Lovely Death Page 2

  In the corner, the jukebox had begun to glow. Instead of exclamatory primary colors in neon, the box blinked in hues of black-and-white. An insidious rainbow of grays danced as the record clicked into place and the needle went to work.

  Nick froze, unaware that he still clasped the empty glass in one hand. He did not move an inch. Even thoughts of a necessary drink had slipped to the backburner as he became entranced by the music machine. Anticipation brimmed within him, even more dangerously than when he’d eyed the sultry bartender. It was as if the revelation of the universe’s fundamental secret was opening before him.

  And then the jukebox spoke. Its words were steady, melodic chords from an electric guitar, quickly accompanied by a pulsing snare drum. The drab voice of Howard Kaylan joined.

  “Imagine me and you, I do.

  I think about you day and night. It’s only right,

  To think about the girl you love, and hold her tight.

  So happy together…”

  The song was a grenade to the doorway of his unconscious mind. Nick buried his face in his hands, trying madly to claw himself from what he now knew must be a dream. He knew the song. He knew it as well as he knew the bar. The two were nightmarish siblings.

  There was a choking attempt to scream, but Nick’s voice was drowned out by the coming chorus of the classic song by The Turtles. He thrashed the air with his fists, but his legs would not permit him to stand. Nick tried to cover his ears, but the sound of music droned on as clearly as if he were sitting right next to the speaker.

  Glass shattered behind the bar and, no longer able to stand the sight of the two-tone juke, Nick turned in desperation to call for the bartender to bring a halt to the song. Certainly, the merciful vixen could bury an axe in the face of the nostalgic noise box.

  The lady in red had returned and was waiting for him. One hand rested on her hip in a gesture of impatience as she stared away from Nick. Her face remained hidden behind a veil of long, thick hair, and beyond the reach of the bar’s mirror. The glass she had been polishing was splayed in glittering shards at her feet.

  “Turn it off!” he shouted. “Please, turn it off!” His words were cotton, and floated away. The woman made no movement, gave no sign of response.

  Nick remembered his empty glass and threw it. The toss was wide, and instead of hitting her, the pint glass flew toward the grand mirror. It splashed the oblong surface as if it had been tossed into a shining pool of oil, and was swallowed without a sound. Behind him, the song stopped mid-chorus and looped again to the beginning.

  This, at last, brought a stir of movement from the barmaid. She put her hands on her hips and turned her head to offer a shadowy profile. “You hear that, lover? The devil’s playing our song.”

  Nick could not breathe.

  The room dimmed. Neon faded, and the sound of the jukebox became a distant hum as she turned to face him fully.

  Laura Scranton crossed the distance between them, leaning across the bar to meet Nick. Up close, she was every bit the beauty he remembered, with high cheekbones, and hair that blazed like a wildfire. “Aren’t you going to ask a pretty lady to dance?”

  The answer to that question danced automatically in his head. It had been said before, was a matter of memory. But, history was not repeated in his reply. He watched her with a mixture of disbelief and disgust. She was no more real than the room he sat in, this construct of the bar where they’d met, two years prior.

  “You’re dead, Laura. I watched you die.”

  She cocked her head, nonplussed.

  “I killed you,” Nick explained.

  “Well, that wasn’t very nice of you, was it?”

  Laura grinned, showing him a pearly, perfect set of teeth that were just a touch too large for her face.

  “No way to welcome a girl back.”

  “This is a dream,” Nick said.

  “Is it?”

  Her eyes bored into him, penetrating with an unblinking intensity that sat just on the edge of madness, just as she’d done in real life. It was the stare that had kept him up nights once the letters started coming, once he no longer felt safe in his own home.

  “That’s right,” Nick spat, feeling genuine hate roar to the surface from a pent up well of rage. “I shot you dead, you psychotic fuck. You made my life a living hell. I shot you in the guts and watched you bleed out on my floor. And, you know what? I enjoyed every fucking second of it.”

  “We both know that’s not true, don’t we?” She winked and pointed a mock forefinger-and-thumb pistol at him. “You loved me to death.”

  Nick felt himself deflate. His vision began to blur and his limbs slumped, as if her imaginary bullet had pierced his heart.

  Laura’s hand shot across the bar and seized his forearm. The iciness of the grip made him gasp. It was an arctic vise. Before he could struggle, she winked at him. “See you soon, baby.”

  Nick collapsed into the black, oceanic depths of his unconscious mind as the dream departed.

  Three

  Nick woke with a jolt. His chest and arms were covered with perspiration. The air around him—he was in the backseat of the car—was damp and heavy. His heart was beating uncomfortably fast, as if he’d just spent an hour running on his treadmill. He recalled the haunting image of Laura in his nightmare and felt his pulse spike once more.

  Rubbing his eyes, he took deep breaths. Panic gave way to gradual calm as Nick sat himself upright in the seat. From where he sat in the Cougar, the world was serene. The rain had stopped, and at some point during the last few hours the sun had gone down.

  Nick had no idea how long he’d slept. It had been midafternoon when he’d left Seattle and now it was nighttime. Outside, a pair of headlights drifted by, followed by the whir of tires on pavement and a passing motor. Jesus, he must have slept for hours. It was a miracle a state patrolman hadn’t stopped to check the car out.

  Nick opened the coupe’s single driver-side door and pressed the seat forward. He climbed out to stretch his legs.

  Lush vegetation surrounded both sides of the road, though its rich green color was lost to the evening shadows. But Nick could still smell it. It was the smell of freshly minted oxygen in the air, the kind that accompanied vast expanses of forestry. It was like being back in Colorado again, back in the days when he and his college buddies would spend the nights around a campfire in the Rockies, drinking Coors Light and sleeping on the backbreaking ground. Except Washington had ten times the humidity, as evidenced by the tee shirt that was now plastered to Nick’s torso.

  Nick popped the trunk, unzipped his black nylon duffel bag, and drew out a fresh tee shirt. He peeled off the old one and pulled on the new. It was black, and had a lithograph print of Bruce Campbell wielding a bloodied chainsaw overhead.

  Nick looked both ways down the road and was surprised to see it so empty. He climbed back into the driver’s seat and started the motor. The 351-cubic-inch Cleveland engine rumbled to life. It kicked soft little tails of exhaust into the night as it settled into an even purr. The front seat was bathed in soft blue light from the dashboard instrument panel. All the dials and gauges were still analog, but the backlighting had been customized to glow the azure hue of a lighted nighttime swimming pool. The clock told Nick it was thirty minutes until midnight.

  No wonder he felt so damn decent. The aftereffects of the dream had faded and now Nick realized that he felt somewhat rested. His eyes were sharp; his head was clear and alert for the first time in what felt like weeks. Maybe Lewis had been right. Sure, he’d still had another dream, but Nick had actually managed to get some rest too. He grinned at himself in the rearview, his narrow face and dark features painted luminescent blue.

  He had just begun to reach for the radio dial when a shrill burst of musical notes chirped from the glove box.

  Nick twisted the knob on the box and it dropped down to reveal two things: his .45 Glock, and his cell phone. He reached for the one that was spouting electronic beeps and vibrating. After t
aking a quick look at the name flashing on the screen he frowned. He pressed the green button.

  “What’s up, Donnie?”

  “Nick, buddy,” said the man on the other end. His voice was slick as a greased snake, and he himself was just about as useful. “How you doing, huh? Hey, listen, I know you said you’re taking a vacation or whatever…”

  “I drove to Washington to visit a cemetery. Hardly a vacation, man.”

  “Hah, right. That sounds exactly like a vacation for you, you twisted fuck. So anyway—I know, I know. You said you didn’t want to be bothered while you’re on the road—I’m really sorry about that. But it’s important.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, buddy. It’s about the new picture.”

  “Return to the Grindstone?”

  “Unless you’ve made any other multi-million dollar films in the last year that I’m aware of, yes, that movie.”

  “If I did I wouldn’t tell you, you greedy shit,” Nick said, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I have to pay you fifteen percent every time I get change at Starbucks.”

  “Such is the glamorous life of representing the bigshots, kiddo. Now listen up, because I know you’re busy. Actually, fuck you. I know I’m busy. I just got a call from the studio regarding, ah…Return to the Grindstone. Listen, Nick, I don’t know how else to say it, but they hate the title.”

  “We’re two fucking months from release!” Nick said, feeling his hand tighten around the gear shifter. “We’ve already made trailers, press junkets. What about the goddamn Internet?”

  “Fuck all that,” said Donnie. “Don’t worry about it, man. They haven’t even released the theatrical trailer, yet. That’s all that really matters. A few of the worthless internet leeches might bitch, but overall the general public is not going to care about a name change. In the long run, it’s only a title. I mean, for fuck’s sake, this could be something much more annoying. It’s not like the studio wants to screw with the final cut. Or digitally splash more blood on Sandra’s titties in the middle of the wheelhouse scene.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me, Donnie. The grindstone is symbolic in the film. And it’s a great title. Why the hell would they want to change that now?”

  “Jesus, kid. What’s important is the fact that they’ve gotten the project this far without any hiccups, amirite? I mean, really, this isn’t that big of a deal.”

  “Then why did you call?”

  “Well…goddammit, Nick…”

  Nick flexed his fingers around the gear shifter, felt its cool chrome become slippery in his sweaty palm.

  “It’s because of what happened isn’t it? It’s because of Laura.”

  “No, man,” Donnie shot back, a little too quickly. The son of a bitch was lying to him.

  “What’s the new title?” Nick demanded.

  “Well, it’s not really official, if you know what I mean. I’d hate to say without…”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Donnie. What’s the proposed title?”

  For a moment, there was silence as Nick heard his agent hesitate on the other end of the line. Nick switched the phone to his other ear and rolled down the window. His sticky skin was thankful for the soft breeze.

  “Grindstone II: Blood Stalkings,” said Donnie. “You know, as in, stalker stalkings.”

  “Blood Stalkings,” Nick repeated. “Jesus Christ. They’ve got no shame. No fucking shame at all.”

  “Listen, buddy, I had nothing to do with it, alright?”

  Nick shook his head and stared out the windshield into the open midnight road.

  “Yeah, I’m sure you fought it tooth and nail,” Nick said. He beat the dashboard once with the cell phone and brought it back to his ear. “I don’t have time for this Hollywood bullshit. I’ve gotta go.”

  “Hey, hey wait, buddy. Where are you going? Are you coming back to the city?”

  “Fuck you, Donnie.”

  With that Nick hung up the phone. He pressed and held the red button on its touchscreen and the device powered down. Nick gripped the lifeless thing in his hand a moment, squeezing it. Then he hammered his fist on the dashboard so hard it hurt. Those unbelievable pricks. He couldn’t believe that they’d actually gone that far in taking advantage of his situation, his pain and suffering, and were using it like Rumpelstiltskin to spin his upcoming film into a big pile of money.

  “Sycophantic bastards,” Nick growled, feeling heat rise to his cheeks. “Goddammit.”

  He considered calling Calvin, the film’s Executive Producer, thought he would give the little prick an earful. But he knew it was useless. When it came to dealing with the studio, Nick had no rights. He was just a dollar sign with a nametag. And the two-inch-thick contract he’d signed in order to cash the studio’s checks, at the core of all its legal bullshit, had said precisely that.

  “Motherfuck,” Nick spat. He threw the cell phone into the backseat, where it bounced off the rear window.

  Nick cranked the gear shifter into drive, released the parking brake, and hardened his gaze on the blacktop as he guided the Cougar onto the open road. He needed a drink. And not one of those cans in the backseat full of sugar and caffeine, and the taste of bubbly horse piss. No, he needed a real drink. Less than a minute later, a reflective green sign on the side of the road informed him that he was roughly forty miles from Spokane. Nick had never been to Spokane, but he was sure that the city had more than one bar still open at this hour. If he hoofed it, he could be there in under thirty minutes.

  Nick indeed hoofed it. He pulled into Spokane just after 12:30. His was one of the only cars on the road as he took the exit onto Lincoln Street. Street lights dotted the roadway, illuminating otherwise darkened storefronts and buildings. The place was dead, at least compared to the bustle of Los Angeles that Nick was used to. He had grown accustomed to the constant flow of traffic, day or night, pedestrian or automobile, that plagued the streets of L.A. like the schizophrenic maze of a beehive. Especially at this time of night, Nick was surprised to see the streets so devoid of trash, of 24-hour eateries belching their neon declarations into the night. A handful of people were interspersed here and there, all of them college-aged and ambling along between bars.

  He wheeled the car to one of many open spots at the curb. The parking meters were dark, well out of observed duty time. Nick killed the engine and stepped out of the vehicle. A couple pairs of headlights dotted Lincoln Street. Aside from the laughing drunk kids, those car tires were the only thing cutting the still night air as they sluiced through puddles of standing rainwater.

  There were three bars that Nick could see. The first was the busiest. It was a Country Western themed joint called Stirrups, though nobody coming in or out was wearing cowboy attire. It seemed to be a college student hotspot. He grumbled and shook his head. Two doors down from that was another bar called Tooky’s, and although it wasn’t as full of drunken patrons as its neighbor, it was twice as loud. A young man and his girlfriend pressed through the door, releasing an ear-splitting rendition of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’. And if there was anything Nick hated more than shoving his way through a crowd of people to get a drink, it was karaoke. Karaoke was surely one of hell’s only two radio station choices. The other option, of course, was smooth jazz.

  And so Nick let his gaze drift across the road, to the lone drinking hole situated between a row of dark-windowed businesses. Rather than an overhead sign like its competition across the street, this place had only a neon Redhook Ale Brewery sign in the window. Out front stood a sandwich chalkboard with the words The Ransack Room stenciled across it in slightly crooked lettering. The curtains were drawn, but there was a man in biker leathers standing out front smoking a cigarette.

  The choice was obvious. Nick crossed the street, nodded to the bearded man having a smoke, and went inside.

  Four

  The Ransack Room was Nick’s kind of bar. It was a dive, but with just enough character not to be seedy. It was a human rendition of nature�
��s greatest and most necessary meeting place: a watering hole that animals from far and wide, predators and prey both in uneasy truce, came to find sustenance. It was the great equalizer, something out of the Amazonian jungle, where species from all walks of life could come to drink their fill. Or, in this case, get outright shit-faced.

  Like all good dive bars, the lighting was dim, coming mostly from the bar itself which was a three-tiered oak job with mirrors and backlighting. There was an even mix of tables and booths, both about half full. Some held the asses of grungy motorcyclists in dark leather. Others were occupied by fringe college kids, the artistic types. Nick wound his way through a few abandoned chairs and took the only open seat at the middle of the bar. On one side of him sat a balding mechanic who hadn’t bothered to change out of his shop blues, and in the opposite direction sat two middle-aged businessmen, suit ties and sobriety long since abandoned. Overhead, B.B. King was howling about the thrill that had gone away for good, while strumming Lucille like she was a part of his soul.

  Nick slid his stool closer to the bar and rested his elbows on its worn, but clean mahogany ledge. He leaned forward and spied the bartender about ten seats down, working the beer tap at the opposite end of the bar. She was pretty, with a brunette pixie cut and a good body. Not much in the mammary department, but compensating for it fantastically in the southern hemispheres. Her body was made for tight blue jeans. And as Nick watched the girl simultaneously pour three pints and wash a half dozen empty glasses at the same time he saw that she was a competent bartender too.

  A cute little blonde server swung by the end of the bar, collected the full pints, and whisked them off to her waiting patrons. And no sooner had she gone than did the bartender resume washing glasses, pausing to offer a polite smile at the man seated across from her, whom had presumably just shared what he thought was a funny anecdote. The girl scanned the bar, noticed Nick, and walked over.