Ben Soul

who throve on ripped bodices and heaving manly bosoms. These magazines paid a small stipend, and allowed Bertha to play out her fantasies safely on paper.

  In her office, behind the closed door, Vanna paced furiously along the front edge of her desk. Her ire contorted her face into a furious kabuki mask; the blood had drained from her skin and only her eyes were alive with angry light. She stared at the walls as if she’d stare through them. Thwarted Vanna was not a pretty sight, despite her trim gray suit.

  Her face came alive as an idea occurred to her. Had there been an observer, he or she might have gazed in wonderment at the sudden sense of life that animated the white mask framed by black hair. Even the red of Vanna’s lipstick went from a dried blood color to a vibrant crimson reminiscent of the blooming rose. Vanna had determined her next course of action. She would take direct vengeance, not on La Señora, nor yet even on her lawyer. They could wait. First to suffer would be the damned llamas, those foul intruders from a southern clime that be-slimed the slopes of San Danson Mountain. Vanna smiled with eager bloodlust as she imagined slashing at the white and gray hides of the smelly beasts until the blood ran down their pelts in red rivulets of escaping life. All she needed was a knife, and a proper hiking costume.

  She opened her door, told Bertha she was taking the rest of the afternoon off because her head ached, and left for her apartment. Once home, Vanna retrieved from the recesses of her wardrobe an old pair of jeans and a heavy flannel shirt. These she drew on in place of the gray dress. She found, at the back of her closet, a pair of hiking boots, left over from an ill-fated backpacking trip with a forgotten amour. She laced them up. In the kitchen she selected a pair of butcher knives, sharpened them, and sheathed them in a towel she tucked in her waistband. Her hair she bound in a net, lest it fly into her eyes at an inappropriate time.

  Then she went to her red sports car, laid the sheathed knives beside her on the passenger seat, and drove toward San Danson Station and the Coastal Commission Park. DiConti Sharif saw her speed by, checked her speed against the radar, and shrugged. She was just within the limit. He had no cause to stop her. When she was out of his sight, she increased her speed, often crossing the center line to better make the curves. Luckily for the other motorists on the road, she had an instinct that seemed to know when they were coming at her, and she’d slow enough to avoid head-on collision with any of them.

  At the Coastal Commission Park she stopped long enough to unlock the gates, open them, and drive through. She stopped, closed them behind her, and drove to the tool shed at the top of the Park. Here she parked her car, took up her knives, and set out for La Señora’s San Danson Mountain property. A brief hike brought her to the fence line. She crawled through the barbed wire and into the llama pasture.

  Once through the fence she stood to reconnoiter the slope in front of her. To the west, over the sea, the sun was setting in an orange fog. Vanna knew little about llamas; she presumed they were, like most grazing creatures, prone to lie up at night on high ground. She began her search at the highest point of San Danson Mountain enclosed by La Señora’s fence. It was some little while into the glimmering evening before she found the pile of rocks half down the mountain where the llamas sheltered.

  The llamas had chosen this natural enclosure for its security. There were three possible passages between great blocks of gray stone. At any of them, an angry llama could fend off wolves, dogs, and other predators. The herd, though never harassed, was alert to any intrusion. At first they did not realize Vanna was an intruder, since no human had before preyed upon them.

  When Vanna found the llamas, they had settled for the evening. Not yet ready to sleep, they muttered soft cries to one another, and to the young llamas in their midst. One cría, not yet weaned, noticed Vanna first. This llama was always hungry; its poor mother needed daily applications of bag balm from Willy Waugh’s hand, so fierce was the young one’s suckling. When Vanna entered the far end of the passageway to the llamas, the young one immediately began nuzzling her. In no time it discovered Vanna’s breast through the flannel and clamped on to it. Vanna shrieked, for the young llama’s sucking action was painful indeed. Vanna forgot the towel-wrapped knives in her hands; she dropped them on the ground. In the dark she did not find them again (to be fair, one must recognize Vanna feared putting her hands into llama dung were she to drop to her knees to search for them by feel).

  Vanna’s shriek shocked the cría loose, and aroused the anger of the adults in the group. The cría’s mother charged Vanna, spitting at her that vile smelling mixture of chewed grass female llamas ordinarily reserve for discouraging the unwelcome advances of a male. Vanna was soon awash in stench. She fled. Several llamas pursued her. Blindly Vanna ran toward the cliffs, forgetting the fence was uphill from her current location.

  The unicorn with the unique horn was grazing by starlight near the cliffs. Vanna, blinded as she was by half-digested grasses, sensed the goodness of the unicorn as a bright and blinding light. Vanna feared that light, turned right, and fled up the mountain. By the time she got to the barbed wire fence she had cleared her eyes and most of her face of the foulness that still stank on her clothes. She did not linger to crawl safely through the fence. Its prickles caught on her shirt and jeans, ripping three-cornered tears in them. Vanna’s skin barely escaped a similar fate. Once on the Coastal Commission land, she made for the tool shed and the hydrant, where she washed and scrubbed in the cold water, until the stink was bearable at last. Then she abandoned her flannel shirt and jeans, and drove home in her lingerie, carefully, lest a patrolman stop her in her undress.

  What’s a Poor Girl to Do?

  Vanna Dee managed to drive home in her lingerie without being caught. She drove into her garage thankful she had one rather than a carport. When the door was down she got out of the car and went into her house. A long shower got the last of the llama slobber out of her hair and off her body. Vanna toweled dry, put on a long robe, poured herself a gin and tonic, and went into her living room to drink it.

  Vanna’s living room had a large recliner, black, with a red oval rug in front of it. The carpet on the floor was a gray that swallowed the light. The walls were a pale yellow-green color, reminiscent of bile. A small table provided a place to put her glass. A large television squatted on the opposite wall like a bloated toad. Vanna seldom turned it on. The room had little other furniture. Vanna did not entertain in her home, and disliked spending money on things she didn’t use. A starkly modern floor lamp made of cones and rods, shed light on her chair. Her chair was where she preferred to lair up to plot the downfall of her enemies. At present, that plotting focused on the San Danson Villagers and La Señora.

  Several ideas came and went in Vanna’s mind, but none of them promised revenge of the kind she needed. After three gins and tonic, she went to bed, her head still spinning. Neither her night dreams nor her morning work preparations brought her any enlightenment. She spent several frustrated days and nights devising and abandoning revenge plots.

  One morning she left for work in a foul mood. On her way from her parking slot to the building, Noah Count accosted her, trying to sell her one of his drawings. The abstract drawing looked very like a llama to Vanna. She turned her fury on Noah; he slunk away, cowed. On most mornings, his crushing would have sweetened her day. Today it only whetted her appetite for further victimization.

  Bertha was, as usual, already in place. Vanna swept in like a hailstorm, rattling the bracelets she wore and rumbling with irritation. Bertha detected a faint odor of rotten grass and leftover gin emanating from her boss. She had a delicate sense of smell, indeed. A grimace of distaste formed under her skin. Wisely, she did not let it show in her face.

  “Ms. Dee,” she said, “have you had an upset this morning?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Vanna said. “That fool that peddles pictures on the streets tried to sell me a picture. It looked like a llama. I detest ll
amas. He was more persistent than I like.”

  “Oh, you mean Noah Count?”

  “Is that his name?”

  “Yes. He’s an ex-con. Sold drugs for a living in the City, he tells me.”

  “You do scrape acquaintance with some strange characters,” Vanna said. She started toward her office. “I suppose he has relapsed, and still sells them.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’m not a user.” The edge in Bertha’s voice held a warning for Vanna. Long ago she had learned that when Bertha used that tone it was not wise to pursue a subject. Bertha Van Nation was the only secretary who had stayed with Vanna for more than a few months. Other Commissioners had warned her that she had run through the entire secretarial pool when Bertha came to work for her. Her position, of course, demanded a secretary.

  Vanna changed the subject. “I will need the San Danson files this morning. Please pull them for me.” Bertha got up and went to the file room immediately. She opened the top drawer and took out a fat file case. She closed the drawer and took the case to Vanna.

  “I do not wish to be disturbed,” Vanna said. She went into her own office and shut the door. She began reading