The Trouble With Hairy, page 38
part #2 of West Hollywood Vampires Series
“You have one of those cell phone thingies,” Troy protested.
“Which never give you a signal when you need one. Not in this town anyway,” Shanda told him. “Why do you think the mayor makes them all carry beepers? They work. And second,” she glanced at Troy sternly to let him know she was serious. “Second, we’ve got to put our heads together and think of some practical way to kill the son of a bitch if he does show up.”
“We’ll need wolfsbane,” Troy said, promptly. “All we have to do is touch him with it and he’ll change form.” He thought for a minute. “I can sneak into that garden tonight and steal some from those two old lesbians. Once he’s human again, he’ll be easier to get rid of.”
“I wonder where we can get silver bullets,” Shanda said, almost to herself.
Troy made a dismissive gesture. “Forget it. I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn — from the inside. We’ll have to think of something else.”
“I have those serving trays,” Shanda suggested.
“You want to try and beat him to death or just serve him dinner and hide silver shavings in the meat loaf?” Troy was incredulous at the stupidity of the suggestion. “Forget about the candlesticks. They’ll help but they didn’t really work last time.”
“What about my cross?” she asked tentatively.
Troy snorted with derision. “That wouldn’t even keep Chris away. He’s Anglican.”
“I meant because it’s silver,” Shanda retorted with irritation.
“Well, if we could get him to eat it, it might work. Otherwise…” Troy trailed off in thought. “Silver, silver, what’s silver?” he pondered aloud.
“I know!” Shanda exclaimed. “I have a lovely sterling vanity set. My aunt left it to me for my trousseau. Oh, darling, you should see it! There’s a mirror with little silver roses all over the handle and these cunning little cherubs worked into the frame.”
Troy looked at her with a withering glance of disdain. “What do we do? Hold it up in front of him and hope he scares himself to death? C’mon, think!”
“Well, there’s silverware,” Shanda recited, dutifully. “Silver picture frames, silver bowls, vases, creamers, sugar bowls…Wait a minute! Teapots!” She looked at Troy expectantly and, after a second, they both started to giggle.
“That’ll be great,” Troy laughed. “We’ll ask him in for tea, brain him with the teapot and then cream and sugar him to death!”
Their giggle tapered off and they became thoughtful once again.
“You don’t happen to have cane with a little silver wolf on the handle?” Troy asked, thoughtfully.
“A what?”
He shrugged. “It worked on Lon Chaney.”
“This isn’t a Universal flick, honey,” Shanda reminded him.
“How about something he won’t be expecting. Like a silver-tipped arrow. I kinda like that.”
“Troy?” Shanda’s patience was intentionally obviously contrived. “You just said you can’t shoot a gun. Do you have any idea how to use a bow and arrow?”
“No,” Troy admitted, reluctantly. “I’m sure I could learn.”
Shanda’s eyes rolled heavenward. “Jesus, Troy, will you get serious? Next thing you’ll be telling me is to smother him with a silver fox coat.”
Troy’s face lit up. “It has a certain style to it, don’t you think?” His face fell. “But, it wouldn’t work.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Well, we’ve got ’til tomorrow night,” Troy said confidently, “I’m sure I can come up with something.”
“That,” Shanda said dryly, “is what I’m afraid of.”
CHAPTER 19
“You know, Louis,” Pam commented with undisguised admiration, “this is really good. We’ll be increasing efficiency fifteen percent and freeing up eight deputies.”
She was standing in her office, gazing at the huge wall map of the city that contained Louis’ final suggestions for the deployment of law enforcement personnel during the upcoming Gay Pride Parade. She was amazed at the ingenuity the werewolf had shown. Looking at the map, Pamela Burman was struck, once again, by the odd shape of the City of West Hollywood. Despite numerous mental attempts to convince herself that the city’s 1.8 square miles of previously unincorporated Los Angeles County land looked like the state of West Virginia on its side, Burman was forced to admit that, irrespective of her attempts to pretty up the city’s bizarre physiognomy, West Hollywood resembled nothing so much as a pistol pointed squarely at downtown Los Angeles.
“Thanks Pam,” Louis said modestly, and shifted one of the magnetic police cars slightly. “If we move this patrol car a half block west on Holloway, we can forget about putting a uniform on Olive. One deputy on the south side of the street should do it.”
Burman grunted with approval. “God, I wish you’d been around last year. The parade split was a nightmare.”
Pamela was referring to the experiment, instituted by Christopher Street West, the parade’s producers, the previous year. In response to suggestions from the gay and lesbian community that five and a half hours was, perhaps, a little too long for a hundred and twenty float parade, the Board of Directors of Christopher Street West had come up with the novel idea of splitting the parade in two, running it down both sides of the median strip as it proceeded west down Santa Monica Boulevard.
The idea had proved a fiasco. The parade had been short all right, lasting barely over two hours and leaving the spectators feeling vaguely disappointed by its brevity. But the wave-like motion of a quarter of a million people, determined not to miss even a single float, darting from one side of the median strip to the other, had given Burman and Clive Anderson migraines for weeks as they’d fought to figure out a way to keep people out of the street and from being crushed in the mad rush back and forth.
There had been several injuries. A hefty Born Again Christian with a bullhorn had stationed his small group of placard-carrying missionaries on the medial strip just at the point where the parade divided. After he’d angered the gathered throngs with his promises that all assembled were doomed to die of AIDS and burn in hell, one inventive Hispanic drag queen led the masses in a series of rushes, back and forth, ostensibly to insure a clear view of both branches of the parade, but in reality, designed to pass closer and closer to the small group of Christians. Accompanied by shouts of “Jenny Craig! Jenny Craig! Jenny Craig!” in ridicule of their leader’s girth, the poor Christians had been buffeted by the incensed homosexuals until one woman had been thrust, sprawling, into the path of the float representing the West Hollywood Aquatic Club.
The driver of the Aquatic Club’s turquoise Chevrolet came to an abrupt stop, dumping the two buff young men, who were costumed as mermen, off the hood of the car where they’d been riding, smack dab on top of the unfortunate woman. Insults had been exchanged and probable ancestry had been disparaged. It wasn’t until the woman, responding to taunts about her polyester floral print dress, loudly insulted the green and blue lamé merman outfits, however, that things really became ugly.
The taller of the two swimmers, angered at the insult to four months of slave labor behind a sewing machine, took a swipe at the woman with his plastic trident. She responded with a thrust from the pole of her “Christ Died For Your Sins” sign. The shorter lad, not unconscious of the stares his magnificent physique was drawing from the nearby spectators, seized the opportunity to show off even more. Ripping his fins from his lower body, clad only in the briefest of G-strings underneath, he whirled the sparkling costume twice around his head and hauled off with a roundhouse swing, thwacking the distraught woman so hard against the side of the head that her wig flew into the crowd. The wig was snatched up by a bare-chested, sixty-five year old insurance agent from Silver Lake with pierced nipples, and hoisted up atop a street lamp where it was gleefully photographed by a nearby ABC news crew.
Outraged with embarrassment, the woman riposted with the sign once again. The battle between the Fins and the Sins was brief, but bloody.
When it was over, Clive’s deputies had forcibly escorted the woman and her companions away from the parade site and ticketed them with minor fines for disturbing the peace. The two young athletes had been handcuffed, to the appreciation of certain members of the crowd who were into that sort of thing, treated to a brief ride in a patrol car, accompanied by a slightly more lengthy lecture from an amused female deputy, and released a block and a half further down along the parade route, with a stern warning to cover their bare rear ends and to refrain from teasing the straight people.
That was, by no means, the only casualty but, by and large, most of the other incidents were anti-climatic. There were the usual broken bones from parade-crazed young men and women climbing the poles displaying the Gay Community’s rainbow flags which lined the boulevard and, in their enthusiasm to cheer louder than the other flagtop sitters, losing their grips and tumbling to the ground. One drag queen, having recently lost her bid to be re-elected the Grand Imperial Empress of San Diego, used the cover of the crowd to set fire to the Empress Elect’s raven tresses. A lesbian from Minneapolis socked a street vendor, who made the mistake of calling her “sir.” And, of course, there were the usual detentions on drunk and disorderly charges. But, for the most part, the offenders were treated to nothing more than a good-natured lecture and promptly sent on their way, reeling off through the crowd to continue their search for husbands, tricks or boyfriends du jour, depending on their predilections.
This year, the parade was back on course, a straight line down the north lane of Santa Monica Boulevard, going west from Crescent Heights Boulevard to Doheny Drive. As Pamela Burman was frantically juggling schedules, computer print outs and logistical data, trying to reduce even further the massive strain that the costs of the parade would place on West Hollywood’s already overburdened budget, Louis was turning out to be a godsend.
“I mean it, Louis,” Burman repeated. “You’ve got a natural talent for this stuff.”
The werewolf shrugged. “All those years of pack hunting, I guess. I can always see the right deployment in my mind.”
Burman put aside the document she was working on and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms behind her head.
“You know,” she began, too casually. “We haven’t talked much about what you’re going to do with the rest of your life.”
“Trying to give me Carlos’ job?” Louis asked with a small smile.
“Bite your tongue, boy,” Pamela snapped, irked at the suggestion.
“Just kidding, ma’am,” Louis said, properly abashed.
“But that brings me to my next question. How are you going to support him?”
“Huh?” Louis looked at her, baffled at the change in subject.
“I suppose we could find a spot around city hall for someone with your talents,” Burman mused aloud.
“Wait a minute, Pamela,” Louis said, feeling an uncomfortable heat spreading from his chest upwards as he blushed. “Support who?”
“Carlos, of course,” Burman said matter-of-factly. “You are planning on making an honest woman of him, aren’t you?”
Louis’ jaw dropped with astonishment. “Uh, we’ve only been dating a couple of weeks,” he stammered.
“In this town,” Burman said grimly, “after a month, if you break up, he keeps the house and you get to pay off the credit cards. You might as well tie the knot.”
“But we’re both men!” Louis protested.
“The way you walk around my house, you think I hadn’t noticed?” Burman fixed him with a stern glare. “So what’s the matter? You never heard of a domestic partnership?”
Louis’ blush became even more pronounced as Burman leaned forward in her chair.
“If I find out,” she began with level, measured ominousness, “that you are leading that poor boy on. If I even thought it…” She paused to make her point clear. “I will personally take you outside and shove one of Carlos’ candlesticks so far up your ass that you’ll be shitting little silver doggy pellets for a month.”
Louis’ eyes darted toward the huge wall clock in Burman’s office; unfortunately, quitting time was still hours off. He glanced toward the office door, wondering if he would be able to make it outside before the city manager could grab him by the scruff of the neck.
“Look, Pamela,” he began tentatively, “where I come from, they teach us to mate for life.”
“So?” Burman roared. “They obviously don’t teach you how to behave in public. I’m in hock to La Boehme up to my ass! They should at least teach you something! What’s wrong with mating for life? I did it.”
“You had five husbands!” Louis protested.
“That’s right. They all died on me. That’s for life, kiddo.”
“But it’s a commitment,” Louis tried to explain.
Burman’s face whitened with anger as she came out from behind the desk and hauled Louis to his feet by his shirtfront.
“Listen, you little shit,” she breathed. “You love him. He loves you. What the fuck else do you want? A sign from God? You should both be struck down by a burning bush, maybe?”
She relaxed slightly and, loosening her grip, dumped him back into his chair.
“You two are so young,” she said with a sigh. “You don’t recognize a good thing when it stares you in the face. Take it from me,” she continued as she went back to her chair. “You’d better resign yourself to marrying that boy. ’Cause if you don’t ask him…” She fixed Louis with a keen, knowing glance. “He’s gonna ask you.”
“And I have never liked,” she said with a wicked grin, “attending shotgun weddings.”
Chris’ concern was mounting. He’d awakened at dusk, his bad mood vanished but still miserable at the way he’d treated Troy and ready to do some heavy duty apologizing. The apology would, preferably, come complete with a stunning exhibition of sexual acumen which would ensure Troy’s forgiveness immediately. But Troy was nowhere to be found.
He’d looked in all the usual places where Troy left his little notes: the refrigerator, the bathroom mirror and the inside of the “guest bedroom.” He found nothing. The evening passed and still Troy failed to show up.
Probably still pissed at me, Chris thought, shrugging his lover’s absence off, and dancing it off at Axis.
But as the hands on the clock crept closer to ten, Chris had still not seen hide nor hair of Troy and he was beginning to worry.
“Good God,” he said out loud in the empty apartment, “I hope to hell he hasn’t gone and done anything stupid.”
He picked up the telephone and called Becky. Her voice, when she answered, was tired with a strange languor.
“Hi, hon. It’s me. Was Troy here when you left yesterday morning?”
“I think so,” she replied. “I heard something coming from the shower that sounded vaguely Broadway.” She lowered her voice so as not to wake Grant who was napping in the bedroom.
“Did he tell you his plans?”
“Uh, uh.” Chris heard chewing sounds coming over the line. “Sorry. I had caramel stuck in my teeth. Bedtime snack.” She swallowed, audibly. “Why don’t you ask him?”
“He’s not here,” Chris said. “He didn’t come home last night and it’s almost ten now. No messages on the machine, no note, nothing.”
“You sound worried,” Becky told him.
“I am. This isn’t like him.”
“Troy has stayed out all night before,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, but that’s only when Scotty or one of his other friends is in town.”
“True,” she agreed and then asked, delicately, “You two didn’t have another little spat or anything, did you?”
“What makes you ask that?” Chris asked guiltily.
“Oh, nothing,” Becky replied. “It’s just I got the impression that he seemed subdued yesterday morning. For Troy, that is. I mean he was singing “Losing My Mind” for Christ’s sake. And I think he went into “Maybe This Time” just before I left.”
“Torch songs are not a good sign,” Chris told her. Now he was really worried. Although Troy had been known to play the death scene from Camille at the drop of a hat, in the shower he enjoyed merry, upbeat, splashy songs. Chris had once had to dry his tears when he hurt himself, trying to tap dance to “We’re in the Money” while shampooing his hair and had slipped on the wet tile. “And,” he added, “I found blood stains on the floor in the second bedroom when I got up yesterday.”
“Blood stains?” Becky yelped. She heard Grant stir in response and lowered her voice again. A moment later, he appeared, tousled hair and all, stark naked in her kitchen doorway.
“Oh, nothing serious. There wasn’t that much. Nobody axe murdered him or anything. But it was Troy’s. He broke the glass on one of his movie posters when you stayed over. Surprised it didn’t wake you. I yelled at him. Maybe I shouldn’t have… Funny thing though,” Chris added thoughtfully, “when I last saw him, just after he broke it, he wasn’t bleeding.”
“Anything wrong?” Guy asked. Becky covered the mouthpiece of the telephone.
“Chris and Troy had a fight. Troy’s missing. I’ll be off in a minute,” she told him.
“Maybe he cut himself cleaning up?” Becky suggested tentatively, speaking to Chris once again.
“Troy? Cleaning up?” Chris snorted. “The words aren’t in his vocabulary. Anyway, there was too much blood for that. The edges of the glass were smeared with it.”
“Talk to me, Chris,” Becky said. “What are you thinking?”
“Well, Troy doesn’t really feel some kinds of pain. Because of what he is.”
“Which some of us are still trying to figure out,” Becky added, a little snootily.
“I’m serious, dammit,” Chris said.
“Sorry. Go on.” She was having trouble concentrating. Grant had come fully into the kitchen and, licking the residue of caramel from her fingers, began working his tongue up her arm, sending a delicious little frisson of pleasure across her right side.
“If it’s a cut or a puncture, he hardly notices. Even a bad gash’ll heal within an hour or so. Now, let him stub his toe, God forbid, or burn his finger on something, and he’s worse than a two year old.”
