Rob Zombie - Lords of Salem

He took a long draw on the cigar. He loved the way the smoke changed the inside of his mouth, numbed it just a little but also changed the texture of it almost.

The curtains behind one of the windows on the ground floor were pulled back and he caught a quick glimpse of a woman’s face before it quickly fell again. Landlady, he told himself. What was her name? Heidi had introduced her but he’d be damned if he could remember. Probably the old hippy chick didn’t approve of him smoking cigars on her steps, but if that were the case she’d have to come out and tell him to his face. He knew that there were very few people willing to stand up to him, to Herman Jackson, and he suspected that she wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t a jerk—he’d stop smoking if she asked nicely and without being prissy—but as far as he was concerned he was outdoors with nobody else in smell range. He wasn’t bothering anybody. And if he was, they could let him know nicely or grin and bear it.

“Hey,” someone said.

He turned to see Heidi walking back toward the apartment building, leading Steve. Yeah, she was okay. He shouldn’t have worried. It made him a little ashamed that he had, a little angry at himself, but a little angry at her, too, for putting him in a position that made him feel like he had to. But no, that was stupid. She was a good kid, trying just like anyone else, and mostly doing all right.

She reached him, Steve wagging and trying to jump up on him. He pushed the dog away, but gently.

“Hey, Heidi,” he said.

“Did you pick up the new headshots?” Heidi asked.

“Headshots?” Herman said. He leaned over and scraped the coal off his cigar and then put it back into his pocket for later. “You’re worried about headshots?” he asked. “You got any concept of what time it might be, girl?”

Heidi straightened up, puckered her lips. When she spoke again it was with a bad French accent.

“What is this time? I have no understanding of this time of which you speak.”

Herman shook his head, keeping his face flat and trying not to smile. He looked at his watch. “Well then, Frenchie LaRue,” he said, “let me put it in straight-up boots-on-the-ground all-American speak. It’s half past get your fucking ass in the car.”

Heidi gave a wicked smile, but he could tell from her eyes that she was tired and in no mood for playing around. “Let me just grab my shit,” she said.

“Well, giddyap,” said Herman. “The meter on my chariot is running.”

She could mess around, Herman thought, but when she put her mind to something she got it done in good time. It had only taken her a minute to run Steve in and clamber into his car. He hadn’t even had time to think about the half-smoked cigar in his pocket and light it again.

He flipped a U-ey, ignoring the double yellow line, something sure to scandalize Heidi’s uptight neighbors. Why she wanted to live in the heart of the historical part of Salem, hell if he knew. Once, when she was drunk, she’d talked a little about her heritage, that she was descended from one of the early Salem witch hunters. But hell, that seemed like it might be a reason not to want to live in Salem rather than a reason to live there. And Heidi stuck out like a sore thumb in this neighborhood—nobody else around here under fifty. Not as much as he would have, being black and being a natty dresser, but still…

The crucifix dangling from the rearview mirror was still swinging from the U-turn. It kept catching flashes of sunlight and sending them into his eyes. He reached out and steadied it.

“It always does that,” Heidi said, watching him. “You should just take it down.”

He shook his head. “I’m not taking it down,” he said. “That’s God looking out for me.”

“You know what they would have said about that in Old Salem?” she asked.

“What?” he said.

“They would have called you an idolater,” she said. “Probably they would have burned you as a witch.”

“Yeah, good times,” he said. “But I’m keeping it where it is.”

They drove in silence a moment, until Heidi, remembering, suddenly gave a little jump.

“Okay, so where the photos at?” she asked.

“Again with the photos.” He waited a minute for her to riposte, and when she didn’t he gestured over his shoulder. “Backseat.”

“And… how do they look?” she asked.

“Wrong,” said Herman.

“What do you mean, wrong?”

Herman didn’t answer, preferring to let her see for herself.

She reached over the seat and shuffled aside a pile of clothes. Underneath were several boxes. The one on top was full of books.

“Christ, you need to clean your fucking car,” said Heidi. “You are a hoarder.”

God, she knew how to push his buttons. “Don’t tell me what I need to do,” said Herman. “And I ain’t no hoarder.”

“I’m going to get you an intervention on that show for hoarders,” she said. “ Hoarding Emergency or whatever.”

“I ain’t no hoarder,” he insisted again.

She ignored him. She pushed the box to one side, opened one of the boxes under it. It was the right box, Herman saw with a glance in the rearview mirror as she opened it. She pulled out an 8ʺ by 10ʺ promo photo and then settled back into her seat and examined it.

When they had to stop at a light, Herman snuck a glance, curious to see if it was as bad as he remembered. “Big H Radio Team,” it read along the bottom. And there he was. Yeah, his clothes looked good, as usual, but his head didn’t look like that, did it? No, no way it could. It just wasn’t natural. Heidi looked good, though, in her tattered Ramones shirt and her torn jeans, and totally at ease as well. But he, there was this problem with his head, probably some kind of Photoshopped joke, and plus he just didn’t look relaxed. The third member of the team, Whitey, didn’t look as bad as him, but didn’t look half as good as Heidi either. He was a gangly man with long hair and a huge, bushy beard and he wore mirrored sunglasses that looked straight out of the seventies. Like he’d stolen them off an aviator. Just beaten the fuck out of an aviator and then taken his glasses. Yeah, Herman had to admit Whitey looked okay. A little creepy maybe, but still. Maybe he should have worn sunglasses, too.

“We look pretty cool,” said Heidi. “What’s so wrong?”

“My head!” said Herman, exasperated. Couldn’t she see it? “My head looks too fucking big! It’s got to be the fucking lens that asshole was using. I knew he snuck on a wide-angle lens, some kind of fishbowl thing. I know my head ain’t that big.”

“You look fine,” said Heidi. “God, you are worse than a fucking chick.”

“Fine? Fine is your polite-ass way of saying, ‘Herman, he got a big fucking beach ball head.’ I look like Charlie Brown.”

He examined himself in the mirror. No, his head wasn’t that big. No way it was that big.

Heidi put her hand on his arm, spoke in mock consolation. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’re still a stud.”

“Yeah?” he said. He smiled, looked at himself in the mirror again. “Yeah, I do look good, don’t I.” She was all right, Heidi was.

Chapter Twelve

Just goes to show you, you think you’ve seen everything and then they go and pull out some new horror show , thought Cerina Hooten. I got to get myself a new job . She sat at her receptionist’s desk, tapping her pencil against the desk’s edge. How could she be expected to work under these conditions? Okay, musicians were eccentric, but this was too much. And couldn’t they have the decency to sit down somewhere else in the waiting room rather than taking the chairs right across from her, facing her? What happened to common courtesy? She reached up and ruffled her bushy Afro. No, no. She couldn’t be expected to type something up with them staring at her the whole time, no matter how urgent the station manager said it was. He was lucky she was even bothering to answer the phones.