"I don't know, I think so. Or at least she was a boy but had all the good qualities of a girl. Something like that."

I laughed too hard. He looked at me strangely. "I'm laughing because I had Pinsleepe," I said. "She sounds exactly like your Bimbergooner, only Pinsleepe was definitely a girl. Know why? Because my dream friend would have no hesitation about pulling her pants down and showing 'it' to me whenever I wanted. Naturally I was dying to know what 'it' looked like, but my sister would never show me. I made Pinsleepe a girl so she'd not only be my friend but would have the right plumbing to satisfy my curiosity."

Victor snorted. "Shit. I wish I'd thought of that! I don't think I even knew what my dick looked like then, much less what I would be putting it into some day."

He went on talking about his imaginary friend, but I was already spinning with a new idea and inspiration.

I'd make a film about Pinsleepe! But a Pinsleepe who comes back twenty years later to visit her old friend and creator.

What would we do if that happened? How would we handle the return of our childhood? Or a mysterious part that showed up in the flesh and wanted to stay awhile to see what things had changed in the old neighborhood?

I'd grown so weary of Bloodstone and his meager world that I knew I had to do something entirely different or go nuts. I'd done the small part in Weber's film, but I needed much more than that exotic hors d'oeuvre. Here, appearing full-blown out of the ether, was a gift from heaven!

The problem was, no one on earth wanted to do it, including my partner, Matthew. "I'll give you two words, Phil, and they say it all: Woody Allen." He sat back, as proud as if he'd just proven Einstein wrong.

"What do you mean, Woody Allen? How is that supposed to finish this argument?"

"Every time Woody Allen makes a film that's not funny, it goes right in the toilet: financially, critically, everything. Why? Because people go to Woody Allen movies to see funny. The same way they go to your movies to see Bloodstone make them wee-wee their pants. Look what happened to Coca-Cola when they tried to change their formula.

"Classic Strayhom works, Phil. Don't start fucking around with a new formula."

"What would you do if I insisted on making this film?"

"Sell my collection of Fabulous Fifties furniture to get the dough, jerkoff. You know that. But it doesn't mean I won't put my Uzi in your eye when we go broke!

"I'm kidding. Do it. Who cares? What are you going to call it again, 'Pin Lips'? Jesus."

"PINSLEEPE. I'll make you an offer, Matthew. I'll write Midnight Four for you and we'll do that first. Then my film. Deal?"

"Yeah, a deal! I didn't think I was going to be able to persuade you to put on that makeup again for two years, old Puke Puss. Nice name, huh? That's what they called you in the last issue of Fangoria magazine."

I made notes on Pinsleepe and my shared secret world in between drafts of Midnight Kills. It took the longest time remembering exactly what she looked like. A really clear picture emerged only months later in Yugoslavia while we were negotiating shooting rights there for part of our next Bloodstone extravaganza.

I remember making a sketch of her on a paper napkin at an outdoor restaurant in Dubrovnik. We were eating cevapcici and drinking a good Yugoslavian pivo. When I was done, I slipped the napkin into my wallet and kept it until I died. I don't know why.

Bloodstone. Going back to him and the Midnight world began as an ordeal. Not that it was difficult writing a fourth film: I knew the geography of the place by heart, and where to go, once there.

What repelled me was the necessity of going there at all I resented most the fact I couldn't leave that part of my life behind like a hick town I'd grown up in but left after graduating from school there.

Halfway through an okay and thoroughly mediocre script, I threw the whole thing out and began again with a new goal: If, as I hoped, Midnight Kills would be the last of "those" films for a very long time, why not work as hard as I could trying to create the best of the bunch? A honor film as hot and sinister as radioactivity, full of enough tricks and traps to keep people guessing and really scared till the end. That would be worth doing until I had the chance to get down to serious work on "Pinsleepe."

I went to Matthew's house at Malibu and watched the ocean for – days. Nothing doing. No inspiration in sea breezes.

After trudging back home discouraged, I found what I needed in a postcard from Weber. In Europe he had discovered the work of Elias Canetti and had been sending me cards with quotes from the writer, sometimes as many as – a week.

The outer bearing of people is so ambiguous that you only have to present yourself as you are to live fully unrecognized and concealed.

I read those words – times, then turned out the only light in the room and smiled like a happy hyena. Blood was rushing into my head, and it felt like I was glowing in the dark.

What if this time I put Bloodstone out on the street in a conservative blue suit, a tattered Bible in hand: Puke Puss set in the earnest sweat hypocrisy of a television evangelist? What if this time he was worshiped for what he was, not feared?

Worshiped by a society that wants God and salvation to be as plain and filling – accessible – as a deluxe cheeseburger with French fries. A bread-and-miracles saviur.

Only in Bloodstone's case, he would present himself as the other side of salvation.

Look at me, brothers and sisters! I went the wrong way, and witness what happened! I've seen Hell, the end, the No Exit place. Yes, it is as bad as you thought. Yes, there are devils – look at me. Flames? Look at my face. Check me out; I'm a living visa from those countries. Ground zero for your worst fears. Okay, stare, but listen to me; I've been there. I can help you through.

Leo Knott. That was the name, folks, a plain American name, as American as your best friend. As American as you.

Leo Knott. That was my name. That was me.

Not the Bloodstone you see now. Not this human scream with a face like puke and a soul that stinks of old perfume and meat.

"No, only Leo Knott, a minister of God who started out going in the right direction. But then something happened, folks. Suddenly Leo Knott saw he could use whatever powers of persuasion he had to get what he wanted. Not what the Lord God wanted, what Leo Knott wanted.

Did I use it to get women? My house was filled with blondes. Had to take the phone off the hook, they were calling all day and all night. I owned two black address books!

Did I use it to get money? I had so much money in my pocket, it looked like I was carrying a couple of sandwiches in there all the time!

That's the trick, you see. Say the name "God" and good people come running. They'll sell their farms and businesses and send you the checks. When they believe, they open their hearts and you can reach right in and take whatever you want.

That's what I did. I took their best parts and didn't think twice about it. I took their love, I took their trust, and, yes, I took their money as well. Not for God, for Leo Knott.

I spent it all! Spent it in fancy stores and fancy beds. Spent it on nights I couldn't remember the next day except for the full ashtrays and pink lipstick stains on the whiskey glasses.

You know what I'm talking about?

That's how Midnight Kills begins: Bloodstone confidently pacing the pulpit of a flyblown church in Watts, his audience a rotting array of junkies, bums, one-foot-in-the-graves, nothing-lefts on a Tuesday afternoon at the end of their lives, listening to a freak wail God at them until the free soup is served.