Full MoonCity

“Which desert?”

She, sadly, shook her head. “He didn’t say.” Beth left her chair to come around and, tentatively, hug me. “I’m truly sorry you’re a werewolf, Dad. That wasn’t-trust me-my intention at all.”

“Now we’ll go get your car off the lawn and see if we can repair the birdbath.” She stepped back and I stood.

“It’s probably beyond repair.”

“Well,” I said, “let’s hope I’m not.”

The day was fading, slowly thus far, but fading nonetheless. I looked again at my watch. Almost 6:20 p.m. It was my impression that I was already commencing to itch a bit, which might be a prelude to another unwanted transformation. I unstrapped the watch and dropped it into my trouser pocket. Should I again turn into a wolf-man, I wouldn’t be able to see the dial through all that grey fur.

Hersh had called at midday to tell me Fletcher Boggs, the occult investigator, had a sudden emergency case that had come up. Something involving poltergeists out in Malibu. Therefore, he wouldn’t be able to consult with me until seven. And not at my place but at his home.

I was lifting my watch out of my pocket for another look when the door chimes played Monk. Sprinting down the hall, I yanked the door open. “Damn, Hersh, night is fast approaching and-”

“Relax, it’s barely dusk.” Turning, he started down my front steps. “Let’s get going.”

I was feeling increasingly itchy. As I slid into the passenger seat and buckled myself in, I asked, “Where exactly does Boggs live?”

My friend started his BMW. “Not far from here.”

“And the town is?”

“Westwood.”

I stiffened in my seat. “Westwood?”

“He has a cottage near UCLA.”

“But Westwood Village is where that other wolf-man hangs out,” I reminded him. “The police are trying to catch him. Christ, Hersh, if I turn into a werewolf before we reach Boggs, the cops may nab me as the Wolf-Man of Westwood.”

“All you’ll have to do is tell them you’re really the Wolf-Man of Beverly Hills.”

“I’m serious,” I told him, my voice a bit froggy. “They’ll start shooting at me with silver bullets; villagers will pursue me brandishing blazing torches.”

“Don’t fret. We’ll reach the cottage long before nightfall.”

“Night is already falling.”

“Can you stop kvetching for a while?” He turned on the car radio. “I want to catch the news on KMA-FM. They’re supposed to mention my new show on-”

“… just in. The notorious Wolf-man of Westwood has surfaced again tonight. Just ten minutes ago he broke into a Venus’ Boudoir lingerie shop and made off with an armload of frilly undies. Police expect to run him to ground soon. LAPD is sending over its special Occult SWAT team to-”

“Great,” I observed as we entered Westwood Village. “Now a bunch of expert marksmen armed with high-powered rifles chock-full of silver bullets will be taking shots at me.”

Hersh said, “You’re not a wolf-man yet.” He glanced over at me. “Oops.”

I reached up a hand. It was furry. I touched my face with it. My face was furry. This time the transition from man to wolf had been swift. I hadn’t even dozed off.

From about a few blocks away came the sound of sirens.

“Duck down,” advised Hersh. “Keep out of sight.”

I hunkered down on the floorboards with my knees near my chin and my furry arms circling my legs. The streetlights had just come on outside and every time we passed one the interior of the BMW was illuminated.

“Potential trouble up ahead. Stay down there; don’t howl or make any noise.”

“What sort of potential trouble?”

“People on the corner we’re coming to, looking over the street and the sidewalks, about a dozen or more. Got digital cameras, cell phones. One guy’s got a baseball bat,” he explained quietly.

Just then Thelonious Monk began playing loudly in my pocket.

“Shut that damn phone off.” Hersh halted at the corner stop sign.

More progressive piano came forth before I could tug out my cell phone and, very softly, answer it. “What?”

Hersh drove on, eyeing the world outside uneasily. “We’ll be there in less than ten minutes. Keep a low profile, and a quiet one.”

“I’m scrunched up as far as I can scrunch, Hersh.”

“There’s something I have to confess, Dad,” came the voice of my daughter.

“Which of your damn cars did you smash into what?”

“No, no, this is about your current dilemma.”

“We already talked about that, kid, and just at the moment I-”

“This is about why you turned into a werewolf, Dad. Did that happen again tonight, by the way?”

“It did. We can have a nice long chat about that at a later-”

“See, I did order that werewolf potion.”

“Why in the hell did-”

The BMW suddenly went over something on the street we’d turned onto. Felt like part of a wooden box or something like that. The car bounced and I was thrown against the side of my improvised cubbyhole. I was suddenly visited by a very painful cramp.

“Hold on, Beth. I’ve got a cramp and I have to stretch my leg for a second.”

I eased painfully up off the floorboards to try to straighten out my leg.

Simultaneously the car passed a light post and a bunch of college kids who were emerging from a Burger Oasis. They got a very brief glimpse of me before I hunkered back down.

“Oh, God,” screamed a coed. “It’s him!”

“It’s the Wolf-Man!”

“Call the cops on your cell, Julie!”

Hersh gu

My leg still hurt, and my heart was beating at an unfamiliar rate. “Tell me about the potion, Beth,” I said into the phone.

“Are you okay? What was all that noise?”

“Villagers spotted me, but we eluded them. None of them had flaming torches.”

“Well, listen, Dad. I meant the werewolf gunk for Bryson Kranbuhl.”

“Your mother’s literary agent? The despicable oaf who suggested she write I Married an Asshole?”

“That Bryson Kranbuhl, yes. He’s also been trying to sell the memoir as a TV serial. He’s convinced that it can be the next Survivor,”she continued. “I ordered the potion for him. I was hoping it would distract him and also inspire Mom to evict the guy. She, you know, isn’t much of an animal lover. Bryson’s been pretty much living with us since early this year.”

“You’re saying you got the two philters mixed up and gave me his potion?”

“No, Dad, I’m saying that imbecile Vincent X. Shandu screwed up and sold me two doses of werewolf potion and none of love potion,” she explained. “I’m going to drive down to Palm Springs, since there’s a lot of desert around there and maybe I can find him and-”

“No, nope. Don’t drive anywhere,” I cautioned her. “I think we have another way to work a cure. So you wait until-”

“We’re there,” a

“Stay where you are until I contact you,” I told my daughter. “Bye.”

“Information from your nitwit offspring?” Hersh came around to my side of the BMW, opened the door, and helped me get myself off the floor.

“Yeah, now I know who the Wolf-Man of Westwood is,” I replied as I emerged.

Fletcher Boggs was circling the straight-back chair I was sitting uncomfortably upon. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man of about sixty, ta

“Sufficient enough for me.”

“You’re not even an authentic wolf,” the big occult investigator said, stepping back. “You aren’t four-legged, you don’t have a bushy tail; except for two canines, your teeth aren’t even especially lupine.”