Page:Weird Tales v34n03 (1939-09).djvu/32

30 treatment—handled by a local physician—a cure was being effected. This was hot news, but it meant that my missionary work and not the tonic was doing the job.

It looked as if one Eric Binns was nicely on the spot. The only out seemed to be eating two-three pounds of liver a day, and keeping Catalina on a reducing diet. That, or sharpen up a wooden stake.

I sneaked out one afternoon to do just that, but she looked too pretty, lying there in her coffin. Vampire or no, it was next door to murder. Anyway, I wasn’t developing anemia myself, not yet.

So for the next move, I snitched Mrs. Hill’s evening gown—the one she took on approval, and wore, and got a cigarette burn on it, so she couldn’t return it the day after the party. It was a shade of red that looked like hell on her, but with Catalina’s early Spanish architecture and coloring, she’d roll ’em in the aisles.

I was planning a complex trick that only a legal mind could follow. There was one of those dances to replenish Palo Verde’s fund for the underprivileged. With all the refined people and members of civic organizations attending en masse, you’d call it a ball, I guess.

Judge Mottley would be there. Mrs. Mottley also. Likewise, Catalina and I would be among those present. The Hills would not attend. She had nothing to wear, and he couldn’t afford the ten bucks admission. Neither could I, but look what Hannibal did about the Alps.

ATALINA was thrilled silly when she saw the red dress and silver shoes. Her hair never got mussed up, and she never needed make-up, which is one of the handy things about being a vampire. I was getting awfully fond of her. A swell dame, and good-hearted. Tolerant of my plans for her future, just in case Prof Rodman’s blood-builder didn’t work out right.

"Baby,” I expounded, "the human organization is the most versatile thing on earth. Particularly when it comes to diet.” We were sitting on the tombstone when I went into my pep talk, as it wasn’t quite late enough for Catalina to get dressed for the ball. "Now, I’m standing these blood transfusions well enough. And here’s how you can gradually switch——”

It was simple. Look at the Hindoos, they eat practically nothing but starch, and so do millions of Chinese. Then there’s the Eskimos: hundred percent blubber diet. Why couldn’t Catalina shift, bit by bit, to beef blood, or chicken, or something? And finally to bullion cubes.

Even if Prof Rodman’s tonic did work. I’d feel a little less like a human hor d’oeuvre. Another thing, he’d missed his bottle, and the police were investigating. No telling when we could snitch some more.

Catalina was reasonable about it all, and open-minded. So I was thrilled and lighthearted when we started out for the ball. At times I had to carry her to save her shoes. She whispered, "When you are a famous lawyer, querido, we will move the coffin to our house, no?”

You see, as I got used to her, I realized she’d never really been dead. Being in a coffin doesn’t mean you’re a corpse. Maybe Prof Rodman, with all his biochemistry stuff, could have explained things. Only, there’d be too much publicity, and so I didn’t dare take it up with him.

We hailed a taxi at the S. P. Station. I’d told Mr. Hill I wanted the evening off, by way of getting in good with Judge Mottley, showing him I was public-spirited.

HE Civic Center is a low and rambling building with a red-tiled roof and arcades along the patio. Being California Spanish, it was strange and thrilling to Catalina. There was a fountain in the court, and festoons of colored globes made artificial moonlight.