Monster's Chef (14 page)

He lost it; unencumbered by the baby, he filled the huge room with unrestrained grief. I stood up and tried to think how to comfort him. I extended a hand to touch his shoulder, but almost immediately Security appeared.

“Step back!”

I dropped my hand, suddenly surrounded by three uniformed men.

They yanked me around and led me to the door the nurse had left through. Again, the hood was pulled over my eyes but, holding both my arms, they didn't bother to handcuff me. Stairs, six flights, twenty steps a flight; at the landing I heard someone unlock a door, the hood was snatched off, and I was pushed inside. The lead Security stepped to me.

“Enjoy your stay. If you need something—” He pointed to the phone. “We'll bring you dinner in an hour. Monster will reschedule his appointment with you at his earliest convenience.”

They backed up and shut the door, keeping their eyes on me as though I might bum-rush them.

I turned around to look at my room or cell or whatever it was supposed to be. The decor was that of a nineteenth-century English tearoom with heavy curtains, dizzying wallpaper, and reproduction antique furniture. My four-poster bed looked more threatening than inviting with its grim green quilt and lacy embroidery. When I saw the minibar, I was reluctant to open it, but I did, to see four bottles of Smothers Brothers Merlot and many minibottles of whiskey and rum. I tried to picture myself pouring everything down the drain and consoling myself with peanuts and Diet Cokes, but I don't have that kind of character. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I polished off a few of the little whiskey bottles and wondered what to do next.

Get drunk? Pick up the phone and demand to be released from a very nice prison?

I opened a bottle of wine and poured a glass.

Bad news; it was drinkable. I proceeded to down the whole bottle. After being on the wagon for so long, it didn't take much for me to have a warm glow in the pit of my stomach that unfurled throughout my body. Anger dissipated, and I lay there on the bed, feeling content to wallow in self-pity. Still, though, I wouldn't let myself succumb totally to wine-induced catatonia. I forced myself up and walked to the far side of the room. I pulled back the curtains and opened the window, which I found to be almost impossible to budge more than a couple inches. I smacked the glass with my palm. It wasn't glass, but some kind of unbreakable plastic.

I was very high up, at least a hundred feet above the ground. I could see the entire green valley from this room.

I had to be in the tower, the highest point of Monster's mansion, but it didn't look nearly so tall from down there on the ground. Then it occurred to me that I wasn't in that tower; this view of the valley didn't look at all familiar; where was the ocean?

I wondered if I would see him crawling down the side of the building, headfirst.

I opened another bottle of wine, wondering if it would be as good as the last, in my almost pleasant incarceration.

WOKE VOMITING
; barely managed to reach the bathroom before my stupid fucking idea of having two bottles of wine came up in a colorful torrent. I sat on the floor of the bathroom, trying to stop the spinning, and spun right back above the bowl, hurling out the rest of my guts.

I showered and returned to bed.

I woke again, vomiting, lunging again for the toilet, but this time it was just a false alarm, nothing but a stomach-churning dry heave.

After another shower I stumbled to the phone to demand food. I had finished the bowl of nuts a while ago. No dial tone. It figured.

I needed coffee, at least a pot. I tried the phone again. Still dead. The door continued to be locked. I hate pretzels but ate a bag anyway. I wondered when Security would come see about me.

I fell asleep wondering that but woke to a low, monotonous booming. I could feel it through my bare feet, vibrating through the walls. When I put my shoes on, I could still feel it.

A scream? I put my ear to the door. I tried the handle. This time it opened and I stepped into the dimly lit hallway without a clue of what to do. The booming reverberated through the hallway, so loud I felt like I was walking through fog. Singing, something like singing. I wanted to go back to my bungalow. I didn't want to be in the Lair even if Monster planned to offer me the world, but I couldn't stop myself. I found a stairwell and began walking down, counting steps: twenty, forty . . . At three hundred I arrived at the bottom.

I reached out and touched the door, felt the booms through the metal and wood, and pushed it open.

Sound slammed me back like a hard shove to the chest, a beast beating me down to my knees, trance music so loud I worried my eardrums would burst.

Strobe lights flashing, I saw boys, half a dozen of them, young, shirtless blond boys in pajama bottoms sitting cross-legged while Monster swirled in white robes like a rubber-limbed Fred Astaire.

I saw Thug too, watching from the edge of the shadows.

I tried to go back the way I came, hoped to find the stairwell and escape back to semi-imprisonment.

No, locked. I slid to the floor in a dark corner and watched Monster take one of the boys by the hand and pull him up.

The boy was still as Monster moved wildly about him. I gasped when Monster ran his hands around the boy's body in darting caresses.

I didn't want to see this, didn't want to be part of what was going on, powerless to stop it.

But I wasn't powerless.

I had the strength to try; what could they do to me that I hadn't done to myself?

I stood up and took a breath, saw Monster slip the boy's pajamas down around his knees, hands still running about the boy's body.

“No!” I said, and took a step forward.

My head snapped back and I hit the ground.

“Don't get up. I don't want to beat you down again,” I heard Thug say, in this positively friendly voice.

I tasted blood and looked up at the mountain of him.

I braced one trembling leg and tried to get to my feet.

“You are a fool,” Thug said, and again a massive fist came from above and connected with the top of my head.

Stars of every color spun in the black void. “Told you to stay the fuck down! You never listen to my advice.”

I WOKE UP
in the four-poster bed with the green fucking quilt.

I felt like I had the time I fell down a flight of stairs; touched my jaw, as though it ached, but it was fine, not swollen or sore. I shook my head to clear it and tried to stand, but that didn't work very well, and I slipped back to the edge of the bed. Tried to remember last night, but the memory of it was so confusing. I remembered Monster dancing in front of boys, but the rest was hazy, as if my memory had voided itself, like an empty room where you might have left something, but it was gone and it was a waste of time to wait for whatever it was to return.

Then the door opened and Monster came in.

“Mr. Gibson, I came by to see how you were doing,” he said in his usual breathless voice.

“I'm fine, just a little tired.”

“I heard you had a fall.”

“I don't know . . . might have. I don't remember much of what happened last night, had a little too much to drink. Then somehow I seem to have got locked into this room.”

“When the kitchen help stopped by to bring you breakfast, they found you on the floor with a knot on your head.”

It didn't sound right to me, but it was more of an explanation than I had.

Then Monster pointed to the bottles of wine in the trash can.

“Had a party?”

I shrugged. “I guess so.”

“Can we talk?”

I didn't say anything, and Monster sat in the chair across from the bed and crossed his legs. For once he didn't have on his hat or his glasses. Looking at him was fascinating in that his skin was so pale it was almost translucent, and it shimmered. Somehow he'd found a cosmetic that worked like a special effect; when he moved, specks of color lingered in the air.

“I want to apologize. Last night when you mentioned Ronnie, I made quite a scene.”

I nodded and looked away so that he wouldn't look at me with those gigantic, empty black eyes.

“My world ain't right up here. Things happen I can't explain. You understand what I'm saying?”

I sat like a stone, waiting for him to continue.

“The police want to talk to you,” he said.

“They do?”

“Don't worry. I can have one of my lawyers sit in with you.”

“I don't know anything. Why would I need a lawyer?”

Monster stood and looked out of the window with his thin arms folded behind his back.

“It's not just that I have enemies. That happens in life. You make a name for yourself, make some money, and then everybody wants to get up on you.”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling in my stomach that Monster wanted me to do something for him, something I would not want to do. I could feel it coming.

“I didn't make this place that you see around you. Sure, I added a building or two, restored what needed restoring. I tried to turn it into something that I could love even more. Then the weirdness started happening. Do you know anything about theosophy?”

“No,” I said, wondering where he was going with this.

“The dead don't talk to you?”

“No, never,” I said, and stepped back.

“People believe different things. I got interested in theosophy a while ago. It makes sense of life for me.”

“How?”

“The line between this world and the next isn't as firm as you think.”

I wanted to push him out of the room, or the window. What the hell was he saying to me, that a monster from another dimension killed that boy?

“The police don't understand when I try to explain this to them. But they're not aware, they're not enlightened.”

I nodded, not having any idea of what he was getting at.

“You're saying a spirit or something killed that boy? He died of an overdose as far as I could see.”

Monster turned and looked at me as though he didn't understand a word I said. “I don't know what happened to him, but that's what I'm talking about. I want to have this place exorcised as soon as possible.”

“This is off the subject, but I was wondering . . . since you have another chef, I think it's time for me to look for another job. Maybe see if I can convince my wife to take me back.”

“That's up to you, but you don't have to. I only let good people work for me, and I know that you are a good person who can be trusted. I take care of my people. You are still on the payroll just as if you're my personal chef.”

“Thanks,” I said, relieved to know I still had income, but I still felt the other shoe would fall.

“Gibson, I admire your discretion. The situation with my wife is getting worse. We have a beautiful little boy who needs a calm household, and the way things are going here, he's not going to get that with the press digging all around.”

He paused and looked at me as though he was trying to read my mind.

“I want you to watch over Rita. Thug isn't very good with her, and no matter how well intentioned his actions are, she gets very upset with him. I value you as a confidant, and I need you to understand what's at stake here. I need you to work with her and keep her on my team. I don't want her to bring this world down on us all.”

“I'm willing to do that.”

“The sheriff will be at your bungalow at noon.”

“I'll talk to him.”

Monster smiled winningly at me as he turned to leave. That's what he wanted to hear. Yeah, me the team player. I would be his boy if that's what it took to make things right. I was in.

Security came to escort me back to my bungalow, but this time they didn't bother with the handcuffing and the hood. I rode that golf cart just like Security did because I was now more or less Security, ready to protect Monster at all costs.

I can't say I was happy to step onto the wooden front porch of my bungalow; overjoyed was more like it.

The air in Monster's Lair, deep inside of it, seemed wrong, like it was fouled with something tasteless and odorless. Maybe Monster was right and there was something really wrong with the place, something that didn't involve him, but I doubted it.

I SLEPT HARD THAT NIGHT
, without dreaming, but I woke at dawn with a clarity of thought that I hadn't experienced in weeks. With this sudden burst of energy, I decided to go for a run. I changed into shorts and a T-shirt, stretched for a few minutes, and started at a trot. I didn't mean to go far or fast, but once I started, feeling my way through creaks and pain, I didn't want to stop after a mile of running the trails on the outskirts of Monster's Lair. I saw Security checking me out, talking on their cell phones; in the distance the media was there, still camped, and the government vehicles were along the roads, some double-parked.

Where was I?

Running, clearing my head, remembering.

Monster had done something to me. The dryness in my mouth, my heart beating so hard, me feeling so good.

I had been drugged.

Shit happened there, and I could remember only shards of it, memories cracked into pieces too small to reassemble.

Problem was they didn't know what a drug addict knows, a drug addict like me. I had done enough speed, coke, and heroin to know what a buzz is, even one that wasn't intended to get you high.

A psychedelic?

Monster or Thug, somebody should have thought of the obvious truth before trying that acid in the wine: Dope fiends know their dope.

I finished the run and walked slowly back to the bungalow, wondering what Monster had hoped to accomplish.