PULP & POPCORN

Page 15
Fate began to deal Felix this new hand as something flaming and alive emerged from
that hole, burning white-hot and intent on its purpose. He lay in bed, twitching, caught in
some bad dream, perhaps even somehow feeling that bad wind blowing. Four more of those
same falling stars came down around the city. One hit the top of Mullholland, and another
landed in the shallow waters of the Santa Monica shore. One hit just west of the Beverly
Hills hotel, and the last found its way to Griffith Park.
Each strike of the earth, it was as if Felix himself was struck. He was not alone in his
hospital room. Another patient lay awake listening to Felix, debated waking him, then
decided he wasn’t going to risk it going badly.
In Santa Monica, a man emerged from the Pacific Ocean, and it was as if the shadows
themselves gathered and wrapped this man in a dark, well-tailored suit. Richard Maruf
never broke stride, didn’t glance at the few observers who had seen this happen. He had
someplace to be, and no time to waste.
At the corner of Beachwood Drive and Franklin, Anjelica Jean took a moment to
somehow light her cigarette simply by drawing on it deeply. She was clad in a sheer black
dress the same midnight shade as the suit that Richard Maruf wore.
In his dreams, Felix found himself in another time and place, and somehow he was
himself but he was not. He lay in bed, sunlight creeping in around the edges of heavy
curtains, reluctant to move or to lose this moment with this beautiful woman. Somehow,
Anjelica Jean was there with him, in that bed, in his dream, even as she hailed a cab on
Franklin, in a hurry of her own. The Anjelica in his dream touched his cheek with her hand,
touched his heart with her sad eyes full of secrets she would never share. Even when she
smiled, that sadness was still there in her eyes. As Felix reached for her in his dream, she
suddenly became fire. She wasn’t burning; she was the fire. And in that dream, Felix did not
care, and he drew her closer to him, allowing those flames to envelop him, to surround him,
to consume him.
When he sat up in bed in his hospital room, suddenly awake but not sure where he
was or how he got there, he cried out just once, and in doing so, he let loose a huge cloud of
smoke, dense and acrid, more than he could have possibly inhaled. Vernon Miller, his
roommate for the moment, sat frozen as a crisp, serious nurse stepped into the room,
turning on the overhead lights. He couldn’t have done much good anyway. Vernon was in
traction.