Undying Witch, page 14
“The boss ain’t here either,” the woman said. She emphasized the word boss. It was obvious that the woman did not like Dima. Other women tended to be jealous of her mother. Indeed, the woman said in a harpy voice, “Dima is probably giving the boss a blow job right now.”
“Well, uh…uh, tell Nick-Nick when you see him that Medea, the girl he thinks of as a loving daughter, called to wish him well.”
The woman hung up on her and Medea pounded her face with the telephone receiver. Wish him well? The words sounded suspicious and when had Medea ever called Nick-Nick at the speakeasy?
Well, she knew one thing for certain, her mother was not sucking on Nick-Nick’s burnt member.
She ran to her mother’s bedroom and threw several cats off the bed. She searched beneath the mattress and yanked out Dima’s calendar. Her mother preferred to sleep on her schedule to better remember it, she claimed.
Medea flipped through the pages and then flipped back a couple of pages and slammed her hand on today.
Her mother was lunching with the infamous Communist Peggy Dennis.
Medea ran out the front door.
She ran back into the house, taking the steps in leaps and bounds.
She grabbed the keys to Nick-Nick’s car. The Los Angeles Communist Party headquarters was located at a co-op at 2706 Brooklyn Avenue which address, also, housed a restaurant. The restaurant was less than three miles away.
Medea opened the garage door and hid Nick-Nick’s car in the garage.
She then ran up Mission Road and took a right on First Street.
She ran huffing and pugging to Lorena Street where she hung a left, slipping and sliding.
She fell and banged her knee.
Medea limped the rest of the way, about a fifth of a mile, to the corner of Lorena and Brooklyn Place where the co-op was located.
Dima had parked the car along the curb.
With the 30 minutes it took her to run nearly three miles and the time earlier when she left Nick-Nick’s house, about an hour had gone by since she left his charred body in his back yard.
Medea screeched at the sight of police in front of the Communist Party headquarters. She had forgotten about the fact that there was usually trouble here.
A few dozen men and women wore pants and shirts of the Communist worker. They stood guard over entrance to the Party headquarters.
Across the street, a band of Molokan Russians marched, carrying anti-Communist signs and yelling at the guards, “Red pigs!”
The guards yelled back, “Milk drinkers,” because this is what the word Molokan meant in English.
The Molokans dressed like peasants from the old country. The women wore bandanas covering their hair and wide skirts to their ankles. The men wore funny hats with their pants tucked into their boots. The Molokans might have been mistaken for Quakers. The Molokans endured religious persecution for centuries. Now, they blamed the Communists for causing them to flee Russia. However, the first waves of Molokans from Russia had immigrated because of the anti-Jewish policy of the Tsars.
The LAPD were swinging billy clubs. The police in Los Angeles were brutal but took enjoyment harassing the Communists, ever since the Red Scare after World War I. During public speaking days in Pershing Square, if a Communist stood on a soap box to make a speech, the police always showed up and beat him. Therefore, most of the public speaking by the Communists took place in neighborhoods rather than downtown.
One Negro police officer was beating a Communist man with his billy club, knocking him on his arms and legs. The man was much smaller than the cop.
Medea peered at the policeman, giving him the evil eye.
A large boil appeared on his cheek, festering, and burning, growing to the size of a baseball. The officer screamed in pain and quit beating the man.
Medea was against Communism because Dima was for it, but she did not like bullies.
She approached the guards at the Communist headquarters. “I’m Dima’s sister,” she said. “She is inside eating lunch with her friend, Peggy Dennis.”
The guards stood aside. One man even opened the door respectfully for her. Peggy was a big shot in the Party. Her husband, Eugene, was an American born in Seattle. He fled California four years ago and traveled to Russia to avoid criminal charges by the American government.
Peggy was born in New York City. She had deep lines on her forehead, proving that too much thinking was bad for a woman, just like Dima claimed.
It was ironic that Peggy was eating with Dima. Peggy was the daughter of Russian Jews who fled the oppressive Czarist regime 29 years ago. Dima, after all, was a Romanov. Their connection began when Dima told Peggy a sob story about how badly her royal family treated her.
Dima never formally joined the Communist Party. One of the reasons she pretended to be Communist was because she still feared assassination for being a Romanov. Los Angeles had the second largest population of Russian immigrants, New York City being the biggest. Most of the Russian immigrants who immigrated before the recent revolution and toppling of the Tsar, resented the Romanovs.
Dima and Peggy wore Red Army hats, with the Red Star. Dima wore a red flapper dress and Peggy the outfit of a Communist worker. While Peggy resembled a true Socialist, the look on Dima’s face was like the snotty people who lived in Brooklyn Heights and considered themselves better than their neighbors in Boyle Heights.
Dima was a hypocrite. She claimed to dislike class structure, yet she held her head above everyone. She wished common property for all, but was stingy with everything she owned. Another reason the Communist Party attracted Dima was because women were treated as equals to men.
Dima was snotty like a Romanov but not a racist. The only other neighborhood not mixed with Italians, Mexicans, Asians, Russians, what have you, was South Gate, where the Ku Klux Klan lived. Dima called the residents in South Gate ghosts because only whites could buy houses there. When her social conscience bothered her, Dima turned into a Negro man and flashed through South Gate, naked, just to scare the KKK. “This was the Communist way,” she said, and never missed a meeting of the Party.
Dima was a contradiction, one day claiming to be a Communist and the next day not. Heart and soul, Dima was a capitalist, a witch raised as a barefoot gypsy, just trying to make a good living as her royal Romanov roots demanded.
She sipped a cup of tea, smirking at Peggy Dennis.
Medea staggered to their table, unknowing that she was covered in ashes and her face blackened by smoke. “We need to leave Los Angeles, mother, now!” she yelled.
“My sister,” Dima said and laughed uncomfortably. “Look at me, how young I am. I could not possibly be the teen’s mother.” Dima made a circular motion with her finger next to her ear, indicating that Medea was crazy. “I may have to make the difficult decision of having my sister locked in an asylum,” she said loud enough for Medea to hear.
“Oh, you poor thing,” Peggy said and patted Dima’s hand.
Medea slapped Peggy’s hand away from her mother.
Dima jumped from the table and dragged Medea to the bathroom. She searched the stalls but they were alone.
She shook Medea until her teeth rattled. “What do you mean coming over here looking like a drowned rat the cat dragged in from the sewer?”
Medea gulped at her reflection. There was no choice but to confess. “Nick-Nick is dead.”
“What?!”
“He’s dead, in a fire. I…I tried to save him. I drove, I mean, I was by his house. I…what was I doing there? Well, the red car, I fell asleep on my way home from work. I was so tired from my maid job.”
“What were you doing at your maid job today? You were supposed to be selling my liquor.”
“Oh, yes. I…I was tired from walking so much. See. I have blisters on my feet. Anyway, I saw his house burning and I went in and tried to save him. He’s dead,” she whispered fearfully.
“Did anyone see you?” Dima asked.
Medea shook her head no.
Dima led a terrified Medea out of the bathroom.
She stopped at the table to make her excuses to Peggy.
She then put Medea gently in her car and drove towards Mission Road.
When they got home, Dima opened the garage door. “I don’t think Nick-Nick is dead. See. He is visiting me. You must be confused, Medea.”
“I drove his car home,” she said.
“Let me get this straight,” Dima hissed. “You stole Nick-Nick’s prized car?”
“He told me once that any time I needed a ride, to borrow his car.”
“I see you dented the fender, which is not surprising given that you don’t know how to drive. And you scraped the side when you parked in the garage.”
Medea swallowed. She did not care for her mother’s scrutiny. “Well, his car is wider than your car. You…you better shut the garage door.”
“You shut it,” Dima ordered
She dragged Medea from the car, banging her head against the car ceiling.
Medea closed the garage door.
Dima poked her back while she climbed the steps to the front door of the house.
Dima sighed deeply and looked at Medea from head to toe. The girl looked as if she had been in a fire. “I don’t want any trouble. We must look at the mirror of time to see if the fire was an accident or some enemy of Nick-Nick’s set the fire.”
“I…I told you what happened,” Medea said. “You don’t believe me! You need the mirror-of-time to show you?” She sounded hysterical.
Medea sighed with relief when she saw that Dima was not using a pig’s ear to listen to the past. And Dima only went backwards in time to the point where Nick-Nick was chasing Medea.
Dima stared with wide eyes at the Mirror-of-Time, witnessing her daughter murder her lover.
Medea explained, “I didn’t want you to know that Nick-Nick tried to rape me. He picked me up on my route. He accused you of stealing the labels. I was protecting you, Mother.”
Dima hugged her daughter. “There, there. I know that Nick-Nick was a bad man. I never should have let him near you. Now I must protect you.”
Dima continued to let the Mirror-of-Time show the past at Nick-Nick’s house after the fire. She would back a bit, watching Medea drag the charred corpse from the house. “There,” Dima said and pointed to the woods.
Medea sucked in her breath. There was a witness to her crime! Looking out from the edge of the woods was Napoleone D’Amore.
“I must get to Napoleone before he goes to Jack Dragna,” Dima said.
She spun slowly, clutching Pompeii in her hand.
When she stopped spinning, Dima was a big snowy owl.
She walked, bird-like to the back door.
Medea swung open the door for her.
Medea stood there, filled with love, watching her mother fly out of the house and soar across the sky.
She really does love me, she thought.
Chapter 26
DIMA HEADED NORTHEAST, FLYING ACROSS THE HOUSES OF CITY TERRACE. As she soared higher, it was tricky avoiding the crisscrossing lines delivering electricity and telephone service to homes and businesses. Intermixing with the spaghetti wire was the lines of the Los Angeles trolley system which was the biggest in the world. During rush hour, the trolley cars traveling across the tracks shook the houses.
It was almost Christmas. On holidays in Los Angeles, the stench of butchered meat was overwhelming.
Napoleone was in his back yard, cooking a pig. As luck would have it, the warlock was alone.
Dima swooped down and hopped over to him.
He stared at her with wide eyes. He had probably never seen a snowy owl before or an owl nearly three feet tall.
The owl blinked its yellow eyes at him and said, “Hello, Nap, you piece of crap. Ha! I made a rhyme. I’ve always wanted to call you a piece of shit to your face.”
He sucked in his breath and hissed, “I recognize your voice, Dima. So, you know a magical spell to turn into a bird of prey. Well, I have a magic powder.”
He must have been expecting her. It was no coincidence that a bowl of powder was next to a bottle of barbeque sauce.
Napoleone sprinkled his head with some powder and voila! He turned into a huge vulture.
“I eat the dead,” he said in a deep, booming voice.
“Don’t try so hard to sound like the grim reaper,” Dima said. “By, God, but you’re ugly.”
He did have huge claws and a larger beak than she. Being a man, he made a bigger bird.
Dima spun on one leg and turned into her younger self, the woman Napoleone hated.
He spit, hopping on his vulture feet.
Dima knew that the magic of the powder lasted an hour. He could not turn back into a man until the magic wore off.
She spun four times, turning into the snowy owl and then back into a woman, into the snowy owl again, and then a woman.
Napoleone fluttered his wings, stuttering with envy, “So, you’re a shapeshifter?”
Dima pulled out a gun from her skirt pocket. “I am simply being a good mother and protecting my daughter, Medea.”
“You mean your sister.”
Dima laughed and before Napoleone could soar out of gunshot reach, she fired the weapon.
The vulture came crashing down to earth.
Napoleone lay with one wing fluttering, slowly transforming into a man. With his dying breath, he told her about Medea and her double-cross with Jack Dragna. “The mafia boss was buying cheaper from Medea. He went straight to the source,” he whispered.
Dima heard a noise behind her and turned.
A boy, about eight-years-old, ran to Napoleone. He plopped down and took the warlock’s head in his lap. The boy was weeping and crying out, “Father!”
“Come here, child,” Dima said.
The boy glared at her. “Murderer! I shall avenge my father!” he screamed.
The boy vanished into thin air.
He knows the magic of invisibility.
Dima backed away from Napoleone’s corpse. She looked around fearfully. The boy must still be here. She could hear him breathing.
“I have no beef with you, son,” she said and held out her arms.
She spun.
He was behind her, growling.
She could hear the barbeque tools rattling on the grille. The long fork resembled a miniature pitch fork. It floated in the air.
Quick, Dima turned back into the snowy owl.
She took flight and headed in the direction of her house on Mission Road.
She turned back into her younger self and stormed into the house.
“Medea!”
There was no answer.
“Well,” she asked the cat, Vodka, “where did the girl go?”
Vodka raised its tail in a question mark symbol, which meant that the cat had no idea where her daughter was.
Dima stormed into Medea’s room and lifted the mattress.
Medea hid no evidence of her crimes beneath.
She tossed everything out of the closet and ripped her clothes from the dresser drawers.
Dima cocked her head at a movie poster, which had an image of a huge eye spying out from the poster. The name of the movie was The Ghoul.
Mm, there was something lumpy in the pupil of the eye. Scotch tape sealed the poster all around the edges.
Dima ripped the poster from the wall.
A wad of cash fell to the carpet.
Dima grabbed the money and screamed.
She walked down the stairs and grabbed a bottle of vodka.
She removed the stopper with her teeth and spit it out.
She took a swallow, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
“That girl would not have run away. She thinks her mother has fixed her problems,” she told the cats.
The felines hissed back at her.
Dima stood there drinking, waiting for her daughter to come home.
Chapter 27
MEDEA TIPTOED INTO THE DARK HOUSE. It was almost midnight.
A lamp flashed on and Medea held up her arms to ward off the bright light.
The living room had a damp smell of dirt and mold like an Egyptian tomb. Dima decorated like the pharaohs of Egypt. The décor had been the rage ever since the unearthing of King Tut’s tomb several years ago. Dima even bought a Ladies’ Home Journal to copy the rooms in the magazine. In the living room, candlelight cast eerie shadows upon beige silk wallpaper containing black etchings of an Egyptian alligator god. Strewn about the room were maroon pillows decorated with fancy beadwork and velvet tassels. The centerpiece of the room was an Egyptian, carved mirror with rows of blue and gold wings across the top and two cobras twisting around the wings. The head of a cobra was on each side of the mirror with a candle on top of each head.
Medea could see her mother’s reflection in the mirror. Dima was sitting on her throne chair. She sat regally, like the royal woman she was, the granddaughter of Catherine the Great, once Empress of all the Russians. A fake-diamond tiara lay crookedly on Dima’s head, signifying just how inebriated she was. Nevertheless, there was a regal air about her which one could only inherit, especially if a woman was stinking drunk. The only thing missing was Dima holding out her fingers with a crested ring for her daughter to kiss.
“Where were you?” Dima slurred her words, wiped her mouth and spit.
Medea took a step back. “Look, I bought you a gift in Hollywood.” She handed her mother a Map of the Stars Homes. She had circled in red on the map the site of Mary Pickford’s residence Pickfair. “Pickfair was my favorite,” she added.
“So, you were touring the homes of the movie stars while I was risking my life for you?”
“I came back early to see if you are okay,” she said. “You don’t appear to have suffered any wounds from that spying warlock!”
“Because of your lies, Medea, I have made mortal enemies who will hunt me down and kill me.”
Medea opened her eyes wide. When she walked in, she had not noticed the Mirror-of-Time on the floor with a chip on the decorative frame and the pig’s ear thrown down beside it.
