Nancy Nivling lives under a bridge with husband and cat. She occasionally emerges to buy beer and printer ink, and to do battle with trolls. More of her work will appear in an anthology from Freya's Bower in early 2008.

After twenty-odd years of doing collector's fairs, I considered myself happily jaded. Rare albums going for the price of your average luxury car, wild gossip about more than one long-retired artist making ready for a pie-in-the-sky comeback -- I'd seen and heard it all. Hell, I knew of one fan who'd quit his job and sold everything he owned to follow his favorite band around on their latest world tour. If there was a story out there that still had the power to shock me, I hadn't come across it yet.

Well, believe me when I say, I hadn't a clue.

It started one typical boring Sunday. There I was, sitting behind my booth like I did every third weekend of the month, skimming the paper and slurping down coffee, when this guy walks up and starts flipping through my crates of '60's vinyl. Tall guy, salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a ponytail, jeans, plain denim work shirt, late fifties -- your typical aging hippie, just like me. We nodded politely at each other and I went on reading my newspaper.

It took him awhile to go through everything I had, but after about half an hour he had a nice stack of Stones and Dylan platters set aside. When he handed them to me across the table I had to admit I was impressed. He'd cherry-picked the best of the lot. He didn't even blink when I tallied up the total, just opened up his wallet and handed over a pair of crisp C-notes.

"You've got a good eye," I said with a grin, sliding his purchases into a grocery bag.

"I'm always looking for decent playing copies," he answered, "though I've got to say, I'm a bit disappointed with what the rest of the vendors here have to offer."

"That's what you get when you come on Sunday. All the best stuff's been pretty well picked-over."

"Still, it's not often that I find '60's vinyl in such clean condition. This your personal collection?"

"Bits and pieces of it, yeah."

"Ever come across a white-label promo of Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in your travels?"

"Hell, I used to own a copy, once upon a time," I replied, chuckling ruefully. "But then along came a little thing called divorce."

"Man, I know how that goes." Fishing in his wallet, he pulled out a business card and handed it to me. "Listen, if you ever want to get together, spin some sides, give me a call. You'd probably get a kick out of my collection."

"Cool," I replied, shoving it into my pocket without looking at it, and going back to my paper.

It was your usual slow Sunday; I made one other sale for about twenty-five bucks around three in the afternoon, then decided to pack it in. It took me an hour and a half to get all my crates and other supplies trucked out to my van. By that time I was starving, so I stopped off at a local hof brau. Somewhere in between my green salad and my hot turkey sandwich, I pulled the guy's business card out of my pocket -- and promptly plotzed.

The guy's name was Robert Selwyn. He was one of LA's most prominent entertainment attorneys, a real mover and shaker with some very high-profile clients, including major names in the music industry, both past and present. He was well known in various collectors' circles too -- extremely well known, in fact. And I'd just blown off an open invitation to hang out with him. Shit!

I laid the card on the table and stared at it while I ate, wondering if it'd be too presumptuous to call him right now. I didn't want to look too eager, but damn it, I was more than eager -- I was practically frothing at the mouth! If rumors were to be believed, this guy had one of the finest private collections on the West Coast.

Grabbing my cell phone, I started dialing his number before I'd finished chewing my last bite of turkey. It rang four times before he picked up. "Hey," I said, "It's me...um, from the collector's show today." Christ, that was lame -- but then, I hadn't bothered introducing myself that morning, so it's not like he'd recognize my name. "Hope this isn't a bad time."

"No, not at all, I just finished dinner. What's up?"

"I was just wondering if, um...if that offer to take a look at your collection's still good."

"Sure, c'mon over. In fact, I was just about to go in the living room and listen to those sides you sold me this morning. My home address is on the back of the card I gave you. See you in a few."

Actually, it took me about forty-five minutes to find his place, a surprisingly modest and unassuming single-story ranch house out in Studio City. He greeted me at the front door, shook my hand and told me to call him Bob, then led me into the living room.

It was a large, airy space, with high ceilings and a gleaming hardwood floor with a thick Persian rug smack in the middle of it, framed album covers and original movie posters from '40's and '50's film noir classics adorning the walls. Plain, overstuffed black leather armchairs stood an optimum eight feet away from the most incredible sound system I'd ever seen outside of a store showroom. There were two high-end turntables, a pair of tall, elegant oak-paneled loudspeakers, and an amp/pre-amp set that I'd seen reviewed in one of the major industry publications last year. When I recalled its price tag I didn't know whether to wet my pants or have an orgasm.

Bob's fingers tapping my shoulder snapped me out of my happy trance. "C'mon, I keep the records out in the garage."

It was like walking into Nirvana and the Library of Congress all rolled into one. Every wall from floor to ceiling was lined with shelf after shelf of records. I wandered goggle-eyed among the stacks, checking out the spines, every now and then pulling out a stray album, running reverent fingers over the covers. He had stuff here I'd only heard about and I'd been collecting since I was twelve. There were two entire bookshelves full of precious, fragile 78's, all the old jazz and blues classics. Another whole shelf was devoted to singles -- Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, on and on it went.

He had flawless original mono pressings of each and every one of the early Dylan and Stones albums. And -- oh, my fucking God -- the infamous first-state 'butcher' cover of the Beatles' Yesterday and Today, still virginally sealed in shrink-wrap. I'd never actually held one before; my fingers were trembling so badly I almost dropped it. "Jesus," I breathed, sliding it carefully back onto the shelf. "I've never seen such high-quality stuff outside of auctions."

"Well, I can't accept too much credit," Bob replied. "The film posters and most of the older discs were gifts from clients. I just took it and ran with it from there."

"Man, I'd say you won the fucking marathon."

He laughed. "More like a heavyweight bout, but I would've rather sold my soul than let my ex-wife get her claws on it. So she got the house, the stock portfolio, the Mercedes and the timeshare in Palm Springs, and I got to sleep on a cot in a crappy studio apartment full of old records and movie posters for the next two years." He shrugged. "In retrospect, I can't say I got the worst part of the deal."

"No shit. This'll finance your retirement."

"If I live that long."

We picked a few classics out of the grand stash and went in the living room to give them a spin. I laid my head back against the soft black leather, closed my eyes, and for the next few hours, I was in vinyl-lover's heaven. Dylan and the Stones had never sounded so raw and vibrant -- it was like they were playing live, right there in the room with us. By the time we reached the last wistful notes of 'Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' I was already regretting how quickly the evening had passed.

It took me nearly an hour to drive home. I turned on the radio and tapped my foot along idly, not really listening. I felt oddly deflated with no idea why. I'd had a great time tonight, hanging out with a fellow music-lover listening to some of my favorite tunes. I should've been dancing on a cloud but instead I just felt empty.

I took a shower when I got home then climbed into bed. But I couldn't sleep. After tossing and turning for almost two hours I got up and put a record on the turntable, set it at a soft volume, and slid back under the covers.

Usually listening to music for a few minutes put me right to sleep, but not this time. I couldn't stop thinking about the incredible collection I'd seen tonight, and how my own, even in its former glory days, had paled by comparison. It saddened me and pissed me off at the same time. I'd never been the type to turn jealous simply because somebody else had something I didn't. As much as I loved the music, selling off my old records hadn't really bothered me -- I knew I'd be able to find better copies in a year or two, when I was flush again.

I kept remembering the way I'd held that copy of Yesterday and Today, turning it over and over in my hands like it was some rare holy relic. Up until tonight I'd been content to think of it as just another urban legend I'd never be lucky enough to encounter. Now that I knew it really existed, I couldn't get it out of my brain.

I had to have it.

I spent the better part of a week figuring out how to get back into Bob's house again, when Bob called and solved my problem for me. He was having a get-together with some of his collector friends this Friday night. Did I want to come?

I said yes and hung up the phone, not at all sure how I felt about this new development. On one hand I was flattered that Bob apparently now considered me part of his circle. But on the other, how the hell was I supposed to smuggle the album out of his house with a bunch of other people hanging around?

Moreover, why was I even considering such a thing in the first place? I wasn't a thief. I'd never stolen a damn thing in my life. And yet here I was, plotting to make off with a friend's prized possession. What the hell was wrong with me?

But was it really stealing if all I wanted to do was hold onto it for a few days? I wasn't going to play it or break the shrink-wrap or do anything that would diminish its value. All I wanted was to be able to pretend it was mine for a little while. Besides, if everything went off the way I'd hoped, Bob wouldn't even notice it was gone.

As it turned out, having all those extra people in the house worked to my advantage. Everybody was milling around with albums they'd brought along to play or trade, so it was a fairly simple thing to slide the album off the shelf and into my own stash, then duck into the bathroom and hide it under the sink. When it was time to leave I went back to the bathroom, slipped it into the plain brown bag I'd brought along with me, and tucked it under my arm. Nobody looked twice.

I was just starting my car when I heard a sharp tap on the window. It was Bob. My heart nearly lurched out of my chest.

"Hey," he said once I got the window unrolled, "I keep meaning to ask you about that collector's fair in Long Beach next weekend. You vending at that one?"

I shook my head, only slightly relieved. "N-No, man, they charge too much for tables. I was thinking of going and checking out the inventory, though."

"Me too. Give me a call later on in the week and we'll ride down together, okay?"

"Y-Yeah, will do."

I was halfway home before my blood pressure returned to normal. Luckily, there wasn't much traffic for a Friday night, so I sat back and tried to relax, one hand draped over the wheel, the other straying over to the passenger's seat, sliding the album out of its plain brown wrapper. I felt this odd compulsion to touch it, run my fingers over it, reconfirm its reality.

When I got home I sat on the edge of my bed holding it for a very long time. I flipped it over, hefting it in one hand, then the other, appreciating the solid weight of early '60's vinyl. Working my thumb up and down the album's right edge, for one brief second I actually considered slitting open the shrink-wrap. I had a sudden urge to slide the vinyl out of its plain paper sleeve, hold it between my fingertips, put it on my turntable and let it spin its music out for the whole world to hear.

But in the end, I didn't. I couldn't. A deep shudder shot through me, as if an icy finger was tracing up my spine. I placed the album on a nearby shelf, facing outward so that I could see the cover, then went to take a shower.

The next day I couldn't even bring myself to touch the thing. Every time I was in the room it seemed to be staring at me, mocking me, all four Beatles sitting there grinning in their white butcher's coats, cradling chunks of raw meat and blood-smeared, decapitated baby dolls. It made me want to vomit.

By the time the weekend was over I'd turned it around so that I didn't have to look at the cover anymore. But at that point it hardly mattered; I'd memorized every tiny detail of that disgusting photo and there it was, emblazoned in my brain, tormenting me even when I closed my eyes.

For days I barely slept. I started making excuses to stay at the office longer, inventing projects for myself to keep from going home. I couldn't wait for the weekend to arrive. All I wanted was to get the album back on Bob's shelf where it belonged. I wouldn't rest easy again until I was finally rid of it.

When I got home from work Friday night, I called Bob to firm up our plans for the next day. I told him I'd swing by to pick him up around nine and hung up. I sighed, feeling my burden start to lift the tiniest bit.

But when I went over to the shelf to get the album I froze. I tried to pick it up, but my fingers suddenly felt like a bunch of numb, unwieldy sausages strapped to my hands. I flexed, then wrung them, wincing at the sting of pins and needles -- and knocking the album to the floor.

For a split second I was sure I was about to have a coronary. Crouching down, I ran my hands over the front cover, then the back, feeling for cracked vinyl. I shook it gently but there was no telltale rattle of loose or broken pieces. No apparent damage at all, thank God, other than a slightly bumped top left corner, which I could smooth out fairly easily. Disaster averted.

Scooping up the album I started looking around for the plain brown bag I'd brought it home in. My hands weren't numb anymore -- they were tingling, in fact, but more from surging adrenaline than restored blood flow. I found the bag and was just about to slip the album inside, when suddenly I realized I didn't want to.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't give it back. Why should I? I'd stolen it fair and square and I'd gotten away with it. Bob didn't suspect a thing, and even when he finally figured out it was missing, he'd never be able to prove I was the thief. There'd been twenty other people in his house that night; it could have been any one of us. Unless somebody caught me with it red-handed I was safe.

Which meant, of course, that I couldn't go on keeping it here. But where, then -- my office? That wasn't a much better choice. The cops could get a warrant to search there as easily as they could my apartment. Maybe a safe-deposit box...

My head was spinning. I had to sit down on the edge of the bed with my head between my knees until the queasiness and vertigo subsided. I sucked in a deep breath, then another, willing my mind to stop racing.

There was no need to panic -- at least, not yet. There was no reason to suspect I'd ever be found out, as long as I played it cool. I'd take the album, wrap it up in its plain brown bag, and stash it in my van until I found a safer place for it. In time, once I was sure nobody was watching me, I'd put it up for sale at auction. An unsealed first-state copy had sold a few years ago for close to forty grand. That kind of cash would go a long way toward helping me get my life back on track.

I stared at the phone all evening, fighting the urge to call Bob and beg off on our excursion to Long Beach. No, best not to do anything that might arouse his suspicion. If I wanted the big payoff I had to hang tight.

The next morning I put the album in an extra crate in the back of my van and headed out to Studio City to pick up Bob. Pulling into his driveway, I sounded the horn, then sat there drumming my fingers on the wheel for another two or three minutes before trying again. At the five-minute mark, I decided I was tired of waiting. The front door was unlocked so I gave a perfunctory knock and went right in.

Bob was lying unconscious on the living room floor, crumpled in a heap right in front of his favorite chair. Kneeling beside him I pressed a hand to his throat. His skin was cool to the touch, his pulse thready and weak -- but at least he still had one.

Hooking my hands under his arms, I tugged him over so that he could lie more comfortably on a corner of the Persian rug instead of the cold hard floor, then pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911. The operator said paramedics would be there within ten minutes.

Darting into the bedroom, I scooped up the knitted afghan from the foot of Bob's bed and brought it back to the living room, spreading it over him. He was breathing shallowly now, his lips tinged with blue. I hunkered down beside him and waited.

I followed the ambulance to the hospital then sat in the waiting room twiddling my thumbs and chugging bad coffee. After awhile I started to wonder if Bob had family I should call, but figured the hospital had probably done it already. But by the time mid-afternoon rolled around, nobody else had shown up.

Bob was sitting up in bed sipping water through a straw when they finally let me in to see him. He looked pale but alert, and reached out to clasp my hand when he saw me; his grip was weak but surprisingly tenacious. "They tell me I've got you to thank for this," he said with a wan smile.

"In more ways than one," I murmured.

He gripped my hand tighter, then let go. "It's okay. I already know you took it."

For a split-second it felt like the floor was going to drop out from under me. "Bob, listen, I didn't mean-"

"It's all right. If you want it so badly, keep it. To be honest, when I first discovered it was gone, I was relieved."

Well, maybe he was -- but I wasn't. "You're gonna need to run that one by me again."

He sighed, taking another sip of water. "The album was a gift from a client a couple of years ago, a thank-you for me winning a big contract dispute for him. If I told you his name you'd recognize it -- he was major recording star about ten, fifteen years back. He was an eccentric guy; I never really liked or felt comfortable around him. Rumor was that he had connections with the mob -- and people even more dangerous than the mob, if you can believe that. But he was a client, so I was content not to ask too many questions." He took another sip, then went on. "I'd been scouring the auctions for one of the butcher covers for years with no luck, when suddenly one day the client shows up in my office. He's carrying this package under his arm, and he hands it to me and says, 'Take good care of it.' I never saw him again after that."

A chill shot through me. "That sounds pretty damn freaky."

"Not as freaky as my garbage disposal almost taking my hand off, or my car rolling all the way down my driveway with the emergency brake still on. I was almost killed two or three times the week after I got the album. And that's not even the weirdest part." He drained his tumbler, setting it on the tray near his right elbow. I couldn't help noticing how badly his hand was shaking. "I put the album in a frame when I first got it, and hung it in the living room. But after a few days, I couldn't stand looking at it anymore. You know how people say some pictures take on a life of their own, that the eyes follow you everywhere? Well, here it was just the opposite -- the damn thing turned my stomach, but I couldn't stop staring at it. And then I started having these...waking dreams, I guess you'd call them, because by this point I wasn't sleeping worth a damn. I'd walk into the living room after dinner, and there they'd be, all four Beatles, sitting around in their bloodstained butcher coats. And then they'd start talking to me."

"Jesus."

"You know I'm telling the truth, don't you? You know I'm not crazy."

I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose.

"Why didn't you just get rid of it?"

"I tried. I'd made up my mind to sell it, but when it came down to it, I couldn't -- and I mean that literally. Every time I'd try to pick the damn thing up, my hands would go numb. Finally I managed to get it out of the frame and filed it away in the garage. I'd hoped that if I could just forget it existed, maybe it would...I don't know, disappear or something."

"Or something," I echoed with a bitter chuckle.

"So now you know why I'm not particularly eager to get it back."

"You think passing it on to me is going to break this...curse, or whatever the hell it is?"

"I don't know. All I do know is that I don't want to shoulder the burden anymore. It's yours now."

"I don't want it any more than you do."

"So give it to someone else."

"What, you think it's that easy? I dropped it on the floor last night, Bob -- the same night you had a heart attack. Maybe you can never get away from it. Maybe once it gets its hooks in you, that's it."

"Then it looks like you're just as fucked as I am, doesn't it?"

"Not yet," I snapped, heading for the door.

I took the stairs two at a time all the way down to the garage, got in my van and started back to Bob's house, grim purpose spurring me on. Maybe putting the album back wouldn't help. Maybe the curse was as attached to me now as it was to Bob but I couldn't just sit around and wait for it to either kill me or drive me insane. I had to do something, even if it was an exercise in futility.

I floored it all the way to Studio City, running every red light in my path. When I got to the last turn before Bob's street, a rusty old Chevy Nova skidded across the intersection right in front of me, brakes screeching. I knew we were going to crash into each other about half a second before the impact hit. The airbag exploded in my face and the world went black.

I came to as they were pulling me out of the van. The driver's side door was so badly smashed they couldn't get it open without hurting me, so they'd had to cut a hole in the passenger's side and get me out that way. The van had rolled two or three times before landing upside-down on the unpaved shoulder of the road. It looked like an elephant had stomped on it. I didn't bother asking if they'd found what was left of the album. There was no point.

The paramedics looked me over and pronounced me fine, with the exception of a mild concussion and a few pressure scrapes from the airbag on my face and forearms. It was a miracle I wasn't dead.

The driver of the Nova wasn't so lucky. I stood there staring as the paramedics loaded a sheet-covered stretcher into the back of the ambulance, then drove off. One of the detectives on the scene came up to me a few minutes later, read me my rights, cuffed me, and ushered me over to a waiting squad car.

I waited in the interrogation room for over an hour before the detective appeared again; this time he brought a friend. They looked surprised when I waived my phone call and my right to an attorney. My head was pounding to beat the band but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

"We just got back the results of your blood test, which confirms that you were not intoxicated at the time of the accident," the detective said, sitting down across from me, folding his hands on the table. The other detective stood silently behind him, studying me like some bug he'd be more than happy to grind into the pavement. "Which means you're looking at a nice chunk of jail time -- unless, of course, you can convince a jury that you had a perfectly good reason for driving like a goddamned maniac."

"Actually," I said, "I don't think that'll be much of a problem."

So I sat there and told them everything, in tender loving detail.

They stared at me for a long time once I'd finished, then looked at each other, shook their heads and left. A few minutes later, a pair of uniformed officers came and escorted me to a special cell, the kind with padded walls and no sharp corners. I didn't mind. At least it was nice and quiet.

So quiet, in fact, that I nodded off. When I woke up, John Lennon was sitting right across from me, in the far corner of the room. He was wearing a bloody butcher's coat with a headless doll perched on his shoulder.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes, but he was still there. "I-I thought you were dead."

"Who, me? Never better, mate." He grinned. "But if you don't mind me sayin'...you don't look so good."