They Thirst (44 page)

"Get away!" he gasped, trying to scrabble to his feet. They wouldn't work; his brain spun between poles of frost and fire.

. . . for you," Merida said. "Now we can be together forever. . ."

"NO! NO!" His voice cracked, his eyes about to pop out of their sockets. Deep inside himself he heard the first faint chucklings of mad laughter.

"Yes," the vampire whispered. "Forever and forever and forever." She reached toward Rico, her eyes glimmering like Sunset Strip neon. He screamed and thrust out his arms to protect himself, to give himself a few more seconds of life. Merida grasped his right arm, grinned, and sank her fangs into a vein at his wrist.

He was shot through with pain, and now he could hear her sucking the life out of him. He tried to strike at her with his other hand, but she grabbed that wrist and held it with extraordinary strength. Her fangs plunged deep, not missing a drop. Her eyes began to roll back in her head with pleasure, and Rico began tumbling down into a dark place that was so terribly cold, so . . . terribly . . . terribly . . . cold . . .

When she was finished, she let his arm drop to the floor. She crouched down on all fours and licked up the few red spots of blood that she had missed. Then she crawled over to Rico and cradled his head against her bosom, gently rocking his cold body back and forth. "Now," she said. "Now, we'll be together for always. We'll always be young . . . and we'll always be in love. Sleep, my precious. Sleep." She held him awhile longer, then she went to the unmade sofa-bed and pulled off the sheets. She laid the sheets down on the floor, dragged him into the middle, and wrapped him up.
Now,
she thought as she finished the task,
you can sleep undisturbed until the Master bids you to awaken.
She knew he'd be filled with hunger when he got up and might not be able to hunt for himself, so she would come back to help him. Her love knew no bounds. She dragged Rico's shrouded form into the closet, piled a couple of cardboard boxes around him, and closed the door. Now the sun, that hated bringer of pain, couldn't get to him.

The Master would be pleased with her work.

She left the room and raced along Sunset Boulevard to help the others in the hunt. She was getting quite good at following the blood scent.

"Arista wants you, Wes," Jimmy Kline was saying as he drove along Sunset, disregarding the kids who were stalking the sidewalks in what seemed to him record numbers for this hour. "They'll kill to get you after the Brooks deal is hammered down. And that is when our price goes
up.
Waaayyyyy up. Hell, they can't afford not to grab you up while you're hot!"

Wes sat in the back seat of Jimmy's custom-built, white Cadillac, his arm around Solange. The evening had been too much for her, and now her head was nestled on his shoulder. "That Chuck guy was pretty funny, wasn't he?" he said. "What was his last name?"

"Crisp or Kripes or something like that. I'll tell you how I'm going to play Arista, Wes. Long and cold. I'll give 'em the old baleful stare when they quote facts and figures to me. Ha! I'll have 'em climbing the walls ready to sign anything. 'Sheer Luck' is going to be a hit for ABC, and the record companies are going to come crawling to us on their fucking knees! You want to hear a tape or something?"

"No," Wes responded quietly. "I'm fine."

"Okay, Hey! How'd you like to do a couple of Vegas dates? We could write our own ticket!"

"I don't know. I've got bad memories of Vegas. Maybe I should just keep a low profile for a while and see what develops."

"Low profile?" Jimmy said as if Wes had uttered the ultimate profanity. "Did I hear you right, man?
Low profile?
The only people keeping low profiles in this town are the has-beens! We've got to strike while the iron's hot. You know that as well as I do. Christ!" He suddenly twisted the wheel to the right, swerving to avoid a group of spaced-out kids who'd run out into the street right in front of the Caddy. "You fucking jerks!" Jimmy shouted, giving them the finger as he drove past. They scattered, grinning and jeering. "Bunch of freaks!" Jimmy said, his face flushed. "Christ! We almost killed us about four punks back there. What an item for Rona's column, right?"

"Yeah, right," Wes said nervously. He glanced back and saw the kids leaping out again in front of a Spitfire convertible. The car screeched to a halt, and the kids moved forward. Then he turned away and didn't look anymore because suddenly he was filled with dread.

"Where do all these freaks live?" Jimmy said, glancing around at the people hanging out in front of stores and bars. "What do they do, just come out at night or something?"

Solange suddenly sat up as if she'd never been sleeping at all. "What's happening?" she said, her tone of voice alert.

"Nothing. Jimmy's driving us home. Go back to sleep."

"No." She looked around. "Aren't we there yet?"

Wes smiled. "We just left the Improv about fifteen minutes ago. I suppose you don't remember the three glasses of Chablis you put away?" He looked into the rearview mirror at Jimmy's eyes. "What'd you say that guy's name was again? Chuck what?"

"Kreskin. No, that's not it."

"He's a good comedian. His material's really sharp. The audience liked him too."

"I guess they did. Of course, everybody knows you could get up there on your worst night and blow him or anyone else right off the stage. Cream rises to the top, Wes. That's why he's working the Improv and you've got an ABC contract."

"Footsteps," Wes said quietly.

"What?"

"Footsteps," he repeated. "Footsteps in the dark, coming up behind you. You can run your ass off, run until your heart's about to burst, and then when you slow down, you think you won't hear them, but there they are right behind you."

"Solange, what's our crazy golden boy talking about?"

"Sometimes I wonder," Wes mused, "what would've happened to me if I hadn't stepped up on that stage for the first time. It was right there in the Comedy Store on a Monday night—amateur night—and I was just off the bus from Winter Hill and scared shitless. I was supposed to meet an old frat buddy at the Greyhound station, but the bastard didn't show up, so I started walking, lugging suitcases. Jesus! I must've dragged those things twenty blocks. I "didn't even know where I was going. Anyway, I saw this poster tacked up—Monday Night's Potluck at The Comedy Store. The Stage Is Yours! I found myself a motel room and started practicing in front of the mirror. Which had a big crack in it—I'll always remember that—and I was afraid it was going to be bad luck. But I figured somebody else broke it, so it was somebody else's bad luck. Right?"

"Definitely," Jimmy said.

Wes smiled at the flood of memories. It all seemed so very long ago, but then time in L.A. was deceptive. When you're riding high and surrounded with friends, time speeds up, turning the months and weeks into days and hours. But when you're down and all alone, every minute stretches into a poisonous eternity. "I never saw a stage as big as that one was," he said. "I never again saw one as big either. There was a long line of people waiting to go on in front of me. Some of them were really good; the others just slunk off stage when they were finished beating their dead horses. God, what a night that was! The guy in front of me was a short order cook named Benny . . . uh . . . Kramer, I think his last name was. He did sound effects—ray guns, flying saucers, machine guns, and bombs with a half-assed running commentary. He was a nice guy but as stiff as a board up there. El Stiffo. After they carried him out, somebody pushed me from behind, and I went stumbling out into the Lights. Christ, they were . . . so bright." His voice had steadily become lower, his eyes glazed with remembrances. Jimmy glanced at him every once in a while in the rearview mirror. They were driving through Beverly Hills now, heading toward Bel Air. "So bright," he said. "They burned into you like lasers; they made the sweat pop out of your pores. I could just barely see the people sitting up close to the stage, but I was aware of the whole staring . . .
mass
of them out there. I could see light glinting off glasses and ashtrays, and it seemed like the whole place was full of noise—people coughing like they'd swallowed their dinners whole, talking back and forth across the room like I wasn't even there at all, hollering for a waitress. It was then that I knew I was a looooong way from fraternity parties and podunk clubs. This was the big time, and it was going to be
tough."
He paused, staring out the window.

"Were you good?" Solange asked, holding his hand.

"I was shitty," he admitted and smiled. "My timing was off, I blew most of the punch lines, and I stood like I had a poker up my ass. About two minutes into the act, the crowd started calling for my blood. It was Gong Show reject all the way. I forgot the rest of my jokes and went nuts, started blabbering on about growing up in Winter Hill and how funny my folks and friends had always thought I was. That drove the last nails into my coffin. I think I must've crawled off that stage on my hands and knees because I sure don't remember walking off. And that was my big debut in Hollywood." He squeezed her hand. "But I got myself a job selling shirts at the Broadway, and I went back the next Monday night. And the next, and the next. I found out that if you wanted God on your side, you had to work like a demon, and I did. I threw out all the jokes that had worked at the frat parties and started from scratch. After a couple of months of that, they wouldn't let me do amateur nights anymore. People were asking for me. I started doing shows on New Comedians Night. Sometimes I bombed, sometimes I won them over. But I always worked my ass off. And then one night this guy came backstage and asked me if I was interested in writing some material for the Carson show. Rags to riches." He pondered that for a moment and then added, "to rags to riches."

"Rags? Shit!" Jimmy said. "In your worst year, after 'Just You 'n Me' went under, you were clearing a hundred thou!"

"Which went just about as fast as it came in," Wes reminded him. "You forget how far a hundred thousand goes in this town these days."

" Tis true," Jimmy said. "Regrettably true."

Solange shivered and drew closer to him. "What's wrong?" he asked, "Are you cold?"

"I'll turn up the heat." Jimmy reached for the climate control.

"I'm all right," she said. "I'm only tired."

He looked at her closely. "You've been acting strange all day," he said softly. "You coming down with a cold or something?"

She shook her head. "I only want to get to sleep."

Wes saw there was something more to it than that, but he knew from experience that when Solange wanted to keep something to herself, nobody on God's earth could get it out of her. He remembered yesterday morning. It had taken him almost ten minutes to snap her out of the trance she'd fallen into. She'd been sleeping with her eyes open.

"So just think about a couple of Vegas dates, will you, Wes?" Jimmy said. They were driving along a curving boulevard lined with tall palm trees, and they hadn't seen another car for five minutes.

"Vegas?" Wes repeated. "I don't know . . ."

"Las Vegas?" Solange gripped his hand tighter. "Could you get a job there?"

"Babe, when 'Sheer Luck' starts rolling in the Neilsons, old Wes could get a job in Fairbanks!"

"That would be nice, Wes," she said, looking at him hopefully. "A week or two in Las Vegas maybe? Or a month? Why not?"

"I'm not ready for that right now. I want to take it easy."

"Easy, smeasy," Jimmy muttered.

"Why not do it?" Solange continued. "It might be good to . . . to get away from Los Angeles for a while. You could relax in . . ."

"Get away from Los Angeles?" Wes said. He'd caught the emphatic tone in her voice, and his eyes narrowed slightly. "Why? What's so important to you about going to Vegas?"

"It's not important to me. I just thought you might enjoy the change."

"I wouldn't. You know what I think about working in Vegas. It's an armpit town as far as progressive comedy goes. Those people just want somebody to ease them down after losing their shirts . . ."

"HOLY CHRIST!" Jimmy suddenly shouted.

Wes twisted his head around. He heard the high squeal of brakes and saw a gray car hurtle into the intersection on a collision course with the Caddy. Jimmy wrenched the wheel and slammed on the brakes, but Wes saw that the gray car, a Maserati, was coming too fast. He saw a face behind the wheel—eyes widened in horror, mouth opened in a soundless scream. He grabbed Solange, then the two cars hit in a jarring
whump
of rending metal. Glass shattered very close to Wes's ear; the interior of the Cadillac seemed to be filled with angry hornets. Solange screamed. Wes's head rocked forward and hit the back of Jimmy's seat, then he was thrown against the door with rib-cracking force. For an instant the Cadillac seemed in danger of going over on its side; the Maserati seemed to keep on coming, its gray torpedo of a nose plowing into the Caddy's side. Then the Cadillac righted itself, slammed against a palm tree, and was still.

The ticking of hot engines sounded like a bomb about to go off. "Are you okay?" Wes said to Solange. "ARE YOU OKAY?" She nodded, her eyes glazed, a blue bruise coming up over her right cheekbone. "You crazy or something?" he shouted at the Maserati's driver, but all he could see was a shattered windshield.
The sonofa-bitch must've been doing eighty!
he thought.
Must've been doing ninety fucking miles an hour when he came into the intersection!
The entire right side of the Cadillac was folded in, all sharp angles of leather and metal. The front of the Maserati had been crushed like an accordion, the hood almost ripped from its hinges.