Horror Show (9 page)

Landis was not visibly impressed. “What's with the term ‘beatnik'? Everything's got a ‘nik' at the end of it since that damn Sputnik went up three weeks ago. Christ, it's on the front page every day. It's even affected the way you talk.”

Buzzy laughed and removed one of the reefers from his envelope and lit it. He took a huge drag on it and held it in. As he exhaled, and a cloud of intoxicating blue smoke filled the room, he said, “Sputnik, nutnik, beatnik, neatnik, who cares?” In his hippest tone, he said, “The beats are all about beatitude, man. It's not about the beat, as in bongo drums, it's about beatitude, you know, being cool.”

Landis accepted the reefer from Buzzy and inhaled himself a dream. He rolled his eyes in a parody of Buzzy and said, “Crazy, man, crazy.”

Buzzy laughed, “You got it, Daddy-O! That's the reef, Chief.”

Roberta Bachman checked herself
one last time and hurried to the window. She had heard a car door slam and thought it might be Buzzy Haller, come to take her to the party. It wasn't. It was Janice's friend, Gladys.

“Hi, Gladys!” Janice said as she jerked open the door.

“Hi, Jan! I got the popcorn!”

They hugged and spilled into the house, full of girlish good feelings and smiles. Roberta sat back down on the couch, smiled in Gladys's direction, and went back to the book she was reading.

Gladys plunked herself down on the couch next to Roberta and whistled.

“Wow! That's some sexy outfit! My mother wouldn't let me out of the house with something like that on.” Her eyes widened in admiration. “And I don't know if I'd have the guts or the body for it anyway.”

Roberta adjusted her costume, slightly self-conscious now that Gladys had become the second person in ten minutes to make a comment.

“Well … my mother would have a heart attack, too, but she's not here, is she?”

“You guys are so lucky to have your own place! God, I would just die!”

Janice came in clutching her
TV Guide
.

“Popcorn's on!”

“What's on television tonight?”

“Need you ask?”

Janice and Gladys were both diehard TV fans. They watched everything and knew all the actors and actresses on every show.

Hollywood had taken it on the chin when TV became the number one form of entertainment in America almost overnight, but the two girls didn't care. They loved TV as much as the movies. LA had simply shifted gears and was fast becoming the TV production capital of the world.

To aspiring actresses like Janice and Gladys, it only meant more opportunities.

And the guys were soooooo cute.

“Let's see, ‘Wagon Train', ‘The Millionaire', ‘Ozzie and Harriet'.”

“I just love that Ricky Nelson. He is
so
handsome!”

Gladys jumped up. “Oh, didn't I tell you?! I got an audition for that new show, ‘Wyatt Earp'!”

“Oh my God! Hugh O'Brien!”

Roberta frowned. Her friends were idiots. “You two are completely cracked, you know that? I mean, is that all you think about? These TV shows are as dumb as comic books.”

“What's wrong with comic books?” Janice asked.

Roberta sighed. No hope. “Comic books are for children, just like those TV shows you like to watch.”

“Oh, and I suppose Buzzy Haller, who works for the one and only Landis Woodley, a real Ingmar Bergman type, I might add, is a sensitive intellectual!” Janice replied.

“Well … all I'm saying is that TV is mostly fluff, and films are a little more stimulating. At least, they have the potential to be. There are some great movies out there, it's an art form. TV's just throwaway stuff, free entertainment.”

Janice huffed. “Listen to you. Now you're putting down TV just because you're working for a film company, that's great. Take a look at yourself, Roberta. Tonight you're going to a Halloween party at a guy's house who makes movies like
Attack of the Haunted Saucer
, with another guy who makes rubber monsters, dressed as a sexy cigarette girl. And you've got the nerve to put down TV shows because they're too lowbrow for you? What's wrong here?”

Roberta considered her answer as the doorbell rang.

“There's Buzzy now,” she said gratefully.

“Einstein has arrived,” Janice mocked.

“Oh, leave her alone,” said Gladys. “Let her have some fun. You're just jealous.”

Janice inhaled sharply, another one of her many overly dramatic stage moves, and made a derisive sucking sound she once saw Bette Davis make. She might have spoken again, getting in the last word, when Roberta opened the door and there stood a tall, ruggedly handsome man with a blond crew cut and a fake goatee. His sweatshirt was torn and his jeans were faded. On his feet were sandals covering black socks.

Roberta gasped.

“Cool, baby, like wow! Nice costume!” he said. His eyes scanned her body. The cigarette-girl outfit revealed a tad more than Roberta felt comfortable with, and she was now unsure about her choice. This afternoon it had seemed so sophisticated, so exciting, so daring. Now it seemed like too much, or too little, as the case may be.

Roberta, stunned momentarily by his unabashed stare, looked down at her costume and blushed. She was embarrassed in two ways, once for herself and once for him. For a second there, she thought that Buzzy was actually dressed that way, then she realized, the beatnik getup was his costume.

Janice and Gladys stared from behind her, mouths agape.
It's a costume
, she thought,
thank God, it's only a costume
. She would have died of embarrassment in front of her friends if this were the real Buzzy Haller.

“Like my costume?” Buzzy asked.

“A beatnik?” Roberta asked.

“That's right, Daddy-O.”

“Cool,” said Janice, deadpan.

A sharp, acid look from Roberta cut Janice's tongue, and she refrained from further comment.

Roberta introduced Buzzy to her friends. He seemed nice enough. His hands were clean, and his teeth were white.

“It's interesting,” said Roberta. “But why a beatnik?”

“Why? You won't believe this, but Neal Cassidy is coming to the party.”

The three girls looked at each other blankly.

“I'm sorry. Neal Cassidy?”

“Yeah! From Frisco!”

More blank stares.

“Jack Kerouac? The book
On the Road
? Neal Cassidy is the character Dean Moriarty.”

Janice rolled her eyes, Gladys looked confused, and Roberta smiled. “Oh,” she said, “I've heard of that! It's a popular book right now, isn't it?”

Buzzy tugged at his sweatshirt. “‘Popular' is not a word I would use. Are you into Zen? You see, this whole thing
just
is.
Why it is
doesn't really matter, does it?”

“What are you talkin' about?” Gladys asked.

“I'm afraid I don't understand either,” replied Roberta, stealing a glance at her friends to see if they were making faces yet. Buzzy was a bit peculiar.

“Neal's gonna be at the party,” Buzzy finished. “He's a beat generation hero.”

Roberta smiled again, this time sweetly and with real amusement. “Really? Just what does this Neal Cassidy do that makes him a beat generation hero?”

“He drives around the country in old cars,” came the unpretentious reply.

Janice ran back to the kitchen, smelling burning popcorn, laughing like a maniac. Gladys was too interested in this strange man to laugh at him yet. Roberta got her coat.

“So,” Buzzy said as he led her out the door, “the reason I'm dressed as a beatnik is that the king of the beats is coming. It's in honor of him.”

“I see,” Roberta said, and closed the door behind her.

Albert Beaumond unpacked his
artifacts first, before thinking of anything else. He placed them carefully in a cabinet behind the altar in his worship area. The familiar images of Satan that adorned the walls of his “church” were comforting, but now that he had seen the true face of the antigod, all other representations were little more than quaint.

He would change all that soon. He would show the world the real Prince of Darkness in all his glory.

The cameras would roll, the skeptics would be forever silenced, the pilgrims would be converted, and his name, the name of Albert Beaumond, would live forever.

He had no doubt he would become the most famous man in the world.

And oh, the trouble he would make among the Christians!

While their God hid and confused his legions, Albert's would appear on the television, proving his existence every Friday night.

The priests would come to see for themselves, and Albert would laugh as their terror mounted. To the world's great religions, this would be their worst nightmare.

Proof of the devil's existence but not of God's.

Albert could visualize the new hordes of followers he would attract and command. The new power he would gain might destroy weaker men. Not Albert. Not the high priest of the world's biggest religion, the one that proves itself on demand.

The only religion in the universe that could actually reach out and grab you.

Thora stayed upstairs, listening to her collection of 45 RPM records, which she kept in a special case. She had over eighty different sides, mostly by all the new rock and roll artists that were exploding on the scene. Her favorite was that sullen, pouty “Hillbilly Cat” Elvis Presley.

Albert couldn't tell the difference between Ricky Nelson and Fats Domino, but he loved the spirit of rebellion in youth, and this new music captured that spirit like fireflies in a jar.

Little Richard boomed down the stairs. “The Girl Can't Help It” was as loud and raucous a record as Albert had ever heard. He smiled as he thought of his daughter jitterbugging around her room.

Apart from the Satanic worship, life in the Beaumond house seemed as normal as the Nelsons'. The phone rang, and Albert answered it in his office in the den.

“Hello?”

A woman's, voice, dark and husky, suggestive of gin and cigarettes, came down the telephone.

“Albert Beaumond? This is Devila. Did your daughter tell you I called?”

“Why, yes.”

“I saw you on TV last month, talking about your Satanic Church, and I thought you were absolutely marvelous.”

She pronounced the word “marvelous” as if it were “mahvelous,” and Albert smiled without thinking.

“Thank you,” he said modestly.

“You're a very handsome man, Mr. Beaumond.”

“Thanks … again.”

“I hope this is not too forward of me. May I get right to the point?” Her voice sounded quite deep for a woman.

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, I understand that you're single, and I was wondering if you'd accompany me to a party in Hollywood tonight. There will be lots of publicity, and I think you might actually enjoy yourself.”

Albert sat down behind his desk. A ram's skull mounted on the wall in front of him glared down as if to say, “Don't mock me.” The twisted horns and vacant eyeholes had a haunted, disorienting effect on him. Sometimes he would stare at it for hours.

“But why me, Miss Devila?”

“Because it's good publicity. You scare people, Mr. Beaumond. So do I, although you do it on a much more serious level than I do. The photographers will be there, and any picture of me with you would be sure to get in all the papers. Not to mention Jonathon Luboff—”

Albert leaned back. “Luboff? The great Luboff? He'll be there?”

“Oh, yes, and many more. Most of the people in the horror movie business will be there. It's Landis Woodley's house. His Halloween parties are famous.”

“Landis Woodley? He makes some pretty bad movies, doesn't he?” Albert's own voice sounded boorish compared to hers.

“The worst. I should know; I show them all the time,” she said. Albert wondered if she were wearing her Devila costume as she spoke to him. In a flash of cognition he realized that she would definitely be wearing it that night to the party. The thought made him itchy.

“What time would we have to arrive?” he asked slyly, barely suppressing his delight.

“No particular time,” she replied. “We're celebrities—we can go whenever we want. I've hired a hearse and driver for the evening.”

“Perfect,” Albert crooned. “Absolutely perfect.”

6

Jonathon Luboff injected the heroin into his left leg rather than fool around with the collapsed veins in his scarred arm. Being right-handed, he'd abused the left half of his seventy-year-old body so horribly, every fix had become a nightmare for the trembling old actor.

He checked the dose twice; he didn't want to get sick or nod out before the party. His career was already in ruins. More bad publicity, especially among the Hollywood insiders, would finish what pitiful little he had left in the way of work.

Luboff waited a few heartbeats before pulling the syringe out. It was a good, clean hit. His leg warmed and he felt the sweet numbness climb into his aged torso. A few moments later his brain reacted, and he experienced the familiar dreamy lightness that he'd spent the better part of his twilight years chasing.

He had considered suicide again today, but he procrastinated, hoping against hope that one of the big studios would call. The truth was he contemplated suicide nearly every day now, until he'd had his fix. Then it faded from his conscious mind like the ice melting in his morning glass of Scotch.

He had a monkey on his back that would have killed a younger man, but Jonathon Luboff was tough as nails. He'd already lived the equivalent of three lives in the space of one.

From the heights of stardom to the depths of despair, his roller-coaster karma never slowed down.

He looked in the mirror.

The face that looked back at him was as frightening as any monster or madman he'd ever played in the cinema. It was the eyes.