these guys usually produce splatter flicks aimed at giving teenage boys fear erections to enforce the equation of sex with violence. Violence then becomes a socially acceptable form of sex and that gives these guys the feeling that they’ve harvested a few more souls for Satan.”
“Like I say they use their own kids but it’s not like a concert violinist teaching his three-year-old to play Bach. Basically the kids don’t know what’s going on and their parents really don’t want them to. Is any of this helping you?”
“Maybe – I’ve been told about human sacrifices….”
“Murder is the ultimate status symbol. It goes all the way back to prehistory. Scalps on a belt, notches on a gun, stars on a general’s collar, they all mean the same thing: this man got away with murder more times than you did. But it took religion to elevate murder to the highest status, that of a holy act. Now you’re generally dealing with bourgeois, social-climbing, status-seeking assholes when you talk about your modern-day witches and warlocks. So, to answer your question, I would say there is a good chance the stories you heard about that stuff are true. But really, killing any helpless creature gives them a similar rush, a dog, a cat…”
“A kitten?”
“A kitten, a goldfish, a cockroach—none of us are immune to this sensation, but these people get addicted to it. They turn their back on any real talent they might have and, like a junkie, spend all their time looking for a bigger rush. They become dangerous and the rich ones become real dangerous.”
“And the poor ones become sad headlines.”
“So, what else you want to know?”
“What have you heard about Chris Boone and Burns Sawyer?”
Mank didn’t know much about my friends but he said he’d look into it for me. It was good to talk to Mank. What he had told me was like a ray of sunlight hitting last night’s dragon and turning it into a tree stump. It made the drive down to the beach spellbinding. The orange autumn afternoon light played through the palm trees like a senorita’s smile through a lace fan. I drove my battered M.G. with the top down; the air felt silky. I parked by the pier in Santa Monica and walked out on the sand as the red sun kissed its reflection on the darkening sea. They were turning on the lights that outlined the roofs of the arcades on the pier above me. Night was coming back again with its fog dragons, looking for me, waiting for me to close my eyes.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS
HIS CORPSE WAS COLD, gray, split open down the middle from the sternum to the pelvis. Jimmy didn’t like the way he looked. He examined the empty flaps of skin left by the coroner’s incision, the hollow cave where his intestines, heart, lungs, stomach, liver, kidneys – in short, his guts, had been. Jimmy’s spirit hand touched the lifeless hand of Jimmy’s corpse. Spirit tears, like tiny jewels, fell from his spirit cheeks onto the tattered flesh. The corpse was covered with wounds. He had been shot twice, stabbed over one hundred and fifty times but he still would not die. At last, they held his fighting body to the ground and drove a rat-tail file through his skull. The sound of that terrible hammer and the pain of that ugly file, creeping blow by blow through his sputtering brain, began ringing in his spirit ears. He touched the hole in the center of his body’s forehead and screamed a silent spirit scream until the corpse rattled and shook the metal table it lay upon. It sat blot upright, jaw open, all its wounds spitting cold, black blood. It was time for the spirit to move on, to leave its shaking corpse to the elements of corruption and spin howling into the night in search of revenge.
Chris Boone would wake up, perhaps in a few moments. He would be clammy wet with sweat and fear. Jimmy’s ghost would sit beside his bed and send cold chills up his barely conscious spine.
I had just come back from a Halloween party up in the Hollywood Hills, all done up in my special wolfman make-up. Steaks, in her Betty Boop outfit, had actually dumped her chic date at the party and was sprawled out on my couch chugging down the last of my tequila. It looked like I was finally gonna’ find out if New York stayed open all night. We had just decided to leave our costumes on when the phone rang. It had to be bad news. It was. Chris Boone had just seen a ghost.
“You’ve just seen a what?”
“I’ve just seen the Rabbit.”
“You mean Jimmy, from Texas—He’s been dead over five years.”
“Can you come over? I can still feel his presence. The cats are going crazy.”
Steaks was actually turned on by the prospect of seeing a real ghost on Halloween. We jumped in my ragged M.G. and headed up Wilshire to see Chris Boone. I was glad to have her company even though I didn’t share her frisky mood. Jimmy was the last chapter of my book. He had died a grisly death only a few weeks after Chris had married Kathy in the hot Texas summer of ’73. It was in his memory I’d made the trek to L.A. Maybe he was angry that I had not done his memory justice, but what did he have against Chris. The pimply-faced guard looked askance at the wolfman and Betty Boop driving up to his guard box at four in the morning. Usually just the sight of my battered car was enough to send him into a stuttering fit. Tonight it took him a full five minutes to get our names out of his mouth and into the telephone. As we pulled into the driveway of the White house I noticed the flickering of candlelight coming from the kitchen of the otherwise dark house. Considering how we were dressed and Chris’ current state of mind I led Steaks up the long brick path to the front door and rang the bell. Chris was still freaked a bit when he answered the door, candle in hand.
“What’s the matter, you blow a fuse?”
He motioned for silence, his finger to his lips.
“Can you feel him?” He whispered as he ushered us into the great entrance hall of the mansion.
Our footsteps echoed through the empty house as Chris led us past the dark dining room towards the kitchen. The cats yowled and hissed unseen from the corners and under the chairs, moving like shadows in the candlelight. It must be my outfit.
In the kitchen Chris had arranged thirteen candles in a circle on the kitchen table. In the center of the circle was a large manila envelope with the words Common Poets written on it with black magic marker— my book.
We sat down at the table. I felt a chill as I picked up the envelope and opened it. Rabbit’s picture was on top of the stack of photos and poems. I looked at Chris across the table; he seemed to shiver. Steaks leaned over and looked at the picture.
“That’s him isn’t it? That’s the ghost.”
“Yeah, that’s the ghost.”
I handed Steaks the picture of Jimmy. Chris just kept staring at me. I shook my head and shifted through the stack of photos and poems, words and images I thought I would never see again. Steaks held the picture against her breast and closed her eyes.
“I’m gonna’ see if I can feel his presence. You guys be quiet.”
I stuffed the pictures and pages back into the envelope and lay it solemnly back in the center of the circle. Chris shoved the envelope back towards me.
“Take it, it’s yours.”
“What’s the angle?”
“Sssssh! I’m getting a vibration.”
I
