Darrell Schweitzer - Full MoonCity

She sat opposite me. “If you’d been around to teach me to drive, I’d-”

“What’s going to happen with Destry?”

“I’ve got two of my agents, one of my attorneys, and a manager over talking to them.”

“Maybe you ought to toss in a couple of personal trainers.” I took a sip of my banana smoothie.

She rested an elbow on the table edge, studying me for a few silent seconds. “Can I ask you something, Dad?”

“Sure.”

“How do you feel about Mom?”

“How did the residents of London feel about the Black Plague?”

“You aren’t fond of her?”

“Not so you’d notice, no.” I set down my glass. “What prompts this question?”

Beth leaned back in her chair. “You haven’t felt differently lately?”

“As a matter of fact, I sure as hell have. But it has nothing to do with your mother,” I told her. “Just last night I… never mind.” I decided not to confide in Beth about my wolf interlude. She still lived with Mandy and I didn’t want my former spouse to know what’d happened to me.

“You felt something last night?”

“Did you come here expecting to find me changed? You dropped in only two days ago, Beth, and your visits aren’t usually that frequent.”

“Well,” she said, sighing in a disappointed way, “I was expecting you’d be more favorably inclined toward Mom.”

“Why would I totally lose my powers of reason and assume an attitude like that? Why would I feel anything but fear and trembling about the woman who’s going to immortalize me in a book entitled I Married an Asshole ?”

My red-haired daughter took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. “Really effective sorcery and black magic is expensive,” she began. “But, heck, I can afford it. Some friends of mine introduced me to a very effective sorcerer named Vincent X. Shandu and he-”

“I’ve heard of the guy. What the hell did you hire him to do?”

“Well, to bring you and Mom back together,” she answered quietly. “So I’d have a real family again and wouldn’t bang up so many cars and-”

“How was he going to do that?” I got up and stood looking down at my daughter, considerably pissed off.

“Well, with a magic potion. Guaranteed to be effective or your money back,” she replied. “He took the recipe from a forbidden eighteenth-century magic book by an infamous black magician named Count Monstrodamus. He showed me his copy, the rare first edition. The one that’s rumored to be bound in human skin and-”

“Have you already slipped me this damn potion?”

“Two days ago,” she admitted. “I stirred it into your smoothie while you were pitting cherries to put on your bowl of granola.”

I sat, slumped some. “Ask for your money back, hon,” I advised. “I still can’t abide your mother.”

“It didn’t work?”

“Oh, it was very effective but what it did was turn me into a werewolf.”

She shot to her feet. “Shit, that jerk screwed up.”

“That he did,” I agreed. “Could you, do you think, contact this guy and have him whip up an antidote to whatever it was you actually slipped to me? Otherwise, come nightfall, the odds are I’m going to turn into a wolf-man yet again.”

“Gee, I don’t think I can do that right away, Dad,” she answered apologetically. “See, I called him yesterday to ask why the potion was taking so long to affect you and all I got was his answering tape. Vincent is out of town.”

“So where the hell did he go?”

“Into the desert to meditate.”

“Which desert?”

She, sadly, shook her head. “He didn’t say.” Beth left her chair to come around and, tentatively, hug me. “I’m truly sorry you’re a werewolf, Dad. That wasn’t-trust me-my intention at all.”

“Now we’ll go get your car off the lawn and see if we can repair the birdbath.” She stepped back and I stood.

“It’s probably beyond repair.”

“Well,” I said, “let’s hope I’m not.”

The day was fading, slowly thus far, but fading nonetheless. I looked again at my watch. Almost 6:20 p.m. It was my impression that I was already commencing to itch a bit, which might be a prelude to another unwanted transformation. I unstrapped the watch and dropped it into my trouser pocket. Should I again turn into a wolf-man, I wouldn’t be able to see the dial through all that grey fur.

Hersh had called at midday to tell me Fletcher Boggs, the occult investigator, had a sudden emergency case that had come up. Something involving poltergeists out in Malibu. Therefore, he wouldn’t be able to consult with me until seven. And not at my place but at his home.

I was lifting my watch out of my pocket for another look when the door chimes played Monk. Sprinting down the hall, I yanked the door open. “Damn, Hersh, night is fast approaching and-”

“Relax, it’s barely dusk.” Turning, he started down my front steps. “Let’s get going.”

I was feeling increasingly itchy. As I slid into the passenger seat and buckled myself in, I asked, “Where exactly does Boggs live?”

My friend started his BMW. “Not far from here.”

“And the town is?”

“Westwood.”

I stiffened in my seat. “Westwood?”

“He has a cottage near UCLA.”

“But Westwood Village is where that other wolf-man hangs out,” I reminded him. “The police are trying to catch him. Christ, Hersh, if I turn into a werewolf before we reach Boggs, the cops may nab me as the Wolf-Man of Westwood.”

“All you’ll have to do is tell them you’re really the Wolf-Man of Beverly Hills.”

“I’m serious,” I told him, my voice a bit froggy. “They’ll start shooting at me with silver bullets; villagers will pursue me brandishing blazing torches.”

“Don’t fret. We’ll reach the cottage long before nightfall.”

“Night is already falling.”

“Can you stop kvetching for a while?” He turned on the car radio. “I want to catch the news on KMA-FM. They’re supposed to mention my new show on-”

“… just in. The notorious Wolf-man of Westwood has surfaced again tonight. Just ten minutes ago he broke into a Venus’ Boudoir lingerie shop and made off with an armload of frilly undies. Police expect to run him to ground soon. LAPD is sending over its special Occult SWAT team to-”

“Great,” I observed as we entered Westwood Village. “Now a bunch of expert marksmen armed with high-powered rifles chock-full of silver bullets will be taking shots at me.”

Hersh said, “You’re not a wolf-man yet.” He glanced over at me. “Oops.”

I reached up a hand. It was furry. I touched my face with it. My face was furry. This time the transition from man to wolf had been swift. I hadn’t even dozed off.

From about a few blocks away came the sound of sirens.

“Duck down,” advised Hersh. “Keep out of sight.”

I hunkered down on the floorboards with my knees near my chin and my furry arms circling my legs. The streetlights had just come on outside and every time we passed one the interior of the BMW was illuminated.

“Potential trouble up ahead. Stay down there; don’t howl or make any noise.”

“What sort of potential trouble?”

“People on the corner we’re coming to, looking over the street and the sidewalks, about a dozen or more. Got digital cameras, cell phones. One guy’s got a baseball bat,” he explained quietly.

Just then Thelonious Monk began playing loudly in my pocket.

“Shut that damn phone off.” Hersh halted at the corner stop sign.

More progressive piano came forth before I could tug out my cell phone and, very softly, answer it. “What?”

Hersh drove on, eyeing the world outside uneasily. “We’ll be there in less than ten minutes. Keep a low profile, and a quiet one.”