Lastor told me the Revel isn’t formal, but my churchgoing white linen dress is too proper, my black silk mourning dress too plain. From the moving box I couldn’t wait to tear open, I take out a favorite dress, turquoise silk with a V neck, and step into Petra heels three shades of turquoise suede. I slide on my silver rings and bangles and arrange the Eye and the Cross at my throat.
I strap on my dressy black Oris wristwatch. I need to keep track of the time tonight. I intend to party till ten in the P.M., then make my farewells like a good little Cinderella. But, wait. Didn’t Cinderella get to stay at the ball till midnight? She did, but I can’t. I’ve got a gun-toting tryst with Jack Kovac tomorrow morning, a magic class at three, and a job too good to be true every hour of the night and day.
I jog to the living room and seize my handbag heavy with the deadweight of the Beretta. I dodge around the battalion of unopened moving boxes, head for the door–and stop right there.
What if Prince Lastor has a doorman who pats guests down and searches handbags? Royalty must always worry about assassins and gate-crashers mooching for a free drink. Would His Highness refuse to receive me? Never invite me again? Call the cops? Would I have to call Jack Kovac to bail me out of jail?
Anyway, I don’t know how to shoot the devilish thing. Not till Kovac teaches me tomorrow. Misgivings brood in my heart as I tuck the Beretta in the bottom left-hand drawer of my home-office desk. Sweet dreams, Beretta. Hope I survive the night without you.
* * *
I climb the stairs to the third floor and catch my breath. How about a little prowl past Number Twenty-seven? See what I can see?
Harassment of the vampires? Hell, no. I’m the super. It’s my job.
I wind my way through the labyrinthine halls. Voices babble just around a corner, and there they are: a crowd queuing up outside the door to Twenty-seven.
I sidle up and look them over.
Forget the black leather, the piercings, the pastel hair, the crude tattoos, the sneers, the famous-for-nothing poses. These tender teens can’t fool me. They wear their innocence so obviously, they might as well be naked. If I can see through their veneer of cool to the exploitation waiting to happen, so can the vampires.
And then I see her slouching in the queue.
Becky.
No longer your classic virgin peasant girl in one of the old stories, but an It-Girl nymphet laughing knowingly, eager for excitement. She’s traded her denim shift for jeans riding on the lowest angle of her kiddie-skinny hips. She’s pushed the neckline of her shirt down around her shoulders and tied the tails up beneath her washboard of a chest.
Easy fodder for a feeding.
The door flips open and a deafening wall of sound pounds out. The addictively obnoxious beat and falsetto vocals of “Disco Divin’”, what else.
“Darlings,” the Odd Person shouts over the din, “come in, come in! Welcome to our party.”
The teens stampede inside. I join the stampede, but the Odd Person catches sight of me at the back of the queue.
When I reach the threshold, the Odd Person blocks my path and brandishes his/her hands, pushing little air pushes against my chest.
I flash my driver’s license. “I’m over twenty-one.”
The Odd Person shuts the door with a decisive click and looms over me. “Sorry, you’re not invited.”
“Sorry, as your super I need to see if you’re illegally operating a commercial dance floor.”
“Darling, we’re having a party.”
“Uh huh. You’re not carding the kids tonight. Serving booze?”
“Ginger ale and apple juice.”
“I really doubt it. I’m coming in to see what I can see. Then I’m calling Nine One One.” I pull out my cell.
“Have we asked you to fix something in our apartment?”
“No, you haven’t.”
“Have you scheduled an appointment to repair a malfunction in our apartment that affects the common areas of the building?”
“You know I haven’t.”
“Has another tenant filed a complaint against us?”
“Strangely, no.”
“Are you collecting rent or past-due rent?”
“Not till next month or when Becky’s Mom’s check bounces, whichever comes first.”
“Then you’ve got no right to just barge in, uninvited.”
“Says who?”
“Says our lease.” The Odd Person whips out the lease from some pocket hidden in his/her black leather jumpsuit and shakes the document in my face. “Tenants have privacy rights, too.”
The Odd Person is right, of course. Landlord-tenant laws in Berkeley are way on the side of the tenant.
“What about the water bed?”
“We recycled the water bed. I hated the old slosher. Gave me a backache.”
“Huh. I thought that’s why water beds were invented. For people with back problems.”
“And credit cards were invented for people with plenty of cash. And super?”
“Yes?”
“Call me Arnold.” The Odd Person winks. “Don’t be downhearted, darling. Maybe one day you too will be invited.”
********
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Copyright © 2012–2016 by Lisa Mason.
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