Fiends

chair he sat in every morning to drink his first two mugs of coffee. This was his favorite part of the day: so quiet, the air still cool and fresh from the night, the sun gently warming. But now, this!

    ‘Hey!’ he shouted.

    She didn’t stir. She simply sat there, hands folded on her lap, ankles crossed casually. Charlie sipped his coffee and walked around her. She wore a sleek, blue evening gown. Inappropriate wear, Charlie thought. A sun dress or swimsuit would be just the thing, but a formal, off-the-shoulder gown was unsuitable, even pretentious. Not that she could be held accountable.

    Charlie went into the kitchen for a refill of coffee. As he pushed through the door to the backyard and saw her still sitting there, the injustice of it overwhelmed him. He decided to nudge her off the chair and let her fend for herself.

    That’s exactly what he did. The woman flopped and sprawled, and Charlie took his seat.

    After a few moments, he moaned in despair. He simply couldn’t enjoy his coffee in front of her.

    Emptying his cup on the grass, he got to his feet and rushed into the house. He wanted to pound roughly on Lou’s bedroom door. That might rub Lou the wrong way, however, so he rapped lightly.

    ‘Knock off the racket!’ Lou yelled.

    ‘May I come in?’

    ‘Suit yourself.’

    Charlie opened the door and stepped into a room stinking of stale cigar smoke. Lou was in bed, covers pulled high so that only his face showed. The chubby face, flat nose and bulging eyes always reminded Charlie of a pug named Snappy he’d once owned. Snappy, who nipped anything in sight, generally had a sweeter disposition than Lou. Especially in the morning.

    ‘Get up, Lou. I want to show you something.’

    ‘What?’

    ‘Get up, get up!’

    Lou moaned and sat up. ‘This better be good,’ he said.

    ‘Oh, it’s not good, but you’d better see it.’

    Muttering, Lou climbed from bed. He put on his slippers and robe, and followed Charlie to the backyard.

    ‘See,’ Charlie said.

    ‘Who is she?’ asked Lou.

    ‘How should I know?’

    ‘You found her.’

    ‘Just because she was sitting in my chair doesn’t mean I know the lady.’

    ‘What was she doing in your chair?’

    ‘Not much.’

    ‘How come she’s on the grass?’

    ‘She was in my seat, Lou.’

    ‘You shoved her off?’

    ‘Certainly.’

    ‘That was rude, Charlie.’ Lou knelt down beside her. ‘Nicely dressed, isn’t she?’

    ‘Certainly better dressed than you left yours,’ Charlie said.

    ‘I won’t quibble with that.’ He tipped her head back and touched her bruised throat. ‘A nylon stocking,’ he said. ‘Maybe a scarf. Not my style at all.’

    ‘I haven’t accused you of anything,’ Charlie protested.

    ‘No, that’s right. Thanks. You’ve gotta be wondering, though.’ Charlie shrugged.

    ‘You read my book, right?’

    ‘Certainly.’

    In fact, Charlie had not read it. He hadn’t read any book since Silas Marner in high school. But Lou was proud of Choke ’em Till They Croak. The True Story of the Riverside Strangler in his Own Words. He had every right to be proud. The book, written during his last two years in prison, had been a hardbound bestseller. The paperback rights went for $800,000, and Ed Lentz was signed to play Lou in the Universal film.

    ‘First,’ Lou said, ‘if she wasn’t a blonde, I left her alone. Second, I took the clothes home to dress up my mannequins. Third, I didn’t use no scarf, I used my thumbs. That’s how come they called me Thumbs.’

    ‘Certainly, I know all that.’

    ‘Fourth, I didn’t dump ’em in other people’s backyards. That’s rude. I left ’em on the freeway exits.’ He poked her with his foot. ‘Not my style at all.’

    ‘But the police?’

    ‘Exactly. We’ve gotta get rid of her.’

    ‘What’ll we do with her?’ Charlie asked.

    Lou pulled a cigar out of his robe pocket. He peeled off the wrapper and tossed it into the grass. He poked the cigar into his mouth and lit it. ‘What we’ll do,’ he said, ‘we’ll deposit her at the bank.’

    They stored her in the trunk of Charlie’s Dodge until after dark that night. Then they went for a drive. Charlie, a former wheel man who drove getaway cars during numerous successful robberies and one failure, stole a Ford Mustang from the parking lot of an apartment building in Studio City. Lou followed him in the Dodge. On a dark, curving road in the Hollywood Hills, Lou picked the lock of the Mustang’s trunk. They transferred her into the trunk, and left the Mustang behind the Santa Monica branch office of Home Savings and Loan.

    ‘That was certainly a chore,’ Charlie complained afterward.

    ‘I got a kick out of it,’ Lou said.

    Two days later, while reading the morning paper, Lou announced, ‘They found our body.’

    ‘Oh?’

    ‘ “Dancer found slain,” it says. “The body of twenty-nine-year-old ballet dancer Marianne Tumly was found late Sunday night, the apparent victim of strangulation. Miss Tumly, understudy of Los Angeles ballerina Meg Fontana, disappeared Friday night after the company’s performance of Swan Lake. Her body was discovered in the trunk of a car abandoned in Santa Monica, according to police officials.” ’ Lou began to mumble, apparently finding no more worth sharing.

    ‘You don’t suppose they’ll connect us, do you?’ Charlie asked.

    ‘Not a chance.’

    For several days, Charlie drank his morning coffee in the backyard, enjoying the fresh air, the sunlight, the silence and peaceful solitude. On Saturday, however, he found the body of a lean brunette occupying his chair.

    He stared at her. She stared back.

    ‘This is ridiculous,’ he said. ‘Well, you’re not going to ruin my day this time!’

    But she did.

    Though Charlie sat in Lou’s wicker chair, back turned so she was out of sight, he could almost feel her studying the back of his head. Irritated, he went inside to refill his mug. As he poured steaming coffee from the percolator, he got an idea. He went to the linen closet. Before resuming his seat, he covered the woman’s head with a striped pillow case.

    That almost worked. Unfortunately, Charlie half expected her to peek out from under the pillow case. Every few seconds, he looked over his shoulder to check. It finally became too much for him. He rushed into the house and barged into Lou’s bedroom. ‘Lou!’ he cried. ‘There’s another one!’

    Lou’s scowl turned to a grin. ‘A busy man, our strangler.’

***

    Late that night, they put her in the trunk of a stolen Firebird. They left the Firebird in a parking lot at Los Angeles International Airport.

    Though the newspaper ran stories for several days about the disappearance of a dancer - another member of the troupe performing Swan Lake - her body wasn’t found until Thursday night. It made the Friday morning paper.

    After reading the article aloud, Lou lit a cigar. ‘We did real good on that one, Charlie. If we’d wrapped her