Duck Parade
Vampire Notes
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Visitors
It was just after sundown on a Wednesday evening in February. I was working late that day, looking through overdue bills to see which of them I could put off. It was a futile exercise; I knew I’d be out of cash by the end of the week, and my creditors were closing in like starving wolves.
I was brooding over my shattered dreams, the plays I’d produced and directed that had flopped so badly, when I heard a rapping at the door that nearly startled me out of my wits.
I glanced up uneasily. There was only a single light on in my cluttered office, a reading lamp that cast enormous shadows.
The venetian blinds were open behind me, but it was pitch black outside.
The rapping came again, harder this time. I suppose if I’d had my wits about me, I’d have picked up the phone and called the police. My office was a spare bedroom in my apartment, above a dingy little hardware store in a crumbling brick building in East Hollywood. There was a street entrance, but that was supposed to be locked. Only a thief could have gotten past it.
But why would a thief go to all the trouble of breaking in downstairs, of climbing so stealthily that I hadn’t heard a sound, only to alert me to his presence with a rap at my door loud enough to wake the dead?
Then a familiar, blank indifference came over me and I reached for the knob. What the hell, I thought, half expecting to find the muzzle of a shotgun in my face. I was doomed anyway; what did it matter!
But the couple I saw waiting there in the dimly lit hall put an end to my indifference at once. I recognized the man as Edmond Mornay, a mysterious multimillionaire who’d moved to L.A. only a couple of years ago, and was building a theatre in Santa Monica. The woman would be his companion, Ilona Nagel—intelligent, beautiful, and rarely seen in public.
I’d never met them before—few people in L.A. had—and I wondered why they were calling on me.
They were striking creatures, vivid and unusual, even in this age of exotica. Mornay wore formal evening dress—tuxedo, silk shirt, black shoes polished to a very high gloss. He was not a tall man—I put him at about five-eight—but he was strongly built, and there was an unmistakable air of authority about him.
At the same time, his features were surprisingly delicate, almost feminine in their beauty. He had the high cheekbones, the finely arched nose, and the graceful lines of a model’s or a ballerina’s face. His skin looked utterly bloodless, and had the fine, nearly translucent texture of Belleek china.
He took my hand and introduced himself. His grip was powerful; his long fingers were as cold as if he’d just plucked them out of an ice bucket.
Then he introduced Ilona.
She’d been standing back in the shadows. She stepped forward, and now that I saw her up close for the first time, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
She was a tall redhead wearing a scarlet dress with a peculiar lace collar. Her hair was a long, iridescent flame that seemed to merge into pure light at the crown. Her eyes were very pale and silvery, like frost touched by moonlight, and I felt witchery in them as she scrutinized me.
She said nothing, just took my hand and clasped it in her own for a moment. I was surprised at how warm her skin was, and I think she must have ready my mind, because there was a little smile at the corners of her mouth.
I was too flustered to think very clearly, but I managed to show them into my office, where I cleared away stacks of printout and the remains of a peanut butter sandwich from two folding chairs. Ilona seated herself with a wonderfully liquid, graceful motion. I don’t know why, but I thought of an untamed beast of the forest settling down to watch her prey. And I wanted her! Oh how I wanted her!
I glanced at Mornay, who had gone to the window and was gazing thoughtfully out at the darkness. He made me a little uneasy. I tried to fit him into a category—crook, egotist, manipulator—but his face defeated me.
I envied him that fabulous redhead. The gossip columnists called her his "companion", and I wondered what they meant by the term. It was a word with many, many connotations, but there was definitely something I can only call sulfurous about these two.
"I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything to drink," I said, suddenly embarrassed by the messy state of my office. I’d been letting things go lately—myself included. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window as I sat down, an untidy-looking man in a rumpled brown jacket and slacks. I hadn’t shaved that day, and my eyes were bloodshot from too many sleepless nights spent brooding over my impending destruction.
I tried to smooth back my hair, but it’s the kind that sticks up all over the place unless I run a wet comb through it.
Mornay turned and gave me a long, hard look.
"I came here to make you an offer," he said abruptly. "I want you to produce a play for me."
I gaped in astonishment. There I was at the bottom of a financial well, abandoned by my backers after years of failure, facing a bleak future, and a man I’d never met before had just tossed me a lifeline.
I couldn’t speak; I was like an inexperienced actor in summer stock overplaying a reaction. I thought of all the worst possibilities; this was some kind of a joke, or some kind of tax dodge that would leave me dangling naked in the breeze when the IRS came around. But I was desperate. What could be worse than the mess I was in now?
Finally I managed to say, "You know about my last four productions?"
He nodded. I know other things about you as well. You’ve made enemies."
Suddenly I felt hot and uncomfortable. I knew Ilona was staring at me, but I avoided her eyes.
“Whatever you’ve heard about me is malicious gossip,” I said quickly. “Certain people in this town hate my guts.”
Mornay flashed a smile that was gone so quickly, I couldn’t be sure I’d actually seen it.
“When you spend the night with a rich man’s mistress, you make enemies,” he said.
“No way she was his mistress!” I snorted. “The fact is, she couldn’t stand the slob. He acted like he owned her!”
“And you were there to console her,” Ilona said, amused.
I could feel her pale eyes on me. “I liked her,” I said stoutly. “But she moved on; she found a celebrity.”
Mornay seemed amused by my floundering attempts to explain a disastrous indiscretion. “In the old days, we used to say a man like you wears his heart on his sleeve,” he remarked. “But that’s one of the reasons I want to hire you. I want somebody capable of passion.”
I wasn’t sure how to reply to this, so I held my tongue for a moment.
Mornay turned to examine the spines of a row of coffee-stained paperbacks lined up on a brick-and-board shelf near my desk, and I noticed the odd shape of his hands. His fingers were elgonated and thin and seemed to creep over my books like the jointed legs of a spider.
Suddenly he turned again, and his gaze fixed on me. His eyes were as black as the inside of a cave. I had the feeling I was staring right through the fabric of the universe into something bottomless and strange.
“Ilona and I saw your last production,” he said. “We found it impressive. Does that surprise you?”
“It does,” I said, warming to him. My last production had been The Poor of New York, an Americanized version of a once-popular French melodrama, Les Pauvres de Paris. I supposed it was the sort of offbeat fare that might intrigue these two.
“What I have in mind would be very expensive,” he said. “A melodrama. Price would be no object.”
I couldn’t believe my ears! Price no object? That was like dangling a bottle of Chivas Regal in front of an alcoholic.
There was something about him that worried me, though. He moved to the window again, and I turned to look at him. The sky outside was as black as tar paper, the window almost opaque. I could see the disorder of my office reflected in it, the metal binders piled high with looseleaf binders, catalogs, books.
Then I saw Ilona’s reflection, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it until the moment she looked up and caught me staring. I glanced away, embarrassed. In an instant she stirred and crossed her legs, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the skirt of her dress riding up over her thighs.
It was like a conjuring trick. She flashed her bare legs, and goat-headed Pan popped out of a box in my brain….
