Nosferatunes
Installment Two
Copyright May, 2005 by John H. Baillie
This is how they move
This is how they move:
Adam is hunched over and stoop-shouldered, looking like he’s always muttering something to himself;
Lydia is slow and almost regal in her bearing with a posture so erect she’s practically leaning backwards most of the time;
The Mulroney Throttler can’t take a step without strutting and grinning, he thinks so highly of himself;
The Goth Moth scutters erratically from light to light like a giant insect of prey, arms held in front of her ready to snatch;
Lou Moon has a careful swagger that keeps his neck loose so he can swing to survey any area of the room for danger at any time;
The Pearl Wolf oozes sex from every undulating erogenous muscle as she glides from shadow to shadow;
Hanley is always jerking this way then that in frantic desperation;
Joni Godiva doesn’t appear to take steps when she walks, she just slides from one position to another with painfully impeccable posture;
boB the Poet is short and fat, puffing like mad most of the time because he has to take so many more steps to move so much more weight than anyone else in the room over the same space;
Kirsten Brandi Marinara appears never to be certain exactly which direction she’s going, as her teenage mind is constantly and illogically shifting focus with her hormones, but that doesn’t much matter because she’ll be dead soon;
Phoebe Hush calculates the movement of every single muscle and the effect that movement will produce before she shifts an inch;
Gully Bechet never stands upright, is always half bent over strumming but otherwise flows like red wine or blood so smooth;
Luna Damsel and Benny Dredful conform themselves completely to the background of wherever they stand or sit and never appear to move at all except for their eyes;
Davis Jade walks with the calculated arrogance of a scorpion ready to sting;
Knuckle Biter the Brain Drainer moves in short rapid bursts, often chewing on the back of her right hand while her left is slightly raised as if she’s getting ready to grab you because she always invades your personal space a little bit too much for your comfort;
The Evil Sneed moves in leaps and bounds, every gesture overdone and melodramatic;
Audrey Always actually bounces on her long, beautiful, bare legs when she walks so her hair and breasts are always jouncing;
Touchy Forceful and Crazy May and all the other Info Junkies all move the same, completely withdrawn, eyes looking inward to what they’re listening to inside their own heads instead of responding to outside stimuli;
Mordecai, tall, muscular, bald, agile and with a great line, can balance a tray full of drinks two feet over his head as he glides through a crowd without spilling a drop;
and Agent Only is short, cocky, and moving as if he’s ready to explode in his pants at any moment;
it’s important to know things like this.
It’s a hard life, pushing Info
Hanley the Info Pusher doesn’t have an easy life, but he hopes to make it much better, very soon.
You see as he tells it pushing Info isn’t like pushing normal everyday regular junk. Oh no, quite the reverse. There are millions of Info users all wanting more, more, more everyday, every second, every millisecond, you can’t sneeze without ingerminating a user there’s always one standing that close to you. The problem does not lie in reaching the users.
The problem is that there’s just so much Info available. Cheap, quick to access, ready whenever you are. So much is available that the normal junky-pusher symbiosis is turned on its head. The user is always getting what he wants, and the pusher is always in frantic competition with a million other pushers to supply it. You never make the users wait – oh no, quite the opposite – you have to get there first ahead of the other pushers with new and different junk the user doesn’t even know he wants yet. So the Info Pusher’s always jittery, always jumping, always twitching, trying to stay one beat ahead of the next guy to make his buck. And your junk has always got to be that much better than the next guy’s, or you’ll never see a dollar.
But Hanley’s got an in now, if he can only figure out how to sell it. Three nights ago a UFO tried to abduct the Goth Moth, but she was on to them, and deflected the blue beam to the nearest other humanoid shape to her. This happened to be Hanley, coming out of an alley where he’d just done a deal. He froze, paralyzed, everything went gray and hazy, and he wasn’t certain what happened next. But he knew when he woke up the next morning that he had an implant.
An implant. He was so pleased.
After practicing for hours and hours, Hanley figured out how to use his implant to jam regular Earth broadcasting on the CBC wavelength and replace it with an alien bandwidth.
These broadcasts are in no language that make sense to a human, but this is news dammit, news unlike any other, something hot and totally unexpected might break on these airwaves at any moment, and Hanley knows he can always push that concept. The only problem he had then was to come up with a method to transmit the Alien Info beyond his own head.
The answer was obvious. The time had come for the rise of the A-Pod.
The rise of the A-Pod
Hanley the Info Pusher cornered Touchy Forceful. It was time to make his first sale. He’d either sink or swim on Touchy’s reaction to his new invention.
“What is it?” Touchy demanded suspiciously, eyeing the little condensed tampon shaped object apprehensively.
“Look – I know you’re usually tied into the Fortean Legion Network pretty heavy these days, but I gar-on-tay you this little mother’s gonna fuck you so well you’ll never go back to that weirdo shit. But don’t just take my word for it. Try it. No charge.”
Touchy’s eyes lit up. First rule of the Info Junky: never turn down free Info!
“How do I plug it in?”
“The bud goes from the A-Pod right into your ear chip. Mainline to the Brainline! Only the best, eh?”
“Nice design.”
Touchy hooked up the audio line to the technology illegally implanted within his left ear. His eyes lit up in wonder.
This is what he heard:
STANP DOONRA PORD ZOTHE ROLICE TIRE
TEG NO ROY SELKAN ROY DNA
IME THOWM REY TEG NO SINK
CHITANS DERPS YAL KAB SGEL WON
REY STANP EESUPP OT GEINPIRD DOVESH
KIRP GEENBORT TEL REY ET ROOLF
BARG SHE DEH DNA OVESH TI
REY TILK NEETEB REY SEEL DEKUSS
EHT LITNUH DESVERR EESH SNUSHISOP DEMEERK
OD OY MUK REVLIS RETFA EHT
DEKERGE EESH DEKUSS FLOWEER DNA TIFE
ELPRUP SHE EEH DRAH NO LITMEH
DOLE REY LUFF TOSH SEH NI
which was no broadcast at all, really, but a literal blow by blow account of an assignation that would take place between the two government operatives in the club later that evening in the alley behind the bar, as phoneticized and codified by an interested observer in another time and another space who had a bet riding on the outcome.
Touchy yanked the bud out of his ear.
“What is this shit!”
“It’s Grade A shit, eh? With the emphasis on ‘A’.”
Touchy stared at him. “Is this live?”
Hanley’s eyes sparkled. “From the stars.”
“From the …” Touchy continued to stare at Hanley. Then he put the bud back in and listened hard.
“Think Mothman, my man …” Hanley urged.
A slow light dawned in Touchy’s eyes. He smiled enormously. “Are you saying …” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Genuine. Alien. Info.”
Touchy whooped, bounced six inches off his chair, and concentrated hard on the broadcast again. The same words shot out repeatedly in different combinations without inflection or pause for punctuation by an angry high-pitched voice reading at terrific speed, tending to make the sounds run together and come out even more bewildering than they already were. Touchy was ecstatic.
“It doesn’t make any sense at all! It’s perfect!”
“You gotta decipher it. At any moment the Aliens who are broadcasting this shit may announce their plans to invade the Earth, and you’d be the first to know!”
Touchy’s eyes glowed with an almost unbearable yearning. “The first to know?”
“The first to know! Gar-on-tayed!”
“I’ll be the First, the First, to know that bit of Info?”
“And it’s important Info too!”
“Ohh, mama, papa, and little cousin Henry! Hanley! You bean dog! What’ll you take for it? I’ll give you anything! I gotta have it! Hanley, you the Man! You the Info Man! I gotta have it!”
Music to Hanley’s Pusher ears. The universe was finally beginning to unfold as it should, for once.
The sermon on the table
Hanley the Info Pusher jumps onto Agent Only’s table in the middle of the room, and sells his Alien Info like he’s in a revival meeting. The idea is to put the fear of God – or better yet, Extraterrestrials – into them. Then the Info Junkies will never be able to resist what he’s pushing.
“Brothers! Sisters! Aficionados of the Great Information Super Highway Across the Universe and Beyond, from the tiniest String to the most massive Ding-a-Ling! Listen to what I say!”
Hanley’s a-preachin’, his words taking on an earnest emphasis that means he really, really wants you to believe. And he means that sincerely.
“Alien hearts beat out of rhythm with the restless pace of the streets! Causing glowing orbs to fill the sky like unnatural clouds floating there with ominous intent, like giant pastel plastic bubbles! Oh, This Island Earth!
“Beware! We will be made slaves to our infirmities! To the anatomy of slaughter, come fierce and piercing out of a bright blue sky, to the careful replication and replacement of those who cannot close their minds to television!”
Now bring it down.
“Look … to … the skies! Look … to … the skies!”
Hanley is exultant. The crowd has never seen him like this before.
“The aliens know our weaknesses! Enjoying the thoughtless flow in endless new positions, withholding meaning until the attack!
“Look … to … the skies! Look … to … the skies!”
The crowd is with him now. They respond, in unison.
“Look … to … the skies! Look … to … the skies!”
He can tell by their glorious shining eyes he has them hooked. Now to build to the big finish.
“At least for a moment, set the wind free before the invasion begins! Numb the mind, numb the body, there is no free will, only desire! The Aliens cleverly conceal everyone we hold holy in our drinking water!”
A startled gasp runs through the congregation.
“The Conquerors will know their way like worms into our souls – we are always taken unawares! That’s history for you! The Aliens will show no mercy, inflicting endless prime time viewing, junkying us to the gills on Reality T.V. That Will No Longer Be Reality!”
The Junkies cry out in ecstasy. Now to take them home.
“Look … to … the skies! Look … to … the skies!”
“Look … to … the skies!”
“There’s more to the gig than this! The tension can lift, the shoulders loosen, it’s the only way to halt the vegetables no longer capable of love! Battle the pods … with A-Pods!”
He whips out an A-Pod. Wild hallelujahs!
“Listen … to … The Stars!”
The junkies erupt in berserk cheering, grabbing for Hanley’s A-Pods.
Agent Only narrows his eyes and thinks carefully: that must be Hanley, then.
Listening, but not really hearing
Hanley the Info Pusher was suddenly a rich man.
Now everyone who wanted a hit in the bar was tuned into his Alien Info and nobody else’s. the only problem now being he had to stay in the same room as the users with his implant beaming or they couldn’t hear the broadcast. Still, A-Pods had bloomed from one end of the club to the other, really pissing off the musicians which set up the circumstances for a visit from the ghost of Miles Davis real early in the evening. But alone amongst the Ptrio, as a serious artist, Gully Bechet didn’t actually care about everyone being distracted from their playing; because he was a serious jazz musician, and serious jazz musicians were supposed to be used to the idea that when they played nobody listened.
No, the one player on stage really, really miffed about the A-Pod Phenom, seriously, was Phoebe Hush, the singer. Because even though she was in reality unnervingly eerie in appearance, in a painted-face, childlike manner that bordered too much on the macabre for any normal man’s lusts, sort of like a cross between Grant Morrison’s Liza Radley and the Scarlet Harlot, Phoebe Hush liked to think of herself as a classic Jazz Broad, in a clinging low cut satin gown. Even though she was actually wearing a white and orange crepey kind of sacklike dress with a high neckline, and she had no tits to speak of. She was still a Dame in her own mind, with the same capital D used for Diva, and she expected people to be looking at the inexorable She that was her, or the inexorable Her that was she, whichever, she had trouble with grammar, and not popping out entirely on some freaky noise from a wretched little A-Pod. She’d have to show one of the guys in here tonight just what was what, and that was that.
Which is why she was so thrilled when the Mulroney Throttler walked in the door completely immune to Hanley’s pathetic Pusher pleadings. She firmly aimed both barrels of her sights straight at him, as soon as the Goth Moth safely fluttered away from him to grab Crazy May’s A-Pod ear bud.
After yanking the receiver out of Crazy May’s startled grasp, the Goth Moth stuck it onto the middle of her forehead, listened for a full minute with a stunned expression, then yanked it off. She laughed like hell and slapped Crazy May on the back, hooting “gud wun!” Then she fluttered off again.
Hanley made it even more of a point to avoid her for the rest of the evening.
Bad vibes
Joni Godiva, Agent Only, Lou Moon, Luna Damsel, Benny Dredful, the Mulroney Throttler, and Knuckle Biter the Brain Drainer all think the same thoughts simultaneously, but each with their own unique variation. However, that much focus on the same subject happening in the same room at the same time in this kind of a bar lends a certain degree of crosswiring to the airwaves of the brainwaves. Soon no one is entirely certain what it is they’re supposed to do next, or just who it is they’re doing it for in the first place.
“Because killing makes me horny – “
“How to kill Hanley the Info Pusher?”
“No good for wherever the hell it is we are.”
“ – on what he’s pushing, he’s too high on pushing, I have to kill Hanley the Info Pusher.”
“I can’t kill Hanley the Info Pusher, because although she wants to and he could –”
“ – when I hear Brian Mulroney speak.”
“ – because I must go down to the seas again.”
“ – not good for the ole U.S. of A. not good for –”
“ – if anyone ever makes out what those –”
“ – would honestly tell these losers anything for real –”
“ – but if I don’t kill Hanley the Info Pusher the rest will be white noise, not silence.”
“Because it is my job and I am a good soldier.”
“I kill Hanley I get paid.”
“Killing Hanley’s like getting laid.”
“ – not my idea, this is just what I do –”
“ – nothing personal, nothing of me in this –”
“ – then I don’t have to think about what I should do –”
“ – I get off –”
“ – bigger than I am, I didn’t make the decision –”
“ – don’t have to make the decision, it’s so nice –”
“ – they’ll take the responsibility –”
“ – whoever they are –”
“ – heard that one before –”
“ – it’s not like I’m actually doing anything –”
“ – bigger –”
“ – other intelligence directing this scene –”
“ – this dream –”
“ – have to kill –”
“Because he’s pushing Alien Info.”
“Because I’ve got no choice.”
“But I can’t kill, it’s not in me to kill.”
“I have to kill Hanley the Info Pusher.”
“ – and mostly I have to kill Hanley the Info Pusher.”
“I don’t have to kill anyone.”
“Not good for me to let him live.”
“ – not a healthy thing to do.”
“ – pushing’s going to kill him.”
“ – not even to kill Hanley the Info Pusher.”
“ – someone’s going to kill me instead –”
“Somebody has to kill Hanley the Info Pusher.”
“I have to kill Hanley the Info Pusher.”
“ – business is not good for making money –”
“Or I will never know that I’m alive myself.”
“ – just for the thrill of it, not the money –”
“ – his death is part of the joke –”
“Oh, death the undiscovered country.”
“ – because if I don’t kill him –”
“I have to kill Hanley the Info Pusher.”
“ – don’t want to, but he’s too high –”
“Aliens are saying what Hanley shouldn’t know.”
“ – being from another time, another space –”
“ – he could never kill Hanley the Info Pusher.”
“Oooh, Hanley, the undiscovered traveller …”
“Indecision will not serve our cause tonight.”
We are resolved
Indecision will not serve our cause tonight. Hanley the Info Pusher keeps repeating that to himself endlessly, not certain whether it’s something he’s thinking himself or a notion being forced through his skull by the Alien Implant he’s packing. But he knows it’s true all the same. This is the night of the big score. If he continues to slam this Alien Info as well as he’s started off here, he could probably retire after this one –
Hanley passes Phoebe Hush who’s thinking Indecision will not serve our cause tonight. If I’m really going to get everyone’s attention back on me where I know it belongs and as I only deserve, I’ve got to convince the Mulroney Throttler to at least think he’s got a chance to make it with me, as if –
Phoebe leaves the stage to Davis Jade and the other boys in the band. Indecision will not serve our cause tonight, Davis observes. We’ve lost our vocalist and now we’ve got Miles’s ghost on stage jamming with us; this is no time for any of us to be uncertain of the next note –
Knuckle Biter wanders by Jade thinking Indecision will not serve our cause tonight – I’ve got to strike while the opportunity is hot. Yes, I’ve been ordered here with a specific mission, a specific goal, a specific soul to suck, but I’m calling it quits tonight. It’s time to finally establish my own agenda. First, I’m going to feast on alien psyche for my own pure unlimited pleasure, and then I’m damn well going to find some way to die and that’s that –
Knuckle Biter passes Lydia’s table, where Lydia is eyeing Adam apprehensively out of the corner of her eye. But Indecision will not serve our cause tonight, there must be some way to reconcile aging and romance, there must be –
Kirsten Brandi Marinara flounces by thinking “I wonder how my hair looks?” –
Lou Moon watches Kirsten bouncing with an appreciative leer. Indecision will not serve our cause tonight. I have a job to do and I’m gonna do it, jam that other dimensional broadcast at the source, ‘course that don’t mean I can’t enjoy myself in the meantime –
To the back of Lou, the Mulroney Throttler stares at Phoebe Hush’s heavily made up face, thinking: Indecision will not serve our cause tonight. I can make this girl. Sure, it’s been fourteen years but I still remember how to do it, I think –
The Pearl Wolf is never indecisive about what she does, neither is Mordecai –
The Info Junkies don’t worry about Indecision, they know they just want more Info –
Adam stares at the Junkies hooked to their Alien Info and thinks Indecision will not serve our cause tonight. Info is not the answer. You can have all the Info in the world and still not know what to do. Love is the answer, somehow, I’m sure of that, and he turns back to Lydia –
Agent Only makes certain Adam and everyone else isn’t watching him and surreptitiously checks that his guns are loaded with those special silver bullets under the table, thinking Indecision will not serve our cause tonight, preparing to leave the bar to go massacre the Pearl Wolf’s sex dog pack –
-- but he runs right into Audrey Always still standing in the doorway to Nosferatunes, waiting for Knuckle Biter’s signal to enter. Audrey flashes a flirty smile at Only that nearly drops him in his tracks. He spins around and staggers back into the bar with a stupid grin on his face. Audrey giggles to herself, Indecision won’t serve your cause tonight, guys, I’ll make certain of that –
boB the Poet, leaning on the wall beside Audrey but completely oblivious to her charms thinks what the hell rhymes with Indecision?
Benny Dredful catches sight of Luna Damsel observing him for the first time, and as they make eye contact, both think simultaneously Indecision will not serve our cause tonight. But then he thinks I can’t let myself be distracted by her, and she thinks I will find a way to distract him –
Touchy Forceful is oblivious to it all, lost in Hanley the Info Pusher’s Alien Info, resolving Indecision will not serve our cause tonight. I will decipher the Alien Info and be the first person to know when the Alien Invasion will take place, assuming there is going to be an Alien Invasion in the first place, but why wouldn’t there be? No, no Indecision, and he begins scribbling notes on a blank piece of paper –
Joni Godiva thinks Indecision will not serve our cause tonight, as she mentally lays out the best sight line from where she’s sitting to drop Hanley the Info Pusher with one shot between the eyes. Right in the implant, she grins. But this gets her sexually agitated to an extreme unusual even for her, so she decides she’d better have another pink lady to relax, she’s got all night to ice this sucker –
The Goth Moth flutters by thinking delightedly tare him hed off eatimup, teheeheeheeheeheehee as adolescent girls will –
and Hanley the Info Pusher dodges out of the Goth Moth’s way, still knowing better than to push any kind of Info on that one, Indecision will not serve our cause tonight but then we already knew that, didn’t we?
A broken wild life
Despite the need for resolution, a tremendous sense of conflict still lingers in the ether, but now the ensemble are not certain if the source of the conflict is coming from within themselves, or from some outside force acting upon them all. There’s something in the air tonight … All they know for certain is that none of them feel they can trust the world anymore. There is something beyond their control trying to make life very, very difficult for them. But at the same time, they each find it exciting to consider that such a malevolence is actually taking a personal interest in them.
They all stand at their tables, facing outwards and speaking, but not necessarily to each other, sharing thoughts they wouldn’t dream of putting into words under normal circumstances.
Adam says: “Alone and naked beneath the universe. A constant aura of tension that can only be called home,” to which Lydia adds: “Wrapping around our bodies like a second skin, nourishing as much as it destroys.”
Lou Moon is more optimistic: “There’s still something lurking in the flowers. Birds of a thousand colours.”
But Benny Dredful is pessimistic: “Rollo Shindy fled the jungle. Life without enemies is like a log without insects.”
Luna Damsel tries to get his attention: “The feeling never leaves us, reverberating off the greenery. We are always watched.”
“Especially when we’re naked!” Audrey Always calls from the doorway.
Agent Only likes that idea: “Like the savages we are. We occupy a land where we should be animals.”
But Joni Godiva waxes surprisingly poetic: “And our plumage will be as bright as the sun.” But Knuckle Biter is in more of a mind with Only.
“Singing as our souls are stolen for trophies.”
The Goth Moth thinks to herself in alarming clarity: “Every moment converging in rainbows reflecting from a giant dragonfly’s wings.”
Hanley grows nervous. “A predator’s eyes follow our every movement. Jaguars, leopards, tigers hunting –”
Adam: “ – men –”
Lydia: “ – women –”
Joni: “ – multi-coloured as the night –”
Only: “ – trees and rocks topple –”
Knuckle Biter: “ – to strangle, embrace, caress –”
Benny: “ – every sense of the animal –”
Luna: “ – every fang, claw and talon, are upon us –”
Audrey: “ – one on one, closest together.”
Benny Dredful tries to take the thought home: “Blending in so well in the myriad colours behind us, monkeys howl, rodents scream this is no longer a jungle, we suffer from a broken wild life –”
Luna doesn’t let him: “We will inhabit one form.”
And Knuckle Biter finishes, yearningly: “ – with iridescent wings, fanning such a wind as light shall never know …”
Everyone seats themselves again.
House policy
Establishing shot. But who’s observing who?
Benny Dredful realizes that while he’s been watching the crowd, unseen by him, a woman he does not know has come into the bar who has apparently been watching him. He refuses to acknowledge the immediate attraction he feels. Even when they have established eye contact, and she rushes up to his table and tries to kiss him. He barely dodges away in time. Abruptly, he knows her name.
“Luna Damsel? Luna Damsel? Who the hell are you? And why do you feel so – so different?”
Luna grins. “Always someone watching the watcher, you know, and that’s why we’re both here, observers with a purpose. You’re watching me watching them and watching you, and I’m watching you watching them and finally, watching me. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. Wanna go to the side room?”
“Having to shoot someone later tonight is participation enough for me, thanks.”
“Not if I shoot him first. But I don’t shoot. I poison. I shoot him full of enough genuine ET Junk, it will send his mind so far out of his body it’ll never find its way back. See?” She shows him the syringe strapped carefully beneath her coat. “Now show me yours.”
Reluctantly, Benny opens his coat, revealing the dagger in his belt.
“Ha! Big talker. I knew you weren’t the pistol packing kind either. But it’s not the size of the weapon that counts. It’s the murderous intent. With any weapon … “ She leans as close as he’ll let her again. “Sure I can’t entice you into the back room? The Brain Drainer’s got a reefer that’ll make you hornier than a heap of hoot owls.”
“There’s a Brain Drainer here?”
“Not very observant, for an observer, are you?”
Benny shrugs that off. “Who sent you?”
“The ones doing the broadcasting on Hanley’s supposed alien implant. Sorry – no names. I’m their eyes on Earth. A particular gambler’s insurance policy, an agent to make certain a certain bet is won at a certain time. What about you?”
“I’m a Rollo Shindy stooge.”
“Poor baby. That still doesn’t mean we can’t – “
Kirsten Brandi Marinara’s cell phone goes off at that moment. The band stops playing. Everyone turns to look. She has time to draw the cell out of her purse before Mordecai, the waiter, gets her.
He drops his drink tray, yanks out a very large and powerful hand gun with an enormous barrel, and gets off three perfect shots: the first through the phone, the second through Kirsten Brandi Marinara’s heart, the third through Kirsten Brandi Marinara’s forehead. She falls to the floor with barely a whimper. Everyone stares, frozen.
Silence, for a beat.
“House policy,” Gully Bechet announces from the stage.
Everyone reaches for their cell phones and turns them off.
Lou Moon plays the scene cool
While everyone’s distracted by the management-sanctioned disciplinary action taken on Kirsten Brandi Marinara, Knuckle Biter the Brain Drainer gives the signal and Audrey Always makes her entrance. Even the women are distracted. Even boB the Poet takes notice. All the other men are hopelessly lost, not even recalling a moment later that Kirsten Brandi Marinara ever existed. Goth Moth wanders off chuckling with the corpse, while no one’s watching. Knuckle Biter marks her prey, and smiles. Audrey is having precisely the effect Knuckle wanted on precisely the male Knuckle wanted her to. As Always.
As Lou Moon himself sees it:
So I’ve got the place under surveillance and I’m most impressed with what I survey. A young Asian chickie assumes centre stage with legs longer than a teenage boy’s yearning for the real thing. She’s dressed in a flippy white mini skirt and braless green top and stalks across the floor most intentionally drawing everyone’s attention to tiny pockets on the backside of her skirt, as she puts both hands right there and gives them a little tug. Migod, I assumed she was wearing heels to strike that posture and height, but no, it’s just good genes and well-bred training. She’s flat-footed, those legs can’t be real so she can’t be real, this is just too, too perfect a set up in a bar full of middle-aged men. She must be a diversion, Lou; Lou, look out –
Sure enough, a hand wraps around my neck from behind – I grab the wrist reflexively and twist, anticipating an other dimensional attack at the very least. But no, it’s an older Asian woman, thin, too damn thin, sort of drawn up tight but with unbelievably large dark eyes and an interesting smart ass grin. Her English isn’t that good or at least so she pretends –
“You like?” she says, nodding at the younger girl still way too up front and centre for all the raging testosterone in the room. “She Audrey Always, my niece. Too young. You like me better. Come with me. Private room.” And I let myself be led up some stairs to a curtained alcove with a small table and a couple of chairs at it. Nosferatunes’ notorious side room.
She sits me down in one chair, takes the other herself, then draws out what looks suspiciously like a joint from her padded, patchy dark blue jacket. She smiles. Like a shark.
“This good shit.” She lights up and takes a deep puff, holding in the smoke as long as she can, then blows it out and hands the joint to me. Her teeth look even sharper. “You like this very much. Make you horny.”
I give her an evaluating stare. “That was quite a hit you just took …”
Her whole face lights up, she nods enthusiastically. Well, this should be very interesting indeed. I take a deep, deep puff …
How long have you and your bozo been a couple
“So you say we dated thirty years ago?” Lydia looks doubtfully at Adam, picking up the last thought she had before Mordecai shot Kirsten Brandi Marinara and Audrey Always moved in to sucker punch all the males.
“Dated? We lived together! Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”
“How could I … I … yi yi … I do sort of …”
“Hah!”
“But I’m just looking forwards these days. I try not to look backwards,” Lydia tells him primly. What am I saying? she thought. I only now decided that I needed someone who could appreciate me at every time in my life, at least this guy knew me when –
“You used to be a lot –” Adam cuts himself off just in time. They eye each other warily.
“If you say ‘thinner’ I’m breaking the neck off that beer bottle and shoving it right through your throat.”
“‘More cheerful looking’, I was going to say, ‘a lot more cheerful looking’ …”
“ … Okay. I’ll let you get away with that one. But just and only.”
Benny Dredful leaps up from the table he’s sitting at with Luna Damsel, suddenly desperate to get away from her. “Sorry, I’m not here to interact, I’m just watching –”
“Look out!”
He walks into Phoebe Hush, who is on her way to join the Mulroney Throttler. This definitely interferes with Phoebe’s concentration on the seductive stare she has leveled on the Throttler. Hearing Davis Jade snickering behind her still on stage doesn’t help either. Phoebe gives Benny a shove. “Bozo.”
Benny loses his balance and falls half across Luna’s table. Luna jumps up to help him. The Throttler strides over and takes possession of Phoebe. “Is there a problem here?” he asks menacingly.
“No, no problem,” Luna says smoothly, comfortably inserting herself between the Throttler and Benny. The Throttler looks doubtful. He really wants to impress Phoebe with how studly he is, but he can’t do that by pounding on a girl.
Benny slinks away behind, barely noticed, still not watching where he’s going, and walks face first into Audrey Always’s chest.
“Hi! Buy me a drink?”
Benny moans. “Oh, God …”
Luna grabs him by the arm. “Spoken for,” she tells Audrey. “Nice try,” she adds in a menacing undertone to Benny. Audrey flips her an I-doubt-it look. Benny pulls his arm away, twists around, and half falls over, half collapses gratefully onto an empty chair beside Adam.
“Don’t you think she looks good for her age?” Adam asks him directly, nodding to Lydia. “You wouldn’t believe she was a day over fifty, wouldya?”
Lydia’s glare actually makes Adam move his chair back six inches. “Be careful how you answer that,” he adds lamely to Benny. Benny is stunned. Lydia turns a look on him that he interprets as meaning she actually does want an answer to Adam’s question, and yes, he had better be careful how he composes it. Luna slides in again to save the day, taking the chair beside Lydia.
“Fifty? Don’t be ignorant, she doesn’t look a day over thirty-five, does she darling?” Benny nods enthusiastically. He is too relieved at not having to answer to realize Luna has just coupled the two of them.
Mollified, Lydia offers a black lace-gloved hand to Luna. “Hi, I’m Lydia. This bozo’s Adam. We used to be an item, in our, ahem, youth. How long have you and your bozo been a couple?”
“Ha! And you were pretending you didn’t remember me.” Adam is triumphant.
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