A Night at the (Horse) Opera

by P.N. Elrod

Originally published in Celebrity Vampires, DAW Books, Edited by Martin H. Greenberg 1995

This story takes place sometime

between Bloodcircle and Art in the Blood.

Chicago, 1936

The smell of buttered popcorn was a little distracting until I settled in my seat and stopped pretending to breathe. I wasn’t able to drink soda pop anymore, and even the darkness wasn’t really dark for me, but a movie was still a movie, and it was rare that I didn’t drop in on one of Chicago’s shadow palaces two or three times a week take in the latest show.

This particular one wasn’t especially new; The Plainsman had been out for a while, but I’d somehow missed it until now, a sad lapse for a Gary Cooper fan. Of course, I also liked Jean Arthur, who was mighty eye-catching done up in Hollywood cowgirl style. I lost track of the dialog at one point, speculating how my girlfriend, Bobbi, might look in a similar outfit of made of buckskins. Probably very good, I thought; then things started happening in the plot I couldn’t follow because of my internal wandering.

“What’s going on?” I whispered to the man next to me. Not taking his eyes from the screen, he obligingly leaned over and filled me in, speaking low and with a decided New York accent. I’d lived there for a long time before moving to Chicago and was mildly curious to find out why he’d left, but further questions could wait until after the feature.

De Mille’s epic danced over the screen with enough thrills and drama to keep the most jaded Western lover satisfied, myself included. If it was still playing here tomorrow, which Bobbi’s night off, I’d ask her to see it. She wouldn’t need much persuading; she liked Gary Cooper, too.

The movie rolled to its end, and the lights came up. Other people rose to leave, uniformed ushers appeared to clean up the trash, and the rest of us remained seated to wait for the next feature to start. Bobbi’s last show at the night club where she sang wouldn’t be over for another couple of hours, so I was in no hurry to leave. The same apparently went for my seat mate, who pulled a crumpled sack of peanuts from somewhere and began shelling and eating them in a leisurely manner.

“Thanks,” I said.

His bright eyes clouded slightly as he tried to recall why I was thanking him, then comprehension dawned. “Don’t mention it.”

“New York?” I asked.

“Ninety-third Streeter,” he promptly replied. He had a sloping nose, wide at the base, a wide, expressive mouth, receding hair, and enough mischief packed into his mug for a dozen Christmas elves. He looked as though he ought to be somebody, and I had a sudden nagging feeling that I knew him. “You from there, too?” he asked.

“Not since last August. You ever hang out at a place called Rosie’s? Across from the Dispatch?”

He shook his head solemnly.

“Thought I might have seen you there.”

“You probably saw me here, is what I’m thinking.” He tossed a peanut high and caught it in his mouth with the easy skill of long practice. “Want one?” He shook the bag, open end toward me.

“No, but thanks anyway.” Maybe I’d seen him here before and just hadn’t noticed him among the hundreds of other movie watchers. “Been away from New York long?”

“Long enough. California’s my home now, least when we’re not on the road.”

“Salesman?” But that didn’t seem quite right for him. Another peanut flew high and dropped in. He chewed it slowly while his eyes, his whole expression, turned steady and serious. “Yeah. I’m a salesman, all right. I sell money.”

“You what?”

“I sell money. You never heard of the business?”

“No …” I’d either stumbled across a counterfeiter or a lunatic. Now might be a good idea to make a graceful exit, but the guy put away his bag of peanuts, smiling at my expression.

“I know what you must be thinking, but it’s no scam. I really do sell money. It’s perfectly legal.”

Okay. He’d hooked me. I had to hear the punch line. “What is it? Like coin collecting or something?”

“Nah, this stuff.” He pulled out his wallet and fished for a five dollar bill, holding it out to me. “Take a look. It’s real, right?”

As far as I could tell it looked just like any other used bill. “Right …”

“Okay, I’ll sell you this five for four-fifty.”

I shook my head. “Ah. No, thanks.”

“It’s not a fiddle,” he earnestly assured me. “Think of the profit.”

“What do you get out of it?”

“A sale.”

“Maybe not this time, but thanks all the same.”

“You sure? It’s a great bargain you’re passing up.” At this point he looked too innocent to be believed. He read that I wasn’t going to fall for whatever gag he had in mind, gave a good-natured shrug, and put away the bill and wallet. He hauled out the peanuts again.

The nagging set in again with a vengeance. “I know you from somewhere.”

“Go to the movies a lot?” he asked.

“All the time.”

“You really don’t know?”

“Not unless you tell me.”

He chuckled, his whole face going into it.

“Wait a second …”

He did, dropping his chin a bit and letting his mobile mouth hang slack in an exaggerated pause.

And that’s when the dawn started to break for me. Figuratively. Again. “Oh, jeez, you’re—”

A hand clamped down heavily on his shoulder from behind and made him jump. He instantly gave up his miming game and looked around in mild irritation to the source of the interruption. I looked, too, and forgot all about the conversation. The man looming over us was big even by Chicago standards, and he wasn’t alone. He had two very large friends waiting in the aisle. The three of them looked as though they could take on the Wrigley Building and win. Their hundred-dollar suits were not well-tailored enough to hide the ominous bulges under their left arms.

The man’s hand flexed and lifted, and my seat mate rose like a puppet.

“Oh, hell,” he said, irritation suddenly replaced by fear. The smell of it fairly jumped off him.

“You don’t know the half of it yet,” the man told him.

“Wait a minute . . ” I began, not thinking. “Aren’t you Guns Thompson?” I’d heard he was working as muscle for a West Side mob these days.

One of his goons sidled into the row behind me and dropped a meaty hand on my shoulder. “Or maybe not. I could be mistaken.”

“Shhh!” someone down the row advised us severely.

“Out of here,” said Thompson, and the five of us were abruptly marching toward the lobby just as the next show began. The noisy barrage of a newsreel theme song was enough to drown out any protests we might have voiced at this treatment. I could have made an issue of things, but I’d heard that Thompson was a rough customer and wouldn’t put it past him to open up with his heater right then and there. No, it was a much better idea to go along and put a few walls between the other theater patrons and whatever caliber of bullets he and his cronies were packing that night.

We threaded past ushers with flashlights guiding latecomers in; no one noticed us, or if they did, they were going to mind their own business and watch the movie. We were urged through the open doors and spilled into the lush lobby. The popcorn smell hit me all over again with a brief wave of nausea, but I had other things to think about as they hustled us past the bank of doors leading outside. I’d been expecting a quick exit and maybe a car trip to somewhere unpleasant, but Thompson instead headed for the men’s room.

We trooped in as though we had business there. A couple of guys were washing up, and some instinct told them to hurry the job and leave. The last one out didn’t hang around long enough to dry his hands before he bolted.

Couldn’t blame him. The brightly lighted background of patterned tile did nothing to improve Thompson’s looks. Despite their flashy clothes, he and his friends were as out of place as a trio of gorillas at a Sunday School picnic. It showed in their hard, impassive faces and the way they moved like intelligent bulldozers.

“You’ve got the wrong man,” protested my seat mate. “You’re after Chico, aren’t you?”

“Not anymore,” sniggered one of the goons. He went to stand by the door, jamming his foot against the base to keep out unwelcome interruptions.

“But I’m his brother Harpo, I’m telling you. You’ve got the wrong man!”

Thompson stared, eyes all narrow so you couldn’t read them.

“It’s true,” I put in, trying to be helpful. “This is Harpo Marx.”

“Oh, yeah, then how come he’s talking?” demanded Thompson.

“Yeah,” said the goon at the door, suddenly giggling. “An’ if you’re Harpo, where’s your harp?”

“Back in my hotel room,” came Harpo’s logical answer, but his voice was thin and nervous. He still clutched his forgotten bag of peanuts in one tight fist. They rattled a bit against the paper because he was trembling.

“Everyone knows that Harpo’s a dummy.”

“I am not—that’s just a character I play!”

“Stop wasting time,” Thompson growled and pulled out a forty-five that looked like it could drop King Kong in one shot.

He wasn’t pointing it at anyone just yet, so I thought I’d try once more. “C’mon, Guns, give the man another look and you’ll see he’s not the one you want.”

He looked again but couldn’t see any difference. Then he looked my way seriously for the first time, and that’s when he started pointing the gun. I must have the kind of face that sets off alarms for his type. “Where do you get off knowing me?”

“Hey, everyone in town knows Guns Thompson.” All you had to do was walk into a post office and study the portraits left there by an FBI that hadn’t gotten around to collecting him yet, but I wasn’t going to mention that. He’d gotten his nickname during the Prohibition gang wars for his talent at handling a Thompson machine gun. It was about his only asset, since he and his friends apparently didn’t have enough brains among them to fill a whiskey jigger.

“Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“My name’s Fleming and I’m nobody special, honest.”

“Fleming?” Thompson’s face screwed up in an effort to think. “Where do I know him from, Higgs?” he asked the guy by the door.

Higgs shook his head.

“Rinky?” This directed to the thug guarding Harpo. Rinky shrugged.

Since my arrival in this town I’d been reluctantly bumping heads with its criminal element, so it wasn’t too surprising that Thompson had heard of me from somewhere. Most of the time I do whatever’s needed to cover my tracks and keeping my head down; on this occasion, I was fervently thanking God for Thompson’s poor memory. He growled and dismissed me as annoying but unimportant, turning his attention and his gun on Harpo.

“Okay, Marx, you ran up a bill with Big Joey, and it’s past due. I can take it out of your pocket or your hide.”

“This is a pretty public place for that kind of business,” I said. I wasn’t crazy about putting myself forward but figured I had a better chance of surviving it than Harpo.

Higgs giggled again. “Big Joey owns this joint, bo. Make noise if you want. Ain’t no one gonna come in to see why.”

Which made for a pretty disgusting situation, I thought, as the three of them laughed at my reaction. I checked on how Harpo was doing, but he wasn’t doing much of anything. He was frozen, staring hard at something behind me, his mouth sagging, and in no wise was it comical mugging. The back of my neck began to prickle as I realized what he was looking at. Hells bells, why couldn’t these jerks have taken us for a ride, instead?

“Marx?” Thompson said, moving a step closer and raising his gun an inch.

Harpo continued to stare until Rinky gave him a shake, then he looked vaguely at Thompson.

“Stop playing the dope. Pay up, and we’ll let you go back to the movie.”

“H-how much?”

“Five grand.”

The mention of such an enormous sum got Harpo’s attention as nothing else could, given his circumstances. He gulped. “My God, how long was he playing?”

“Who?”

“Chico.”

“You’re Chico, you dope!”

“Sorry, I forgot.”

Thompson tapped him lightly on the side of the head with the barrel of his gun, just enough to jar him. “Pay up, or get busted up. I don’t want no more shit from you, sheenie.”

Harpo had been drained of color up to this point; now he flushed a deep red. There was a lot going on all over his face, subtle stuff, but strong; anger, resentment, and outrage were now mixed in with his fear. I’d seen hilarious exaggerations of them on the screen, but he’d been acting then, working hard to make people laugh. I’d been one of them. This took only a second, maybe less than a second, and then he exploded. It was unwise and almost too fast to follow. Harpo’s fist came up, connected, and Thompson staggered away, clutching a suddenly broken, bloody nose.

The bloodsmell hit me all over like it always did, but I didn’t have time to spare for it. Rinky instantly surged forward to slam Harpo back into one of the stall doors. They were designed to open out; this one’s hinges gave way and it crashed inward, stopping abruptly when its edge struck the toilet inside. Off balance, his bag of peanuts scattering, Harpo fell against it and dropped, but he was still mad and scrapping. From the floor he kicked at Rinky’s ankles, but Rinky danced out of the way, reaching for his gun.

Before he could haul it out, I was on him. I grabbed handfuls of Rinky’s coat and maybe some skin under it because he yelped loud enough. One solid pull and turn, and he was flying across the length of the room. He crashed into the tiled wall, dropped hard, and didn’t get up.

Then something roared out, a horrendous explosion, stunning in the confined space. The sound was as solid as a bowling ball, and it struck me high up, square in the back. I saw a burst of blood leap from the middle of my chest, and then the floor flew up too fast to dodge.

I couldn’t tell if the silence that followed was a result of their shock at what had happened or my inability to hear anything. My ears felt stuffed and when the stuffiness wore off, it was replaced by a hot, unpleasant ringing. Negligible—it was nothing compared to the reaction my body was having to the slug that had just torn through it.

Couldn’t move. The pain was searingly familiar, which did not make it any easier to bear. My initial, involuntary reaction to getting shot is to vanish. Once incorporeal. I would be free of the pain, floating in a unique pocket of existence that’s always given me healing and comfort.

Great stuff, but the drawback is that it always scares the hell out of anyone who sees me doing it. The situation had gotten nasty enough; I wasn’t about to add to it by giving away my real nature to these creeps, so I grimly hung onto solidity, gritting my teeth as flesh, bone, muscle, and finally outraged nerves began painfully knit themselves back together into a shaken whole again.

“Oh, my God.” whispered Harpo somewhere behind me. He was apparently staring at my corpse. I wasn’t moving and, if necessary, I can lie very, very still indeed. It was a necessity now, if only to allow myself a moment to get over the worst of the shock. That moment came and thankfully went, but I stayed where I was, straining to listen, trying to figure out some way of helping Harpo without getting him killed.

Someone shifted, his shoes crushing and crunching the peanuts scattered on the floor. It was Higgs, coming over to check on Rinky.

“He’s out cold, Guns,” he reported.

“Throw some water on him.” Thompson snarled nasally. I hoped his nose hurt worse than my bullet wound. It would last him longer.

Higgs complied, running water in one of the sinks. He cupped his hands together to carry it over to his friend. I could see only just that much from the corner of one eye, having fallen at an inconvenient angle. Higgs never bothered to glance at me. I was just another mess on the floor to be ignored, like the peanuts.

Someone was having a hard time breathing, probably Harpo. I heard a series of little sick gasps, then a sudden scrabble of movement. The next thing I heard was him throwing up in one of the stalls.

Thompson thought it was funny, “The little sheenie shit can’t take it, Higgs.”

Higgs grunted amused agreement and made a second trip for water.

“That puke stinks. Flush it, Marx.”

After a moment, the toilet was flushed.

Rinky began to show signs of reviving. He groaned, swatted at the latest faceful of water, and was hauled to his feet by Higgs.

“Rinky, go wait in the car,” Thompson ordered.

Rinky made an unsteady exit. Just as he got to the door, someone must have poked his head in.

“Hey! What’s going on h—”

“Never you mind, bo,” said Higgs. He’d been following Rinky and now kept going, keeping up a patter of tough talk to convince the newcomer to butt out. It must have worked; no one else came through to investigate things, leaving Thompson alone with Harpo …and me.

“Come outta there, sheenie.”

Footsteps dragged reluctantly over the floor as Harpo emerged from the stall.

“You see what happens when I get pissed? Well, I’m startin’ to get pissed with you. You come up with the money, or you end up just like him.”

“Okay.” Harpo’s voice had dropped lower than a whisper, as though he had no air left in him to use.

“So fork over.”

“But I—” Harpo broke off.

“Don’t tell me you don’t have it. You movie people always carry a wad with you.”

Okay, he’d be concentrating on Harpo now, as good a time as any for me to make a move, even better with Higgs and Rinky out of the way. I stopped being me for an instant, slipping into that non-place where I had no body, no weight, no sight, only mind and will. I sensed the hardness of the floor and, as I drifted over it toward them, could determine just how close they were to each other.

Very close. Thompson had Harpo backed up against the stall doors and I could guess he had his gun square in the poor guy’s face.

“C’mon, move it.”

If Harpo came up short of cash—and it was very likely he would—Thompson was just crazy enough to scrag him as casually as he’d scragged me. There was no way I could be subtle about this. I had to hurry and break things up now and figure out how to cover my tracks later.

Thompson, at least, never knew what hit him. I materialized with my hands already reaching for him, one to push his gun out of the way and the other flowing smoothly into a solid sock to his jaw. He reeled back, eyes rolling up, and careened off a urinal before making friends with the peanuts on the floor.

I turned to check on Harpo. He wasn’t moving much. If he hadn’t been braced against the stall dividers, his legs might have given out. His eyes were wider than they’d ever been in the movies as his gaze traveled from me to Thompson and back to me again, finally resting on the hole in my shirt and its surrounding bloodstain. It was a mess and it was real. No movie fakery here.

A hundred questions raced over his face, but not one of them could get out. He was just too damned scared.

It’s not as though I hadn’t seen his reaction before on others, but like getting shot the familiarity never made it any less painful. I backed away and said something stupid to him about taking it easy and that everything was all right. I could hear his heart pounding fit to bust and felt a stab of worry about the ashy color of his skin.

“You okay?” I asked, hoping he’d respond.

He stared.

I repeated my question.

He gulped, grimacing perhaps, on the vomit taste left in his mouth. “I’m … fine,” he squeaked.

“You sure? You don’t look so hot.”

His mouth twitched. “Dead. I saw. You.”

I gently put a little more distance between us. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”

Now he seemed to twitch all over. “Sorry?”

“I didn’t mean to scare you. I really didn’t. I don’t want to now.” I’d backed off as far as I could. He could run out the door if he wanted. I wouldn’t stop him. I certainly wasn’t going to try hypnotizing him into forgetting his fear or into accepting me or anything like that. It’s a really shitty, dangerous thing to mess around inside people’s minds in that way. These nights I never did it unless at the time it seemed more shitty and dangerous not to; this wasn’t one of those times. Besides, who’d believe him?

“Is this some kind of a trick?” He was looking pretty damned hollow and lost.

“No trick. Houdini I ain’t. Nothing up my sleeve but arm.” I couldn’t lie to him, even when the temptation was there to explain it all away as an illusion.

“Then how?”

It got real quiet as I considered just how to answer. Even a short lecture on Romanian folklore and how it differs from actuality would take a while to get through, and I couldn’t stand here and deliver it in a men’s room with peanuts and Guns Thompson all over the floor.

I said, “You ever see that Bela Lugosi movie that came out a couple of years back?”

Maybe Harpo had seen it or not, but he suddenly understood.

“It’s sort of like that for me … only I’m … a much nicer person.” I spread my hands, giving a little shrug, probably looking at little hollow and lost myself.

“No kiddin’?”

“No kiddin. Except for a couple quirks” —I touched where the wound had been— “I’m the same as you. I like movies and hate bullies.”

Harpo stared for a time, then his gaze switched over to the bank of mirrors on the wall over the sinks. They’d given him his first clue, after all. A few minutes ago the surprise had been enough to take his attention right off of Thompson’s immediate threat. From where I was standing, I could see his reflection. It peered hard at the spot where I should have been, but nothing was there, of course. After a time, it looked down to where Thompson lay.

Then Harpo straightened himself a little to look directly at me. “Yeah, you’re right. You are a nicer person than some people I could name.”

Life’s damn tough, and every now and then it allows you to work yourself into having an impossible hope for something you want more than anything else. It flashes up so fast and so hard that you can see and know exactly what it will be like for you to have that hope fulfilled. For a second or two it’s absolutely real, and it’s the best feeling in the world while it lasts, until the bright instant passes and you have to face the black disappointment.

But this time the disappointment didn’t come. Harpo Marx spared me that, giving me what I’d hoped for, wanted, needed.

Acceptance. Just like that. No fanfare, no questions.

God bless him.

“Thanks,” I whispered.

“Does that hurt?’ he asked, cautiously pointing to my chest.

I shook my head, to full to talk just yet.

He pointed at Thompson. “What are you going to do with him?’

I coughed to clear my clogged throat. “Damned if I know. Got any ideas?”

His face had begun to take on more normal lines as the tension melted off, and now I saw a ghost of his character’s elfin mischief flit past. He walked over to Thompson and studied him, then stepped to one of the sinks, turning on the tap. Cupping his hands like Higgs before him, he slopped water onto Thompson, who jerked and jumped and rumbled an obscene protest.

Harpo stooped and solicitously helped Thompson to his feet. Thompson was just awake enough to see and vaguely understand what was happening. He was just getting to the point of snarling at his benefactor, but Harpo cut him off by landing as neat and as forceful a gut punch as had ever been my privilege to see. He all but buried his arm up to the elbow in Thompson’s middle, and the man immediately folded. His breath whooshed out and was slow to return.

Harpo stood over him, watching and waiting. After a minute, Thompson, being fairly tough, recovered enough to straighten again. The second he was up, though, Harpo let him have it once more. Thompson grunted and dropped to his knees. It took a while before he was able to breathe regularly, and it took even longer for him to find his feet.

Harpo helped him.

Thompson should have known better.

This time Harpo’s gut punch was followed up by a hard, crisp uppercut with just enough force behind it to finish the job. No gasping for air for Thompson. He simply dropped. Next Christmas was about ten months away. Maybe by then he’d wake up.

Harpo shook his hand, blowing on it, then returned to the sink to let the cold water run over his bruised knuckles. I. He was grinning. “I shouldn’t have done that. Any more and I couldn’t play the harp for our show. We’re touring, you know, trying out some acts we’re going to use in a new movie.” he explained, referring to his brothers.

“Where’d you learn to sock like that?” I asked.

“Benny Leonard.” he answered, dropping the name of the lightweight champion of the world in a most unaffected manner. “We did a tour with him once, used to take turns sparring with him. Great guy.” He cut the water and toweled off. “Wish he could have been here to see this. He’d a been proud of me.”

I picked up Thompson’s .45 which had fallen when I’d hit him. It probably wouldn’t hurt to call up a homicide cop I knew and ask if he was interested in an easy collar. Lieutenant Blair didn’t like or trust me much, but he wasn’t above accepting a favor when it was offered. Putting the gun in my overcoat pocket to give to him later, I buttoned the front together to hide the bullet hole in my bloodied shirt. I’d have to remember to keep my back to the walls to hide the matching entry hole there.

The first cold tickle of hunger plucked at my belly and throat. It wasn’t really critical yet, but I’d have to make time tonight to stop at the Stockyards to feed, to replace what had been lost. Some of it still smeared the floor. Frowning. I went to a stall, ripped away a length of toilet paper and swabbed my blood from the tiles, tossing the waste and flushing it away.

Harpo watched without comment, his face solemn.

“I know you’ve been through a lot,” I said, “but would you mind doing me a favor?”

“Anything you want, buddy.”

I got out my notebook and scribbled a name and number on a page and gave it to him. “Could you call this guy for me? Tell him Jack Fleming is babysitting Guns Thompson here and for him to come over right away.”

He looked dubious. “This a cop?”

“Yeah, but you can leave your name out of it if you want.” That made him happy.

“But what about his friends?”

Higgs and Rinky. The ones in the car outside. “They’ll clear out the moment a patrol car pulls up. They’re dumb, but not that dumb.”

“I owe you.”

“Let’s call it even if I can have an autograph.”

Harpo shook his head and laughed in a big way. “I’ll go you one better. How ’bout I take you back to where I’m staying so I can introduce you to my brothers?”

This was almost as much of a shock as catching that bullet, only without the pain. “Really? You mean it?”

“Yeah. I’d like them to meet the guy who saved my life.”

I sagged a little. You won’t tell ’em how, will you?”

He pulled in his lower lip, considering. “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea. We’ll talk around it somehow.”

“That’d be great, then. Just great.” I was suddenly grinning.

He grinned back. “Grouch’ll be there and he might know where Chico is. I think,” he added darkly. “I need to talk with Chico. When we were kids we were always being mistaken for one another, like twins. I never imagined anything like this would happen because of it, though.”

“Maybe you should wear the wig and raincoat—at least while you’re still in Chicago.”

He nodded. “There’s an idea. I’ll go make that call for you, okay? Will the cops will take long?”

“I’ll make sure they don’t.” I promised. He started to go. “Wait a sec.”

He paused at the door.

“That stuff you were giving me about selling money—is that part of your stage show?”

His eyes twinkled—they really did. “Nah, that’s just a gag Chico and I do for the hell of it. People try to figure out the catch, only there isn’t one. It drives ’em crazy.”

“Was I crazy enough for you?”

He flashed another broad grin. “Brother, you were a pip!”

I looked at the gently closing door and decided that I’d been given the privilege of a lifetime. The Marxes worked their butts off to give people like me a good laugh and the chance had fallen my way to give one back in return.

And it felt pretty damned good.