Blood Lite II: Overbite (28 page)

“I still say just take a long nap,” says Basil. “Whenever I’m bored that’s what I do.”

“Have
you
been bored for centuries?” asks Goldberg.

“Ten minutes is usually my limit,” admits Basil.

“Maybe you should travel the world and see the sights,” suggests Harold.

“I’ve been traveling the world for two thousand years,” answers Goldberg. “I’m the Wandering Jew, remember?”

“You must have seen some fascinating things,” offers Morton. “Notre Dame, the Taj Mahal, the Forbidden City . . .”

Goldberg shrugged. “Common. Pedestrian.”

“Oh?” says Harold. “What
has
impressed you?”

Goldberg thinks for a minute. “There was a town hall in the mountains of Tibet. Held about eighty people. Very pretty.” He frowns. “Destroyed in a landslide in, let me see, 582 AD—or was it 583?”

“Still, if you’ve been wandering for a couple of thousand years, give or take, you must have seen a lot of things,” allows Morton. “What was the most interesting sight you ever saw?”

Goldberg gets a faraway look on his face, but he doesn’t answer.

We stare at him for a minute, and then Basil says, “You go into catatonic trances a lot, do you?”

“I was just remembering,” says Goldberg.

“The most interesting sight?”

“The most beautiful.”

“What was it?”

“She wasn’t an
it
,” says Goldberg. “At least I don’t think so.”

“She?”
repeats Basil. “This just became a lot more interesting.”

“It’s tragic,” replies Goldberg, a tear trickling down his cheek. “She’s the real reason I want to kill myself.”

“That’s funny,” says Basil. “I almost never want to kill myself when I see a beautiful woman. I just want to kill all the guys in the vicinity.” He turns to Otis. “How about you?”

“I can’t kill myself,” answers Otis. “I’m
already
dead.”

“We’re getting away from the subject here,” says Harold.

“What
was
the subject?” asks Otis.

“The most beautiful woman Goldberg ever saw.”

“That’s right,” says Otis. He turns to Goldberg. “So tell us about her.”

“She was the most beautiful, the sexiest, the most exquisite creature in the history of the human race,” says Goldberg, and everyone perks up when he uses the word “creature.” “And I should know. I’ve been here for enough of its history.”

“I’m sure glad you don’t speak in superlatives,” I say.

“She was absolute perfection,” continues Goldberg.

“You say ‘was’ and not ‘is,’” notes Basil.

“Well, he did meet her centuries ago,” chimes in Harold.

“Millennia,” Goldberg corrects him.

“How did she die?” asks Otis, who has a professional fascination with such things.

“I don’t know if she
is
dead,” says Goldberg.

“Not a lot of women make it past their two thousandth birthday,” I say.

“She is not a lot of women,” says Goldberg. “She is the most perfect woman who ever lived, with a face that could launch twice as many ships as Helen’s, and a body that would be the envy of every Playmate.”

“A woman that perfect should be pretty famous by now,” suggests Basil.

“The two don’t necessarily go together,” said Goldberg. “The Mona Lisa was a frump. No one ever heard of her good-looking kid sister.”

“So has this perfect female got a name?”

“Of course she does,” says Goldberg.

“You gonna tell us, or do we have to guess?” I say.

“Her name is Salome.”

“Like, as danced before the king?” asks Harold.

Goldberg nods his head.

“I’ve always wanted to see the Dance of the Seven Veils,” says Basil. “How was it?”

“Heavenly!” sighs Goldberg. “And it was the Dance of the Five Veils. They cleaned it up for the history books.”

“I don’t recall reading anything about Salome after the dance,” continues Basil. “Maybe she died back then.”

Goldberg shakes his head. “I saw her again in Rome, and then Athens, but I never got close enough to talk to her.”

“Then why haven’t we heard about her, if she’s all that sexy and beautiful, and a good dancer to boot?”

“You have,” says Goldberg. “H. Rider Haggard wrote her up as Ayesha, Edgar Rice Burroughs disguised her as La of Opar, Kurt Weill put her in a musical as Venus, John Cleland named her Fanny Hill and described her perfectly. . . . She has appeared many times, thinly disguised, down through the ages.”

“And just as thinly dressed,” notes Harold.

“I saw her briefly, from afar, in Persia in the fifth century,” continues Goldberg. “Then I spotted her in Mecca in the eleventh century, Greece in the twelfth, India in the fourteenth, China in the sixteenth, but I could never get close enough to speak to her. Since then I’ve seen her in Tahiti, Kenya, England, Russia, Brazil, New Zealand, and Passaic, New Jersey.”

“Well, it does explain your wandering,” says Morton.

“I can’t go on. Two thousand years, and I still haven’t gotten close enough to meet her or touch her. It’s been one hundred seven years since I last saw her just across the river in Jersey, the perfect woman—and a capricious Fate hasn’t let me get within fifty feet of her in two millennia. She’s lost to me, and I want to end it all.” Another tear rolls down his cheek as Cecil and the other snakes watch in fascination. “If I can’t kill myself, maybe I’ll just destroy the world.”

“
Can
you?” I ask.

“You think blowing up the world is the sole province of jihadists?” he shoots back. “Every mad scientist and rejected suitor wants to at one time or another.”

“With the whole world to wander, what are you doing here in New York?” I ask. “Are you following some lead?”

“No,” he answers miserably.

“Then why?” I persist.

“Your delis make the best blintzes and knishes,” says Goldberg.

“Makes sense,” Basil chimes in. “If you’re going to be miserable, at least be well-fed and miserable.”

“He should let the
yenta
I married cook for him,” I say. “That’ll take ten years off of anyone’s life.”

“Yeah, marriage is a death sentence for any man,” agrees Harold, grinning.

“A death sentence just isn’t what it used to be in the good old days,” notes Otis.

Just as he says it, a bearded old man who knows a little something about death sentences enters the shop, dressed in a black robe and carrying a sickle. “That’s hardly
my
fault,” he says. “I keep taking them. It’s
you
who keeps bringing them back.”

“Who are you?” asks Basil.

“The sickle doesn’t give it away?” says the old man.

“You’re the Grim Reaper?” continues Basil.

The old man nods.

“That’s a hell of a moniker to be stuck with,” offers Harold.

“I enjoy my work,” he says, “but even
I
don’t think I’d care to be known as the Jolly Reaper.”

“You’re really
him
?” asks Goldberg, who’s been staring at him since he entered the shop.

“I’m really
him
,” answers the Grim Reaper. “Sam will vouch for me. I often come here on my break. It’s the one place in town where I can avoid temptation. I’ll be leaving in a few minutes.”

“Take me with you!” shouts Goldberg.

“Don’t be silly,” says the Grim Reaper. “You’re off-limits to me, you know that.”

“Can’t you try?”

“If I get any closer to you than I am right now, I get a migraine like you wouldn’t believe, plus an attack of nausea. You’ve been cursed, pal.”

“Maybe it’s worn off,” suggests Goldberg hopefully. “When’s the last time you tried to take me?”

“Sumatra, 1749
AD
,” answers the Grim Reaper. “Took me a whole week to recover, and it was close to a century before I could eat blowfish again.”

“Won’t you try once more?” says Goldberg. “Please?”

“It’s not going to work.”

“Please?”
repeats Goldberg more desperately.

The Grim Reaper shrugs. “What the hell.” He begins approaching Goldberg. Then, suddenly, he grabs his stomach. “I’m gonna be sick! Sam, where’s your bathroom?”

I point to the back room, and he makes a beeline toward it.

“Some Grim Reaper!” snorts Otis.

“You heard him,” I say. “Goldberg is cursed.”

“My wife isn’t,” complains Otis. “She’s uncursed
and
undead.”

“Then why do you always complain about her?” asks Basil.

“Because she’s also unforgiving,” answers Otis. “I mean, it’s not as if I can walk into a restaurant and order a quart of blood. So of course I find nourishment in nubile young women. Their skin is softer, their blood is richer, their screams are more exciting.
And they don’t make demands on me.
” A pause, coupled with a frown. “I should never have bitten her that third time . . . but I was so
hungry.
Now I can’t get rid of her.” He turns to the back room and raises his voice.
“And some people are no damned help at all!”

“You weren’t listening,” notes Morton. “He
took
her.
You
took her back.”

“Details, details!” mutters Otis.

“If she bothers you that much, kill her again,” suggests Basil. “I’ll bet if you run a wooden stake through her heart, the Reaper will accept her.”

Suddenly Otis’s entire demeanor changes. “I’m kind of used to her,” he says. “And she tastes so good.”

“Well, then?”

“If only she’d stop reading all those idiot vampire romance novels and assuming I’m like that every time I go out, we’d get along fine.”

“When’s the last time you brought her a present to show you cared?” asks Morton.

“I took her to the dressing room after the hockey game last week and gave her first choice,” says Otis. “I got the leftovers. How’s
that
for a present?”

“That’s nice,” says Morton in a voice that sounds less than sincere. “But when’s the last time you brought her flowers?”

“She can’t eat flowers,” replies Otis.

“Neither can the other fifty million women who get them from time to time,” says Morton.

“Right, mate,” Harold chimes in. “She’s more than just an appetite, you know.”

Otis looks thoughtful for a moment. “Okay,” he says at last. “I’ll give it a shot.” Then: “Live ones or dead ones?”

Morton sighs. “Talk to some florists. They’ll figure it out.”

Basil starts howling again. There’s no sense asking why, because the moon is full in the sky and his humanity is buried beneath a wolf’s exterior. I look out the shop window, and sure enough there is the incredibly shapely silhouette of Hepzibah McCoy closing her curtains. I find myself sympathizing with Basil; that is one hell of a view to be deprived of.

Everyone but Goldberg is looking mournfully at Hepzibah McCoy’s darkened window. Goldberg is gazing intently at my bleach bottles. He senses my curiosity and glances up with a small smile.

“Tried that,” he states simply.

“Acid?”

“It just cleanses my insides.”

“Jump into any active volcanoes lately?” I ask wryly.

He sighs deeply. “Not since Pompeii.”

The subject seems hopeless, so I turn my attention back to Basil’s ears. Then I hear the most enticing voice I have ever heard, but it does not sound like it is in an enticing mood.

“What does a girl have to do to get a good night’s sleep around here?”

I turn to see the most luscious creature I have ever laid eyes on standing in my doorway. My heart starts pounding. My throat goes dry. My palms start sweating. She is to the average beautiful woman what Shaquille O’Neal is to the average midget. My first thought is that the Church should hire her, because once a man sees her there is no way he cannot believe in God.

Basil starts panting and drooling at the sight of her, so I cuff him over the head. It is a reflex action, because I am still unable to pull any coherent thoughts together.

Morton hops out of his chair with an enthusiasm I’ve never seen in him before, and instantly offers it to her. This makes me realize that she might actually be a patron, and that in turn brings me back to the here and now.

“Hello,” I hear myself say in a shaky voice. “Welcome to The Close Shave.”

She doesn’t immediately respond, but instead runs her hands sensuously along the arm of my leather chair before turning back to me, all business. “How hard can it be for you to find a muzzle for your mutt?” she asks, glaring briefly at Basil before turning her hypnotic gaze my way again. “Every time I go near the window he howls . . . and my bed is beside the window.” She pouts, and I feel my heart beating in triple time. “It’s late,” she continues, “and I need my beauty sleep.” She puts her hands on her hips to emphasize her comment, but all it does is emphasize her small waist leading up and down to the generous curves that her flimsy dressing gown has slid open to reveal.

“You don’t need any beauty sleep, Sheila,” states Harold suddenly, with a little too much warmth in his tone. “That I can guarantee.”

She throws him a cold glance—at odds with the heat radiating out from her body—and states, “I’m known as Hepzibah, not Sheila.”

“Don’t get your knickers in a knot, love,” says Harold. “Sheila is just an Aussie word for ‘girl.’”

“You think
this
—” she opens up her robe—“is the body of a mere girl?”

I’m frozen to the spot, staring. So is Morton, and Basil, and everyone else. Well, everyone except Harold’s snakes.

“You’re all woman to me!” one yells.

“Let me show you what a night of sleaze and slime can be like!” yells another, as they all squirm excitedly.

Hepzibah smiles, and walks—well, undulates—over to Harold, all her parts moving in thrillingly perfect sync. She reaches out a hand to run her fingers through Harold’s hair, causing snake after snake to shudder delicately. “I like excitement,” she whispers to them, “and different experiences. Do you think you could . . .
amuse
me?”

“Absolutely!” “You betcha” “In a heartbeat!” say three of them.

“How pathetic,” says another.

Hepzibah’s hand stills, and there is a dangerous glint in her beautiful eyes. “Who said that?” she asks softly, but with deadly intent.