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The taller of Tykho’s boys turns and spots me. He wears a patch over one eye. Sucks for him. He must have lost it while he was still alive and couldn’t regenerate it when he turned. He gives me a toothy smile and comes over. Leans on the counter, hooking his thumb at the rack of our specialty movies.
“Don’t get me wrong, Stark. I appreciate all the artsy stuff, but don’t you have anything that’s actually fun?”
What we rent mostly now are lost movies. Movies cut to pieces by the studios or lost in fires or time. Movies that literally don’t or shouldn’t exist anymore in this dimension of reality.
“London After Midnight is fun. It’s a murder mystery. Lon Chaney plays a creepy guy with a giant set of fangs and a weird beaver hat, who might be a vampire.”
Eye Patch leans back, frowning.
“Silent movies? Those are as scary as a damp sponge.”
“That means you wouldn’t like Metropolis. I have the only totally complete copy in the world with the original score, you know.”
He shakes his head.
“Not interested.”
This isn’t the first time this has happened. We only have one rack of special discs. We’re still building up inventory. You think it’s easy conjuring video and film from other dimensions? It’s not. And the young curandera I contracted with to get them charges a fortune for each one.
“What is it you want?”
“Action. Guns. Explosions.”
“Go home, crack open a light beer, turn on your TV, and find some Michael Bay shit.”
“Come on, man. You have any Clint Eastwood?”
“No special ones. You like his spaghetti westerns?”
The shorter vampire comes over when I mention westerns.
“Who doesn’t?” he says.
I point to an old poster on the wall.
“You know that gangster flicks are the natural descendants of those Italian westerns, right? Action. Crime. Lawless loners and gangs riding the range, only in cars, not on horseback. Antiheroes and ambiguous heroes who aren’t all good or all evil. You follow me?”
Eye Patch says, “Look at you. The philosopher.”
“Once Upon a Time in America is what you want. Leone shot it to run five hours. The studio cut it to ninety minutes. Later there was a three-hour version, but it still wasn’t the whole thing. If you like cowboys, you’ll like it.”
“Who’s in it?” says Eye Patch. His buddy goes over to the poster and reads off names.
“Robert De Niro. James Woods. Joe Pesci. Tuesday Weld. William Forsythe . . .”
“Sold,” says Eye Patch.
“Good choice,” I say, taking a disc from under the counter. I put it in a couple of plastic bags to keep it from getting wet.
“Your turn to pay,” says Eye Patch. His friend sighs, which always hits me as slightly creepy. I mean, vampires don’t breathe, so sighing is something they have to practice. Willing their diaphragms to move, sucking air in and pushing it out again. It’s a lot of work just to sound disgusted.
Short guy slaps a hundred-dollar bill on the counter.
“Your prices are highway robbery.”
“You can find any of our movies somewhere cheaper, go rent from them.”
Eye Patch puts the disc in the pocket of his PVC jacket.
