Carole douglas - Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt

And now I learn that I too may be an object of enmity. Well, at least I have had a good longtime to study the image of my stalker.

I must admit that I was impressed by Mr. Matt Devine's calm and cogent summary of the facts. Someone must make Mr. Max Kinsella wake up and smell the chloroform. He was so busy trying to escape his immediate past that he overlooked the distant. I would be inclined to look with even more disfavor on his reentry into my darling Miss Temple's life, except that I must admit I owe him for springing me from my fate before I was sent away into a life of enforced fun

... I mean, sensual servitude.

Of course, everyone present, in fearing for Miss Temple's safety, has overlooked my own humble contributions to this state in the past. Although I myself am now apparently a marked dude, I have often walked hackles to hindquarters with danger, and it will take more than a little doll with a barbering degree from Sweeney Todd to scare the starch out of Midnight Louie.

So I settle down into my haunches to keep an eagle eye on my little doll as she consoles Mr.

Max for the sins of his past by encouraging more of the same sort of excess in his future.

Perhaps my vigilance will make the lovebirds nervous, but that is just too darn bad.

Wait until Mr. Max discovers my plans for nighttime guard duty over Miss Temple.

Chapter 52

Dust

When Matt came out of the sporting goods superstore, a group of teenagers was clustered around the Hesketh Vampire like pimples around a zit.

He felt a bit possessive, but they looked like ordinary clean-cut kids nowadays: booted leather-jacketed, hung with Goth jewelry, even the boys wearing chipped nail enamel in Oxidized Oxblood, little rings glinting off enough visible parts to encourage unhealthy speculation about invisible parts.

Three guys and two girls, oddly like a cadre of vampires themselves.

"Cool 'cycle, man," the biggest guy said in a tone half-threat and half- admiration.

"Thanks." Matt had been zipping something into the nylon photo bag he had bought inside and now he slung the strap crossways over his chest.

"What kind is it?" a girl asked. The braces she wore seemed more a high-tech accessory of the wasted look than a cosmetic appliance payed for through the teeth by hopeful middle-class parents.

"A Hesketh Vampire."

"A vamp," the girl breathed in awe. "They really call it that?"

"Well, it's no Harley," a boy said in a down-putting tone. It doesn't pay to impress chicks.

Mr. Big, though, seemed impressed. "I never heard of a Hesketh anything."

"It's British made. Not very many. Probably not as reliable as a Harley."

They nodded seriously. Harley was it.

"What's this silly chicken doing on the front?" the second girl asked, tracing the outline with her chartreuse-enameled fingernail.

Again Matt felt a stab of protective unease. Didn't like strange fingernails scraping the gleaming finish. Having things that other people envied was a pain in the neck.

He moved to the 'cycle and pulled the helmet off his arm where it hung. "That's the Hesketh trademark."

"A funky chicken?"

"What can I say? They're British. Besides, when you've got a product that screams like a banshee when it gets up to speed, you need to have a sense of humor about it."

"Really?" One of the guys looked ready to desert the sacred camp of Harley.

Matt nodded. "Why do you think they call it a vampire?"

By now he was taking back the machine, strapping on his helmet, drawing on gloves and curling them around the handles, straddling it, ready to kick back the stand.

They pulled away, reluctantly.

The key turned. The motor answered the twist of the handles. Matt was cruising away, leaving them surrounding the empty place where the vampire had been.

In his side mirrors, he saw them shrink, still watching.

A couple of the boys had eyed the photo bag, noticing the weight that sagged the black nylon. Sporting goods stores sold firearms.

Matt didn't like to think those kids might mean him harm, but it was lucky they hadn't messed with him. If they'd known what he was really carrying, they'd have thought he was as much a vampire as his motorcycle.

And sometimes it was an advantage to be mistaken for a monster.

*******************

The winter had been dry. A fine dust flared up from the highway and flayed the tinted Plexiglas visor. Traffic was light once he left Las Vegas proper.

Midday, heading nowhere. The minute you deserted the extravagant architecture of the Strip and passed the low monotonous rooflines of the suburbs, you were scribing a course across a sand painting desert, all muted sage greens, sand beige and ferrous reds. Scrub, sand and stone. All of it in the process of being ground away by sun and wind and sudden floods in the washes. All slowly turning to dust.

Farther north, the land grew ruddier near the Valley of Fire. The Vampire droned along the ruler of the road, bored by the level, straight route.

Matt was bored by it too, but he didn't know where he was going and figured the boredom would tell him when, and where, to stop.

He thought about the letter that had arrived that morning from up north, addressed in a loopy, adolescent hand.

Krys. Keeping up with the unattainable older cousin, a traditional outlet for girls on the cusp of womanhood.

A strip of photos from a mall machine had fallen out. Four for .. . how much was it these days? A lot more than it had been when he was young. Younger.

He smiled, though only the desert could see him. Krys's hyperactive prose style, all exclamations and i's dotted with small neat circles. The family was okaying an art major, but she had to go to Loyola, not some California university.

--

And I took Aunt Mira to the mall the other day. She wanted to see the place where you bought her the blouse for Christmas.

Really was shocked at how expensive everything was, but I explained that was inflation. She is so funny and shy. Never drives to the mall. That's nothing! I told her next time we go, we take her car and she drives. I mean, I sweated blood to get my driver's license, for God's sake, she shouldn't just forget that sort of thing. Anyway, I kept telling her about this place in the mall.

Really cool. Great haircuts. She was major not into it, but I got her in for a color rinse and trim at least. So we took pictures afterward. What do you think? I hope you're doing well. Loads of XXXXXXs. Krys.

--

Matt shook his head. Of the four photos, three were of Krys playing vamp for the camera.

The fourth was of his mother, her hair shorter, brighter, bounder, wearing the earrings he had also given her for Christmas. She looked ten years younger. She almost looked happy.

Sic transit Effinger.

Okay. The memory had set the mood, so Matt turned the motorcycle off the highway and let it jolt a few feet into the desert.

The kickstand sunk hard into the sand before it gripped. Cars whooshed by on the nearby highway, but not many and not often.

Matt unzipped the nylon bag at his hip and lifted out the heavy, smooth bronze weight of the mortuary vase.

Effinger on the gilt half-shell. Boiled down to a few ounces of dust and ash. The eighty percent liquid we all are, burned out from here to eternity.

Desiccated, like the desert. Dry, like old bones. Cold, like dead embers. His to do with as he would.

Keep it? No. Even the ashes of a loved one would make an awkward keepsake. Half shrine, half white elephant.

Matt had wondered what it would be like to hold Effinger in one hand. To feel the outer weight of the container, and the weightlessness of not-being within.