Odd Couple #2

The rain was drying up, its last few drops squeezing themselves away from the skeletal cloud which had held them.

“I’ve been wondering when you’d notice me,” the Ghost of Bugsy said to Zem. He smiled to find himself face-to-face, finally, with this personage who crackled at his edges, whose borders were only roughly reliable, who was there, not see-through, not wavering, but who seemed less than solid. “I’m surprised it took you this long,” he grinned.

Zem took the Ghost in, considering his natty shoes, his hat, his slim dark suit in between. His smile. They were neck and neck in the smile sweepstakes. The Ghost’s pearly-whites were sharklike, promising more rows behind, multiple line-ups of teeth, each one more serrated, sharper than the one before. “I can’t use you,” Zem muttered.

The Ghost laughed out loud. “No, you can’t! Is that what you were looking for? Another slave to do your bidding? Sorry, Charlie, not this guy.”

Zem looked him up and down again. “What are you?” he asked.

The Ghost spread his pinstriped arms wide. “I am Mr. Las Vegas, chum,” he said. “You should have checked with me before you put the deposit down on this place. I think people have been selling you things they didn’t own.” His teeth glinted as the light along the Strip brightened. The chasers and neon sprang up, eager to fill the space, no longer weighed down by the heavy torrent.

Zem rolled his eyes, spraying what little rain was left in all directions. The Ghost ducked, good-naturedly.

“I don’t need you,” Zem said. “Be prepared to sink back down into the earth as people forget you.”

The Ghost chuckled. “Oh, I don’t think so,” he winked.

“I am unstoppable,” Zem said. He might have been commenting on the time, pointing out with a yawn that the rain was letting up and there still might be time to hit a show, or go out for a late dinner. “I command nature, itself.”

The Ghost winked again. “In case you hadn’t noticed, this town doesn’t care much about nature,” he said. It was a joshing confidence, an open secret shared with a rube before the big swindle was pulled. He almost leaned over to elbow Zem in the ribs.

Zem did not deign to step back to avoid him. “Nevertheless. I have business,” he concluded. “Go your way. Do what you want. This city is mine, now, and I’m going to do–” for one moment, his look grew cloudy, as he focused on something invisible, “wonderful things with it.” He narrowed his gaze, fastened his black eye-absences back on the Ghost. “I think that’s all we have to talk about,” he said.

The Ghost quirked his lips in a show of consideration. He shrugged. “I guess so,” he agreed. “Good luck with what you’re looking for,” he added.

Zem laughed at that, out loud and booming. The trees nearby flinched, and a wind picked up to eject the last few raindrops. “I don’t need luck,” he laughed. “There’s no luck in Vegas anyway. You should know that. Better than anybody.”

Bugsy shrugged again, and turned to go. “It’s all a game, buddy,” he said. “And even if the house wins, we show the customers a good time first.”

“The house still wins. Even the customers know that.”

Again, that same shrug. “Then why are you here?” Bugsy asked. He took one step away. “See ya,” he called, and strolled back down the Strip. He started whistling.

“Because I’m the new house,” Zem yelled at him. He imagined crushing this obnoxious interloper. He pictured himself rising up, then swooping down, a cross between Leda’s swan lover and something darker, nastier, made more of talons than feathers. He felt the shapes of whirlwind, of storm flit through his mind and fingers. He’d love to throttle that self-satisfied throat—

He looked again. The Ghost was gone.

No hero there. Zem turned, restless, and let himself dissolve, sink back into the other world that underlay the physical. He sent his senses out.

In the old days, heroes had been easy. Zem cast his senses out through the city. Just one foolhardy soul, he thought. He caught a glimmer. Ah.

And then, as he flowed toward it, tasting it, another thought struck him.

Or two.

His grin caused ripples in the aether like the heated air shimmying out from a go-go dancer’s bared body. Heroes and monsters, both, he thought.

He flowed in a new direction, rushed in an unhurried way. He leapt blocks, miles, and reached his goal in the flick of a wink, in less time that it took for the Big Bad Wolf’s drool to descend from his snout onto Little Red Riding Hood’s forehead. He’d round up his forces one by one, mold them to fit his needs, array them for the final battle.

Everything I need, already waiting, he marveled.

It was good, so good, he reflected, to be a god.

NEXT POST: LITTLE RED SMOKING HOOD AND HER FAIRY GOD-DRAG-QUEEN (Friday 1/29)