Blood Lite

"You got some pair of legs. Let me out of here and I'll make you a star."

Zippering the suit, she came toward him. She held a' large syringe in her right hand. Praying it wasn't meant for him, he squinted at the name tag attached to her suit and said, "Ava. Perfect. Why would you want to be here when you could be a headliner?"

"You're a fu

"Legs," he said. "Call me Legs."

"All right, Legs. Let's talk. What did Willie tell you about his work here?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? That's hard to believe."

"Believe it."

For a moment, the woman was silent. Legs figured he had nothing to lose by asking what it was they were doing to the ostriches to turn them into killing machines and why they were doing it. He was as good as dead anyway. Might as well know what he was dying for.

"Willie told you nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Tell me something, Mr. Cleveland. Legs. Do you also have an ostrich spirit guide?"

Legs shook his head. "I don't believe in that stuff."

She looked at the syringe in her hand. "He did," she said. "It kept him safe in there."

Legs could feel the sweat ru

"He worked with the ostriches. Taught us about them."

"Why?"

She held up the syringe. "He wanted to live to be old," she said, "and keep his own teeth. There was a price to pay and he paid it."

It was all Legs could do not to reach out and knock the syringe out of her hand. "I don't mind false teeth," he said.

She laughed.

"There has to be some other reason," Legs began.

"There was. Me. I'm Dora's great-granddaughter."

"Aren't you afraid I'll tell people—"

"What? That we're training an army of killer ostriches? You've got to be kidding."

"How much time do I have to spend here?"

"As much as we say."

In his mind, Legs heard old Willie telling him to behave. He saw only one realistic possibility open to him: He would work on Ava, which wouldn't be the worst pun­ishment in the world. She did have great gams, and who knew, maybe she could sing.

She pointed at a loft over the barn. "There's a mat­tress up there, a pillow, a blanket and a computer. You can use one, I assume." Without waiting for an answer she said, "Start learning about ostriches. Oh, and say hello to Willie."

"Willie?"

The man gri

Legs heard the bar falling into place and felt the warm trickle of urine down his legs.

He had forgotten how cold it could get out in the high desert at night. Shivering, he made his way up to the loft, fol­lowed by one ostrich. He lit the kerosene lamp they'd left up there, and covered himself with the horsehair blanket. The portable computer was on the mattress, along with spare bat­teries. Next to the lamp was an old brass urn. He opened it up, hoping it held liquor, but it was filled with ashes.

"I fucked up, Willie," he said, knowing at once that he was looking at what was left of his great-granduncle.

"That you did." Willie's voice came from the ostrich. "I told you not to take the Road to Rachel."

Legs knew he'd lost his mind. He was talking to a spirit guide and an invisible dead Indian.

"You're stuck with us now," Willie said. "The collected wisdom of our people has to be passed along. You'll have to be the conduit."

"You can pass on information about those things down there."

"Careful. Don't want to insult my buddy. How about you start checking the computer."

First, Legs found out why the ostriches were so silent. Apparently the males hissed and grunted, but just during mating season, when their necks turned blue. They could only kick forward, like the Rockettes. Their food was grasses and bugs and small pebbles to help their digestion. Their average weight was three hundred fifty pounds, yet they ran like the wind.

Legs was growing tired. Before turning off the com­puter, he looked at the day's local headlines. More than seven hundred Nevada Test Site workers or their survivors were reopening cases linked to radioactive materials here at this federal facility northwest of Las Vegas.

"Lovely," Legs said. "They'll stomp me to death or burn me to death."

Willie chuckled. "Sleep well, kid," he said. "Happy dreams."

He looked down at his charges. Two of them had sepa­rated from the others. The male's neck had turned blue. They were doing a bizarre dance around each other and, ugly as they were, they were clearly getting ready to mate. He laughed despite his circumstances, lay down, and fell into a heavy, dream-filled sleep.

The first was about his attempt to build a chorus line out of a group of Zulu warriors he'd brought from Africa. Their performance had become a bloodbath when their war dance, rooted in their collective unconscious, took over.

The second dream was Busby Berkeley's choreo­graphed march through town from the Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland barn movie, Babes in Arms.

He awoke to an entrepreneurial epiphany: Ostrich Rock­ettes high-stepping it down Fremont Street to "The March of the Wooden Soldiers." Like Russell Markert's original Rockettes, they wore faux military uniforms designed by Vincente Mi

It would be hypnotic.

"Hey, Uncle Willie," Legs said, looking over at the urn and feeling only slightly ridiculous. He heard a soft chuckle, followed by silence. "You not playing speaks?"

Not sure what he was hoping to see, he walked over to the urn and looked inside at the ashes. Nothing moved, no voice rose to advise him. He waited a moment and gave up. He'd probably imagined Willie's voice. Anybody would get a little crazy under the circumstances.

The barn door rattled and Ava opened it. She held a steaming bowl in one hand and a cup in the other.

"Feeding time at the zoo, Legs," she said. "Come on down."

He did as she said and was handed coffee and oatmeal. "Eat it. That's as good as it gets. When you're done, you'll feed the herd and clean up the shit." She wrinkled her nose. "Stinks in here."

He took the meal and stepped hopefully toward the outdoors. She shook her head, then relented. "Okay, but don't try anything." She was back in fatigues, a whistle hanging from her neck and her pistol prominently dis­played. He had no doubt she knew how to use it.

After he had gratefully eaten the oatmeal, he lit a ciga­rette, counted how many he had left and sipped the coffee. It was surprisingly good.

"I used to read stuff about UFOs around here. There's a website, ufomind.com, sends me all kinds of informa­tion. Know anything about that?"

Ava shrugged. "The site's a mailing list for UFO and conspiracy nuts and it's being cut off on December eigh­teenth. That's all I know. It has nothing to do with my job."

"What is your job and what the hell do I have to do with any of this?"

"Guess it's time I tell you. Remember that dead body you found in the elevator at Country Club Towers and the fix-it man who died in your apartment?"

"I'm not likely to forget!"

"What do you think killed them?" Legs remembered the double gouges in each of the men's bellies and the blood. Not a pleasant sight. "I have no idea. Cops said it must be some kind of gang ritual, probably the Twenty-eighth Street gang."