Love Me or Kill Me Read online

  “So, instead you’re putting it on me.” In a way I resented her request, for it put an obligation of responsibility on me I really didn’t need just about now. I took in a deep breath of resignation. “Okay…what does she do—I mean, does she work to support herself.”

  “She doesn’t have to…but she does. I gave her money she…she has secretly hidden away and uses it at her discretion. She works behind the counter at McKay’s Pharmacy in the older part of town.”

  “Well, once again I let somebody else talk me into—”

  “—you’ll find her rewarding…and intelligent…way ahead of her years…and of course, like all my family lineage…quite good at prophecy…she’s probably a very good…Seer.”

  I kissed her on top of her dirty grey-reddish hair. “Let’s hope I don’t get the wrong girl—they’d throw me in the slammer.” I smiled at her. “Well, here’s lookin’ at you, kid…”

  As I walked away, I turned once more to look at the lady who saved my life….and left, with Crazy Jack following me. “So, Jack, can you pick up anything on her husband?—he’s some greedy god who wants everything his way…that lady, Saturnalia, that was his wife and she got punished for helping me out. Damn, that makes me feel like shit, Jack.”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know! Bad thing come—run! Oh…!” He held his head with one hand. “Street turn to gold—you grow old! But I don’t know! I don’t know! Gold piece keep safe—they come, pick you up! Cable, run!” He was trembling as he spoke, his head shaking in a tremor.

  “One more thing, Crazy Jack.” I had to pump him before he disconnected into his own lost world. “What do you see around the corner of 5th and Alvarado? Any strange people congregating, disappearing?” I was thinking what I was told about the Oculus’ “pick-up” co-ordinates at that intersection.

  “I don’t know! I don’t know! Cigarette! Cigarette!” the nervous man replied, looking away from my eyes. I lit another smoke for him.

  “Well, if you see or hear anything, you know where my office is, Jack. Drop in and see me sometime.”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know! The Hook come deadly! The wizard run—but I don’t know! I don’t know!”

  I left Crazy Jack scratching my head. Maybe he was finally going over the edge and the poor fellow was losing the connective tissue that made the brain function with some semblance of coherent behavior. I boarded the streetcar thinking… this had been one hell of a day!

  CHAPTER 7

  DEATH BECOMES HER

  As the days peeled away into months, Adora became weaker and at least three medical reports confirmed, my love was afflicted with leukemia—a complicated disease of the blood. The doctors we visited didn’t know a hell of a lot about it, only that they called it the “White Blood” disease. A research doctor at a local university told me privately it was called hematological neoplasm disease, an attack on the lymphoid system.

  We spent a dismal New Year’s Eve 1931 with Elisa, Flora and my mother sitting at my lover’s beside. The disease was progressive, we were told. White blood cells increasingly began to outnumber the red ones, and the malady had its beginnings in the bone marrow. The particular type of this virulent disease she had, was a death sentence and all I could do was to keep her as comfortable as possible and make sure she got her daily injection of painkiller. But the pain of it was slowly killing me, too. I didn’t know what the human capacity for heartache and suffering was, but I was about to find out.

  The pall of death can sometimes have its own beauty, and my failing sweetheart glowed in those last days with a pallid and ghostly appearance. Her loving eyes and sweet voice never changed, nor did her bravery in facing an imminent demise still in the bloom of her young womanhood. “How’s the pale princess today?” I would say, trying to cheer her up.

  She’d smile at me and look at me with those liquid brown eyes. “Ay, mi amor… soy una buena princesa…I wait all the days…por mi príncipe. Are you not my prince, querido?”

  “You bet,” I would say. “For now and forever, kid. How about if I go out for a banana milkshake, your favorite?”

  She would laugh. “Ha! At least ten of them!” Then she would draw serious. “Pero, I have no apetito—no tengo hambre, gracias.”

  Then I would come to kneel on the floor next to her bed and take her hand. It was fragile and white as the painted wall above her. “So if you don’t want to eat, kid, how about sailing around the world with old Cable Denning here? I’ve always had a yen to ply the seven seas—I might even make a good sailor—you think you’d be—be, uh, a good first mate?”

  Then she’d look at me and her eyes would brighten. “I am always your first mate and I will go with you anywhere…dondequiera…, my love…”

  “Well, then, that settles it,” I would say. “Tomorrow I’ll drop by a first-class travel agency—hmmm….I think it’s called Todo el Mundo, downtown. What do you say?”

  “Don’t make me laugh, Cable…I am too debil—too weak, my love. Pero…es verdad? You take me sailing—to—to Catalina?”

  I lit up. “Yes! Yes, señorita! When do we go?”

  “Ay, estúpido! El médico will not let me go…”

  “Hell with the el médico! If you want to go…we’ll go…”

  “Verdad? Con mucho gusto con te, mi amor.”

  The next day I called Elisa and her sister Flora and told them of Adora’s wish. They thought I was crazy but if it was what she wanted, they would arrange it. I told Adora and she was excited as hell. I thought something that stimulating might even bring her around. Stranger things…? So we planned to rent a sailboat—with a motor aboard just in case my sailing skills petered out—and I would sail us smoothly across the briny blue Pacific, traveling the twenty-six miles to the island of Catalina. This was Wednesday. We would take our grand adventure on Saturday. All of us were excited.

  In the afternoon, a great fit of depression overcame me and I had to get out of that environment I came to hate…that stifling house of sickness and impending sadness and death. I called Elisa and she came to watch my lover. I took the streetcar as far as I could and walked the rest of the way up to the caves at Bronson Park. It was late afternoon and as I walked, I recalled when I found Eden Royce’s corpse suspended from the ceiling inside one of the caves. I never entered them again. I climbed the loose shale hill above the caves and came to rest atop a hill next to an old sage bush. Far in the distance I could see a fog bank come rolling in from the sea and knew the cool breezes would start up at dusk as the damp messenger would invade the park. It was one of those days when you find yourself reviewing your life, daring to look in all the corners and crevices and sweep out what doesn’t belong anymore. I would be thirty-one pretty soon and it seemed I had lived three hundred years already. Life is funny, it was like a kid from the rough side of the tracks would always have it rough, no matter how hard he tried to shake it. If he was born poor, struggling and tossed into the arena of hard knocks and violence, that feature would haunt him all his life and stick with him, a curse attached to his hip like a birthmark. As close as I thought I’d come to breaking out of it now and then, somehow I was always ripped back into making a living listening to the raw sewerage of peoples’ lives and that streak of deception and violence all humans contain and are prone to when the cards are stacked to deal you out a bad hand.

  Just then a pleasant, warm voice called out from behind me. “None of it’s as bad as you make it out to be, Cable. Just be open to change—and change with it. You are not your sister’s keeper—nor were neither you Lei-Tao’s, Honey’s nor Adora’s.”

  I spun around to see a little man with warm eyes and a pleasant smile. “Toggth! You son of a gun! Where did you come from?”

  “Where do I always come from? Nowhere and everywhere…” He reached his hand up to my shoulder and squeezed. “I can feel your sorrow, Cable. But you must let it go. This earth life is not just about romance, excitement, money and adventure—but about lessons well learned so you might discove
r what you came for. Remember…remember…” Then the little creature sat beside me. “Do you remember, Cable? So few do…”

  I hugged Toggth as we sat together. “I am glad to see you, little fellow. It’s been a hell of a road since we saw each other last. Crap, the thing I remember most in the last three or four years is loss—Mario, Honey—now Adora—”

  “—but what have you gained? The mosquito fish is born in the season of the mosquito—balances, Cable, nothing is ever lost without gain somewhere—look for it. Life, death, death, life…a cycle…”

  “Yeah, but you don’t have to die, like Lei-Tao. That has a definite advantage, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Well, like Lei-Tao, one day I shall choose to recycle. We all do. We cannot stay forever in the same form. It gets boring. Nevertheless, the reality is never the physical body but the entity aware of the animation of that body. Amongst the Chinese mortals, the ‘dearly departed,’ as you might say, are given a ritual send-off, where they are washed, blessed, dressed and cleansed of all earthly trespasses, made up like Lei-Tao in a Chinese Dragon Parade with rouge, lipstick, colored face powders—but it is for the spirit’s honoring that this is done, not for the body in itself. The tradition has become corrupted along the way. So remember, your physical body is never your reality—or shouldn’t be, in any case.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I laughed. And it was easy for this little guy to slough off death. That was because he never felt emotion the way humans do. Especially when we come to love someone. But he was reading my mind. “Those balances you’re talking about, I’m not seeing those lately—”

  “—attachment becomes dependence upon another, Cable. Love, but don’t become attached. Free the other person and in the same moment you free yourself. Desire binds us to the post…..grinding in the dust of futility—tied to ancient habits that the body dictates. It is never your true heart or mind that dictates that you should become unhappy because you love someone—or lose them. It’s all temporary. Everything. Nothing is as permanent as change…”

  “All well and good for you to say, Toggth. But you’re not down here in the sewer trying to clean out the pipes. After a while the dirty world kind of rubs off on you. And you find yourself stuck in a squirrel cage of repetition, making the same mistakes over and over—”

  “—that’s the whole thing! Lessons, Cable—remember what you came for! Let go of all the rest and things will work out perfectly.”

  I had to change the subject. “So…to what do I owe the honor of this visit?” I said, looking at him a little sheepishly, trying to ignore that everything he was saying, was giving me a case of the heavies.

  “Your sorrow awakened me from a tidy little sleep back at the Cave of the Seven Truths. I’m certain you realize that after your escape from Cronus-Gor, your days here may be numbered—and shortened. If he gets hold of you, he will extract the information you harbor in your memory of the golden capsule. I think I told you I gently confiscated the gold-etched microfilm and hid it. But, of course, we must not allow anyone to discover the whereabouts of the original Fen de Fuqin.”

  “Pretty sneaky guy, eh?” I laughed. “So that makes you an accessory in this crime of The Seven Truths, doesn’t it?”

  He chortled and slapped me on the arm. “Ha! You got me there! Being Protectorate over the Protectorate can be tricky!”

  “So who took Lei-Tao’s place overseeing the precious God of Our Fathers, etcetera, etcetera?”

  “Oh, a beautiful creature named Kwan Ling.” Then he looked at me with a certain narrowing of his eyes. “But you…shall not meet her. I cannot afford another Protectorate to fall in love with a mortal.”

  “Aha! At last, the chinks in your armor, eh? Well, you won’t have to worry about that. I’ve—I’ve got my hands full these days…” I was thinking about Adora and Saturday’s navigation of the Seven Seas.

  “At any rate, you must be extremely vigilant. As I said, you don’t want to end up like poor Saturnalia. Gor will use all the powers at his disposal to track you down and pounce.”

  “So why hasn’t he come after me like gangbusters already?”

  “He’s biding his time. He doesn’t want to make the same mistake twice. Saturnalia, much like Lei-Tao, betrayed certain trusts. And you saw what happened to her. No, he does not wish to miss the mark this time, Cable…so beware.”

  It was getting heavy and I had to change the subject again. “Is Lei-Tao still a lotus seedpod—or whatever?”

  “For many thousands of your years yet to be. Relevant time is different in different dimensions. All is relative.”

  “So…can you help me avoid this Cronus-Gor piece of shit? Like you said, I know sooner or later he’s gonna come down on me like a hoard of locusts on a fresh grain field—and bam! it’ll be over.”

  “Well, it’s a little more complex than that. Gor is an immortal, as you’ve already learned. He is alien to your plane of existence. Secretly, like other visitors, he is compromised breathing the earth’s atmosphere. If you can get him to exhaust himself with excitement that causes heavy breathing, he will have to go away for a while to replenish himself.”

  “Hmmm….” I thought this might be a breakthrough. “Ha! that’s a rich one. What about all the other alien helpers and mortal goons that form the Oculus? Talk about remembering, I remember a few weird encounters already—not the least of which was the Royce case. And these guys play for keeps. In one of the caves below us here, I found the body of Eden Royce, crucified to the ceiling—”

  “—death, life…life, death, Cable—I remind you, they have value only as part of the cycle in the fabric of existence. They mean little in and of themselves.”

  “Well, to me they have a lot of meaning, buddy. I just happened to be wired that way. You know my whole thing, Toggth, truth and caring are part of my make-up, not to mention beautiful babes and great music in a smoky club. Gor or no Gor, that’s the kind of air I like to breathe.”

  He chuckled. “I would like to attend some of your musical activities sometime—may I accompany you one evening?”

  “Sure, why not? But right now, I’ve got to attend to Adora…I’m taking her sailing this weekend. I don’t know…how long…”

  “I understand, Cable. It is so difficult for humans to see beyond attachment, habit, sexual practice and expectation. I’m very sorry you were turned down.”

  “Turned down?”

  “Chemically, genetically altered. Some of what you originally had has been ‘spliced’ out of you, if you will. But, let us not discuss it today. One day you will encounter it again. Be patient. Let life grow on you in a positive way. In the meantime, I will watch your back, as you say, and warn you of Gor’s next line of attack. And it will come, Mr. Smart Detective, oh, it will come…” He squeezed my hand and then he was gone—poof!—just like that, into the ethers. The approaching fog bank was beginning to move my way…as the sun set behind it, a cold chill went through my bones.

  A Place in the Sun

  The rental agent made sure I purchased a lot of insurance that morning. An inexperienced landlubber chancing the high seas was no laughing matter for Oat’s Maritime Rentals. Captain Oats was a big guy with burly hands and hair pouring out of his chest like an eagle’s nest stuffed with straw. His voice was rough and deep. “Sailin’ ain’t no cheap trick, Mr. Denning. No laughin’ matter any way ya slice it! Endin’ up in Davy Jones’ Locker would also put a black eye on me happy customer’s record, you know. Are ya sure, now, mate, you can go that twenty-six miles and back again? For seventeen dollars more, you can leave the vessel at the dock in Catalina and take the ferry back home and I’ll pick it up later.”

  I thought for a minute. Elisa and Flora were sitting with Adora outside on a bench. “Well, since this whole thing’s setting me back some big bucks anyway, maybe you’re right. We’ll make it a one-way ticket, then. Thanks, Captain Oats, for the suggestion.”

  “I’m thinkin’ we’ll both be feelin’ the better for it, mate.
” He handed me the receipt papers and the keys to the motor on the seventeen-foot sailboat. “Now, she’s all gassed up. You be crankin’ that motor a few times after primin’ ‘er…but once she’s flooded, you gotta be waitin’ a wee while afore she’ll go again.” I saluted the Captain and left.

  It was a marvelous day. The morning sun had just peaked up over the eastern mountains and the sea was calm. It was so clear that we could see Santa Catalina Island’s two thousand foot peak in the distance. Hell, no compass necessary on this voyage! I thought to myself. Just keep your eye on the piece of rock out there in the briny blue.

  Elisa and Flora helped me get Adora safely and comfortably aboard. They hugged me and made me promise I’d call the minute we got back. Both of them felt a lot better about me nixing the return trip on the little schooner. We cast off and I can still remember Elisa, Flora and Captain Oats waving from the dock in the morning light. Some images get snapped inside your brain like a photo image taken on my trusty old Kodak. And I just remembered I had forgotten my camera back at the office.

  Elisa had suggested turmeric powder as an anti-seasick agent. So we both tolerated a teaspoon of the stuff before we left. It was bitter as hell and dark yellow like curry. I checked out the gas engine part of the boat first, because I knew I couldn’t rely on my sailor’s skills in maneuvering the jib and sails. So we glided out of San Pedro harbor under power. Adora was seated close to me with a white tire around her little, shrinking body. Life preservers were a must and mine hung on the mast. A mile or two out we looked at the diminishing coastline. “How does it feel, babe—to be out in the beautiful blue briny?” I asked her, checking out her smile and disposition. I could always tell if she was faking it. But she appeared calm and genuinely happy to be free of the confines of her bed and the cottage.

  “Oh, Cable—tengo animación, querido! I am excited to be here! Gracias, mi muchacho pobre. Voy a recordar este día, señor Denning.” I will remember this day all my life…to love you for it, and to say you have been el amor de mi alma…the lover of my soul…and….and my heart. I…I would live for you all the days….longer….if I could…este día, this day….tomorrow….and the day after….the day after…forever, mi amor.”