ONG AGO I ARRIVED AT THE DOOR OF A FLEA-RUG apartment down near the old shipping yard about a suspected baby murder. A young junkie couple had reportedly slipped over the line and done something ugly. When I broke down that door and barged inside, I left everything I assumed about normal, human behavior behind. What they’d done to that baby doesn’t bear repeating.

I felt like I stepped across another kind of line just arriving at the door of Eyrie Street this time. At first I didn’t recognize the woman who let me into the house. She had a bouffant hairdo and was dressed in a floral pleated dress with a starched white apron wrapped around her waist—just like my mother long ago. It was uncanny.

The same henna dyed hair, which always seemed artificial to me because she had such lovely dark hair all her own … skin the color of hazelnut cream. I sure didn’t get mine from her. Her father had come from Puebla where his family ran an anise seed farm. Banditos, so the story went, drove them off their land, and they fled to America … some to El Paso and Albuquerque, others to California. Mom grew up on a strawberry farm in Coyote, her mother a tough white widow who gave birth to her at age 40. She’d moved south and studied to be a dental nurse before meeting my Dad and becoming a housewife. Most of the time she seemed like a typical white bread mother of the era, but she taught me and Serena Spanish, and every so often, in between the Swanson TV dinners and the Salisbury steak, she’d make bean tacos and barbecued chicken backs with salsa.

I tried to shake off my shock as Genevieve led me into the front room. It had been entirely redecorated and seemed bigger than on either of my two previous visits—very much like our old family living room, except for the fireplace. Ours had been made of clinker brick and had fake logs that you pressed a button to light up. Dad had been very proud of that.

On the mantel this time was a plaster bust of John F. Kennedy and a miniature mechanical robot that I recognized as The Great Garloo—“the bright green battery operated monster that picks things up here and puts them down there.” She must’ve got it on eBay. The detail of the scene was phenomenal. What wasn’t this woman capable of?

I presented her with my high school wrestling trophy—and found myself unable to say anything other than, “This is from my past.” Jesus, the whole room was something from my past. She put it up on the mantel next to The Great Garloo.

She had an ironing board set up, like my mother used to have—with the same daisy cover and Sunbeam steam iron. There was a corduroy sofa much like ours—and a butcher block coffee table. And a big brown Zenith TV in the corner exactly like ours. An old ad for Cap’n Crunch was on—the cereal that stayed sweet and crunchy and didn’t get soggy in milk. The Cap’n was having a swordfight with Jean LaFoot, the barefoot pirate. Then Mr. Ed the Talking Horse came on. She gestured for me to sit down on the sofa. In the background I heard the Robert Goulet record my mother used to sing to. I couldn’t sit still.

“You forgot your lunch box,” she said in a motherly voice—and I almost fell off the sofa because she handed me my old Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C lunchbox. It wasn’t simply a replica—it was my old one. The wax paper I wrapped my sandwiches in—carrot sticks in Glad cellophane, Orange Hostess Cupcakes or a Scooter Pie … the scents came rushing up out of the old metal, not just out of my head.

I’d given up that lunchbox and asked for a Man from U.N.C.L.E. one with Napoleon Solo on the side holding a pistol with a long silencer. Some kids had razzed me because they’d heard that Jim Nabors, the star of Gomer Pyle, was a fag. It was better to be a secret agent than a dumb Marine anyway. Later, when the rumors started that Nabors and Rock Hudson were a queer couple, I’d thrown out the lunchbox. It was rusting away in some landfill a hundred miles away. I couldn’t have been holding it in my hand. I kept my mouth shut and stared back at the television, as I always used to do when I didn’t want to look at my mother.

Wallace called from the Two-Four. Then Hartley, the wet-nosed n00bie prosecutor wanting to know if Padgett was good to testify in the Grimes case. I shut off the cell.

A rerun of The Rifleman starring Chuck Connors was coming on—Chuck Connors as homesteader Lucas McCain, booming away with his Winchester rifle with the large trigger ring. The same Chuck who played Jason McCord, the disgraced Calvary captain in Branded, who had his saber broken in half when he was dishonorably discharged. I remembered the theme song … Branded … scorned as the one who ran … what do you do when you’re branded … and you know you’re a man?

Kids in school came up with a variation. Stranded … stranded on the toilet bowl … what do you do when you’re stranded … and you don’t have a roll?

Genevieve got up silently and turned the channel to a Doris Day movie called Move Over Darling. Mom had always adored Doris Day, especially Doris Day and Rock Hudson movies. She wanted to trade her beautiful chocolate colored filbert shaped eyes for perky blue ones. She sang that song “Que Sera, Sera” from the movie The Man Who Knew Too Much while she did the ironing—ironing even our underwear. I think she wanted to be Doris Day. Then when the truth was revealed, and Rock Hudson came out of the closet, she never mentioned either of those actors again. In a touch of poisonous irony, she died of a heart attack while watching the afternoon movie. It was Pillow Talk. She’d been grieving over stepfather Rod, who’d finally sundowned in his diapers in the raisin farm I’d help send him to. When the chest pain hit, she called her neighbor Mrs. Seymour from the bed, but it was too late by the time the ambulance arrived. Mrs. Seymour said that that when the paramedics gave up on the CPR, Tony Randall, who played Rock Hudson’s neighbor in the movie, was just pouring himself another drink on screen—as if that was a detail I needed to know.

Move Over Darling starred James Garner in place of Rock. Doris, his wife, had been missing for years and he was trying to get her declared legally dead. What I’d forgotten was that Chuck Connors was in it too—and there he was on the TV. He played the guy who’d been stranded on the desert island with Doris. What in hell was this all about?

“You know …” Genevieve said, and when I turned to face her—she’d changed outfits and hairstyles completely. She looked like Marilyn Monroe in a spaghetti strap summer dress. “This movie has an intriguing history. It was originally going to be called Something’s Got to Give, starring Marilyn Monroe and Dean Martin. This was at the time Marilyn was going to sing ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President’ to JFK at Madison Square Garden. Then she mysteriously died less than a month later. Her last day on the set she shot a scene with Wally Cox. The film got canceled and then resuscitated as you see it—with such different stars in the roles.”

My head swam. I didn’t know any drug that worked so fast—and this didn’t feel like any drug trip I’d ever heard about. And …

Wally F’in Cox! He’d supplied the voice for the cartoon character Underdog—whose girlfriend was Sweet Polly Purebred! I suddenly remembered he’d also played the preacher in Spencer’s Mountain—it had been a family favorite. Mom liked it because of the romance between Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara. I think Dad liked it because of the shots of a young James MacArthur without his shirt on—and my sister Serena and I liked it because of the scene where the deaf grandpa gets crushed by the big pine tree. Memories roared through my brain. My mother. Marilyn. The scene in On the Waterfront when Brando does the “I could’ve been a contender” line. He’d probably been in a cab with Wally Cox at some stage. They might’ve been in bed together. Now their ashes were mingled together. I couldn’t hold it together.

Sophia came in dressed just as my sister used to be. Pig tails, a camel brown jumper and saddle shoes. She carried a tray with a plate of cookies on it and a tall plastic glass of milk. The sugar sprinkled butter cookies took a certain well-known male shape or the silhouette of a woman. She left the room without saying a word.

How lonely it must’ve been for my mother—loving a man like Dad—always wanting to be something she couldn’t be and yet still proud of who she was. She called my father Jefe. No wonder she was so hungry when Rod showed up. Those afternoons of ironing suddenly seemed heroic in a way I’d never seen before.

“Cookie, Sunny?” Norma Jean Genevieve goaded.

“What?” I kept trying to focus—but everything was too clear.

She passed me one of the penis-shaped cookies, which I declined. She bit the head off and handed me one of the female ones.

“Come,” she laughed. “Think of it as Communion. Eating the Host.”

Images and phrases stormed … Chuck Connors … Wally Cox … Marlon Brando … Rock Hudson … Jim Nabors … Doris Day … Marilyn Monroe … rifles … lunchboxes … broken swords … apron strings … stays crunchy … doesn’t get soggy … move over darling … something’s got to give …

“Are you all right, Sunny? You look a little pale.”

The cookie made me thirsty so I took a sip of the milk. I couldn’t remember when I’d last drunk milk. My mind flashed to Pico and the earlier scene in that room with the rats and the clock. When I glanced back at her I saw that her outfit and appearance had changed dramatically again. Marilyn had been replaced by a dominatrix in a black leather corset with thigh-high boots of black and red, a plumed magenta wig and vampire red lipstick. In one black-finger-nailed hand was a shot-weighted riding crop.

“So, tell me. What did you expect to find inside my house?” she asked.

I blinked, trying to find my voice. “I—th-thought you’d already know that,” I stammered, realizing that I had to be drugged. How was she doing this???

“Oh, but I’d like to hear you say the words. Before you arrived today, try to describe exactly what you’ve been imagining.”

I had to get a hold of myself. To remember this was all some kind of illusion. Theater. Hallucination. CIA-style hypnosis. I took a deep breath.

“I expected you … to have an exotic animal pet,” I managed at last. “Maybe a monkey or an ocelot. There’d be a bunch of kooky paraphernalia. And Fantasy Rooms. You know, like big baby cribs—a jail cell.”

“Or a tree fort. So, you think I provide dark adult entertainment. Tell me more,” she directed, and ran the crop up the inside of my thigh very slowly. “I love to know what you have in your mind.”

I didn’t care for her mention of a tree fort one bit—but I gulped down my rush of fear and jabbered on. This broad left El Miedo for dead.

“There’d be people in costume. A dungeon—a man being stretched on a rack.”

“Fascinating,” she murmured, pausing the crop in my lap and tracing down the zipper line. “What’s the strangest thing you thought you’d find?”

“Other than you?”

She let out a laugh. After her experiment with me the other day—and all that was happening then …

“I can’t say,” I said, afraid to say anything. “Maybe a naked girl in a cage … on a giant hamster wheel. I don’t know. I …”

“Oh, Sunny,” she beamed. “Isn’t this fun? I knew you would repay my interest. Now, what would you be most afraid to find?”

That stopped me again. El Miedo … or …

“I wouldn’t be too keen on finding a dead body—being a homicide detective and all. But honestly …?” I mused, shutting my eyes. Why was I being honest with her? “I’m afraid right now. I’m afraid I’m going to find a room filled with pictures of me. Pictures taken of me over the years when I didn’t know I was being watched.”

“That’s extremely interesting,” she replied—and when I opened my eyes she had sandy brown hair cut short and a cement gray pant suit with a brooch on her right breast that looked like a piece of circuit board. How? I wanted to pass my hand through her to see if she was really there—wherever it was we really were. Whatever she was.

“I’ll reward your honesty, Sunny. I’m going to take you on a tour, and you shall see for yourself if the reality of my residence lives up to the expectations of your fantasy. This, after all, has just been mine!”

If I’d been drugged it was too late to bail out … and I was way too damn curious and just straight up snuzzled. I couldn’t for my soul understand the outfit changes … the room, the props. But she didn’t give me time to mull it over.

We began upstairs on the top, third floor, taking the Sweetheart stair machine mounted in its frame of iron figures. There was a guy with winged sandals, a woman with snakes for hair, and a man playing a lute for a gathering of animals. As we hit the second floor landing and made the turn to ascend further, I could see the doors to all the rooms were closed, which added to the occultish atmosphere of the house. The layout contributed, with alcoves and skylights arranged in unexpected places, then a sudden narrowing of a hall to what looked like another staircase system—perhaps a servant’s quarters in the old days, or maybe still. There was a discontinuous, dreamlike air about the house, as if it existed in different parts of history—as if we could step through one door and be in the conservatory of an English country estate. Choose another hallway and we’d end up on the balcony of a Storyville bordello.

At the first door we came to, which like all the others was painted an enameled white, she gave an exaggerated knock. After a moment of silence, she opened it with a large skeleton key. All of the doors we visited on that floor she opened with this same key and the contents were exactly the same. They were all empty. Except for a light fixture embedded in the ceiling rose, which was repeated in every room and resembled a woman encircled by a dragon, the chambers were bare of any furnishings, the walls painted a flat white, the floorboards polished hardwood.

“Disappointed?” she asked with a barracuda smile.

“Confused,” I answered. Meaning stone blown spun out.

“There’s more to a seemingly empty room than there appears,” she replied. “An empty room can be filled by the mind of someone who enters. But this is only the top floor. Now it’s time to descend. Into another world.”

That got my heart beating.

We rounded yet another corner—the house was certainly much larger inside than it looked from the street—and came to either an oversized dumb waiter or a dwarf elevator. On the steel door she rapped again—and this time a metallic echo came in reply—which made me jump. The sliding surfaces clanged open on a pulley weight and there appeared a very small and very old man. He wasn’t a midget—just unusually short and wrinkled with age. Each of his ears sported the largest hearing aids I’d ever seen—so large that it was fortunate that he was afflicted in both ears because his head would’ve been off-balance otherwise. He was dressed in a flamingo pink bellhop uniform and looked like he’d just woken from a nap on his feet.

“This is Mr. Dover,” Genevieve announced and the little uniformed ancient snapped to attention when we stooped inside the steel enclosure.

“Down, Mr. Dover.”

“We can’t go up,” I remarked.

“Mr. Dover likes to take instructions. Don’t you, Mr. Dover?”

“Ye … ssss … ma’am.”

With jerkingly anxious progress the wizened bellhop lowered us down through the house. We could’ve been in a diving bell.

“Isn’t there a quicker way?” I inquired, feeling the walls narrow.

“Would you like to fall faster?” Genevieve queried, brushing my hand. “Indeed there are more efficient means. But I like seeing Mr. Dover at his post. He’s had an association with this house going back nearly 70 years. Haven’t you, Mr. Dover?”

“Ye … ssss … ma’am.”

Mr. Dover looked like he’d been in the elevator for at least that long.

“This house has an interesting history—as you correctly imagined. It was once a very exclusive brothel. That’s why I keep all the rooms on the top floor empty. In honor of the ghosts. Some very tempting, beautiful ghosts. And very tragic ones too.”

“Like Mr. Dover,” I suggested, regaining a bit of composure.

“Sunny’s being naughty, Mr. Dover. You know what we do to the naughty ones.”

“Ye … ssss … ma’am.”

“What?” I asked. “Keep them locked up in a little elevator without a stool to sit on?”

She waved her hand dismissively. “Mr. Dover’s not a ghost. Next you’ll be saying that I’m one too!”

The elevator at last thumped to a stop, and Genevieve ceremoniously allowed Mr. Dover to hoist open the sandwich doors for us—a feat that made the old codger’s back crack audibly. We stepped out into what seemed like almost total blackness as the doors scrunched shut again. Genevieve took my hand and it was like the touch of a taser. Mr. Dover fled utterly out of mind.

“This space was built out of a cave network that runs deep into the bluff,” she said—with girlish excitement. “During Prohibition there was a speakeasy down here … and … a casino!”

With that, she hit a switch and a remarkable sight flooded into my eyes as a bank of spotlights on the floor burst on. Two sights actually. The first was that she’d changed again. She stood before me now decked out in the guise of an old-time nightclub singer. Platinum blonde hair, her bosom accentuated in a velvet mulberry colored gown. Like the other changes, there was no accounting for it. Either I was having a breakdown or …

The second thing to throw me was the space the lights revealed. Imagine an underground gambling club from Tommy gun times. A large yet low ceiling room … green felt and tall stools for blackjack, a roulette wheel—a cashier’s cage, mirrored bar, several round cocktail tables, a baccarat lounge and a private room for high rollers—the sort of off-limits place that everyone’s wise to and all those who are in the know frequent regularly. Mobsters, showgirls, politicians. The joint’s always jumping into the wee hours. The cops don’t raid it because they’re on the take or at the bar. Liquor flows. Deals go down.

Now imagine everyone suddenly evaporates. One night they vanish in mid-dice roll, drink or poker hand—and the place is left exactly as it was that night—collecting dust, slowly disintegrating, so that it seems like only the fog of spider webs is holding it together. That’s what it was like. Even the old cigar smoke seemed to hang in the air, and the grime on the mirror behind the still-stocked bar was so cloudy, it was as if it contained all the reflections of those who’d ever been in the room.

“I know,” Genevieve sighed, looking out at the compelling decay. “I should clean the place up—restore it to its former glory.”

“No!” I said, being honest with her again. “You should leave it just as you’ve done. Anyone can have a few gaming tables and serve up some booze in their basement. Having a haunted casino is something else.”

“I’m very glad you appreciate that Sunny,” she said.

“I’ve heard rumors about places like this,” I muttered. “But I didn’t know any survived. Not the real ones from the old days. Imagine the things that happened here.”

“Yes!” Genevieve enthused, and took my arm in hers—as if we’d just made the discovery together. As if we were a loving couple who had bought the house and were exploring its hidden wonders. I wanted us to play a round of blackjack—she could be the dealer. We could’ve ended up on the dust and moth wing baccarat table. But instead she led me to the roulette wheel, the only piece of equipment in the room that wasn’t coated in cobwebs. It was set into a corner that had an oil painting of old Funland on the wall behind. The proximity made your eye connect the Ferris wheel on the wall with the gambling wheel on the table.

“Care to try your luck?” she asked with a fetching grin.

“I already have,” I said, as the white ball plicked around—just as I felt I was doing in her presence, waiting to find a slot to settle in. Her eyes seemed to shine with a scandalous unbearable possibility. When the wheel at last ticked around to a total stop, there was another sound, like a latch popping and the harbor view painting of Funland eased away from the wall on two hinges to reveal a passageway.

“Another surprise,” I coughed.

“Now the real tour begins,” she replied.

Into the unknown—and for me—the unthinkable.