The Snuff Dreams Are Made Of
A storm was on its way. I could feel the electricity building in the air. The mountain rumbled with thunder and it sounded like Mother Nature was getting ready to slap us around again.
I had been spending a few days at my cabin up in Logjam, packing the rest of my personal belongings. I was back in the P.I. business and needed to stay close to the garbage pail down in Los Angeles in case anything interesting crawled my way.
When I ran out of boxes, I drove to the nearest grocery store and begged some cartons from the owner. After five minutes of successful groveling, I decided to pick up a few supplies. I'd treat myself to dinner at Rusty's Diner, but breakfast and lunch were on me. PopTarts, a loaf of bread, and salami were just fine. And a case of beer would make the packing go faster. If I was lucky, I'd run out of rooms before I ran out of beer.
I wanted to start with some cold bottles, so I parked my cart next to the cooler, reached in, and was feeling around for the coldest six-pack I could find when I felt somebody hovering near my back pocket. I slapped my right hand over my wallet and spun around.
She stood there, all five foot-one of her, petite, platinum hair, looking up at me through glasses thicker than the bottom of a shot glass. She must have been eighty-five. Why did I seem to attract folks lingering in God's waiting room?
"You're Johnny Casino, aren't you?" she said, her faded blue eyes squinting at me, sizing me up. "You came to my house when you were looking for that dead girl, didn't you? She wasn't dead, was she?"
I managed a "no," but that was all.
"I told you I heard their voices. All those dead girls. They're still there, you know?"
I remembered her, alright. She looked like Ruth Gordon in that Clint Eastwood movie with the orangutan. Just another nutty old lady who sees things that aren't there and hears things that were never said. She swore she could feel the vibes from scores of dead girls buried in her backyard.
"Have you talked to the sheriff?" I said, resuming my quest for the perfect cold brew.
"He thinks I'm crazy." She tugged my sleeve. "But I'm not."
"We found the missing girl," I said over my shoulder. "She wasn't dead. You don't need to worry anymore."
"These girls are dead. I can feel it. I hear them screaming, Stop! Stop! You're killing me, or am I already dead?"
Several people in the store looked up from their carts, wondering why I was molesting the old gal. They must have recognized her as a local nut because they went back to their shopping. I tried to do the same, but she had me penned between my cart and the cooler.
"I'll pay you, if it's money you want," she added, leaning on my cart, shoving me further into the cooler.
Another woman, considerably younger, wearing a pair of lime green short shorts and a black halter top, came strolling down the aisle with a grocery cart, raised her eyebrows, and then looked me up and down. She strolled passed me and I got a whiff of her heady perfume.
Now that I added gigolo to my resume, I decided I could at least put the old lady's mind at ease and maybe restore my reputation in town. And none of the beers were cold enough anyway. The break would give the six-pack time to cool to the proper temperature.
"I'll check it out for you. You're Mrs. Blaylock, aren't you? You live in the big stone house on the far side of the lake."
"You're a lot smarter than they said, Johnny," she said in her raspy voice. "Some of the folks up here think you're nothing but trouble. But Morrie says I'm a good judge of character. He says I size people up faster than anybody he ever knew. He had me meet people he was thinking of working with. If I didn't like them, Morrie turned them down."
"What does Morrie do?"
"Morrie doesn't do anything. He's dead. He used to be a movie director. You remind me of Morrie. He drank beer, too."
....Continued.