William Rabkin - The Call of the Mild

“No,” Gus said. “Why are we doing this? She’s a nasty bat, the case is a dog, and there are a million other things I’d rather spend my afternoon on. So why are we driving to La Canada?”

“Because Lassie sent her over to us.”

“Yeah, to get rid of her and piss us off.”

“Exactly,” Shawn said. “And it’s really going to annoy him if we not only take her case and solve it in hours, but also get paid for doing it.”

Gus had to admit there was a certain logic to Shawn’s reasoning. And he’d been curious about the new burger place in La Canada, too. Besides, the sun was out and the sky was bright blue; it was a great day for a long drive.

Apparently he wasn’t the only one who thought that way. Because as Gus eased the Echo out of its parking spot in front of the Psych office, a black Town Car three spaces down started up-and stayed exactly three car lengths behind Gus and Shawn all the way into La Canada.

Shawn’s plan was flawless-at least in the confines of the Psych office. Because from their perspective in that cozy bungalow on the beach, there was only one stand of poison oak in the entire hundred and fifty acres of Descanso Gardens, and it was surrounded by chain-link and crime scene tape. But this was July in the San Gabriel Valley, and the noxious weed was spreading faster than the army of professional gardeners could stamp it out. Shawn and Gus were going to have to check every tree near every stand of the stuff-and hope that Shawn’s analysis had been correct.

They split up so they could cover more ground, and all had been going fairly well until Gus started searching the nature trail. That winding path took him out of the tree cover and up a steep hillside into the region’s natural chaparral. By the time Gus realized how hard the sun was beating down on him, he was already becoming dizzy and disoriented. And for some reason, the idiot who designed that part of the gardens decided that drinking fountains were not to be considered part of nature. As the blasting sun, untempered by the lovely ocean breezes he would have been enjoying back in Santa Barbara, leached the moisture from his body, his heat-exhausted brain brought him back into his standard nightmare.

Now, with the giant camellias providing blessed relief from the blazing sun, Gus could feel the last wisps of fever dream retreating from his mind. That left only his irritation.

“Would it make you feel any better if I told you the snack bar also sells root beer slushies?” Shawn said with what was as close to an expression of concern as he would get unless his friend had been run over by the train.

“What would make me feel better is finding that stupid necklace and getting out of this hellhole,” Gus said.

“Heckhole,” Shawn said, gesturing at the many small children running on the paths around them. “And it just so happens I’m the magic wish fairy today.”

Shawn held out the hand that wasn’t clutching the sticky plastic pink popcorn wrapper. Lying across his palm was a heart-shaped gold locket about an inch across. A broken gold chain dangled off the end. He pressed a latch by the locket’s left ventricle and the front popped open. Inside were facing photographs of an unbelievably homely middle-aged man and a slightly younger, if even homelier, woman. The photographs were badly trimmed to fit inside the uneven space, revealing a shiny green surface behind them.

“So you can see where she gets her fine looks from,” Shawn said.

“At least it’s done,” Gus said. “Was it where you thought it would be?”

“First place I looked,” Shawn said. “It was at the lost and found.”

Gus stared at him. “You went straight to the lost and found desk?”

“Of course,” Shawn said. “Why search if there’s a chance someone else has already found it?”

“You let me hunt for hours in the blazing sun.”

“I couldn’t be sure.”

“But you were sure,” Gus said. “After you got it back. And you still let me stay out there.”

“It was for your own good,” Shawn said. “Immersion therapy. To help you get over your irrational fear of being lost in the wilderness. This stupid dream is crippling you. And believe me, I know how bad a recurring dream can be.”

“If you did, you wouldn’t have done this to me,” Gus said.

“It’s not like I’ve been taking it easy,” Shawn said. “I had my own version of immersion therapy.”

“You did?”

“Yes. I had to get over my irrational fear of ice-cream sandwiches,” Shawn said. “It took a lot of tries, but I think I’m almost there. Want to help me finish it off?”

Gus tried to stay angry, but the thought of ice cream pushed everything out else out of his brain. And after they’d emptied the snack bar’s freezer chest, he felt so happily sated that he couldn’t bring himself to darken the mood with even well-deserved negativity.

Shawn, apparently, didn’t have the same problem. Gus looked up over his last bite of ice-creamy goodness and was about to propose they move on to the burger stand when he noticed Shawn staring off into the distance, looking troubled.

“Is something wrong?” Gus said.

“Is something wrong?” Shawn repeated. “Oh, yes, my friend, there’s something wrong. Something very, very wrong.”

“Oh, yes, my friend?” Gus said. “You mean it’s something so bad you’re required to talk like a character in one of those Raiders of the Lost Ark rip-offs Tom Selleck used to star in?”

“It’s worse. It’s the return of an evil so malevolent, so hideous, the entire civilized world cheered when it was finally vanquished from the earth at the end of the eighties.”

“The Soviet Union has reestablished itself in a public garden?”

“Even worse than that,” Shawn said. “Look.”

With a mounting sense of dread, Gus turned slowly to see what Shawn was talking about.

Shawn was right. As horrifying as the Beast prowling through Gus’ heat-induced hallucination had been, this was worse. Its face was waxen white, its lips bloodred, its eyes ringed with thick black. Gus’ first instinct was to run screaming out of the snack bar area; his second was for a frontal attack. Before he could decide between fight and flight, though, he noticed that the creature was slamming its blue-and-white-striped appendages uselessly against some kind of invisible barrier.

“It’s trapped in the box,” Gus said.

“For the moment,” Shawn agreed. “But that’s not going to last long. Before we can do anything, it will be out of the box and then it will start walking into the wind. And after that, well, you know what happens.”

Gus did. Once the wind stopped blowing, the demon would turn its bereted head on the innocent people in the garden and start to imitate them. But this wouldn’t be just any imitation. It would be vicious caricature, emphasizing the least attractive aspects of its victims. Or, far more likely, emphasizing whatever set of moves it had been taught in mime class that week.

“Should we alert security?” Gus whispered.

“It’s apparently neutralized the guards.” Shawn pointed down at the second beret lying at the mime’s feet. It was dotted with coins, mostly pennies, but also the occasional nickel or dime, along with a single quarter. One lone dollar bill was tucked into the brim, obviously placed there by the mime itself to plant the idea of donating paper money in the minds of its viewers. “To haul in that much cash, it must have been here for hours.”

“Without us noticing it?”

“It’s very quiet,” Shawn said. “Which is what we should be. Let’s put our trash in the wastebasket and walk out of here.”

“But if we leave first, he’ll target us for sure.”