They Thirst (15 page)

"Good? It was terrific! It'll be leading the schedule in three weeks!"

Wes reached up and caught Jimmy's arm as he and the Arista men started to move away. "Don't bullshit me," Wes said quietly. "It was good, wasn't it?"

"Stellar," Jimmy said; he flashed a quick smile and was gone.

God is on my side,
Wes thought, relaxing again. And then:
Solange? Where the hell is she?,
He rose unsteadily from the chair, and immediately a path cleared before him. Hands clapped him on the back, faces mouthed words he couldn't hear. He wandered around looking for Solange, the last of his reefer crumbling in ashes to the floor.

A moment later he found her, sitting with a group of people on the long, dark brown sofa near the center of the room. She was drinking white wine from a crystal goblet, her long brown fingers curved delicately around the stem. On a low table in front of her, three candles burned in brass holders, the golden light setting amber fire to her skin, glittering in the black pools of her slightly almond-shaped eyes. A backgammon board and a huge vase of dried flowers had been cleared away to make room for a Ouija board; Solange was staring at the white planchette as she drank her wine, her gaze at once vacant and intense. A few people sat around her, smoking pot and drinking wine, looking from Solange's beautiful, sculpted, Oriental-African face to the board. "Come on, Solange," Wes heard one of the men say. "Do it for us. Call up . . . oh . . . call up Marilyn Monroe or somebody."

Solange smiled faintly. "You want party games. You don't want to be serious," she said in a voice as cool as the October wind.

"We'll be serious," the guy said, but he was smiling too widely. "Promise. Come on, call up . . . Sharon Tate . . ."

"Oh, Christ, no!" a girl with long, shimmering waves of blond hair said, her eyes terror-stricken; Wes recognized her from the current NBC hit, "Skate Fever."

"How about Oswald?" somebody else said, blowing on a stick of jasmine incense just to make the sparks fly. "That fucker'll talk to anybody."

"Clifton Webb." The NBC starlet slid over closer to the Ouija board but seemed afraid to touch it. "I hear he's prowling around again."

"No." Solange looked into a candle, her cat eyes narrowing. The candle flame flickered very gently. "I don't think I want to do this tonight. Not here, not with everyone standing around." The light glittered off the hundred or so tiny brass beads strung in the tight braids of her ebony hair. "The spirits won't answer if the mood isn't right."

"What's wrong with the mood?" the guy who wanted to talk to Oswald asked; he waved the incense stick around, his glazed eyes hypnotized. "Seems fine to me. Do it, Solange. Call somebody up for us."

"The spirits don't like to be laughed at." She sipped at the wine but did not move her gaze from the candle's flame. From where he stood, Wes could see the flame undulating very slowly, and a sudden chill skittered down his spine. It was the same kind of chill he'd felt when he'd first looked into Solange's eyes in the Presidential Suite of the Las Vegas Hilton almost a year ago.

"I've got it, luv," the thin young man sitting on

Solange's left said. He was Martin Blue, the British whiz-kid who'd produced Wes's first comedy album for Warner's over three years ago. Blue smiled like a fox. "Conjure up . . . oh, what was his name? . .. Kronsteen. Orlon Kronsteen."

The NBC starlet—Missy something, Wes thought her name was—laughed nervously. There was a moment of silence while the party swirled around the group at the table; Wes thought they looked afraid, all except Solange who wasn't smiling anymore.

Time to save her ass,
he thought and stepped forward into the candlelight. "What is this?" he said, his voice somewhat slurred. "Ghost stories? It's not Halloween yet, kiddies."

"Hi there, Wes," Martin Blue said. "We're trying to get your woman here to conjure us up ..

"I don't conjure," Solange said softly.

"Yeah, I heard all this bullshit." Wes plopped himself down on the sofa and stretched. "You want to talk to Kronsteen so bad, Martin, why don't you hike on up to that little fortress he built and give out a yell? He'll probably come floating out with his head in his hand."

"Oh, don't!" Missy said and squirmed in her seat "Wasn't he that old actor who . . . ?"

"Horror flick actor," Wes corrected her. "Made about a hundred of 'em. Enough to get rich on, at least. They still play some of them on Creature Features."

"What happened to him?" she asked, looking at Martin and Solange, then back to Wes.

"Kronsteen married a European heiress he met on location. It turned out she had cancer, leukemia, something like that; after she died, he went a little nuts and used the rest of their money to bring that castle over from Europe. About ten or eleven years ago, somebody stripped old Kronsteen naked up there, tortured him with cigarettes and a hot poker, and hung his corpse up from a chandelier when they were through. Oh, yeah, whoever did it cut Kronsteen's head off with a rusty hacksaw and took it with 'em when they left. One of the legends of Hollywood, my dear, guaranteed to send you out shopping for an electrified fence or a couple of guard dogs."

Missy shivered, and the guy next to her, the incense waver, took her hand.

"So you see?" Wes continued, his eyes scanning the group, "there are a lot of Roaches in this town, a lot of homicidal nuts, and some of them would just love to go running around up here in Bel Air with a machete or an icepick. Sooner or later all us celebs have to wall ourselves in."

"You're kidding me. That's not true about Kronsteen . . . about his head."

"God's truth, luv," Martin said with a pleasant smile. He turned back to Solange, who was passing a finger back and forth through the flame. "Let's hear from Orlon, luv.
If
you can do it.
If
you're really a medium."

"Knock it off," Wes said. "This is a party, not a goddamned seance."

"Oh, but s6ances can be so much fun. And so informative. Maybe Orlon can tell us who the Roach is. A ghost can see everything, can't he?" He glanced at his gold Rolex. "Two minutes until midnight. The witching hour, eh?"

"Martin," Wes said sourly, "you've got your head up your ass." But when he looked at Solange, she was staring intensely, right through him.

"There is no need to call those who are already here," Solange whispered.

"Huh? What'd she say?" Martin leaned forward, but for a minute or so Solange didn't speak. Finally she whispered softly, "You're a fool, Martin. You want to play games with something beyond your understanding. The spirits see and know everything, and they are always here—in the shadow of a candle, at the center of its flame, stirring like smoke through the air. They are always trying to break through, to speak to those of us on this plane. Though most often we would not like what they have to say." She turned the full force of her gaze on Martin Blue.

"Well," he said, but his voice had climbed a pitch. "What are we waiting for? Let's find out who the Roach is, shall we? Or at least what happened to Mr. Kronsteen's head."

Solange glanced at Wes through heavy-lidded eyes. "Very well," she said softly. "Wes, will you sit beside me and help me guide the planchette?"

"How about letting me?" Martin asked quickly. "I've heard tales of your being able to do this sort of thing, but . . . I'd like to be sure it isn't faked. No offense of course, luv."

"Of course. None taken. Then slide over here so you'll be touching me, thigh to thigh. Now place your fingertips on the planchette opposite mine. That's too heavily, you have to let your fingers just graze the top of it. Ah. Better." She closed her eyes and smiled slightly. "I can feel the electricity already."

"I don't feel a fucking thing," Martin announced to the others.

"Solange," Wes said, "you don't have to prove..

"I think I do. You're pressing again, Martin. Let your fingers relax."

Wes looked around; for the first time he realized that a lot of people had gathered around them and were watching with interest. The thunderous sound of the stereo had quieted to a dull rumble; the grand piano was silent.

"It's too loud in here. I can't concentrate," Solange said. A mumble rippled through the audience, and the stereo went off. Wes could hear drunken laughter from the pool. He leaned back on the sofa, watching Solange's brown face turn dreamy; Martin was smiling, mugging at people who stood around him.

"I don't think I like . . ." Missy began nervously. But Solange hissed, "Quiet I" From somewhere in the distance Wes thought he could hear the shrill pipings of wind through the Bel Air streets, over the manicured lawns and brick walls and wrought-iron gates, around the sharp angles of the million-dollar mansions. Solange's eyes had narrowed into slits; they rolled back until Wes could see the whites, and her mouth slowly opened. Missy gasped suddenly, and the gasp was repeated through the room. Wes felt his heartbeat quickening and wished he had another joint. "My mind is open," Solange said in an odd, faraway tone just above a whisper. "The pathway is open. Use us as your voice. My mind is open. The pathway is open. Use us as your voice. . ."

"Shall I intone anything?" Martin said. He laughed, but no one paid any attention.

". . . pathway is open. Use us as your voice. My mind is..

Martin's eyes were getting larger, and if Wes hadn't been so tense, he might have laughed at the sight. "Jesus!" Martin said. "How long does this go . . . SHIT!" He jumped and pulled his fingers back from the planchette.

. . us as your—
Martin, don't break the contact!—
voice. My mind is open . . ."

He touched the planchette again but gingerly, his hands trembling. "I thought I felt it . . . CHRIST! IT MOVED!" But this time he kept his fingers on it, and as the planchette moved a tentative inch or so, another murmur went through the onlookers. Wes leaned forward, his heart pounding. The planchette stalled, then began to move again smoothly now across the board. "We've made a contact," Solange whispered, her eyes still closed. "Let it flow. Martin, you're trying to slow it down."

The planchette began to make long, slow circles. "Who are you?" Solange asked. The planchette slid quickly over to YES. She repeated the question, and it lay still for a moment, then dropped toward the lines of black letters imprinted on the board. "Read the letters off to me," Solange said.

Wes slid across the sofa so he could see the board better. "B," he read. "O . . . B . . ." The planchette dipped and swirled as if riding on a waxed surface. "Another B . . . Y . . ." The planchette stopped. "Bobby."

"Bobby will act as our guide, then," Solange whispered. "The contact is strengthening now. It's becoming very strong . . ."

"My fucking fingers are burning . . Martin croaked.

"What did you do in life?" Solange asked.

The planchette started to spell again, faster than before. Wes read, "M . . .E. . .S. . .S. . .A. . . G . . . E . . ." That word was repeated twice more, faster each time.

And then another word took shape. "E," Wes said. "V . .. I. . . Evil. It's spelling
Evil."

"Is that your message?" Solange's voice was a quiet murmur in the silent room. "What does it mean?"

The planchette spun in a mad circle, dropped back to the letters. E, V, I, L, E, V, I, L.

"Are there others with you?"

YES.

"Who?"

S, A, M, E, L, I, K, E, M, E.

"Christ!" Missy breathed and reached for her wineglass. She spilled some on her designer jeans before it reached her mouth.

"Who's the Roach?" Martin blurted out. "What's his name?"

The planchette was still. Solange repeated the two questions slowly, and almost immediately the planchette haltingly spelled out—E, V, I, L, U, S, I, N, G, H, I, M.

"Using him?" Wes said. "What's that supposed
to
mean?"

'There is one among us who would reach Orlon Kronsteen," Solange went on, in a whisper. "Is he with you?"

Immediately, YES.

"Then let him come forward."

There was a long pause. The planchette seemed to be dead. And then suddenly it almost leaped off the board. Martin said, "SHIT!" as the thing spun from side to side, from YES to NO to MAYBE and back again, three or four times. "Unfocused energy," Solange said calmly. "Quiet, quiet. Do you have a message?"

"This is even better than the
Crosswits,"
Wes said under his breath; Martin glanced at him and giggled nervously.

But then the planchette dropped to the bottom of the board so quickly it seemed only a blur. It began to race along the lines of letters. Wes leaned forward. "E, V," he read. "EVIL. EVIL. It's repeating the same thing over and over again."

"Is this Kronsteen?" Solange asked.

YES. YES. YES. Then, EVIL. EVIL. Again and again.

"Quiet, quiet. What's evil? Can you tell us?"

The planchette vibrated, seemed to spin in midair. Then it moved again, gathering speed until it had spelled out a new word so quickly Wes barely had time to read it. "T, H, E, Y." The planchette stopped, and Wes looked up at Solange. "THEY. Fine message from the spirit world, huh?"