They Thirst (6 page)

"You've made a real mess here," the woman said, making a clucking sound with her tongue. "How many have you had?"

"Huh? Oh, just one. Watch your feet, babe. Shit, leave it for Natalie in the morning. She's got to have somethin' to do besides dumpin' out ashtrays and watchin' her goddamned soap operas!"

Estelle looked at him in silence for a few seconds. "You look funny, Mitch. Everything okay?"

"Funny? How?"

"Bothered, worried, I don't know. If business was bad, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?"

"Sure I would."
Like hell I would,
Gideon thought. The last time he'd tried to tell her about a business problem she fell asleep on him, still vacantly nodding her head. No one seemed to be interested in his problems anymore except Karen, Gideon's twenty-year-old mistress who lived out at Marina Del Rey. She made him feel like a kid again, but there were many nights spent just talking instead of fucking. Estelle had her lovers, too; Mitch could always tell when a new one had leeched onto her because she would always start taking exercise classes at the Beverly Hills Health Club again. They were always young men with tans—tennis players, lifeguards, beach bums. He didn't mind because he knew Estelle was smart enough not to let them get too near her purse. It was a good arrangement: he had his, she had hers. But in their own way they loved each other, even if not physically. They were good friends. And a divorce settlement would carve him too close to the bone because he'd built his business on the strength of her father's old New York money.

"It's cold out here," Estelle said. "Come on to bed."

"Yeah, yeah, I will." He stood motionless and felt the Kronsteen Castle at his back, tugging him like a magnet. "It's spooky . . ." he whispered.

"What's spooky? Mitch? You heard something on the radio about another one of those Roach murders?"

"No, not that. Damn it, what the hell happened to Mitzi? You'd think we would've heard something by now!"

She shrugged. "Dogs run away."

"Watchdogs aren't supposed to! I paid over three-hundred bucks for that bitch! You're telling me she ran away after
four years?"

"So maybe somebody stole her? I've heard of that before. Dognapping. They like to get Dobermans."

"Dognapping my ass! Mitzi would've chewed the fuckin' arms off anybody who tried to throw her into a car! It's just not safe in this fuckin' city anymore! Burglars breakin' into houses all up and down the canyon, nuts like the Roach runnin' around; the cops don't know which way to turn!" His eyes darkened. "And you remember what happened up at the Kronsteen place."

"That was eleven years ago," she reminded him.

"Eleven years or eleven minutes, it still happened, didn't it? Christ, I should know! I saw the old man's body . . . what was left of it." There was a thick dryness at the back of his throat and a taste similar to the smell of embalming fluid. He wished he hadn't broken that shot glass because he badly needed another sip of Chivas. He resisted the impulse to turn his head and like a man transfixed, stare off into the night, toward that huge pile of stone and concrete two miles away. If there was any other place that had a better view of L.A. than mine, Mitch thought, then the castle was it.
"The cops never found the maniacs who did it either. Probably never will."

"That's California for you," Estelle said quietly. "The land of nuts and fruits."

"The land of maniacs and murderers. I don't know, babe, I'm feeling awful damned strange these days. Spooked or somethin'. Scared." He ran a hand over his forehead; his fingertips were numb, like in that old game Dead Man's Hand where you squeezed a thumb until the blood drained out of it and it became so cold and alien that it hardly felt human at all. "Somethin' like what happened to old man Kronsteen could happen to us. It could happen to anybody."

"He was a loony," she said and shivered. "That was one loony killing another loony. Let's get in out of this wind."

"Mitzi," Gideon whispered. "What the fuck happened to my dog?"

"You can buy yourself another one." She reached out and took his arm. "Come on, let's go to bed."

Her hand felt deliciously warm against his. He looked at her, started to open his mouth to tell her about the strange feelings he was having lately—the weird visions of himself working on a conveyor belt where the caskets just kept coming one after the other as far as you could see—to tell her about how he thought he heard his name whispered in the wind when it came roaring through the canyon in the late hours of the night, to tell her that even during the day at any one of his six mortuaries scattered across the city he would find himself standing at a window, looking up into the hills where the horror actor's castle stood silent and impassive to sun or wind or rain. He wanted to tell her he was more afraid than he'd ever been in his entire life.

But Estelle's eyes were glazing, the lids already coming down like fleshy curtains. She smiled sleepily, and the mouth in that whitish-green face said, "Come on, hon. Beddy-bye time."

"Yeah," he said and nodded. "Okay." As he stepped into the house and turned to lock the sliding glass door, he thought,
Imagine' me, Mitch Gideon the Mortuary King, ruining good merchandise by throwing in shovelfuls of dirt. Christ, what a sin!
He drew the curtains and followed his wife into the house, the golden chains around his neck clicking together like the rattle of dry bones.

And the dark shape that had been crouched on the roof just above Mitch Gideon's terrace, took to the air on widespread, gleaming black wings.

"Ohhhhhhhhh," Gayle Clarke said, staring up at the apartment ceiling, sweet fire bubbling in her veins. "That feels sooooooo nice."

"Knew you'd like it," the man who lay at the
V
of her thighs said softly. He caressed her stomach with slow swirls for a moment, then leaned forward to continue what he was doing. His tongue darted and teased; she gripped his shoulders tight, tighter, fingers digging into the flesh. He finished her off with an excruciatingly slow figure eight, and she shuddered with pure delight as the third orgasm of the night rolled like a tidal wave through her body. "Oh God," she said, "it's . . . it's . . ." And then she couldn't say anymore because the weakness had spread to her tongue, and she felt like a leaf that had been blown to this bed by the force of a hurricane.

After a moment more Jack Kidd came up beside her and held her in his strong, lean arms. Gayle nuzzled his chest, drawing closer to him as she always did in the warmth aftermath of their love making. The dark hairs tickled her nose.

Jack kissed her forehead and then leaned over for the bottle of Chablis in the plastic cooler beside the bed. The ice was all melted now. He poured wine into a glass and sipped at it, then licked softly at Gayle's ear until she stirred and said, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Wine and ear lobes. Great combination."

"I'm sure." She reached up, took the glass, and sipped. "Wow, I'm tired. Thanks to you."

"You're welcome. Always willing to be of service."

"Pun noted, recorded, and rejected." She yawned and stretched until her joints popped. Her body was lithe and supple, though she was a small woman—only about five feet tall—who sometimes gave in to overwhelming urges for Oreo cookies and Mars candy bars. She played a lot of tennis, jogged infrequently, and spent time listening to Jefferson Starship and reading Franz Kafka when she was alone; she had turned twenty-two in September, and if she wasn't exactly a California beauty because of an overly wide mouth and dark brown eyes that always seemed to hold a hint of anger, she might be called, at the very least, vivacious. Long chestnut-brown hair, shimmering with auburn highlights, curled around her shoulders and was cut in bangs at her forehead. "What time is it?" she asked.

"Not midnight yet," Jack said.

"Yeah, but eight comes awfully early."

They were silent for a long time, their bodies side by side, then Jack said quietly, "It was important to me that you liked the whale flick. Really."

She lifted her head and ran a finger along his dark beard and mustache. "I do. The editing's tight, the narration's terrific . . . you're not worried about it, are you?"

"No, but . . . if I can get national distribution on this one, maybe it will be the break I've been looking for. Hell, if I could sell it to the networks. I'd be happy!" lie frowned slightly. "No, cancel that. They'd make it look like the Greenpeace people are fanatics or something. I don't want anybody else screwing with my film."

"So what's to worry about? Friedman can get some immediate campus bookings, can't he?"

"Yeah."

"The national angle will take care of itself. Besides, the film's hardly out of the can. And speaking of film, have you taken care of the assignment that Trace gave you?"

Jack grunted. "Finishing it up tomorrow. I hope. Got some nice shots of Clifton Webb's old house today. In the morning I'm heading out to Hollywood Memorial, and I hope that'll be the end of it."

"I can see Trace's headline for that piece right now." Gayle held up two fingers as if straightening the type across a front-page layout. " 'Does Clifton Webb Haunt Hollywood Cemetery?' And maybe a teaser line, 'Only the
LA Tattler Knows!'
Catchy, huh?"

"Like the plague." He was silent for a moment, and Gayle could almost hear the gears clicking in his head. "You know what I've been thinking of doing next? A film on the homes of old movie stars. Not the new houses, but the mansions with
history,
know what I mean? Webb's is one; you Can feel Old Hollywood oozing out of those walls. Flynn's is another. Valentino's, Barrymore, and . . . oh God,
yes! . . .
the Kronsteen castle! That would be a hell of a place for atmosphere!"

"What's so special about it?"

"Unsolved murder, babe. Old Kronsteen got his head chopped off up there a few years back, the place has been empty ever since. It's a real medieval castle, walls and towers and everything. High school kids go parking up there now. Jesus, I could do a whole film on that place alone!"

"Never heard of it," Gayle said.

"Before your time, babe. Mine too, but I drove up there once with a friend and a couple of chicks from Hollywood High. Many moons ago, that is, so don't get your feathers ruffled."

"Don't worry."

"Chuck knew the place, I didn't. Seems we went a hell of a long way up Outpost Drive and turned off onto a narrow road that went right up to the sky. Blacktree, Blackwood, something like that. Spooky as hell. I did some acid up there, and I swore I could hear that Bald Mountain thing from
Fantasia,
thought I saw demons flying around, all kinds of incredible colors. Strange trip."

"I'll bet. Before you start playing young Coppola again, you'd better wrap up those pictures for Trace. I've got a feeling he doesn't think the
Tattler
should arrange its deadlines around your film-making sessions."

"Why does he always give me the shit detail?" Jack frowned. "Last week it was a stunning photo-piece on vandalism out at the Wax Museum. Somebody carved his initials on Farrah's tits, knocked Elizabeth Taylor's head off, and played tic-tac-toe on Yul Brynner's skull. Christ! If I could just get a little bit ahead, maybe get somebody interested in my films or . . . I need a break, that's all. It'll happen, I know it will."

"I know it will, too, but a little patience wouldn't hurt. So what's all this junk about Cliff Webb's ghost being seen roaming around the cemetery?"

"Oh, every year a few people say they see somebody who looks like Webb strolling around Hollywood Memorial. It's nothing new. Last week a watchman thought he saw him . . . or it . . . in the cemetery after midnight ..

"Of course," Gayle said. "What ghost would be out before the witching hour?"

"Right. Well, Trace gets a wild hair and wants me to do the pictures for Sandy's story. The hell if I know what the story's going to say; I'm just clicking the shutter."

"So?"

"So what?"

"So what about the ghost? What happened after that watchman saw it?"

Jack shrugged. "I suppose it did what all ghosts do. It melted away or broke up into a thousand shimmering lights or . . .
heh heh heh . . .
turned toward the watchman's flashlight with a cold, red glare in its eyes. You don't really believe in that stuff, do you?"

"No, not at all. Now can we change the subject, please?"

He smiled and licked her arm, sending up a rash of goosebumps. "Gladly, Miss Clarke . . ." He lifted the sheets slightly and began to nibble on her right breast. The nipple hardened quickly, and Gayle began to breathe faster. "Better than ear lobes any old day," Jack managed to say.

Then suddenly from beyond the closed bedroom door came the sound of frenzied clawing. the door for a few seconds. He said loudly, "Cut it out, Conan!" The clawing went on and with it an occasional low whining.

"He's jealous," Gayle said. "He wants to come in."

"No, he's been acting crazy for a couple of days now." Jack stood up from the bed, took his bathrobe from where he'd laid it over a chair, and put it on. "He's clawing at the front door," Jack told her. "Maybe he's got a girl friend of his own. Back in a minute." He crossed the room, opened the door, and passed through a short hallway decorated with some of his framed photographs. In the small living room furnished with a brown sofa and a couple of wicker chairs, Jack found his three-year-old boxer clawing hunks out of the front door. The dog, large enough to place his paws on his master's chest when he stood on his powerful back legs, looked as if he were trying to burrow through the wood. Splinters were flying around the dog's head.