Dockalfar (2 page)

It was her money that paid the rent and bought the food. It was her beauty and the sweetness of her voice that made her popular with the local clubs and earned her a healthy salary. It was her memory that kept him sane all those lonely, frightening months.

He stood in the door to the living room and stared at her. She had a single lamp on. She sat in the floor, her night robe spread about her like a pool of creamy silk. Her hair, God, he loved her hair, as soft as any imagining and deeply burnished red. It tumbled about her shoulders in soft waves, making him bite his lip with need to put his hands in it. In the lamplight her skin was smooth yellow cream, unblemished and unfreckled despite her fiery hair coloring. Her radio, bigger than a bread box and then some, quietly poured forth some song he did not know. But Victoria softly mouthed the words, her voice more pure than the one coming over the air waves. She had a pad on the floor before her, and occasionally bent down to scribble something on it. He quietly walked into the room as she was doing so. She glanced up at his step, her brows furrowed slightly.

“Did I wake you?”

“Never,” he said, smiling at her, sitting down on the high backed sofa behind her, leaning forward to put his hands on her shoulders and rub his cheek against the soft fall of her hair. She leaned back, content, resting between his knees.

“It’s the new Rosemary Clooney tune. Do you like it?”

With her between his legs the attention he paid to the radio was minor.

“You sound better.”

She smiled up at him. “You, sir, are biased.”

“I know.” He brushed his lips across her temple. “But it’s true.”

She accepted the compliment with grace. “I think I’ll use it tomorrow night. You will be there, won’t you?”

“You’ve asked me that a dozen times. I’ll be there. Watching you is like watching an angel descend.” She waved a hand at him negligently.

“How can I ever live up to your flattery, Alex. Oh, I would so like to do something of my own.”

He glanced down at the pad by her knee. “Is that what you’re working on there?”

She nodded, reaching down to snag the pad. “That’s what got me up. I had a dream. The most wonderful lyrics came to me. I had to write them down before I forgot. Listen.” She recited a litany of words that brought to mind dark passions and exotic, lush emotions. It spoke of painful love and overwhelming desire. It might have served as macabre romantic poetry, instead of the love ballads the songs of the time seemed to aim towards.

He stared at her, still stroking her hair. She tilted her head expectantly.

“You dreamed that?” he finally asked.

“Sort of,” she agreed.

“It’s unusual.”

“You don’t like it.” Victoria pouted.

“No, I didn’t say that. I’m just trying to imagine it put to music. It’s sort of dark.”

She sighed and put the pad down. “I know. It must be me. Maybe I’m worried about you.”

“About me? Why?”

“Oh, Alex, you just seem so unhappy. Your nightmares. How horrible it must have been for you.”

His lips thinned. The war and Victoria were two separate things. They had to be kept separate. He wanted a clear definition between them. He could not share the feelings, the terror of ‘that’ with Victoria. It would somehow sully her.

Make her less of a safe haven. And he needed a safe haven for escape when reality became to much.

“Don’t worry about me, Victoria,” he said flatly. “I’m fine. You know I am.”

She frowned, staring up at him from an angle. Then finally she sighed and laid her head against his knee.

“I believe you, Alex. I believe you.

You came back to me and that’s all that matters.”

“Why wait?” He whispered into her hair a question he had been asking her since his return to civilization. “Why wait to get married? Let’s just do it.”

“Alex, I told you. We will get married, but let’s wait until my brother gets back. He’s my only family and I promised him he would see me marry. I love you, Alex, more than anything, but I owe Tommy that.”

“I want you as my wife,” he protested, sounding sulky to his own ears.

“And I want you as my husband. Just a little while longer. His tour of duty will be up soon. And it can be a Christmas wedding. That would be wonderful.”

“All right.”

She could talk him into anything. With her soft voice and her limpid green eyes.

“I just want to make an honest woman out of you.” He grinned lopsidedly. She pinched his thigh.

“We’re not living in sin. We’re living in love.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Another song lyric?”

She giggled. “Maybe. Another time.”

She wrapped her arms about his neck and drew his lips down to hers. She was a heaven that no amount of nightmares could take away.

~~~

The Flamingo was one of Kansas City’s finest night clubs. The dining was the best in the city and the entertainment had the reputation of being one notch away from Hollywood. The clientele were elite and powerful, and only a fraction of the crowds that waited to get inside were ever actually accommodated. Tuxedoed waiters wound though the tables. Women in designer dresses danced with men in their finest evening wear. The band was big and sounded it. The only reason Alex found himself inside the Flamingo’s elegant domain was the fact that Victoria was the star attraction.

He sat at a small round table, near the back on the second level. He had a good view of the dance floor and the twenty piece band. Since Victoria had yet to make her appearance, he watched the people. The rich old men and their young, pretty wives. Or maybe just young pretty escorts that had nothing to do with matrimony. Men young enough to have fought in the war, but rich enough to avoid it, strutting about as if they had something to be proud about. Matrons that came here for the atmosphere and the prestigious company. The beautiful, beautiful women that came hoping to catch the eye of a man of wealth. And they all came, he liked to think, because of Victoria. They called her the ‘Siren’ on the posters outside. Victoria McFadden, the singing siren. There was a talent scout here tonight. A man that had come all the way from Hollywood to hear Victoria sing. Alex had tried to spot him in the crowd, but all the wealth and the power looked alike to him. All that mattered was that he was here, and that one look at Victoria, one note from her perfect voice and he would be enthralled.

Everyone was. She wanted this so very much. So Alex wanted it for her. She was too beautiful and too talented not to have recognition. He would be content to stay on the sidelines and bask in her radiance.

As long as she was happy. That was what mattered.

There was a lull in conversation and the lights went down in front. He perked up, focusing his attention to the slightly raised dais where the band played. The lazy strains of ‘Sentimental Journey’

poured out into the room. There was a spattering of applause. Then Victoria came out and the clapping grew. She was a vision in a floor length beaded dress.

Low cut and tight sleeved, her glorious hair in a sequined net at the base of her neck. The whole room went silent at her first note, all of them floating along on the waves of her silk and satin voice. He drifted with the rest. She gave the room little time to catch its breath, immediately moving on to ‘My Blue Heaven’. After another half dozen songs, including the new Clooney song she’d been listening to last night, she finished up the set to a standing ovation. The band played on after she gracefully walked off the stage.

People congratulated her as she passed, men kissed her hand. She worked her way through the tables and the greetings towards him. A rising star, that found it in her heart to love a man whose only great talent in life was flying the plane that he had been shot down in. She climbed the stairs to the balcony and beamed down at him.

“I was good, wasn’t I?” She leaned down and pressed her cheek against his.

“You were fantastic, Vicky.”

“Come down with me and talk to Mr. Williams.” She was beaming at him, her face alight with excitement.

“Are you sure?” He looked past her to the sea of black clad men and glittering women. “I don’t want to mess things up for you.”

“Silly.” She poked him with one long nailed finger. “You could never do that.

Come down with me.”

They went down to sit at the table with Mr. Williams from Hollywood and his entourage of beautiful women and powerful men. Victoria got compliments and encouragement, while he found himself the subject of curious stares.

Someone asked him a few conciliatory questions about the war and his service and he answered blandly, the standard answers to the standard questions. They were not interested in him, they were interested in Victoria. He was excess baggage. He was a young man with haunted eyes, who looked out of place in the suit the Flamingo required all its patrons wear. He was here because Victoria wanted it. And they were catering to Victoria.

The talk went past him. They spoke of contracts and screen tests and things that held little interest to him. He sat staring at Victoria and seeing the cresting waves of an unfriendly ocean. Remembering the sound the Zeros made when you played chicken with them. The sputter of torrents as they spat forth hot lead. Victoria caught his arm and brought him out of it – she was grinning at him, talking rapid fire.

The tail end of it sunk in. Tomorrow she was going to meet with Mr. Williams again and look over a contract. She asked his opinion, eyes expectant. He lied and told her everything sounded fine. He had heard very little of the details.

They took a cab home, and climbed the steps to her apartment. She chattered a while about what she was going to wear tomorrow, how she would do her hair, and he sat and watched her. Finally she put on her best nightgown and her flowing robe, silk and lace against her creamy skin, that made him forget about everything but her. She unfastened his suspenders and unbuttoned his shirt, her long fingers trailing across the skin of his chest. She let her lips follow where her fingers led. They fell back on the bed, melding together. Crisp white cotton sheets and tasseled crocheted coverlet bunching beneath them. She healed him.

She always healed him, even when the injuries were self-inflicted. It was the way with them. He dreamed of nightmares and the horrors he had experienced and seen.

She dreamed of saving souls with her light. God, his soul needed saving, and if his deity was a mortal woman, then let heaven look down in jealousy, for he would have it no other way.

They lay together afterward, her cheek against his chest, her hair fanning out over his skin.

“Victoria Morgan,” she experimented. “That sounds better than Victoria McFadden. It’ll make a better stage name.”

“Stage name?” he said with a sniff.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she chided him for his sensitivity. “If I get this contract and I marry you, I’ll be the happiest woman in the world.”

They lay in silence for a while more, then she ventured. “When you’re better, when your shoulder is all knit, what do you think you’ll do? What do you want to do?”

After a long pause, he shrugged under her. “I don’t know. I’ll find something.”

“I know you will,” she whispered, tightening her arms around him. Then she rose suddenly with a wild grin. “I’m hungry, are you hungry?”

She grabbed her robe and fumbled for the lamp by the bed, but froze halfway to it as something crashed in the living room.

Light flared from under the crack of the door for a second, then went out. Victoria whispered his name, but Alex was already up, reflexes trained to quick response. He pulled on his pants and hurriedly searched for something he might use as a weapon.

He settled for the long necked bottle of wine they had finished up after getting home.

“Stay,” he whispered, pushing her back down on the bed. He heard the swish of silk that told of her hurriedly donning her robe.

Another noise from the living room and she let out a small frightened yelp. He could not control the start he made himself. Something was moving, something heavy shuffling across the floor.

It was right outside the bedroom door, he was certain of it. He crept forward, his bottle gripped in white-knuckled fingers.

He reached out for the door knob with his other hand. Closed his fingers over the cold brass and suddenly had it ripped from his grasp as the door was torn outwards against the protesting shriek of hinges that were not made to open in that direction.

He stumbled forward with it, half into the living room. The only light was the scant illumination of the moon coming in from the lacy curtained window. All it did was serve to outline something that crouched in the center of the floor, no more than a few steps from him. At first he had the wild thought that it was a piece of furniture. Victoria’s mammoth china press somehow moved to the center of the floor.

It was too tall and broad to be anything else. It was the only thing his mind could comprehend, until it moved. It shifted with the creaking of leather and bone and Alex felt the childish urge to scream and run back into the bed room where it could not see him. It was so like a demon out of childhood imagination, some great shadowed form in the corner of a room that young minds convinced themselves was a monster laying in wait for their slightest move. But this was moving. The boards under it protested at its weight, and the moon light hinted at something that was neither human or animal form.

Something gnarled and broad that had the ponderous movement of heavy flesh and muscle. He thought he heard the rasping scratch of breath. A deep, low growl emanated from the mountain of shadow before him.

A piercing scream startled him. He whirled, knowing instinctively that Victoria stood behind him. Her presence, the danger she was in set him into motion.

“Back,” he yelled, throwing the bottle with all his might at the shape and darting back, to shove her back into the bed room.

The fire escape outside the bedroom window. He jumped the bed, fumbling with the window, tearing it upwards and grasping for Victoria. She was shaking and sobbing, tensed even against him. He pushed her over the sill, forcing her out in a tumbled mass of silk and limbs and threw his own leg over the sill to follow.