Last Call: Expiration Date Part 21

Shadroe had fished a huge, bristling key chain from his shorts pocket and was unlocking the door. "It's got a new refrigerator-in it, I hooked it up myself yesterday. I do all my-own electrical and plumbing. What do you do?"

"Do? Oh, I'm a bartender." Sullivan had heard that bartenders tended to be reliable tenants.

Shadroe had pushed the door open, and now waved Sullivan toward the dark interior. "That's honest work, boy," he said. "You don't need to be ashamed."

"Thanks."

Sullivan followed him into a long, narrow room dimly lit by foliage-blocked windows. A battered couch sat against one of the long walls and a desk stood across from it under the windows; over the couch were rows of bookshelves like the ones outside, empty except for stacks of old People magazines and, on the top shelf, three water-stained pink stuffed toys. A television set was humming faintly on a table, though its screen was black.

Shadroe pulled out the desk chair and sat down heavily. "Here's a rental agreement," he said, tugging a sheet of paper out of a stack. "No pets either. What are those shoes? Army-man shoes?"

Sullivan was wearing the standard shoes worn by tramp electricians, black leather with steel-reinforced toes. "Just work shoes," he said, puzzled. "Good for standing in," he added, feeling like an idiot.

"They gotta go. I got wood floors, and you'll be boomin' around all night-n.o.body get any sleep-I get complaints about it. Get yourself some Wallabees," he said with a look of pained earnestness. "The soles are foam rubber."

The rental agreement was a Xerox copy, and the bottom half of it hadn't printed clearly. Shadroe began laboriously filling in the missing paragraphs in ink. Sullivan just sat helplessly and watched the old man squint and frown as his spotty brown hand worked the pen heavily across the paper.

The old man's cinnamon smell was stronger in here, and staler. The room was silent except for the scratching of the pen and the faint hum of the television set, and Sullivan's hairline was suddenly damp with sweat.

He found himself thinking of the containment areas of nuclear generating plants, where the pressure was kept slightly below normal to keep radioactive dust from escaping; and of computer labs kept under higher-than-normal pressure to keep ordinary dust out. Some pressure was wrong in this dingy office.

I don't want to stay here, he thought. I'm not going to stay here.

"While you're doing that," he said unsteadily, "I might go outside and look around at the place."

"I'll be done here. In a second."

"No, really, I'll be right outside."

Sullivan walked carefully to the door and stepped out into the sunlight, and then he hurried across the patchwork pavement to his van, taking deep breaths of the clean sea air.

That apartment back up on Cerritos looks good, he told himself. (This place is only half a block from the beach, and I could probably see the Queen Mary across the water from the cul-de-sac right beyond the driveway, but) I certainly couldn't count on getting anything done here, not with this terrible Shadroe guy blundering around.

He unlocked the van door, carefully so as not to touch the drying egg-smear, and climbed in. Mr. Shadroe was probably still sitting back there in the office, carefully writing out the missing paragraphs of the rental agreement; not even breathing as his clumsy fingers worked the pen.

Sullivan pulled the door closed, but paused with the key halfway extended toward the ignition. The man hadn't been breathing.

Shadroe had inhaled a number of times, in order to talk, but he had not been breathing. Sullivan was suddenly, viscerally sure that that's what had so upset him in there-he had been standing next to a walking vapor lock, the pressure of a living soul in the vacuum of a dead body.

What are you telling me? he asked himself; that Mr. Shadroe is a dead guy? If so, I should definitely get out of here, fast, before some shock causes him to throw stress-sh.e.l.ls, and his overdrawn lifeline collapses and he goes off like a G.o.dd.a.m.n firebomb, like the patient at Elizalde's Da del Muerte seance.

Still uncomfortable with the idea, he put the key into the ignition.

Shadroe could be alive, he thought-he could just have been breathing very low, very quietly. Oh yeah? he answered himself immediately. When he inhaled in order to speak, it sounded like somebody dragging a tree branch through a mail slot.

Maybe he's just one of the old solidified ghosts, a man-shaped pile of animated litter, who drifted down here to be near the ocean, as Elizalde in her interview, unaware of how literally she was speaking, noted that the poor old creatures like to do. ("Tide pools seem to be the best, actually, in eliciting the meditation that brings the old spirits to the surface ...") But Shadroe didn't quite talk crazily enough, and a ghost wouldn't be able to deal with the paperwork of running an apartment building; collecting rents, paying taxes and license and utility bills.

Okay, so what if he is one of the rare people who can continue to occupy and operate their bodies after they've died? What's it to me?

Sullivan twisted the key, and the engine started right up, without even a touch of his foot on the gas pedal.

I wonder how long he's been dead, he thought. If his death was recent, like during the last day or so, he probably hasn't even noticed it himself yet; but if he's been hanging on for a while, he must have figured out measures to avoid the collapse: he must not ever sleep, for example, and I'll bet he spends a lot of time out on the ocean.

("... patients seem to find their ghosts more accessible in the shallow depths of actual ocean water. It's been worth field trips.") He didn't want to think, right now, about what Elizalde had said in the interview.

What would that blind witch on the Honda see, he wondered instead, if she were to come around here? With a dead guy up and walking around all over this building and grounds, insulting people's vehicles and shoes, this whole place must look like a patch of dry rot, psychically.

This place would be good cover.

And the location is perfect for me. And six hundred a month, with utilities included-and a new refrigerator!-is pretty good.

Sullivan sighed, and switched off the engine and got out of the van. When he had walked back across the yard and stepped into the office, Shadroe was still at work on the rental agreement. Sullivan sat down on the couch to wait, stoically enduring the psychically stressed atmosphere.

("Eventually I'd like to move my clinic to some location on the beach-not to where there's surf, you see, but pools of ordered, quieted seawater.") "If you'll take cash right now," he said unsteadily, "I'd like to start moving my stuff in this afternoon."

"If you right now got the time," said Shadroe, without looking up. "I right now got the key."

Sullivan had the time. He was suddenly in no hurry to go find Angelica Anthem Elizalde, for he was pretty sure that he knew where she would be.

At the ca.n.a.ls at Venice Beach.

CHAPTER 28.

"I can't go no lower," said the Hatter: "I'm on the floor, as it is."

-Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland SITTING IN A BUS seat by a sunny window, warmed by the noon glare through the gla.s.s and by the oversized fleece-lined denim jacket he had bought at a thrift store on Slauson, Kootie was too sleepy and comfortable to worry. He was sure that the last two days and three nights had aged his face way beyond that picture on the billboards, and, especially with the sungla.s.ses, he was sure he must look like a teenager. The denim jacket even smelled like stale beer.

Keeping his face maturely expressionless, he c.o.c.ked an eyebrow out the window at the pollo stands and the 1950s-futuristic car washes along Crenshaw Boulevard. He would be transferring at Manchester to catch another RTD bus to the Dockweiler State Beach at Playa del Rey.

The boy had awakened at dawn, his eyes already open and stinging in the ancient paint fumes in the abandoned car, and he had recognized the stiff drop cloth under his chin, and the split and faded dashboard in front of him; he had clearly remembered breaking the wind-wing window the night before, and opening the door and climbing in.

But he hadn't recognized the city dimly visible beyond the dusty winds.h.i.+eld this morning.

Cables and wires were strung so densely against the sky overhead that for one sleepy moment he had thought he was under some kind of war-surplus submarine-catching net; then he had seen that the wires were higher than he had thought, and separate, strung haphazardly from telegraph poles and bulky insulators on the high roofs of all the old buildings. And even through the grime on the gla.s.s he could see that they were old buildings-imposing brick structures with arched windows at the top and jutting cornices.

He knew he'd have to prove himself here, in spite of being virtually broke and so terribly young-here in Boston, his first big city- Boston?

He reached a hand out from under the drop cloth and opened the door. It squeaked out on its rusty hinges and let in a gust of fresh morning air that smelled distantly of what he knew must be coal smoke and horse manure-and then Kootie was glad he was sitting down, for he was suddenly so dizzy that he grabbed the edge of the seat.

"You're," croaked his own voice, "don't tell me-Kootie." After a moment he said, voluntarily, "Right." Then his voice went on, thickly, "I was dreaming. This isn't Boston, is it? Nor New Jersey yet. It's ... Los Angeles." His eyes closed and his hands came up and rubbed his eye sockets. "Sorry," said his voice as his right hand sprang away from the painful swelling around his right eye.

When he looked around again, it was typical backstreet Los Angeles that he saw and smelled around him: low stuccoed buildings and palm trees, and the smells of diesel exhaust and gardenias; above a three-story building a couple of blocks away, crows were diving over the condenser fans of a big rooftop air-conditioner shed and then lofting up on the hot air drafts, over and over again. Only a few wires drooped overhead from the telephone poles.

The night air had been cold, and Kootie's nose was stuffed-after he sniffed, his jammed-up sinuses emitted an almost ultrasonic wheee, like the flash attachment on a camera recharging.

"All this running around is doing you no good at all, son," Edison had croaked then. "And I'm not getting any fresher out here. To h.e.l.l with New Jersey. Let's get to the sea. I'll be able to just go into the seawater, safely, and be gone; and you'll be free of me, free to go be a normal boy."

Kootie had not said anything then, as he climbed stiffly out of the car, stretched as well as he could with the heavy I-ON-A-CO cable belt constricting his waist, and limped toward the lot fence; but he thought the old Edison ghost could probably tell that Kootie didn't want to lose him.

Where will I go?" asked Kootie softly now as he clambered painfully down the steps of the bus exit and hopped to the Manchester sidewalk. "I'll need money."

All at once, into the muted early-afternoon air, "You're young!" shouted Edison with Kootie's shrill voice. "You're still alive! You can send and receive as fast as any of them!" Kootie was hobbling away from the bus stop as quickly as he could, not looking at any of the faces around him, his own face burning with embarra.s.sed horror and all feelings of maturity completely blown away.

He caught a breath and choked out, "Shut up!"-but Edison used the rest of the breath to yell, "Skedaddle to the Boston office of Western Union! I've got to get to New Jersey anyway, to pick up my diploma!" Kootie was sweating now in the chilly breeze, and he had clenched his teeth against his own squawking voice, but Edison kept yelling anyway: "The usual job! Napping during night work, with the ghost repellers popping and the gizmo sending your sixing signals on the hour!"

Kootie tried to shout Be quiet! but Edison was trying to say something more, and the resulting scream was something like "Baklava!" (which was a kind of pastry Kootie's parents had sometimes brought home for him).

Kootie was just crying and running blindly in despair now, blundering against pedestrians and light poles, and he wasn't aware of slapping footsteps behind him until a pair of hands clasped his shoulders and yanked him back to a stop.

"Kid," said a man's concerned voice, "what's the matter? Was somebody bothering you? Where do you live? My wife and I can drive you home."

Kootie turned into the man's arms and sobbed against a wool sweater. "The beach," he hiccupped; "the police-I don't know where I've got to go. I'm lost, mister." Blessedly, Edison seemed to have withdrawn.

"Well, you're okay now, I promise. I hopped out of our car at the light when I saw you running-my wife is driving around the block. Let's go back and catch her at the corner, away from all these people here."

Kootie was happy to do as the man said. Several of the people behind him on the corner were laughing, and somebody called out a filthy suggestion about what he should do once he had skedaddled to New Jersey and picked up his "dips.h.i.+t diploma." It horrified Kootie to think that adults could be the same as kids; and now even Edison was drunk or had gone crazy or something.

As he walked along quickly beside the man who had stopped him, Kootie looked up at his rescuer. The man had short blond hair and round, wire-rim gla.s.ses, and he looked tanned and fit, as if he played tennis. He still had one hand on Kootie's right shoulder, and Kootie reached up and clasped the man's wrist.

"Here she is, kid," the man said kindly as a s.h.i.+ny new teal-blue minivan came nosing up to the Manchester curb. "Are you hungry? We can stop for a bite to eat if you like."

The pa.s.senger door had swung open, and a dark-haired young woman in shorts had one knee up and was leaning across the seat and smiling uncertainly. "Well, hi there, kiddo," she said as Kootie let go of the man's wrist and hurried to the minivan.

"Hi, ma'am," Kootie said, pausing humbly on the curb. "Your husband said you could give me a ride."

She laughed. "Hop in then."

Kootie hiked himself up, and then climbed around the console to crouch behind the pa.s.senger seat as the man got in and closed the door. The interior of the minivan smelled like a new pair of dress shoes straight out of the Buster Brown box.

"Let's head toward the 405, Eleanor," the man said, "just to get moving. And if you see a Denny's-did you want something to eat, uh, young man?" The minivan started forward, and Kootie sat down on the blue-carpeted floor.

"My name's Koot Hoomie," he said breathlessly, having decided to trust these people. "I'm called Kootie. Yes, please, about eating-but some kind of takeout would be better. I get screaming fits sometimes. You saw. It's not like I'm crazy, or anything." He tried to remember the name of the ailment that made some people yell terrible things, but couldn't. All he could think of was Failure to Thrive, which an infant cousin of his had reportedly died of. Kootie probably had that too. "It's that syndrome," he finished lamely.

"Tourette's, probably," the man said. "I'm Bill Fussel, and this is my wife, Eleanor. Have you had any sleep, Kootie? There are blankets back there."

"No thanks," said Kootie absently, "I slept in an old car last night." Get to the beach, he thought; let crazy Edison jump into the sea, and then these nice people can adopt me. "Can we go to the beach? Any beach. I want to ... wade out in the water, I guess." He tried to think of a plausible reason for it, and decided that anything he came up with would sound like a kid lie. Then, "My parents died Monday night," he found himself saying to the back of Mr. Fussel's head. "In our religion it's a purifying ritual. We're Hindus."

He had no idea whether it had been Edison or himself that had said it, nor if any of it was true. I suppose we might have been Hindus, he thought. In school I always just put down Protestant.

"A beach?" said Mr. Fussel. "I guess we could go out to Hermosa or Redondo. Elly, why don't we stop somewhere and you can call your mom and let her know we'll be a little late."

For a moment no one spoke, and the quiet burr of the engine was the only sound inside the minivan.

"Okay," said Mrs. Fussel.

"Where does your mom live?" asked Kootie, again not sure it was himself who had spoken.

"Riverside," said Mrs. Fussel quickly.

"Where in Riverside? I used to live there."

"Lamppost and Riverside Drive," Mrs. Fussel said, and Kootie saw her dart a harried glance at her husband.

Now Kootie knew it was Edison speaking for him, for with no intention at all he found himself saying, "There are no such streets in Riverside." Kootie didn't know if there were or not, and certainly Edison didn't either. Why are you being rude? he thought hard at the Edison ghost in his mind.

"I guess she knows where her mother lives," Mr. Fussel began in a stern voice, but Kootie was interrupting: "Very well, name for me any five big streets in Riverside."

"We don't go there a lot-" said Mrs. Fussel weakly.

Mr. Fussel turned around in his seat and faced Kootie. He was frowning. "What's the matter, Kootie? Do you want us to drive you back to that corner and let you out?"

"Yes," Kootie's voice said firmly, and then Edison kept Kootie's jaw clamped shut so that his No! came out as just a prolonged "Nnnnn!"

"That's a dangerous neighborhood," Mr. Fussel said.

"Then let me out-dammit!-right-here! Kootie, let me talk! It's kidnapping if you people keep me in this vehicle!"

Mrs. Fussel spoke up. "Let's let him out and forget the whole thing."

"Eleanor, he's sick, listen to him! It would be the same as murder if we left him out on these streets. It's our duty to call the police." The man had got up out of the pa.s.senger seat and turned swayingly to face Kootie. "And even if we have to call in the police, we'll still get the twenty thousand dollars."

Kootie spun toward the sliding door in the side of the van, but before he could grab the handle the man had lunged at him and whacked him hard in the chest with his open palm, and Kootie jackknifed sideways onto the back seat; he was gasping, trying to suck air into his lungs and get his legs onto the floor so that he could spring toward Mrs. Fussel and perhaps wrench at the steering wheel, but Mr. Fussel gave him a stunning slap across the face and then strapped the seat belt across him, and pulled the strap tight through the buckle, with Kootie's arms under the woven fabric. The boy could thrash back and forth, but his arms were pinioned. He was squinting in the new brightness, for the man had knocked his sungla.s.ses off.

"If you," Kootie gasped, his heart hammering, "let me go-I won't tell the police-that you hit me-and tied me up."

Mr. Fussel had to duck his head to stand in the back of the minivan, and now he rocked on his feet and slapped the ceiling to keep his balance. "Drive carefully!" he shouted at his wife. "If a cop pulls us over right now we're f.u.c.ked!"

Kootie could hear Mrs. Fussel crying. "Don't talk like that in front of the boy! I'm pulling over, and you're going to let him out!"

"Do as she says," Edison grated, "or I'll say you gave me the s.h.i.+ner, too. Kept me for days."

Mr. Fussel was pale. For a moment he looked as though he might hit Kootie again; then he disappeared behind the rear seat and began clanking around among some metal objects. When he reappeared he was peeling a strip off a silvery roll of duct tape.

A sudden intrusive vision: two stark figures strapped into chairs with duct tape, eye sockets b.l.o.o.d.y and empty ...

Edison was blown aside in Kootie's mind as the boy screamed with all the force of his aching lungs, clenching his fists and his eyes and whipping his head back and forth, dimly aware of the minivan slewing as the noise battered the carpeted interior-but the strip of tape sc.r.a.ped in between Kootie's jaws and then more tape was being wound roughly around the back of his head, over his chin, around his bucking head again and over his upper lip.

Kootie was breathing whistlingly, messily, through his nose. He heard tape rip, and then Mr. Fussel was taping Kootie's elbows and forearms to the seat belt.

Against the tape that his teeth were grinding at, Kootie was grunting and huffing, and after two or three blind, impacted seconds he realized that his lips and tongue were trying to form words; they couldn't, around the tape, but he could feel what his mouth was trying to say: Stop it! Stop it! Listen to me, boy! You might die even if you calm down and stay alert, watch for a chance to run, but you'll certainly die if you keep thras.h.i.+ng and screaming like a big baby! Come on, son, be a man!