everything."

Vince looks through the sections of the file: CRIME REPORT, EVIDENCE TECHNICIAN, POST MORTEM, FORENSIC TECHNICIAN, INVESTIGATION, ARRESTS. The last section is optimistic, but empty. The first three are filled with neatly completed forms. The thickest, but least consistent section is: INVESTIGATION.

"You've been busy," Vince says, intending to be complimentary and make up for his previous gaffe.

It doesn't work.

"I'm always busy, D'Amato. You know this isn't all I have to do. There's more than one crime a month here on the Westside. I mean, we may not be saddled with the toilet scum you guys in Hollenbeck cultivate in the barrio, but we have more than our share."

"I know," Vince acknowledges, anxious to pacify his new supervisor and partner. "I've been pretty busy."

"And now, Sullivan says you're all mine, right?" Rachel's voice is tinged with sarcasm. "Remind me to thank him. A Thanksgiving turkey would have been enough."

Vince ignores Rachel's remark and glances through the client list from Harry Melnick's office.

"Listen, D'Amato, I've got some stuff to take care of. Why don't you take the file and read through my R2's. They'll give you a background on Melnick's neighbors and his office staff. Take a look at the Crime Scene photos. Go through that computer list," she points to the stack of paper before him, "and come up with a plan of action to start interviewing his clients."

Vince glances at his watch. It is already noon. "Okay. When do you want to meet and discuss it?"

"We just did."

"I mean the plan of action, investigative parameters, the division of responsibilities."

Rachel Goldberg pushes herself out of her chair and grabs her handbag from the floor by the side of the desk. "Your only responsibility right now, D'Amato, is to do what you are told. You don't have to worry about all that Academy 'investigative parameter' bullshit."

Vince understands that Rachel is in charge, but she doesn't have to make such an obvious point of reminding him.

He watches her walk away, marveling at how quickly the overall impression of perfection is shattered by a short conversation. His eyes follow the sway of confident hips as she pushes through the squad room door.

Rachel Goldberg is a prize bitch, Vince decides.

"Damn," Vince mutters as the squad room door swings shut. Whether it is an eventual encounter with Harry Melnick's genitals-removing killer, or his daily contact with Rachel Goldberg, he might want to make an investment in a cast-iron jock strap!

### A RIVER OF TIME

An extraordinary novel about an ordinary man and the amazing women who occupy his life, becoming his river of time.

For us, Jordan Peter's journey begins as he is discharged from the Air Force in 1963, eager to exploit his knowledge of electronics in a burgeoning industry. Shunning the security of his mother's misguided alcoholic protection, he heads for San Francisco where life appears filled with endless possibilities and fascinating people.

From the awkward tenderness and disappointment of first love to a heady series of affairs and heartbreak, Jordan struggles with his inability to find fulfillment with the woman he loves. He is unable to discover a substitute for the longing he has for someone he cannot have.

Through fleeting relationships, a failed marriage and a barren existence, Jordan appears to be fated to ultimately live a shallow life of unemotional attachment until an he has an incredible opportunity to achieve final redemption through an act of love he never dreamed possible.

A RIVER OF TIME (CHAPTER ONE)

"You know, you're a real son of a bitch!"

Tommy Wolfe sure got that right: You can't go home again. But then who the hell would want to?

''I'm sorry."

"You wouldn't stay home for any reason, would you, Jordan?" .

"It's not that. I have to get going. I've got things to do."

"What things are more important than your mother?"

"Nothing's more important than you, Mom. But I've got to get started on my own sometime, and I've been here for a month now."

My mother glared at me with that afternoon mixture of parental disapproval blessed with a lack solace from the day's first two glasses of Chablis.

I knew that this was the beginning of the assault phase of her alcohol-induced daily neurosis. It would move from there to recrimination, guilt. self-pity and, eventually, a complete stupor which would leave her asleep on the couch by the time Bonanza's quartet galloped into the living room.

"I don't understand why you can't just stay here in Fresno and find a job while living at home. You know we'd love to have you here with us" She waved vaguely toward the kitchen where my stepfather was downing a beer in defense of the coming alcoholic onslaught.

I tried to explain: "The kind of work I do ... well ... a big city has more opportunity."

"Bullshit! You just want to get away."

"No, that's not it at all," I partially lied, the sweat of Fresno's summer uncomfortable around my neck. At least half of my motivation for going to San Francisco was comprised of my need to get out of that house and away from the woman my mother had become. "The Bay Area has a lot of electronics firms and they're all growing. Fresno is the raisin capital of the world.

"They don't know a transistor' from a diode here." That was the other fifty percent of my reason for escape from this armpit of the world.

I had just spent four years of my life in the Air Force as an Electronics Specialist. I knew my stuff. I also knew that electronics was the wave of the future. If didn't get out of Fresno where my mother and stepfather had lived for the last ten years, whatever "stuff" I knew would shrivel away and dry up...just like Fresno's raisin crop.

"Don't you love us?"

"Mom, love's got nothing to do with it. Of course I love you. But I need to ... to .... "

"To what?" she interrupted. "To abandon me?"

"Mom, I'm not abandoning you;" I sighed in exasperation. I knew this conversation would go around and around in circles until either I walked away in frustrated anger or she would slink away to nurse her imaginary wounds.

"You never have appreciated the things I've done for you," she whined. "When your father walked out on you, who was it that raised you single-handed? Loved you? Gave you everything you needed? "

Somehow I didn't think I was the one my father had walked out on.

"Maybe you don't remember, during the war when we didn't have enough to eat," she continued. "I went without so that you could have food in your mouth. You had new shoes and I had to lie to the doctor to get coupons so that you could have shoes every month. I went to work twelve hours a day to put clothes on your back and put food on your table."

Oh, Jesus, she was on a roll. I had heard this litany before.

I was five years old in I945, just before the end of World War II, when my father, in what I eventually came to recognize as a desperate act of self-preservation, had finally gotten tired of breaking the crockery and throwing beer bottles at my mother across the war zone of our kitchen. He finally walked out. He had decided to continue his own alcoholic decline without her nagging or aggravating alcoholic consumption competition . No doubt it had been a hard adjustment for her. She hadn't worked since her marriage, ten years before my birth. She was out of practice. Her secretarial skills had slipped, and the labor market was getting tighter and tighter. The European war was winding down and companies were already in the process of rolling over the female staff they had temporarily hired to make way for the returning GIs. Finally, through a friend, she had obtained a job at the local weekly newspaper selling advertising space. Small salary, smaller commission. She put in long hours around town (many of them drinking with prospective advertisers) and, when she was at home, she was on the phone, extending her work day. To help make ends meet she also took a part-time job as a recreation supervisor at the city park on the weekends. Basically, she was a glorified babysitter for other working mothers. Those, she must have thought, I am sure, with more productive jobs. And smaller hangovers! It was tough. No doubt about it.

As a five or six year old, I couldn't begin to appreciate what she was going through. But she had spent many years since then helping me to understand the nature of her sacrifices. I was continually reminded. God knows I have paid for each of them in the coin of guilt.

Well, I wasn't buying into it today. If I couldn't understand fully as a child, I could now at least temper my understanding with the knowledge that she was using every facet of this motherly sacrifice crap from the past to engender filial guilt in the present.

I knew how to conjure images for myself to combat the growing bud of doubt nurtured by her tirade.

* * *

How clearly I recall a bright, crisp Northern California day. It was just the beginning of summer in San Bruno, where we lived, fifteen miles south of San Francisco. The eucalyptus leaves glistened and rustled in the afternoon bluster; San Bruno was a windy town almost all year round.

My mother had bought a kite for me. It was bright red, shiny, made of delicate paper and balsa wood, a feathered leaf of crimson energy anxiously awaiting its maiden flight into the heavens. I had waited all week for the chance to see it soar among the clouds.

Mother, the park attendant, was in the middle of story time. A large gaggle of giggling kids had gathered around her bench as she led them delightedly through some fantastic adventure or another. It was one of her specialties, this ability to take flight from reality along with her listeners.

In the nearby unoccupied baseball field, I was unraveling a healthy length of twine in preparation for launching my bright paper bird skyward. Even Icarus could not have anticipated such delight!

Ten, fifteen, twenty feet of string lay between me and the kite. I drew the twine taut and began to run. The kite skidded across the ground and breasted into the air, the bow of its prow cleaving upward against the wind. Ten, fifteen, twenty feet it rose straight up, hovered momentarily, did a complete circle, and dived straight into the ground.

Over and over again, I tried to launch that kite into the afternoon sky. I ran fast. I ran slow. I ran with the wind. I ran against the wind. I used a short lead of string. I used a longer one. I changed the bend of the bow in the middle. Always with the same frustrating results: it dived straight downward after rising only slightly.

This, at my age, was a major crisis. I had waited days with eager anticipation to launch this flight, having flown it many times in my imagination.

With childish tears of bitter disappointment, I went to my mother, crying my plight. She read on to the children, shushing me. I tried the kite again, with the same results. Soon I was circling the story time group. crying and begging for help. I needed my mother.

Finally, fed up with the whimpering distraction, she jumped up, ran over to me, grabbed the bright red beauty from my hands, crushed it, and stuffed the pieces unceremoniously into a trash can.

I don't remember much after that; other than the wind, which was meant to carry my kite into the heavens, continuing through the afternoon as it chilled the tears on my cheeks.

Unaware of my utter devastation, my mother read on to those wind-blown children, taking them from one adventure to another.

** *

Now here she was reminding me of all the wonderful things she had done for me.

"Mom, you know I've always appreciated everything, but I'm almost twenty-four years old. I need to do my own thing."

"Own thing? Humph! Do what you want. You will anyway. You did when you joined the Air Force. I don't Know why I would think it will be any different now."

I Watched her stomp off toward the kitchen for a refill on the way to her couch in the living room. If anything, my mother was not subtle.

If the truth were to be known, the woman did still engender feelings of guilt in me. But these were not sentiments of insidious treachery for not fully appreciating her efforts on my behalf. Oh, no! The guilt was all self-generated. I was eaten up from within by conflicting emotions. Overwhelmed by an obligatory feeling to love my mother without question or reservation, I constantly discovered that I didn't. I couldn't. I wouldn't.

As I watched the stultifying heat waves rise off the pavement outside, I thought of the events starting six years earlier which had helped bring me to this moment of confrontation.

### NIGHTANGEL

Why would a Catholic priest feel compelled to protect a girl who may very well become the mother of the antichrist? Nightangel's journey into terror begins with an incredible act of violence and a sense of dread that will end in a cascade of escalating terror, a vision horror that will keep the reader turning pages deep into a light-filled night.

NIGHTANGEL (CHAPTER ONE)

Father Mike Gilroy hurried out the back door of the rectory. It was the shortest path to the sacristy at the rear of the church and he was anxious to spend a little quiet time in front of the altar.

Mike frequently thought that although, St. Theresa's might not be as atmospheric as Mission Dolores, just a couple of miles away, it was a good place to pray and meditate. It was his place, his ministry.

He was almost halfway across the lawn when he realized that the security lights weren't working. They had three powerful motion-sensor spotlights--one over the back door of the rectory, one on the back wall of the church and another over the sacristy door--and not one of them had come on when Mike moved into the darkness of the garden.

He stopped. The dark was complete. No light reached back here from the street or from the windows of the rectory.

He started to pick his way carefully across the damp grass again.

What was that?

Something had moved in the darkness.

He squinted into the depths of the garden, trying to make out what looked like a darker shadow than the others.

"Who's there?"

No reply.

"What do you want?"

Nothing.

His imagination?

No! He saw it again, a slight, shifting movement in the shadows.

"Okay, come on out of there!"

As he moved toward the deeper darkness, Mike was brought up short again, this time by an unfamiliar noise. At first he thought it was the sound of his own footsteps in the grass, a shushing, like light wind in a wheat field. But then he realized it was behind him. He looked over his shoulder.

The sound stopped

He could see nothing.

Had one of the local gangs decided that this was a good time to rob the church? How many were there?

He moved and the air behind him began to rustle.

Mike wanted to give in to his fear and head back to the rectory where he had been sitting just a few minutes earlier.

"Don't you find it ironic," Mike asked Father Larry Chin, "that as priests we have less time to pray than we would like?"

Chin laughed and prodded a potato in the bowl of stew from the pot their housekeeper, Bridget McClusky, had left warming on the stove.

"G. E. Lessing said: 'One single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer,'" Chin quoted.

"G. E. Lessing was full of shit," Mike said. "You can't tell me that some eighteenth century aesthetic had the faintest idea what kind of life a twenty-first century priest would have to live."

Chin laughed and shook his head. "Callahan is right, you've got the makings of a first class heretic."

"Callahan is full of shit too. If he hadn't decided to get out of here and go to Mondran's funeral in the Philippines, I would have started to salt his cereal with Prozac or something."

Chin smiled. "Can't say I blame you there. He's been acting pretty strange the last couple of months. In fact, he didn't even say good-bye or leave final instructions when he left for the airport. Did you drive him?"

"Me! Can you imagine the two of us in the same car together for an hour. I don't know how he got to the plane. One minute his bags were sitting by the door of the rectory, and the next they were gone."

"Maybe," Chin suggested, "he got some parishioner to give him a lift. He's too damn cheap to take a cab."

"If you ask me, our good pastor is having a nervous breakdown," Mike said. And he's been trying his best to share it with the rest of us."

"He's just stressed out. And now, with Ray dead in Manila, we're facing a real shortage of manpower."

"As if we weren't running lean before! That's what I meant when I said, there's barely time to pray."

"You want to pray?" Chin asked. "Here, you lock up the church tonight." The Chinese-American priest reached in his pocket and threw his keys on the kitchen table. "You can go over to the church and take all the time to pray you want."

"See what I mean," Mike chortled. "Now you want me to do your job too."

"Just trying to help out a confrere in need."

Chin reached for his keys, but Mike grabbed them before he could pull them back.

"No, that's okay. I'll take your offer."

Mike pocketed the keys and pushed his perpetually tousled brown hair out of his eyes before going back to his late meal.

"How old are you Mike? Thirty-four or five?"

"Thirty-six."

"And you've been a priest for ten years, right?"

"Uh-huh." Mike savored the thick Irish broth and chunky vegetables. Here it was after nine o'clock, and it was his first chance to eat since breakfast thirteen hours earlier.

"I'd think you'd have learned by now that as priests we live for others. Not ourselves."

Mike nodded. "I don't need a lecture, Larr. I'm just tired and frustrated tonight."

"Tonight?"

Mike laughed. "Especially tonight. Not only was my day as full as yours, doing our best to cover for both Callahan and Mondran, but I had to finish up at a meeting with Manuel Salinas and The Sodality of the Blood of Jesus."

"Ouch! No wonder you're down in the dumps. That would be enough to try the patience of a saint."

"And I'm no saint, right?"

"Right. What are those fanatics up to now."

Mike shrugged. "Who knows. I stopped in for five minutes and then blew it off."

"You shouldn't do that, Mike. Those conservative loonies can be a lot of trouble."

"I wasn't in the mood for their nonsense tonight."

"I hear that. Just watch your back around Salinas and his buddies."

* * *

A sound came from above.

Mike looked up into the night sky. It wasn't overcast, but he couldn't see any stars.

Sound suffused the darkness, moving rapidly toward him.

Wings? Was that the sound of flapping wings filling the air.

The owl!

The old palm tree in the corner of the garden harbored a large owl which had recently claimed the yard as its own. Not only had it picked the surrounding neighborhood clean of vermin, but it had recently taken to swooping down after small pets and the bare heads of unwary parishioners.

Beating the darkness into a frightening froth of cold air, the sound thumped against the night. Louder and louder.

Instinctively, Mike ducked. Crouching, he threw his hands over his head in an attempt to protect himself from sharp, hooked talons that could tear his eyes out.

Larry's going to hear about this, he fumed. Monsignor Callahan's last order before leaving for the Philippines had been for Chin to get rid of the damn bird. Evidently, Chin hadn't done it.

Freezing air buffeted Mike. He hadn't realized the bird was so big, but he'd only seen it once. How could it stir up so much wind? The night around him filled with the stench of rotting meat as the sound swooped closer.

Mike sprang up, flailing his arms to fend off the invisible bird as he ran toward the dark doorway of the sacristy. The sound had cut him off from the rectory and he had no choice now but to find refuge in the church, where he had been headed in the first place. He had already forgotten about the possibility of intruders.

The back door of the sacristy was locked. Mike fumbled through Chin's key ring. He seemed to find a key to everything but the sacristy.

Behind him he could hear a steady thrumming in the air a few feet from his head. The all-pervasive odor of rotting offal made him gag. Visions of hunting-honed talons tearing into him filled him with terror.

Finally the right key!

Pushing his way into the sacristy, he slammed the door behind him before the claws could reach him, before the powerful beak ripped flesh from his unprotected neck.

Mike's fear was immediately replaced by anger. He grabbed the phone and dialed the three digits for the kitchen.

"Good evening, honey-baked kosher hams. How May I help you?"

Mike knew Chin would see that it was an internal call, and could only be from him, but he was in no mood for their old familiar joke.

"The security lights are out and that damn owl came after me before I could get in here and it's your responsibility to see that the lights are working properly because Callahan told you to get rid of that freakin' owl and if you'd done what you were supposed to do I wouldn't almost have gotten the shit torn out of the back of my head."

Mike was out of breath.

Chin was silent on the other end of the line, evidently amazed at this endless flow of accusations.

"You've got a vivid imagination, Mikey. The lights were working just fine a little while ago. And if you'd been around yesterday, you'd've seen the Animal Control people take the owl away."

"Maybe the bird escaped. Or it has a mate or something."

"Then I'll get the animal control people back first thing in the morning. If we've got to, we'll trim the palm tree down to a toothpick so nothing can live up there except a few sparrows."

Mike was suddenly mollified. He felt foolish, yelling at his friend.

"I'm sorry, Larr. I'm just blowing off steam."

"Steam away, buddy. I've got broad shoulders."

"I'll leave your keys on the secretary's desk."

"Okay. I'm turning in. Don't call me unless it's the second coming."

Mike laughed as he hung up. He could always count on Larry Chin to diffuse his frustrated anger, which seemed to happen more and frequently lately.

Mike turned to stare out across the long, dark chancel. The huge cathedral-like church was dark. Candles flickered in crevices and corners and at small shrines, islands of twinkling stars in the darkness. Distant exit lights glowed like green eyes watching from a jungle.

Mike thought he saw movement in the darkness--shadows within shadows, wispy black wraiths creeping between the dark pews, slithering toward the altar. He shivered, remembering what had just happened in the garden.

He opened the master panel to turn on a few more lights and the dark phantoms dissolved.

The additional lights did little to dispel Mike's feeling of unease. The old building was quiet. Nothing moved except the few shadows still thrown by the candles against old wood, cold stone, and polished tile. Behind the altar, on either side of the tabernacle, two wavering red lights glowed, testimony that Christ was present in the form of the Eucharist.

It looks different, Mike thought. He couldn't put his finger on it, but in a subtle way the old church no longer seemed like a familiar refuge from the chaotic world outside.

Mike walked across the marble sanctuary, listening to his own footsteps echo through the church and bounce off the walls within the altar rail.

The odor that had assailed him in the garden seemed to have followed him into the church, sweeter, more sickly, stronger.

Mike suddenly realized that he had been smelling vestiges of that odor for the past few days, whenever he said Mass. It had seemed to hover around the altar, but now it permeated the entire sanctuary.

He slipped into the first pew and made the sign of the cross. His eyes sought out the altar, the site of consecration and prayer, the place where he found the greatest peace, requite for anger and frustration, respite from doubt and skepticism.

For a moment he couldn't believe what he saw.

The plaster Christus from the life-sized crucifix that hung high above the tabernacle lay on the altar, in its crotch, the head from a statue of the Virgin Mary nestled in simulated fellatio.

Shocked, Mike sprang to his feet, his gaze moving to the cross from which the crucified Christ had come.

Now it wasn't Christ on the rough wooden cross, it was the naked body of Monsignor Frank Callahan.

The odor of putrefaction grew stronger as Mike moved back toward the sanctuary. Just as he was overwhelmed by the stench, he saw see the dark blotch of dried blood between Callahan's legs where his genitals had been removed.

Mike staggered back and turned to vomit. He banged his head against the altar rail as he fell, his stomach heaving over and over until there was nothing left of Bridget McClusky's Irish stew but bitter bile.

And then, fear filled the new emptiness in his belly as the body began to move.

### Two Cats In The House

One day when the rain came down so hard

That I couldn't refrain, and lowered my guard,

My daughter whispered in my ear

A simple word I'd learned to fear.

She said she wanted a brand new pet,

Something to keep within the house.

3

 It wouldn't be a marmoset,

And certainly not a mouse.

But what she wanted, my little brat,

Was nothing less than a pussycat!

"Oh no!" I cried, with a desperate gasp,

Losing the place in the book I held.

It fell to the floor and out of my grasp.

4

 All thoughts of my rest were gone, dispelled.

Out in the backyard, sitting in his house,

Our little dog, Joe, was quiet and asleep.

"One animal is enough," I growled with a grouse.

"I won't hear any more. Oh no, not a peep!

"I don't need a pussycat, sitting in my chair;

I don't need my clothes all covered with hair.

And, I'll tell you this:

5

 It's something certain,

I don't want a cat hanging from the curtain.

"I've never had a cat, and I won't start now.

The same thing goes for a skunk or a cow!

I've always had dogs as pets, my dear,

And I won't change now in my thirty-third year.

6

 There's something about cats I fear and dread."

That's what I told my daughter.

That's what I said.

"I've never touched a cat, not even a stroke."

I'm afraid of the critters, and that's no joke.

"Oh, silly Daddy! Your head's like stone.

Like so many others, you fear the unknown.

Just take some time, and give it a chance,

7

 You'd find that a cat's much like a new spice.

Just taste it a bit; on your tongue let it dance,

And you might discover that it's pretty nice."

Such a clever child I'd raised, this girl

With sparkling eye and golden curl.

And here she was, at the age of ten,

Teaching her Dad a lesson again!

My little daughter pouted and cried

8

 As she claimed her love of such critters with pride.

And then my son soon added his voice,

So I almost felt I had no choice.

The child, my daughter, ran to her room.

Returned with her bank, chock-full of money.

"You see, Daddy dear,

What I've got here.

Don't be crabby and full of gloom,

We'll buy a cat that's fat and funny."

9

 Before you knew it, my firm resolve,

Now broken to dust began to dissolve.

And I let those foolish children dear

Lead me to a pet store near.

"Oh Papa, Papa, look at him!"

She pointed out a Tabby cat, so slow and stout

He barely fit where he was caged.

10

 But my daughter's attention was most engaged.

We paid her coins and a dollar bill,

And soon were on our wary way,

The pet shop box all sealed until

We found ourselves back home that day.

She called him "Jack." Don't ask me why.

I guess it sounded sly.

11

 With head held high, walking forth and back.

He seemed to like that name: just plain "Jack."

I wasn't too sure about the new pet;

The idea of it all was strange to me yet:

To find in this funny and fat little devil

Something of a comfort level.

We circled 'round, that cat and I,

Until my sweetest, darling daughter,

Looking at us, by and by,

12

 13

 Brought a bowl of milk and water.

"Maybe, if you feed the cat,"

The child said to me,

"You might just learn to see

That Jack's not all as bad as that."

So with that little cheerful chat

I held the bowl between each hand.

Then, near the cat, I took a stand.

14

 At first he looked and glared and fretted,

As if he thought he should be petted.

But still I stood until he sat

As first his thirst was whetted.

Next the smell of tin-canned fish

Wafted up from another dish,

And I was feeding Jack his dinner.

Eating like this, he'd never get thinner,

15

 On such a diet of rich delight.

I worried if it would be all right

For cats to eat and drink their fill;

Will too much food make them ill?

I certainly hoped not, not at all,

For now I liked this furry ball!

16

SALES PITCH

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And now...I'm tired, so I'm going to take a nap.

David L. Ruggeri

June 2012
