Your Number (2 page)

2.

Charlie stared at the limousine floor, listless, his Academy Award lying on the seat like a dead man. Kate wanted to hug him, he looked so sad. She knew, though, that when he got into a mood, the best thing was to leave him alone for a while. So she sat. And she sat, until she couldn’t handle it anymore.

“Charlie?” they sped along Sunset Boulevard toward La Brea Avenue. “Is something wrong? Was it something I said?”

His eyes closed slowly. “No, I…” he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I guess I shouldn’t have done that coke.”

She moved the Oscar, it was heavy, and slid next to him. “I didn’t want to say anything. You okay?” she rubbed his neck.

He said nothing for a few miles, just sat watching the cars sweep past. Then, just when Kate thought he would never speak again, he opened up.

“I’ve seen the sign.”

Kate, at first, had no clue what he meant.

“What? What sign?”

“Remember what Dean and Angelle were saying? The number sign? The death number?”

Kate sat back and giggled. “You don’t believe that crap, do you? They were loaded. Probably got off on scaring us. Did you see the way they were acting? I mean, seriously? These guys are Academy Award winners? Please.”

She expected at least a little grin. Instead, he got gloomier. He clenched his jaw. Kate saw the muscles twitching in his cheek. It scared her into a straight face.

“Charlie? Knock it off, okay? You’re freaking me out.”

His stoic mood saturated the limo. Even the driver seemed depressed. Then, just like that, he flipped a switch. His grimness evaporated, and he flashed that trademark Charlie Monroe million-dollar smile. “You know what? You’re right. It’s nothin’,” he yawned and put his arm around her. The old yawn and squeeze. Nice one, she laughed.

“What’s so funny?” he squinted.

“Nothing.”

When they got to Kate’s tenth floor apartment in El Royale Tower, Charlie made the requisite play for her panties. Having been burned several times by guys who said they were, ‘friends,’ Kate wanted to take it slow and smart.

“No,” she said, plain and clear. “You’re drunk and high, and I don’t want to. Take the spare bedroom,” and he plodded, tail between his legs, down the hall.

After a cup of lemon tea, Kate slid out of her navy blue evening dress and into a pair of plush pajamas. Comfy and warm, she journeyed to the master bathroom for her nightly beauty ritual. Avocado and banana exfoliating scrub, tea tree hydrating oil, rinse and repeat. As she brushed her hair and contemplated getting it cut, a sharp, sudden noise shook her from her thoughts. For a calm moment, she figured it was the neighbors. Then she got mad at them for being so loud so late at night. Then she heard it again, this time louder, more abrupt. A muffled, desperate cry—from her own apartment.

“Charlie!” she bolted upstairs and ran the length of the hallway, now wishing she’d rented something not so hideously large. The bedroom door wouldn’t open. She leaned her ear and heard horrible things, sounds of struggle, stifled cries, malicious growls. She held her breath and backed away, but Charlie was in there. He needed help. She pushed and pushed on the door, then pounded so hard it made her shoulder ache. Finally, the lock gave way, the door swung open, and she lost her footing and stumbled inside.

She regained balance after three steps, then stopped cold, her heart beating a thousand miles an hour at the unnatural sight. It felt like a movie set, the characters so surreal. Charlie was pinned down, unable to move, by several dark gray creatures, one on each wrist, two on each ankle. They were small and stubbly, with enormous, curved beaks and jagged fangs protruding from their lower jaws. She didn’t have time to study the little things for long. Another, much larger being stole her focus. As tall as the ceiling, it had to bend to keep from hitting its head. She became awash in tremors.

The beast was cloaked in a veil of foreboding vapor, which it released with its breath, hot and steamy, vibrations in the air rippling like water. The only features she got a good sense of were its countless arms, or legs, elongated and spindly to the point of absurdity.

She got the feeling she’d caught the gangly being and its crew of little monsters in the middle of something. It stood over Charlie, with one of its pincher-like hands outstretched. Charlie tried to move his head, but the creatures made sure he couldn’t. There were more than she’d first estimated. Many more, and they not only clutched Charlie firmly, but some became interested in
her
.

The giant, shadowy being snapped toward her. She saw nothing of its face but murky fumes. No features at all, until its jaw descended almost to the floor. It pointed a freakishly elongated finger at her and let out a terrible howl. High-pitched and low-pitched at the same time, loud as a gunshot, rattling doors, shaking glass fixtures and lamps and wall art.

Something took control of Kate at that moment, a flight response so strong, she had no choice but to obey, to turn and flee, slam that door and run as far and as fast as she could. She didn’t remember how, but she made it to the street, where she screamed and screamed and screamed, until the entire neighborhood woke up, lights coming on, people rushing out.

A few young men from her building offered to come up with her. They did their best to calm her down as she prattled endlessly about someone, or something, in her place, attacking her friend. When they got to her apartment, all was quiet. Too quiet. Kate refused to go in. One of the guys yelled from the back bedroom, the one where Charlie had been staying, and she found herself walking, then jogging, then sprinting. Maybe he was alive. Maybe he was okay.

When she reached the door, she stopped, and the air evacuated her lungs like someone punched her in the gut. Charlie wasn’t all right. Not at all. Lying on the bed, arms dangling, face covered by a mess of his own tangled, twisted hair.

“Charlie! NO!” she hurried to him, but felt an army of hands holding her back.

“He’s gone,” someone said.

“I’m so sorry,” said another.

Kate wailed Charlie’s name over and over, her emotions too ragged to cry. Instead, she studied everything—Charlie, the bottle of pills on the table, the scratched mirror and chalky residue. Two and two equaled four.

“Looks like he…he overdosed,” one of the young men declared.

“No he didn’t!” she struggled free. She refused to believe he was dead. “Charlie!” she turned him over, his face long and contorted. She didn’t care, pressing her lips and blowing, trying to breathe some life into him. More hands, firm and determined, pulled her away, but not before she snatched something from Charlie’s hand. A notepad, something scribbled in ink. The last message from Charlie.

The guys escorted her out of the room while one of them called 911, though Kate already heard sirens. Finally, she felt tears, and blinked one of them on the piece of paper she’d gotten from Charlie. She couldn’t decipher the message right away. Then, when she did, her heart skipped. Right before he’d died, Charlie had reached for a pen and scratched out the symbol:

3.

“He was so young.”

“And so talented. Why do all the good ones die so young?”

“He OD’d, you know.”

“Shame.”

Kate had to get away from the rumoring voices. To hell with those judgmental assholes. She found solace outside, on the Lincoln Terrace.

“Are you okay, Katie?” Eva stood at the doorway. “You sure you want to be here?”

“I have to be here,” Kate summoned the strength to talk. “It’s Charlie.”

“No you don’t,” Eva got close and wrapped an arm around her. “It’s just a funeral. Charlie hated these things. He wouldn’t mind if you skipped out.”

Kate shivered, though the February morning was warmer than normal. She snatched the Virginia Slim from Eva’s mouth and took a drag. “You don’t believe what people are saying, do you?” she coughed and handed the cigarette back. “About Charlie…about how he died?”

Eva looked surprised, both by Kate’s partaking in tobacco, and by her cryptic question. “What am I supposed to believe? Listen, I’m sorry, but it looks like he really did die of an overdose. It was accidental, I’m sure.”

“It wasn’t an overdose!” Kate raised her voice. People inside The Old North Church
stared. “It wasn’t an overdose,” she said, quieter, and turned away from the gawkers, letting her eyes travel along the Santa Monica Mountains. “And it wasn’t an accident.”

“What do you mean?” Eva sounded concerned.

She stayed silent for a long moment

“Kate?”

“It’s real,” she showed Eva the notepad. “I found this in Charlie’s hand.”

“What is this? What’s real?”

“The death number. It’s real.”

Eva stared at the piece of paper with unbelieving eyes. She shook her head and shoved the pad back into Kate’s chest.

“What is this bullshit?”

“It’s not bullshit, it’s the death number, and it’s real,” Kate wouldn’t let her sister go, though it was obvious Eva wanted to leave right then and there. Arms locked, Kate told her sister what Dean and Angelle had said about the number of times a person’s name can be spoken, about all the famous people who’d used their own names and died early. She said Charlie had started acting strangely after he’d learned about the death number, and he’d admitted he’d seen the sign, the number symbol. She even told Eva about the demon and its tiny minions. And, finally, she pointed again to the notepad with the  symbol scrawled clearly in black, directly from Charlie’s hand.

She told her sister everything, and as she spoke, she noticed Eva seemed under a dark cloud. Her normal, carefree attitude changed immediately, turning somber and dark. Kate attributed it to the upsetting story, but it soon became obvious Eva was bothered by something else.

“Eva? What is it?”

She only raised her shoulders a little, wrapping herself in her own arms.

“Eva, something’s wrong. I can tell.”

“No. nothing. It’s just Charlie. That’s all.”

“In twenty-five years, you haven’t been able to fool me yet. I know something else is wrong. What?”

Eva fell silent and they both listened to a solemn version of
Amazing Grace
from the chapel pipe organ. Kate became more and more worried the less her sister talked. It just wasn’t like Eva to clam up like this.

“Did you listen to anything I said?” Kate tried again. “I said Charlie didn’t kill himself. Someone else did…something else—the death number.”

“No,” Eva sounded like a zombie.

“Yes, it was,” Kate seized her elbows and made her look. “The death number is real, Eva. Listen to me. We’re using our real names. People all over the world are saying our real names, and the more they do, the closer our death number gets.”

“Do you hear yourself,” Eva tore away. “Do you even have one inkling how absolutely insane you sound? There
is
no death number,” her voice said angry, but her eyes betrayed her dissent. Kate wasn’t buying her act.

“Why are you so quick to deny this?” she probed. “What’s going on? Talk to me—”

“NO!” Eva screamed. Mourners and wake attendees watched through the open doors. “This is CRAZY! There
is
no curse! We aren’t in any danger! Now, stop it!”

Kate grabbed her arms again. “I know you believe me. You’ve got to believe me. I have a feeling, an awful feeling about this-this curse. The death number got Charlie because he used his real name, and it’s gonna get us, too.”

Eva’s head seemed to float on her neck, a gesture she’d used since she was three to display her boredom. “And just what do you propose we do? Change our names?”

“I-I don’t know,” Kate stuttered. “I thought about that, but I have a feeling it’s too late. I think we’re gonna have to drop out of Hollywood altogether. Just get the hell out of acting and go back home.”

“Go back to what? To Spokane and work at the Looff? You want me to give this up? All of
this
?” she got close to Kate and lowered her voice. “I’m not gonna be scared off that easy. Curses and signs…for all we know, it’s just Dean and Angelle trying to eliminate their competition. You know how cutthroat this town can be. Those guys were trying to get you to quit, they were hazing you, Kate. Can’t you see that?”

“Then why are you so upset?”

Eva clenched her teeth. “Because I’m seeing my sister start to lose it, that’s why,” her eyes got watery, her chin quivering. “Kate, I’m so sorry about Charlie, but he wasn’t killed by some-some curse on his name. He died of a lethal combination of cocaine and prescription pain medication.”

Kate kept to her story. “I know what I saw. There was something in that room with him. They killed him, and made it look like an overdose, an accident,” she kept shaking her head. “I saw them. Eva, I saw them. And I know Charlie saw the sign before he died.”

“He saw the sign?” Eva shot her a desperate stare. “How do you know?”

“I could tell by the way he was acting,” Kate eyed her sister. “And I know he saw this,” she showed Eva the piece of paper again, with the number symbol etched so predominantly.

Eva studied it for a second time, and the more she looked, the more the erratic she breathed. She became so unhinged, Kate had to assist her to a chair. Halfway there, Eva tensed up, and Kate couldn’t budge her.

“NO!” she shrieked, putting an abrupt halt to the organ music inside. Hundreds of mourners, including Charlie’s own mother and father, sent dazed glances their way. “This is BULLSHIT!”