Stars Screaming Read Online Free PDF Page B

recognized the iron smell of blood a split second before he saw her standing naked in the corner of the room. She was holding a straight razor by her side, and blood was flowing freely from a large X she had carved in her stomach. “I had a baby ghost in my tummy,” she said in a small voice, “and I had to let it out.”
    The punch that knocked Sandra unconscious also broke her jaw.
    “It was the only thing I could do,” Burk tried to explain to the paramedics after they loaded her in the ambulance. “I thought she was going to kill herself.”
    “If you say so,” one of the paramedics said.
    “You don’t believe me?”
    “We’ll believe anything,” said the other paramedic. “Isn’t that right, Terry?”
    “Whatever.”
    Burk called his brother from the hospital.
    “Sounds like she’s pretty fucked up,” Gene said.
    “Her jaw’s gonna heal okay, but she’ll have scars on her stomach.”
    “No big deal.”
    “I’m not crazy about scars, Gene.”
    “What difference does that make? You guys are through.” Burk didn’t say anything. “Right?”
    “I guess.”
    “You guess. Come on, Ray, your wife is mentally ill.”
    “She’s my best friend, Gene.”
    “Yeah, I know. But she belongs in a nut ward.” Burk didn’t disagree, but he suddenly felt terribly alone. “Ray?”
    “I’m here. I’m thinking.”
    “Don’t. You’ll get a headache.”
    “I’m pretty fucked up behind all this.”
    “You’ll pull it together. You have to. You got a kid.”
    Several seconds passed in silence. Burk spoke first. “I got fired today.”
    “That had to happen.”
    “Yeah, I know. It was the wrong job.”
    “I told you that. Go home and get some rest,” Gene said. “Okay?”
    “Okay.”
    “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
    “I’ll be out.”
    “Where?”
    “I don’t know . . . driving.”
    Burk hung up the phone and drove back to his house. Before he went to sleep, he walked into Louie’s bedroom and turned off the light. After he closed the door, a car moved slowly down Valley View Lane, and twin beams of light pierced the darkness inside his son’s room—and the bars on a baby’s crib were shadowed on the wall.
    The next day, the day after the Rolling Stones came to California, Burk met Bonnie Simpson.

    Burk was parked on the corner of Beverly and Rampart with the hood up and the motor running. He gunned the engine. The rpms started to build up, and he heard the same thin whine that had worried him a few minutes earlier, right after he pulled away from Ernie’s Stardust Lounge. It definitely wasn’t the transmission or a valve—he knew that—and the temperature gauge was normal, which ruled out the radiator and the water pump. It’s either a wheel bearing or a worn-out belt, Burk decided, as he switched off the ignition and got out of the car.
    “It’s the torque converter or the power steering.” Burk was looking under the hood when he heard her voice. “That’s my guess, anyway.”
    “I think it’s a belt,” Burk said.
    “It’s not a belt sound,” she said.
    Burk turned around: She had a wide face, suntanned and freckled, and when she smiled—as she did when Burk looked her way—thin lines were splintered in the delicate skin next to her eyes.
    “That’s a whine, like a kid crying. A belt sound is more like a singing noise.”
    “Then it’s the torque converter?”
    “Maybe,” she said, reaching into her purse for an apple. “But I’d lean toward the power steering. You want an apple?”
    “No, thanks.”
    “You sure? I got tons.”
    “I just ate.”
    Inside her purse, along with several red and green apples, was a map to the movie stars’ homes.
    “Apples are a wonderful source of energy,” she said. “Low on calories, easy to digest.” Burk started to lower the hood. “Wait,” she said. “Let me check something first.”
    Before Burk could stop her, she ducked underneath his arm and unscrewed the top of the power-steering unit. “I knew it,” she