You Suck_ A Love Story Part 20

"Swiss sure can build some cars, can't they? Can't say much for those little red pocketknives they make, but sons-ab.i.t.c.hes can build a car."

"Swedes."

"Yeah, well, I love the little meatb.a.l.l.s too. Look, kid, your mother's got me deep-frying a turkey out in the driveway. It's starting to smoke a little. I probably oughta should go check on it. Took an hour to get the oil up to speed-it's only about ten degrees here today."

"Yeah, it's a little chilly here, too."

"Looks like it's starting to catch the carport on fire a little. Better go."

"Okay. Love you, Dad."

"Call your mother more often, she worries. Holy cats, there goes the Oldsmobile. Bye, son."

A half hour later they were sipping coffee laced with William's blood when the doorbell rang again. "This is getting irritating," Jody said. half hour later they were sipping coffee laced with William's blood when the doorbell rang again. "This is getting irritating," Jody said.

"Call your mom," Tommy said. "I'll get it."

"We should get some sleeping pills-knock him out so he doesn't have to drink all that booze before we bleed him."

The doorbell rang again.

"We just need to get him a key." Tommy went to the console by the door and pushed the b.u.t.ton. There was a buzz and the click of the lock at street level. The door opened-William coming in to settle on the stairs for the night. "I don't know how he sleeps on those steps."

"He doesn't sleep. He pa.s.ses out," said the undead redhead. "Do you think if we gave him peppermint schnapps the coffee would have a minty holiday flavor?"

Tommy shrugged. He went to the door, threw it open, and called down. "William, you like peppermint schnapps?"

William raised a grimy eyebrow, looking suspicious. "You got something against scotch?"

"No, no, I don't want to mess up your discipline. I was just thinking of a more balanced diet. Food groups, you know."

"I had some soup and some beer today," William said.

"Okay then."

"Schnapps gives me mint farts. They scare the h.e.l.l out of Chet."

Tommy turned to Jody and shook his head. "Sorry, no way, minty farts." Then to William again: "Okay then, William. I gotta get back to the little woman. You need anything? Food, blanket, toothbrush, a damp towelette to freshen up?"

"Nah, I'm good," William said. He held up a fifth of Johnny Walker Black.

"How's Chet doing?"

"Stressed. We just found out our friend Sammy got murdered in the hotel on Eleventh." Chet looked up the stairwell with sad kitty eyes, which he sort of always seemed to have since he'd been shaved.

"Sorry to hear that," Tommy said.

"Yeah, on Christmas, too," William said. "Hooker got killed across the street last night, same way. Neck was snapped. Sammy has been sick for a while, so he splurged on a room for the holiday. f.u.c.kers killed him right there in bed. Just goes to show you."

Tommy had no idea what it went to show you. "Sad," Tommy said. "So how come Chet's stressed but you're not?"

"Chet doesn't drink."

"Of course. Well then, Merry Christmas to you guys."

"You, too," said William, toasting with his bottle. "Any chance of a Christmas bonus, now that I'm a full-time employee?"

"What'd you have in mind?"

"I'd sure like a gander at Red's bare knockers."

Tommy turned to Jody, who was shaking her head, looking pretty determined.

"Sorry," Tommy said. "How about a new sweater for Chet?"

William scowled. "You just can't bargain with The Man The Man." He took a drink from his bottle and turned away from Tommy as if he had something important to discuss with his huge shaved cat and couldn't be bothered with management.

"Okay then," Tommy said. He closed the door and returned to the counter. "I'm The Man The Man," he said with a big grin.

"Your mom would be so proud," Jody said. "We need to go see about Elijah."

"Not until you call your mom. Besides, he's waited this long, it's not like he's going anywhere."

Jody got up and came around the breakfast bar and took Tommy's hand. "Sweetie, I need you to play what William just said back in your mind, really slowly."

"I know, I'm The Man The Man!"

"No, the part about his friend being killed by a broken neck, and how he has been sick, and how someone else was killed the night before, also by broken neck. I'll bet she was sick, too. Sound like a pattern you've heard before?"

"Oh my G.o.d," Tommy said.

"Uh-huh," Jody said. She held his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles. "I'll get my jacket while you fluff up your little brain for traveling, 'kay?"

"Oh my G.o.d, you'll do anything to get out of calling your mom."

21.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Presenting the Disappointments He was the best one-handed free-throw shooter in the Bay Area, and that Christmas night he had sunk sixty-four in a row in his driveway hoop, shooting the new leather Spaulding ball his dad had left under the tree for him. Sixty-seven in a row, without ever setting down or spilling his beer. His record was seventy-two, and he would have broken it, had he not been dragged off into the bushes to be slaughtered.

Jeff Murray was not the smartest of the Animals, nor the most well-born, but when it came to squandering potential, he was the hands-down winner. Jeff had been a star power forward through his soph.o.m.ore, junior, and senior years in high school, and he had been offered a full-boat ride to Cal, Berkeley-there had even been talk of his going pro after a couple of years in college, but Jeff had decided to impress his prom date by showing her he had enough vertical leap to clear a moving car.

It was a minor misjudgment, and he would have cleared the car had he not drunk most of a case of beer before the attempt, and had the car's height not been eight inches enhanced by the light bar on the roof. The light bar just caught Jeff 's left sneaker, and somersaulted him four times in the air before he landed upright in a James Brown split on the tarmac. He was pretty sure that his knee wasn't supposed to bend that way, and a team of doctors would later agree. He'd wear a brace forever and he'd never play compet.i.tive basketball again. Although he was a smokin' one-handed H.O.R.S.E. player, and he might have even been a champion if it weren't for that slaughtered-in-the-bushes thing.

He liked the new leather ball, and he knew he shouldn't be using it on the asphalt, and especially this late at night, when the sound of his dribbling might disturb his neighbors.

He lived in a garage apartment in Cow Hollow, and the fog was blowing in damp streams up his street, making the basketball sound lonely and ominous, so no one complained. It was Christmas-if all some poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d had was some hoops, then you'd have to be a special kind of heartless to call the cops on him. A car turned at the end of the street; blue halogens swept through the fog like sabers, then went out. Jeff squinted into the fog, but couldn't make out what kind of car it was, only that it had stopped a couple of doors down and it was a dark color.

He turned to take his record-breaking shot, but distracted, he put a little too much backspin on the ball and it jumped out of the hoop. He ran it down at the junipers by the garage, but was only able to tip it, so that it went into the bushes. He set his beer down on the driveway and went in after it, and-well, you know...

Francis Evelyn Stroud answered the phone on the second ring, as she always did, as it was proper to do. "h.e.l.lo."

"Hi, Mom, It's Jody. Merry Christmas."

"And to you, darling. You're calling rather late."

"I know, Mom. I was going to call earlier, but had a thing." I I was was a thing, a thing, Jody thought. Jody thought.

"A thing? Of course. Did you get the package I sent?"

It would be expensive and completely inappropriate, a cashmere business suit, or something in a houndstooth or a herringbone, something worn only by matronly academics or matronly spies with stout poison-dart shoes. And Mother Stroud would have sent it to the old address. "Yes, I got it. It's lovely. I can't wait to wear it."

"I sent a leather-bound set of the complete works of Wallace Stegner," Mother Stroud said.

f.u.c.k! Jody kicked at Tommy for making her call. He skipped out of range, waving a scolding finger at her. Jody kicked at Tommy for making her call. He skipped out of range, waving a scolding finger at her.

Of course. Stegner, the Stanford paragon. Mother was one of the first coeds to graduate from Stanford and she never missed an opportunity to point out that Jody hadn't gone there. Jody's father had also gone to Stanford. She was born to Stanford, and yet she had disgraced them by going to San Francisco State, and not finishing. "Yeah, those will be great, too. I guess they just haven't caught up with me yet."

"You've moved again?" Mrs. Stroud had lived in the same house in Carmel for thirty years. Carpet and draperies never survived more than two years, but she'd been in the same house.

"Yeah, we needed a little more s.p.a.ce. Tommy's working at home now."

"We? Then you're still with that writer boy?"

Mom said "writer" like it was a fungus.

Jody scribbled on a Post-it at the counter: Note: Break Tommy's arms off. Beat him with them. Note: Break Tommy's arms off. Beat him with them.

"Yes. I'm still with Tommy. He's been nominated for a Fulbright. So, did you have a nice Christmas?"

"It was fine. Your sister brought that man."

"Her husband, husband, Bob, you mean?" Mother Stroud did not care for men since Jody's father had left her for a younger woman. Bob, you mean?" Mother Stroud did not care for men since Jody's father had left her for a younger woman.

"Well, what ever his name is."

"It's Bob, Mom. He went to school with us. You've known him since he was nine."

"Well, I had a smoked turkey delivered, and a lovely foie-gras-and-wild-mushroom appetizer."

"You had Christmas catered?"

"Of course."

"Of course." Of course. Of course. It would never occur to her that by having Christmas dinner catered, she was making other people work on Christmas. "Well, I put my present in the mail, Mom. I'd better go. Tommy's being honored at a dinner tonight because of his ma.s.sive intellect."

"On Christmas?"

Oh, what the f.u.c.k. "He's Jewish."

She could hear the intake of breath on the other end of the phone. This is the light version, Mom, imagine how scandalized you be if I told you he was dead and that I killed him This is the light version, Mom, imagine how scandalized you be if I told you he was dead and that I killed him.

"You didn't tell me that."

"Sure I did. You must be losing details. Gotta go, Mom. I gotta help Tommy get his p.e.n.i.s piercing in before the dinner. Bye." She hung up.

Tommy had been dancing naked in front of her for most of the phone call. When she hung up he stopped. "Did I mention that I worry about your ethical equilibrium?"

"Said the guy who was just playing buff the s.c.r.o.t.u.m buff the s.c.r.o.t.u.m with my red scarf while I was making the merry Christmas call to my mother?" with my red scarf while I was making the merry Christmas call to my mother?"

"Admit it. You're a little turned on."

Dr. Drew-Drew McComber, the Ohm-budsman, the resident pharmacist and medical adviser to the Animals, was afraid of the dark. The fear had crept up on him, like a hash brownie, and coldc.o.c.ked him with an inescapable paranoia after four years on the night crew at the Marina Safeway. Thing was, he awoke in the evening, to the pervasive grow lights in his garage apartment in the Marina, then drove four blocks under the streetlights to the brightly lit Safeway, then got off work in the morning when the sun was well off the horizon, to return to his grow-lit apartment, to sleep with a satin mask in place. He encountered darkness so infrequently that it seemed like a menacing stranger when he did.

On Christmas night, round midnight, Drew sat among a jungle of five-foot-tall pot plants in his living room, wearing sungla.s.ses and watching a movie on cable about the special relationship between the lady of an English manor and her chimney sweep. (Because of his work schedule, and the constant demand to stay wasted, Drew found it difficult to keep a girlfriend. Until the Animals found Blue, his s.e.x life had been a largely solitary affair, and (sigh) apparently had become so once again.) Each time the chimney sweep's sooty hand smacked the powdered bottom of the lady of the manor, Drew grieved a little-that dusky handprint on alabaster flank falling like a shadow on his erotic soul. There was arousal, but no joy. Sad and lonely wood did tent his hemp-fiber cargo pants.

Then, as if scripted by Erecto, the Generously Endowed Pizza Delivery G.o.d of Improbable Trysts, Erecto, the Generously Endowed Pizza Delivery G.o.d of Improbable Trysts, there was a knock at Drew's door. Rather than answer the door directly, Drew adjusted himself and ambled through the ganja forest to a small video screen in his kitchenette-a video peephole. He'd installed it in the days before his doctor had given him the prescription that made him a quasilegal medical marijuana grower there was a knock at Drew's door. Rather than answer the door directly, Drew adjusted himself and ambled through the ganja forest to a small video screen in his kitchenette-a video peephole. He'd installed it in the days before his doctor had given him the prescription that made him a quasilegal medical marijuana grower (patient complains that reality harshes his mellow (patient complains that reality harshes his mellow-prescribe 2 grams cannabis every three hours by inhalation, ingestion, or suppository).

Sure enough, as if he had called in an order, the video screen revealed a pale but pretty blonde standing on his doorstep in a conservative blue c.o.c.ktail dress and heels. She might have just come from a party or a dinner out-her hair was pinned up with tiny blue bows. She might have shown up to audition for the role of the lady of the manor.

Drew keyed the intercom. "Hi. Are you sure you have the right house?"

"I think so," said the girl. "I'm looking for Drew." She smiled into the camera. Perfect teeth.

"Jeez," Drew said, then realizing that he had said it allowed, he cleared his throat and said, "I'll be right there."

He smoothed his erection down, pushed his hair behind his ears, and in five long strides he was through the forest and at the front door. At the last second he remembered the sungla.s.ses, pushed them up on his head, smiled broadly, and threw open the door, releasing a wide beam of ultraviolet light into the night fog.

The pretty blonde dropped her smile, then screamed as she burst into flames and leapt out of the light. Drew ran out into the dark to save her.