Avida Dollars - Avida Dollars Novel

1
Avida Dollars
A Novel
by
Jon Starcevich
2
Chapter 1
My back was killing me. I was bent in half, barely concealed
within the folds of a linen cart that was parked two doors away from the
room I believed to be that of the infamous Jenny Haniver.
Before the accident, when I tipped the scales at a lardy and out of
shape 215 pounds, I would never been small enough or flexible enough to
fit in the cramped space. I guess I can thank my unorthodox doctor for the
yoga and weights rehabilitation.
Louisa, the maid who was kindly helping me, came back into
view. I had convinced her that I was working on an in-depth undercover
expose on celebrities on the edge. She winked at me before tossing more
soiled sheets on my head. My awkward grin was lost amongst the folds of
a pillowcase.
There was a tapping noise coming from down the hall. Louisa
pushed me further towards the room. I recovered my sight through my
3
peephole just in time to see a man pass me. Too fast for me to see his face,
he was singing what I believed to be a Beatles song. He knocked on the
door and let himself into the moaning of a retro porn movie.
The door closed and I could hear raised voices. Something was
familiar about the voices, but I couldn’t place them. A short time later, I
heard the very distinct sound of a muffled gunshot.
I waited for the dull thud of a body hitting the ground, but it never
happened. The door opened a crack and I could almost make out the
words in a very calm conversation between two men. I was completely
puzzled.
The door opened and I got a very good look at the knees and shins
of two men as they rushed by me on their way to the elevator. One of
them still had the scent of gun powder cologne clinging to him, but neither
limped, if that told me anything.
Once they were out of the hallway I determined that I had
probably gotten the room number wrong somehow. Still, I had the feeling
that those knees belonged to two of the men I had seen with Jenny.
I crawled out of the cart as my Latina cutie, Louisa, was coming
out for another handful of microscopic soap, and amoeba sized shampoo.
She had her dark hair tied back, but a few tendrils snaked wildly out here
and there. Her face was shiny with the morning dew of hard work, but
her eyes were bright and seductive. I was smitten even though she
probably had twenty years on me.
I let a quick fantasy run through my head, and pretended that this
time I would act. I wanted to hold her tight and say all the right words
4
that always evaded me, and lead her into one of the freshly cleaned rooms.
Something in her eyes said maybe…
But I just couldn’t.
I was just too shy to pull it off. Lack of confidence, completely. I
knew she would tell me something about her kids, and the age difference.
I slunk back to my reality, but there did seem to be some tension between
our wide smiles and flirting eyes.
“Done then?” Her Spanish accent was like melting chocolate.
“Uh, I think so.” I crammed my hand and claw deep into my
pockets very carefully, and stared at my feet. I was having a hard time
looking into her face and fighting off a hard on at the same time.
“So you’ll be going?” She asked with a twist of disappointment on
the rocks.
“Um, actually,” I said, looking back up at her through my thick
lashes, “I was wondering if I could, you know, have a look in
there…alone.”
I thumbed over my shoulder at the door that the men had come
from. Her face changed. Her eyes wrinkled and her brow frowned.
“Oh, I don’t know…” She looked away. “I could get fired, and
very much trouble for me.”
“I only need seven minutes.” I used my personal tag as a question.
I don’t know where I picked it up from, but it stuck. Everything always
only took seven minutes. Yes even that, unfortunately, but I’m sure I
could be forgiven because the last time was my first time.
5
She was still riding the fence, I could tell. I pulled my claw back
out of my pocket and it interlaced its twin prongs with the fingers on my
good hand. I hated to use my disability this way, but I needed to get in
there.
“Just seven minutes.”
She gave me a sad little smile and nodded. “…But only five
minutes.”
“Thanks cutie pie.”
She blushed and quickly unlocked the door for me. I kept the door
open only just a crack, not sure what I might find after the gunshot I’d
heard.
“Five minutes.” She repeated as she walked back towards her
stacked cart.
I stood there for a moment watching her plump little rump wiggle
away. I traced the panty lines against her tight uniform with me eyes. She
turned around and caught me staring at her ass. I quickly looked away
with my face bright red. She giggled and went into the other room.
Horror.
Screaming blue messed up horror.
A goat, still draped over a chair, lay bloodied and dead. Beneath
the Lone Ranger mask its tongue lolled loosely from the open mouth.
Three out of the four fishnet stockings were still in place, the other was
wrapped around its neck in a sleazy garrote.
The mid-priced hotel room was destroyed in a tangled fashion of
mayhem decor, a flashback to Led Zeppelin’s heyday of John Bonham and
6
Richard Cole. Everything was either upended or destroyed in one way or
another. Artwork was torn from the walls. Bedding was bundled up in a
huge pile in one corner of the room, and may have been concealing
something beneath. The mattress had been shoved aside and the box
spring was exposed for all to see.
An open jar of Vaseline lay half used and discarded on the only
untouched piece of furniture, a particleboard and oak veneer chest of
drawers. A large two-finger scoop mark tainted the greasy petroleum
product.
A small fridge lay disgorged and discarded in one corner. Next to
the fridge was a mid priced 20” color TV bolted to the wall, the only
security measure that seemed to have lived up to its reputation. The table
was missing a leg and was overturned; reminiscent of a spindly turtle
trapped on it’s back.
A 70’s retro porn movie was blasting on the tube, filling the room
with grunts and moans. It filled the screen with a bevy of massive wiry
bushes, wiggly asses and thick mustaches amongst all the pelvic grinding
and mock orgasms. It’s 2006, for God’s sake. Who the hell watches 70’s
porn anymore?
The lascivious cacophony was barely loud enough to cover up the
screaming inside my head. The scent clinging to the scene was indiscreet,
musky and dangerous.
The sight of the goat disturbed me, but the maid was the edge
pusher.
7
I barely made the toilet before I threw up violently. The bathroom
was immaculate. Even the glass shower doors appeared to have been
squeegeed. The soap, shampoo, and other accoutrements were all
organized by size on the vanity. It was in stark comparison to the
hurricane debris I had come from.
Before I worried about the state of the goat, it hit me. I couldn’t let
Louisa go through this. How was I going to clean this up in the
disintegrating time limit?
I ran to the window, careful to avoid looking down at the
mutilated maid or stepping on her, but caught something out of the corner
of my eye that stabbed my attention. I looked down and realized that the
Hammer House of Horrors body was actually a manikin of some sort
dressed up to look like a murdered and violated maid.
I didn’t have a split second to register relief, I still had to clean this
mess up, dead maid or messed up manikin, it didn't matter which.
I was lucky. They had skimped on the room and gotten an alley
view. I opened the window and look out.
Almost directly below the window was a dumpster, but without
even trying to lift it I knew there was no way I was going to be able to toss
a manikin that distance, let alone a limp goat.
A homeless man was pushing his cart down the alley and I saw
my chance.
“Hey buddy!”
“Huh?”
“Up here.”
8
“What do you want?”
“If you push that dumpster over I will drop you down, uh…”
I was digging in my pockets for money. “I’ve got fifty bucks.”
“For real?”
“Yeah. Have we got a deal?” I had never negotiated with a
homeless man for a dumpster body suppository before, but it seemed like
more than the going rate.
“I want the money first.”
“Tell you what,” I ripped the bill in half, crumpled it into a ball
and threw half down.
“Here’s half. You move it in the next minute and forty five
seconds and I’ll toss down the other half.”
“Alright.” He said, with a shrug after retrieving his deposit.
I turned back to the room and down at my watch. A minute and a
half left, if she was going to be as punctual as I suspected. I switched off
the porn, shut the fridge, and replaced the drawers. I tossed al
miscellaneous debris towards the window.
“Hey!”
The bum was shouting.
“Where’s the rest of my money?”
I shoved my head out the window and could see the dumpster
was in place. I crammed my hand back into my pocket and retrieved the
wadded up half fifty and a handful of change and tossed it in his general
direction.
“Thanks buddy!” I shouted.
9
“Hey!” He screamed dodging the nickels and dimes.
“Sorry.” I said, depositing some soiled sheets out the window.
“Now take off for a while.”
“Okay, okay, but no more pennies.” He had already retrieved his
cart and was leaving the alley behind.
I excavated the manikin maid from a drawer and debris. One of
her eyes had scotch tape across it and she appeared to be covered in milk.
I tossed her ass over teakettle out of the window and held my breath
hoping that I wouldn’t miss the mark. After a cart wheeled deflection she
disappeared into the gaping maw of the Easy Dumper.
I breathed a sigh of relief and turned around just as I saw the
doorknob jiggle. My heart stopped as I realized I still had to get rid of the
strangulated goat.
I rushed over and picked up the awkward package and ran, well
waddled rather quickly actually, towards the window. I was losing my
grip swiftly and still had four or five more agonizing steps to go when…
“Okay, times up for you.”
The door wasn’t quite open all the way and I lost my grip on the
goat just as I reached the window. I pushed it until it was just out of sight
and turned around just as Louisa popped her pretty face into view. I
started to smile until I felt the jerk of weight on my hooked hand. The
fishnet stocking on the goat had become entangled in my hook, and now it
was pulling me down.
“What a mess I have here. I just don’t know…” she said shaking
her head. “I guess I’ve seen worse, I remember when …
10
She tapped the feather duster against her open palm. Even with a
dead goat threatening to pull me out the window to a very messy death
my thoughts turned to sex.
I quickly pictured a lighthearted bondage/s&m scenario with the
maid uniform still intact, except for one exposed breast and the feather
duster of course. I was tied to the bed with furry hand cuffs, when…
Part of the material ripped and jerked me back to reality. I tried
clenching and unclenching my claw to free myself. I could just picture the
scene from the alley of me wrestling the dead mammal.
“…and all the Ice Capades groupies… What are you doing by the
window my handsome reporter? Are you struggling?”
Her face had gone from a curious smile to a curious squint.
A sweat broke out on my face, and I could already feel a drip of
cold forming as she walked towards me.
“I was just checking to see if my car was still there. I had heard a
noise in the alley.”
“You parked in the alley? Why you park there, silly?”
She moved even closer and the duster was transformed into a
threatening riding crop, and there were nipple clamps, and…
I gave it everything I had and forced the two ‘fingers’ apart wide
and the fishnets gave way with a horrible ripping noise.
The goat dropped.
I looked out and saw it tag the lid before falling inside. The lid
slammed down loud and hard.
I turned back to Louisa, and confronted her questioning glare.
11
“No, it’s okay, just a hobo rustling around in a dumpster.”
“What’s that on your, ah…”
She was pointing to my claw. I looked down and saw a half
ripped fishnet stocking dangling provocatively. I hid it behind my back,
but I could see I was too slow.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, you naughty boy!”
“Oh no, you don’t understand…” I stood up, protesting.
“I am a married woman.”
She moved uncomfortably close to me.
She had the intoxicating scent of sweat, rose petals, and something
spicy. She was so close that if I were to take a deep breath, her ample
breasts would press against me. I started to get aroused. I wanted to take
that deep breath.
“Chico atractiva.” She repeated, biting on her lower lip. She had a
sexy violent look on her face. I was afraid for my life, exhilarated by the
possibilities. “Hungry for Louisa?” I found her slippery grasp on the
English language erotic.
Midway between all the blood rushing from my big head into my
little head, I somehow lost my nerve. I stepped aside and moved towards
the door, beyond a visibly disappointed hot Latina mama.
“Yes, you are a married woman, but if you weren’t…” I left it
dangle out there and gave her another one of my smoldering, lusty smiles.
“You so travieso.” She giggled.
12
I couldn’t help myself. I had to get closer, to touch her. A bolt of
nervous adrenaline hit me as I gave her a quick hug. I gave her a kiss on
the cheek that lingered for one hot second close to her lips. You could
almost see the arcs of electricity between us.
“Thanks for all your help, Louisa.” I whispered in close.
“Okay.” She said, with a deep husky sight that I felt more than
heard.
I swallowed the nervous apple in my throat and turned towards
the door. I grinned inside at my unprecedented bravery and took a quick
last glance over my shoulder at Louisa. I caught her staring at my ass as
she stroked her feather duster suggestively, but absent-mindedly it
seemed.
She giggled. My face went bright red, again, and I went out into
the relative coolness of the hallway.
I hadn’t gotten any clues from the room whatsoever. In fact, I had
help to cover the tracks of at least one sick pervert and now I was probably
losing the scent.
I had to hurry if I wanted to catch them before they had checked
out and left the hotel. I heard a muffled scream from behind me as the
elevator doors closed. Louisa. My guts churned when I imagined the
sight she was greeted with when she looked in the closet. Oh, why hadn’t
I checked that out? God only knows what evil deed had taken place in
there.
Rushing into the lobby I had to push the head full of coiled snakes
from my eyes to avoid tripping over a baggage cart.
13
I couldn’t see them at the check out desk. My heart sank,
torpedoed by my own inability. Had I lost them? After chasing her down
so carefully for this long I was terrified that I had lost her again.
I kicked myself, remembering all my missed opportunities. The
chances I’d passed by, or given up. All the frustration had been eating at
me for months. I was disturbed at my recent angry outbursts that were
occurring more recently, my moments of solitary cursing rage. I’d
changed so much since the ‘accident’.
Well no more.
I wasn’t going to let my low self-esteem, and complete lack of
confidence get me out of this little game. I had hugged Louisa, and even
given her a kiss on the cheek. Surely this was some sort of progress, I
thought. The words came to me, they always had, and now I wasn’t going
to save them for a special drunken occasion.
I took two bold steps towards the desk to ask the concierge about
the group. I looked outside through the massive glass doors and straight
into the eyes of the old man! Charlie, I think his name was, but there
wasn’t a note of recognition in his eyes.
Not from the passing of our cars, or our brief passing in the airport
as he was leaving the women’s washroom. True, in both cases I was
moving quickly with my head down, but something tells me that we had
met more intimately on the airplane. To be honest my entire memory of
the airplane trip was covered in the gossamer mists of a half dream.
They were all standing around talking. Charlie’s attention had
drifted from me to Rick, the scruffy but well-dressed English bloke. Even
14
from my somewhat distant vantage point I could see that Charlie had
nothing but contempt for Rick, but there seemed a more vile arrow
directed at the strangely dressed man with him. Again, I felt I recognized
him, but from a dream, or even from the plane. I just couldn’t be sure. The
limey was inspecting the mustachioed man’s jacket.
This was it. I buckled my nerves in for the ride.
I’d played this over in my head a hundred billion times, and each
time it was different. Unfortunately, I still hadn’t formulated a concrete
plan about what I was going to say. I just figured I’d wing it. I always
thought better on my feet, and maybe I could inject a shot of emotion that
would overtake me.
Two brave steps towards the doors and my resolve flinched. I had
no weapon and there were four of them. I was no fighter, and my
handicaps were certainly no advantage in a situation like this. But was
violent revenge what I wanted?
Yes.
No.
Oh no, the debate started up again in my head. Revenge I wanted,
no question about it. I wanted to torment her, but there was something
else. It was always there, heckling at me from the back row of my psyche.
I just couldn’t identify it with the bright lights of ego in my eyes.
She turned her head and any scrap of commitment I still had
screwed up disintegrated. I faked a trip on the carpet and landed into a
dusty silk tropical plant. I waited a second, maybe two, before slowly
15
recovering. By the time the concierge had sorted me out they were already
heading to the parking lot.
This was my third and a half almost confrontation with the, yes I’ll
say it, with the bitch and another failure. As I brushed the hair into my
face, put on dark glasses and scrunched down into my jacket I thought, I
really have to come up with a plan.
16
Chapter 2
33 hours previous
The rural countryside was a gritty patchwork of snow and mud
In the little valley a railroad track curved, trying to shrug off a road that
seemed to shadow it, before disappearing behind one of the many
surrounding hills dipped in nature’s soft serve.
The two-lane highway was now seldom used since the completion
of a new super highway further north, but it wasn’t yet completely
abandoned. Only a vagrant snowflake fell now, heading to meet his
predecessors, curling, twisting end over end.
On the dirty gravel shoulder of the highway sat a lone car. It was
a powder blue K car, probably a Plymouth Reliant. Not that it mattered
anyway; it was still a piece of crap. Rust dotted it surface, as it has the
tendency to do, around the wheel wells, below the doors, little patches
around the keyholes. One of the hubcaps was missing and the front
17
passenger side tire was going flat, a slow leak, possibly a leaky valve,
maybe even something as exotic as a nail discarded from a construction
site.
Inside the grimy windows there burned a tiny amber glow. A
cigarette was being puffed, and attached to that cherry was a man sitting
in the driver’s seat. He squinted as a train whistle blew in the distance. He
sat back calmly watching its progress.
He called himself Rick. His hair was somewhat long, dirty blonde,
and very straight. He liked to use a gel to slick the hair off his forehead,
but invariably it hung limply forward getting tangled in his eyes. It
tended to make him look scruffy, but he decided that he liked the image so
it stayed.
His skin was pale, but he always had the touch of Scottish redness
in his cheeks as though he had just come in from the cold. It was a gift
from his mother’s side of the family he’d joke, but as with everything else
he seemed to do the kidding was always laced with something jagged and
nasty.
Two days worth of stubble covered his long face. The bags under
his eyes were big enough for a long weekend trip, including gifts for the
family.
He wasn’t unattractive, just not conventionally good looking. He
had striking icy Nordic blue eyes, and would have been an instant magnet
to the opposite sex, if not for the distant cold stare that so often overtook
them He always seemed miles away pondering the mysteries of the
world.
18
He wore a dark gray wool sweater, black Dockers. His big blocky
shoes had a blunt toe and plenty of wear. One lanky leg was draped over
the shifter column.
The ashtray was full, but he wasn’t addicted to nicotine. He
smoked for protection, like an ephemeral umbrella.
Messages scrolled on the laptop computer that was sitting beside
him on the passenger seat. The succubus of the modern age, it was
sucking the life from his battery by way of an umbilical cord attached to
his cigarette lighter, sustaining its soulless existence.
He seemed nervous, and preoccupied with the weather.
He drank the cold dregs from a battered thermos of black coffee as
the train passed by. By the time he screwed the lid back on the train has
gone behind the mountain, but he could still hear its whistle, perhaps more
phantom than real at this point.
His hand flirted briefly in front of the radio knob, but with a
concentrated effort he pulled it away quickly and reached out for the
lighter on his dashboard. His breath was a fog in the cold car, but
masochistically he didn’t start the car to engage the heater, preferring to
keep his mind fresh, and the warmth would only lull him into sleep.
He typed something on the keyboard, swizzled the small mouse
ball and nodded his head about a particular response or comment on the
screen.
Flicking the flame to life, he inhaled a fresh hand rolled cigarette.
He sat mulling something over, looking down the road outstretched in
front of him. The first car he’s seen in hours passed quickly. By the time
19
of year, and the waning light, he guessed, in this part of the country, that it
was heading on three thirty. He stopped wearing a watch many years ago,
and the clock on his computer was set at least 7 ½ hours ahead.
Something caught his attention and he sat up. He didn’t seem
sure if it was a sound, or a slight movement farther down the road, but he
wanted to be ready. There, yes, coming down the road was something.
He took one last quick glance at the screen, logged off, and clicked the
laptop shut. He grabbed it roughly, pulled out the cord and stuffed it into
the back seat.
Coming towards him like a tsunami was a greyhound bus. It
slowed down and pulled over onto the shoulder across the road in a
shower of dirty snow and gravel. He rubbed the back of his neck as the
bus began to pull away again. He wasn’t sure if anyone got off the bus. It
seemed like a rather quick stop for someone to have enough time to get off.
His face smoothed a little at the thought.
That would solve a lot of problems, he thought to himself.
He relaxed a little, until the bus passed him and he saw a lone
woman struggling with a heavy bag in tow. Three more sat beside her on
the shoulder of the highway.
She was maybe 27 or 28, attractive and maybe even glamorous, but
looked very tired and unkempt. She started fighting with a hefty piece of
luggage and her purse as she crossed the road and walked in the direction
of the decaying car. A strand of wavy blonde hair fell out of her kerchief
and harassed her face. She tried to blow it away with a sideways style
facial contortion, but was unsuccessful.
20
He didn’t make even the slightest move to help the obviously
distressed woman. He closed his eyes and shook his head, muttering
under his breath. “Fucking ‘ell.”
She pushed her sunglasses onto her headscarf and looked at him
with big eyes and frustrated abandon, but he refused to move. The closer
she got to him, the less they looked at each other, until eye contact was
impossible as the roof blocked their views.
Still clinging to the heaving burden, she pounded twice on the
trunk lid. He looked in his rearview mirror and saw her motioning
furiously for him to open the trunk. He slid his hand forward, grasped the
automatic trunk release, paused slightly, and then yanked back firmly.
The plastic was cold and he removed his hand swiftly, rubbing it on his
dark gray slacks.
The trunk yawned and she finished the little drama by roughly
depositing the bulky case into the awaiting aperture, and with disdain and
fury she slammed the lid with a looming finality. Then she remembered
the others, and looked over with desperation.
He turned on the ignition and pulled away from her.
She was so shocked at the imposition that her eyes seemed ready
to pop out. She took two quick steps, hoping to chase him down, but her
high heals slipped in the loose gravel. Just when she thought he was gone
for good, and she had been abandoned, the car slowed and pulled a large
u-turn in the middle of the highway and came back towards her.
21
The man pulled to the side, nearly hitting her bags. The car
sputtered to a stop. He popped the trunk release, got out and loaded the
additional three bags with difficulty.
The woman crossed the road just as he got back in the drivers side.
By the determined look on his face, she was undecided whether she was to
be a victim of hit and run.
She pulled up on the door handle twice, but it didn’t open. He slid
across the saddle blanket style 60/40 split bench-seat cover and released
the lock.
Opening the door roughly she threw her purse on the seat beside
him before swinging in her left leg and sitting down. The seat complained
as she adjusted her posture and shut the door. She was all about
adjustments, wiggling and agitation. She fought with the shoulder strap,
trying to make sure that her coat was smoothed down in just the right
way…and her skirt was twisted in an ungodly and uncomfortable way.
Her face wore her awkward composure like an expensive fashion
accessory.
The silence was broken only when he jangled the keys. He
slithered the ignition key in place with all the gentleness of a ham-fisted
boxer, turned the barrel, releasing the locked steering column with a click.
The car stammered at his first attempt, but after pumping the gas pedal
three and one-half times exactly, the mighty four cylinders awoke and a
hack of exhaust wheezed from his broken tailpipe.
He revved the gas a couple of times, put his foot on the brake and
shifted the automatic into drive. Column shift, but did they come with
22
another option? With a surprising smoothness the car glided from the
rough shoulder onto the lovely highway.
She reached out to the heater controls, he didn’t stop her, but he
did watch her manicured fingers slide the temperature switch to full and
turn on the fan. She retracted her hand mechanically and undid the top
two buttons of her bulky coat.
They drove in silence, not one word escaping mouth. Not one
syllable or even a cough.
Minutes transformed into an hour as the road snaked around the
feet of mountains, still following the valley floor. The snow was starting to
come down in a steady patter so he turned on the wipers. With little
moisture the wipers smeared the windshield into a viscous muddy blur,
totally obscuring their view, even with the squirting fluid.
She glanced over debating whether to speak, while he looked
firmly ahead. Like a coiled spring she sat in what appeared to be a barely
contained agitation. He was obsessed with nervously checking his rear
view mirror, and then the sky.
At a corner he came in too fast and nearly lost control. The brakes
locked briefly until he regained control at the last second. Slipping on a
patch of ice he corrected the swerving vehicle.
“You know your tire is getting flat?” She said in a squeaky voice
that she lowered mid sentence to sound sterner.
“Yeah, I know.” His voice was rough, hoarse, but still somehow
younger sounding than it should be.
Now that the ice was broken, so to speak, she started on him.
23
“You could have helped me with the bag.”
“Hmm…I don’t know. I don’t remember anyone mentioning
that,” he said in a heavy English accent.
“Common sense,” she sighed. “ I’m not that big, it’s just a bulky
coat.”
“Oh.”
“It’s a very stylish look right now.”
“If you say so.”
“Shouldn’t we introduce ourselves?” She asked, aggravated. She
opened her purse and removed a stick of gum, but didn’t take her burning
glare off the side of his face.
“No…does it really matter?” Then thinking about it a moment he
admitted, “I know your name, but I mean everyone knows your name.
Maybe you should come up with an alias. Should I remind you that we’re
undercover, sunshine?”
“Look, we are going to be together for awhile. I think we should
act like humans.” She waited, but received no response.
She chewed her gum quickly moving it from side to side in her
mouth. Her tongue was playing conductor to her cinnamon symphony.
They drove in silence as she sat waiting for an answer and he
continued to check his rear view nervously, ignoring the question.
Telephone poles passed them like thin waiters rushing by with steaming
plates of spilling spaghetti.
24
It was beginning to get dark, as he checked his gas gauge. Still a
quarter of a tank left, but he was getting hungry. He slid grimy fingers
through greasy hair. He was dying to clean up.
“Fine I won’t use my real name,” she said as if it were the
stupidest thing she’d ever heard. “You can call me…” she paused; he
looked over nervously expecting her to say her real name, “Sara.”
He did a quick double take and said, “Right then.”
“You’re Rick, right?”
“Uh huh.” He grunted.
“I’m not used to people acting this way.”
“How do you mean?”
“Usually when I meet people they become very chatty… and
everyone has questions to ask me. Usually the same questions.”
“Hmm…”
“I’ve been trying to place your accent, but I’m having a little bit of
trouble…where are you from?”
“Britain.”
“I’ve figured that much out,” she smirked with a large scoop of
sarcasm. “What area?”
“Uh, Kent, but I’ve moved around a lot,” he said with a quick side
shift of his eyes.
“I hear a little bit of everything, a real mélange. London. Oxford.
Liverpool. It’s very confusing. When I starred in Romeo Brava we filmed
in and around Wolverhampton and I had to put on a very convincing
25
English accent. Over the eight weeks I stayed there I became very adept at
picking out different dialects from amongst the locals.
He blinked, quickly shifting his gaze back to the onrushing road.
Barely a split second went by and he had checked the time, looked in his
rear view and back to the road.
“I always liked the name Sara, but not in a dreamy, Sunday
afternoon way.” She stared off into nowhere. “…more in a studious, hard
working sort of way. A girl with a keen attention to detail, and the balls to
say her piece.”
“Okay, drop the Sara thing. It’s stupid and one of us is sure to
cock it up eventually.”
She shook her head in disapproval, but continued to discuss her
fondness for the name Sara. He sat oblivious to the monologue as she
crossed her legs, and preened herself like a prize Siamese, while at the
same time etching a hole in him with her laser gaze.
“You’re not a very cheerful guy, are you?”
“Suppose not. I guess you could say I’m optimistically
pessimistic.”
“Come again?”
He grinned with a smug look of self-satisfaction, almost
whispering, “That is to say that I almost looked forward to things turning
out as badly as I predict they will.”
“I’ve just decided,” she sneered, “that I don’t like the man sitting
beside me, even more now than when I first got in the car.”
26
“You talking to me?” Rick asked in confusion, but didn’t receive a
response.
The rash glowing lights of a small cheesy motel glared further on
down the highway. He debated with himself whether to push on and try
to make the little town of Outin proper a few more miles down the road.
As he approached his expectation he stumbled on the one-yard
line. He was anticipating the motel to be rundown, one of the letters either
not working or missing completely, but the Outin Inn looked immaculate.
“At first I thought that sign said ‘vagrancies’,” She giggle with her
wide movie star smile, but her eyes were dead serious. She stared at him
through the reflection in her make-up compact.
In the end, and at the last possible minute, he stood hard on the
brakes and turned sharply at the sign that said ‘re-zoning’ into the snow
covered gravel parking lot under the neon sign that was flashing
‘vacancies’.
She bumped her shoulder on the door roughly at the unexpected
maneuver. “Idiot!”
The driveway was well groomed and the landscaping was top
notch. Fresh paint stained the modern looking, although obviously
recently renovated, establishment. Rick seemed pleasantly surprised by
the condition of the little motel.
He shut off the lights and the engine coasting into the parking
stall. Rick noticed the skeleton of a partially completed construction
peeking out from behind the little motel. He grabbed the laptop out of the
backseat and quickly jumped out of the car, slinging the computer over his
27
back like a quiver of arrows, but not before flipping the trunk release
button.
Jenny sat silently as he removed her bulky bags and his own
modest duffel from the trunk. He slammed the trunk with the weight of
the world and started to paddle off across the gravel. He didn’t look back
to see if she was following, and she didn’t. She finished checking her
pockets for an odd or sod and followed shortly.
The proprietor came right away hearing the electric ring of the
door sensor when Rick entered. He broke even more stereotypes. Rick
imagined that it would be a fat beer swilling pig, or better yet a screeching
fishwife man hater with a moth eaten old bathrobe and a head full of
rollers. This, the manager was not. He was well dressed, and good
looking with graying patches on the sides of his head. His glasses were
perched studiously in front of his lively eyes.
“Hello! Can I help you?”
“Uh…yeah. I’d like to get a couple of single rooms for the night.”
Rick mumbled as he set the bags down on the floor with a rough thump.
Jenny walked in the door behind them.
“I’m sorry I’ve only got one single. With the new highway
bypassing this place I hardly ever get anyone, so I rent out the whole place
to the construction workers. I only keep one spare, and that’s only
because, well, it doesn’t matter… but you’re married?”
“No!” Rick paused pushing a few greasy strands of his hair from
his furrowed brow. “This isn’t going to work.” He said more to himself
than to the others.
28
“Oh come on cousin, we’re family. It’s not like we didn’t take
baths together as kids…remember?” Jenny cooed trying to remember the
accents they used in Fargo.
Turning back to the manager with a frown Rick put his hand on
the counter. “What’s wrong with the room?” He asked shooting Jenny a
dirty look, and a raised eyebrow of disapproval, over his shoulder.
“Nothing since the renovation a couple years back, before the
fire…” he eyed the pair suspiciously.
Rick could see it was a long road he didn’t want to travel.
“Fine we’ll take it.”
“Great. Could I please see two pieces of identification?” He
looked up through bushy eyebrows. “The nightly charge is forty five
dollars per room.”
“Here.” Rick slapped a couple of plastic I.D. cards on the counter.
“Say what’s with all the construction around here?”
“Oh, well I’m glad you asked. This large property is my little
project. I bought it a few years ago, reasonably too. After the new
highway went in this place was empty, but I’ve decided to turn property
into a destination casino. It’s taken me the last three years just to get the
approval. Actually, the motel is going to be destroyed next year, right now
I’m renting it out to the construction guys until they finish the work.”
“Huh…”
“There are full color brochures in all the rooms as well as artists
renderings on the walls.” Looking at Jenny closely for the first time he
29
paused in a brief moment of recognition. “Aren’t you…” but he didn’t
have the chance to finish.
“No, this is my cousin from Dakota. She gets that all the time.”
Rick quickly blurted out.
The owner perked up with a huge grin, “South or North?”
“South.” Rick exclaimed.
Jenny spoke at the same time, “North.”
Rubbing his chin, the manager asked, “Well which is it? It can’t be
both, surely.”
Jenny improvised, “I come from a small town called Jesper, in
northern South Dakota. It’s right on the border. I was born on the south,
but moved to the north side of the street a couple of years ago.”
“I see,” he said, placated. “So I guess you wouldn’t know my
Auntie Ethel then?”
She shook her head tossing her luscious head of hair innocently,
“Sorry, no.”
“I’m dying to take a shower.” Rick murmured under his breath.
“Well I must say it is a remarkable resemblance…you know when
you looked up at the light I could have sworn you were…”
“Yeah, well like I said, she’s not.” Rick signed the register and
picked up his identification, replacing it with a hundred dollars and a
wink.
“Oh. Bungalow 9. Out the door, turn right, across the parking lot,
the one on the end. If you have any questions about the casino, please
don’t hesitate to ask...” With a jingle kathump the key and fob sprawled
30
from the managers hand onto the counter top where they were hungrily
scooped up.
“Say, you don’t happen to sell mints here do you?” Rick asked.
“No, but the little café round the side does.”
“Fantastic.” Things looked up a little, he thought briefly.
“But it’s not open until tomorrow morning.”
“Oh.” Then again maybe not.
The manager pointed to the aluminum case Rick was carrying.
“Excuse me, but is that a laptop computer?”
Looking down apprehensively Rick nodded, “s’right.”
“Well, I’ve even got a web site! My nephew did it up in his spare
time.”
“You don’t say.”
“It has all sorts of information. www.OutinInn.casino.com, in case
you are interested.
“Yeah, maybe I’ll have a look, aright.”
“Just thought I’d mention it. Have a nice stay.”
“Thank you, sir!” Jenny tore off one of her disposable plastic
smiles: teeth, but no eyes.
As they were struggling across the gravel driveway with their
bags Rick turned to Jenny. “You love that shite, don’t you? I would have
thought that you’d be sick of that crap after all this time.” She was
oblivious to the disdain that seeped through his teeth.
“I do love it!” She grinned. “…But you’d be surprised how
quickly people forget. It’s only been a year and these days it seems I
31
hardly ever get people asking me. Maybe after all the bad press people are
a little afraid to come up to me. One day all that will change and I’ll be
back on top. You’ll see.” Her eyes glowed under the neon sign with a look
of determination, and even a devilish burning.
The door slammed behind them and Rick flicked on the light
switch with his elbow. The room was small, but neat. It had a miniature
bed, a couple of armchairs, and a TV bolted down in the corner. Music
was bleeding through the walls from an adjacent bungalow, loud voices
from another.
“I’ll sleep on the floor.” He said without looking at her.
“I wouldn’t expect any less.”
Rick nodded, “Nice touch with all the Dakota stuff.”
“It’s what I do. Hey, look I don’t like this situation any more than
you.” She threw her suitcase on the bed and removed a separate, smaller
bag of her toiletries. “End justifies the means.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.” Then with a shake of her head she removed her blonde
wig to reveal a head of jet-black hair, “Look. I can see this isn’t going to
32
work if we keep butting heads. We’ve got to try to get along, or at the very
least be civil.” She placed a lilting hand on his shoulder. “I can’t be
expected to perform under these circumstances.”
He seemed surprised at the wig, since her hair was normally
blonde anyway. “You wot? Oh, whatever.” With a sigh of fatigue, he
pushed the limp hair from his face.
It was obvious by the strained look on her face that she was dying
to discuss the situation at length, and his face mirrored back dread. Instead
of pursuing the issue she went mysteriously into the bathroom with her
gear. He sat puzzling at the odd behavior before attempting to construct
his makeshift bed on the floor by the wall.
He listened to her rattling things, rummaging. She didn’t shut the
door completely, he suspected on purpose. After a few minutes he could
see her sugaring her legs through the crack.
“So how do you know Salvador?” She asked too loudly, as if a
radio were playing in the shower stall. The words bounced around the
little room like an aggressively thrown super ball.
“Sal? I saved his ass a couple of times way back in the day and he
mine… but I haven’t talked to him or even seen him for a couple of
years…not until the call I got a couple of weeks ago.”
“Were you in Spain together?”
“Spain?” Rick queried.
“Yeah. Isn’t he from Spain of something?” She asked distractedly.
“On your bike. He’s from New Jersey or some such. Wot made
you think that he was from Spain, then?”
33
“Well, the accent of course.”
Rick’s automatic defense alarms were going off all over the place.
The water started to loudly fill the bathtub when he lay his head down on
the thin motel pillow. She coyly cracked the door open a little more. He
could only briefly glance a flash of skin passed by the door.
“So how do you know Salvador then?” She splashed one smooth
leg into the steaming hot water.
“Like I’ve said we’ve been through shite together…I can’t really
remember where we first met,” he said cryptically.
“He must have a lot of faith in you to split the pot three ways.” She
was fishing.
“I don’t know all the plans, but he told me I was indispensable.”
Rick cast his own bait.
“You mean you don’t know the details either?” she sputtered
incredulously. Her world had just taken a funny spin.
“Not half…” he stumbled uncertainly. “I assumed you two had
worked this all out.”
“So you have no details?” Jenny craned her neck to make eye
contact through the doorway.
“Honestly, no.”
Rick mumbled too quietly for her to hear, “The only time a woman
is honest is when she is deflating a man’s ego.”
“So why are you?”
“Wot?”
34
“Involved in this. You don’t know anymore about this scheme
than I do, and yet you’re still willing to get involved?”
“The money.”
“Is that all it comes down to?”
“That’s usually the best reason, init?” he asked. Then after he
reflected on his own words a moment, “I’ve got my reasons, but yeah
that’s pretty much the main one. What did he tell you about this?”
“Not a hell of a lot. Something about a hundred million dollars,
Malta, and fame. That’s what I’m in it for, the fame and a chance at my big
comeback.”
“Pull the other one,” Rick muttered bitterly under his breath.
“What did you say,” Jenny asked.
“Nothing. Malta?” Rick whispered, turning over onto his side.
He was very suspicious, but didn’t seem particularly threatened by Jenny.
“You know something? I observe people, study them,” she
paused to loofa her shoulders, “and you really haven’t asked me anything
about myself. That tells me more about you then if you had. You didn’t
even ask me what happened to my brother like everyone else does.”
She bent forward to see if Rick was peeking at her through the
crack of the door. She grinned helplessly hoping to catch his voyeurism,
but he wasn’t looking. This was going to be tougher than she thought.
She was giving him a rare opportunity that most of her public would give
their right arms for, but he was showing no interest.
“None of my business.”
35
“Aren’t you curious? I mean you know my public side. Everyone
wants to know what really happened. You didn’t bring up the scandal at
all.”
“If you want me to know then you’ll tell me. If it’s important for
you to tell me stuff go right ahead.” He didn’t care if she kept yakking;
he’d slept through worse.
“You don’t really care, though, do you?”
“Not really.”
That was the last he heard of her before he drifted off, except for
little splishy-splashy noises. She was pouting amongst the suds.
36
Chapter 3
The screen door crashed behind him as he entered the kitchen. He
kicked the wooden door shut with his old muddy boot and set the eggs
down on the counter with his dirty, knotted old hands. Grime darkened
his fingernails, and tarnished the plain wedding band on his finger.
He wiped his soiled hands on his already soiled coveralls and put
the back of his hand close to the coffee pot to check for heat. Probably in
his early 70’s, but he still seemed alert, fit, and even spry. Country life and
fresh air had preserved his spirit if not his looks.
The kitchen was cluttered with dirty dishes and bric-a-brac. He
reached out for the nearest and cleanest coffee mug, filling it without so
much of a rinse or swirl. A vague muffled shuffling sound rustled under
his feet in the cellar.
The coffee was strong and bitter, but that’s how he liked it.
Sometimes he made it so strong he could barely choke it back, just to see
37
how much he could take. A little test to remind himself that he still had it.
He always drank it all.
Looking out his kitchen window he could see the snow falling on
his fallow field. It reminded him of the chill. He rushed to put more wood
on the fire. Again there was a sound of movement coming from the cellar.
He made a mental note that he would see to that next on his list.
He loved to make lists, prioritize everything according to their
relative importance versus their enjoyment value. He always left the most
favorable task on the bottom of the list. He was an undiagnosed pleasure
denier. Lately, though, he had put aside the pleasurable tasks longer and
longer, and when he finally got around to them he had lost all excitement.
There is a saying that “the anticipation of the act is worse than the act
itself”. Replace worse with best and that summed him up. He always
completed each task; he took pride in that, no matter how menial or
frivolous.
A single ornate picture frame sat on the side table beside the
couch. He picked it up gazing thoughtfully at the image it contained.
Fingering the pewter vines, the velvet back in his rough callused hands,
the knucklebones protruding in obscene lumps.
The woman in the old photo was pretty young. Not to say that she
was at all attractive, but she was fairly young. It appeared to have been
taken in the early sixties, definitely post World War II judging by the hair.
A welders mask perched on her head, matching the gloves and torch. She
smiled in her black and white lipstick and rouge, and he smiled back.
38
“Every time I look at you you’re smiling, honey. It must be
beautiful where you are…” he winked with his charming smile, and his
Paul Newman eyes.
He turned on the old Philips cabinet TV set to drown out the
sounds from the basement; he wasn’t ready for that yet.
“How the hell am I going to make fire with no wood Maggie?” He
asked aloud looking at the woodpile beside his little fireplace. It had
shrunk to just five good logs and a few scraps. He grinned, now he could
put off the cellar task even longer.
“The place is so cold without you…the whole world is a cold place
since you left.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “Listen to me I’m doing
it again. Every time I start up it’s the same old thing. I tell you about the
house needing painting in the summer, the truck needs a new starter…I
miss you. Jeez even after all these years I can’t tell you how I feel, straight
out like…beat around the bush, I don’t know…”
Sitting down on the hearth, he took his head in his hands. He
removed his straight brimmed trucker cap, scratched at his head and
looked out the window.
“I’m doing my best to keep up my end of the bargain, you know
that, but it is ever so hard sometimes. I’m not cut out for it, I suppose.
Worst of all, I can’t hardly remember stuff like I used to. My lists are
getting all…mixed up. I’m old and tired, and angry about it.”
He got up, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. A look of
determination crept over his face as his jaw tightened.
39
“But I’m pretty sure that this is the last one. I know I’ve said it
before, but this is it Maggie, I’m pretty sure. I just wish you had written it
all down...” He rubbed his chin. His eyes were still moist.
He chuckled, “Now I can retire.” .
Picking up his decrepit axe, the handhold well worn, he stomped
twice on the rough wood plank floor, loosening the dried mud stuck in his
boot treads. A muffled cry seeped up through the spaces in the wood. He
grinned, giggled, and went outside through the kitchen door sipping the
dregs of his mug on the way by.
He came back in with his hands full of freshly chopped lumber.
The axe dangled through the gaping hole in his back pocket. He was
breathing in heaving gasps as he set his load down heavily on the hearth.
He went over his list as he rekindled the fire, but couldn’t think of
anything that needed doing other than the cellar task. No furrowing of
brow or scratching of chin could put off the task any longer. With a tired
sigh of disappointment he resigned himself to the fun part of his day. The
chase always was sweeter than the catch.
He went to the tiny hall closet and opened the door to hang up his
hat. As the door creaked open, it was difficult to be sure because he
moved quickly, but you could swear that there were dead geese hanging
mangled from clothes hangers. Blood stained their pristine white feathers,
or at least that’s what it appeared to be at a glance. They could easily have
been bibs stained with rib sauce; the imagination is a slippery elm. The
door shut quickly as he scrunched up his nose.
40
Unbolting the three heavy locks on the cellar door he pulled it
open with gritting hesitation. The light came on cold and easy, but the
stairs protested with each step. He reached out for the axe in his pocket.
His steps shuffled when he reached the landing, turned to the left
and descended the final three steps. The floor of the cellar was laid with
wood as well, but the boards weren’t affixed to the dirt floor beneath.
They teetered and yawned with each heavy step. In the unlit corner
something struggled with more muffled cries, like a rusty blade in
cellophane.
“Now, now” said the old man pulling the chain on another bulb
dangling from the low ceiling.
Feet shuffled, sounds of ripping fabric.
“There, is that better?” he asked.
More shuffling.
“Okay I’m going to remove the gag now, just hold still honey.”
Screaming pierced the near silence like a septic spike. It sounded
like a young woman in obvious distress.
“My my…things have taken a nasty turn, haven’t they? Tsk, tsk.
That’s it now, let it all out,” he said over the continuing din, “Scream your
pretty little head off dear. No one will hear you, and I’ve gotten used to
the sound after all these years.”
“HELP! SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!”
“I can help you with those ropes if you like.”
“St-stay away from me!” She cried, before bursting out screeching
again.
41
“Look why don’t you just calm down?” Now the old man seemed
angry. “I don’t like this anymore than you do.”
A cat sat on the landing looking at the scene, listened to the sounds
of struggling, boots and shoes scuffing on the floor. More sounds of
ripping. Clothing, hair, skin? The cat looked on, but could only see the
frantic movement of limbs, and the old man’s back. It sounded like
someone was splashing around a bucket of water down there, too, but the
cat knew better. The old man began grunting, as the sound of heavy blows
bounced off all the objects in the room. Perhaps he was showing the girl
how to chop wood.
When he was done he pulled the chain to darken the mess.
“Shoo!” He yelled at the cat, but the cat did not stir. It looked at
him with contempt.
“I will not get tangled up with you again. One trip falling down
the stairs and nearly breaking my back was enough. Move!”
He brought the axe in a side swing; there wasn’t enough room to
use his full strength. The cat dove out of his way at the last second, and
the teeth of the axe bit deep into the landing. Somewhere hidden in the
shadows the cat’s eyes reflected back a green hatred.
He dragged the axe up the stairs hitting the back of its bloody
head on each one. Chunk, kachunk, chunk.
His face was splattered with crimson stains. Bored fatigue
shrugged over him like a wet blanket as he climbed the stairs and opened
the door. He sighed heavily with finality, knowing that he had hit a rut as
he reached for the faucet to wash his implement of murder.
42
“Sorry Maggie, I made a mess of that one. Just got carried away.
I’ll keep the next one neat, in the pre-scribed way…or was that the last
one?” He said shaking his head.
“No I think there is just one more to go.”
His eyes were heavy as he finished washing up, staring out at
infinity. He reached out for a cigarette. It was his little ritual. He wasn’t a
smoker, but after every excursion into the cellar he would smoke a single
cigarette and recline on the settee to unwind. It was an old habit he picked
from his days in the army.
He lay down on the couch and inhaled like an addict as he closed
his eyes. It wasn’t something he planned to do; he just wanted a quick
rest. Just for a minute he promised, but in the shadows and his emotional
vexations he fell asleep deep, and transposed in a filament of incandescent
luxury. His face buried in a throw pillow, and it probably saved his life.
The cigarette dropped cherry red, anchor to the boat of fate and
despair. As the sun began its helpless fall from grace the carelessly
discarded magazines on the uncarpeted pine floor began to smolder. One
could already smell disaster.
He awoke under a blanket of flames and turmoil. Screaming
unintelligibly he swam through the waves of smoke, the brimstone licking
at his ass like a sad prison lapdog. He fought for purchase as his feet
struggled for surety. He reached out and grabbed the picture of his
beloved Maggie, shoving it under his shirt for protection.
43
After a quick glance at the cellar door, his back ablaze he threw
himself through the back door of his farmhouse now burning and itching
like a bad hemorrhoid.
His body hit the snow with a fizzle thud. He rolled around in the
bank of flakes until he was certain that his clothes had been extinguished.
It was very early in the morning and the sun was only just opening its
eyes.
Looking upon the scene with revulsion he picked himself up and
tried to figure out his next move. He was not formally educated, but
bright nonetheless, and trained to survive by the army. This situation
would solve as many problems as it would cause. He looked upon this as
a chance to start anew, even at his advanced age.
His truck was broken down, but he retrieved an old sweater from
the floor of the musty, rusty Ford. After dressing he walked to the fire lit
back garden.
He rescued a small trowel from its resting-place and started to dig
the frozen ground near where a small patch of carrots might have grown
only months before. Eventually, after a little muttered cursing, his trowel
struck something. His strong tendoned hands grubbed the dirt away from
an old Nabob coffee tin. He retrieved his prize from the hole, dusting off
the lid gently. Pulling aside the lid he began putting fistfuls of bills into
the oversized pockets of his overalls. Thousands?
He dug another hole, just a foot or two from the first one and
grabbed a watch from the vast assortment tangled inside that rusty tin. He
looked over his garden and seemed to be counting all the holes he had
44
made over the years. He closed his eyes when he seemed to lose count
amongst the weeds.
He ran to the little outbuilding, adjacent to the house. Swinging
the double doors open, he started coaxing his very sedate Llamas from
their slumber. Most of the creatures were semi-dressed in women’s
clothing, one wore a ripped, but still striking blue blazer, another wore a
pith helmet and a short pair of tweed trousers.
“Go on you guys, get out of here!” He slapped the nearest Llama
lovingly on the rump. “Fire’s gonna getcha if you don’t.”
As the animals began to leave the little shed, he turned away with
a look of regret.
He broke the frame and extracted the precious photo. On the
back, in faded blue ink it said, “To my darling Charlie, never forget…love
Maggie”.
“I never will my love, I never will…”
45
Chapter 4
I sat, heavily disguised, in a corner booth at the motel coffee shop.
The fake beard was hot and itchy, but very necessary. I was trying my best
to watch the couple from afar without looking too conspicuous. Jenny had
removed her blonde wig, probably at Rick’s insistence.
I’d seen her get off the bus and get into his car. I’d followed that
bus for days. I finally get a burst of confidence to finally do something
about her, and she decides that very same morning to hop on a bus. A
bus! Not just a bus, but a Greyhound. Even without her knowledge she
had a man under her control, following her across the country from truck
stop to gas bar.
This was my first good look at her new companion, and it was
clear that he was a reluctant one. Disaster struck when I reached out for
my coffee mug. The metal clamps constituting my hand clanked against
the warm pottery.
46
I struggled with the mug, still trying to get used to my handicap
even though the ‘accident’ was almost a year ago. I was never able to
afford any real physiotherapy.
Molten Java dribbled over my shirt and crotch as I brought the
mug to meet my lips. I gritted my teeth at the burning liquid and tried to
part the hairy disguise to sip at the brew. I was getting used to the pain,
but that didn’t mean that I relished in it. I think I was developing thigh
calluses.
The couple was arguing about something. I was no lip reader, but
from body language I could tell that the guy is stoically trying to defend
himself against the raving Jenny.
I wished him good luck.
The male was trying to quietly eat some sort of omelet, barely
looking up. Jenny was discussing something loudly, but still just out of
earshot, sipping her prerequisite 2 liters of orange juice for breakfast, one
glass plain the other with a slice of lime.
I knew her routine inside out. I had been following her for a
couple of days, from truck stop to greasy spoon all along the bus route.
It’s not that she didn’t have the money to fly, although the lawyers did
take a massive slice of her pie, I’m sure. My theory was that she’d been
zigzagging for stealth. She never took a bus in her life, so she must be
pretty deep into something.
The guy seemed very paranoid and not a real smiler, possibly an
ex-cop. Then again I’ve always had an overactive imagination and knew
nothing about law enforcement. He looked in my direction twice, which
47
made me worried. I felt I should lay even lower, if that was possible. By
the way they were interacting I could tell that they weren’t old lovers, or
even friends, but I couldn’t make the connection between them. I began to
suspect that they were waiting for, or were going to meet, a third person,
maybe someone who would give them guidance. There seemed to be a
plan formulated, but this guy seemed about as lost as Jenny on the details.
This sharp dressed man, wrinkled suit aside, however, was an
unexpected new twist.
Rick. I picked up his name from her shouting across the room at
the guy. He was a speed bump to be driven over on my race to the finish
line if my subliminal ‘be more assertive’ tape had anything to do with it.
I was trying out my hard shell. I needed to remain in a heartless
mindset I tried to remind myself, if I was to succeed. I had to train myself
to become ruthless.
“Oh thanks.” I purred as Katherine, the overweight waitress, tried
to mop up some of the spilled coffee from my lap. “I can…”
She smiled up at me, “No trouble at all.”
“You’ve got to be careful your husband doesn’t see you in my lap.
He might get the wrong idea.”
“Oh you.” She snickered, moving along.
I bet she was pretty pretty once. Not just a casual good looking,
but a real stunner. Now most people wouldn’t look twice at her. I smiled
to myself. So many people don’t see the real beauty in a woman, and I felt
lucky that I had that gift.
48
Inspecting a doughnut being served at an adjacent table she asked,
trying to calm the situation, “Is that a long john or an éclair?”
“I don’t know. How can you tell the difference?” Rick said as he
smiled his deadpan smile at the waitress as she removed his finished order
of Spanish omelet.
“Isn’t one filled with cream?”
“Does it matter?” Rick’s voice was agitated as he snapped at the
oblivious Jenny. “This coffee is like a warm shot of penicillin.”
His voice smoothed as he fingered the freshly hand rolled pack of
smokes in his shirt pocket. He’d spent an hour rolling them, while Jenny
spent the whole time in the bathroom getting ready. He almost always felt
happy when he had a hot cup of coffee half emptied in his stomach. To
him it was like liquid therapy for his broken life.
“Probably made the same way too, moldy bread and all. You
really shouldn’t drink that stuff you know. I read an article in a magazine,
or…wait was it on TV…anyway…caffeine is really bad for you, causes all
sorts of health problems, and it’s bad for your skin.”
49
“Please,” he grinned, leaning forward on his elbows. “You don’t
know what you’re talking about. I’ve done a ton of research into health
concerns, and the way I drink it, it’s healthy, right?”
“Really? I thought you were an ex-bodyguard or something.”
“Who told you that?”
Jenny looked puzzled. “Salvador. I thought that was one of the
reasons you were involved. From what I could gather this could get fairly
dangerous…” she said with a spoonful of lurid curiosity.
He stared back evasively, “No, I am not. Anyway, getting back to
the point…I know about the problems with caffeine, but none of it is life
threatening, so who cares. The way they report things you’re going to die
from pretty much everything anyway, who wants to live their life in a
bubble?”
A moment of silence fell as the two tried to think things through,
feel the other out. Rick slugged back a mouth full of coffee.
“So you’re a medical researcher then?”
She was fishing, knowing that he was avoiding disclosure. The
whole deal suddenly became more convoluted. She wondered if she could
believe anything either one of them said. In the back of her mind the
prize, however slim the odds of receiving it were, outweighed any risks.
“No, but I have been trained in first aid,” he said with a dismissive
shrug, “among other things.”
“So you didn’t go to medical school,” she reasoned aloud, he
shook his head almost imperceptibly in response. “Hmm. University?”
“I’ve been educated,” he dodged.
50
“Which one?” she parried.
“Small one in the North. I’ve been to all kinds of schools over the
years, but the one that taught me the most was…”
She interrupted before he could finish, “Let me guess…the school
of hard knocks? How perfectly stereotypical.”
“Actually I was going to say CIT, but it seems like you have me all
figured out in that pee brain of yours already.”
“Oh.”
She wasn’t used to anyone talking to her that way, not out of a
courtroom or off a movie set anyway.
Rick plunked down some cash on the table. He didn’t look at the
bill; he knew what it would be.
“Come on,” he said with a quick nod. “We should get going.
We’ve still got at least six hours of driving to do.”
“In a minute…I just want to finish my…hey is that snow?”
Rick turned to look out the window. When he turned back he
noticed that Jenny had taken a five from the little stack of bills he had left.
Why would she of all people need five dollars, he wondered.
Then it came to him.
She was either more desperate than he imagined, or more crazy.
The lawyer’s fees had been heavy, everyone knew that, but the stories in
the press said she had put away millions in overseas bank accounts.
Before he could feel sympathy for her his mouth was tainted.
He followed the trial as much as anyone. He had always thought
she was guilty.
51
They got up to leave. Jenny fought with the bulky sleeves on her
coat. She clumsily knocked over her half full glass of orange juice,
breaking the glass and spilling its contents everywhere. Rick grabbed her
roughly by the elbow and led her hurriedly out the door.
“Something tells me my luck is about to change.” I said with a shy
smile. I turned when I heard the glass splinter. “Oh shit I gotta go.” I
quickly stood up grabbing for my satchel.
She smiled with a lecherous wink, “Have a nice day.”
By the time I had gotten into my car Jenny and the guy she was
with had already driven nearly out of sight.
I revved the engine, spraying loose gravel. Once I hit the highway
I tried to stay well back to avoid detection.
I caught up to them quickly, but hopefully not too quickly. I could
just see Jenny turning to look at Rick with her mouth flapping like a dog
with its head out a car window. Loquacious as ever, I thought.
52
“I had a…” she paused, searching for a word.
“Yes, get on with it.”
“A dream last night.” Something in her voice, or her body
language, hinted that what she was about to relate was more that simply a
dream, but he didn’t seem to pick up on this.
“Really? What was it about?”
She looked surprised at his reaction. She reached into her purse
for her compact to powder a shiny spot on her forehead.
“I find it very hard to believe that you are interested in one of my
dreams.”
He chuckled, a dry choking sound from deep in his esophagus.
“I’m very interested in the prophetic power of dreams. I’m very skeptical
of most of the claims,” he warned, “but interested.”
He looked out his window. He could feel her eyes burning a hole
in the side of his face again.
“Doesn’t seem like something you’d be interested in. You don’t
seem very spiritual to me. I used to be the same. My parents were
atheists.”
“Mine are catholic, and very devoted. Isn’t it funny how far the
fruit can fall from the tree.”
53
“So you’re an atheist?”
“Self described Agnostic.”
“Well I don’t really know what that is…”
“I keep searching for the little man behind the curtain. I think he
peeks out from time to time, in different ways. I know that everything
isn’t the way it seems from our tiny perception, but I don’t want to believe
in a god, big or little g…not the way that we’ve been taught.”
“That’s why I’m interested in dreams, real dreams. On one hand
people are dishonest, intentionally or not, and will deceive for their own
reasons, so I am skeptical.” Rick continued, “However, if related honestly,
I think dreams can be a snapshot of something bigger than all this.” Rick
gestured widely with his free arm.
Jenny looked at him thoughtfully.
“So what was the dream?” He asked.
“I was on a hill. Everything was white, and it seemed like sand
covered everything, but it was so cold that it must have been snow. There
was a man beside me. I couldn’t see the man, he was hidden behind a tree,
but I could hear him talking to me.”
“What was he saying?” Rick said, drawing his attention from the
road.
“Well, that’s just it. I couldn’t understand the language, but I
knew that he was trying to tell me something important. At last an arm
emerged from behind the tree. He was pointing to a spyglass. I hadn’t
noticed that before, but there it was. He was gesturing for me to look
through the glass.”
54
“And did you?” Rick was squinting at a car in his rearview
mirror.
“I did. I saw an old man standing by the side of a road. I knew
that the man was in trouble, and he needed my help. Then the voice from
behind the tree started to make sense.”
“Now you could understand it?”
“Yes. I can’t remember the exact words, but basically if I came to
this old man’s aid, then he would return the favor four times.”
What she didn’t tell Rick was that it wasn’t a dream she had, but
he’d never believe her if she told him the truth, of that she was certain. She
also didn’t happen to mention to him that the voice behind the tree, the
avatar of her particularly strange religious cult, warned her three times
how dangerous the old man was. She didn’t seem to think that part was
important.
From her make-up bag she asked, “What do you make of it?”
“Well, to be honest, I don’t think it has much to do with prophesy,
this one. I think it can be analyzed much more scientifically. The old man
probably represents…”
“That’s him!” She screamed.
There, by the side of the road, was an old man.
She yanked the steering wheel from Rick’s loose grip, and cranked
it hard to the right. The balding tires skidded recklessly on the soft
shoulder.
“Oi!” Rick blasted, trying to wrestle control of the car. His foot
stamped down hard on the brake.
55
They were now on a violent collision course with the old
hitchhiker. Rick’s face contorted into a fancy grimace of tension, while
Jenny’s eyes were wide with terror. Her mouth was slightly ajar, and she
began to shriek in panic.
The old man seemed only slightly interested in the pouncing K car.
He took a few casual steps back from the road.
The car missed him by a fraction of an inch.
The rural countryside monotony blurred by my window for two
and a half hours as I sat watching the two bicker constantly from afar.
Although, it was mostly nagging from her side, and quick-witted
defensive jabs from him, I imagined. Even from a safe distance I could see
her wearing down his patience as she had mine on numerous occasions.
Suddenly the car swerved to a grinding stop on a narrow
shoulder. An old man, whom I didn’t notice before, ran up to the car and
reached out for the door handle with a smile. As I passed the trio, I
couldn’t just pull over until they were ready to be pursued again; the old
56
man was clambering into the back seat. I felt that the man, Rick, might
have made eye contact with me.
“Shit! What the hell is going on here? Who the fuck is grandpa?!”
I yelled loudly.
I couldn’t tackle the old man’s part in all of it, and wondered what
else they had in store for me.
“Hello. Thanks for the ride. Much obliged.” Charlie adjusted
himself with the seat belt.
“No problem at all. You must be freezing…here let me turn up the
heater.” Jenny grinned. She still seemed to be glassy eyed from relating
her vision.
Rick looked both surprised at Jenny’s prophetic ‘dream’, and
angry that there was a major wrinkle in their plan, she isn’t
“Thanks ma’am…very kind.”
“What the hell are we going to do now?!” Rick raged.
“Is this some sort of hidden camera show or sumthin’? I mean,
aren’t you…”
“No, she isn’t!” Rick shouted.
57
“Yes, I am!” Jenny shouted simultaneously.
“I knew I recognized you…where’s the camera?”
“There ain’t no camera, buddy.”
“Huh?” Charlie said, perplexed.
“Oh don’t pay attention to him, he’s just a big grumpy Gus.”
Jenny wagged a limp hand in Rick’s general direction.
“Don’t you usually have blonde hair?”
She explained with an air of imperialism, “I felt like a change.”
“So what brings a celebrity like you all the way out here?”
“A better question would be ‘where are you headed’ pal.” Rick
asked.
Charlie thought about the question. He knew he couldn’t go back
and he had nowhere else to go. For the first time in his life he was free and
his brain slipped a cog. Seeing her in the car had thrown his internal list
all out of whack. He tried to cover his lapse with a laid back casual
answer, but for some reason he was spooked.
“The airport, I suppose.”
Rick raised an eyebrow at the indecisive statement.
Jenny seemed pleased. “Wow what a coincidence…that’s where
we’re headed too! It’ll give us plenty of time to get to know each other.”
“Well that’s just fine.” Charlie searched his pockets for something.
A car sped past them on the lonely highway. It was the car that
Rick had been watching through the rearview mirror. He turned to see the
driver, but he was unable to concentrate on the driver’s features because
Jenny’s nasally whine distracted him
58
“Let’s introduce ourselves. I’m… ”
“He knows who you are.” Rick interrupted Jenny.
“Hello, I’m Jenny Haniver, and this grump is Rick.”
Rick cringed inside as she said his name. He tried to throw her a
dirty look, but it was an incomplete pass. She was letting too many cats
out of too many bags, and spilling beans that didn’t need spilling.
“I’m Charlie, pleased to meet you. Thanks again for the ride, it’s a
mite bit chilly out thar.”
Rick eyed Charlie up in the rearview with a suspicious glare there
was something…bad about the old guy. Time to probe.
“So Charlie who are you meeting at the airport?”
“Hmm? How do you mean? I ain’t meeting anyone.” Charlie
fidgeted with a loose thread from his heavy sweater.
“Well, I just assumed… you’re not carrying any baggage so…”
“Oh I see…”
Rick jibed, “Are you just going to watch the planes land. A little
outing?”
“Ah, no I’m catching a flight, I just like to travel light. Spur of the
moment, you know. I just buy what I need when I get there.”
“Where?”
“Department stores mainly. I don’t like to shop at any of those
fancy boutiques.”
“No I mean where are you flying to.”
Jenny looked over from her compact mirror. She didn’t like Rick’s
accusatory tone.
59
Charlie froze. Suddenly he broke into a cold sweat. He realized
that eventually someone was going to stumble upon the bodies, probably
cops following the smoke. Why, he wondered, had he been so confident?
They were onto him. Maybe Rick was involved in law enforcement. He
whipped out his revolver.
Rick caught the glimpse of a quick threatening movement in the
rearview and pulled out his gun, slammed on the brakes, and with one
hand fought the car to the side of the road. Lipstick streaked across
Jenny’s face in a broad burgundy smear, her eyes were wide with terror.
The car skidded to a messy halt on the soft shoulder, slamming
roughly into the barrier with a crushing scrape. No one moved and a
foreboding silence hung over the travelers. From where she was sitting
Jenny could see Rick’s beading concentration and the tense muscles on the
back of his gun hand, ligaments and tendons standing at a tense attention.
Out of the corner of her other eye she could see Charlie with a whimsical
casual fury clutching the gun in the back seat.
60
Jenny tried to remember her therapy sessions. She imagined
herself in a field of daisies, the scent of cinnamon and cloves drifted in the
breeze. She closed her eyes tight to focus on the vision. She put a portion
of a leaf under her tongue.
Time stopped.
She looked down to see herself clothed in a loose fitting simple
sari. Somewhere off to her left she heard someone playing a sitar. People
were clapping in time to the happy tune. Someone started in with a lilting
bamboo flute. She turned to see three Indian girls dancing to the music.
There were four men making the music sitting under a large patchwork
umbrella smiling at Jenny. She walked over to join the dance, her bare feet
moving quickly through the soft grasses and flowers.
Jenny looked up to the sky in a twisting rhythm. The clouds were
parting as wide as the smile on her face. From amongst the clouds came a
purple aura inflected with silver sparkles. Everyone looked up at the sky.
They were all happy for they knew He was coming.
He came riding a white swan from amongst the orange creamsickle clouds. He wore a tall hat like they have occasion to wear in the
Beltane. His skin was yellow, but he was not Asian. His skin was the
color of a deep mustard yellow and he had the features of an African. As
he got closer to Jenny she could see his eyes twinkled in a funhouse mirror
derangement of love and understanding.
He dismounted the swan and suddenly the flowers, the dancers,
and the smells were gone. She was twirling to a stop in the desert
61
surrounded by sand, heat, and a dry wind smelling of brimstone that
parched her lungs. He was still there and she felt calm.
“Master.”
“I am come.”
“I...”
“Say nothing. I have seen your fate and this is not the time of
leaving. You must go back and take control of this situation. Your
strength is great, your reason immense. A good word extinguishes more
than a pail-full of water."
“So is this the man that you pointed out from the hill.”
“The very same. Do not underestimate his sinister potential”
“What should I do?”
“The time for tests is come. This is the first in a series of many
which you face on your road to Illumination.”
“I understand Teacher, but…” Too late, the vision was gone ten
seconds after it had overcome her. Someone in the car was moving.
Rick slowly raised his free hand up to the gun. His eyes were still
locked on Charlie his face a chiseled relief of consolidated effort.
“We can work this out you two.” Jenny pleaded. “It doesn’t have
to be this way. We can all live to see the morning.”
Rick deftly wiggled his thumb to release the safety and at the same
time exhaled a large sigh of relief. He quickly glanced over at Jenny then
back at Charlie.
Five seconds went by and Charlie lost his resolve. Without
releasing pressure on the trigger he burst out laughing. Rick joined in
62
while also keeping the pistol trained on his target. Jenny giggled
nervously. The stress Rick had been feeling came out in laughing tears.
Jenny saw another opportunity.
“Okay we’ve got it out of our systems. Let’s put the guns away
and try to resolve this minor setback.”
Still giggling Charlie said, “I am not putting away this gun
without knowing where I stand.”
Rick’s grin faded rapidly. “I am not budging until he puts his gun
away first…besides I’d just as soon shoot him as shit on his face.”
“Now come on guys we’ve got to work together to solve this.”
Jenny said with a deep breath. I am the glue, she thought to herself. She
could tell that the threat had not passed, and that Charlie wasn’t anything
he appeared to be.
“Look Jenny, we have two choices here. Kill him or take him with
us. As far as I’m concerned he already knows too much, and I don’t feel
like lugging him all around the country with us.” Rick nodded towards
the old man, a drip of sweat rolling from his brow down his cheek.
“I’m pretty sure I can think of more than two options…Okay
Charlie what do you want to know?” Jenny asked with her best
comforting voice, the one she used in ‘Menaced by Nightingales’.
“What’s really going on here…is he a cop or something?
“No I’m not a cop…do I look like a fucking cop?”
“…Well no, but…then what’s with the twenty questions?” The
tension was fogging up the windows.
“Now just hold on here. I ain’t some ghost and ghoul…”
63
“What?” Both Charlie and Jenny asked.
“Ugh!” Rick spat. “Fool, it’s cockney for fool. And you ain’t just
some fucking hitchhiker.”
“Calm down Rick.” Jenny said, extending a hand to his knee.
“Look the way I see it is this turns out to be a blessing. Salvador did say
that we could use more help if we knew anyone…”
“He can’t be trusted, and God only knows what he’s up to…for all
we know he’s with them.”
Charlie stared at Rick’s intensity with abject confusion.
“Who’s them?” Jenny asked.
“Huh? I don’t know. Isn’t there a them?”
“You would know more than I would.”
“We can discuss that later.” Rick hissed through his tightly
clenched teeth.
“Listen Rick I’ve got an idea. We give Charlie here some options.
He can get out of the car right now and we all forget this ever happened.
We can take him to the airport and part all amicable like, or he sticks with
us, and potentially helps us out of a jam. The way I see it is the first sign
you can give us to trust you Charlie,” Jenny turned completely on the seat
to face him, “is to put the gun away and start playing nice.”
“How do you know I ain’t just some psycho and I’m fixin’ to shoot
you both right here and now, steal the car and head to the airport?”
“You look way too sensible to me Charlie, and I consider myself a
pretty good judge of character. Nobody here wants to see any bloodshed.”
64
Rick wasn’t too sure about the psycho part. Something about the
old man just didn’t jive. He seemed to have a sparkle of random madness
flickering in his old eyes.
“Besides, I was just telling Rick about a dream about picking up an
old…err older man, and here you are.”
Charlie grinned and lowered his weapon, “Well who am I to argue
with a dream.” He paused and then stuffed it back into his waistband.
Rick hesitated before backing off. He replaced his gun with an
uneasy little chuckle. “I can’t believe I left the safety on!”
“Mine wasn’t even loaded!” Charlie burst out in a hail of hot
laughter, Rick joined in with his own dry cackle. Jenny sat back in the seat
rubbing her neck with a sigh of relief.
“But you’re right… between jobs so to speak, and needing a bit of
time away. Been in the army, too, so I’m very resourceful. What kind of
situation are you two involved in? Nothing to do with drugs is it…’cause
if it is let me out now.” Charlie said as the laughter ceased and Rick eased
back onto the highway.
“No nothing like that. Someone of my stature would never be
involved in anything so unsavory.”
Rick chuckled.
“Okay, then what?” Charlie asked. He slid further forward in his
seat and craned his neck forward to hear every morsel.
“Can’t really say. Not until we check in with …”
“Salvador. He’s the one that is in charge.”
65
“Jenny, don’t say anything else. We’ve already told him too much
already.”
“I need some sort of information. I can’t just sign on without a
clue. It ain’t right.”
Through cigarette puffs, Rick said, “Well, we’re going to be
involved in a recovery operation.” He took a quick nervous glance out of
the window up at the clouds.
“We are? That’s not the way I understood it,” Jenny prodded
indignantly. “What else do you know that I don’t?”
Charlie shook his head at the bewildering couple he had become
involved with.
Rick shrugged, “That’s it, really.”
“I thought we were uncovering a hidden cache of gold…and the
media was involved…that was my understanding.” At the mention of
‘gold’ Charlie immediately perked up.
“Well it looks like our friend Sal is up to something. Either way I
trust him so there will be plenty for all of us…and Sal told me to keep my
eye out for talent, too.”
“Well, it’s settled then.” Jenny grinned, snapping her purse clasp
closed.
“Not so fast,” Rick cautioned. “What are you good at?”
“Err, well let me see…I was in the army for the better part of
twenty two years, so I got real good at using one of these.” Charlie said,
patting the bulge in his pants. “The gun that is.”
66
“Really? I was in the army, too.” Rick said. A wary sliver of
respect eyed Charlie through the rearview mirror.
“Great then, it’s settled.”
“Sure…what the hell, but only if Sal agrees.”
“Fuck, fuck ….fuck!” I slammed my claw against the steering
wheel. “I hate this! Doesn’t anything follow a plan anymore?”
I kept a close eye on the rearview mirror hoping to catch a glimpse
of the powder blue K car. I was really agitated, mostly at my own inability
to formulate a cohesive plan.
“Shit.” I looked back nervously, talking to myself. “What should I
do?”
I pulled into the parking lot of an old abandoned gas station and
drove around back. From there I couldn’t be spotted but could still see any
cars that passed by. I clawed at the glove box trying to keep my eyes on
the road. The latch gave way and two handguns tumbled onto the floor.
“Fuck me!”
I hadn’t seen the guns before. They must have come with the car.
When I ‘relieved’ the owner of his burden, I just shoved my stuff in
67
without looking. I don’t think I’d ever seen a real gun up close and
personal like this.
I reached for the map book.
I didn’t feel comfortable that all the stress was causing me anger.
Worse yet I had somehow picked up the habit of cursing every second
word.
Inside the map book was a handwritten note from my ‘doctor’. I
unfolded the tiny piece of paper and read:
‘Max,
Don’t forget that your wooden foot can catch fire, so don’t kick
coals around the campfire. Also, please be careful with the attachments for
your hand. Those are custom work, and are irreplaceable. When are you
going to get the money so we can get you a donor?
Take care,
‘Doctor’ was crossed out, and it was signed ‘Mr. Escano’.
He still had a hard time remembering that he was not a doctor in
this country, but it made me grin. I flipped through the map to try to
pinpoint our intended destination.
I wondered aloud, “Where the hell are they heading?”.
Through a busted window of the little service station I could see
the car pass by. I decided to wait a few minutes before pulling back onto
the highway. I didn’t want to be too obvious. With my real left hand I
scratched at the itchy fake beard vigorously.
“The airport! Hot damn, I’ve got you now you little bitch!”
68
I slammed the map book back into an already crowded glove box
and began to shift the car into gear.
“Damn.”
I glanced down onto the passenger side floor. One pistol was
peering up at me, but the other was out of sight. I pondered leaving them
there for the time being, I really didn’t want to touch them but didn’t want
to arouse any suspicion if I were pulled over by the police. A man with no
license, wearing a disguise, who was technically dead in a stolen car with
guns on the floor…somehow I didn’t feel good about getting let off with a
warning.
I flipped the switch on the steering column, pushed the steering
wheel away from me, and released the seat belt. Leaning onto the
passenger seat I grabbed the .45 with my good hand, fingered the steel,
and placed it in the glove box gently. I really didn’t like the fact that I was
armed, not even the homemade pistol I had in the trunk. Usually physical
violence made me queasy, but these were extraordinary circumstances.
I tried to wedge my fingers under the seat, but couldn’t find the
second gun. Reaching around the back with my claw hand I tried to feel
around and suddenly BANG! The gun went off. The bullet ripped
through the seat, and seemed to pause for a split second as I traced it with
a wincing eye. It blasted just past my left ear before exiting from the roof
just above the driver’s seat.
“Shit.” I blubbered quietly in amazement retrieving the second
pistol and placing it with the first one.
69
A stunned look was replaced by a sudden burst of rage as I
slammed the glove box door and started screaming.
“I’m not having a good fucking day!”
I bashed the steering wheel into place, ripped my seatbelt on and
shoved the car into gear. My wooden foot crushed the gas pedal down
hard and I flew onto the highway in a blizzard of gravel and wet snow. I
skidded into the second lane with the stench of burning rubber.
“Fuck!”
I raced to try to catch up with Jenny, and her mysterious new
friends.
The clouds overhead erupted just as I crested a hill. The forecast
had called for snow, but this was rain. I turned on my wipers.
Splat. Drip. I realized I was wet between the legs. I looked down
at the moisture growing on my khakis as another drop hit me. I looked up
at the roof with a forlorn certainty. The bullet hole was going to make the
rest of the drive very annoying.
“FUCK!”
I couldn’t pull over because I didn’t want to fall behind in my
chase. I searched around quickly for something, anything, to plug the hole.
My shoelace untied fairly easily, with my wooden foot still planted
firmly on the accelerator, my hip cramped up painfully as I tried to remove
the sock from my left foot.
“FUCK!” I screamed again, wiggling in pain.
70
I shoved the sock, well what would fit, into the bullet hole. The
rest of the sock dangled down onto my face. I pushed back the smelly sock
onto the cheap wig on my head to get it out of my eyes.
“I just can’t take it anymore…I really can’t. Any normal man
would have lost it after everything I’ve been through over the last couple
of years. I don’t know…I don’t know why I even bother” I sighed heavily.
“I’ve really got to stop swearing so much…and talking to myself. I
think it’s tarnishing my charm.”
The K car crept into view, but it was stopped again on the side of
the road. I contemplated ending the whole thing right there and killing
them all in a fiery car crash, but something deep inside me said no. I
wanted to find out what she was up to, and wanted her to look into my
eyes when I squeezed the trigger, or at least confronted her in a very angry
and threatening manner.
The well-dressed man was getting out of the car. He was shouting
something angrily at one, or both of the occupants, probably Jenny. I kept
my head down, but he was too involved in the retrieval of a jerry can from
the trunk to notice my passing. I was beginning to think that maybe he
was having a worse day than me.
“If you’re going to the airport, and I think you are, then I’ll beat
you there and I’ll be ready.”
I stomped on the gas and swerved into the passing lane. Just as I
was passing them he looked over through my shaggy wig. Jenny and
Charlie were snickering. Rick looked up from the trunk and my stomach
dropped. My moustache came unglued.
71
Rick looked up from the trunk at the driver of the car as it passed
him. He thought that the guy might be drunk, by his erratic driving. As
their eyes met for the second time, for that split second, Max’s fake
mustache drooped off his lip. He brought his claw up fast to try to cover
up quickly. Rick didn’t see this, as the car was moving so swiftly. Being
very suspicious, especially in the extra-paranoid situation, he was very
curious and made note of the license plate number. He would also
remember to keep an eye out for a shaggy haired man with strange facial
hair.
Charlie asked through the glass with an edge of sarcasm, “Are you
sure you can handle that errand by yourself?”
“Get stuffed.”
“I saw an old gas station about 5 minutes ago on the road back
there…” Jenny called out trying to helpful.
Rick slammed the trunk down. “No way.” He tried to push the
wet clumps of hair from his face as he came around to the front of the car.
72
“That place must have closed down years ago. Is there a station
up the road?” He asked Charlie.
“No idea.”
“But you’re from around here. Surely you’d know if there is a
petrol station in the area.”
“I never come out this far towards the airport.”
“Right then, I’m off.” Rick gave the pair a disgusted sneer, and
began to walk up the road.
“Good. This will give us a chance to get to know each other.”
Jenny said, with a twinkle in her eye.
“Fuck!” I screamed in frustration, and quite simply, physical pain.
The collision of my claw with the fake moustache had left a bloody
scratch on my lip and cheek. Normally claws were rounded and dull, but
Doc, err, Mr. Escano had modified this one to my specifications. I wanted
to be ready if I got into any sort of altercation. I’d never been in a fight
before, not a real one anyway, but I felt I might need to defend myself.
Warm blood began to trickle into my mouth and onto my shirt. I
looked around for a tissue, but then a look of resignation came over my
73
face, I’m sure. I reached for the other end of the sock on my head and held
it to the wound.
I tried to slow my pace. I didn’t want to wait too long for them to
catch up, especially since they’d run out of gas. I stopped at the first
intersection I’d seen in what seemed like days and waited behind a minivan for the red light to change. At least Jenny’s friend didn’t have far to
go, there were two modern service stations on corners opposite each other.
I lifted the sock from my face and tried to inspect my wound in the
mirror.
“Why me?”
74
Chapter 5
I pulled up to the airport and checked into the economy lot, not
that I was planning on retrieving the car, it was just a force of habit. All
those years of ramen noodles and no name brand macaroni and cheese had
taught me to be frugal. I was still battling that demon. The only time I
spent freely seemed to be on tips. I have a soft spot for the service
industry.
I got out of the car just as two very attractive Japanese
stewardesses were passing by with an airport cart. They were talking with
very animated gestures, until they saw me.
I stepped from the car removing the crusty sock from my face, a
large wet splodge in my lap, my fake mustache drooping badly. I
attempted a weak smile at the two agape women, but they quickly vacated
the vicinity in a flurry of unintelligible vocalarity.
75
The word that comes to mind, bludgeoned me in fact, was
horrified.
“Shit.” I mumbled to myself.
I scowled, pulling the musty smelling wig from my head and went
to the trunk.
I started to remove my jacket to change my shirt then tore off the
fake facial hair with a painful rip. I grimaced. No more disguises, I
decided right then and there. It wasn’t worth the aggravation. I had
changed so much that I didn’t think anyone would recognize me. I
removed the sweaty shirt and decompressing my brown curly hair with
my hand. I had decided to grow it out a bit, and it almost reached my
shoulders. After all the years of keeping my hair severely cropped I felt
that after the accident I needed a new identity.
I heard giggling.
I turned around, hands still shaking out my curls, and noticed that
the two stewardesses had turned around and were watching my little
display. They were eyeing me up like a slab of meat, and giggling like
schoolgirls, covering their mouths in embarrassment. They seemed to be
looking for a hidden camera. Maybe they thought it was one of the
unusual game shows from their own country being enacted
I quickly pulled on a fresh shirt. Was this something I would have
to get used to now, I wondered. Before the accident I was overweight and
pimply. No one ever looked at me twice.
Never.
76
I was proud of the body I had built, through a yoga, gymnastics,
and running regime that my Mr. Escano had recommended. I looked like
a boxer, or a soccer player, ripped abs and tight lean muscles, but I still had
a wooden foot and a horrible claw where my hand used to be. I’d never
jump that hurdle.
I stuffed a small toiletry bag into my old canvas gym bag, and
looked around to see if the unusual trio had arrived, but didn’t see them.
Before slamming the trunk I double-checked that I had my home crafted
weapon on me.
I slammed the trunk and limped off towards the terminal. I hoped
that my camouflaged limp would just appear as a swagger if spotted by
the untrained eye. Since I had no one to give me an honest opinion about
it, I assumed I looked ridiculous.
In the airport washroom I cleaned myself up really nicely, while
trying to clear my head. I shaved away some of the rough stubble, but left
a little patch on my chin. Looking in the mirror I practiced a quick smile. I
wanted to perfect a warm confident smile, a movie star smile, to cover up
my insecurities. I was actually a very good-looking man, I decided, when I
wanted to be.
I tried to brush a curl from my eye and was reminded of my
ugliness. I unscrewed my modified claw, the sharp-edged one, and dug
deep into my bag for a more acceptable one. I retrieved a three-prong claw
with rubber gripped ‘fingers’. They were designed for the day to day
grabbing, and handy for eating, writing etc. I shoved the dangerous one
77
into the bag and heard the dull clink of metal when it clanked against one
of my other modified, and highly specialized, models.
I smiled weakly into the mirror fingering the new scrape on my
cheek. It seemed to clean up into a minor scrape. To outwards
appearances it would be a touch of razor burn, or at least that's what I
hoped. With my new chin hair it made me look like a vagabond.
I grabbed my duffel bag with my claw and limped/sauntered
towards the café to wait for my prey. I tried to keep my eyes open for
Jenny, but realized she probably wouldn’t recognize me without the extra
pounds, the tan, and the longer hair. Besides that, she thought Id been
dead for a year or so.
I felt pretty good now that I was cleaned up, even lucky. Maybe I
would find some nice chubby, but not fat, waitress to hit on. I just couldn’t
get enough of those chubby ankles, a little bit of meat on their bones, and
their stories. Real women. With curves and intelligence.
I don’t know exactly where I picked the fetish up from. Actually
fetish wasn’t the right word, how about preference. It probably had
something to do with me needing a mother figure, but I tried not to
analyze myself too much.
78
“Paging Rick Shaw. Rick Shaw please come to the customer
service desk on concourse one.” A voice called over the loud speaker in a
coughy metallic voice.
“That’s me.” Rick said with a sigh. “Here we go...” He muttered,
fighting with the buggy full of bags.
They had just arrived at the airport main terminal and his gut was
doing back flips with bad feelings. He had learned over the years to trust
these feelings.
“Shaw is your last name?” Jenny giggled. “Rick Shaw?” She
repeated, plainly amused.
Charlie cracked a dry tight-lipped grin.
“No, but that’s Sal’s code…his idea of a joke. It goes back to…”
Rick stopped, realizing that he was giving out too much information about
himself.
“I wonder what this could be about.” Charlie said to no one in
particular.
Rick put his head down and headed towards the courtesy desk.
He had never liked surprises, not since the Christmas incident with the
dead puppy, and he wasn’t about to start now.
“I’m Rick Shaw.”
The girl at the reception desk was young, with awkward good
looks. She wore a severe blue suit and white shoes. Rick noticed a tiny
hole in the side of her nose as well as a few by each eyebrow, he wondered
if her boss knew about the piercing’s she tried to conceal.
79
“Any I.D.? She asked with a bored sigh.
Rick withdrew his fake driver’s license as he started getting
worried. She nodded at the bad picture and handed him an envelope with
his name on it.
“Some weird guy left this for you… mentioned something about a
thumbtack?”
“Thanks.” Rick said turning his back. He walked towards Jenny
and Charlie ripping open the envelope.
“Thumbtacks?” She asked, but Rick only shrugged.
A key popped out of the torn enclosure. He bent down to scoop it
up, but paused as he glanced over at Charlie’s face. For a second Rick
thought he looked into the face of Mephistopheles, wide, confusing and
evil. The image faded as the keys leapt into his hand.
“What was that about?” Jenny asked him.
“Someone left us a locker key.” Something momentarily drained
him as he looked into Charlie’s eyes again, like two black holes in the sky.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, friend.” Charlie grinned a
little too widely.
Rick shrugged ignoring the puzzled Jenny and the pondering
Charlie.
“What does ‘thumbtacks’ mean?” Jenny asked him again, pressing
her need to know.
“It’s code for something.” Charlie squinted.
Rick shook his head and disagreed. “I have no idea.”
80
Anyone could tell from looking at Jenny and Charlie that they
weren’t buying it.
“No, really, I have no clue. Come on, let’s find this bloody locker.”
“Who left it for us…was it Salvador?” She asked, grabbing the key
from Rick for further inspection.
“I don’t know. I don’t think it was Sal. You know Sal, as normal
as they come. It’s just not like him to play games.”
“Hmm…” She looked up at Rick with a puzzled furrow.
Charlie called from the other side of the hallway, “It’s over this
way.”.
Jenny and Rick followed the shuffling Charlie to a row of lockers
beside a string of pay phones. They were sandwiched in between the
men’s and women’s washrooms.
“What locker are we lookin’ for?”
Rick grabbed the keys back from Jenny as she brought them up.
He could see things falling apart already.
“Look maybe we should get things straight. I’m in charge until we
meet up with Sal. I don’t want to be an arsehole or anything, but that’s just
the way I work.”
Jenny shook her head ever so slightly and shrugged, Charlie
grinned with his eyes.
“No problem pal, I’m just the hired hand…which reminds me we
must discuss my cut later.”
Rick looked away from Charlie’s face and found locker 147. It was
one of those small ones way down at the bottom of the row. He bent down
81
and put the key in the lock while at the same time angling his body away
from the others to conceal the contents as the envelope, he reminded
himself, had his name on it.
Another manila envelope written in the same fluid hand, but this
time with his name, Jenny's, and Charlie's.
Rick shot up like a rocket looking around for any familiar face in
the crowds, “What the?!?” He realized now that he could feel eyes on him
from someone, somewhere... everywhere.
“How the hell did they know about you?” He asked Charlie
accusingly.
Now Charlie was the one to eye the crowds suspiciously. “I don’t
fucking know! Believe me no one knows I’m here except you two and I’d
love to keep it that way.”
Jenny ripped open the envelope with the feminine ferocity of a
wildcat and uncovered three plane tickets.
“Florida, well so that’s where we’re headed… so these must be
from Salvador.” She ended the sentence with a raised note. It was hard to
tell whether it was a question or a statement. From the look on her face
not even she was quite sure.
“Yeah, okay…but Sal doesn’t know Charlie for shit, unless…”
“Look I am tellin’ you no one knows I here. There’s no way, not
this soon.”
Rick grabbed Charlie by the scruff of his collar and breathed into
his face, “What have you done?” You haven’t landed us in it already,
have you? What do you know?”
82
In the scuffle something had fallen from Charlie’s pocket.
“Let him go!” Jenny warned, bending down to retrieve the object
that Charlie had dropped.
“Look, I really don’t know anything.”
“Rick, you can see he’s just as lost as we are. Take a bite of
common sense for Christ sakes.”
Jenny was looking down at a photograph. Rick backed off from
his aggression, but his eyes were still shooting sparks.
“Who’s this?” Jenny asked, handing the photo back to Charlie.
“That’s my wife, Maggie. It’s an old photo.” He seemed to
apologize about the black and white print.
“She’s very…pretty.” It came out as an awkward compliment,
because the woman in the photo was no stunner.
“Thank you, kindly. She was a beauty, truly was.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize…”
“Can’t be helped.”
“Salvador must have had someone watching out for us.” Rick said
closing the locker.
“Or at least have someone doing it for him…” Jenny suggested.
“He didn’t’ mention that to me. Besides I haven’t said Charlie’s
name in the two minutes since we arrived here.”
“Maybe the car was bugged.” Jenny suggested.
“No way…I would have known. Maybe one of you are…” He
said, looking directly at Charlie.
83
Charlie wasn’t paying attention to the jabs; he was still looking at
the photo.
“Well I’m not…besides, this isn’t James Bond stuff. This isn’t
world domination…”
More than half seriously Rick asked, “Isn’t it?”
“You guys may want to keep your voices down. This isn’t exactly
the type of place to be havin’ this conversation. Know what I mean?”
Charlie nodded over towards a security officer. Rick gave Charlie a barely
noticeable nod.
“I’m beginning to wonder if we are talking about the same
Salvador.” Jenny said under her breath. “What time is the flight?”
“We’ve got about 3 hours.” Rick said purposefully not revealing
the exact time. Information is power.
“Let’s sit down and get some coffee, or something.” Jenny
suggested.
At the mere mention of coffee the stress on Rick’s face faded like a
vaporous serpent. He pushed the baggage cart towards the little cafeteria
not waiting to see if anyone was following.
“Okay, but let’s keep our eyes out. If you see anything, that rubs
you wrong, give me a sign.”
“What kind of sign?” Jenny asked. She seemed to be transforming
into the role of a secret agent. Her face hardened, her jaw muscles tensed.
“How about ‘looky there’?” Charlie suggested.
“Just tug on my jacket or something, right?”
“Got it. Charlie you coming?”
84
“I’ll meet you there. I just want to use the facilities.” Charlie said
to the retreating couple.
“Check.”
He stopped in under the universal sign for restroom and stood
there for a minute to make sure that they arrived at their destination.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you…”
“Wot?” He said, rolling his eyes.
“Why is your face so shiny?”
“Oh, err…I’m trying out a new face cream.”
Jenny chortled, “You wear make-up?” .
“Don’t be stupid! It’s this American climate, leaves me dry and
irritated. I had to do something.” Rick spat with an indignant sneer.
“I see.”
Her eyes narrowed as she noticed something metallic behind his
ear. She reached up to inspect the object, but his hand came up quickly
and grabbed her roughly by the wrist.
“It doesn’t pay to be curious, little girl.”
85
“I’m no girl,” she said struggling to free his hydraulic grip.
“Oww, you’re hurting me.”
His face changed from blinding rage to a good-humored grin. She
followed his eyes to a suspicious security guard. Although he wore a
benevolent expression, his words were violently threatening.
“I don’t suggest, sweetheart, that you turn over every stone…you
don’t know what nasty things might be hiding underneath.”
“Yeah, well sometimes real danger is wrapped in a pretty
package.”
86
Chapter 6
The remains of the tiny farmhouse still smoldered from the blaze a
few hours before. Thin tendrils of noxious smoke whispered from the
various cracks and blackened crevices. Water dripped from the charred
remains in thick blobs of cold tears. The main structure was scorched, but
intact. Only the back porch seemed to succumb entirely to the weight of
it’s own burden, collapsing into a muddled heap on a bale of discarded
chicken wire.
“So here we are, back at the Bishop place. Déjà vu, huh?”
“Yeah, of the worst kind.”
“Arson?” Office Wolstenholme asked.
“Hard to say, but…” Sheriff Bellamy started.
Dom Howard interjected, “Naw, someone just let a cigarette run
wild in the couch.” . He was the district volunteer fire chief/high school
history teacher, and very proud of his ability to do both jobs well.
87
“Hmm.” Bellamy wondered.
A car was pulling up the driveway past the barricades and the
small group of onlookers that had gathered.
Squinting through the darkened glass of the car, his face lightened
in surprise.
“Well I’ll be damned! Looks like Hargrave has went out and got
himself a new partner.”
“And she’s not too shabby, either.” Wolstenholme added, wiping
the filth from his face with a wet nap.
“I’m in charge here, Bellamy.” Hargrave said, barely out of the
car.
“Nice to see you again, too.”
Wilkes-Chu got out of the passenger side door. She was a lanky,
but attractive half Japanese half African American woman. She had her
hair pulled back from her face to accentuate her long delicate neck. Even
in her navy blue blazer and freshly pressed slacks, there would be no
mistaking her shapely figure.
“Get your men out of the building. I want the whole property
secured and sectioned off. I don’t want any screw ups this time.”
“Neither do I.”
“Have you already stumbled through the crime scene?
Contaminated the evidence?”
“Have you already determined the outcome of all this without any
evidence at all?”
88
“Do we really need all this tension? This isn’t a schoolyard.”
Wilkes-Chu said, distractedly removing her palm computer. “Are you
boys going to grow up so we can do our jobs, or is the only man around
here a woman?”
“Sorry,” Bellamy said sheepishly. “Shouldn’t let a bit of bad blood
get in the way of an investigation? I am sheriff Bellamy, and this here is
my deputy Wolstenholme.
“Pleased to meet you,” she said perfunctorily. “ So there is some
history with this property?”
“Yeah.” Hargrave nodded as a means of apology. “…of all
places…”
“Cut to the chase, Bellamy, what do we have here?”
“Unidentified female in the basement, single wound to her neck.
I’d guess the weapon was an axe that we found in the kitchen. Nearly took
her head off. Plenty of blood, and the weird thing all the chop marks in
the walls and floor boards, almost like he was swinging the axe around for
five minutes to torture the poor girl before he finished her off.”
“Any sign of Mr. Bishop?”
“No sign of Charlie at all. Trucks still here, but he let all his
animals go free.” Bellamy added with obvious difficulty,” Looks like you
might have been right about him all along.”
“Wilkes-Chu, can you get a full forensics team out here?”
“Come on, Hargrave,” Wolstenholme protested with a weak smile.
“You don’t think we’ll find more bodies around here, do you?”
89
“If he killed this girl, and as I suspected, his wife, then yes. My gut
is telling me we are about to dig up a lot more bodies on this site.”
“Thanks for your help, sheriff Bellamy, we can take it from here.
“And get your men off the property. have them run a perimeter
with some tape.”
“Well, I need them to retrieve their equipment.”
“That will have to wait until my crew can come in.”
“You know the suspect?” Wilkes-Chu asked, tapping at the tiny
screen of her palm computer.
“I should have busted him years ago.”
90
Chapter 7
The café was sparsely populated. There were a couple of tourists,
from the Ukraine, I guessed, sitting at a table. They didn’t seem happy, as
both the husband and wife sat grimly, not eating or drinking anything in
front of them. They didn’t appear to be fighting, but they weren’t clearly
not having fun. They both wore Disneyland souvenir T-shirts, so I
assumed they were on layover, but what a strange place for a layover; the
middle of nowhere.
“For one?”
The waitress caught me by surprise as I was scanning everything
but that which was in front of my nose. I jumped a bit, but caught myself
and I don’t think she noticed. She was stunning in all the ways I find a
woman attractive. She was anywhere from 38 to 45 with dark, almost
black, hair. She was a little on the heavy side, but no more than 150
91
pounds. She wore dark kohl around her eyes that made them leap out at
you like they were spring loaded. I grinned before I could stop myself.
She led me to a booth in the corner, which I pointed out with my
good hand. I wanted a booth; I never liked the exposure of tables in a
restaurant, a spot that I could take everything in from without being
conspicuous.
I tried to keep my claw concealed in my jacket pocket. That was a
card I wasn’t ready to play yet, if I had to at all. I smiled at her and
ordered a peppermint tea. Looking beyond those bored with life eyes I
could see a little chink in her jaded armor, a hairline fracture.
I didn’t have to wait long. I saw them as soon as they entered.
Before Rick’s butt even hit the seat he had ordered a coffee and told the
waitress to keep them coming. I’m not much of a lip reader, but Rick
made that a non-issue by having a particularly easy voice to pick up in the
quiet little café, it was rough, grating and audibly pungent like a strong
cheese. Jenny probably ordered an orange juice, but I couldn’t hear what
she said since she had her back to me.
The old guy wasn’t with them so I assumed that he had just
hitched a ride, but something in my gut said that I hadn’t seen the last of
him. I was fractionally comforted that he hadn’t been involved with them
but still kept my eye out for the old man.
Rick was edgy. He was searching for somebody and was agitated.
Jenny sat with her back towards me, but askew from my position were I
could almost make out her profile.
92
I put the menu down after deciding on the waffles with
strawberries, even though it was well into the afternoon. Any time was a
good time for breakfast; that was my motto. Rick looked over at me, but
only gave me a cursory glance, he was more interested in a manila
envelope, on top of which lay what I took to be plane tickets.
Obviously this was my chance. I had to find out where they were
going. I had to figure this out. Somehow I had to get on that plane.
I didn’t really have a plan, but I knew this wasn’t my perfect
opportunity…not yet. I knew that if I could just follow them a little
farther, delve a little deeper and learn their secrets, that I could blow the
whole thing wide open and exact my sweet revenge.
I was really getting curious about the little game they were being
so serious about. Why all the sneaking around? Jenny wouldn’t be
involved in something so seemingly dirty unless there were either lots of
money involved or media exposure…or both. My main goal was the
revenge, but if there were anyway I could prosper monetarily at Jenny’s
expense then that would be like double revenge alamode.
To read the ticket information I had to inadvertently cross over to
the table, on my way to the washrooms or something, casually, and get
close enough that I could read the plane tickets without Jenny recognizing
me. Realizing the challenge I set the menu down and calmed my nerves.
Somehow I had to make sure that I kept her back between the
tickets and me. How could I read the tickets upside down over Jenny’s
shoulder without it looking obvious? Plus the tickets were printed in tiny
93
little letters, which just added to the conundrum. I considered causing a
distraction, but then my cover would be blown for sure.
The waitress came over with my peppermint tea and took my
order for the waffles with those huge beautiful eyes shining with a meager
pinprick of glorious wonderful hope for a better life. Before she could turn
to leave I remarked on how lovely her hair was. It wasn’t the luster or the
cut particularly. She wore her almost black wavy hair up with sexy
strands dangling down framing her face like an angel’s dirty halo.
I swallowed my butterflies and stopped her before she could rush
back to the kitchen. “You probably hear this all the time, but I think you
are very pretty.” I could here the nervousness in my own voice, and I was
sure she could smell my fear.
At first she smiled a sad eyed weak smile, but it grew warm with
each passing millisecond as she could see the sincerity in my face.
“Are you angling for extra whipped cream on the waffles?”
“I wouldn’t turn that down, but sometimes a compliment is meant
to be just that.” I smiled again with my best sexy eyes. I don’t think she
knew how to take the compliment. She seemed confused, but curious.
She kind of giggled in a girly way that I think surprised even her.
The sound made me tingle as a faint pink blush came over her face, and
mine.
I was proud of myself for being so brave. She must hear all sorts
of flattery I imagined. Then she looked down and saw the hook resting on
the bench beside me. As soon as I realized that she noticed it I tried to
quickly hide it under the table, but I didn’t move so quickly that she
94
wouldn’t be sure of what she saw. I looked down at the table with a shy
sheepish sigh. I could see a little pity come over her face.
“I didn’t mean to stare. How…how did it happen?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me.”
“No that’s okay. I don’t mind.” I gave her a little story about
saving some people on a white water rafting expedition that went horribly
wrong.
“That’s very brave. You must be a very strong person to have
overcome…all that.”
I shook my head and shrugged. I felt warm flush came over my
face. It felt good to flirt, no matter how awkward I was at it. I gave her
one of my famous twinkly-eyed looks before she turned away with a tiny
little smile on her suddenly uplifted, but confused, face. She went away
with my order and filled up Rick’s coffee cup again.
She came back after ten minutes or so and that’s when I asked her
that small favor.
“I recognize that awful couple over there they were on the same
flight as me from Alaska. They were loud and obnoxious and they sat
right beside me the whole way. If it isn’t too much trouble, could you
check their tickets sitting on the table? I would hate to have to sit beside
them on my flight to Paris.”
She flinched a little. I was worried that I had pushed too hard, too
quickly.
“If that’s the case I think I will have to skip the flight altogether
and stay here overnight. Perhaps I could take you to dinner somewhere?”
95
I paused just long enough for effect, but interjected just as she opened her
mouth to speak.
“I’m sorry that was much too forward of me…”
“Oh no, it’s no trouble…”
“Well only if you’re sure.” Her nametag said Lily, but I quickly
made eye contact so she wouldn’t think I was staring at her chest.
“I really don’t mind.”
“I really appreciate it! I actually kind of hope that they are on the
same flight so I could stay over.” My guts were doing somersaults.
She winked, “I’ll be right back with your Waffles, sir.”
“Thank you, Lily.”
She came back a few minutes later with two huge waffles on a
large platter. Strawberries and whipped cream were piled a mile high, and
I couldn’t wait to dig in.
“Tipton Airlines flight a0349 to St. Petersburg, Florida, but the
flight doesn’t leave for a couple of hours.” She whispered.
I feigned disappointment. “Thank you, well I guess I don’t have to
ride with them again, but I was so looking forward to…ah well another
time perhaps?”
Once I had eaten as much of the beautiful waffles as I could
manage, Lily came to the plate away.
“Lily, would it be too much if I asked you for your phone number?
I would love to call you when I got back into town.”
“Hmm…I don’t know.”
96
“I understand. You don’t find me attractive. I get that all the
time.” I said slumping my head and trying to conceal my handicap
further.
“No, that’s not it at all…”
“It’s not the age thing is it?”
“No of course not.” She said trying not to make it look obvious.
“It’s just, I didn’t want my boss to see me. He really frowns on that kind of
thing.” She said jotting her number on the back of my bill.
The whole time I didn’t see anyone resembling a manager so I
knew she was still uncertain because I was young enough to be her
teenage love child. I found her awkwardness and the slight blush in her
cheeks very engaging.
“Thanks. I hope to be back in town in a couple of weeks or so, I
hope you’ll remember me when I call.”
“Oh I’m sure I will.”
“I look forward to it.”
97
Chapter 8
“I don’t trust him.” Rick said to Jenny after they had gotten out of
earshot from the old man. “I say we just ditch him…we’ve got his ticket,
and it’s pretty obvious that he’s on the run from something. He’s trouble,
anyone can see that.”
“I disagree.”
“We could just call airport security and have him picked up and
still cram in a half dozen cups of coffee before we have to board.”
“No way. He’s coming along. Salvador went to enough trouble to
get him a ticket so he must have a use for the old guy.”
“I have a bad feeling about this. He’s bad news, right? Don’t tell
me you haven’t noticed something a little shifty about the bastard.”
Jenny shifted in her shoes. There was no way she was going to let
Rick change her mind. She even considered contacting her mentor in her
98
happy place, anything. She didn’t like the feeling Charlie gave her, but
anything was better than the alternative…being alone with Rick.
“I think we need him.”
“Yeah like a bullet to the belly.”
“Look you are not going to change my mind on this so just drop
it.”
“There’s a lot that we don’t know about him, and I don’t mean
good things.”
“You could say that about all of us if I’m not mistaken.” A deep
burning rage was burning in her eyes. She was on the verge of a volcanic
eruption.
“When he outlives his usefulness he’s out of here…one way or
another.”
Under her breath she whispered ‘popcorn’ thrice, her eyes crushed
tight. She took a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders.
“Let’s just see how things go.” She said with an air of grim
finality.
“For two?” The waitress asked with strained cheerfulness.
“Ah no, three. Our…Dad will be right back.” Jenny said quickly
to avoid a confrontation with Rick.
“Right this way.”
Rick looked behind him and scanned the café looking for anyone
he recognized, especially the guy with the beard. Maybe, he concluded, he
was working for Sal. He was determined to find out what was going on by
whatever means were necessary.
99
“Coffee please.” Rick said so suddenly that Jenny was startled. He
said it with a forceful, yet polite, desperation before his ass had even hit
the seat.
“Ohh…okay. And you miss?”
“Two large orange juices for me please, one with a slice of lime.”
She recovered, looking up at the waitress.
“He might have been in the military, but he wasn’t just a regular
enlisted man.” Rick finally said without looking up from his menu.
“You don’t know that.” Jenny corrected.
Jenny had put aside her menu and was studying Rick’s face, still
looking for clues to his inner workings. She had studied gambling for her
1998 role in El Scorcho, and he was playing his cards very close to his
chest. She searched for a simple flinch, a twitch, a narrowing of the eyes,
but none were detectable.
The waitress came back quickly with the drinks after serving a
quiet young guy in the corner booth. “Are you ready to order now, or
shall I give you a few more minutes?”
“Um, yes. Just a couple more minutes please. Oh Rick, remind me
to call my agent before we get on the plane.” She didn’t really need
reminding, but the very idea of having an agent reminded her of her
glamorous life and her importance to the world.
She returned her gaze to the menu, but on the way there they
paused for just the briefest split second back on Rick’s face. He was
looking at her with a strange wrinkled forehead frown, but he was very
100
quick to shift his laser gaze back down to the table at the airline tickets,
and the unmarked manila envelope.
He reached towards his pocket and fingered the outline of his
cigarette pack, nervously glancing towards the waitress.
Jenny quickly decided on a chicken Caesar salad wrap. She looked
at the man sitting across from her trying to figure him out. His hair was
straggly, but clean. Rick’s face was confusing, but pleasant when it wasn’t
scowling. He was a very unconventional handsome, nothing like the
handsome leading men she was used to. They were all so easy to read, but
Rick was like a borderless jigsaw puzzle.
She quickly turned her gaze away suspiciously when he looked up
to retrieve his much-anticipated cup of coffee with desperate wide pupils.
He removed a packet from his jacket pocket, tore it open, and dumped the
contents into his coffee. He took a quick gulp of the black steaming liquid
without stirring it.
Rick pulled a lap top computer out of its case and started the
booting up process. He hooked a cell phone up with a quick click with a
handy holder on the side and a 6-inch short fire wire.
By the look on his face she had a hard time determining whether
he enjoyed the coffee, or if he was satisfied for other, more mysterious,
reasons.
“I am trained to study people. It’s a talent of patience that I was
born with. Being an actress taught me to hone that skill.”
“So what’s your point?” Rick said pulling out a cigarette.
101
“Excuse me, sir, but you can’t smoke in here.” The waitress called
from behind the counter.
“Sorry.” He said, slipping the cigarette out of his lips.
His free hand was clicking away on his laptop computer. From
the angle that he had the monitor she couldn’t exactly what he was looking
at.
“My point is that I know you aren’t what you appear.”
“Who really is?” He was answering without really paying
attention. He was clearly involved in a more interesting conversation that
the verbal one that was going on in the little airport cafe.
“You go out of your way to portray a certain image, but your real
identity is a severe contrast, I believe.”
He didn’t answer. He was now using both his hands to type a
response in what Jenny believed was a chat room.
“Okay maybe not Republican…” That seemed to get his attention.
“NO!” Rick grimaced at her in disgust.
“I really didn’t think so, but I had to ask I mean there aren’t many
men alive who wouldn’t have tried something with a beautiful and famous
movie star such as myself.”
“Oh, get off your fucking high horse.”
“Well, you haven’t even been pleasant, but maybe that’s a cover
for something even bigger. You know how when some women get a
pimple they just try to cover it up with more and more make-up? At first,
from a distance, her skin looks smooth and healthy. Sooner or later, under
a good light and close up you can’t help but notice it and feel cheated that
102
she’s uglier for covering it up than for being honest about her
blemish…and eventually you don’t even have to get up close to see rouge
on an old woman.”
“That’s pretty good.” He said with the barest hint of a grin. “Did
you just make that up?”
“I guess I did.”
Rick had turned his attention away from the monitor and was
staring directly into Jenny’s eyes with a penetrating glare. She appeared
amused that she had gotten a response.
“So you’ve gotten my attention. Read my tea leaves.”
“For example you don’t smoke actual cigarettes, but you certainly
want people to believe that you do. Most people might not notice the
difference, but the earthy smell gives you away…and besides your teeth
are much too white to be such a heavy smoker.”
A bare hint of worry creased face for a split second, barely
noticeable to any but the trained eyes of an actress.
“You bring your own mysterious sweetener for all the coffee you
guzzle, do you think that’s normal?”
Rick’s face lost its hard edge and a small grin crippled his lips. His
eyes narrowed to a slit and his head tilted ever so slightly to the side.
Jenny absorbed his every twitch.
Rick sat back in his the seat looking very relaxed, but even though
his eyes were still smiling a small crinkle above his right eye and a slight
furrow of his brow indicated that he was weighing something very heavy.
A small hint, a very small hint, of respect twinkled in his eyes.
103
He seemed to agree to reveal a little. “Okay.”
He turned around and looked up at the sky through the large
slanted window of the airport with a very brief look of concern before
taking another deep sip of coffee. He turned back to face her. His face was
serious, set in stone.
“I’m not addicted to cigarettes. I do this out of necessity.”
“Necessity!?” She snorted.
“Are you going to listen to this…take this seriously?”
“I can’t make you any promises.” She said with cheeky smile.
“Oh, forget it!”
“No, I’m just giving you the gears. I am interested.”
He studied her face, trying to decipher sincerity from acting. He
huffed in the futility, but continued anyway.
“Okay maybe I am a little addicted to coffee, but not for the
caffeine…” He hinted at something more exotic that was beyond her
comprehension. “I put Stevia in my coffee because I love the flavor, and
the health benefits”
“What’s Stevia?”
Jenny could see a spark, no, even a fire, in Rick’s eyes that she had
never seen before. He was enflamed, impassioned, by the conversation.
This was something important to him. His shell had a soft center, deep
down.
“It’s an herbal sweetener, completely natural, that is 300 times the
sweetness of sugar. It’s safe for diabetics, it doesn’t cause cavities…I could
go on.”
104
“If it’s so great, why all the secrecy?”
“It’s completely banned here in the States. FDA shut it down.”
“Well you shouldn’t be using it then. It’s probably very harmful to
your health if they banned it. You’ll probably start getting weird tumors
all over because of it.”
“The government has never had your health in mind when they
chose what is allowed to be marketed.” He said in disbelief.
He stopped. He shut his eyes and shook his head trying to reel in
his exuberance, while at the same time unfurl his much disused patience.
“Okay, go on.”
“You’re right,” he said with a little nod, “these aren’t Marlboro
cigarettes. They are herbal remedies that contain Ginseng, Guarana root,
licorice root, and fennel, amongst other things. I have been refilling this
same pack for a month now, but sometimes I use my aluminum case, they
stay fresher that way.”
“But…why?”
“I smoke these for a number of reasons. They clear the mind,
increase memory capacity, promote alertness, but most of all they combat
all the barium in those.” He said pointing towards the nearly cloudless
hazy blue sky.
“Clouds?” Jenny said with a malicious little giggle.
“Is that what you believe them to be? Do clouds normally make
large X’s in the sky, and neat grid patterns?”
“I don’t know…don’t planes make those? Condensation or
something, isn’t it?”
105
“No. You are thinking of contrails. Those fade after 15 minutes or
so. Just watch those thin lines spread out and form a hazy mess in the next
few hours. They are dumping aluminum, barium, and who knows what
else, and we’re inhaling it all, absorbing it through our skin. That stuff is
poison, and it is making a lot of people sick, and killing people, too.”
“These terrorists should be stopped.”
“I agree. They should be brought to justice, or whatever poses for
justice these days.”
“Why haven’t we heard about it? Who are these terrorists? They
should all be tortured.”
Rick leaned in close, quieting his words. “An arm of the N.W.O.,
but sponsored by the U.S. government. The politicians are your
terrorists.”
“I don’t believe a word of it. ‘For the people, by the people’, isn’t
it? They would never poison their own citizens. This isn’t some third
world dictatorship; this is America. This is a democracy.”
“Democracy?” He said with crusty chuckle. “De M-O-C-K racist,
that’s an American.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t slander each others belief systems.” She
said just this side of rage.
“Jingoism is just another blind religion. If I’ve learned anything
about the world it’s that more people have died by the hands of religious
fervor and occluded belief systems than all diseases put together. Never
underestimate the power of the ill educated masses, and the dominance of
106
emotion over the senses. Senses are not common, therefore common sense
is a prized commodity in the world of the …”
He stopped. He could see her rage boiling just below eye level,
and he didn’t want to create a scene, as much as she was designed to enact
one. Not in an airport, under mysterious circumstances, with the
Homeland Security all over the place like ants at a picnic.
“Look,” she said finally, “I’m willing to listen. I’ve got an open
mind. You teach me your stuff and I’ll try to teach you some manners.”
He seemed pleasantly surprised by her willingness to listen, and
amused by her condescending sincerity.
Rick watched Jenny consume the first glass of orange juice quickly,
the one without the fat slice of lime in it, before she daintily sipped the
other. He felt good that he had dented her sensitive little view of the
world. Would serve her right for keeping her head in the sand.
He ordered a large bowl of oatmeal, and six pieces of whole-wheat
toast. Still no sign of Charlie and even though the thought of him not
turning up at all made him grin, there was no doubt in his mind that the
old man would return with his evil aura.
107
Although Rick wasn’t a New Ager by his own admission he had
learned a lot about the mysteries of life after his stint in the government
and even more after he left. He learned to follow his gut, his instinct, his
inner voice, or whatever one would call it. He’d seen and heard enough to
know that life wasn’t the way it was portrayed to the individual.
Charlie entered the women’s restroom carefully, even cat-like. His
army training still allowed him the mobility of a highly trained
professional. Rusty joints oiled by adrenaline.
Even though he was agitated about the situation he had gotten
himself into, he tried to stick to his mental list, but his memory was hazy.
Number 3 and 12 were sketchy, and he couldn’t remember whether
number 4 was number 7. The new number two spoke to him.
“Who are you?” He asked.
“I am the new number 2.”
“What is number 1?”
“You are number 6.”
He tried to shake the ridiculous conversation out of his head and
tried to focus. Today was the day, wasn’t it? He couldn’t take the chance
108
that it wasn’t. He checked his watch again, stared at the date, but he just
couldn’t remember.
An old woman entered the washroom shortly after Charlie.
After flushing the bloody paper towels down the toilet, only
Charlie left. The body concealed in the bulging ceiling tiles wouldn’t be
discovered for hours.
109
Chapter 9
The seatbelt sign had just blinked off after a moment of turbulence,
when someone started talking with a stewardess in loud tones.
“Fucking loud mouth. Shouldn’t allow people on the plane like
that…probably soused.”
“For once I agree with you, Rick. Have you heard about all these
cases of air rage?” Charlie asked.
Rick froze on insane, pursed his lips and tried to ignore Charlie
and focus on the dispute behind them. Jenny picked up on his sour lemon
expression.
The man in the argument rose from his seat. He was wearing a
purple crushed velvet jacket. He had shoulder length black hair pushed
back on his head. He lifted his hand to gesture grandly. He wore a frilly
orange shirt that both clashed with, and yet compliment, his purple jacket.
110
From the side they could see that the mysterious gentleman had
long sideburns, but they couldn’t get a good look at his face because he
was moving around too much gesturing frantically with wild swimming
motions.
Suddenly, with a calm yet seductively dramatic movement, he
turned around. His eyes were bulging in rage and his face was red as a
bright shiny tomato. The color of his face did in fact clash with his attire.
The color quickly began to fade from his face as his eyes locked onto
Rick’s.
A broad smile began to unwind from his face that started at his
eyebrows and twisted itself south towards his northward pointing
moustache. It was a moustache of such prodigious proportions that an
oversized coffee table book filled with glossy pictures and descriptions of
its various moods and emotions would not be sufficient to unlock all of its
charismatic secrets.
Nothing clicked, nothing cohesive at least with either Rick or
Jenny. Then a small wave washed up on their beach of remembrance, then
a larger one as realization began to set in.
He straightened his coat with a puffed out chest and looked at the
pair, one hand twisting his grand moustachio. Neither one could quite
place the face, certainly not the moustache, but they felt strongly about the
character.
“Moron looks like a circus barker.” Someone said.
Charlie agreed. “Freak show.”
“Salvador?” Jenny said quietly to herself.
111
“Sal?” Rick asked in incredulity squinting at the weird personage
as the commotion died down. “Is that you?”
The figure turned his back to the pair and refocused on the
stewardess.
“My apologize my lovely woman. It was a complete
misunderstanding and totally my fault.” He said kissing the stunned
woman’s hand. Salvador turned back to the pair and beckoned to them
with a loaded and cocked eyebrow.
“Excuse me please Charlie.” Jenny said trying to squeeze by the
stunned man.
“You know that side show?”
“That’s Sal…I think. He’s the one we’ve been waiting to meet up
with.”
Charlie huffed, “Figures.”
“From the expression on your face you remind me of a miss-hung
picture, askew with confusion and elation. Don’t forget a crooked branch
casts a crooked shadow.” Sal reminded Jenny from six rows back.
Time sped up at this point in a very real sense. Physics specialists
have been debating the possibility for years and this was one of those
instances of conclusive proof that will be completely ignored by the
experts and heralded by the Internet armchair adepts. Jenny was heading
up the narrow aisle towards the nearly unrecognizable Sal. She had to
squeeze over to avoid the heavily laden beverage cart and an attendant.
Jenny stopped suddenly. She just had a hunch, a gut feeling deep inside.
112
She turned quickly and locked eyes with a scruffy looking passenger
hiding behind a head full of corkscrew curls. She froze.
“Max?” She asked in complete shock.
Rick moved quickly, even mechanically, to see what had distracted
her more than a reunion with their mutual friend. His hands got obscured
in the fold of his thin jacket.
“Fuck!”
I reached into my coat for my plastic gun and stood up quickly.
I don’t know how he had smuggled the weapon onboard, but Rick
was pulling a gun on me. My panic was all consuming, mad torrential
waves of the stuff. I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, I don’t think I really
had any intention of ever really hurting her, but now…I didn’t see any
other way out. I went numb from the soul up, and my self defense
mechanism clicked into autopilot.
“Everyone down!” Rick screamed.
His actions were frictionless, seamless and completely beyond his
control, I suspected.
113
I looked around nervously clutching the unusual weapon of my
own design. The rubber band mechanism was vibrating with tension
against the locking pin. The passenger in the seat next to me panicked,
shoving the tray away to protect his face from any violence. His day-timer
flew up jolting my hand. The gun discharged with a sound of a highpitched fart with a barely discernable whistle at the end of it. It was barely
noticeable until the tiny ceramic projectile struck the Plexiglas window
beside Rick’s arm.
Immediately from the center navel of damage a wide dispersion of
tiny spider threads cracked the window. The panic spread just as quickly.
My methods were flawed, and only then did I comprehend it. I
wanted revenge, but now I found a limit not imagined. ‘At all costs’, that
was my mantra, but now I realized I wasn’t ready to kill a plane full of
people to accomplish my goal, let alone myself. My hatred for her only
burned hotter, seeing how far she had pushed me.
People either fled or turned away wide eyed and frozen from me.
I wasn’t too surprised when a knot of them moved towards me with a
murderous intent flashing in bright neon colors on their faces. The drink
cart was upended roughly, knocking both Rick and Jenny to the ground
and into the laps of frightened passengers. The stewardess fell heavily,
drinks still in hand, spraying those in close proximity with all manner of
liquid.
The guy in the aisle across from me shouted, “My phone doesn’t
work!”
“Did you think it would?” Rick asked, getting to his feet.
114
“But during 9/11…the phones worked on the planes then…”
“Impossible!” Rick dismissed, then shouted to the masses of
hysteria, “Everyone think about that!”
The only thing that stopped the whole situation from getting
completely out of control was the loud blast of the air horn in Sal’s hand,
and suddenly everything came to a stop as quickly as it began.
“If everyone will please remain calm.” he said grabbing me by the
elbow. “This has all been nothing more than a test to combat terrorism
and get a better insight into the psyche of the mob mentality. Please if you
will all return to your seats, we can continue are very specialized tests for
situations just like this. There is no danger.”
Something about the reassuring timber of Salvador’s voice seemed
to resonate in the cabin. The words were almost unintelligible due to the
girth of his accent, but the timber of his voice was soothing. The calm tone
and deliberately enunciated words and evenly spaced pronunciations
seemed to calm and reassure people.
“I was afraid this would happen!” Salvador hissed under his
breath directly into my aural cavity. The words seemed to swirl slowly
into my brain like sudsy water leaving a tub at the end of a relaxing bath.
I don’t know who this Salvador character was, but for some reason
I trusted him instantly, perhaps he reminded me of my uncle that had run
away to join the circus, but died tragically under the big top. Then again,
under the circumstances I would have trusted anyone to salvage the
situation, I suppose, but he seemed to put me at ease.
115
“Luckily I came prepared. If you would kindly remove my bag
from the overhead compartment while I continue to simonize, everything
will be just fine.” He continued to reassure the slowly calming and
confused passengers with soothing words.
“Dry cleaning?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No thank you.”
Jenny attempted to get at me, her hands frozen into talons, but the
crowds and the drink cart made passage impossible. Rick and the old man
were trying to clear the aisle way, but there was too much debris blocking
their path.
Fighting against a veritable current of the strange Salvador’s
words, I slowly grabbed the bag from the overhead compartment and
dropped it down onto the empty aisle seat in front of him. He turned in
slow motion as if the stifling air in the cabin were made of a thick jelly like
fluid fighting against his own body with every stitch in his being.
I somehow managed to whisper beneath heavy lids. “Are
mesmerizing us all?”
“Don’t be crazy. Do you see any magnets? Hypnosis maybe, but I
have neither the time nor the resources to perform any acts of mesmerism
at this time. Now put on your mask then hand the others theirs.” He put
on his mask as the words ‘and none of you will remember any of this’
swirled inside my head, around and around in a numb brained
psychedelic haze.
Salvador whispered something in Rick’s ear, it seemed like a
single word, and his face became slack. He also whispered something to
116
Jenny, and she got to her feet wearing a blank stare. Pre-installed trigger
words. I could only half wonder how they had been installed.
How I managed to carry out the simple tasks I wasn’t sure. All I
could do was watch as this Salvador character produced a couple of small
grenades disguised as lemons, removing the pins spectacularly with his
teeth. The bombs teetered in slow motion either way down each aisle way
releasing a pale milky yellow smoke. People started coughing all around
me.
Jenny went to work covering over the window with a sheet of
Plexiglas and duct tape that she found in the bottom of the bag that Sal had
provided. Rick began following Sal up the aisle towards the first class
compartment.
The mysterious Salvador smiled, “Come on Max, don’t dilly Dali.”
All I could do at this point was to obey with one wooden leg and
one of concrete, a torso consisting of bags of wet sand and a head full of
cotton balls.
I helped an oblivious Rick drag a man and woman from their first
class seats through the hazy yellow fog. Salvador was coming from the
cockpit with an odd smile on his face. He began a quick sermon to the
populace. Phrases like ‘you will awaken refreshed’, and ‘you will
remember nothing but peace’ were bandied about in soothing relaxing
tones.
117
Seated as a group in their new first class seats Salvador explained
his cover up plan to the docile group. Max was not seated with the others;
instead he sat in a different section on the far right side of the first class
travelling section. Charlie, who had been excluded from any tasks during
the musical chairs, was the only one of the group not slumped down in his
seat with tired eyes. No eyes were more strained or tired than Dali’s as he
went over the details.
“…and then we swapped seats with five pre-selected prime
candidates to resume the rest of the flight. By the time anyone inspects the
plane we will be long gone and if anyone is suspected it will be our
decoys.”
“None of the passengers will recall any of this until much later, if
at all. Even if they do it will probably wear the tattered clothes of a dream.
In fact none of you will remember any of this either.”
He leaned in close to Jenny and Rick, “Especially you two. You
will not only forget all that has occurred on this flight, but you will also not
recognize Max if you happen to spot him on the street. You,” he said,
concentrating on Jenny. His whiskers nearly tickled her nose. “will not
recognize Max at all until he chooses reveal himself to you.”
118
He relaxed a little, leaning against the armrest of Jenny’s seat. “I
suppose I am just talking to hear my own voice, but when you have such a
splendid voice such as I, how could I not create my own music?”
“Now let’s all try to get some rest. Sleep now. I foresee problems
in our future, but ultimately success for each of us in our own way.”
119
Chapter 10
By the light outside the tinted windows it could be either a gray
seven thirty in the morning or an equally hazy night of the same hands.
The only distinguishing factor between dusk and dawn was the large
number of people in the sedately neon lit bar.
In the corner, as close to the smokers quarantine as possible, was
the little group, minus Max.
Rick stood on the other side of the Plexiglas barrier puffing his
cigarette and watching the group order their drinks. His eyes narrowed as
he inhaled.
Sal ordered a Caesar, extra spicy, with a pickled bean or shrimp
instead of celery, if it were at all possible. Celery was apparently evil,
according to some obscure religion prevalent in some remote Kurdistan
villages.
Jenny ordered her strawberry margarita virgin for the wagon.
120
“I’ll have a bourbon, straight, no sissy ice or soda…or nothing.”
Charlie shouted far louder than the music required. He shot Rick a look,
as he was busy stubbing out his tobacco stump.
“Do you have a preference, sir?” The young waitress asked
Charlie.
“For what? I’ve just told you what I want.”
“A particular brand of bourbon…I’ve come to learn that a person
who orders that drink is very particular about brand. Loyal, if you like.”
She spoke politely. Her accent hung loosely, but still it clung to her. She
had slow southern drawl, if only just a hint, but more New Orleans than
Georgia.
“Oh right, well I always get the same brand, almost twenty years
now…uh.” He paused with a frown.
“We have a large selection, sir.” She was distracted, and looked as
though a headache was just coming on.
“Forget it.” He said, with a gruff shake of his head. “Just bring
me a beer. Any kind, so long as it’s American.”
She shrugged. “Okay.”
“I’ll have a mineral water, no ice. San Pellegrino if you’ve got it,
love, but any sparkle will do.” Rick said, rejoining the group. He had
turned his chair around and sat down resting his arms against the back.
“Got it.” She turned to leave, but…
Charlie pointed at the waitress, “And make sure it’s in a bottle.”
“Sorry?” She turned back around to face him.
“The beer. Make sure it’s in a bottle, not from the taps.”
121
“Got it.”
“And leave the lid on. I want to open it myself.”
She nodded and walked away.
“And don’t bring me a glass either.”
“She didn’t acknowledge the last request, but sighted heavily. She
limped towards the bar on end of shift dead dogs.
Rick nodded in approval, “Very sensible, that.”
“What?” Charlie snarled at Rick.
“Leaving the lid on. Never know what people might be up to with
an open bevvie.”
Charlie looked at Rick with contempt. “Why do you hold your
smoke like that?”
“How’s that?”
“You know, all faggy.”
With a chuckle Rick said, “Because it is a bloody fag.”
Charlie shook his head. “I mean homosexually.”
“That’s how they smoke them up North.” Rick said, just this side
of a verbal punch.
“North of what?” Charlie asked, folding his arms.
“Listen sunshine, I don’t believe I like your attitude. You don’t
want to give me grief, hear?”
“I’m just saying…”
“Yes, well what are you saying, then?”
“You are, aren’t you?”
“Am what?”
122
“Homosexual, I mean it would explain a lot.”
“Am I heck as like! Why the fuck you gotta be such a
homophobe?” He said, slapping the table hard with indignant regard.
“Enough!” Jenny interrupted.
Both combatants broke glares with a residing harrumph. Rick
kept his grumpy glower, but Charlie’s face transformed into a soft-eyed
smile.
“Sorry ma’am, I'm just tired I suppose. It’s been a long day.”
“Just try to play nice,” she said with a tired smile, but added with
a hard caste in Rick’s direction, “and you too.”
Rick mumbled under his breath, “He can go peddle his bike.” His
face was still storm clouds and vipers.
“So listen,” Jenny said to the group after quickly flashing Rick
another thunderbolt gaze, “Salvador is about to tell us all why we are
together.”
“Am I?”
“You are.”
“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I peel the onion?”
“Maybe we could find out the truth about our foggy memories of
the plane ride, too.” Rick said quietly.
“What?” Jenny asked.
“Oh, nothing.”
They sat in silence, profound silence, in uncomfortable chairs
constructed of broken glass, metal shards, nails, and poky sticky-outie bits.
123
Charlie eyed Jenny with suspicion. Rick, who had his head propped in his
left hand, glared at Charlie through his frowning eyebrows.
Jenny quietly powdered her nose with a small, mirrored compact
that resembled a clamshell. Salvador sat staring into the reckless face of
oblivion, his back strut-straight, idly twirling his moustache.
Charlie was counting something in his head or making a list, Rick
observed, as Charlie’s fingers would, one by one, gently twitch against the
table.
Sal sat up straight and opened his mouth to speak, but before he
could the waitress arrived with the drinks.
“Okay, so here are your drinks.” She said, placing the drinks
down in front of each of them. “I’m going off shift now.”
She left her wordless request out there blowing in the breeze. No
one seemed to comprehend it right away. They were all staring very
intently at the drinks in front of them.
“Oh, I see.” Sal said in surprise. He reached deep into the folds
and pockets of his coat.
He produced two fistfuls of wrinkled bills, most not of the
American variety. He looked at Jenny with an incomprehensible plea. She
extracted a ten and a twenty and gave them to the waitress.
“Sorry, I’ve always been hopeless with money.”
“Hey, no problem.”
The three men sat staring at the drinks that had been placed in
front of them. All three wore a look of various degrees of curmudgeonly
perplexion.
124
Sara put away her compact and looked at the three mute
questioners. Her gaze then fell face first on her own drink.
All the orders were wrong.
Charlie had a tall can of Guinness, the hearty Irish draught, in
front of him, which stood in mute testament to the timeless beauty of the
frosted glass beside it. Not American beer by a long shot, and not in a
bottle.
Rick had what appeared to be a lemon lime soda with ice in a tall
thin glass.
Sal had some sort of a pink martini, possibly a crantini, with two
lively sprigs of celery on a side plate.
Jenny got a squat tumbler with ice and a brown milky liquid.
“This is completely unacceptable! I will not stand for this.” Jenny
said, picking up the glass to smell it.
“Kahlua?” Rick asked her.
“Hmm…” She said, dipping a pinky in. “No, white Russian I
think. Where’s the waitress?”
“She’s gone.” Charlie said.
“Gone?”
“She’s off shift, love, didn’t you hear.” Rick said.
“No I didn’t. Excuse me!” She shouted towards the bar. No one
appeared to be back there. In fact no staff were in sight.
“Look we’ll just drink these.” Rick suggested, tentatively, eying
the can of Guinness with saucer-sized eyes.
125
“We will not. This is substandard, and if there is one thing that I
cannot stand it is substandard.”
“Just the one thing you can’t put up with?” Rick murmured with
sarcastic wit, but the remark went unchallenged.
“Well one of you will have to go and explain the situation and
have them correct it.”
Salvador said straight off, “Not me, surely.”
“Well no, not you Sal, but one of these two.”
“No ma’am. I’d be just as happy with Rick’s soda pop there,
actually. The alcohol might make me a mite too sleepy.”
She snapped her fingers, “Rick!”
“No bloody way, I could just about murder that Guinness right
about now. I never in a million would have thought you’d be able to quaff
a decent pint in America. Plus it’s got the widget, so Bob’s your uncle.”
Rick and Charlie quickly switched drinks without more than a
split second of eye contact to show the other their glee.
“Well, I refuse to drink this, and when the next waitress comes by
she is going to get an earful. By the time I’m done we are not going to pay
for a drink for the rest of the night.” She began munching absentmindedly
on one of Sal’s celery sticks.
“Why don’t you take my drink, Jenny? I miss my Gala, and she
was my white Russian. I am curious.” He said, reaching for her glass.
“I’ll try it, but if I don’t like it I swear I’d rather dump it over the
next adversity then drink it.”
“Mmm,” Sal sighed, “the essence of sweet bovine frost.”
126
“Huh?” Charlie grunted.
“I believe that he means to say it’s milky, ain’t that right?”
“Such the word fitting.”
“Lovely, my son.” Rick said after a long pull on the black draught.
A creamy mustache painted his stubbled upper lip. “You know I haven’t
had a proper bevy in, what, six years.”
“I remember.” Salvador said with a fond twinkle in his eye.
“Right, you do! That hangover almost bloody killed me, mate!”
Salvador turned to Jenny to relate the tale.
“We spent two days drinking in…”
Rick tried to interrupt. “Oh, don’t tell the story.”
“Two days straight if I remember. Anyway we are walking down
a rather run down part of the town, and we came across…” he paused to
sip his drink. “An adult shop.”
“Adult shop?” Charlie asked.
“It was a porno store, with peep shows in the back. And if I
remember right, you talked me into going in.”
“I don’t remember the particulars.” Sal said with a sly wink. “So
we enter the establishment and I turn around and Rick is gone.”
“Gone?” Jenny inquired.
“Completely. I look outside, and he’s nowhere to be found. I go
back into the shop and ask the man behind the desk. He didn’t see Rick at
all.”
Jenny asked, looking very amused, “Did you even go into the
store?”
127
She approached her drink with caution. She tipped the glass at
just enough an angle to wet her lips without actually sipping. She licked
her lips like using a toe to test the bath water. “Mmm.”
“I remember Sal showing me this pre-formed, err, buttocks that
vibrates, so I know I entered the shop, but...”
Dali continued, “I got some tokens for the booths in back. I
knocked on all the doors, but they were all empty except for one.”
“He was in a booth?” Charlie asked.
“No, it was a very portly gentleman with a particular perversion.”
Salvador said, wrinkling his nose.
Jenny took a large sip.
“Tart, but sweet. It’s pretty good, well not bad… but the waitress
is still going to hear about this.”
“Jenny, I was under the impression that you were under the
wagon.” Sal reminded her.
She corrected him, “On the wagon?”
“If you prefer.”
“Well technically yes, but only the hard stuff, and this is cranberry,
so it doesn’t count. Not really, anyway.”
“So where did you go when you couldn’t find Rick?” Jenny asked,
but Sal continued the story before Rick could answer
“I entered one of the booths and put some tokens into the slot.
This little window slid down and there was a woman behind the filthy
glass. I asked her, once I had gotten her attention with a crumpled bill of
unknown denomination, whether she had seen Rick. I described him, but
128
she hadn’t seen him. She seemed very bored, and possibly high on
hashish. I never did find Rick, and didn’t see him again for two days
when I visited him in the hospital.”
“The hospital?” She turned to Rick enrapt in the sordid tale.
“What happened?”
“I can’t remember. All I know is that I woke up in a strange room
in a puddle of vomit and urine, which I hope were my own. I was in a
very bad state.”
“So why did you go to the hospital?” Charlie wondered aloud.
“Alcohol poisoning they said, but…”
“Here’s the good part.” Sal said with glee.
Suddenly Rick became very shy. “Oh, forget it.” He was pulling
his hair back to retie it with a rubber band.
She shook her finger disapprovingly. “No way! You can’t tell us a
story and then not finish it.”
“She’s right, you know.” Charlie added.
“Nah, best leave it.”
Salvador cut in, “He was wearing one army boot, and someone
had shaved his chest hair off.”
Jenny blurted out, laughing. “You’re kidding!”
“No I am not…and his pockets were full of money.”
“I’m disgusted.” Charlie said before bursting out in laughter
himself.
Rick sat silently waiting for the antics to subside.
“He hasn’t been able to drink, or eat bacon since then, have you?”
129
Rick scowled, and grumbled, “I haven’t.” .
“No harm done. We’ve all had embarrassing moments.” Sal said
reassuringly.
“What about the bacon bit?” Jenny asked.
“That is a story he will have to tell himself.”
“I think I’ll save that one for later.” Rick said with a sarcastic
scrunchy face.
“I can’t wait to hear that one.” Charlie said, grinning into his soda
pop.
Rick asked, gently nudging Sal with his elbow. “Down to
business, then?”
“That’s what I’m talking about.” Charlie agreed. “Let’s get down
to it.”
Sal took another sweet sip of his white Russian and began…
“I met Edward James in 1933. He was this romantic social
dilettante who was passionately interested in the arts. He had a genuine
and courageous eye for the avant-garde. He was a creative man, who
wrote me many lovely poems.” Which he pronounced as poe-ehms.
He shook his head to start over and continued, “Actually this isn’t
the start of the whole story, but this is as good a place to start as any. I had
just left the Surrealists and …”
“Okay, hold on just a second. I may be a little slow to catch on in
my old age, you did say you met him in 1933?”
“That’s correct, Monsieur Echo.”
“When were you born?”
130
“On May 11, 1904 I suffered the horrible traumatism of birth.”
“But if any of this is true…”
Sal put his drink down without taking a sip. “Every syllable.”
“Then you’d be, what, over a hundred?”
“Very true, and I am.” He said, with a wave of his kerchief.
“Impossible! I am damn near seventy and I could say without a
doubt that you don’t look any more than fifty five.”
This pleased Sal and he smiled, pushing a stray hair out of his
eyes. “Thank you.”
With a grunt Charlie said refolding his arms, “I’m not into fairy
tales.”
Rick laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“Where I’m from they’re called fairy stories. Fairy tails are
something different altogether… and you thought I was the gay one of the
group.”
“Regardless…” Sal said, dismissing the confrontation with a hoity
sniff.
“Let’s just hear ‘im out, eh?” Rick added with a nod and a cheeky
wink.
Charlie didn’t respond in any way, so Sal took that as a yes and
continued.
“I will tell you in all its intimate description the very reason that I
have coalesced this group…but first I must confess that I have misled some
of you. I am not technically Dr. Salvador Jacinto”
131
Her eyelids trembling in bewilderment, Jenny sputtered, “but…”
“I am the one and only Salvador Dali,” he confessed. “Due to
certain circumstances I had to conceal my true identity for a time, but I feel
I can trust you with my true identity. Without that knowledge, the rest of
the information I am about to relay would be if not useless, then
completely unbelievable.”
Yet again as the plan was about to be unveiled a server interrupted
the party.
“Can I get you anything else?”
They all looked up, and no one displayed more startled wide eyes
than Dali. Jenny’s rage over the previous mishandling of the drink order
faded like a bright poster in the window of a small town music store that
still did a good volume in vinyl. She had been deflated by the kind smile
of a good-looking young waiter.
Rick nodded, “Ah, same again for me, mate.”
“Same over here.” Jenny agreed, but they both spoke at once.
“Jinx!” She said to Rick.
“Wot?”
Both Dali and Charlie answered with an affirmative nod. Dali’s
was a curt downward nod, Charlie’s, on the other hand, was a raised
eyebrow upward waggle.
“Great!” The waiter said, cleaning the empty glasses off the table.
“Say, aren’t you Jenny Haniver?”
“Yes, yes I am.” Someone, probably Rick kicked he shin gently,
but she continued, “How kind of you to notice.”
132
“I am such a fan. I especially loved ‘Café Avenue’. I’m actually
going to college right now for cinematography, so I loved the whole film
noir interspersed with the gauzy, dreamy aspects.”
“Well, stick to your dreams. You can do anything you put your
mind to. Dream hard, but work harder, I always say.”
“Thanks…and you know that whole thing about the trial and all, I
never believed those things they said about you.”
“Aw, thanks. I always knew the public would see through that
ugly smear campaign.”
“Could I get your autograph…if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Anything for a fan.”
She pulled a 5x7 photo out of a secret compartment in her modest
purse. She scrawled a couple of words.
“What’s your name?”
“Ned. Ned Grahams.”
She finished her sentiment with a fluid squiggled signature and
handed the souvenir to the waiter.
“Thank you. Yeah, thanks a lot.”
“You are so very welcome. You know you’re a good looking guy
Ned…ever thought about getting into acting?”
With fresh sangria blush on his cheeks, he admitted, “Maybe some
day.”
“By the way, Ned, what was wrong with the girl who served us
the first round?”
133
“Nancy? The drink psychic?”
“Drink psychic!” Charlie said with a guffaw.
“Yeah, she always gives you the drinks you don’t order, but
actually want. She’s never wrong. Oh sure, sometimes she gets the drinks
mixed up between a group at a table. Too many stray thoughts get in her
way, I suppose, but she always puts the right drinks on the table if not in
front of the correct person…and I’ll bet she made you pay before you knew
what hit you, too.”
“Something like that.” Charlie said.
“Drinks.” Rick coughed with two full scoops of impatience.
“Sorry to keep you all. Thanks again Miss Haniver. I’ll be right
back with your drinks.”
Ned turned to leave, but Jenny grabbed his shaved, but well
muscled, forearm to stop him.
“Ned, would you be a dear? We’re having a very private
conversation. Could you see to it that we’re not disturbed again by
anyone…. except yourself, of course.”
“Sure, um, I understand. No problem.” He said with another
huge grin.
“Thank you.”
Ned left, and as soon as he was out of earshot Jenny mumbled
under her breath. “Fucking fans…”
“You were certainly polite to that bloke. Fancy him or
something?”
134
“Are you kidding me? I’ve just learned to use men to my
advantage whenever possible, and the occasional woman, too.” She added
with a cold smirk. “I hate fans. They are all ill educated leeches.”
With indignant bulging eyes, Dali said loudly, “I would like to
finish, please.”
“Sorry. Go on Salvador.”
He resumed as if he had released an internal pause button.
“He was bi-sexual, which was frowned on in those days, and he
fell madly in love with my art…and, by extension, me.”
“Both Gala, my wife, and I were extremely pleased to have taken
up with Edward. He had inherited a large estate in West Sussex, had a
house in London, and a small summerhouse. By this time our money
was…gone. Those were truly the lean years. I have never been good with
money, or any of the many small details that make real life gritty, so I have
no idea where it all went. I needed the money to eat sea urchins once a
weak, to paint my living waking dreams in comfort, and to appear well off.
Above all, the appearance of wealth and its trappings was paramount.”
‘Edward and I carried on a very fruitful relationship behind Gala’s
back, at his insistence, but I could never consummate our…affair for
obvious reasons.”
“Because if Gala found out…” Jenny said.
“No. No, Gala would not have minded me having a sexual
relationship with a man. No. Not in the least. Big I am completely averse
to human contact by anyone but myself. That is why I so often wear these
135
gloves. No, she was much more calculating. She was suspicious, and
greedy. She was more afraid to lose her cash bull.”
“Cash cow?” Charlie asked.
“The very. You see I wasn’t her first artist, she had been many a
man’s…” he struggled to find the fitting word. “Muse.”
Both Rick and Jenny looked surprised at the ferocity of the tone in
the last word.
“Sometimes she would get ever so jealous, and pull tantrums. She
had eyes that could pierce walls. Everyone was afraid of her. Her iron
will could move stone blocks. I remember a particularly embarrassing
incident in a hotel…but I digress. But in the end Edward would woo her
with antique jewelry and expensive gowns.
He pulled away, smoothing his lapels, but continued, “We carried
on a long distance relationship, writing to each other, meeting when we
could. He would write lengthy fantasy poems, and I would sketch all
manner of dirty pictures to send back.”
“When we were particularly struggling Edward would send
money, which I would misplace, of course. Because of the war we couldn’t
stay in Port Lligat, so we stayed in Paris, which was very expensive.”
“Which war?” Charlie asked earnestly.
“The Spanish civil war.”
Charlie appeared to be trying to recall the details.
“He kept telling me that she was only using me until another
younger, richer, genius came along. He’d call her a cold steel heartless
sucking vortex. He was, of course, correct, but I would not leave her, ever.
136
I needed her, and even now I still do. She was my twin, my doppelganger.
Gala gave me a structure that was lacking in my life, in the truest sense of
the word. She was my spine, and I her…I don’t know what. I will never
forget the first sweet blossom of our relationship.”
“He could not convince me to leave her, but he did try. In those
years we formulated a plan, a very devious plan. Actually, I think it was
his granule that I helped to blossom in true Dalinian manner.”
“As he was already a patron we had a contract drawn up, with
Galas very exuberant approval. We would send him all paintings,
drawing and sculptures during the three years starting on June 1, 1936,
and ending on June 1, 1939. In exchange we would get 2,400.00 British
Pounds a year at 200.00 per month. A fantastic deal that would allow me
to call a truce in my desperate battle against the reality of going hungry.”
“I had to complete not less than 12 large pictures, 18 small pictures
and 60 drawings in that time. Our written agreement was an additional 3
large pictures and 6 small pictures that he had agreed to store for me. I
also forwarded numerous sketches for safekeeping.”
“My workload increased when Gala began taking some of the
completed works that were meant for Edward, and sold them privately
against the contract. It was always about the accumulation of wealth with
her, you see.”
He turned and seemed to address Rick more directly, “In
December of 1940, after we had already fled from another war…”
“Which war it this time?” Charlie asked suspiciously.
137
“World War Two. Two packing crates of paintings were at the
framers in Trailleurs et fil, in Paris, where they were stolen by the Nazi’s
and put on a train to Germany.”
“Now, were these allocated to Edwards contract?” Jenny asked.
Rick shook his head. “The contract would have run out by then.”
“That’s right, the contract was up.” Dali nodded. “However,
there were still a number of paintings that he had commissioned that were
supposed to be in those crates.”
“Supposed?” Rick asked, with a wry grin.
“Well, it was very close, but Edward had managed to hide all the
artwork in a concealed room in the cellar only hours before soldiers broke
in. The crates were sealed, so the Nazi’s didn’t realize their error until it
was being unloaded in Germany. Another reason for Hitler to despise me,
I suppose. My painting ‘The Enigma of Hitler, had started his disapproval
of me.”
“More paintings went ‘missing’, and Gala began to get very
suspicious of Edward and I. He, in fact, went so far as to sue us, very
publicly for the paintings, which he intended to store for me. But Gala’s
love, I maintain, saved me from a world full of slaves. I loved her
ferociously, my legitimate scented wife. I sometimes even signed my
paintings ‘Gala-Dali’,” his glance turned inward, “for without my twin I
would not exist any more.”
Jenny dabbed at the corner of her eyes with a tissue.
“I was exiled in America during and after the war, and America
embraced me as a true celebrity. Gala and I made loads and buckets of
138
money. Not in need of more cash, I put the cached paintings aside from
my thoughts. In 1947 I worked with Walt Disney on an animated movie
entitled ‘Destino’. The movie was never completed, but I…”
“Yes?” Rick asked, suddenly suspicious of missing details.
“Oh, just flexing my sentiments. The last thing I had Edward keep
in hiding for me was a selection of cells and artwork from the movie.”
“Hold on here. What does any of this have to do with why we’re
all together?” Charlie asked.
“Just let him finish.”
“Harrumph.”
“Why did you stay with such a shallow greedy shrew? That
doesn’t seem like the Salvador that I know.”
“She was the part of me that I didn’t possess.”
“That’s so romantic! Ala Tom Cruise in Jerry McGuire…you
complete me.”
“No. I could not organize a trip by myself; I had and still have no
tangible sense of money on a day-to-day basis. I was hopeless, but I now
possess a 51 percent share in my hope stocks. I nearly went mad before I
met her.”
All three of the seated guests stiffened at the mention of the
concept of insanity.
“Yes mad, truly completely insane…I see your dubious pupils. I
would spontaneously burst into loud laughter. Everyone in the village
avoided me, especially my father.”
139
After three swigs of alcohol by the group, started at the left by
Jenny and continued in a sporting event wave ending with Rick, Jenny
spoke.
“So where did this Edward James…”
She wasn’t able to finish her query, Dali cut her short with a
dreamy far away look.
“He really loved me…a truly kind heart.” He paused, his eyes
gaining dew.
Just as Jenny was about attempt to ask her question again, he
started in once more, leaving her unhinged jaw spring cantilevered.
“There were so many people I shunned for the madness, and the
poison of that woman…” woman was barely discernable as a word, it
emanated from his mouth as a verbal sneer from his grimacing lips. “and
her villainous diversions.”
“Que?” Dali had leaned in close to Jenny’s ear. She jumped a little
in surprise at his unexpected close proximity.
“Me?”
“Of course. Your question?”
“Um, oh okay. So where did Edward James store the artwork?”
“As I’ve said, originally in Britain. He moved the crates to
American in the 50’s, I’m not sure of the exact dates. I was living in the
states for a while and he determined that it would be safer here than
overseas. I was actually living in California with the cowboys and rustlers.
I have put all the details out of my mind, without need of money, so I can’t
140
remember much…I know we wanted it far enough away that Gala
wouldn’t find them.”
With one notch over a whisper she hissed, “Yes okay, but where in
America?” It would be difficult to determine if she were annoyed that that
particular detain had been remiss, or if she was just trying to keep her
voice low.
“It is yet to be determined. It is definitely in a warehouse, and that
is why …”
“Then why are we in Florida?” Rick asked.
“Ah, to get the key.”
“To the secret vault?” Jenny asked. She appeared to be taking on
the role of a secret agent. Her body language was different, more fluid,
and her face took on a stealth mode not seen since her role in Romeo
Bravo.
“No secret vault. Hmm… more of a symbolic key. You see in
Edwards’ notes he carefully constructed encryptments.”
“Encryptments? That’s a new word, mate.” Rick said with a
narrow eyed skinny lipped grin.”
“Cipher then? He knew that if Gala saw an address or such, she
would catch us out. I would take each letter and incorporate them into a
painting. Each letter contained a letter and a number, or so.”
“I was working on the Sistine Madonna at the time and I would
incorporate the digits into it, while not even knowing myself where it was
pointing to. It was the mid to late 50’s I think. I couldn’t fit all the
information on one painting, so I added the second half of the puzzle into
141
‘Don Quixote Vigorously Defending St. James of Compostela’. By the time
I had gotten the last letter to finish the puzzle, disaster struck. Gala
intercepted the letter and tore it up. It was just around the time of the
lawsuit against us by Edward, and Gala was fed up. Before I was able to
look at the data, and try to decipher it as best I could, the paining sold and
Gala stood over me until it was finished. It was brilliant, of course.”
“I was in no rush at that time for the information, and as time
wore on the memories softened as much as Gala continued to harden.”
“Which means we’re in Florida…” Jenny led.
“To visit the museum, study the Dalinian masterpieces, now that
they are both together, and decipher the code.”
“And you’re sure that both paintings are here?”
“Very sure. The second one is a new addition in fact. Strange
story about ‘Don Quixote Vigorously Defending St. James of Compostela’,
for some reason, perhaps because it sold so quickly, it was never entered
into our catalog of paintings. In fact until only a few years ago was it
proven, by computer analysis, that it was a true Dali work. They could
have just asked me.”
Rick mumbled in Salvador’s direction, “I had heard something
about a scandal involving forged Dali paintings…”
“They were not paintings, they were prints.”
“So there is truth in that?”
“None whatsoever.” Dali said, but he didn’t just brush the
comment aside lightly. Something in his eyes, the physicality of the glare
142
punctuated the statement with a heavy period. There were to be no
reproaches to the subject, he made that much clear.
“Why did you wait so long? I mean, why didn’t you just get the
code ages ago, we could have just met you in the appropriate city.”
“Protection. Not everything is as it seems. They are on to me
now, and things could get very dangerous. Friends are very hard to come
by…people who can be trusted, like you two…” he said with a broad
sweep of his hand like the presenter of prizes on a TV game show.
“The artwork is mine. Others know about the ‘lost’ artwork, and
are actively searching as well. No one else must discover it.”
“Who is after it?” Jenny asked. She was paused in suspense
millimeters from the next sip of her drink.
“Thieves, grave robbers, tomb raiders, common criminals, and
worse…”
“Okay, so everyone but good people. That doesn’t clarify
anything. Who are we looking out for?”
“Rumors have been rampant about this artwork since they
originally went ‘missing’ all those years ago. Even the Nazi’s...”
In complete surprise Jenny asked, “Nazis!?!” She still had not
taken her sip.
“Of course. Hitler never forgave me for me for the painting, or the
scandal with the crates.”
“Hitler is dead. You realize that, right?” Rick asked gently, trying
his hardest not to sound patronizing, or condescending.
143
“Dead yes, but never forgotten. Other hands pick up a fallen
torch…”
Dali suddenly stopped, mid sentence, and got up from the table.
Without another word he walked off in the direction of the washroom.
Charlie and the others appeared to be stunned at the suddenness
of his escape.
“I know blokes don’t usually do this, but I think I’ll join him in the
gents. Keep an eye on him s’like.”
“Gay ahead, ” Charlie mocked, “err, go ahead.”
“Good idea, Rick.” Jenny said with a giggle.
Rick silently entered the washroom right behind an oblivious
humming Dali.
They stood two stalls away from each other and began in unison,
like synchronized swimmers. Dali stared straight ahead at an
advertisement for a new Gustav Crane movie framed and hanging on the
plain white tiled wall. Rick looked around nervously, trying to avoid eye
contact with the urine stains on the floor. He seemed even more
144
uncomfortable of the assortment of wiry pubes in the cracked urinal,
faceted with corroded chrome accessories.
Breaking the silence, Rick asked, “So, what’s really going on,
between friends, like?”
Dali was startled. He apparently hadn’t noticed that Rick had
followed him in. He was in a world of his own and the sound of Rick’s
voice applied jumper cables to his nipples.
“What!?” He turned in surprise and took one step to the side.
“Watch it, mate!”
Dali was now splashing urine like an out of control fire hose. He
seemed to be wrestling his penis as though it were a slippery alligator.
“Whoa, sorry, one moment…”
The stream arced high, and Rick had to step aside to avoid the
stream. It had become a full on golden shower, and Rick’s dodging
displaced his stream from the stall in from of him. It all happened in two
blinks, and now both of them had wet socks and shoes, and splashes up
the pant leg below the knee.
“I did not observe that you were in the room.” Dali said
recovering.
“I guessed as much!”
Both men hurriedly finished in their own receptacle, each giving
no more than a quick shake, and approached the sinks. Dali seemed
devastated by the incident and on the very verge of disintegration. He
used two full handfuls of liquid soap and was massaging it into a dog-
145
sized lather. Rick did a quick rinse, water only, and dried off with a paper
towel.
Dali whispered, “Sorry again.” His eyes were still wide with
terror.
“We won’t mention this ever.”
Vigorously he shook his head, “No.”
“Agreed. Look Sal, what is going on? I mean sure, give the big
explanation to the others, right, but we go way back…what’s it all really
about?”
“Art. I want to recover priceless artwork, absolutely priceless,
artwork. True there is gold other valuables, but I’m not interested in those
things. I intend to divide that between the rest of you. You will have
access to quite a proportionate fortune if we succeed. All I want are the
paintings.”
“Blimey!”
Rick watched Dali still lathering his hands, and then a dark cloud
of confusion came over his face.
“So what the hell do we need that old bag of bones for then?”
“I assume you are talking about Charles?”
“Who else?”
“I don’t think we have a chance to succeed with just the three of
us.”
“So you planted him, there by the roadside? I can’t follow it all…
is he a friend of yours?”
“Not at all!” He said with venom. “Don’t be preposterous.”
146
“I didn’t mean…”
“He happened upon this purely by chance, like a balloon in a
sandstorm.”
“Then how did you get his name on the plane ticket?”
“I have associations.”
“Spies? Tell me you’re not spying on us.”
“Dali is no spy. Perhaps I guide the flock from the wolves…”
“That’s not an answer. What happened to you? You’ve changed
so much.”
“Have I? I don’t see it. Strangely I think I have become the me
that I had suppressed far too long. But you, you have come along so far. I
am very proud of you.”
“I don’t talk about the past.”
“What was is the barometer of the present.”
“Maybe, but you don’t have to study each brick to appreciate good
architecture.”
Dali nodded, letting the thought roll around on the tongue of his
brain.
“Our manifestos have served us…and yet our personal mythology
grows. The Richard I knew is to die, indeed is already dead.”
Dali continued to scrub at his hands in the froth.
“Are you in there?” Rick asked the blank canvas representing the
face of Salvador. He received no response from the blank eyes.
147
Dali carefully dried his hands with three persons worth of wadded
paper towels, frowned briefly, then began placing a two layer thick square
of paper on the floor.
“What are you up to, sunshine?” Rick muttered to himself as he
watched the little scene play out.
The little smile that crept into Rick’s mouth would have been
amusing if it weren’t for the sad quizzical look that was scrutinizing his
forehead as he watched Dali remove first his shoes and then his soiled
socks. He stood posed on the balls of his feet like a panther. The socks he
discarded into the bin. The shoes he toweled off and set aside. From what
seemed like thin air Dali produced a mismatched pair of socks, one argyle
and one a cotton sport sock with a double row of red stripes. He balanced
on one foot, graceful as a flamingo, bracing himself with his opposite hip
on the counter top.
Both socks and shoes firmly in place he cleaned up the debris and
proceeded to lather up intensely for a second time, although this time at
another sink, the one to his right, farther from Rick. When that tedious
process was complete, and his hands were completely dry, he pulled on a
pair of virginal white cotton gloves.
Rick nodded softly. He noticed that Dali was looking older, wilder
and decidedly more unkempt. His hair was dangling in his face and his
eyes were as large as saucer and very far away. Rick seemed to be looking
into the eyes of a stranger that he knew very well.
148
Dali did what looked like a yoga position, one leg raised and both
his arms entwined stretching towards the ceiling. His focus was
unparalleled.
After Dali had held the position for forty five seconds he
recomposed, brushed the hair from his face, and at the same time most of
the madness from eyes. He smiled a tired smile and a little bit of the old
Sal seemed to return.
“Thirsty?” He asked.
“My mouth is as dry as sand.”
Just as they were about to leave the room, Rick stopped Sal.
“Hey listen, I know it’s been a long while and all, but thanks for
everything you’ve helped me with in the past. I never really got to thank
to properly, with all the mess in Tangiers and all…”
“Please…”
“No, really. And I hope that all that nastiness at the end is all
forgiven. I know it is on my part.”
“My confidence has multiplied by that statement, we will be
indivisible, subtracting unforeseen circumstances, we can only add to our
prosperity by an exponential ratio.”
149
“So now that you two have had your little toilet break together,
am I going to find out what this is all about?”
Charlie was rubbing the back of his neck. He was clearly at his
frayed edges, both in his patience and his suspension of disbelief.
“Let the man take his seat first.” Rick said.
“Fair enough…if we’re not going to get another piece of dime store
fiction.”
“Give him a chance.” Jenny eased over her compact.
“You are tired. Maybe you should…” Dali was talking softly. It
wasn’t an observation, it was a suggestion.
“Damn rights I’m tired!” His voice was strained, and his eyes
seemed out of focus
“Perhaps you should make an early night of it…”
“I don’t like being sent to bed. Oh, I get it. Send poor old Charlie
off to bed, so you can make tracks and abandon me.”
“You have my word. We need each other.”
“So just get packing.” Rick added.
“I’ve had enough from you.” Charlie shouted, pointing an
accusing finger at Rick.
Charlie got up, grabbed his coat from the back of his chair, and
stormed off. Before he was completely out of earshot he shouted back.
“We’ll continue this in the morning?”
“If that’s what you want.”
He shook his head. “I don’t need the details, just my part.”
150
He left the room.
“About flipping time…wanker.”
“You’re really going to have to be nicer to him if we’re going to be
spending a lot of time with him.” Jenny warned. “Are we going to be
spending a lot of time with him?” She turned her attention from Rick to
Salvador. Her voice asked a question, but her eyes pleaded.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Are we that desperate that we need him? Surely there must be
another option.”
“I’ve got an option for ‘im.” Rick sneered.
“There are reasons which are beyond my control, I’m afraid.”
The implication that something was beyond Salvador’s control
seemed to weigh heavily on Rick and Jenny.
“Seems like a good segue. Charlie is smoking pissed off, and I
need a puff myself.” Rick said, getting up from the table.
He had a glassy look in his eyes and an uncertain stride after only
two pints of beer.
Two steps from the move, he stopped.
“Suppose I should check me email while I’m at it, eh.”
He reached down below the table eye level and recovered an
aluminum flight case. Slim line and retro futuristic, it gleamed with a
purposeful twinkle
“You won’t miss me too much I trust, love?”
151
“Actually, it will provide me with an excellent opportunity to
reminisce with my dear friend, Richard, so thank you.” Her voice melted
with half-congealed smarm.
“Um, actually it’s just Rick.”
“But surely it’s short for Richard? What’s wrong, only you mum
call you that?” She teased with her drink at her lips. She seemed to be in a
playfully, if annoying mood, induced no doubt by the reintroduction of
alcohol to her system.
“Wrong. It’s short for Derrick, but I didn’t want to sound like a
poncer.”
Having shut her mouth he left the room and entered the smoky
haze of the tiny inhalers prison. He sat down at a small two-seat table
facing the couple through the Plexiglas window/wall. He opened the
flight case and began removing his equipment like a highly trained
professional chef. Laptop, satellite phone, fire wire, cordless stylus mouse.
Case shut and moved aside, laptop opened and booting. Dali and Jenny
seemed impressed at the large wide screen as they nosed at him plugging
in the cables.
He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a brushed
aluminum cigarette case to match his laptop container. The box had an
electric lighter built in the reverse side, which he brought to life with a soft
touch to a covered switch. He fingered his custom hand-rolled cigarette
gently. The paper was the color of aged parchment. He met Jenny’s eyes
with a cold smile as he inhaled his first drag. The smoke was heavy and
152
smelled like exotic spices. It smelled more like aboriginal unleavened
bread cooking on a mesquite fire than tobacco.
Jenny and Dali looked away quickly when realized that they had
been spotted.
“He’s very advanced, technologically I mean.”
“Looks like it, but that doesn’t impress me much. He may be
advanced with computers and stuff, but he’s devolved from anything
resembling a human being. He’s more machine than man…and he
smokes.”
“True, but he’s very conscious, lucid in fact of his personal
environment. He would never think of any mind-altering substances,
other than the occasional Guinness…it contains a lot of iron and such.
And those cigarettes are fortified.”
“Right, he did mention that…and I guess I have noticed that he
seems to know a lot about diet.” She said begrudgingly. “So how have
you been, really? It’s been so long. I didn’t think I’d ever hear from you
again.”
“I don’t think it’s been more than a year.”
153
“Actually six, months, two weeks, and three days,” she paused,
seeing his surprise, “kidding…was I close?” She laughed nervously. He
didn’t follow suit.
“I suspect you were very close.” He said, a little uncomfortably
with an uneasy smile as if he’d eaten bad fish.
“I mean after the whole restraining order fiasco…”
“Yes?”
“Which was just a huge misunderstanding…” she put her hand on
his arm.
“Yes, yes of course. A misrepresentation of available facts.”
“That’s right. Had I known…” She was interrupted.
“Well yes, but how were you to know? That would have made
it…” he stopped, searching for the right word. “Unproductable? After a
prolonged absence Dali has decided to contact you.
“Do you mean unproductive?”
“Not entirely.”
“Well either way I am so glad that you did.” She smiled. “I believe
our…friendship is worth salvaging.”
“Our symbiosis.”
“Hmm…” she wondered.
“Another drink?” He asked her.
“Maybe in a minute or two. We had some good times, though,
didn’t we? I mean, put aside that regrettable bit at the end.”
154
“Yes we did. Like frogs amongst the fronds we were. I like to
think that I learned as much from you as you did from me. You’ve helped
me immensely.”
“Oh please, you were the teacher. I mean if it weren’t for you…”
she took a deep breath and looked at him with a little nod. “We had some
great fun, though didn’t we?”
Readjusting his waistcoat, he agreed, “Barrels of it.”
“Remember that time I was shooting in Manitoba, up in Canada,
and we stayed up until 4:30 in the morning searching for an Indian reserve
that sold roman candles?”
He laughed, “And I kept asking you what the pope would think.”
“Or the time I went skinny dipping in that tiny fountain smack
dab in the middle of Kindersberg.” She said with an electric grin.
“I had a chill for a week after that, and I didn’t even remove a
stitch of clothing. Or that time that you threw a rock through my office
window and nearly put out my secretaries eye!” He said wiping a
laughing tear from his eye.
Her smile had contorted into a distasteful grimace as he brought
up an obviously painful and/or embarrassing memory. “Well enough
huggy-kissy stuff, eh?” She said.
She happened to glance across the barrier and noticed that at the
same instant Rick had looked up too. For a second or two their gazes
locked, obscured by the semi opaqueness of the nicotine infused Plexiglas
and the exotic plumes of brown smoke from Rick’s unusual hand rolled
155
cigarette. He looked at her with suspicion as he pushed some of the hair
from his face.
“I’ve got a bone to pick with you.” Her face had changed from a
pleasant reminiscence to an annoyed cold bitterness. “ I have never been
on a bus in my entire life, not outside a film project that is.”
“Except for that time when you four,” he corrected her, “when
your parents sent you and your brother off to an uncles for the summer.”
“I almost forgot about that,” she said with a dark frown. “But not
since then, and that was no blissful parade if I remember. So why did you
make me take that sixteen hour trip, swathed in disguise like a fifties
starlet?”
“I couldn’t take the chance that you’d be discovered…or
followed.”
He talked quickly. Either it had been a rehearsed statement, or he
had just made it up and was hoping that by using the rapid approach
would make it more believable.
Ignoring his explanation, single minded and relentless, she
continued, “and then to be picked up by that…that…incommunicative
cyber hermit. That antisocial bitter pill.”
“He’s quiet with new people, but he’ll open up given the chance.
He’s naturally suspicious, considering his line of work.”
“He was oblivious to my celebrity, and obnoxious.”
“It is just his rough dimpled rind, but once you peel…”
“I am not interested.”
156
“I find that fascinating. You feel rage over someone whom you
admit you have no feelings for in the least. You don’t think that your ego
is bruised because he wasn’t enamored with you?”
She was too furious to spit out her negative burst. “Well, I…”
“You are indignant.” He said, slightly amused, but not so much to
fuel her fire.
“I’m not sure I enjoy you analyzing me right now.” She said,
barely keeping the lid on the boiling pot.
“Anal icing? Hmm…”
“I said analyzing.”
Rick had a rough looking rusty skin on his desktop and a
matching theme for his browser. He had the website up for Guerilla News
in one window, an independently produced beta version email reader in
another, and had just brought another window up with Snoogle, a
freeware search engine developed by the University of Independent
Lithuania. He typed in Dali faqs and tapped the small screen with his
cordless stylus mouse once to initiate the search. With his left hand he
scrolled through numerous emails in his inbox, deleting seemingly at
157
random. He worked quickly, focusing on everything at once in his macro
mind.
Something caught his eye on the Guerilla News site and he
focused his attention on a protest quashed on the streets of Palu, Borneo,
on the big island of Sulawesi. It didn’t appear to be any sort of uprising,
maybe a couple of dozen people protesting on Australian foreign policy.
He minimized the window, and his email, and maximized his
search engine. He had thousands of hits on his query.
He inhaled his unique cigarette, northern style, and looked out at
Jenny and Salvador. They didn’t seem to be going at it hammer and tong,
but Jenny looked annoyed and confused, whereas Sal seemed tired. He
looked like a beach ball that was slowly deflating.
“Dali is never wrong! My mistakes are planned for optimum
efficiency. Charlie is part of the plant for his own reasons, however I
should warn you. Please be careful, he is dangerous so do not feed the
mollusk.”
“You’re aren’t the first to warn me.” She said tapping on the table.
“So you invited him?”
158
“I asked him nothing.”
“Okay, but you told him to wait by the road? How did you know
that we’d stop?”
“I had no contact with him.”
“Now I’m really confused.”
“I had knowledge, I will not elucidate nor expand, but I had been
supplied with information that he would aid me the search for my
artwork.”
“So how is he dangerous? Is he a threat to me?”
“He is a threat to humanity, and essential to our success at the
same time.” He paused, but interrupted before she could interject. “Please
tell me how your latest film is coming along? I’ve heard a buzz.”
“A buzz? Really?”
His deflection worked perfectly. He played the violin to make the
cello jealous.
“Well rumors…”
“My performance was spectacular, my best, but those idiots…they
only went and shelved it!”
“It can’t be!”
“They did.”
“I have a feeling things will turn around soon.”
“That’s what I keep telling Eric.”
“Eric is who?”
“My agent, Eric Dover. My agent says…” She started, but was
interrupted.
159
“Once this comes to fruition your hair will be set alight by the
intensity of spotlight.”
“I can’t wait! One way or another, maybe both.”
“I don’t understand?”
“How big is this going to be?”
“The enormity of this can’t be measured with large animals on a
scale balanced with decaying fruit. These paintings, this artwork…I can
barely breathe when I attempt to fathom their value. The resulting
publicity? Massive…and with you at the center of it all? Galaxian.”
“What about you? This is your baby. Shouldn’t you have the
starring role? I mean I would obviously get best supporting...”
“You don’t understand. I can’t be seen in public. I wouldn’t be, I
can’t explain…I wouldn’t be accepted. No you will be the focus. It will
help emphasize the artwork, and you, even more. This isn’t about the
monetary gains, or the notoriety for me, not in a direct way at least. Dali
will be reborn in the public consciousness. For me it is the artwork, first
and only.”
“How will I explain everything?”
Dali hunched over the table and interlocked his fingers. He looked
intense and spoke in a powerful hushed, but very serious, tone.
“Somehow I think between an actress and a secret agent you will
be able to come up with a story.”
“He’s an ex secret agent?” She asked, with the look of eureka on
her face.
“Well…” He paused cryptically.
160
“So how do we all fit in?”
“He,” Dali nodded in Rick’s direction, “has the skills to unravel
the code and locate the crates. Being a grizzled vet with connections in the
underworld, Charlie should be able to help us gain access as well, if force
is necessary. Your bring the story into the limelight to give it the
sensational headlines that the hunt deserves.”
“It seems as though you have planned this whole scenario out to
the last detail.”
“I have. I have dreamed each detail every night for months.”
“How does it end?”
“I can never remember the details, but I would say that it looks
very favorable.”
He sat back in his chair, reveling in the story.
“Not only will Dali again be the focus of the art world with all this
‘new’ material to study, but you will be elevated from merely a Hollywood
starlet…”
“Merely?!”
“In the eyes of the ignorant masses only, I assure you, but elevated
to an even higher plateau. The will call you Indiana Joan. You will enter
another realm. You will not be an actress; you will be part of history
like…Marilyn Monroe. An icon that which you will become.”
“I will?” She asked quietly of herself. “An icon!”
“Dali will be on everyone’s lips. He will be on t-shirts and in city
architecture. It will be more than a revival. It will be a renaissance. I will
161
achieve immortality, and will not just be warming over these thrice-cooked
bones. Complete and actual rebirth.”
Jenny stared blankly with a goofy grin on her face that was an
excellent companion piece to Dali’s exhibition of far away serenity.
“Oh!” Jenny exclaimed, breaking the shell of daydream. “I can’t
wait.”
They both looked up in surprise as Rick reentered the room and
took up his seat. He slid his case carefully beneath the table. He gave
Jenny a carefully timed delicate and knowing nod, to avoid detection from
Dali.
“Ah, Rick! Glad you’ve returned to us. Jenny and I were having a
fabulouso retrospection of our coincident past history.”
“We were catching up.” Jenny agreed.
“Right. Sometimes the past should stay buried.” Rick mumbled,
but somehow Jenny heard his comment.
“Buried? Isn’t that a bit morbid?” She asked.
“Yeah. Past is dead, love, better to live where you are actually
four and five.”
“And presently I am dead tired.” Dali said, rubbing his temple
with his gloved hand.
She moved in close and reached out to comfort him. “Are you
okay?” She asked.
He recoiled from her touch like a cat from a spray of water.
“I’m fine.” His face showed the panic in his voice as he stood up
to avoid her caring embrace, nearly knocking over his chair in the process.
162
“I think I just need some sleep. I will see you in the morning.” A
deep vibrato stuck in his voice lingering over his rolling r in morning.
“Maybe we should call it a night as well?” Jenny suggested to
Rick with a shrug. He gave her a puzzling quick head shake.
Dali turned to leave the bewildered pair, but froze mid stride, one
leg extended fourteen inches from the floor. He stood immobile for five or
six seconds. Without putting his foot down he managed to swivel around
like a gate on a rusty hinge, or a weather vane full of vanity.
He leaned in close and motioned for them to do the same. His face
hovered above the table with an enormous grin, Cheshire cat style.
“You two really should chat. You have no idea how much you
have in common. Remember, hatred is love squared. I can’t believe you
have not entangled your downstairs paraphernalia already. Goodnight.”
He said with a sly wink.
He walked away quickly. The words hung over the table like a
bad smell, and both Rick and Jenny scrunched their noses in discomfort.
“What did he mean by that?” Jenny asked.
Rick shook his head with a frown, “I’ve no clue.”
“What happened to my Salvador? He’s changed so much since
I’ve last seen him.”
“He’s still in there somewhere, I’m convinced. Way down.”
“I miss him.”
“Me too. He was such a smashing bloke, and he’s still a friend, but
…I don’t know.”
“Have you noticed the way he looks?”
163
“Wot, his narcissistic peacockery, and his demented dandy attire?
Or that bafoonous moustache?”
“No, I find that charming.”
“Not a cry for attention?”
“What’s wrong with that? We all need attention.”
“Um…”
“No, it’s just that, I don’t know, he seems older or something.”
“I noticed that. The pressure seems to be getting to him. He seems
so worn out.”
“That’s it! Not older, just tired.”
“Not even just tired, he looks like he’s had the stuffing knocked
out of him.”
“Yes, I agree. Maybe it was the plane ride…I know he hates to
fly.”
“Did he? He never mentioned that to me, in fact…speaking of the
plane….”
“I know! How weird was that?”
“I’m still not sure what happened. Some sort of government psyop I’ll bet.”
“I don’t know anything about that, but it seems so far away. Like
a dream cloaked in an opium haze.”
“And I’m sure you would know about opium.” He chimed.
“Actually I do.” She said with a hint of deflated pride.
“Oh.”
164
“I keep thinking something really big happened on that plane. I
keep trying to remember.”
“Forcing it will make it harder. Just let it go. It will come to you
when you least expect it. Unless it was some sort of airborne chemical
agent… I wonder if they pumped something in through the air
conditioning system.”
“If I weren’t so hazy about the situation I’d think you were been
paranoid.” She said with a hint of a giggle.
Very defensively he snapped at her, “Why do you say that?”
“Well I…”
“It’s only paranoid if you think the whole world is out to get you,
but if you have evidence…facts to prove there are hidden machinations
directed towards your personal destruction. What is it then?”
“I don’t know.” She said with a curled lip.
“Neither do I, but it certainly doesn’t make you crazy.”
“I never called you crazy.” She said seriously.
“I just wanted to establish that.” He said gesturing forcefully with
his hands.
The waiter came by with fresh drinks for the pair. He set them
down silently as the two tried to stare each other down.
“Wait!” Jenny said, breaking the tense glare with Rick. “We
didn’t order these.”
She was pointing out the two shot glasses filled with brown liquid.
“Sorry. No you’re right, the drink psychic sent those over.”
“I thought she bloody left.” Rick grumbled.
165
“No, I said she was off shift.”
“Oh.”
“What are they?” Jenny asked.
“Jager.”
“Yawga?” Rick queried.
“Jagermiester. It’s a German liquor made from a hodge-podge of
supposedly beneficial herbs. It’s meant to give you energy, amongst other
things.”
“Does it help recover memories?” Jenny asked with a small grin
that Rick noticed was directed at him.
“I highly doubt it.” The waiter chuckled, as he walked away.
“Cheers then.” Rick said. He looked dubiously at the thick liquid.
“Cheers.” Jenny chimed, slamming back the viscous syrup.
It seemed like Rick’s eyes were going to water as he slammed the
shot glass back on the table. Jenny cocked her head to the side
mechanically, but set the glass down gently. She seemed unaffected by the
potent drink.
“Blimey. I’m getting legless here. I guess I can’t hold my drink
like I used to. I feel like an old woman.” Rick said with a lopsided grin
nudging his head towards Charlie’s now vacated seat.
““I’m usually pretty good, but I can sure feel the effects. I never
was into drinking anyway.” She said dismissively.
“You were more into the illegal substances if I recall from all the
press.”
“Don’t believe everything you read.”
166
“Oh speaking of it… I nearly forgot to tell you what I read!”
“About what?”
“Our friend Salvador.”
“When?”
“When? Oh right. When I was in the smoking cage.” He
motioned with his thumb over his shoulder. “Yeah, I jumped on the net
and did a five minute cram of his specs.”
“And?”
“Well I couldn’t find anything on Salvador Felipe Jacinto, doctor
or otherwise, prior to June 1991, but I did see his Doctorate certificate, so
he was genuine in that respect. Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali, the artist,
died in 1989.”
“Really?”
“I checked out some of facts, such as dates and the lost artwork.”
“Go on.”
“It checks out. I’ve made some inquiries, so hopefully I’ll be
getting some email back.”
“What about the body?”
“How do you mean?”
“Dali’s body. How was it interred? Is there anything on that?”
“I don’t know yet." He shrugged. He slipped a thin Palmino from
his jacket pocket.
“What’s that?”
“Palmino. Just got it. Brazilian smart phone.” He said, displaying
the gizmo to her proudly like a new father. He tapped the screen with his
167
tiny telescoping stylus and it came to life. He brought up a simple word
processing program up and started taking notes.
“It’s also got a 3.1 mega pixel digital camera built in with a video
mode. It doesn’t have a digital zoom or anything, but it’s really handy for
me.”
He marked down her questions, drew a line and started making
up a separate list of questions to find about Charlie’s background.
Military, he scribbled, with two questions marks.
“You sure like computers.”
“Everything is a computer. Real life is just another window on my
desktop. I just minimize it a lot to get to the interesting stuff. What other
questions do you have for me to find out about our doctor Jacinto?”
Jenny didn’t seem to have any other questions.
Remembering a significant detail, he said, “But I did find out that
Dali was burned very badly in a fire in the 1980’s.”
“Well there should be scars then, surely.”
“Exactly.” Rick said. He punctuated his note about scars with an
underline.
“I’ve never noticed any, but I don’t think I’ve ever really seen him
with his shirt off.”
Rick leered up at her from his screen. “So what year did you meet
Salvador then?”
“Hmm…” she thought, “must have been the summer of 1995 I
suppose. And you?”
168
“1997, but we didn’t become close until 1999. So you had no
previous knowledge of him prior to the summer of ’95?”
“Not at all.”
They sat in silence for a moment. They seemed to be sizing each
other up.
“I can’t imagine, and actually I’ve often wondered, how a famous
actress such as yourself might become friends with Sal. He was never one,
when I knew him at least, to associate with your sort. He preferred to
socialize, as I recall, with musicians, artists, revolutionaries and
independent thinkers…as I remember it he was against the Hollywood
canned emotion of the blockbuster.”
“Actually if you’d done your homework you would know that I
was involved in a number of independent ‘art house’ films. So he could
have been associated with one of those directors, as I see it, and I could
have been introduced to him by that group.”
“But that’s not how it happened, is it?” His words formed a
question, but the tone of his voice framed it with a statement.
“I was in Sad Vacation, which was very well received in the
alternative scene. It did very well at Cannes and is now a bit of a cult hit.
Not to mention Desdemona.”
“Which has never been released.”
“So you do follow my career! You’re not one of those bashful fans
are you? A closet Jenny junkie?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
169
“Now that I think of it, I have a much more plausible story of how
I could have met with Doctor Jacinto. As for you…how on earth would an
ex-military…”
“Para-military intelligence, until I was promoted to…” he seemed
to be wading balls deep in something he didn’t want known. The alcohol
had loosened his tongue, and now he stalled attempting to back peddle.
“The secret service-ish.”
“…a paranoid, antisocial misfit...”
“Careful, miss.”
“…ever have the opportunity to have met a fantastic, caring
person like Salvador, and a Doctor no less?
“As I’ve said, independent thinkers, revolutionaries…”
“Hold on a second.”
She paused. A bright-eyed look of enlightenment glittered in her
eyes. Her face was almost glowing with inspiration.
“I know how you met him!”
“Really? Somehow I find that very difficult to believe. I’m all a
tingle to hear this! Go on then, let’s have it.”
“Well Salvador was a top doctor in his field. Only certain
segments of the population could afford to seek out his help, and because
of his success he was also noted to be extremely discreet.”
Rick had a puzzled, but worried expression on his face. He took a
large gulp of Guinness then rubbed his hands together nervously.
170
Jenny wore a look of unrepentant glee. She looked like a little girl
unwrapping a present at Christmas. Just the corner of the paper had been
torn off, but the color of the box was an indication of her favorite doll.
“You were a patient of his, weren’t you?”
“That’s ridiculous!” Rick blurted out, shifting in his seat “I’m no
actress who requires a Botox and a tummy tuck.”
“He isn’t a plastic surgeon, is that…no, you’re not going to squirm
out of this. You were his patient. You were working for the government,”
she fantasized, “and the stress was breaking you down. You were
thinking about quitting…but you were too valuable to them, what were
you? A spy?”
Rick shook his head, trying to thrust a scoffing look at her, but his
actions were stiff.
“They wouldn’t let you just quit. They told you to take some time
off. They also sent you to see a shrink to sort your head out. They got the
best there was and sent you to Doctor Salvador Jacinto! The doctor was
very exclusive. He only saw a half dozen patients, but somehow the
government convinced him to take on just one more.”
“What a load of bollocks!”
“Oh come off it! You can’t deny it, it’s written all over your face.”
He sat back in his seat, staring at his mostly empty glass. He
opened his mouth to speak, but shook his head. He was clearly inebriated
beyond his capabilities.
“I hate this.” He said with a sigh. “How could you possibly know
that? Did he tell you?” His voice was rough, but barely audible.
171
“Same thing happened to me, well mostly, except for the spy
part.”
Rick sat stunned. He stared at the Nancy Drew satisfaction on
Jenny’s face.
“This is impossible. I’ve done tons of research on you. I know
you’d gone to therapy, but that was with a Doctor Lerche in Beverly Hills.”
“A cover story.”
“But what about the stalking charges.”
“Trumped up for publicity. The doctors picture in the tabloids on
all the restraining order stories was an extra from one of my movies.”
Rick looked blown out of the water.
“I’m not a spy. Please don’t say that again. I work in…” again he
searched for the proper words to describe his profession, “intelligence
gathering, or I did.”
“Okay, but just a little tip for you. Telling people that you were a
spy is very sexy. You’d probably get laid a lot more if you used that
line…and maybe cleaned up a little.” She said with a wink.
“Thanks.” He said, looking down at his hands with a shy smile.
“I’ll try to remember that, but I don’t understand. I’ve never been wrong
in all my research. This is what I’m good at.”
“As I’ve said, Salvador was very discreet. He relies on secrecy, but
you already know that.”
“That was probably some of my influence.” Rick said with a
weak, but proud, smile.
“So you’re as crazy as me!” Jenny said with a giggle.
172
Rick protested indignantly, “I’ve never been insane!”
“Oh, lighten up. So the secret is out. Big deal. Besides even
Salvador used to say that we’re all insane to some degree, it just depends
on how you channel it.”
“That I remember. He used to say it was healthy.” Rick said with
a small grin of acceptance.
“Come on. Let’s have another drink. A celebration of our coming
out of the padded closet, at least to each other.”
“Go on then. I suppose that maybe we have more in common than
I thought.” Suddenly his face became sullen and serious. “Charlie can’t
find out about any of this.”
“Agreed.”
Jenny waved toward the bar again, signaling her good-looking
waiter to bring another round of drinks. Rick was looking more glassyeyed than she did, but even she was more dilated in her gaze than she had
been a half an hour ago.
“Amazing deduction, by the way. Bravo. You almost nailed it
perfectly.”
“I’ve always had good intuition about people. I suppose that’s
what makes me such a good actress…being able to sense what makes
people tick.”
“It’s funny. No one would think you’d become friends with your
psychiatrist, but Sal left you no choice. I mean that’s really what makes
him so successful.”
“Exactly.”
173
He really made people open up. No easy task in my case, believe
me.”
“No doubt on that over here.”
“He was so comfortable and yet…” she paused, searching for the
right word.
“Insightful?”
“Um.”
“Clarifying?”
“No, he just made me feel understood. Like, he not only listened
to my words, heard my problems, he possessed them. He didn’t
understand my problems, it was like we both lived them, like we lived the
same life.”
“Right, exactly! I know precisely what you mean. It was an
intangible feeling of understanding.”
She stumbled on the words like a pile of jagged rocks, but still they
came out. “I fell in love with him.” She confessed.
Rick was startled, and nearly choked on his beer.
“Head over heals.” She continued, “For the first time I could love
without fear or trepidation. I just gave into the feelings, dove right in. A
massive cannonball into the sea of amore. I’ve never felt that close to
anyone in my entire life, not my parents, not my brother or friends.”
More drinks were delivered silently. Jenny didn’t even look up to
return the smile of the cute waiter this time. She was entangled in the past.
174
“We became lovers, but not in the traditional sense. We
shared…intimacy, but we didn’t have sex. No, never proper full on
penetration.”
Rick squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. “Why are you telling
me this?” He asked.
“I’m drunk. But I want you, anyone, to understand what I had
with Salvador. I think he was smitten with me. He wasn’t in love with
me, not like I was with him, but it didn’t matter.”
“He was very curious about my body, but he never touched me.
He’d stare at me for hours tracing my curves with his eyes. That’s what
makes the transformation he has undergone make a bit of sense to me. He
always seemed to mentally studying me, sketching me with his eyes. I
didn’t mind posing for him, no matter what strange position he requested.
It was something intimate that we shared.”
“Often we would touch ourselves, but never each other. He used
to say it was more personal, sharing closeness from a distance. The space
between us, he would say, was charged with a special energy that
amplified our emotions. It made us young.”
Jenny was finished her story and took a sip of her drink. She sat
with her head down, but her eyes looking up at nothing.
“Why didn’t it work out with you two?”
“It came to its end.” She finally said with a shrug. “We were both
busy, and when my therapy ended so did our intimate relationship. It was
nice because we still stayed friends afterwards and there was no one
getting dumped. It just ended when it felt right, and we were both okay
175
with it. It just took me a little longer to be okay with it. After some
nastiness, mostly on my part I admit, we lost touch.”
“So the restraining order story had some truth to it?”
“Yes.” She admitted quietly. “But it was blown totally out of
proportion by the press. That part was Eric, my agents idea.”
“I see.”
“I suppose, now that I think about it, that if I hadn’t fallen in love
with him, I never would have evolved.”
“Yeah, it was never cured with Sal. It was always ‘evolved’, or
‘enhanced’, or some such positive reinforcement.”
“Maybe falling in love was part of his technique?” She wondered
aloud.
“Well it wasn’t with me. I never fell in love with the bloke. I
suppose his therapy sessions sort of worked in a similar manner with me,
we did become very close.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was just never close to anyone before.”
“No friends, or lovers?” She asked with a naughty smirk.
“Not really.” His head was down, so he missed the subtlety of her
comment.
“Did you have a bad childhood, too?”
“I suppose. I was given up for adoption and ended up in two
abusive foster homes in a row. I suppose I was lucky, somewhat, because
they weren’t sexually abusive. I did get punched and kicked by one of me
176
mum’s quite a bit…no, most of it was just mental abuse.”
“There is no just in mental abuse.”
“Fair enough. I joined the army, first chance, just to escape and
start a new life for myself. It taught me how to protect myself, but it was
just more mental abuse in so many ways.”
“I ended up specializing in communications. Ironic, huh, since I
never made any friends there either. I became really good at computers
and such, so when I was done I got hired by the government.”
“That’s really sad.”
“And too right I was stressed out and thinking of quitting after
five years with that lot. I began to find out stuff, ask questions. They don’t
like questions. After everything I’ve found out, I’m surprised that they
didn’t just kill me off. Instead they sent me to therapy with Sal.”
“Sal and I became friends, slowly, and I learned to trust him. That
was a long hard road, but I did. I’ve never trusted anyone. I’d never had a
friend, but he changed that.”
“I’m sure you two had some adventures.” Jenny said.
“That’s for sure! We even went on a trip together to…another
country, and he nearly got in trouble with a nasty…well I can’t talk about
that. We were on an assignment for the government; he had been hired on
a six-month contract on my recommendation. Let’s just say I got him out
of a spot of very serious trouble. And then there was the nastiness in
Tangiers…”
“But if you got him the job, didn’t you put him in danger to begin
with?”
177
Shaking his head with a drunk chuckle he said, “Oh no, this was
all his doing.”
“So he feels he owes you. Is that why he’s chosen you to get a cut
of our riches?”
“I suppose, but I think it’s more to do with the fact that I’m good at
what I do. This is more of a job then a bunch of friends getting together for
a picnic. There’s more danger in this than he’s letting on, I suspect.
Besides we didn’t end things on a good note either.”
“You got into a quarrel?”
Rick looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
“Umm…something like that. I couldn’t have been more surprised
to hear from him.”
“You’re still mad at him for something he’s done, aren’t you.” She
said, squinting at Rick.
“Actually, now that I think of it, as lovely as he was to me in the
beginning…things did not end well at all. Enemies would be a bit too
harsh, but…”
“Hmm, with me too.” She agreed with a frown. “Funny how our
first instinct was to remember the good times. Maybe…I mean he’s the
director of this whole thing, but…”
Their eyes locked briefly, but something important was
exchanged. An unspoken pact, with the implication of something sinister.
“I thought about declining his offer, at first, you know?”
“Me and all. Too right, but I’m in need of a significant money
infusion at the moment. I could really use the tidy flash.”
178
“Me too.” Jenny said.
“If it weren’t for the advance…”
“Advance?”
“Yeah, the twenty grand. If it weren’t for that I’d a legged it long
before now.”
She couldn’t tell if he was bluffing.
“Are you serious? He gave you twenty thousand dollars up front
for this?”
“That’s right. How much did he give you?”
“Twenty five thousand. So I think that proves who he needed
more.”
Actor versus spy. Both were equally convincing, but both were
bluffing and they both suspected so.
“He’s balmy…must be.”
“Now that I think of it maybe after all the years of helping crazy
people he is becoming insane himself.”
“And we’re part of his therapy?” Rick wondered aloud.
“Could be.”
“No I don’t think so. He’s on to something here. He’s very serious
about retrieving this artwork.”
“It does seem very personal.”
“Precisely!” Rick said. “He never seems centered on the value of
the paintings in a monetary sense.”
“I’ve noticed that. It’s almost as though…”
“He needs to find the artwork to prove his own existence?”
179
“Interesting theory. Maybe it’s like he’s on the threshold of two
people right now, Doctor Salvador Jacinto, eminent psychologist, and
Salvador Dali, eccentric artist. Without tangible proof, he may not even
exist.”
“So you believe the story of him being Dali?” Rick asked her.
“I think I might, somehow. Logically, I realize that it’s simply not
possible, but...”
“Not me.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know yet.” Rick said, rubbing his chin. “But I’m willing to
stick around to find out.”
They sat thinking and sipping their drinks.
“What did you do after your therapy? Did you go back to working
for the government?”
“No chance. Not after…no, I’m very good with computers. I, um,
I went underground, so to speak. They would never accept my
resignation, no chance of that. I’ve seen what they do to people who walk
away. Let’s just say I put myself into the witness protection program.”
“So Rick isn’t your real name, is it?”
“Maybe it is.” Rick said defensively. “So what should we do
about Charlie?”
“Don’t change the subject.” She said with a smile. “Who are
you?”
“You’ll be lucky if you don’t find out.” He said with a warning
nod.
180
“Probably right.” She said with a smirk, but he missed the jab. He
was preoccupied. “So which government do you work for?”
“Did I?”
“Okay then…did you work for. Us or them?”
“Actually, I’m not sure I understand, love, what you mean by us
or them.”
“Oh, come on…England or the U.S.? Or maybe you switched
sides to China, for all I know. I mean, by the way you keep talking it
sounds like you worked for us, but you did say that you joined the army
straight out of school, which points to the UK. I’m confused.”
He seemed perplexed by the question still, but attempted to
answer.
“Neither…technically both, I suppose.” He said with a shrug.
“It can’t be both.”
“Can’t it? True I did join the British army, but after my aptitudes
were discovered and honed I was promoted to intelligence and
communications. I got promoted quickly and my clearance level was
enviable. The lines between individual nations blurred. The combination
of high ranking security and my computer skills were dangerous. I knew
much more than they realized, and then one day….”
“Go on.”
“Um, one day I wasn’t sure what I knew, and what I only thought
I knew. Information I thought was reliable had been left ‘in the open’, so
to speak. Disinformation…screws with you. It’s tough when you can’t
discern reality, what’s reality and what’s not.”
181
“For once I understand you. Twice I’ve been so wrapped up in a
character that I lost myself for hours after shooting was finished.”
He barely acknowledged the comment with an agreeable nod. He
was deep in thought, rubbing his temples.
“Your brain plays connect the dots with the tiniest facts, the barest
of information sews the fabric of perception.”
“God!” He said in a sudden fit of rage. “That Charlie is a right
piece of work.”
Jenny was startled at the sudden change of subject, but rolled with
it.
“Oh, come on. I thought I was the one in the drama industry. I
mean, he’s good bad, but he ain’t evil.”
“Where did you pick that up from?” He said with a menacing
sneer.
“It’s a line from a movie I was in. You’ve never seen Sad
Vacation? I was nominated for that one.”
“No, I can’t stand to watch movies. It’s all so fake.”
“It helps people relate…it’s entertainment.”
“Yeah, well people are overdosing on entertainment, and starving
themselves of actual experience. Sorry I shouldn’t be so judgmental, I
know. I’m still working on that.”
“It helps people forget their day to day, especially when their day
to day isn’t very nice.”
182
“I’m very reluctant to say this, but you’re not so bad. I’ve been
convincing myself, right from the beginning, not to like you, but it’s hard.
You’re okay.”
“I knew you’d come around…but I’ve got a bad side, too.”
“I think that’s the part I like the most.”
“Have you had plastic surgery?” She asked, looking at his
impossibly perfect nose. “After you tried to go underground.”
“Have you?” He asked, looking at her breasts
Rick crossed the line and he realized it but the appalled look on
Jenny’s face. Before any argument could flare up, alcohol fueled, he go up
from the table..
“I’m off to bed.” Rick said, knowing an apology with his drunken
tongue could make things worse. “I’ll do some more research in the
morning and let you know if I find anything more about the artwork, or
Charlie.”
“Good.”
“Right then, I’m off.”
183
Chapter 11
His velvet pants shuffled together with each sauntered step,
swoosh, swoosh. The ornate silver headed cane danced in his left hand as
he strolled the well-lit hallway. The walls were sparingly adorned with
not a single representation of his artwork, not even a cheap reproduction
of one of his contemporaries. In fact the ‘artwork’ displayed soured his
palate, and his palette, distastefully. At the sight of the offending canvases
he lost his morning craving for crustaceans on toast. He raised his left
eyebrow in contempt at the esclandre.
The tip of the cane bounced off a wall with a sharp click. He
bounced to a stop at the contact.
“Dandelions!” He exclaimed in a heavy Catalan accent. His pupils
dilated suspiciously.
“15A?” he asked no one in particular.
184
He started singing softly to himself as he walked, “take it easy,
take it easy…everybody’s got something to hide ‘cept for me and my
monkey…” but due to his overbearing mixture of accents the words were
almost unimaginably skewed.
He continued his progression towards the end of the hallway
fingering the patchwork satin lapel of his jacket. He stood at the door of
his destination cocking his head at music imagined.
He twirled his most treasured possession, his large upwardly
curled mustachio. He reveled in its immensity.
He avoided walking into a laundry cart that was blocking the
hallway. Looking down, he thought he noticed a curly head of hair
amongst the soiled bed sheets, but didn’t pause for a closer inspection.
“When I’m in the middle of a dream. Stay in bed float upstream.
Float upstream. Please don’t shake. Do not wake me…no wait that’s not it
at all.” He corrected his singing and turned his ear closer to the door to
identify the mystery song.
He liked to think he had acquired a good ear for modern music,
and liked to test himself at every opportunity afforded to him.
On closer inspection he identified disposable electric funk, and a
man singing tunelessly in a deep baritone. He supposed he couldn’t have
been more wrong.
He straightened himself, romanticizing his composure, twisting
his moustache by mere reflect. He rapped on the door with his walking
stick, softly at first, but building to a booming passionate crescendo, all
without reaction beyond the portal.
185
He reached out for the knob, hesitated, making sure his glove was
firmly in place with a dramatic gasp, shooting a quick glance down the
hallway. The door was unlocked, so he pushed it open. Actually the door
was not unlocked, but a business card blocked the locking mechanism
from engaging. The business card was completely blank except for a
heavy gothic SaintM in the center of it. He stooped to pick it up and
noticed that a website address was embossed along one edge. He looked
up from the strange card, slipping it quietly into his pocket.
Aghast.
“Anda que te coja un burro!” He stepped into the room agape,
still unconsciously twirling his moustache with his free hand.
A shower shut off in the opposite room. He walked over to shut
off the porn channel on the glaring TV carefully to avoid treading on any
of the unpleasantness. His cane rattled tattled on the exposed wood of the
overturned coffee table in a dyslexic rhythm.
Behind the uncushioned couch he came upon the body of a half
nude maid reclining in a most ungraceful position exposing parts of her
subterranean biology.
“Maldito.” He whispered in his hoarse tone.
Someone cleared their throat in the bathroom.
“I don’t know what happened there. Kids must have broken in
while I was asleep. I sleep like the devil.”
“Kids?”
“You know what they say about idle hands.” The old man said
from the cavernous echo of the bathroom.
186
“I’ve heard the phrase, something about chestnuts, but I don’t see
how that could possible apply here. Myself, I never had idle hands to
speak of. I was always considered prolific.”
“I just can’t understand how they got in.”
“Perhaps this is a disassociation stemming from a suppressed
memory of fragility. I’ve converted from Freud, our one meeting was an
utter let down, but how was your relationship with your mother?”
Charlie studied the other mans face with a squint-eyed mangle
from a crack in the bathroom door, but didn’t say anything
“Perhaps you should book an appointment with my office when
we get back.”
“If we get back…” Charlie added quietly, but with focus.
“I’m always happy to take on more clients.”
“What the hell are you talking about? You said you were a
hundred year old painter. Now you’re some sort of doctor?”
“In a lifetime a man will have approximately five different careers.
My last incarnation was that of a psychiatrist.”
“Well if anyone needs one, it’s you.” Charlie’s words echoed off
the tiled rooms of the washroom.
“You’ve created a very difficult mess to explain.”
“This isn’t my mess to clean up.”
Whether Salvador heard him or not, or whether he wanted to take
the thought for his own he said, “We have really got to vacate these
putrefying premises Charlie. We must get to the museum today. I cannot
get arrested…not on today of all days.” He turned to face the slightly ajar
187
bathroom door. “Besides where is the cubism?” He grinned to himself
eyeing the surrealism of the room.
The old man emerged nude and dripping, except for a towel
draped loosely around his waste. He was in surprisingly good shape for a
man of such an advanced age. Thin wiry muscles ripped just under the
surface of his sagging skin. A few scrabbley sprouts of stubble stuck out
disjointedly from his protruding and masculine chin.
He looked around, confused. “What do you want?” His words
sounded hollow, and his body language showed that he was disconcerted.
“Hmm…” He, ignoring the question, said surveying the room
with a critical gaze. “Do you have any Scotch tape?”
“Huh?” The old man said unabashedly toweling off.
“You know, cellophane with a clear sticky adhesive affixed to the
obverse recollection.”
“What do you want tape for?”
“That’s certainly not the answer I was looking for…”
Charlie screwed up his face, shrugged, and bent down to the
upended night table. He pulled the handle up vertically and his hand
disappeared inside.
“Good idea, I love that drawer. Bring it over here.” The eccentric
flourished with a pop of his rounded mouth.
The old man recovered a dispenser of tape, the cheap disposable
kind, and wondered to himself what he’d gotten himself into with this
character, even though the choice was thrust upon him.
188
“Oh good, and you’ve found some tape as well. Bring them both.”
He said with a clap of his joyous little hands.
He began struggling with the legs of the fake manikin maid. The
limbs proved surprisingly heavy, but it was a deluxe model with
articulating joints.
Charlie brought the tape and the little drawer, to which he still
clung to by the round brass handle. He looked down at the body with a
kind of wistful remembrance.
“I got a little out of it I suppose. I don’t remember any of this, not
clearly anyway. I remember thinking of my wife Maggie, my darling, and
then…”
“She’s where?”
“She’s dead now.”
“Ah the memories of the darling dead. My Gala is dead as well.”
He noted.
A minute of silence was held, unspoken.
“And that is what we shall call this piece, Memories of the Darling
Dead in a Forest of Gadgets. Hand me the drawer.” He reached out
careful not to touch any part of the old mans skin to his own and gently
took the drawer.
He placed the drawer between the legs of the spurious dead maid
and adjusted her apron accordingly.
“Tape.” He said extending his hand like a surgeon.
He removed one strip and taped over the left eye after a short
struggle. With a second strip he taped the discarded phone receiver to her
189
shoulder like a football pad. Standing up with ample use of his silver
tipped cane he smoothed his pants.
“There, now if you could kindly open the fingers fully of the left
hand and close two on the right I’ll get the milk.”
“The fingers don’t open.”
“Why not?”
“They are attached to each other.”
“We will have to make do. Bring the milk anyway.”
“What are you talking about? Are you on drugs?”
“Dali doesn’t do drugs, Dali is drugs. Need I remind you that I
wasn’t the one who made the goat wear fishnet stockings, now was I?”
His eyes bulged in a brief burst of fury.
“I don’t exactly remember doing that…”
“Ah, but here,” he said with a broad sweeping gesture, ‘is the
result of your handiwork.
Charlie looked stunned, but complied with the request regarding a
small carton of half and half from the little mini fridge. Dali recovered
these and proceeded to pour its contents over the shoes of the victim.
“I wish Man Ray were here to capture this moment for posterity.”
He mumbled to himself while clutching his walking stick in both hands
like a bushido blade.
“And where the hell did those kids find a goat?” Charlie said,
scratching his head.
190
“Nice touch by the way,” he said, nodding towards the dead
animal. “I think he’s just perfect…unless you have some blue rinse?” He
asked excitedly.
“Nope, can’t say as I do.” Charlie still didn’t know what to make
of Salvador, but decided at this point to play along…for now.
“Hmm…well it’ll have to do then.”
Dali retrieved the business card from his pocket.
“Is this yours?”
“No. Never seen it before.”
“I found it. So you haven’t contacted anyone. You haven’t let
anyone in on our little endeavor.”
“Not at all, as far as I can remember.” Charlie was running a comb
through his hair as they talked.
“You are a true enigma, you realize?” Dali said, replacing the card
in his pocket.
“How’s that?”
“Most serial killers don’t last as long as you in their careers. Most
of them get themselves caught, or more likely, kill themselves after a few
years.”
“Is that what you think I am?” He said studying the other man
with a serious look with a heavy sigh.
“Of course. It is my professional opinion. I am positive you have
killed many more than six people.”
“Yer an artist not a fucking psychiatrist.”
“Don’t be so fast to label without due diligence.”
191
“Yeah ditto, you nutty fuck.”
“I’d say you’re pushing 70, maybe even a older. By everything
else I can deduce from your behavior, and the crime scene, you’ve been
doing…this, for the, ahem, better part of your life.”
“I suspect at one time you became very proud of your
professionalism in the deed, but the last twenty years or so it’s turned into
a habit and now you’re just going through the motions. I wouldn’t even be
surprised if this started out with some sort of grandiose plan, and probably
even an accomplice.”
“If that’s what you say.”
“And I do,” he said. “Now quick get dressed and we’ll be off. I
want to be in as soon as the museum doors open.”
“The museum?”
“This is Florida isn’t it?” he asked. “What did you think we were
doing here?”
“Well you still haven’t finished the story from last night.”
“Right you are. I can relate the plans to you in the elevator. I
don’t think it is a good idea to stay here any longer than necessary.”
The old man nodded politely despite the fact that his face showed
nothing by confusion, and a black glower of dislike for Dali.
He turned his back to the other man and retrieved his clothes.
After pulling on his trousers and an off white Henley shirt he reached for
his jacket. The bright shiny smile of a gun peaked out from underneath its
hiding place. Did he remember picking that up last night, too? He
scrambled quickly to hide the weapon.
192
“I shall memorize this scene and paint it when I get to the nearest
easel. Perhaps we have something here…” He stared off distractedly.
“Yes, I’ve got it! ”
“Yeah, except that he’s dead and you’re just another lunatic. I’ll
bet you don’t even know how to hold a brush.”
“Oh that is where you are mistaken sir. I am he and he is me and
we both paint like a lurid swan, graceful and surreal. I assure you it can be
done. Once I recover the paintings that have been stolen from me, I will
rebuild. The world needs us.” The shadow looming in the word us
seemed to be a singular duality.
“You realize it’s fucking madness, of course. No one will believe
you…ever. You’ll be sued to bits. Decimated!”
“That’s where you are so very wrong, sir. The power of conviction
is my trump. It will be the ultimate dues ex machina.
“What about DNA, fingerprints, and the fact that you don’t look a
day over fifty? Didn’t he die in his 80’s?”
“I never died,” he said shaking his head, his eyes burning with
conviction. Suddenly the landscape of his face changed and he blurted
out, “DNA is a fascinating subject. I still have molecular dreams, electric
and infinitesimal…the twisting ribbons of amino acids…”
“Did you forget the high jacking?”
“High jacking?” Dali asked with a questioning flutter of his long
lashes.
“Yeah, or something.”
He asked with a look of concern, “What do you remember?”
193
“Uh…well I’m not exactly sure to be honest, it’s all kind of hazy.”
“High jacking? Poppycock. Utter dissimulation.”
As that last word dripped from the artist’s mouth, before the
words could splatter the room with it’s meaning, Charlie’s face turned an
ashen gray. His eyelids drooped and his pupils dilated. In slow motion he
moved his hand into the safety of his jacket. He gripped the cold handle of
the gun firmly with white knuckles and turned around with a dead gleam
behind his eyes.
“Last night the moon breathed an evil spell, which stung the
looted catacombs of my secret ambitions.”
Salvador had already turned his back on Charlie and was turning
to leave. He slicked back his black hair with a bejeweled hand, but paused
at the echo of silence.
With great stealth the old man crept up on the eccentric, gun
poised in one hand, coat in the other. He froze briefly and seemed to be
confused, but the moment passed and his face was overcome with a steely
determination. The muscles in his jaw tensed as he moved.
“What time is it?” Charlie whispered to himself.
Soft paddy steps the old man took as Dali reached for the knob. A
finger jerked forward on the trigger possessed of the power and speed of
an angel dust junky.
There was a flash, a kiss of powder and the embrace of a bitter
lead projectile.
194
Chapter 12
“Good! You’ve made it.” Dali looked over at Jenny and Rick as he
entered the hotel lobby at a brisk pace with a slowing moving Charlie in
tow.
“Of course, Sal. You know me, prompt as always.” Jenny chirped
reaching for her bag.
“That’s not quite the way I remember that observation…but pfff.”
Dali waved an idle gloved hand at Rick with a loose-lipped grin.
Rick sniffed at the air as the scent of fresh gunpowder drifted in
the swirling air-conditioned lobby. He pointed to the bullet hole in Dali’s
velvet jacket with a dumfounded “Huh?!”
Dali looked over at Charlie with a quick glance filled more with a
subtle Andy Kaufman humor than blame. Rick shook his head, rubbed the
back of his neck and looked over at a shrugging Charlie for any hint of a
real explanation. Searching his face he found neither an answer nor any
195
sign of responsibility. If anything he caught a brief glimpse of a squinteyed mangle.
“I demand an explanation. Did you try to shoot him here in the
hotel?” Rick asked
“Rick, your voice.” Jenny said with a frown.
Charlie shrugged, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Do you think I’m thick or something?”
With a look of concern, Jenny hissed, “Look, can’t we move this
outside at least?”
They all turned around when some clumsy oaf tripped on the
carpet and fell into a potted plant.
“Yes. Outside, please…everyone and all.” Dali said, ushering
everyone out.
As they were leaving through the double automatic doors, Charlie
whispered in Dali’s ear.
“Don’t forget our little conversation on the elevator ride down,
okay?” His question was filled with as much menace as distaste.
“It is you who should remember.” Dali said, waggling an
accusing finger, his voice a hoarse rasp. Lower still he whispered, “Eres
tan estupido como un perro. Te voy a matar”
When they had gotten outside, even before Rick could continue his
line of questioning, Jenny began.
“So how are we going to get to the museum? Only, I don’t like to
ride in taxi cabs, they give me a rash.”
196
Defused by the look on Dali’s face, Rick bit his tongue before
answering.
“I’ve already rented us two cars...well actually one car and a mini
van, but that’s all they had in my price range, so get off my back.”
“Good planning, Rick.”
“Thanks. I thought it might be a good idea to travel like this to
avoid suspicion.”
“Good, so Charlie can drive me in the car, ‘cause there is no
damned way I am getting in a fucking mini van,” Jenny decided. “And
you can drive Salvador. So it’s all decided!”
“That sounds great!” Sighed a relieved looking Charlie.
“Only disclaimer,” Rick warned, handing a set of keys to Charlie.
“Is that I don’t have to load all of Jenny’s bags.”
“Umm…” Dali muttered.
“I’ll get ‘em, miss. Don’t you worry.” Charlie grinned.
“Right!
Sal, you come with me.” Rick turned to leave.
“Okay, so do you know where you are going?” Jenny asked.
“The cars are supplied with a GPS mapping system. Very cool,
unless you don’t want to be found.” Rick noted with a hint of suspense.
“All you have to do is tell the car where you want to go and a little screen
will show you a map. It will tell you when to turn, the quickest route, and
alert you for construction zones. No chance of us getting lost.”
197
After accepting the aid of a kind bellhop, if that’s what they are
still called, to extricate myself from the very dusty silk plant, I ran for the
parking lot. I could see the little group quarreling on the way to the rental
lot out of the corner of my eye, but concentrated on the front parking stalls.
I could see a bright yellow early 70’s muscle car and headed in that
direction, while reaching into my meager sports bag to retrieve custom
claw number three. It snapped in easily.
I slipped the long thin prongs down the window frame and was in
the car in seconds. I didn’t like to have to ‘borrow’ cars, but without
money, or a proper identity, it made the option much more attractive.
I replaced the slim jim claw with the three pronged rubber tipped
model and hotwired the vehicle just as Charlie was leaving the parking lot
in a new Mitsubishi Eclipse. Rick left in an older model wine colored
Pontiac Montana. Why they had chosen to leave in multiple vehicles was
beyond me, but I decided to focus on the Eclipse and follow at a leisurely
pace.
198
Chapter 13
“Well, where are they?” Jenny asked.
“I have no clue, little lady. Maybe they dumped us.”
“No way. Rick might be a loose canon, but he’s still a greedy
bastard in my books…and we know Salvador is reliable…”
“So what should we do now?” Charlie asked.
“Damn it!” Jenny said, checking her cell phone. Battery dead, she
shoved it into her ultra chic handbag. “You wait here. I need to make a
phone call.”
“If you say so.”
She got out of the mini van and slammed the door. She half
walked, half jogged towards a pay phone at the corner of the parking lot.
She slipped inside, closing the glass door behind her, and put a calling
card in the slot, dialing the numbers rapid fire.
It rang three times.
199
“Oh, come on. Answer the phone!”
Jenny glared with frustration out of the grimy window of the
public phone booth. Charlie looked on suspiciously from the rented mini
van.
“Come on!” She slammed her open palm against the coin slot on
the fifth ring.
On the sixth ring, just when she was preparing to leave a message,
a man picked up on the other end.
“Hello?” A man’s raspy voice answered. It sounded like the
singer of a rock band after a gig at a smoky bar the night before.
“Eric! What took you so long?”
“I thought the machine would pick it up, but then I remembered
that we had a power outage the other day an I haven’t reset the…thing.”
There was an awkward pause where neither spoke.
“Who is this? How did you get this number?”
Jenny said smiling in disbelief, “It’s me, Eric, you fool!”
“This is a private line. If you want to book an appointment you
can call my office.”
“It’s me, Jenny.”
“Jenny?”
“Yeah.”
“Where are you? I can barely…you sound funny.”
“I’m on a pay phone.”
“A payphone? That doesn’t sound like the Jenny Haniver I
know.”
200
“Yeah, well …”
“I’ve been worried about you. You haven’t called in weeks. Is
everything okay? I’ve been trying to contact you. I’ve got at least 3 good
parts for you in movies, and even a Broadway show. You know how
many times we talked about you doing Broadway, what a great exposure
that would be for you.”
“I don’t give a shit! You know I’ve still got tons of fans, I’ve still
got juice, and if ‘Desdemona’ ever gets released I can show them all.”
“That’s all well and good, but listen what are you going to do if it
never gets released?”
“I’m putting something together right now so I can finance the rest
of the movie myself…if I pull it off.”
Eric sighed, he’d heard her daydreams before, each one more bold
as brass than the one before.
“You need a back up plan…we need a back up plan and that’s
why I think you should think about some of these roles I’m proposing.”
“Look I’d love to hit Broadway, and I agree it would be great
exposure, but I’m busy right now. I’m on to something that is going to be
just huge.”
He sighed, “Jenny…”
“No look Eric I am telling you after this is done my face is going to
be on the front cover of every newspaper in the country, Europe, and hell
the world.”
“You’re not planning something stupid are you?”
“I don’t like the road you’re driving on there, Eric.”
201
“Don’t get me wrong, but…”
“You think I’m back to powdering my nose again, don’t you! I
haven’t touched cocaine, or booze,” she lied, fingers crossed behind her
back with her free hand, “or even cigarettes in months. I’m really looking
after myself now. My teacher says…”
“Shit Jenny you’re not really messed up in that fucking cult, are
you? TMZ is right? Well there’s a switch.”
Jenny could feel her insides twist and gnarl. She’d been very good
at controlling her temper since her meetings, but this would just not do.
She screeched, “You don’t give a shit about me. All you care about
is your pocket and how many bills you can stuff in it to buy your little
Asian playthings
“Look Jenny just calm down, I know that is just frustration talking.
We’ve been through a lot, together, and we’ll get through this, too. Maybe
you could take a break from your current, err…situation and think about
taking one of these roles. The work would do you some good, get you
back into a normal routine. This is all about you and your well-being.
You’re a very talented woman, and you should share your gift with the
world.”
“Forget about those parts. I’m working…wait, what kind of
parts?”
“Ah, now that’s the Jenny I know. I’m glad you’re okay. Maybe
we can get back to making some money together again.”
Jenny giggled, “For a minute I almost forgot you were my agent.
Now what parts?”
202
“I’ve got a script from the guy who directed Door to Door, you
know that film with Jude Law.”
“I hated that movie. No one cares about a vacuum cleaner
salesman. Next.”
“…it was nominated…”
“Next. I said next.”
“Um, okay TLC is looking for a host on a show about celebrities
who, ah…go through a rough patch and then make a stellar comeback.
It’s an 11 part series, but if it goes well….”
“And you thought I’d be into that?”
“You get to interview John Travolta, Pam Grier, Judge Reinhold,
Steve Gutenberg…”
“Whoa, hold on! Steve Gutenberg hasn’t made a comeback!”
“No not yet, but the buzz is on about him in this new Polanski film
due out in August.”
“Next. So very much next.”
Jenny was fingering a glass vial in her slacks pocket. She could
hear the herbs calling her, and could feel the vibration of her guru
pleading to her.
“They’re doing a remake of Bunuel’s The Discreet Charm of the
Bourgeoisie
“Another one?”
“No this is the first remake.”
“What about that Gary Nelson movie in the early 80’s?”
203
“That doesn’t count, it was considered more of a tribute than a
remake.”
“Okay that sounds promising. Who’s in it?”
“Bill Paxton, C.Thomas Howell, Bebe Neuiwerth…”
After a breathless pause she continued.
“Anyway…Look I’m in on something big. Bigger than big, huge.”
“What, you’ve got a part lined up without me? I’m offended, we
go back a long way…”
“No, something else. Look I can’t talk about it now, but…”
“You haven’t even heard about the Broadway play.”
“Okay, let’s hear it.”
“It’s about a woman named Eusapia, apparently she was a famous
contortionist, and stripper in the 20’s or something…anyway they’re not
focusing on that part. She was also involved in the spiritualist movement,
séances and such, even knew the famous Aleister Crowley. It sounds very
promising.”
“Hey, now that sounds promising. Who…”
She paused. Charlie was getting out of the van. She tried to avoid
eye contact, but instead of him coming towards her he wiped something
off the windshield and got back in.
“Jenny? Are you still there?”
“Huh? Yeah, I’m here. Listen Eric; do you think you could wire
me my royalties this month? It’s just I’m nowhere near home and…”
“You’re in Florida.”
204
“How did you know that? Were you having me followed again?
Is that it?”
“Calm down. I recognized the area code on my call display.”
“Oh.”
“Sure, no problem. Western Union?”
“Okay. I’ll call you later with the address of the closest one.”
“Don’t bother. Just head west for 3 block, turn left and I’ll have it
ready for you later this afternoon.”
“You fucker! You are having me followed!”
“Hold on Jenny. I’ve just entered the phone booth telephone
number into the Mac, and then I went onto ‘where dot com’. It took 30
seconds.”
“Oh.”
“Quit being so paranoid.” He seemed genuinely concerned. “I’m
worried about you, you know. Why don’t you want me to know what’s
going on?”
“Very touchy details, but I’m in good hands. Remember
Salvador?”
“You mean doctor Jacinto?”
“Yes. Well he’s with me, so I should be okay.”
“I thought there was a restraining order? You haven’t kidnapped
him or anything have you?”
“Oh shut the fuck up, Eric. Now who’s being paranoid?” She
screamed into the receiver, but paused deep in thought. “Kidnapped.”
She said idly.
205
“I didn’t mean…”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve just come up with an idea to drum up
some long over due sympathetic publicity for myself. Very high profile.”
“It’s got a positive spin to it?”
“Yes. I’ve been kidnapped by a couple of very unstable men.
Their motives are hazy, but it might be money.”
“No you haven’t. You just said that you were working on
something with your…”
“That’s the cover story we can use while I’m on this…project.”
“Oh, wait! You might be on to something. It would make people
very sympathetic of your plight. Especially after all the negative
publicity.”
“Exactly. I haven’t seen or talked to any of my friends for a month
or two…”
“Very unusual behavior for you.”
“Right. I haven’t even collected my last check from you,
technically.”
“That’s true. I just got it back yesterday.”
“They don’t have to know that I cancelled my post box account
and forgot to tell you.”
“Even more unusual.”
“Careful.” She hissed.
“But we need something more conclusive. A ransom note?”
She shook her head, “No, too tacky…” biting on her finger nail. “I
want to add an air of mystery to this.”
206
“We can say that you got kidnapped by drug dealers because you
couldn’t pay.”
“Eric!”
“Or that you got abducted by the cult that you’ve been hanging
around with.”
“Fuck off, okay, just fuck off. We want this to be sympathetic, not
pathetic…and it isn’t a cult okay, don’t mock that which is beyond your
greedy little comprehension.”
“Okay then what?” He sighed with frustration.
“I’ll leave a frantic message on your machine. I’ll scream and rant
about my captors and their threats, etc…”
“But if you’re up to something else what happens if the police find
you? Won’t they arrest your friends and spoil your plans?”
“I need them for now, but after this comes to fruition…screw ‘em
all. This is about me.”
“What about your doctor friend?”
“We’re not that close anymore.”
Eric sighed in disbelief, “Okay.” .
“I only need a few more days, then I’ll contact you, and the press,
for the big news.”
“What should I tell the police?”
“You shouldn’t have a problem lying. You’re a Hollywood agent.
Just pick a story and stick to it down to the last detail.”
“Okay well let me set up the answering machine, then call back to
leave the message.”
207
“Oh wait, we can’t use the pay phone for the message. The police
will check the phone records.” She wrestled with her purse, and produced
her cell phone. “I might have enough juice in my cell phone to make the
call.”
“You sure?”
“Yep…and the money?”
“It will by there at the Western Union.”
“Don’t screw this up, Eric. I don’t want to have another ‘Old
Bloody Orange’ on my hands.”
“I thought that was in the past.”
“And I hope it will stay there. I really wanted that role.”
“I know you did, but I pulled every string to get you that screen
test. They already had their mind made up about whom they wanted.
You never stood a chance.”
“There was that one last string…”
“It’s not always about money, or who you fuck, it’s about building
bridges.”
“Well this time, pull that string.”
“I will, if I have to.”
“That’s all I needed to hear. I don’t think you’ll have to, but I
needed your reassurance that you’d go that extra mile.
“I think I have. Many times over.”
“Well this is huge. I just wanted to make you realize.”
“But why no ransom note again…or at least some sort of demands
by the alleged kidnappers?”
208
“Speculation. The unknown will start people debating at the
water cooler. If they just demanded money for me then people would take
very specific sides. Some would hope I’d be tortured…others would agree
that I deserved it.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Jenny”
“Oh come on Eric. We both know that everyone thinks that I
murdered my brother, that I should have been found guilty in court and
sent to rot in jail for the rest of my life. I’m sure there are a lot of people
that thought I should get the death penalty.”
“That’s ridiculous. Sure there are those that aren’t fans of Jenny
Haniver, but there are still more that love you. I mean if you’d take the
time to read all the fan mail I forward to you, then you’d realize. Your fans
still love you, and the critics love your work onscreen.”
“I turned my back on my fans when I was arrested and dragged
off to court. When they were crowded outside waiting for the witch to be
burned at the stake. I read their placards and heard their venomous jibes.”
“A small minority of freaks. A rent a mob. The world is gagging
for a Jenny Haniver comeback.”
“…And they’ll get one, damn it, when this is over. I swear. I’m
going to ram it down each throat individually…and this time…”
“That’s the spirit.”
“…And you think they’re desperate for me now! Just wait until
this hits the paper. Everyone knows that to create a hero that everyone can
cheer for, first you have to have that person be real, with real problems.
Just like everyone else, like your neighbor. Then you have to throw
209
adversity at them, the more the better…and if they fail, stumble, you cheer
them on even harder. It’s the underdog scenario.”
“True, but too many failures will result in pity, and disinterest,
ultimately.”
“Ah, but true grit is rewarded with accolades…and when this pays
off I’ll be so hot that everyone will want me. Travolta will be interviewing
me on that fucking show.”
“Are you sure that what you’re involved in is that big?”
“You’ll see…and this whole kidnapping scenario will only
highlight it more. Now quit stalling. Let’s record the message, and hurry
up…I’m getting a dirty look.”
Sure enough Charlie was glaring at her from his stiff-backed
position in the mini van. He reached out for the door handle.
“Okay, hold on a minute, let me see…” He was fumbling with
something on the other end of the phone as Charlie got out of the van and
started to walk towards her.
“Come on, hurry!” She said, panic creeping into her voice.
“Okay, call back now. I’ve set it to two rings.”
“Okay, bye.”
“…But when will you…”
He was cut off as she slammed the phone down and started to
punch numbers into her cell phone with a raging index finger. She never
used her speed dial, she thought it kept her brain young. Discount longdistance phone company, state area code, city area code, and Eric’s
number. 17 numbers.
210
Charlie was grumpy and half way to the phone booth.
One ring.
Two rings.
Three rings and the answering machine still hadn’t picked up.
Charlie was almost there. Ten more steps. ETA seven seconds
max, and the machine picked up on the fourth ring.
“Eric listen, it’s me Jenny!” She sobbed into the receiver. Her
voice was choppy and uneven. It sounded like uncontrollable tears could
overtake it at any second.
She was good.
Really good. From zero to sixty in three seconds flat. Her eyes
were frightened and wide as she looked out at Charlie. Her body began to
shake.
“They’ve got me! I don’t know what they want, but they’re so
mean to me!”
Charlie opened the phone booth door.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He shouted.
“Hurry! He’s got me! They’ve got me…” She paused. He tried to
wrestle the phone away from her. She screamed loud and strong.
“Let go of the fucking phone!”
“No! Eric I’m in…” Her shout was cut off by his hand over her
mouth.
His skin was warm and dry, and felt rough and brittle against her
soft lips. His hand smelled of old spices and raisins.
211
She fought him kicking and squirming, but somehow he managed
to wrestle the phone from her grip.
“Hello, who’s there?” He asked, but the machine didn’t reply. He
started punching at the keys to hang up.
Charlie turned to Jenny and looked into her face. She had calmed
back down like someone turning off a light switch.
“I’m going to remove my hand now, and if you scream I swear to
god I’ll…”
She shrugged and shook her head.
“Okay then.”
He removed his hand slowly.
“Don’t touch me ever again. Not ever. I mean it.” She said,
calmly but not as a threat. The words were tuned like a threat, but played
like a promise of great poisonous violence.
“Huh?” He grunted. “So are you going to tell me what the fuck
that was all about, or what?”
“Well thank you very much.”
“For what?”
“You could have fucked that up for me royally.”
“What?”
“I was doing an audition for a very prominent director just now,
and you interrupted me.”
“Over the phone?”
“It’s a long distance movie. Don’t you know anything!”
212
“Didn’t seem like you were acting to me. It seemed like you were
flipping out as soon as I started to get out of the van.”
“If it seemed like acting, then I’d never get any roles.” She said
with a tiny smile. “That’s how good I am.”
She brushed by him and walked towards the van.
“I’m going to take a nap in the back of the van. See to it that I’m
not disturbed… and do shut your mouth, you’ll let all the flies in.”
She swanned off, hips swinging triumphantly to the rhythm of her
snare drum steps in the gravel leaving a very suspicious Charlie standing
in the maw of the telephone booth.
213
Chapter 14
“Oh, please. Your mustache is more dangerous than that walking
stick.” Charlie taunted.
Dali chuckled with evil overtones, “Really?
He swiveled the ornate silver handle of his walking stick like a
combination lock. With a wide grin he revealed a thin, but long and
deadly, blade.
Charlie took a half step back on seeing the vile edge. Dali
swaggered like a swashbuckler, eyes bulging with threatening revulsion.
“In the army they taught me many ways of parting people with
their lives. That sword doesn’t impress me at all. In fact I could kill you in
myriad ways; I could kill you with a bobby pin, or my socks.”
“If you feel so confident about the malodorous venom of your feet,
then why not lay aside your weapon?”
214
“I was in the army while you were resting in a padded room.
What chance have you got of even scratching my itch let alone my jugular?
You are flabby European trash. You haven’t the discipline or the training
of a grizzled veteran like a proud American ex-serviceman. Just put your
sword down and…”
“Flabby?” Dali was further enraged and his face became further
engorged with blood.
His free hand shot to his chest. With his eyes still locked firmly on
Charlie’s he quickly, more quickly than would seem possible, unbuttoned
his silk shirt with the adroitness of an ambidextrous juggler, or an
accomplished painter. He removed his vest, long sleeved shirt, shortsleeved shirt. He stood poised to remove his undershirt.
“Who is flabby, old man?” He announced, showing off his lean,
but well muscled arms and shoulders.
He also displayed a number of very viscous scars that only hinted
at the carnage concealed beneath the rest of his clothing.
Dali sneered proudly, “I have been training in the ancient art of
Shivaree Foofaraw, and I am as dangerous as a coiled…”
“Turd.” Charlie snickered.
Rick called, running back towards them from the front doors of the
museum, “Hey you two!”
Seeing their last chance at violence, their previous apparently
mock posturing escaladed. Dali took three quick, and very aggressive
steps towards Charlie. Charlie produced a blade and lunged out with a
215
wide slash, missing a very nimble Dali by inches, but catching Rick’s arm
just below the shoulder as he tried to intercept their violent intentions
“Oi!” He yelped, checking himself for injury, but only his jacket
sleeve had been torn.
“That is dangerous, that is. You could have done me some very
bad bodily harm.”
“I bet you did that to yourself last night in your hotel room.”
Charlie ridiculed with a masturbation fist towards his crotch.
“Put that thing away now! You nearly cut off me bloody balsamic
singer, there mate.”
“If he can’t make me, what chance do you have?” Charlie asked.
His face had gone hard and severe. He jutted his chin towards Rick.
“Look this really is not wise, mate, I tell you. Broad fucking
daylight? I just wonder how Jenny will deal with you two. Shall I go ask
her? Unarmed as I am , I know that I can’t put the blackness in your hearts
like she can. I’m a creeping spider in a dark room, the poison in your
pudding, an evil snare on the unsuspecting, but she, right, she is fucking
Satan, I promise you.”
This seemed to stiffen the would-be combatants briefly.
Dali twisted his moustache as though he were taping his fists
before a championship spree of pugilism. Charlie spat a loogie in front of
him like a line of demarcation.
“Right!” Rick said, storming off towards the van.
216
Bleating strings played a tune that was both melancholy and
bisexual. The notes seemed to slither along the ground towards her, losing
their potency before they reached her ears.
Jenny stood at the waters edge on a spit of land in the middle of a
lush oasis. Date palms rubbed elbows with ferns and exotic grasses in the
eclectic collection of vegetation.
“I don’t need these wings to guide me, they are almost never
there.” A disembodied voice ruffled the leaves like a gentle breeze.
“Who said that?”
No one answered her question. Noises were all around her of
unseen birds and of small furry things. The water lapped at the rocks, but
the combination of sounds still could not compete with the sound of her
heart pounding in her ears.
She walked back towards the well and proper landmass, and with
each sucking, slurping step the mud tried to inhale her expensive shoes.
She met up with a well-worn path and followed it along the shoreline
towards drier land. She clutched her handbag close to her chest like a
bible. Her face tightened into an almost unattractive sneer of
apprehension.
“Why are you afraid?”
217
She jumped, still unable to see the speaker.
“Where are you? Show yourself.”
“It is I. Perhaps your conviction is too pathetic to visualize this
reality.”
She seemed cross, but strengthened by the implied challenge.
“Guru? But your voice…”
“You must move beyond the physical. Voices, appearances, even
memories are of no use here. Do not look for 3 dimensional cues. I can be
a man, a woman, a fish, a colony of bacteria. See with your pineal, break
the membrane, and view from the inside out.”
“But cynosure, I…”
“Use the technique. Center your soul.”
Jenny nodded softly and shrugged her shoulders to loosen up.
She braced her feet and rubbed her hands together like she was preparing
for the clean and jerk. She closed her eyes gently and waited, swaying
gently in the breeze.
Without any apparent signal she raised her arms and began
motioning as if she were pulling a rope towards her, hand over hand. At
the same time her lips were quivering as though she were silently try to
keep count.
Slowly her eyes began to open and her arms fell to her sides.
She smiled, happy of her new surroundings, “Ahh.”
She stood on the limits of a small town, or a very large village.
The buildings were almost entirely constructed of crumbling generous
218
adobe bricks. The music could still be heard creeping from underneath
doorways, and between loose brickwork.
A one-eyed beggar man leaned against a flag shop wall, trying to
stay out of the unblinking sun. He was sculpting the face of an ugly but
proud aristocrat out of what appeared to be raw meat.
With a near toothless grin he said, “I come in many guises.”
“Now I recognize your aura!” Jenny said, skipping towards him
“Why have you come?”
“Don’t you already know?”
“Insolence breeds virilescence.”
“Sorry, I only…”
“It is a dance. I may know your steps ahead of time, but we must
still follow the tempo.”
“Umm, right. Couldn’t you have chosen to be the beggar?” She
looked at the flies congregating on the masters raw flesh head in mild
disgust.
“Then how would I dispense wisdom to the flies?”
She transferred her weight to her left foot, but said nothing.
“They appear as flies to you but in reality they are dreamers from
you plane engorging on universal confluence. Now, your question.”
“Who do I trust?”
“Only me.”
“Not even Salvador?”
“Not even yourself.”
“I have to trust myself!”
219
“That is your ego. You must have adequate knowledge to make
proper decisions, but you can’t see the full picture, only minute pixels.
How could you trust actions based on nothing? Would you trust
nothing?”
“How can you trust something that isn’t there?”
“My point proven. If knowledge were wine, you would have one
drop in the bottom of a very large pitcher.”
She looked bruised by this statement.
“These flies would never hope to have that much. Consider
yourself privileged to admit to your vacuous cranium. The fool is the
divine.”
She nodded in agreement, “The Fool.”
“The fool is the initiated. You are yet nepionic in your
development, but the seeker is more evolved than the hider. The zelator is
only a step in the spiral staircase of reincarnation and enlightenment.”
She only nodded.
“It is a very big house, the mansion of the heavens.”
“With many doors and windows.” She whispered under her
breath.
“Lick my head.”
“But it is rotten and putrid.”
The fully toothless, one-eyed beggar formed a strip of flesh into an
ear for the teacher.
“Is it?”
“Yes it is rotting.”
220
“Look again. Focus. It can be anything you want it to be.”
She strained her eyes. Her left eye squished even smaller than the
right, unbalancing her features.
“Detach your reason, follow your instinct. Instinct is the
Illuminated Perception working through you, in combination with your Id.
Evolve from your reptilian brain.
“A radish!” She said proudly.
“Lick me, bite off my nose.”
“I will.”
She leaned in on the still rotting hunk of meat that somehow
appeared to her to be a large radish with a nose and began to lick the raw
tissue with intensity.
“Eat of my flesh.”
She bit down on the nose, tugging with her teeth to remove it. It
was a struggle, but she managed to free the proboscis. A loathsome liquid
oozed from the cavity as she chewed on the grizzly artifact.
“What is that noise?”
“The dwarfish trumpet is being played by the village composer.
He is a savage Beethoven.”
“No, that’s not it.”
In the distance something shambled towards them, partially
hidden in shadow. It was a mangled and leprous teddy bear. It appeared
anorexic and scabrous. It’s upper appendages we too long for it’s body,
and jutted out at weird angles.
221
“What is that?” Jenny asked, pointing to the approaching
monstrosity with apprehension.
“That, I’m afraid, is the avatar of your companion.” He said with a
bored yawn. “Of everyone you will meet, amongst the killers and
politicians, all the evil you will meet in your life, he is the second most
dangerous.
“Avatar?”
“His repre…”
“Jenny?”
The creature had grasped her in its brittle tentacles and was
breathing nauseating fumes in her face.
“Help me, mighty Guru!”
The creature knocked the table aside, crushing the beggar under
its fuzzy paw. The radish rolled, noiseless, between Jenny’s legs. She
looked down as the sage spoke.
“This is just another stride in the dance.”
Jenny brought her hands up to protect herself. She struck at the
monster with her fists, kicking the giant radish violently, which she now
saw as the rotting flesh it had been.
“Jennnnnyyyyy!”
222
“Jenny? Wake up you dozy cow!”
“Rick? Is that you?”
“I should think so.”
Her eyes blazed with ire, his hands flexed into fists.
“What did you call me?”
“You were only this side of comatose.”
“It doesn’t…”
“They’re at it again. This time they’re chopping each other into
fillets.”
“We’ll start this up again later.” She warned with an accusing
finger thrust into his face.
“I’ve no doubt of that.”
“Now out of my way.”
Charlie was hopping on one foot, trying to remove his other sock.
The first one dangled from his teeth. Dali was turning back to face him.
He had removed his shirt and jacket and had just laid them, neatly folded,
223
on the grass. His upper body was almost entirely covered in a serious of
very ugly scars, some larger and more prominent than others.
He snapped his latex gloves tight, for hygiene purposes, and
swung the sword swiftly towards Charlie’s head just as Jenny shouted.
“Enough!”
Charlie sprung erect, narrowly avoiding Dali’s blade. He had
managed to remove the second sock. The sword had trimmed the already
short buzz cut on Charlie’s head. Angered, he wound the pair of socks
into a combination of a garrote and nun chucks.
“Kill yourselves next week!”
They seemed confused, but only Dali spoke.
“We don’t want to kill ourselves, we want to kill each other.”
“Oh, whatever. I couldn’t give a flying…Fine, then kill each other
next week.” Rick sniggered, two paces behind Jenny, which earned him
three very murderous glares.
“No, seriously. If that’s what you two are planning, be my
guests…but not on my dime. My agent says…”
The three men rolled their eyes, with gentle synchronized sighs.
“…that this is very important to my career, to succeed in this
venture. I will not put up with your infantile penis mongering.”
“Penis mongering?” Rick blustered.
“All right, macho…bravado then.” She said with a very off hand
look of approval.
“So put down the weapons, and put your clothes back on. Let’s
try to be a bit more laid back”
224
“That’s a sordid term.” Dali said disapprovingly.
Rick warned, “But that’s how it’s used.”
Dali was rubbing his calf. “I think I pulled a muscle.”
“Oh, please! Prance it off, fruitcake.” Charlie mocked.
Dali tried to quickly release the lock on his combination walking
stick.
Jenny frowned. “Salvador, I don’t like this side of you.”
“He brings out the beast in me, this vile traducer.” He said, with a
dismissing wave.
“Hey, I’ve never dressed in women’s clothing!” Charlie
unsheathed his knife again.
“Fucking hell you two, you sound like an old couple!” Rick said
with a chuckle. “Which one is the trouble and strife?”
“The last thing we need right now is commentary from the peanut
gallery, so shut it.” Jenny warned Rick with a rigid sneer that turned into a
stifled giggle. She helped Charlie ease his knife safely away.
“So who started all this, anyway?” Jenny asked as the group
began to relax.
“Well if you’re assessing blame, ma’am, I’d have to point the
finger at Rick, there.”
“Me?” Rick asked, bewildered. “What a flatulent relic.” He
muttered under his breath.
“Sorry?” Jenny asked, trying to have him repeat his mumbling.
“Naught.”
“Go on then,” Jenny nodded at Charlie, “how is he to blame?”
225
“He got me all riled up as soon as they arrived. Bad mouthing the
president, or some such. I was so agitated that it didn’t take much for me
to want to hurt someone real bad. You understand, of course, how he just
gets under your skin like a rash. Sal just pushed my buttons at the wrong
time.”
“Let me interject.” Dali spoke.
“What is your excuse?”
“Rick forgot to bring my sketchbook. He said he wanted to look
through it this morning, but he left it at the hotel.”
“Rick, did you forget his sketch book?”
“We was running late, right, so I must’ve misplaced it.”
“You really have a problem pissing people off, don’t you?”
“Don’t park your bike on my lawn, darling. Where were you
when all this was going on, then? Stoned out of your fucking tree, no
doubt.”
Dali had left the group and began to walk towards the museum.
Charlie saw Dali retreat and ran towards him.
“This isn’t over, not by a long shot.” Charlie called after Sal.
“Do they teach you to speak in clichés in the army, or is that
something that you picked up from your lazy brained American media?”
“Watch it, I’ve already marked your cards, don’t start picking on
this great country. I would give my last breath…”
“Stop. Your words are lost on me, completely. Is independent
thought completely dead here? You would live your life happily as angry
226
little sheeple…proud, and willing to solve any adversity with a gentle
palm of brute force.”
Charlie, his face twisted with rage, was stopped before he could
muster a rebuttal. Rick bumped him on his way past. Salvador followed,
ignoring a slack jawed Charlie.
Rick whispered to Jenny, “Did you see the…”
She completed his thought, “Scars? Yeah, and you said Dali, the
real Dali, was burned quite badly.”
“I don’t know what to make of it. Copy cat self mutilation?”
She frowned, shaking her head.
“Any idea why Charlie was taking his socks off?”
She giggled, “Maybe he thought he could subdue Salvador with
his bad personal hygiene.”
“That was quite witty, actually.” Rick’s grin almost transformed
into a laugh.
“You seem surprised that I have a sense of humor.”
“Not half. What’s that American saying, ‘blown asunder’?”
“Blown away. I’m not just a pretty face, you know.”
“Whatever.”
227
Chapter 15
Dali turned to open the door of the Salvador Dali Museum just as
one of the staff had unlocked it. The attendant gave him a look of curious
befuddlement before retreating to the group of co-workers by the ticket
counter. After all, she thought, he did bear more than a striking
resemblance to Salvador Dali, and the clothes and mustache only made the
similarities more conspicuous.
A giant plaque stood on a tripod just to the left when they first
entered the building.
‘The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not
mad - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)’, it read. The background picture was a
black and white photographic close-up of Dali’s mustache obscuring his
pupil.
228
As Salvador accompanied Jenny to buy the tickets and cheerfully
greet the curious staff members Rick pulled Charlie aside. Not being able
to ask questions in the ride over he saw his opportunity to ask about the
flying lead in the hotel, and whatever else may have happened.
“What the hell did you do to Salvador?”
Charlie said barely stifling an eye glimmer. “I couldn’t tell you,
son. I really have no idea what the heck yer talkin' about.”
Jenny looked on over her shoulder, not sure whether to follow Dali
further or move back towards the suspicious whispering pair of Charlie
and Rick. In the end she cocked her head, swung her purse over her
shoulder and decided to let boys be boys and walked towards the counter,
but kept a close eye on the pair for more violence.
Dali stood at the ticket counter with his chest puffed out, one hand
resting on his lapel the other twisting his moustache.
“You seriously don’t expect me to put my hand in my wallet in my
very own shrine do you?” His eyes bulged with furious indignation. His
mood swung swiftly from pride to anger and back to hauteur within
seconds.
His red face faded as Jenny quickly paid the entrance fee for all
four of them. She winked at her Sal.
“Is he kidding?” The cashier asked Jenny laughing nervously as
she made change for the fifty.
“Oh he’s harmless.” She said in lowered tones.
“Is he mad…you know in the head?” She motioned with a swirly
finger towards her temple.
229
“No just a little…eccentric I suppose.”
“That’s a fancy word for fucked in the head.” She muttered
quietly.
As Jenny turned away she nodded to her co-workers with a
screwy face, acknowledging Dali’s supposed mental instability.
“Come.” Dali pronounced walking ahead without even checking
to see if he were being followed, and only Jenny did.
Rick leaned ever closer to Charlie, “That’s not going to cut it, mate.
Look, there is a bullet hole in Sal’s jacket, that’s your evidence.”
“Okay look. I did shoot at him, I think, but it was an accident.”
“I don’t buy it.”
“Just ask him yourself.”
“I will do. How the fuck did you even get that onto the plane
without being discovered by the metal detectors?”
“I didn’t. I left that one in your car.”
“So where did you get that one? You didn’t leave my site at all.”
“As I was leaving the bar last night, I made an inquiry with an
unsavory character who was having a smoke outside. I picked it up from
him, just in case.”
“How resourceful.” Rick said with a sneer.
“I like to think so.”
“Shite, the others have left us in the dust, we better get off.”
“Get off together?”
“Well I’m not leaving you here by yourself.”
“You just don’t get it do you.”
230
“Wot are you on about?”
“Get off together?” He said with a perverted wink. “Just another
signal to me that you play for the other team.”
“Go fuck yourself, old man.”
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you.”
“F…”
Jenny yelled at the pair from in front of Beatrice, “Come on, we
haven’t got all day!” It was a painting by Dali that was completed,
according to the plaque, in 1960- oil on canvas, on loan from E. and A.
Reynolds Morse
“Come on. But don’t forget, I’ve got my eye on you.”
“Well let me go first, so you can get a good look at my ass.”
The cashier joined her co-workers after the group had entered the
museum proper.
“Do you know who that was?” Someone asked.
“I thought that was Jenny Haniver!”
“Imagine the nerve.”
231
“What a group. A madman who thinks he’s Salvador Dali, a
murderess…that old man looks like some sort pervert or a pedo or
something…”
“I know! Did you see the way he was leering at us?”
“That other guy must have taken them out for a day trip.”
“No proof that he’s any saner than the others…”
“True girl!” She said with a toothy grin and a high five.
“Oh wait here comes someone else through the door.”
“He’s cute.”
“Yeah, but something about the way he walks, kinda limpy like,
you know.”
“Oh yeah and check out that creepy claw.”
“It’s gonna be another one of those days.” The cashier shook her
head walking towards the ticket booth to serve Max.
“Yeah, like a real freak show.”
“We’re looking for the ‘Eucharistic Still Life ’ that’s where the key
is, but then again some of the details were in ‘The Disintegration of
232
Persistence of Memory’. ‘Disintegration’ is considered as a companion
piece to ‘the Persistence of Memory’, which I completed many years
before. By the time I was working on it I was very into my theme of
Nuclear Mysticism. I was fascinated by the molecular world, and still am
to a lesser degree. As numerous critics have stated, I was apparently
applying a perspective of Divisionism to the original painting, but really I
was still trying to capture a dream I had had as a teenager. One day I
will…but I digress.”
“This painting, here, it is so beautiful, isn’t it Rick?”
“I don’t believe in art, or even music. It’s all subterfuge.” His
mumble was low enough that Salvador didn’t hear it, or he chose to ignore
it.
“What is it called?” Jenny asked Salvador.
“Ahh! This I entitled ‘Corbeille de Pain’. A very early work of
mine.”
“It’s lovely. It is so life like.”
“Now I know for sure that ‘The Disintegration of Persistence of
Memory’ is here, but again I cannot stress the importance of finding
‘Eucharistic Still Life’.”
“Couldn’t you just study a poster of it or something?” Charlie
quizzed.
“Absolutely not! Not even an outstanding lithograph would be of
much use. It is in the three dimensional brush strokes, the texture. While
considered unimportant by most it was definitely a milestone for me.
In
the fish scales of ‘Eucharistic’ and in the folds of the napkins…either way I
233
will recall it on first perusal. For many years I had to encode information
in my paintings. At first I did it for my own pleasure, then I hid my secrets
and double meanings for everyone to see, but later for other reasons…as
much as I loved my Gala and really needed her I was once and always the
great paranoiac.”
“I would also like to have a quick perusal of the ‘Weaning of
Furniture Nutrition’, which I believe was on loan here from the Morse
collection.” Dali said more to himself than to the others.”
“Do you know which room it’s in?” Jenny asked.
“I don’t see any furniture except for those couple of chairs over
there.” Charlie pointed out.
Dali stopped instantly and flew into a tornado rage, a dust devil of
anger. “You fool that’s the name of on of my paintings! How dare you
blaspheme the great Salvador Dali!”
“Why exactly to we need to find this painting?” Rick said
attempting to deflect some of the anger.
“We’re not going to steal it are we? I don’t remember that part of
the plan.” Jenny asked with genuine curiosity.
“What plan?” Rick muttered.
“You are a painter? I thought you were just some nut with a wad
of cash hidden somewhere, or a jewel thief or something. This weird shit
is yours?” Charlie asked sweeping his hand over the Persistence of
Memory, and a few sketches of fruit shaped like different parts of a
woman’s anatomy, mostly that of the upper anterior region and the
labonza or gazoo area, more commonly known as the breasts and buttocks.
234
“Shit! Shit?” Dali screamed. He repeated more softly his rage
turning off like a light switch. His face mellowed as he stared off blankly.
“This is great artwork and Dali is one of the true geniuses of the
art world.” Jenny tried flattery to gain Sal’s good side, but she really
wasn’t sure what to think of her once friend. The flattery fell on deaf ears
as Dali was in a scatological daydream of his own creation.
“It’s this way.” Rick said reading a program book map.
Charlie snickered under his breath, “I prefer Norman Rockwell
myself.”
“Come on Salvador.” Jenny grabbed him by a velvet-ensconced
arm, jolting him back to his senses.
Rick turned to look at Charlie. “You coming?”
“I’ll be along in a minute.” Charlie nodded.
Dali’s paintings lined the walls of the main corridor and each
branching side room. Such famous pieces such as Sugar Sphinx (1933),
Average Atmospherocephalic Bureaucrat in the Act of Milking a Cranial
Harp (1933), and the Lion (1956), a pencil drawing purchased by the
museum in June of 2000. Beatrice (1960), The Ecumenical Council (1960),
Two Adolescents (1954), all on loan from the Morse collection, were also
highlighted features.
Down the corridor to the left, down a short hallway they entered a
sparse room with a few sketches and charcoals. In one corner was a piece
Rick surmised to be from his 60’s or 70’s cubism mixed with DNA and
religious themes, but the program listed a different painting for that
235
position entirely. ‘Must be the renovations’ he surmised. There in the
opposite corner was ‘Eucharistic Still Life.
Jenny studied the plain colors and rather ordinary subject matter,
for Dali anyway, with dry anticipation. Rick also looked over the 21 1/2 x
34 ¼ oil on canvas painting that was completed in 1952 according to the
brochure.
Salvador’s eyes lit up like a Guy Faulkes day bonfire at the first
glimpse of the fish. He looked like he was on the verge of expounding
some great epic of verse, but he caught himself as his eyes watered.
Something caught in his throat as he tried to speak a second time and he
flinched. A twitch caught his left eye and cheek.
“Ah,” he finally said popping the flat of his hand to his rounded
lips. “This is it!” He clapped once before getting on his hands and knees.
“Grab my feet!”
He kicked his feet in the air like a gymnast and Rick grabbed them
just in time to avoid being kicked in the face. Dali stood on his head
reading, studying, or just plain looking at something in the painting.
Jenny tilted her head to try to discern the secret. Soon Charlie,
who had just entered the room, tilted his head as well, straining to see the
secret.
Re-righting himself Dali paused with a single deft digit poised
delicately on his temple. He started to sketch something with charcoal on
his back up pad. Numbers, letters and little bits of geometric figures.
“Don’t keep us all on tenterhooks, for Christ’s sake, spit it out.”
Rick said with an excited mumble.
236
“New York it is, but to complete the code and decide the exact
precise, determinate locale, location, building, and room…” he paused,
studying the notes. “Quickly to the ‘Disintegration of Persistence of
Memory’!”
Before he stormed off, Salvador leaned in close and whispered
something in Jenny’s ear. She smiled softly and nodded, and then he was
off.
He replayed the same scene, almost to the twitch, in front of the
‘Persistence of Memory’.
“So now you know, right?”
“Hmm…something isn’t quite right with this symbol here,” he
said, tapping at a crude figure that looked like a broken water barrel.
“Back to ‘Eucharistic Still Life’ everyone.”
Sitting cross-legged on the floor he checked his figures again,
redrawing figure on his second attempt as an 8 with a walking stick. He
began adding letters and numbers together on his sketchpad while the
others looked anxiously on.
“I now know,” he said with a bright smile, “That what we are
searching for is within two miles of 168 street and Third avenue, in a
th
warehouse. With more time I should be able decode even the exact
address.”
Jenny clapped her hands, “That’s fantastic!”
“We should leave immediately,” he said getting up to leave.
Mid stride, and a quick paced one at that, Dali skidded to a halt
nearly causing a domino like effect amongst the others in a twister of
237
limbs. “…But wait I haven’t used that brush stroke for so long I would
like to study it a moment. Everyone leave me now.” He passed the
sketchpad to Rick and walked idly towards the unknown watercolor in the
opposite corner completely immersed in his concentration of the minutia
of details.
No one paid more attention to the handoff of the important
information than Charlie, who just had a new number one item to
accomplish on his list.
The brush was in his hand again, his lips parted in amazement.
His hand lovingly caressed the smooth white flesh of the canvas sending
little jolts of electricity to his brain. With each stroke a new image swirled
and leapt upon the tarpaulin. A rope, a pear, a washerwoman. The
figures didn’t just lie flat against the surface, they writhed and squirmed
and danced and bled a thousand million colors and emotions.
Dali looked out his window, past the maze of shacks that he had
had constructed, to the Bay of Port Lligat. He studied each detail of the
bizarre landscape that was already etched forever in his mind.
238
A woman was down by the rocks sewing something. A drawer
jutted out awkwardly from her back, another from her right eye replacing
her pupil with a bright shiny handle. Even though her hand continued to
move there was no forearm.
A fish sailed through the sky; it’s gills dead to the water but
thriving on the solar wind. Giant lazy flies swarmed a grotesque
putrefacto. The sky flashed from a brilliant orange to a succulent kiwi
green and then returned to a hazy cloudy gray. A hyper-realistic angel,
more real than real, fluttered out of the corner of Dali’s eye.
Suddenly Dali’s eyes flashed back to reality, his vision still stained
by the beauty of the angel. A dark stabbing pain jabbed his back and then
again. He turned in surprise to see Charlie with a glistening blade still
firmly in his gristled fist. A loose-lipped grin poisoned Charlie’s features.
Dali clutched at his wounds as the life dripped through his fingers.
“My jacket!” He stared down at his hands as he staggered and
slumped down against the wall beneath ‘Eucharistic Still Life ’.
“Why?” He whispered.
“Me? I’ve got nothing to lose, you said it yourself, and it’s only a
matter of time before I burn myself out.” Charlie faltered, looking down at
his watch, squinting to read the small numbers. “And I think it’s that
time.” He said weakly.
“Help me, I’m leaking!” Salvador tried to scream, but the wind
was taken from his words and they escaped only as a hiss.
“No one is coming to save you, you pathetic fool. The others are
only in this because of greed. You’ve already given us all the information
239
we need to uncover the riches for ourselves. We don’t need you anymore.
They both want you out, too. They just haven’t realized it yet. If not then
they’ll be too afraid to cut me out at that point.”
“What a lovely color.” Dali said almost imperceptibly.
“Even at the very end you couldn’t drop the impersonation. You
fucking lunatic!” Charlie shook his head. “Yer sicker ‘n me.”
Salvador managed a brief loud retort before slumping onto his
side eyes fluttering to close, “I am Dali!”
A thin coating of blood was smeared on the wall and a look of
quiet surprise stained the face of the Dali.
Charlie left the room with one last look at the scene. He seemed to
be still debating internally whether or not to tell the others of his deed. He
calmly wiped his prints from the knife and tossed it at the fallen artist,
where it landed at his feet.
“Surreal.” Charlie chuckled as he walked quickly to catch up to
Rick and Jenny.
From behind a sculpture Max noticed Charlie leaving the little
room. He waited until Charlie was out of site before taking his first guttwisting step towards what he could feel deep down was about to be a
very nasty situation.
240
Chapter 16
His hands were damp, even clammy on the vinyl steering wheel of
the generic late model dark blue standard issue rental car. He didn’t seem
particularly nervous about anything but his eyes shifted aimlessly and
frantically without actually focusing on anything.
“What’s on your mind?”
“Work, you know, the case.” Hargrave said, shifting in his seat to
get more comfortable.
“Nope. I’m not buying it. When you’re pondering the facts about
a case you furrow your brow and your pupils get ever so small. You’re
shifting your eyes so that must mean you’ve got a personal situation on the
fryer.”
“What do you know?” He said with a smirk.
“I’ve worked with you long enough to have picked up on a few of
your idiosyncrasies.”
241
Wilkes-Chu was smiling softly, a coy shine in her eyes.
“Yeah I suppose. I guess I just never thought that I’d be the guinea
pig that you’d be studying I suppose.”
“Don’t be stupid”.
With only a bare hint of a self-satisfactory smile she opened up her
laptop and plugged her cell phone in with a USB cable. The screen leapt to
life, and she was informed that she had email by the synthesized voice of a
snotty Scottish girl.
“What has forensics have to say about the bodies found so far?”
“How do you know that my lover isn’t sending me a naughty
poem?”
“I’m always going on about my ex-wife, but you…you’ve never
even sneezed a hint that you have a boyfriend. Besides, the annoying girl
sounded particularly smarmy.”
She suddenly turned very cold when she said, “I’m between
relationships.”
“Alright. No need to get defensive. What did it say?”
“Well they’re still digging up bodies.”
“How many are we up to? Last count I had was 19.” He said with
a bitter grimace. Now the telltale brow furrow made an appearance. He
rubbed at the little ridge forming between his eyes.
“33 is the best guess, it looks like.”
“Err,” was the only sound he could make.
“Well we’ve got him dead to rights, no pun intended. It appears
he didn’t attempt to conceal his identity. No gloves, acid, or the usual
242
modern means of obscuring his traces. His prints and DNA are all over
the victims. I’m amazed he wasn’t caught years ago.”
“He was.” He muttered under his breath.
She glared at him, but it was a brief, harmless jab with her evil
eye.. “You’re mumbling again.”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Okay, so what do we know about the killer?”
“Why don’t you just read out his stats from that fancy computer of
yours?”
“Alright. He was originally from Durdin, which is just a few
towns over from Outin. He met his wife to be, one Margaret Niesson, at
the local county fair in the summer of ’65. They started courting and he
became very close to the girl, but not her family.”
“Was it a big family?” He asked, but seemed more interested in
her continuing on than the actual answer to his question.
“Hmm, no. Just Margaret, her younger brother Nathan and her
parents Sidney and Nancy Neisson. Ha, ha, Sid and Nancy!” She said
with a little giggle.
“What’s so funny?”
“Haven’t you seen that old movie about the rock star and his
girlfriend? The drug addicts?”
“Nope, but it doesn’t sound like family entertainment to me.”
“It’s not.”
243
“Go on,” he said, nodding towards the laptop. He seemed to study
her face in the glow of the monitor. He didn’t take his eyes away as she
continued.
“They got married, and shortly after he moved in to her parents
home. He enlisted in the army soon after, which seems very unusual for a
newly married man to do, and he was shipped off overseas.”
“Where overseas, exactly?”
“Asia, somewhere I guess. I assume Korea, but it doesn’t really
say.”
“Unusual fact number two.” He pointed out. “But it wasn’t his
first foray in to military work, was it.”
“Um, no. He came back after four years, but only stayed for a few
years, and went overseas again.”
“Where this time?”
“Again, it doesn’t say. Maybe Vietnam…”
“Special ops?”
“Right.” She had gone back to eying him suspiciously again, but
continued to read.
“Because of his previous military training he was put in a troop of
top secret commandos. Their work over there was highly experimental,
but they don’t go into details.” She studied the screen intensely for a
moment. “Looks like most of his details are still highly classified.”
“I’ve heard some of the horrible stories about stuff that went on
over there.” He said.
244
“Did you go to Vietnam, Hargrave?”
“Thanks! Do I look old enough?”
“No, err, I wasn’t thinking.”
“I was only a kid…”
“I guess you’re just so mature from most of the men I know…”
“Forget it.”
She sneered her lip in a ‘oops, I messed that up’ sort of apologetic
contortion. He nodded for her to continue her report.
“By the time he came back her father had died, massive stroke it
says here. They continued to live in the old farmhouse to look after her
mother”
“A regular boy scout.”
“Anyway…” she said, continuing, “The mother didn’t seem to last
long. Died one year to the day that the father did. Sad really…”
“So you have discovered that it was her families house.”
“Says so. It’s been in the family for generations. Their ancestors
were one of the founding families in the area.”
“What happened to the brother, umm…”
“Nathan. Looks like he was a very disturbed boy. He was in and
out of mental care facilities since he was a young man. After the father
died he was locked away for good.”
“Where is he now?”
“Well, because of budget cutbacks he was shuffled around a lot. It
might take some time to track him down.”
245
“I think we should try. I have a feeling he might be able to
provide us with some key details that might pertain to this case.”
“But he’s crazy.”
“Still worth checking into.”
“Okay, I’ll get them to track him down for us.”
“I don’t know why, I guess it’s my instincts, but I don’t think we’re
going to find anything by studying these corpses.”
“You might be right. Just the shear number of victims should have
clued someone in.”
“But he didn’t fit any profile. Besides not all the victims were
listed as missing persons.”
“What do you mean?”
“Some of these people aren’t listed as missing. Some of them still
have active social security numbers.”
“You mean, according to the government, that some of those
people are still alive?”
“Yep. Identity theft if a growing business, but the percentage of
these corpses that are technically still active is abnormally high.”
“What are we talking here, 5 percent?”
“More like 30.”
“A third!”
“Looks like it.”
“We’re going to have to look into that. Something very strange
going on. What about the actual MP’s?”
“Someone should have seen an abduction and reported it.”
246
“Depends on his MO.”
“Hmm.” She was reading something that really caught her eye.
“He attacked random victims without preference for age or gender. All
personal effects were left with the bodies, so robbery can be ruled out as a
motive. He didn’t use any particular method…”
“You mentioned that already,” he noted.
“I know. I’m just going through things verbally. He didn’t leave
any calling cards, or appear to want to be captured. He obviously wasn’t
looking for his 15 minutes. He didn’t act savagely…”
“I disagree. Murder is the most savage of acts a human being can
commit.”
“No, sorry poor choice of words. I mean he didn’t rip into the
victims, but on the other hand he wasn’t coldly analytical either.”
“True, this is no Jack the Ripper.”
“There weren’t any missing organs. There were no ritualistic
symbols, and in fact we didn’t find any type of religious objects in the
entire house.”
“Not too many serial killers that didn’t either do it for God, or
think that they themselves were God.”
“Or Satan, or…”
“Right, okay some sort of deity then. For the most part it is really
all about power; either the exercising of it, or the ambition for it.”
She looked up him with a look of deep respect, .Well put.” The
moment only lasted a second when something flashed on her monitor
“What is it? He asked with a single upstroke nod.
247
“We’ve got some preliminary specs on he bodies. The girl they
found in the house was named Lindsay Tanner, 26. She was last seen at a
neighborhood Laundromat 8 days ago.”
“Video surveillance?”
“I’ll ask Grimpo,” she said, typing the question in.
“Who’s Grimpo?”
“It’s Dave’s new onscreen name. He likes to re encrypt weekly so
his handle always changes.”
“Who is Dave?”
“You know, Lt. Sinton.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Do you know anyone by their first name?”
“I know yours,” he said but his eyes betrayed uncertainty.
“Negative on the tape. Just laundry stuff.”
“So he kept her in the basement for 5 days.”
“Exactly, but the weird thing is that he fed and kept her healthy
the whole time. Oh, and I don’t know if this makes any difference or not,
but he did kill her on the day of the spring equinox.”
“Okay, now we have something.”
“You think?”
“Definitely. Now we’re starting to get a framework of how his
mind works, and that detail could be the seed we need to nail him in this
investigation.
248
She began typing furiously, swearing mildly when she made
errors. He tried to remain focused on his driving, but was obviously
distracted.
“I’ll ask Grimpo, err Lt. Sinton, if she had been sexually molested.”
“She wasn’t.”
“How do you know that?” She asked in disbelief.
“Doesn’t fit. A hunch, I guess.”
“Well looks like you were right, Grimpo says that the tests proved
negative.”
“We should concentrate more on the pattern in which the bodies
were buried more than the way the victims were killed.” A mid-sized
Mitsubishi Haze, Sport Utility Wagon, cut him off, but he grit his teeth. He
didn’t seem to like the modular design, despite its claims of
transformability with different body panels, each sold separately.
“Here I’ve downloaded a diagram of the house and property. I’ve
also got coordinates for each of the victims. I’ll try to overlay these
coordinates onto the grid of the property.”
“Hold on, I want to have a look at that.”
He did a quick shoulder check before pulling off onto the soft
shoulder of the busy highway.
“Let me have a look.”
“Okay. This,” she said pointing at the center of the screen, “is the
house.”
“Where is the highway in comparison?”
“Hold on.”
249
She wiggled her finger in the air and the cursor dragged the screen
over to one side. She was wearing an almost undetectable rubber thimble;
the newest design in cordless mouse wearable.
“That reminds me of a childhood TV show about a witch her made
things move with a twitch of her nose,” he said pointing to her digit.
“It’s another beta Government issues only…Never heard of that
show, but I never really watched TV as a little girl, I was too busy online.”
He shrugged.
“This is the road here,” she said, drawing his attention back to the
screen. “…And from there he began his course to the west. I’ll try to get
the latest specs onto the grid and maybe it will make more sense.”
“Why do are all the X’s different colors?”
“The most intense red one, here, represents the body of Lindsay
Tanner. Every other body found so far has a shade that is slightly lighter
in color.”
“Okay, so darkest colors most recent?”
“Right. So as you can see the most recent bodies end at the North
side of the house.”
She was pointing out the pattern with her fuzzy cursor. In the
center was a square representing the house with a red X directly in the
middle of it. As she zoomed out to get a better view, the true picture
began to get clearer.
“Oh…” She said in surprise.
“Will you look at that?!” He said, shaking his head. He brought
his left hand up and began rubbing the back of his neck.
250
The screen looked like some sort of aboriginal pictogram. The X’s
formed three perfect concentric circles. Between each of them, both
separating them and joining them, were four sideways X’s.
“What now?” He asked.
“I don’t know.” She said, shaking her head. “I just don’t.”
“So the X’s in the circles are facing which way?”
“I’ll ask Grimpo.”
After a few quick keystrokes, she said, “Feet towards the house in
every case, Head facing outwards.”
“Make a note of that.”
“I’ll add it to our database.”
“So then these other X’s are lying perpendicular to the house?”
“Right.”
“Hmm…”
“Got any idea?”
“No, not yet. When was the next most recent murder?”
“The corpse before Lindsay Tanner is about a two weeks old, the
one before that maybe a month. It looks like he went through a very
active period in the last year or so. Prior to maybe a year ago every other
body seems to be a year older.”
“So he was killing one person per year starting in what…. the early
70’s? He starts out at a random spot in the field and each year he kills
another person and keeps getting closer to the house.”
251
They sat there pondering the information. She opened her mouth
as if to say something, turned tentatively, but shook her head, keeping the
thought to herself.
“It doesn’t feel right. I just don’t get it…” he said.
“I know. He goes from a regular pattern to a haphazard one after
30 years. It doesn’t make sense.”
“This is an atheist veteran with no interest, as far as we can tell, in
history, culture, religion, or anything else except a little farming and the
occasional phone call to the local talk radio show. How would someone
like that come up with something as complex and intricate as this?”
“How did you know about the calls to the radio station?”
“I can’t remember where that information came from.” He
frowned, but looked a little shifty at the same time.
“I wonder if the strange death of his wife was the impetus?”
“Murder you mean. No, couldn’t have been. That only happened
a 5 years ago.”
“Murder? I don’t remember reading that anywhere, but I haven’t
done the research yet.”
“Don’t waste your time. I’ll fill you in on everything you need to
know.”
“But how do…”
“Five years ago that bastard cost me a great partner, my wife…”
He paused staring off into the heart of oblivion.
“Stan? You guys are still good friends, I thought.”
252
“Oh this was before Parks. This was my first high profile case, and
my only real failure since joining the force. It nearly broke me…”
“Why didn’t you stop me when I was going on about his history?”
She asked. “It could have saved us some time.”
“I thought it would be good to listen to the details without the
bent of my biases.”
“So what happened?”
He paused, rubbed his temples trying, it appeared, to shake off the
cobwebs. The look in his eyes, however, gave a different impression. He
looked like he had been reliving each gory detail every day, in the
minutest scale, since the events originally occurred.
“I was still working with McGuire, and we were the new up and
comers on the force. It was Spring, or very late Winter, either way it was
very cold. It wasn’t so cold that there was snow on the ground, but there
was a bitterly cold wind and rain. It just cut through you…”
Wilkes-Chu looked over with imploring, but glazed over, eyes.
“Sorry to interrupt, but maybe I could just get the readers digest
condensed version, you know…”
She couldn’t deal with another long drawn out story featuring
every possible mundane detail, not without a big cup of coffee.
“Right, time constraints and all. I see. Okay, so McGuire and I
were called in to investigate a couple of disappearances in the area,
nothing too challenging. One of the two missing persons was Mrs. Bishop.
“Margaret, Charlie’s wife?”
253
“Correct. When we got in they found a note in a hollowed out tree
stump across from the high school, and a puffy winter jacket that belonged
to Margaret.”
“A ransom note? Was it some sort of kidnapping?”
“No. At first it looked like some sort of suicide scenario, but we
had a problem. There was no body. We combed every inch of that little
town, but we came up with nothing. I personally interviewed Mr. Bishop
myself. He seemed upset about his wife.”
“As any husband would, if his wife was missing.”
“Right, but he seemed more than upset. He seemed nervous to
me, but not in the way you would expect. He had a good poker face,
probably from all the sneaky stuff he was involved in with the army, but I
could smell his fear.”
“So did you arrest him?”
“I couldn’t, I really had no evidence. There was no huge life
insurance policy, no history of abuse. In fact everyone said they were
inseparable and happy, although a lot of people mentioned that she had a
tendency to be overbearing towards him. In fact everyone loved Mr.
Bishop, he was this local hero, one step below saint.”
“I tried to convince a judge to get us a search warrant to at least
search his place, but I was completely rebuffed. I think the old guy had
connections through the government via his military involvement, but I
have no proof of that.”
254
“My partner and I started to argue. Things were very tense. I
think he was sleeping with my wife, and all the pressure of the case and
my marriage…I was very stressed out.
“I knew that the dirt bag was guilty, I don’t know how, and
McGuire didn’t buy it. We had come up with a composite drawing of a
suspicious character, so everyone was looking for this immigrant drifter,
but I just wasn’t convinced.”
“So what did you do?”
“I snuck over to his place one night and started to nose around…”
“Without a warrant?”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t sound like you! You were such a rebel back then.”
“Well, it’s nothing to be proud of.” He said with the hint of a
cheeky grin.
“So I am coming around the corner, around to the back of the
farmhouse, and I hear voices coming from the cellar. I sort of lay down in
the mud to get my ear closer to the little window, and I hear footsteps
slogging in the field behind me. The weather was so inclement that I can’t
see anyone, so I turned back towards the window. I could distinctly hear
two voices, a man and a woman. That’s when I realized that Mrs.
Bishop….”
“Was still alive!”
“Yes. She seemed to be trying to convince her husband of
something, but he was trying to avoid the issue. Something about ‘it
doesn’t matter. I’m willing to risk it all’. I managed to jimmy the window
255
open just a crack, and there they were. With the murder investigation
relegated to an elaborate missing persons case I was disillusioned with my
gut feelings.”
“I got up from the muddy ground and started to go towards the
door to confront the Bishop’s, but someone grabbed me from behind. It
was McGuire. He accused me of planting evidence by the window, and
being on the Bishop property without a search warrant. I accused him of
having an affair with my wife. We fought under the lightening sky, blood
from my nose mixing with the mud on my face. Just before my lights went
out, after a quick shot to my jaw, I heard a woman scream.”
“The next morning I awoke in the hotel and got dressed. I got in
the car to go back to the Bishop residence. I was sure that Mr. Bishop had
killed his wife for sure at this point. Before I could call for back up, my
phone rang. They had found Mrs. Bishop’s body in the woods just outside
of town. It was in a gully over a guardrail on the highway.”
“So you had your evidence?”
“No. Coroner stated that the body had been out there for at least
12 hours.”
“So it wasn’t Margaret that you saw arguing with Charlie?”
“I never said they were arguing, but yes it was her. I saw her face,
plain as day.”
“Maybe she had a sister?”
“You’ve seen her records. No mention of a sister at all…and
before you ask, there was no record of a similar looking cousin, aunt, or
anything else.”
256
“So what do you make of it?”
“He killed her that night, and ditched the body.”
“But the coroner…”
“Was wrong. I mean the case ended right there. McGuire did up
the report. It stated that Mrs. Bishop had gone for a long walk one night,
gotten lost, and fallen over the guardrail, possibly to avoid an errant
driver. No foul play was suspected. Case closed. I never even saw the
autopsy report, but I did hear a rumor that the body was in bad shape.”
“But what about the letter? And the jacket?”
“Apparently some of the kids from the school had placed those in
the woods after they heard about the missing persons report. Thought
they’d have a little fun with the authorities.”
“Then why did Charlie report her missing in the first place then?”
“I have no idea.”
“It all seems so dramatic.”
“It was to me, but everyone else treated it as a matter of fact death
by misadventure. I kept my mouth shut to keep my job, and McGuire
called in for a transfer to another partner.”
“So your wife left you…”
“It turns out that there was no affair with McGuire.”
“Well that’s good.”
“But after such an unsuccessful marriage, and my stress over the
case she left me. Funny enough, she ended up seeking comfort in
McGuire’s arms anyway.”
257
“So you accused her of having an affair with your partner, which
she didn’t, so she leaves you to do just that?”
“Yes. Sad, isn’t it?”
With a raised eyebrow she deadpanned, “Unbelievably.”
“So, after the…”
“Maybe we should head back. I have some more research to do, I
think.”
“Okay. Good idea I’ll head into the office. I’ve got some things I
want to follow up on, too.”
“So what about the other missing person?”
“We never found him at all.”
Not checking his blind spot he pulled out onto the busy highway
from the gravel shoulder. He ended up cutting off a newer pewter colored
Mercury Sable SSL. The driver cursed behind the tinted glass as Hargrave
waved back in apology.
“You have mail.” The annoying Scottish girl announced. It
always seemed to agitate him the way the voice lifted at the end to make it
seem more like a an urgent question than a statement.
“More news from the site.” She said.
“I really need to reassess my choice of employment.” He said with
a large sigh. “What’s it say?”
“Oh no! You better pull over.”
“Again?” He said with a tinted grimace of agitation.
“This is huge.”
258
He slammed hard on the brakes and pulled roughly onto the
gravel shoulder. In the process he was nearly rear ended by the already
agitated driver of the Mercury. Gravel peppered the shiny pewter paint as
Hargrave came to a complete stop. The man's shouts fell on deaf ears as he
passed the two Agents in their rental car.
“What is it?” He said with a sigh. He rubbed his temples with his
forefingers and muttered softly, “I used to be such a cautious driver.” She
didn’t seem to hear him.
“Another body.”
“Ok so that makes, what 36? Christ is there an end to this
madman?”
“The only problem is that this body is from 1967. Identification on
the body says it was a Robert Barnet.”
“And?”
“Well, that year Charlie was overseas.”
“Damn! Are you sure that it’s not just a mix up in the dates?
Maybe he didn’t ship out until later.”
“No, no way. They found a bus ticket in the man’s wallet with the
dates on it. By this time Charlie had already been overseas for 10 months.”
“Maybe he never went overseas. Maybe he sent someone in his
place, a brother or army buddy.”
“I’ve got his fingerprints on file, army photos…that was him over
there.”
“Then who killed that man and buried them on the farm?”
“Hold it I’ve got it…I’ll bet you it was…”
259
But she couldn’t finish her statement. An aggressive and very
impolite knock on the drivers’ side window interrupted her. The sound
was not akin to knuckles on glass, either. And as they both turned, their
eyes focused on the gun and the impatient face that was attached to it.
They exchanged glances quickly, reaching a mutual eyegreement
in which neither reached for their weapon. The man was plainly enraged
and they weren’t eager to escalate an already highly volatile situation.
Hargrave slowly reached for the power window button.
Hargrave paused ever so briefly. He seemed to be debating just
slamming the car into gear and making a run for it. Being a member of the
law enforcement fraternity, however, he let the window down a crack. He
seemed to overridden the rash plan with another to diffuse the situation.
His eyes narrowed at the same time that his shoulders relaxed.
The gunman was clearly hoping for more of an opening and tried
to shove the barrel of the gun through the narrow gap. He grunted at the
futility of the predicament.
“You crazy? Open the fucking window right fucking now!”
260
His voice was rough and his accent was nearly polished smooth.
He breathed in enormous barrel-chested gasps. His free hand twitched
like he was calculating difficult mathematics in his head. He stood close to
the car to avoid the heavy traffic speeding by, which was making him even
more agitated.
“Alright, no need to…”
“Just open it!”
The power window hummed as Hargrave slowly lowered it. The
gun popped inside quickly.
“Now how about you explain to me what the hell you did to me,
to ME, back there, huh? Drivers are completely untalented these days…”
“Back where?” Hargrave asked, oblivious to his multiple driving
faux pas until he glanced ahead at the pewter Sable parked three car
lengths in front of them. He grimaced. “Really I used to be such a good
driver.” He pleaded. “Look I’m sorry, completely my fault.”
“Don’t apologize to that thug!” Wilkes-Chu said with uninhibited
aggression.
“What? I don’t know who’s more fucked in the head, the driver or
his bitch.” The gunman said shaking his head.
“Watch it. You’ve made a big mistake, buddy, we’re Agents. So
why don’t you just give us the gun and put your hands above your head
slowly.
He got even more enraged. She reached for something in her
inside pocket mechanically. He thrust the gun deep into Hargrave's cheek.
“Don’t try it, spliffer. I’ll blow his face off right now.”
261
“I was just going to show you my badge.”
“I’m sure you were. So if you’re Agents then you’ll know who I
am and realize what danger you are in right now.”
She studied his face, finally shrugging and jutting out her lower lip
as she shook her head. Hargrave narrowed his eyes searching his vast
databank of perps for recognition.
“Nope.” Wilkes-Chu finally answered.
“Maybe this name will inspire fear…the Orange Jutan?”
“Huh uh.”
“The vile Coelacanth?”
“No, sorry.”
“Fearless Affirmator? I have many identities around the world.”
“Fearless what?”
“Enough of titles. I am Don Miguel Chan St. Morisivitch, leader of
the anti-government ‘Freedom to the Free World Ecological Gymnastic
Coalition’. Admittedly we are moving away from our acrobatic roots these
days...”
“Surely you’ve seen our piece on Sixty Minutes? My
condemnation of the Papacy? How I spearheaded the campaign to ban the
internal combustion engine?”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“We want to replace it with the environmentally friendly
clockwork mechanistic Zither engine developed by Xian Cho, the famous
Mongolian inventor…patent pending. No? My brutal military maneuvers
to free the country of Engovia, just north of the south of France and
262
bordering on Italy and Switzerland, which I am now the Sovereign ruler
of.”
Hargrave shook his head as he apologized with his eyes. WilkesChu perked up suddenly like she was struck by an enormous jolt of
electricity.
“Didn’t Jenny Haniver star in a movie that was loosely based on
your group?” She asked, “Drown the Baptists, right?”
A small smile was planted on the gunman’s face. A trepidatious
and hesitant sprout that was ready to wither in the parching sun of his
rage.
“They renamed the group into something a little more believable,”
she paused to think. “The Hando Liberators, right?”
The shy plant began to fade.
“No, sorry it was the Brotherhood of Man. It was a real tour de
force,” she explained to her partner as if the gunman were no longer
hinged on the brink of violent aggression. “And a very sympathetic
portrayal…”
The bloom became healthier, showing the petals of teeth, shining
teeth. A beautiful flower stretching in the sun after a warm summer
shower.
“…Of a strong woman who’s beliefs in the empowerment of the
individual…I was moved by her strength, and although it was a very loose
adaptation of your little group from what I understand…”
Withering and wilting. Pansy in the Gobi.
“I thought the ideas and goals were lofty and laudable.”
263
Sunflower gleaming. Shoulders back, leaf on stalks.
“It is one of my favorite movies by one of my all time favorite
actresses, my very favorite actress. Funny how they transformed your
character into a woman, though.”
A sneer replaced the flower instantly.
“…But she did elevate your group out of the realm of tree huggers,
space cults, and pseudo religions. You must me very grateful.”
“Yes of course we are. I would love to meet her and express my
thanks, however…ooh that was close.” He shouted, pressing his crotch
closer to the door as a wide truck nearly brushed his rear end.
“Why didn’t you allow her to use the name of your group in the
movie officially?”
“Lawyers, you know. Didn’t you love the scene when I, err I mean
she, jumped over the barrier at the G9 meeting and pied Libderberg?”
“That was terrific. The triumph on her face when the cops started
to beat her senseless…”
“That actually happened to me.”
She grinned at St. Morisivitch in awe.
“So you haven’t seen my face on the international most wanted
posters then. I mean, if you like, I could autograph one for you, you know,
as a souvenir.”
“Excuse me movie buffs,” Hargrave said, clearing his throat,
“reality check. We’re two government Agents being held hostage by a
militant commando, by his own admission, on a very busy freeway. I
suggest we deal with the here and now.”
264
“Very astute Agent…whoa!” He dry humped the rental car again
as a speeding motorist came extremely close to giving him a Brazilian ass
wax the hard way
Hargrave, seeing an opportunity, reached into his jacket for his
gun. Don Miguel, seeing this took two steps sideways and shot the door
panel. He did an energetic handspring, rolled over the hood, just as two
bullets narrowly missed him through the windshield. He finished with a
beautiful stick landing on the other side of the car where he shot the
passenger side door panel. He somersaulted back over the hood, avoiding
two more bullets as the Agents struggled to remove themselves from the
car.
His well-aimed projectiles had jammed both lock mechanisms
trapping the Agents in the car.
They both reached for the power window release buttons at the
same time with barely a glance at the suspect. As the window slowly came
down the hood was popped, wires were pulled and shots were fired into
the engine compartment. They were unable to see St. Morisivitch with the
hood in their face, like a jersey over the head in a hockey fight. They did
the old flinch and duck, assuming that they were the targets of the deadly
pellets with graphite impregnated cores. The windows jammed at only a
quarter of the way down.
Both front airbags deployed into the Agents faces.
As the car was also equipped with side impact airbags, those
inflated as well shoving them further into the pillows. Somehow by his
under hood compartment fiddling the only electrical device that worked
265
was the radio. It was playing some sort of vary dramatic classical music.
The volume was deafening.
“You alright, Wilkes-Chu?” Hargrave asked, trying to unknot
himself from the deflated airbags.
“What?” She screamed over the radio crescendo.
He clawed at the knobs to silence the music, but finally ended it’s
life with two well-placed bullets and several solid smacks from the butt of
the gun.
“I said, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, just a little shaken.”
He raised his gun to shoot out his window.
“Wait!” She screeched.
“What? He’s getting away.”
“The bullet could hit anyone in all this traffic.”
“Your window then.” He grunted, aiming the gun just in front of
her face.
“I can do it myself!”
“Right.”
She quickly shot out her window with one bullet. The projectile
flew in the direction of an empty field of dead yellow grass and
overturned shopping carts. She elbowed out the shattered glass like a
female Chuck Norris and was out quickly.
Hargrave got his feet tangled in his seatbelt and fell to the gravel
poised to shoot, shoulder smashed.
266
By the time they could see beyond the sight deflection of the hood
Don Miguel was nothing but a cloud of shoulder dust and taillights.
“Just to let you know…”
“Uh huh.” He said, trying to recover from his spill.
“Nobody says reality check anymore.” She said rolling her eyes.
He shrugged. Dust clods swarmed around him like errant gnats
searching for a perch.
267
Chapter 17
There, on the flood beneath ‘Weaning of Furniture Nutrition’ in a
blood and velvet heap laid Jenny’s Salvador. I looked at the pile in
curiosity at first not realizing the nature of its components. As I walked
closer I saw the splayed limbs of a man, the blood, and recognized the face
of the painter, or the demented leader of Jenny’s little quest, whatever that
might be. At once I was on my knees checking for signs of life.
And for a second, just a second. No. Maybe it was just a trick of
the light, but he reminded me of…someone.
Someone was coming. I
had to hurry.
“How many more bodies has my sister left in her wake?” I
mumbled to myself.
I knew he couldn’t be the real painter, I’d read the plaque on the
way in, but he certainly did look like him.
268
Somehow beneath those layers of flesh and sinew a pulse still beat.
Just as I was about to rouse the fallen man Dali’s eyes shot open as if they
were sprung with well oiled springs.
“Help me.”
“What happened?”
“All are not cooks who carry knives.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I am Dali of course! More to the point, who are you?”
“I’m Max…Jenny’s brother.”
“Did I… I’m sorry I thought you were dead!” Dali said, his head
now on my lap.
“I thought the same thing about you.”
“Legends never die, however this body is not long for the world.
The paint is bleeding from my canvas. My easel is broken and all my
brushes snapped.”
“I’m sure you’ll…”
“No, wait, now I remember you from the plane. I am fading in
and out now. Is this truly the end?”
“The plane? I thought that was all a dream.”
I scooped Dali up to a more sitting position preparing to lift him to
his feet.
“I am dying.” Dali said with a gasping finality before going limp
in my arms. The suddenness surprised me, but I noticed he was still
breathing.
269
“You’re not dead!” I said, shaking his limp anatomy slightly. He
opened his eyes with a great struggle. The springs had sprung.
“Ah…so you’re right. Here I create a putrefacto of my own
flesh…but yes, death is close…I can feel his grip on my soul in his tight
fisted grasp…I am terrified of death, I…”
Again Dali slumped, eyes closed, in the posture of death. Blood
dripped from the three sickening wounds disguised beneath the elaborate
costume his frame consumed. Again I detected his breathing, but it had
faded. I checked for a pulse and found it distant and feeble. I couldn’t tell
if the madman were playing a game, or if he was so completely done with
this life that he was willing death to take him.
“No…sorry you’re still not dead.” I said nudging him again.
His eyes opened again, but his words came in whispers. “Are you
sure?”
“Yes, very sure. Look we’ve got to get you to a doctor.”
Suddenly Dali came alive, if ever so briefly, with energy.
“No doctors! I absolutely forbid it. Western medicine is filled
with Charlatans, boogerboo, and medicasters. I would rather die
here…now, than be a party to their grim experimentation again. They let
me die once and I spurn another…cough, cough…”
“Okay. Okay listen...”
I didn’t know what to do. How suspicious was it that I followed
the man in, and then would be seen carrying his nearly lifeless body out?
Worst, without being able to seek the proper medical attention that he
270
required, by his own request, how could I save his life? Then I found the
last puzzle piece in the shag carpet.
“I know just the guy to help us. Can you stand at all?”
Dali half nodded. I scooped him up roughly in hand and claw and
struggled to me feet with him.
“Ugh. You’re a lot heavier than you look.”
“Ah, but your breath stinks just as I imagined it would.”
“Do you want help or not?”
“Truly sorry…that was a very turpentine judgment. You are very
kind to help me. You did not hesitate when you saw me fallen, there on
the floor.”
“My grudge is against my sister, not her associates.”
“I believe that we will make a great team.”
“Team, huh”
I struggled with my load, nearly dropping the drooping Dali. I
crushed his wounded side with a clutching claw. He passed out briefly.
My shoe came off in my battle to remain erect.
“Damn!” I cursed looking at my wooden prosthetic foot, which
looked more like an antique shoe horn. We wandered towards the
information booth with a limping click thud shuffle. People stared as we
trailed blood onto the tile floor. Most may have thought it was some sort
of surrealistic exhibit, but I was certain that at least one person called the
police.
I plopped him into the car I was using for the time being and
hurried to a nearby pay phone. It was a 1972 Chevy Nova. Canary Yellow
271
with a small block, Holley four-barrel carb, Edelbrock performer manifold
and a big fiberglass hood scoop. I didn’t like to steal, but without a social
security card I was left with very few options. I usually tried to pick a car
that was pre-computer, they were easier to get into and to hot-wire, even
for a clumsy crook like me. I liked to pick up muscle cars whenever I
could. They were fast and the owners usually put a lot of work into them,
so I knew they were reliable. I even had a custom snap in claw that
enabled me quick entry.
I started to reach with for a quarter with my claw hand, but
stopped just in time. I didn’t want to enact that sad little skit again, and
send us both for medical attention...I really didn’t need any nasty scars in
the region of my holiday goodies.
I dialed Doctor Escano, or I guess I should say Mr. Escano, the
practitioner who had patched me back together.
“Doctor…Mr. Escano? Hello? It’s me Max.”
“Max? Hello!” He said in a heavy accent that was still difficult for
me to understand. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, but my friend here is hurt bad. He’s been stabbed three
times and he’s lost some of blood.”
“Where?”
“It’s hard to tell, but it looks like his chest, belly and his side.”
“No…where was he stabbed”
“Huh?”
“Where are you now?”
“Florida. St. Petersburg at the Salvador Dali Museum.”
272
“St. Petersburg?”
“Yeah.” I could here Mr. Escano shuffling though sheaves of
paper loudly.
“Okay. Head east until you get to the Sea Shanty fish and chip
shop, about 10 blocks. Turn left…”
His accent took over and I stumbled through his words for
meaning.
“Hold on…hold on what do I do after the Sea Shanty?”
“Turn left. Three doors down is a place called the Mission of Holy
Catholic Crusades Thrift Store. Go in and ask for Mr. Reyes. He’ll know
what to do until I get there tomorrow.”
“What is this, some sort of underground confraternity of Filipino
doctors and psychic surgeons network?” I joked.
“Something like that!”
I couldn’t tell if he was amused by my joke or surprised that I
figured out his secret so quickly.
I rushed to the car after saying a quick farewell.
“You’re not going to die on me again are you?”
“No I assure you I have sampled my own blood and I have
acquired a taste for it.” He croaked weakly.
I gave him a raised eyebrow at the odd statement. I feared I would
have a hard time detecting if he were delirious, as it seemed he was
already quite mad.
273
“Those are my paintings and I will be damned if I will let that
bastard get his brazen testicles on them. Ah grief and joy are a revolving
wheel.”
“Testicles!”
“Err, tentacles…”
Even at deaths door he still held fast to his belief in his assumed
identity. This man was an enigma I thought, as was the man he was
pretending to be. Something about him made me wonder whom he really
was as I bullied my way hurriedly towards the thrift store fronting for an
underground fraternity.
“Ever hear of psychic surgery?” I asked my slumped and bloody
passenger. I wanted to keep him talking to keep him conscious.
“Intriguing.” Was all he could choke out.
He faded back in when we got to the thrift store slash emergency
room, just long enough that I didn’t have to take his full weight on the trip
from the car.
He passed out when he was placed on the table, but made a brief
comeback when the pendulum in Mr Reyes’ hand indicated a mixture of
274
rock salt, gauyule, and lactiferous reseda blossoms.. His assistant, a thin
woman with a facemask stood by with mortar and pestle.
By the time the supposedly yeti hair sutures were ready he was
gone again
“He may experience a period of anosmia during the healing
process.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
I was surprised by the Latin or Greek sounding word. I shouldn’t
have been. He was considered a fully certified medical practitioner in his
own country, unshackled by the chains of orthodox western medicine. It
just sounded funny with his thick accent.
“Loss of the sense of smell. He isn’t some sort of somalier or
something is he?”
“A wine guy?”
“Yes. If he is then he will have to miss a few days from work.”
“No. No he’s not.”
“Good. Oh no!”
“What is it?” I was really worried. All the color had drained from
Dali’s face. His complexion had taken on the appearance of melted candle
wax.
“He’s dead.”
“Dead! We’ve got to do something!”
“Don’t worry, he’s only mostly dead.”
“Huh?!”
“Not dead all the way.”
275
“I don’t understand.”
“I can bring him back. Turn on the black box, and adjust the dial
to precisely 727 mhz,” he said to his assistant. “You hand me a bottle of
powdered Cranesbill root. For heavens sake not the diced, and make it
quick.”
I did what I was told and watched this stranger bring back another
man from death. I was sure that this was the least of what I was about to
experience in the coming days.
With a little wink he said, “He should be back to dancing in a
couple of days, a week at the most, up and walking by the morning.”
“But he’s not a dancer…”
My words were lost on the back of his head as he left the room
with a funny laugh.
276
Chapter 18
“So have they been able to dig up any info on the whereabouts of
one Don Miguel Chan St. Morisivitch yet?”
“Did you go to some sort of Agent lingo course that I missed out
on?” Wilkes-Chu asked.
“Not that I’m aware of, however…”
“Too many detective shows as a kid I’ll bet.”
“Well I did love to watch a lot of TV. I was sick a lot as a kid, so I
had plenty of time indoors. I read a lot of Hardy Boys, then worked my
way up to…” His face really opened up when he started to relive his past.
“Really?” She asked distractedly, as she continued to search the
Agent database on her laptop multi-machine.
“You know it’s really nice that you have taken an interest in my
childhood. My ex-wife never really…”
“No.” She said.
277
“No? You’re not interested in my history?” He asked, visibly
dejected.
“Huh? No not that. No sign of Don Miguel. His criminal record
sheet is pretty long, but he’s got diplomatic immunity, so nothing really
stuck. Most of them are minor offenses anyway; mischief, criminal
loitering, resisting arrest; typical protestor stuff. Oh wait; there is a flag
here about his military coup in Engovia.”
She did some more swirling around with her finger mouse, single
clicking and double clicking. It reminded him of some sort of belly dancer
with the castanets.
“Well, hardly the bloody assault that he claimed it was. He sent
his aging Grandfather to a retirement home, although the geezer
reportedly put up quite a stink. He was next in line for the throne. It
happened right after he won the silver medal in the Olympics for the rings,
and bronze for acrobatic tumbling.”
“Where did you read that?”
“Anna Nova.”
“Who’s she?”
She responded with a heavy sigh, and turned to look out the
window as the car stopped at a red light. It was early morning rush hour
and the streets were jammed with people. Colorful pedestrians struggled
to compete with turning cars in the crosswalks.
“Why do they still call it rush hour,” he wondered aloud, “I can’t
think of an hour in the day when everyone isn’t rushing to get somewhere
other than where they already are.”
278
A particularly pushy driver had pushed the nose of his car in front
of an old woman on a Segway 15 mobile transport, nearly causing a
collision.
“Some days I wish I had become a traffic cop. I’d rule with an iron
first, mind you. The things people get away with behind the wheel of a
car. Look at that woman putting her makeup on and talking on a headset
at the same time. How could anyone properly concentrate with all those
distractions?
The car behind him honked. He looked up quickly to see that the
light had changed. He pressed on the accelerator with extreme caution.
“Stop the car.” She shouted in panic. “Pull over, pull over!”
She was pointing enthusiastically towards a newspaper box beside
a bus stop.
He swerved cautiously into the bus lane, careful that it was free of
traffic. He didn’t bring the car to a full stop, but did slow down to a large
extent.
“I said stop the car.”
“I can’t stop here, it’s a bus lane.”
“It’s official business! Well sort of… besides we are the law.”
“Hold on, there’s a spot over there.”
Ignoring the immediacy in her voice he signaled carefully and
turned the corner into the parking lot of a strip mall that contained a 7-11,
gas station, Butterfield’s Drycleaners, and Ron’s Custom Cardboard Casket
shop. Before the wheels had stopped rolling she was out of the car and in
a full sprint towards the convenience store.
279
“You really should stay in the vehicles until it comes to a full
stop,” he said, but she was already out of earshot.
He watched her firm, four days a week workout, glutes as she
sprinted in her charcoal gray form fitting slacks. He was wearing a small
dreamy far away look that was all the rage on the catwalk at the fashion
shows.
He sighed deeply when the door to the convenience store closed
behind her. He adjusted his tie in the rear view mirror, and tried to
smooth down a stray hair with a spittled palm.
The car door opened and she was back with a small stash of
newspapers and a single mucho grande coffee. He started to reach for the
coffee with a look of pleasant surprise as she sat down.
She took a sip as she slammed the car door.
Noticing the look on his face she said, “Sorry, did you want one
too? Only, you know your bladder when you drive…and being that coffee
is a diuretic I just thought…”
“No, no. Good thinking.” His eyes were disappointment if ever
there was. “So what was the huge emergency?”
“Recognize this face?” She asked him, echoing the headline on the
front page of the newspaper she was holding up. It was an artists
rendering of an old man.
“I do believe…” but searching his eyes she could detect no signs of
recognition.
“It says here that this person has been seen in connection with the
recent disappearance of Jenny Haniver!”
280
“The actress?”
“Yes. According to this report her agent suspects a kidnapping
and this guy has been seen,” she exclaimed, ruffling the paper towards
him for effect, “in her presence recently. It also says that she appeared to
be under duress.”
“You know another little bit of synchronicity just hit me. She was
the actress who starred in the movie about our ‘friend’ from yesterday.”
“St.Morisivitch?”
“That’s right.”
“Over the years working for the agency I’ve developed a keep gut
instinct, and right now my guts are rumbling.”
“I know what you mean.”
“…But haven’t they always claimed that she was…flaky? After
that whole thing about her brothers death, and the drug reports.”
“She was found innocent of all charges.”
“You seem to know a lot about this woman.”
She shot back as though he had attacked her mother “I was just an
intern a couple of years ago and helped out on the case. I really followed
the proceedings, you could ask me any little detail.” She flicked her hair,
“Besides you know the rumor mill in Hollywood.”
“Publicity stunt?”
“No way.” She said, slamming the door on that avenue of
conversation.
Hargrave was justifiably perplexed at her excited behavior and her
defense of the actress.
281
“So what does this have to do with our case?”
“Don’t you get it?”
“Get what?”
“The old guy…”
“What about the old guy, maybe it’s her father.”
“Her father is dead. Have another look.” She pulled up a picture
on her laptop and compared the images.
“I don’t believe it,” he said, “Mr. Bishop.”
“This case just took a very interesting turn.” She looked almost
bubbling with excitement as she read further into one of the newspaper
articles.
“Why is it that the papers are always one step ahead of us?”
“They get paid better, for one thing.” She said without looking up.
“Do you ever get the feeling that if you follow all the loose threads
that there all going to lead to the same cardigan?”
He waited for her reply to his insightful comment, but it was too
late she was already waist deep in the murky waters of pulp paper
journalism.
“Ill get us to the office so we can do some more research.”
As they drove away a sudden backup of traffic in the middle of the
intersection stopped them.
“What’s with the traffic today?”
“I don’t know? Why does it annoy you so much?”
“I just hate sitting in traffic…”
282
“Well I don’t know what the difficulty is.” He was craning his
neck to see ahead of the cars to spot the problem.
“Oh my…” She said, looking up with a gasp.
“What is it? I can’t see anything at all.”
“Look!”
She was pointing off to the passenger side; her eyes were wide
with strain. He squinted in the direction she was pointing, but couldn’t
focus immediately on the source of her perturbation. Then he saw it.
Like a fluffy floating mirage, a flock of sheep ran single filed across
the opposite intersection. They ran single mindedly, focused on some
unknown location out of site. Not a single animal strayed from the path of
the one in front, despite all the distractions; the horns of angry commuters,
the shouts and screams of passing pedestrians could not deflect their
purpose.
“Look at those ones!” Hargrave shouted.
Mingled randomly between the regular crowds of plain sheep
were sheep streaming banners with an unusual logo and others with the
same logo painted on their sides. The center of the logo featured what
appeared to be opposing f-holes from a cello. This center motif was
surrounded by, or framed by, a pattern of lines and a medieval lance. One
sheep wore a pair of very expensive brand name sneakers; some wore
Zorro masks, or headphones. Once the last sheep, the 26 if Hargrave
th
counted correctly, had run behind a building and out of sight Wilkes-Chu
shook her head with a feint smile.
“What was that and where the hell did they find Dall sheep?”
283
“A clever advertising campaign, I believe.” She said.
“But for what?”
“No clue. Are you going to go?” She encouraged him to continue
through the intersection now that the traffic had commenced.
He stopped at the next intersection for a red light, still shaking his
head from the unbelievable exhibition. He looked over at her, tracing her
profile with his eyes, until an annoyed look came over his face.
“Seatbelt.”
She ignored him.
“Seatbelt,” he repeated, this time more sternly.
“Alright,” she sighs. “You know I hate these shoulder straps, and
if you had boobs you’d understand.”
She reached across and fastened her safety belt, separating her
firm breaths into two lovely peaks. She took another sip of coffee, and
licked her slickered red lips to catch an idle drop of java.
The car behind him honked, and he nearly jumped out of his seat.
He looked up at the steady green light.
“I used to be the most diligent drier on the force until you became
my partner,” he harrumphed.
“Pardon?” She asked him, still not looking up from her reading.
“Oh, nothing.”
Something stirred her and she put the papers aside. She brought
something up on her screen with her finger mouse, and began to type, but
she stopped as soon as she had started.
“Okay, so let’s review the facts.”
284
“Good idea.” He said, changing lanes.
“We’ve got a highly unorthodox serial killer, who was committing
murders when he wasn’t even in the country, who has kidnapped a
famous movie star.”
“Who happened to be accused of killing her brother.” He noted
with a condescending frown.
“…But acquitted, “ she added quickly. “Something doesn’t sound
right about all this.”
“Nothing sounds right. Why would a lifetime serial killer, who
was never motivated to get caught, kidnap a very visible celebrity and
then parade her around in public?”
“Maybe he’s enamored with her after her high profile murder case.
Maybe he feels a bond towards her.”
“By her track record I wouldn’t be surprised if she kidnapped him.
Maybe she doesn’t even know he’s a killer…but I guess she’ll soon find
out.”
“She would never…”
“Is there anyway that they’re related?”
“No, I don’t think so, but I’ll run a check.”
“I wonder if they know each other by a mutual acquaintance…”
“What are the chances that a glamorous woman of her stature
would have made friends with a poor farmer from the mid west?”
“I wonder if…” but his insight was cut off.
“You have mail.” The annoying Scottish girl said.
“Can you change the voice on that?”
285
She ignored him as she scrolled the screen to read the message.
“Oh my God!”
“What is it?”
“Well you know how we couldn’t figure out how he was
committing those early murders when he was supposedly overseas?”
“Go on.”
“Well, I mean, it’s going to take forensics months to sift through
every minute detail, but from the latest corpses…”
“Yes.”
“I just don’t understand…”
“Spit it out, Agent.”
“So far, on his wife’s families farm, they have found more bodies
going back as 1941.”
He frowned, cocking his head to one side. She looked at the screen
with a loose jaw and open mouth.
“…At which time he would have been two years old and living
four States away! It even rules out the remote possibility that his wife
committed some of the murders because…”
“She wasn’t even born yet.”
“Right. Stranger still is that there is no indication that we have
found the last body.”
“Who killed all those innocent people?”
Somewhere buried beneath layers of newspapers, printer cables,
and copies of pictures a cell phone rang. It was a loud sustained ring,
desolate and unadorned.
286
“Your phone.” she said.
“Can you get it? I don’t like to talk and drive…”
“I know,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“It’s against the law.”
“You’ve really got to get a new phone. I’m surprised that they still
have the technology to support such a dinosaur.”
She retrieved the massive old double-flip open mobile phone on
the third ring. She looked at the green call display.
“Oh no it’s your Mom. I’m not picking it up.”
“What? Why not?”
“She always tries to drag me into conversations about woman
stuff…I hate it.”
Fourth ring, and he was desperate to find a spot to pull over.
“Just let it ring, she’ll leave a message and you can call her later.”
Now she was holding it out like a smelly gym sock.
“She doesn’t like to leave messages, besides my mail box doesn’t
work anymore.”
The phone had stopped ringing, and a little bit of the stress had
faded from his face.
“You know they have phones with cameras, full color screens,
ringtones…”
“I’ve heard.”
“And you can use them in the car while you’re driving.”
“So how do you dial and all that?”
287
“Voice activated. Even my phone is obsolete now,” she said,
inspecting her cell phone. It was barely bigger than two tubes of lipstick.
“Didn’t you just get it?”
“No that was months ago now.”
The old phone rang again, and the call display showed that it was
his mother again. She must have redialed, thinking that she had gotten the
number wrong the first time. They locked eyes like deer frozen in the
beams of a car.
288
Five Days Later
The one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous.
- Salvador Dali
289
Chapter 19
We had just gotten past the security checkpoint and were stepping
through the doors. I reached out for the pole to steady myself and my
claw clanked loudly on the metal.
“You know before 1975 I all but refused to get on an airplane, now
you can barely stop me from it’s intoxicating allure.”
“Um, you know this is a subway, right?” I said sitting down.
Dali looked fragile and tired. I practically had to help him to his
seat. He sat down beside me, but not uncomfortably close. I noted that he
was wearing his gloves again. I still couldn’t figure out what requirement
was filled for the gloves at certain times, but not at others. It didn’t seem
to be that sanitation necessitated them, as he had pleaded.
“Yes, but still a tubular containment form of mass transportation,
no?”
290
“Point taken, I guess. Oh and sorry about the long delay at the
gate. I’ve got so much metal holding me together they always give me a
cavity search to figure out I’m not a toaster.” I laughed weakly. “I really
miss the pre Homeland security days when us poor cripples didn’t have to
call as much attention to ourselves.”
“Cavity search? Free?” Dali wondered aloud, a little too loudly.
His fingers twitched as if he were making brush strokes. I looked
at his face and it seemed long and old, much older than it had even the day
before.
“How are those stitches holding up?”
His hand moved up to cup his wound, just below his right lung,
“They are tingly.”
“Sore at all?”
“Like very itchy bruises. Especially the ones on my back.”
A longhaired guy hurried in just before the doors closed. He took
an empty seat across from us. Dali noticed this with some interest.
“I once made a hologram of Alice Coopers brain.” He noted.
“Huh?” I quizzed.
“At one time I knew all the popular musicians. The Stones, Pink
Floyd…I had a series interesting of conversations with Syd Barrett in the
late sixties. I even had a very close relationship with Marc Bolan. Quite a
character…now that’s one story I will have to tell you some day. Actually
most people don’t realize that they were close friends and influenced each
other in various…do you remember Marc Bolan?”
291
“Who? No never heard of him.” I said, not sure at all whom he
was talking about.
The longhaired guy snickered and picked up a discarded
newspaper from the seat beside him and began to shuffle the pages.
“Ah yes you Americans…In the 70’s in England there was this
group called T.Rex, actually they started out as Tyrannosaurus Rex, but
they shortened it of course.”
“Oh yeah…Bang a Gong or something right?”
“Precisely. Anyway in his personal theology, that is to say his
biographical mythology, he had a very important event occur in 1964. In
1964 I was staying with friends in a rather unique castle. I was touring the
Louvre one day…I believe Gala was gambling somewhere. She really
enjoyed roulette and her young lascivious male companions. I was with a
young admirer of mine and I was ridiculing some of the greats, comparing
their works to my own. It was a game that I never tired of. As I was
leaving I spotted this beautiful young boy. He had a potential, a hidden
beast that was enchanting. We seemed to hit it off quite well and as I was
wont to do in those days, I invited him to dinner.”
“Dinner turned out to be a few months. The person whose
residence I had taken up with had a large library of magic books, I’d
always been interested in alchemy and magic. I was deeply afraid of
death, still am, and I would try each and every recipe for immortality I
would discover. He and me tried a few spells with very limited success.
He had such a strong charisma and imagination, despite his shyness. We
292
became very close. In those days people loved to experiment, although I
recall he stayed away from drugs, that didn’t come until much later…”
Dali paused and produced a bottle of water. I heard the seal
break, and almost looked away until I saw a large slice of lemon floating in
the bottle as he took a sip. I marveled at the intact form of the fruit, and
tried to work out how he had snuck it in the bottle without deforming the
shape.
“Have you ever met David Blaine?” I asked at his slight of hand.
“Who?”
“A master of close-up magic.”
“Not yet…”
“Sorry, it’s just the lemon in your water.”
“It is very important to stay comfortably liquefied.”
“Um, hydrated?”
“I didn’t believe that once. Actually I once believed that
dehydration was the key to immortality.” His lips curled up with distaste
at the bad memory. “I was mistaken.”
“Please continue your story.”
“I will proceed. In the end it got quite nasty. It was a huge clash
of two powerful egos you see…I’m surprised he never mentioned my
name on the many recitals of the story. I ended up being a wizard in the
grandiose tale. Some of the embellishments…” he smiled. “He could
bullshit even better that me some days.”
“I was in my mythological phase at the time and he started
reading Tolkein and the like. I had every intention of painting him as
293
Christ and we even talked about it through the years as his fame grew and
mine waned. That would have been quite amusing to him as he was
Jewish, you see.” He said that with a twinkle eyed smile.
“I’ve been meaning to mention this since I first saw you taking off
your disguise in the airport parking lot…oh and not a very clever disguise
I might add…anyway you do bear a striking resemblance to the Syd
Barrett I mentioned meeting earlier. The bohemian good looks, tousled
dark brown hair, the soft hazel eyes with glimmering specks of violet and
amber, even your bone structure. You know as an artist, I have a very
good eye for things like that.”
“Syd Barrett…he was the guy who went crazy, right? Pink Floyd.”
“Crazy? Well if that’s what you want to believe. Some people
learn to get out, sometimes to become a legend you have to give up what
you love. It’s not the first time…”
Dali stopped suddenly looking around frantically.
“What was that?”
“What?” I asked putting aside my brochure.
“I thought I heard Charlie whisper something.”
“Charlie is nowhere near here…you know that.” My eyes
questioned his face.
He bent his head down, tilting it somewhat, and placed a finger to
his temple as he closed his eyes. His eyebrows strained all the muscles in
his forehead. When he sat up straight again his face had lost most of the
color and he sat very rigidly.
294
“When we get to New York we must have guns…lots of guns.”
He whispered to me with an even more thickly laced accent.
“We are in New York.” I reminded him.
“Somehow I had just lost my way. I don’t know how it happened, but it
did. I was never really a loser, but maybe a notch and a half above it at
most. I had trouble making decisions and even when I had made up my
mind I could never follow through. I never could stand up for myself and
I was very self-conscious. In fact right up until the accident I was just
floating through life aimlessly trying to avoid confrontation and people in
general, and working way too hard for somebody else. I bought in to the
big lie that my parents sold me. ‘Hard work always pays off.’ What a
crock. It wasn’t until later that I realized that you have to work smart, not
hard. Actually, that’s a credo I’m still struggling to adopt.”
“I had a problem with bad luck, a very big problem…or that’s the
way I perceived it at the time. They say that bad things came in threes, but
with me it was an inundation of calamities. I mean I realize that I didn’t
have any worse luck than anyone else, but at the time my head was in that
negative hole. I just remember in one week my car was stolen, I fell in a 4
295
foot deep drainage ditch to avoid a bus, I lost my job, and dropped my
house keys down a storm drain, and this was all just a few days before
Christmas. Needless to say I had a rotten Noel.”
“Ah yes. Life is focused on pain, steeped in anguish, bruises and
broken anatomy, but that is nothing in comparison with the ritualistic
slaughter of the human psyche and flies.” Dali said obscurely.
“In a way the accident helped me, but in no way was that enough
to offset the pain she put me through. As much as my outlook is changing,
it was nothing compared with the pain, scars, and handicaps that I
received.”
“For months leading up to the accident I was moping around,
sour faced, telling everybody how bad my luck was. I was pathetic. The
only thing that raised my spirits, briefly, was a phone call from my loving
sister.” I turned to Dali to see if he registered my dripping sarcasm, and
apparently he did.
“My famous, successful, rich bitch sister. Everybody loves you
when you’re a star…”
Dali interrupted, “I thought the saying was, ‘everybody hates you,
when you love Rock n’ Roll’?”
I shook my head at his comment and continued, “but not anyone
behind the cameras in this case. She was a selfish, spoiled, deceitful,
backstabbing, lying, actress…the worst kind. Oh, sorry about that back
stabbing bit.”
“I’m past all that.” He said, clutching his chest where the stitches
were still healing. “Please continue.”
296
“The industry as a whole hated her, but no one could deny her
screen presence and her talents.” I paused a second as it seemed as though
Dali was about to interject, but he never did so I continued after an
awkward moment or two.
“In recent years her career made a sudden downfall, not due to her
behind the scenes shenanigans of which the tabloids loved, but due more
in part to the roles she chose to portray. A bad script, and even worse
editing, for Romeo Bravo, and the overhype of Away and Far.”
“She may have been a six speed in Hollywood, but she was
slipping gears, and her clutch was shot. That’s when I got the call.”
“Now that I’m in between projects I was hoping we could spend
some time together.” She said over the phone.
“Hmm.”
“We haven’t seen each other in years…maybe I’ll fly out there next
week.”
“Sure…it has been a while.” I replied actually somewhat looking
forward to her visit.
“Great! See you Tuesday.”
“On the one hand I was happy to hear from her, but the memories
that came swimming back to spawn were bitter sweet at best. She had
never done anything entirely without motive, and I sensed that this would
be no exception. The phone call did bring back good memories, as I’ve
said, but all of those took place when Mom and Dad were still alive.”
“My sister and I were close growing up, before my parents death.”
“How did they perish?”
297
“In a plane crash on September 11, 2001. They were on the second
plane that crashed into the World Trade Center.”
“Maybe this isn’t the time.” Suddenly Dali seemed withdrawn,
tired.
“No, it’s okay. I was 17 years old, and she was only a year older.
My parents left us without insurance and the meager possessions they left
us didn’t stretch very far. True, there is a big inheritance when I turn 25, in
a couple years, but that didn’t do me much good at the time. Who knows
what happened to the money that the government was supposed to supply
us under the victim relief fund. We vowed to take out insurance policies
the next year with each other as beneficiary, and to always stick together.”
“For the first year everything was great…well, to a point. I
worked very hard to keep up the mortgage payments by day as a customer
service rep and by night as a pizza delivery driver. I was determined to
pay off the house…just to have something accomplished. She worked
hard at first, too, but I could see her resolve wearing thin in the first couple
of months. She changed, too. She became bitter, and selfish, always out
for herself.”
“What about your education?”
“Well I was always a very bright kid, didn’t have a choice being
such a loner. I read a lot. I took an early graduation test and passed no
problem. Jenny had already graduated.”
“We never fought much as kids, we were very close, best friends,
until adolescence beat a wedge between us. For a few years there we were
cats and dogs, actually my parents used to call us Tom and Jerry…” I
298
waited for him to question me, predicting that he didn’t have a clue about
the reference, but he only smiled.
”I remember one fight we had that…she actually broke a plate
over my head. I got three stitches, and she couldn’t stop apologizing all
the way back from the emergency ward.”
“She had always been an attractive girl, and smart. One day an
offer came from a sleaze ball photographer to model for his web site. I
warned her, but the money was pretty good and I could see those dollar
signs dancing in her eyes. It turned out to be soft-core porn. She only did
it once, but it would haunt her. Years later the media got hold of the
pictures and made a fortune on edited front-page pictures. Anyway
modeling gave way to acting in commercials, and finally to small parts in
movies.”
“At first I was happy for her, and overlooked her mood swings
and demanding tirades. Our parents had died not long before, so I could
understand she would need time to heal…but that wasn’t it at all. That’s
when she began to drift out of my life. She was on the brink when she
came to tell me she needed to move to Hollywood, and wasn’t I happy for
her? It was hard to see the last vestige of family, and the only person left
in the entire world that I cared about leave.”
“I didn’t have time for friends, so she left me entirely alone. If she
asked me I would have happily sold the house and gone along, but she
didn’t really give me that option.”
“I didn’t hear from her for months. She left no forwarding address
so I couldn’t contact her. I did get a postcard later on from Hawaii where
299
she was on location for something, but it was pretty generic wish you were
here, but not really, kind of shit. One day I was watching a little TV and
saw a preview for a TV mini series entitled ‘Flutes of Hades’ and she was
co-starring. I mean, at first I didn’t even realize that it was her. Through
all the makeup, the curly wig, I just thought what a babe! I blushed when I
realized it was my sister, and a little felt a little sick to my stomach.”
“I was very hurt that she didn’t call me to share her good fortune,
didn’t mention me in her TV Guide interview. I didn’t actually speak to
her for 2 ½ years, until she eventually called not long after her role in ‘Not
the Sort of Girl You’d Take to Bed’. We still weren’t on great terms and
our conversation was short and vague. We wrote to each other
sporadically after that first phone call.”
I looked over at Dali and he seemed genuinely interested in my
little history. He said he wanted to understand my motivation, so I didn’t
want to disappoint.
“I followed her exploits in the tabloids, in the celeb web sties, and
watched her interviews whenever I had the chance, but I didn’t make it a
hobby. She garnered sympathy about our parents, but never mentioned
much about me, nothing really. I knew she had a drug problem, or that’s
what they said, either way she really like to party. Her adventures were
notorious, but she really went over the deep end when those photos hit the
tabs.”
A voice announced an upcoming station.
“Is this us?” He asked me in reference to our destination.
300
“I have no idea where you are taking me.” I said, shaking my
head in disbelief.
“Then it isn’t. Please continue.”
“I think that she actually relished her bad girl image, and all the
attention from the photos hitting the tabloids. Any publicity is good
publicity, right?”
“When ‘Menaced by Nightingales’ bombed I was pleased, but I
also thought that it might help her relieve some of the pressure from her
swollen head. The next feature didn’t fare much better and I began,
somewhere very deep inside mind you, to worry just a little bit.”
“I was worried for the next couple of days after she said she was
coming to visit, but I couldn’t exactly put my finger on the source. Maybe
she needed my help. I promised myself that I would put the past behind,
and hopefully I would get my old sister and friend back. In the end, of
course, my worries were completely justified.”
I sat back in the seat. My arms were aching and I realized that I’d
been tensed up the whole time. Dali sat there calmly drinking his water,
but I could see he was still in some discomfort from the stab wounds by
the way he was sitting.
“Please go on. I simply must hear the whole story.”
“Okay. Sorry…every time I think about the accident I freeze up
inside. Other than Doctor, sorry Mr. Escano I haven’t told anyone.”
“I understand. Please continue.”
My recently acquired suspicion prickled. I wondered why Dali
was so interested in my story. For a eccentric he seemed harmless, and
301
honest, but I was still convinced he was a madman. I would have stopped
right there, but it felt so good to tell someone, anyone, about my pain.
“She stayed with me for a week. We sat around talking a lot
remembering the good times when we were kids. We talked about our
parents. She filled me in on all the Hollywood gossip. Everything stayed
friendly, but distant. Eventually the bitch leaked through. A couple of
times she seemed ready to explode on me like the sister of old, but she
remained calm.”
“At times she seemed depressed, almost like she was
hiding…something. I asked her about her drug problem, out of concern,
but she denied it…but she did use the washroom a lot. Each time she
came back from her freshening up she came out far happier and friendly. I
didn’t really want to press the subject too hard. I was happy to have a
fraction of my family back.”
“She wandered through all of our parents stuff, but it didn’t look
to me as if it were in memory. She was studying things…looking for
something, or at least that’s the way I perceived it.”
“One night I came home from work and she had left a cryptic note
that she would be at the Picnic Ridge Park, an old childhood hang out.
Because of her mood swings I suspected the worst, possibly a suicide
attempt. I quickly hopped into my old 1977 Mustang II 6 cylinder piece of
crap and hit the winding roads towards the little park. It was all I could
afford after my Grand Prix got stolen.”
“The route wound up a fairly steep track, mountain on one side,
and down a steep embankment to the Serpentine River to the right. I raced
302
around each corner as best I could in my less than high performance
machine. I kept trying to convince myself that it was at least a ‘Ghia’
model, but it was a pathetic consolation.”
“It was dark and very few lamp posts made the journey this far
down the now mostly derelict highway. When I got within half a mile
from the park, in a sharp corner, something darted out in front of my car.”
I paused trying to wet my lips on some water. My bottle did not contain a
miraculously unmolested lemon slice.
“I swerved hard to the right to avoid hitting it. I was shitting
bricks when the tires squealed and with the crash of steel as my bumper
kissed the guardrail.”
Dali’s eyes lit up. He seemed to take notice even more, but not I
suspected by his gaze, at the crash.
“My rectum rippled and I shit myself. I thought I was dead as my
rusty heap tried to take flight.”
Dali closed his eyes for a moment picturing the scene. A small
smile crooked the corner of his mouth. “I really must applaud your
graphic scatological vernacular Max. It’s as though I were there in the car
with you releasing my wretched bowels. Please do go on.”
He was freaking me out, but I continued, trying not to lose
momentum in my story.
“I looked over at the object of my impending death, the thing in
the road that I had swerved to avoid and I realized it was her. And she
was smiling. It was the last thing I saw before plunging down the inky
black depths of my living hell.”
303
“I still don’t remember all the details, just a confusing jumble of
rolling and tumbling end over end. I blacked out, but when I came to I
realized that somehow I had been thrown free of the car and I was lying
within inches of the river. The thing that haunts me, that I will never
forget for as long as I live, isn’t so much the pain or even the violence of
the crash itself…no it was the smell. The smell of the spilled automobile
fluids, the gasoline, and the oil…the smell of the burnt brake pads and the
tire rubber almost overwhelmed me. My own excrement and urine…the
taste of the bile on my lips…the over-powering rusty sweet salt stench of
my blood, my very life pumping out of my torn arteries.”
“The sound of the river was almost deafening, but even still I
could hear the grinding of twisted metal coming from the wreckage. Small
rocks still cascaded from above me, and yet even with all the cacophony I
swear I could hear her laughing.”
“Before I could even take inventory of my own battered carcass
she forced her way into my thoughts. That’s when I remembered the
insurance policies we had on each other. I knew she was desperate, but…”
“I lay there for what seemed a decade, but probably 10 seconds,
looking up at the black sky. I could see nothing, as I lay twisted and
broken on a bed of jagged rocks beside the lapping waves. I thought I’d
been blinded, or maybe I was simply dead. With the adrenaline pumping
so hard I really didn’t feel any pain, but I knew that something was very
wrong. I imagined my soul floating above the grisly scene picturing the
carnage. The mangled piece of shit car finally put out of my misery, my
sister laughing at me from the road, the angry water demanding a sacrifice
304
and my life spilling away on the stones. I actually closed my eyes for a
second waiting for death to take me, but then I just snapped. I couldn’t let
her win. I had to live. I didn’t have a plan but I wanted to fuck her over,
somehow…”
“My head awash in turmoil I tried to stand and that’s when I
realized to my horror that my foot was on fire with pain and I could not
stand right. I stumbled into the water helpless. I tried to put a hand out a
hand to break the fall, but it was numb from the crash.
The river was swollen and furious with tangled debris. It was
swift with an unspent rage. I went under, but fought with everything I
had left for the surface. The undertow had an unholy grip, but somehow I
managed to break free. I still couldn’t see anything, until I was struck hard
against my face and I saw stars. I managed to remain conscious with the
cold biting at my severed limbs. I flailed out with my good arm for the
object, water choking me in my blindness. I managed to half pull myself
onto a fast moving tree.”
“I crawled my limp body onto the log and passed out. I must have
drifted for miles, well into the night. It is a miracle that I didn’t slip in and
drown. When I awoke, briefly, I remember seeing an Asian man standing
above me, a halo of light illuminating his fuzzy personage. Once more
darkness entangled me in its sinewy embrace.”
“When I came to, this time out of my shock induced
unconsciousness for good, I tried to rise but couldn’t. As my weak body
slumped back into an over stuffed pillow, which smelled of sweat and
tarragon, I was scared! I didn’t know where I was. I wasn’t at home, that
305
much I knew for sure. That’s when some of the fragments of memories
came crumbling back to me about the crash, hazy wrinkled memories,
frayed at the edges.”
“That’s precisely how I felt when I came to on that lounger under
the expert hands of Mr. Reyes.”
“So you can understand my disorientation.”
“I suppose that I can.”
“I tried to look around to find out where I was, but the motion, as
slight as it was, made me nauseous. I had to fight the urge to vomit
because I was afraid that in my weakened state I wouldn’t be able to turn
my head and I would suffer the fate of at least a handful of now deceased
rock stars.”
“Yes I believe I knew at least a pair of those myself.” Dali
interrupted, but I continued on making a mental note to quiz him on it
later.
“I knew I wasn’t in a hospital, the room was not white, at least not
from my perspective. The room was painted in dark colors, navy blue and
a dark mauve. There was a picture on the wall, but I couldn’t make out
any details. My vision faded in and out of a blurred symphony of chaos.”
I could tell Dali wanted the full version of the story, not the
condensed version, so I tried to accommodate him with each nuance of the
tale.
“Suddenly a voice came from somewhere to my left. The accent
was as thick as a corded rope and the words eluded me. It was a man who
spoke in a deep rolling flurry and I tried my best to focus.”
306
“Ah…you’re awake I see. Very good!” He spoke and came into
view above me. He was a dark skinned Asian man, either Hawaiian or
Filipino I guessed. The accent was slightly Spanish, but not like yours,” I
said to Dali, “So I guessed he was from the Philippines.”
“His smile was gentle, crinkled at the eyes. His face was rounded
in the cheeks, and glowing a slight pink on his almond colored skin. I
noticed that his lips were full and plump. They reminded me of dried fruit
for some reason. He appeared to be in his early fifties, five foot five, and
maybe a hundred and forty pounds.
“I tried to speak, but he motioned for me to relax. Still I tried to
form words but I barely managed an illegible scribble of a whisper. He
helped me to sit up and propped the pillows behind me with a
sympathetic tilt of his head.”
“Please try not to speak. You need your rest.”
“…But…” I croaked.
“Please rest.” He dabbed a damp cloth on my forehead. It was
cool and soft and felt very soothing.
“I realize you have questions and I will try to accommodate you as
best I can. Try to relax, and lay still.” He said tucking at the stray blanket
corner.
“My name is Doctor Escano. You are here in my home. I found
you on my early morning stroll down by the river. You were dead.”
“I stiffened. I realized not everything was right, something felt out
of place, but I was unable to speak.”
307
“I had to act fast if I wanted to save you. I really did the best I
could, but you were…dead. I couldn’t wait to get you to a hospital
because it was too late for them to help you.” He spit out the last words
like a bite from a rotten apple.
“You see in my home country I was a very successful surgeon, but
here…they would not acknowledge my degree, my hard work, or my
unusual talents.” He turned and walked towards the picture on the wall
continuing to talk to me.
“They would put me in jail if they found out I had operated to
save your life. They would rather I gathered the police to collect your
carcass than to let me practice my skills to bring you back.”
“Then when I saw the news and found out what happened I was
afraid for me, for you…for my family. I couldn’t call, you must
understand.”
“I listened to him and realized in some ways he was probably
right. I was surprised that I survived actually. Then it came to me. Even if
I had come forward and accused my sister who would they believe? She’d
get off scot-free and I’d never be able to walk the streets. I’d be mocked for
my story…trying to implicate my famous and publicly adored sister. They
would claim jealousy…or insanity. No. It was better this way. She
thought, the whole world thought, that I was dead. This way I could exact
revenge and never be suspected. True she got the insurance money, but
that wasn’t foremost in my mind.”
“Was I really dead?” I managed to ask the doctor.
308
“Oh yes dead, very dead.” He assured me with a solemn nod of
his head.
“Thank you…”
“Oh you are very welcome, but all is not as it once was young
man.”
“I froze. Okay here came the bad news. I knew I was all in one
piece, I could feel both my arms and legs, so how bad could it be right? I
could see, hear and talk. Stitches, broken bones…I mean I wasn’t pain free,
but I wasn’t paralyzed or anything so what could it be I thought”
“Your right hand was amputated almost up to the elbow in the
crash, and I wasn’t able to save your right foot…” Before he could continue
his list of injuries I interjected.”
“What? That’s impossible! I can feel my hand…I’m fine…”
I turned away from Dali remembering the incident.
“As I finished my exposition of incredulity I managed to lift my
right arm from beneath the marigold comforter. I really did feel my hand,
in fact it itched just a little bit, but to my horror my arm ended at in a blood
clotted gauze wrapped stump. I tried to scream, but nothing came out but
broken anguished sobs.”
“Phantom limbs.” The doctor explained. “Most amputees
experience this phenomena. You suffered massive blood loss, but I was
able to manifest enough to get your heart pumping and recycling. I closed
all the various contusions and gashes. I set your broken hip, and fingers,
and did my best to reconstruct your face. It was really quite a mess.
309
Broken cheekbone and nose, shattered eye socket, torn ear, and two broken
teeth. I’m not a dentist, but I learn quickly.”
“My gut sickened as I imagined a butcher hack job of stitches, and
a crooked nose. I imagined myself as a Frankenstein monster. All I could
do was cry, but not a sobbing cry, more like a hopeless numb cascade.”
“Through bitter burning veils of tears I asked if I could see. I was
grateful to him for saving my live, but at the same time angry at the site I
expected to see.”
“He brought over a silver-plated vanity mirror for me to gaze into.
He held it up where I could see my reflection. I was bruised and puffy.
Here and there dry crusts of blood clung to the skin, but I didn’t see any
stitches just many pink scars and scratches coated with a slimy green gel.
My nose was straight, albeit bruised, and my eyes were blackened, but in
the right places.”
“In a few more days you should look fine. Unless viewed under
magnification I doubt you will harbor any scars.” He said removing the
mirror.
“I didn’t understand what he had done, but I was grateful. I had
so many questions. He used some very unusual techniques obviously,
unorthodox to say the least. I just stared at the stump that had been my
hand. I was still extremely shocked and stunned. The reality of
everything had yet to sink in.”
“It will take some time to rehabilitate you. The hip will take a
couple of weeks to heal, a month shorter than western medicine.
Tomorrow I will go and visit an old friend of mine at the medical supply
310
warehouse and I will try to find some prosthetics for your foot and hand. I
can’t promise mush and it won’t be pretty, but it will be serviceable.”
“As the doctor turned to leave I stopped him. He’d seen the news
as he’d said and I explained my premise of anonymity. We made a pact
not to tell anyone about each other and he respected my decision to stay
dead. In fact I later learned that he had quite a successful underground
career, not only of more standard medical treatment, but also to the local
Filipino community as a psychic surgeon, but you know that.”
“Please tell the story as though I knew nothing of the details, as if I
were completely ignorant.” Dali said and I complied with a shrug.
“As you can see he was right about the prosthetics not being
pretty.” I held up my snapping claw for Dali to inspect. “…But with hope
I intend to raise the funds to have reconstructive surgery. Doctor Escano
has assured me that for the right price he should be able to graft on a new
foot and hand, real ones, and I believe him. I’ve seen what he can do and I
trust him. I was dead for fuck sakes and he saved me. You know what
they can do, his little cabal.” I told Dali with enthusiasm.
“Yes my friend they are true miracle healers. I already have a
religious ultra realist painting in mind with his face in replacement of
Noah’s. It will be quite magnificent, of course, as only I Dali could create.”
“Noah wasn’t a healer.”
“Then St. Germain.”
I slumped in the uncomfortably hard seat. My body just relaxed
entirely after the story had been told. It felt as though a huge weight had
311
been lifted off of me. Like an elephant had been standing on my nuts for a
year.
After some time, when I thought that Dali had fallen asleep, he
turned his head ever so slowly to face me. He whispered in my ear with a
low husky voice filled with inflection and accent. “You should be a writer.
You fit that, or a hairdresser if you ever jump the fence.”
I furrowed my brow and tried to ignore the comment, not really
too sure about the fence comment. Did he think that I thought that…oh he
was frustrating.
When I was a young teenager, before all the crap, I dreamed of
becoming a filmmaker. I was interested in research, but not just any topic.
I wanted to start a project from beginning to end, explore the language and
stretch it’s boundaries. Every time I had a chance to put my thoughts on
paper I always felt that my results were inadequate.
As tired as I was my brain started to work overtime. I couldn’t
believe the madness that swirled around me. The people, the events,
the…insanity. I could feel myself getting sucked into the absurdity. An
insane giggle got caught in my throat before it could escape and I turned to
look out the window. I began fantasizing about my revenge on Jenny for
the millionth time, playing out each possible scenario over and over, each
minute detail.
312
Chapter 20
The room was a non-descript huddle of shadows, angular and
unadorned. Mid-century modern. Sterile. A small screen burst to life on
an Ikea writing desk, bathing everything with its hazy blue soulless vision.
A program on the laptop popped up. The desktop theme looked
like a combination of modern skyscrapers punctuated with teal glass
toolbars.
Somewhere, still snuggled in the folds of darkness, the flickering
flash of an infrared remote controller tickled the fuzzy scene. The cursor
moved quickly on a side bar and searched in a folder filled with hundreds
of multimedia files. After briefly pausing on an icon labeled jhan546.jpg
the cursor double clicked on a file simply labeled with a the time and date.
8pm 5-25-06. Last night.
“…And tonight on A&E’s Biography the story of Jenny
Haniver…”
313
After the introduction there was a 2 minute and 45 second fast
forward blur of childhood pictures, and old school friend interviews. The
picture would slow down briefly to focus in on a particularly cute picture,
or video clip of a high school play, and then the fast forwarding would
continue.
The viewer resumed normal speed to watch a humorous
commercial featuring a silly man and a sensible woman shopping in a
department store while the good bits of Pulp’s ‘Common People’ played in
the background. Another commercial began. It was a pulsating logo of
the new mystery product. Clouds featured an opposing cello f-hole motif
was throbbing gently in and out while words scrolled past repeatedly
pleading.
“This ad is designed to massage your sentimentality.”
Somehow the cello holes seemed morph slowly, almost
imperceptibly at first into something almost recognizable. A garish
moustache, perhaps?
Another flurry of fast forwarding continued while images of the
tragedy involving her parents sped by. Regular speed halted the headlong
rush and centered on a well dressed, middle aged, earring wearing beatnik
in a dated photo with an attractive blonde woman.
Fast forward.
“She has one of those smiles that you just don’t forget.” The
movie director commented. “It tattooed your brain with its indelible
vision, like when you shut your eyes after staring too long at a bright
object. All at one time it reminded you of the innocent smoldering glee of
314
Michelle Williams, the luscious head on seduction of Salma Hayek, and the
full reckless abandon of Angelina Jolie.”
Inter cut with the real-time interview were clips from a few of her
early roles. Laughing glimpses were slowed down by remote control, and
one very brief scene were she smiled and flicked her hair out of her eyes
was rewound and replayed three times before the directors remarks
continued.
“Her hair, being neither naturally blondie-blonde or light brown
but a shade somewhere between, was full, airy and flexible. At times, such
as when she starred in ‘Ride a White Swan’ in 1997, it was a head full of
Little Orphan Annie curls tinted a triple platinum blonde. When she
appeared in ‘Café Avenue’, also in released in 1997, it was a natural
looking poker straight strawberry blonde, although it was only seen briefly
as two thirds of the movie where shot in grainy black and white.”
“She wore a red/orange wig in ‘Romeo Bravo’ released in 1998,
but as we all know that spelled the end of her string of successful movies.
While it can never be proven that the wig was the career killer it was
certainly whispered about.”
The narrator of the show continued the commentary while shots of
Jenny at gala events were played, as well as behind the scenes and on set
clips were shown.
“Her personality on and off screen was an expression of extremes;
perhaps at times that was one of her endearing features. She was a huge
bundle of energy in whichever direction the mood carried her…”
Fast Forward
315
Eric Dover, underscored as her agent “She is a virtual whistling
dervish of excited sunshine with her trademark smile blazing like a 150w
halogen spotlight…brimming with enthusiasm on the first few days of any
project.”
Angela Frontera – makeup. “The other edge of the sword was
later on in production, or if things started to go wrong. Her fits of rage
were legendary. Whether it was a scene that was taking too long, a bad
meal from a catering truck, or God forbid someone try to offer any form of
criticism, constructive or not, on an early morning.”
Eric Dover , agent “She throws extra energy towards everything…
areas or situations, where she felt she was lacking or unpolished, to
conceal any shortcoming…it’s part of her charm.”
Fast Forward 7 seconds.
Hilarie Sidney, actress. “But inside she was less confident of her
abilities and she often admitted this fact to herself, usually as a
motivational speech before shooting, but never to others. She is such a
perfectionist…and a very sensitive person…and self-conscious. Most
people don’t see that side of her. Except for her …therapist…”
Eric Dover, agent, “True the studio and I did delicately suggest
she consider seeing a, counselor. Despite the fact that she decided to see the
therapist to placate us, I think that she actually found the time spent
rewarding, productive, and empowering.
Hilarie Sidney, actress. “I don’t believe that anyone really knows
the genuine Jenny Haniver. Even as one of her best friends I never felt
sisterly close. She’s conundrum, but a wonderful, wonderful person.”
316
Narrator. “It was right after she entered the spotlight proper, after
the sleeper hit success and critical acclaim of Sad Vacation in 1995, that the
media pounced.”
Eric Dover, agent. “They loved her, hated her, and devoured her
like a solid milk chocolate bunny on Easter morning by a pack of feral and
impoverished children. I always knew she had that sparkling magical
something that is required for this business”
Nicke Borg, ex-roommate. “During interviews, when properly
scheduled, she appeared sincere, kind, funny and sensitive. This was a
good opportunity for her to stretch her acting muscles. She always felt
that her interviews were over the top and hammy, especially the classic
one for Star Channel. She managed to squeeze out a tear when they
prodded her about the death of her parents….but god save you if you
posed an unscripted question. To put it delicately she had a tendency to
lose control and transform into a creature reminiscent of a late 80’s Sean
Penn, worse if you drank the last of her Orangina.”
Angela Frontera, make-up artist. “She used to tell me that these
outbursts were preplanned publicity stunts. She liked the rebellious role
of the tempestuous attention seeker. I can’t tell you honestly that I really
bought into her explanations. She is confusing, and hard to read.”
Eric Dover, agent. “A controversial celebrity has the opportunity
to have a longer shelf life, especially passionate, talented, and very
attractive ones.”
Nicke Borg, ex-roommate. “Any questions about her personal life,
such as whom she was dating, or rumors of drug abuse, were real sore
317
points. Stories began to make the headlines in the tabloids regarding
alleged co-star consortiums and romances, and even stories about
lesbianistic drug filled orgies. Probably true, I might add.”
Narrator. “Throughout the rocky time she remained silent about
the allegations. Afterward her public persona changed. To social events,
such as award shows, she either came unescorted or arrived with unlikely
love matches as a child co-star, and Randy Quaid.”
Eric Dover, agent “…and with fame came money, and all the
other Chinese finger traps that came with it.”
Commercial. Fast Forward.
The scene changed to a massive house; if a home of that
substantial spatial temperance size and embellishment can still be called a
house. To be true it was only this side of the fence from a mansion. Her
grounds were large, and well kempt, but not expansive enough to be truly
considered an estate.
Hilarie Sidney, actress. “She wanted everything big, and was a
little disappointed at her house. These things nagged at her, but she could
always dream of the day when she could build a house by the sea on a
high knoll overlooking the waves.”
Ruby Amanfu friend/singer/songwriter. “She had a large stable
of expensive cars. Not that she particularly liked to drive. She just
admired the lifestyle. As a child she often watched the Lifestyles of the
Rich and Famous and imagined herself living in that manner. It seemed so
glamorous and so …her.
318
Hilarie Sidney, actress/best friend. “It was the same thing with
her artwork. She never spent more than a passing glance at her rare
paintings, but she had to have them anyway. She became addicted to
shopping on a level that perhaps only Elton John and a few handful of
others could possibly comprehend.”
Eric Dover, agent. “The result of a mildly impoverished childhood
I imagine. Dr. Jacinto seemed to be good for her. His advice seemed to
ground her for a little while. It was unkind to her way of life, but she took
what she could use and discarded what she felt was harmful or
counterproductive.”
Ruby Amanfu friend/singer/songwriter. “There was a point, she
declares to remember the exact moment, when we were in a vintage thrift
shop in San Francisco when she realized that it wasn’t about the
procurement of all those items as much as it was the power she felt she
commanded in the act of throwing money around. While her arms weren’t
exactly empty when she left the shop there was a huge gaping empty pit in
side her somewhere that she could feel for the first time. She toyed with
that hole like a canker sore or a missing filling in her tooth or a nasty
bruise. She played and prodded it to test the boundaries of her fragility,
see what hurt more. “
Eric Dover, agent. “Finally, it seemed like she was on the right
track again and she stopped visiting Jacinto…and then Menaced by
Nightengales…”
A very fidgety Nicke Borg, ex-roommate. “She turned to narcotics
instead to face the pain of what she thought was her first real cinematic
319
failure. First it was the easy to get prescription sleeping pills, then came
the Stoli to wash it down, ah, that was her favorite brand of vodka,
right…but she hated the way the alcohol made her look in the morning, so
it was a long one night stand for the bottle and her.”
Ruby Amanfu friend/singer/songwriter. “She started seeing that
dirt bag Nicke, her ex-roommate/ drug pimp again and he hooked her up
bad. Somehow she settled on cocaine, or it settled on her like a light
dusting of Peruvian snow. She flittered in and out, between manic lucidity
and disjointed despair for almost a year…and there was nothing we could
do to help her. She used to say that as a girl she loved the delicious
sensation of a head rush. Even as a child she would rise quickly from a
very hot tub to experience the liberating sensation.”
Angela Frontera, makeup artist. “Before she could bounce
back…this was right around the time of the release of ‘Heart Attack and
Vine in 1999, her second stinker in a row. Then there were all those
rumors about an alleged affair with Pauly Shore...”
Roger Joseph Manning, Jr., late night talk show host.
“After a
very embarrassing interview on my show she went into a detox clinic to
avoid what she described a Lindsay Lohan-esque shit show. I felt really
bad for her. People say I have a way of pushing their buttons. I tried to at
least use my connections to get her into the right place.”
Ruby Amanfu friend/singer/songwriter. “And then there was
that funny misunderstanding by an uneducated extra on the set of El
Scorcho which resulted in the tabloid press labeling her a racist. She had
said something to him at the food truck when he complained about yellow
320
tomatoes instead of roma in the salad. She told him to stop niggling about
the food. How could she defend herself? I mean I am a proud black
woman and I am her friend. She doesn’t have a racist bone in her body.”
Hilarie Sidney, actress. “She did go to a small town B&B for a few
weeks to get away and have a break, but she did not go into a clinic. I can
assure you that. She set her controls for controversial, but not pathetic,
and she had a hard struggle after the interview.”
Eric Dover, agent. “When she came to see me right after the time
off at the B&B she seemed like a calmer, more focused woman, and not the
girl whom I had signed five years ago. It did her a lot of good, and she
was fit, healthy and ready to get back to work. She kicked her habit by
herself, by sheer power of will.”
Ruby Amanfu friend/singer/songwriter. “I don’t know about it
being a Bed and Breakfast, or a detox clinic. The way she described it…it
was more of a retreat, like a spa, only spiritual…you know?”
Hilarie Sidney, actress. “When she got back from ‘vacation’,” she
said using air finger quotation marks, “ she was in great shape. She
seemed so straight and determined to get back into the ring.”
Nicke Borg, ex-roommate. “After she got back from that f**king
commune I never heard from her again, and she still owes me money. She
left a message on my machine one night before she came back…. weird.
They messed with her mind. I don’t even know who she is anymore.”
Eric Dover, agent. “When she came back she had a voracious
appetite to work. To get her hands dirty. I got her the lead in a low
budget independent film. We both thought it would help her regain her
321
credibility. She was to play the part of Elizabeth Canning in the film
adaptation of ‘The Franchise Affair’ written by Josephine Tey. However,
they did change the characters name and the movie title to Desdemona for
a more exotic and mysterious texture.
John Monaco, director of Desdemona. “Actually to say that it was
based on the novel is only a half-truth. True much of the book was used
for inspiration, but the writers researched the case studies and newspapers
of the period to get a more open ended and complete story. We were
really striving for historical accuracy.”
Narrator. “The story takes place in London on New Years Day in
1753. Elisabeth, now Desdemona, is kidnapped on her way home after
visiting her uncle. She turns up half dressed, beaten and disheveled four
weeks later. She identifies a house of ill repute where gypsy women were
said to have kept her to try to force her into prostitution. She identifies the
room, and many other minutiae, but many of the details remain sketchy.”
John Monaco, director of Desdemona. “In the end the truth is
never uncovered. I mean, what happened to the poor girl, but it managed
to capture the hearts and imaginations of the people of the time. It became
the cause celeb for an entire year, and when Ms. Tey completed the novel it
became one of the finest mystery novels of the 20 century.”
th
John Monaco, director of Desdemona. “To be honest, at first we
were somewhat wary to cast Jenny in the title role as they wanted to keep
the story as accurate as possible, except for the title and some small items
to keep the flow feeling right.”
322
“Elizabeth was described as being fresh colored, pitted from small
pox, eighteen years old with a high forehead and standing a mere five feet
tall. Hardly the picture suited to the glamorous and beautiful Jenny,
however she plied the sincerity of her dedication and won the role. In the
end I convinced the executive producer that her intense interest, and of
course her celebrity status and credentials didn’t hurt, either.”
Narrator. “After reading the book and heavily researching the role
she leapt into the part with both feet for the grueling 3 month shooting
schedule.”
Angela Frontera, make-up artist. “The costumes were not only
unflattering at times, but also very uncomfortable. However even after 10
hours of discomfort she managed to stay well in character.”
Hilarie Sidney, actress/best friend. “She was determined to regain
her rightful place as Hollywood royalty. She lived each day during the
filming in a rented old house lit only by candles and gas lamps. She really
felt this was going to be the great role she would be remembered by for
many years to come.”
Ruby Amanfu friend/singer/songwriter. “She was convinced
this movie was going to let her shine again. Sometimes I would stop by
and we’d really get into a particular fantasy. In fact I wrote the song
‘Stellar’ from the ‘Little Slice of Heathen’ cd during one of our ‘princess’
sessions. I even gave her a writing credit after she came up with the first
verse.”
John Monaco, director of Desdemona. “The bottom fell out two
weeks before we could finish filming. I had all the scenes were in the can,
323
but the producer want me to add a few things…I wasn’t happy about it
and it turned into a battle. The producers backed off, the money ran dry
and they took all my work. The whole mess with Alan Klein is still
pending litigation. That was a piece of art. It was magic…she was magic.”
Hilarie Sidney, actress. “Rock bottom was a nasty little hole filled
with rats, stagnant water, sharp prodding jagged objects and mountains of
cocaine. She signed on as a guest star on a TV sitcom to pay her heating
bills and for her nose candy. No one in the industry knew had bad it had
gotten, not publicly.”
Ruby Amanfu friend/singer/songwriter. “Her whole lifestyle
was on the verge of being repossessed.”
Eric Dover, agent. “She started turning to religion, something she
swore since she was a small child that she would never do. Her parents
were loving and giving people, but outspoken atheists.”
Ruby Amanfu friend/singer/songwriter. . “She studied and
researched the world religions, faiths, and belief systems, between snorts,
before settling on a strange combination of Eastern mysticism, Wicca,
Spiritism, and Theosophy called the House of Illuminated Perception.
And the cocaine came to a complete and massive stop.”
Commercial. Fast Forward.
Hilarie Sidney, actress. “The meetings were held in a converted
school house hidden away in the hills. They were encouraged to invoke
the Guru, or teacher, with trance meditation. This state was induced with
an unidentified species of ethno botanical, probably a hallucinogenic.”
324
Nicke Borg, ex-roommate. “It’s funny, you know, on the message
she left me… she was telling me about this fantastic plant. I tried it, but I
got nothing but darkness out of it. She said I hadn’t ‘evolved’ sufficiently
to experience it. I think she was full of crap.”
Claigly Spearcloud, professor of religious dogma. “The Guru was
a being known as ‘the Sheaf of the Mahabharata’ or sometimes the ‘Page of
the Great Book’, even though his real and true name was not to be
disclosed to those on the lower planes of reality, and there was no actual
book. He was a disembodied wise man who had fulfilled his goal of
twelve reincarnations in human form, thirty in animal form, and seventytwo in microbial forms in the allotted time of 360 years in the mill of the
universe. Now he had returned to lead others in their own journey.”
“They practice an obscure Nepalese yoga technique that helps
them to slow their bodily functions. I am told it is a very heightened state
that has been proven to be the conscious version of the REM state.”
“He visited the members during these trance like meditations in
bizarre spiritualistic and symbolic visions often accompanied by mythical
creatures, other worldly music, and colors not visible to the human eye.
He would give common sense advice, but he also offered cryptic parables
and goals to achieve that were beyond anyone’s understanding. While
patient, it is reported that he would be was terse when his pupils didn’t
comprehend his instructions.”
“Also, lets get this straight, it wasn’t a ‘cult’ like the Branch
Dravidians, the People’s Temple, or the Moonies. This group has no holy
book, no scriptures, and no prayers, not even a clearly stated guideline of
325
practice. There are no deities, gods, or even a concise narrative for heaven
or hell in the conventional sense.”
“It is actually very difficult to pinpoint exactly when this
movement started, and how it stays together in any sort of coagulated
organization since there are no leaders, other than the disembodied spirit
of the Guru. Even the Guru has not been deified in the way of Buddha, or
Christ, he seems to be just a teacher of the methods to the enlightenment.”
The screen shows shaky amateur camera work outside of an old
Victorian mansion. There are a few brief seconds of footage showing the
inside. The room is empty of furniture and many people sit staring
blankly, waving their arms etc. before the screen goes blank.
The religious expert is shown again against a backdrop of dusty
old books and a scented candle.
Claigly Spearcloud, professor of religious dogma. “There is no
documented proof of anyone ever leaving the group, which is a true
enigma in my business, so the information is sketchy at best. As far as we
have been able to tell it all started with people eating, or smoking, or even
distilling an elixir from a mutated form of Salvia Divinorum, or Diviners
sage.”
Eric Skodis, chemist/part time dj. “Sally, as it’s known
colloquially. The particular strain originates from a small island in the
pacific called Clarion. It seems to shift the person into another plane, or
vibration, while keeping them clear headed, lucid. It’s not like LSD, or
Meth. It doesn’t appear to ‘space you out’. To the uninitiated things can
seem unchanged, except for the feeling of…I don’t know, but they sense a
326
presence, a female presence usually. It is strange because, unlike other
hallucinogens, the dosage required for deepened states actually lessens as
one becomes in tune with the vibrations. Before you ask, no it is not
addictive, not the drug itself.”
Claigly Spearcloud, professor of religious dogma “Now the more
a person attunes to this state of awareness there are opportunities to go
farther than a strictly altered state of consciousness. Most people are too
afraid to take that step, but if they do I believe that they come in contact
with the Guru. I have read in a journal that the Guru, while being male in
appearance, gives off a female aura, but in a mother earth way, Gaia.”
Ruby Amanfu friend/singer/songwriter “When everything she
had hoped for and lived for, when the very last grain was falling from the
hourglass, she snapped. She came back from that first meeting at that
temple or whatever, and she was…different.”
“She told me about her conversion to that philosophy, but she
didn’t push it on me, which was cool. After that things weren’t the same
between us. I mean we still talked and laughed and everything, but she
seemed so focused on a comeback, so determined, that everything else
seemed like a distraction for her.”
Hilarie Sidney, actress. “She said that she had cleaned up, gotten
off the coke, and the pills, and I could tell she was clean from all that crap.
She had a clarity in her eyes that was pure, but then the whole spirituality
side of her was just coming to life and she sort of drifted away from
everyone. She still showed up to our little parties, but she always seemed
on a different level than the rest of us.”
327
Angela Frontera, makeup artist. “You could hear the crack in her
psyche at that very moment of crystal clarity when the plan unfolded. The
whole sordid scheme was delivered in rote from the teacher in a single
glance, and only the details were left for ironing and pressing.
Joseph Karnes, biographer. “The plan was as extravagant and
bold as it was devious. Not only would it sever all ties with the past, but it
would also inject her bank account with a much needed shot of funds and
thrust her very swiftly back into the spotlight.”
“The plan was all-inclusive, like a holiday package on a fat cruise
ship her teacher insisted. I believe, in her drugged state, high on religious
virtue, she decided to kill her brother. From the ensuing publicity she
would be thrust back into the spotlight and enable her to get back on the
horse. If there were any indication that the jury was about to find her
guilty, or if the evidence was overwhelming, she could use the brain
washing, drug ingestion alibi, and at the most get off with more therapy
and probation. Despite the …”
The screen paused on a shot of Jenny Haniver being led to the
courtroom. Behind her, dressed in a slightly rumpled but stylish business
suit was a young and attractive half Asian/ half black federal Agent.
Wilkes-Chu. The picture started up again, but in slow motion. Two more
seasoned Agents nudged her aside to help the escort of the detained
actress. Total screen time, in real time, 3 seconds max before the video
continued at normal speed.
Rewind. Play. Rewind. Play
328
Joseph Karnes, biographer “…diligence of the Agents on the case,
most of the evidence was relegated as inadmissible. Even one potential
witness was ignored because of a past transgression with the law 7 years
prior. I can’t give specifics, you’d have to buy the book to get those,” he
said with a smile, holding up a copy of ‘Haniver Fist’, “but she was guilty
of premeditated murder, that I am convinced of. She was willing to do
damn near anything to have that movie released and have her star on the
walk of fame. “
“I’ve done dozens of interviews and everyone agrees that she was
more than able to kill for fame, even to kill her own brother for it. She was
motivated by pure selfish greed, and I don’t think she felt any remorse
about it. The only thing I think she regrets is the fact that the insurance
company didn’t pay her the 2 million life insurance dividend because of
the suspicious nature of the death, and the fact that the body was never
recovered.”
Hilarie Sidney, actress. “She is a driven woman, driven for
success, but she couldn’t have killed anyone. It just wasn’t in her nature.
Sure she might have it in her to kick someone around a little in a fit of rage,
but not premeditated murder.”
Ruby Amanfu friend/singer/songwriter. “To be honest, I didn’t
even know she had a brother before the accident. She did mention that her
parents were killed when she was a teenager. American Airlines flight 11.
Hilarie Sidney, actress. “She was really torn up about the death of
her brother, but she kept her chin up.”
329
Angela Frontera, makeup artist. “She never mentioned a brother
to me. After I heard some of the details I really believed that she could
have killed him. She wanted success more than anyone I’ve ever met, and
believe you me; I’ve met a lot of star struck people. She was obsessed.”
Joseph Karnes, biographer. “She was found innocent on all counts
by a jury of her peers. The backlash from the trial, however, ostracized
Jenny from the entertainment business. For 18 months she was out of the
public eye as she retreated back into the cult, the House of Illuminated
Perception. She sold her mansion, and cars and moved into a secluded
luxury cabin on the coast of Oregon, three miles north west of Portland.”
“That is until 3 weeks ago, when her agent, reported her missing.
Now, exclusive to this broadcast, he is about to share with us a recorded
message left on his answering machine by Jenny.”
Eric Dover, agent. “It was 7:43 on a Wednesday, so I was at the
Misfortune Club meeting the boys in the Sextus, a fabulous band that I
manage. When I got back I had a strange message on my machine from
Jenny. I had told her to lay low for a while until the dust settled. She is a
very talented actress and I know she has the talent to ride this thing out. I
hadn’t heard from her since just after the trial, and was ready to start
getting her into circulation again, I mean there were definitely offers on the
table…anyway this is the message she left, the agent said it was okay to
play it”
“Eric, for gods sake where the f*** are you? He’s got me. They’ve
got me! I’ve been kidnapped and they’re dragging me all over the country.
I don’t know what they want from me…” the sound cut in and out briefly.
330
“…ransom, I don’t know. I think that they’re taking me to New York.
What do they want?” A slam was heard, the sound cut of in the middle of
a scream.
Eric Dover, agent. “I believe she was calling from the trunk of a
car. When these bastards heard her on the phone to me I think they…I
don’t know, I just hope she’s okay.”
The screen went black.
331
Chapter 21
I was nervous. It was only the third time that I had called her and
I was trying to swat the hippo-sized butterflies in my stomach with a
rolled up newspaper.
Maybe this time I would actually talk to her.
I held the well-creased slip of paper that contained her seven-digit
code. I could still smell the phantom scent of bacon clinging to it.
The first time was perfect. I got all my courage tied into a knot
around my neck. It rang three times. If she had picked up on the first or
second ring it would have been golden, but she waited until the third ring.
It wasn’t only the third ring, but very nearly the fourth. She picked up the
phone in a breathless panic, and I hung up on the h in hello. I tried to
convince myself that she sounded busy and didn’t want interrupting, but
honestly I just lost my nerve.
332
I know I had only met Lily briefly at the airport, but I knew that
we shared a bond. After all she had chosen me out of all the possible men
that went through that little airport café to give her number to.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t dated before. I’d seen a half a dozen girls of
my own age before the accident. Nothing serious, but I just couldn’t get
into their headspace. At first I thought the incompatibilities were my
problem. To some degree I suppose they were, but I just couldn’t relate to
the immature college girl manifesto. They reminded me too much of my
sister and her flock of mocking girlfriends. I started fantasizing about
older women a few days before the accident.
I was in a coffee house with a buddy on one of those rare late late
nights out. The overpriced coffee was bad enough, but they had an
exceptionally dismal display of bakery goods and I was craving a slice of
pie.
We left the trendy java brewer and headed out to an old roadside
café, usually frequented my truckers fresh from the highway. We sat at
the counter to soak up the atmosphere, and were served coffee
immediately, even before our asses had hit the stools. None of that fancy
333
cappuccino, this was the real and original joe, the kind that puts hair on
your chest.
I didn’t pay much notice to the server; my attention was drawn to
the desert selection. There was a fresh raisin pie still steaming on the
counter that was singing to me, and a third of a lemon meringue under
glass.
As the waitress walked back past us I happened to look into her
eyes for a split second. She frowned a tiny cute little from and gave me a
tired, but coy, smile and waked past. I watched her round ass wiggle, and
I got a weird feeling deep in the pit of my stomach.
She wasn’t skinny,
but a full figured sexy older woman. I guessed early forties. Her calves
were well muscled and shapely from all the years on her feet, but seemed
as smooth as the softest silk.
I ordered a large slice of raisin pie with a scoop of vanilla ice
cream, my favorite flavor. I always thought vanilla got a bad rap. People
seemed to think that vanilla was plain, but in fact vanilla was a
sophisticated balance of scent and flavor that was a complicated riddle to
the palette, and far more sexy than the multitudes of flavors available.
Sexier, in fact, than all the others except for chocolate.
She brought me a jumbo piece with two scoops of ice cream. We
started to chat about nothing in particular, but we seemed to laugh a lot. I
don’t remember Pauly leaving, I just looked over one moment and he was
gone. Charlina and I joked and laughed all night. Even after the door was
locked and most of the lights were off we were still talking. Something
just clicked. I could see something beautiful inside her just dying to
334
blossom, something that had been locked away inside of her for far too
long. Something about me was unlocking that precious treasure and that
made me feel good.
I said something strange and she giggled. She reached out and put
her hand gently on my arm. A familiar warmth was stirring in my pants,
until I looked down and saw the large ring on her finger. I looked up at
her, confused.
She took a deep breath, and bit her bottom lip with a challenging
question on her face.
“You know how many times I get propositioned working in this
joint?” She asked, staring down at the napkin she had been shredding.
“Dozens of times every day, and it’s still flattering after all these
years, but I never once was tempted to cheat on Bob. Not that we’re in
love anymore, but we’re still…committed.”
I didn’t know if I should reply so I looked down at her hand that
was still gently stroking my own. I was nervous, but in a good way.
“You would have been the one. You tempt me more than you
know. For you I would throw it all away and do it right here on this table,
damn the consequences. Problem is you’re too good a man to let me do
that.”
“Um, well you’re probably right there.” I said with a little snicker.
“I just can’t figure out why. I mean, you’re old enough to be my
son.” She paused in mid thought, and giggled. “If I had a child when I
was really young. You’re just a kid on the outside, and a shy one at that.
Maybe that’s it, you remind me of the old days when I was still being
335
courted by all the boys in town, and I was still the prettiest girl in high
school..”
I didn’t know how to respond, so I just let her continue.
“But inside you are a warm hearted man, an old soul. You’re a
beautiful enigma.”
With that she placed a gentle kiss on my cheek and ushered me
out the door into the cold night air. I never went back.
Back to reality with a cold hard slap, I crumpled up the scrap of
paper with Lily’s phone number on it. Who was I kidding?
336
Chapter 22
“Hi Mother. Look I can’t really talk right now. I’m at a very
crucial part of the investigation.”
Pause.
“Now you know that I can’t discuss the case.”
Hargrave nodded, and nodded again trying to interrupt the
conversation to insert some comment or another, but was thwarted at each
attempt.
“Yes she’s here…no I can’t talk about that right now either.”
His voice hushed as he looked over furtively at his partner.
Wilkes-Chu looked up from the screen and their eyes locked for a split
second. He quickly looked away, and appeared to be trying to conceal his
lip movement.
“I know, but…yes, okay. No I haven’t yet, but…” he opened his
window and the sounds of the busy street obscured some of his voice.
337
“I’ve got to do this in my own time. Uh huh, but…fine. I’ll call
you later.”
“Yeah, love you, too.” He paused. “I will.”
“Okay goodbye.”
“Yep, goodbye.”
He pushed the end button with a tense thumb and slid the archaic
phone into his inside blazer pocket. It left a very big droopy bulge.
When he looked over she was engrossed in her screen. A very
small portable color printer was busy streaming out paper with hi-def pics
on the dashboard.
“What did she have to say?”
“Oh, nothing much. She always tries to get inside information on
the cases that I work on. She has quite a scrapbook. Oh, and she wanted
to invite me to a big family BBQ in a couple of weeks, but with the case
and all…”
“Not going?”
“No.” It was a very solid no, the kind of no that could play
running back for the Green Bay Packers. “So are you printing that off for
me?”
“Yes. I know how you like to pour over the hard copies late at
night. I’ve printed off all that I have collected since last night.”
“Thanks. You know I don’t think that there is any substitute for
words on paper. The insights just leap off the page when I’m done at
night. Sometimes I don’t even have to read the words, the structures of the
words and sentences…”
338
“You’ve said.”
“Oh.”
Looking uncomfortable he put his hand on the steering wheel, and
reached for the keys in the ignition. He pulled his hand away without
turning the engine over. He shifted nervously in his seat, and then took a
deep breath.
“Look, what’s up?” She asked him with agitation.
“Just thinking about the case. The people at the museum were
pretty helpful.”
“Yes they were. Seems like there was an unusual altercation.”
“It’s a shame they cleaned up all the blood. We might have been
able to use the DNA to find out who that character is.”
“Or was,” she reminded him. “They did describe a lot of blood.”
“Or paint, if we believe one of the girls. I mean is it possible that
they were enacting some sort of pageant?”
“To what purpose?”
He shook his head, “I just don’t know.”
“Something else is on your mind though,” she observed.
“Nothing.” He looked out the window, and then shrugged. “You
know I was thinking maybe we should take a little time away from the
case…clear our heads.”
She looked up from the paper with a rumpled brow and curious
eyes, but he avoided direct eye contact.
“…And out of this car, all Government Issue cars, really.”
339
“That part sounds good.” She said with a cute whimsical smile
curling the corners of her mouth.
“Maybe get a nice meal, maybe even take in a movie?”
At the cue of the word movie her curious eyes sparkled and filled
with an unusual glee.
“Now there’s an idea! I just saw in the paper that they’re having a
Jenny Haniver movie marathon at the theatre on Schoolhouse Blvd.
They’re playing three of her best movies, including Drown the Baptists.”
“Isn’t that the one about that St.Morisivitch character?”
“Yes it is, so it’s double research/entertainment.”
“I remember the uproar about that movie title when it came out.
It’s amazing what they can get away with these days…sometimes I really
miss the good old 20 century.”
th
“Researtainment,” she added with a little self-appreciating grin.
“You know,” she continued, “we can even write it off as a work expense.”
He smiled weakly. He’d obviously hoped that it could be
something a little more personal; you could see it by the look of sad
disappointment on his face. Well anyone could if they were looking,
which she was not.
“Jenny Haniver.” She said, almost just to hear the name out loud.
Her eyes were big and dreamy.
He started to smile when her hand reached out the 5-mile gap
between the seats and squeezed his knee. Although her face was turned
and facing him, her eyes were even farther than the 5 miles, but this was a
340
detail that he did not seem to perceive. Hope was still a brief flame in his
pupils. She was somewhere else, but more importantly nowhere near him.
341
Chapter 23
“Salvador?” I shouted over muffled music. “Sorry, but the door
was ajar…hello?”
There was no response. I tried to trace the music, and I think it
was something off Easter Everywhere by the Thirteenth Floor Elevators.
One of the many CDs that Sal had thrust at me as crucial listening. Roky
Eriksons voice was unmistakable, but I wasn’t sure about the songs title.
I’d only had a few days to become familiar with all the strange new music.
It was starting to grow on me.
The psychedelic, the alternate alternative, the askew from
mainstream, the forgotten rebels, the cult heroes and the nuevo savants.
I moved down the darkly lit, and even more darkly painted, blue
hallway out of the little welcoming alcove. A candle on a side table
flickered against pale golden stars on the walls and ceiling impregnating
them with life.
342
Whether it was a combination of the strange music or the candle
light I don’t know, but the whole atmosphere gave me the willies.
I walked slowly and softly down the hallway. I wanted to switch
on a light, but I couldn’t find a switch, and as I searched I didn’t even see a
fixture along the entire length of the hall. The extreme length of the hall in
comparison to it’s width gave the odd impression that with each step
forward I seemed to be getting a little farther away from the door at the
end. It seemed to go on forever.
A whisper of a scent tickled my nose. I got very disoriented as I
tried doors on either side of the hall.
All locked.
I looked closer at the little golden stars on the wall as I neared the
candle on the little table. Each one was meticulously hand painted and
unique. Some had little flickers of silver metallic sweat dripping from their
brows; others had reflective chips of gold glitter. Whoever had painted
this must have been vary patient, I thought.
I was becoming very numb. My jaw was as unhinged as the rest of
me. My mouth was open, but I felt powerless to call out Dali’s name as
much as I forced myself.
I felt incapable of turning around and leaving. I just drifted
forward on fumes, because my gauge said empty. I started to regret my
choice of a single tall glass of lemon water for breakfast.
The song ended and another was starting up. It was Radiohead,
You and Whose Army, from Amnesiac. I still couldn’t detect where it was
coming from, it seemed to be all around me, but still muffled somehow. I
343
didn’t see any speakers, but was perplexed by the way the sound bounced
off the ceiling.
The closer I got to the end of the hallway the stronger the scent of
incense became. The air was thick with it. It was a strange scent that was
both sweet and bitter I blinked hard to stop my eyes from watering, and it
was just the catalyst that I needed to break the spell, if even for a second. I
called out his name again.
“Salvador?”
The ‘Sal seemed strong and forceful, but by the end of his name
my voice wasn’t even a whisper. In fact I wasn’t even sure a second or so
later whether I even made a sound at all. I felt like I was suspended in a
dream, like a slice of apple in a jelly mould. I could see well enough by
now that the white door at the end of the corridor was slightly ajar.
I listened to the music, stopped halfway between a step and a
stand. There was another track playing just below the recognition level.
Actually track was a bit vague, it sounded more like the prayer chanting
from the news channel. Subliminal and subconscious. It reminded me of
the Muslim singing coming from a Mosque in the Middle East somewhere.
The music was pleading about the Roman Empire. The act of studying the
music made something click in my head and suddenly I was thrust out of
my half lidded hypnosis and into a hyper clear state. Each star of the
millions seemed to pulse at a different rate like the heartbeats of a celestial
humanity.
It all started to remind me vaguely of something I’d seen on the
Discovery Channel. My journey down the long hall of stars reminded me
344
of the Egyptian book of the dead. I felt like a Pharaoh lost in the land of
the dead, the Duat, traveling through the nether world towards his final
destination amongst the gods.
I reached out to touch one of the stylized stars, just to make sure it
wasn't somehow lit from behind by some sort of yellow LED light. My feet
hadn’t stopped and as my finger swept across the surface of the wall I
realized that the paint was still wet. I looked down, starting to drift back
into my trance, to be sure. Somehow the smeared blue and yellow paint
from the wall had transformed to a deep luscious red on my fingers. It
seemed like blood.
I screamed out for Dali again.
“Sal!”
The sound of my voice seemed to escalate my unease. It sounded
thin and far away, like it was being played from tape in the next room. If
anyone were here, I assured myself, they surely would have heard me
even over the music, but I didn’t hear a response.
I took three purposeful steps towards the door at the end. I turned
back to see how far I’d come, but couldn’t see back all the way down the
hall. I wondered if the door I had come through was painted dark to
match the wall, but to be honest it seemed like I had traveled light years
away from that world that I’d know so well.
I turned back around and pushed the door open.
It was very dark. I reached inside but couldn’t find a light switch.
“Salvador?” I asked, but still got no answer.
The room looked like a broom closet.
345
In the darkness I could just see a mop leaning up against the wall.
Somehow I had thought that the room would have been huge, but it
seemed to be no more than 4 x 4.
I expected it to be the source of the music and the incense, but I
had no idea where the source was. The music seemed close, but
everywhere, not just on place in particular. The smoke didn’t seem to have
a traceable source either. I shrugged, shivered from the weirdness, and
turned to leave.
I don’t know what it was that made me turn around again. Did I
see something out of the corner of my eye? Did I hear something? I don’t
know but I turned back towards the room and took one step inside
pushing the door open wider.
I wish I never had.
I tripped on something.
I looked down as I was falling. There was a piece of string
tangling my step. I reached out to stop myself and grabbed for the sturdy
looking shelf against the wall.
Somehow I had lost my depth perception. Where the shelf should
have been there was nothing but empty air. I fell forward grimacing ready
to smack my head against the wall. My hands connected with something
soft and yielding. I tore at desperately to right myself, but the material
gave way and I crashed to the ground tangled in a cloth octopus, or so I
imagined, stitched tentacles pulling me in deeper. I thought that I might
have pulled down a set of curtains, but the material seemed much heavier.
346
My head was heavy as I tried to fight my way out of the preverbal
we paper bag. No, I corrected myself, it reminded me more of a childhood
memory involving a turtle neck sweater removal procedure that resulted
in a separated shoulder.
I popped my head from one of the imaginary armholes, my hair all
ragged and my eyes still as heavy as before. I quickly examined my textile
confinement. I had apparently torn down a heavy tarpaulin, which was
very deceptively painted to look like a small room of storage-like items.
I had been duped.
Incense smoke and music was all around me now, only now not as
muted as before. The room I had entered was huge, and almost seemed
like a house of its own. It had an open floor plan, and only various objects
separated each section. Even the bathroom was open to the whole area
except for a chest high barrier of old farmhouse style windows all put
together in a frosted mosaic.
The entire room was lit sporadically with candles. Some spots
were completely concealed while others flickered with a pale yellow light.
In the spot I estimated to be the center of the large room there was a
curious mechanism. It was a revolving tin spotlight that had a candle
inside it. As it turned it cycled slowly through a variety of different
colored glass lenses casting strange shadows.
I stood up, extricating myself from the tarp finally, and looked
around. Turning around I realized that I must have slammed the door
behind me in my excitement, but that’s when the truth became apparent.
347
I tried the door, just to make sure I had a means of escape. The
room, or at least something about it, made me very nervous. True to my
luck the door was locked. I looked around the corner and noticed a long
line of doors. I frowned and looked around the other corner and noticed
the same thing. That’s when I clued in. The room was a complete square
except for the long narrow hallway I had come from. All the doors in the
hall led to here. It was like everything was all turned inside out.
A new piece of music started up, more an experimental sound
effects interlude with random pieces of music than an actual song. Bits of
car alarms, crunchy guitars, squeaky wheels, and harpsichord sounded in
what seemed a random order from the various micro speakers all around
the room. It was very reminiscent of Mr. Bungle, minus the melody. The
song ended as quickly as it came, and the room became very silent except
for a rhythmic ticking sound coming from one of the darkened corners of
the large space.
The yellow glass was now half way through it’s revolution on the
slowly spinning spotlight and purple was a third of the way started.
I waited until the light would revolve and illuminate the darkened
corner where I had heard the clicking noise. Something crawled in my
guts. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I didn’t have a good feeling about
what I was about to see. The incense was filling my head with nasty
visions and the near silence was thumping loud.
Here it came. Unfortunately the purple glass was very dark and
was now the dominant source of light. One second was my only glimpse,
but what was that I’d just seen? I was disturbed by the hint of what I’d
348
just seen. It reminded me of the nightmare visions of a Marilyn Manson
video.
I ran to check each and every doorknob for an escape route from
the madness. All twelve were well and truly locked. I tried the one I had
come though again, but it was still locked.
Thirteen in all.
Hopefully not a prophetic number concerning my fortune in this
unusual situation.
I swallowed hard to screw up my courage. I was determined to
solve the scary little situation in the corner if only to see if Salvador was
hurt or needed help, but also because of that nasty little thing that killed
the cat.
Over by the kitchen area, to my left I noticed a particularly large
candle. I crept slowly and silently towards it. The rest of the room had
gone scary-dark now that the bruised and decaying purple glass was
making a full rotation.
I jumped when the music started up again, unfolding my courage
in a messy little heap. The song was a very spooky rendition of ‘Where is
my Mind?’ by the Pixies. It sounded like a live version of the song, and
maybe even fully acoustic. I ran towards the kitchen for the sanctuary of
the yellow light of the candle. Each step I took I was farther away. That is
to say that I hadn’t noticed before but the whole room was slanted
downwards on a strange angle. As I gabbed the candle I noticed that the
lowest point culminated in that horrible corner.
349
Something clicked from the center of the room, but I couldn’t tell
what it was from where I was. I started my descent towards the corner.
Out of the corner of my eye something moved. I spun around
with my right hand, my claw, up defensively. An enormous black serpent
crawled across the wall towards me. My heart stopped for a second until I
realized hat it was another glass tile from the revolving light. It must have
had a stenciled snake painted on in a darker color than the green of the
background glass. I followed the image as it slithered along the walls
towards the mystery in the corner.
With each step my heart got heavier with dread and my lungs
clogged with more incense. Very soon I was heavy head and
somnambulistic again. I imagined myself battling the tendrils on an
English moor.
I thrust the candle out further like a football player trying to block
a tackle, trying to guide my way. My arm was as heavy as bricks and was
soon back down limply at my side.
I closed my eyes to block out the smoke and took two steps before
my eyes opened slowly, so slowly that I had taken another three steps
before they were as open as they would get. I tried to convince them to
focus into a state of higher resolution of focus to cut through the haze just
as the snake’s tail gave way to a clear white sliver of light, but they were
having none of it.
I stopped when I had gotten as close as I dare to the infernal corner
without more illumination I waited for the light to come around gain.
350
The pale yellow light from my meager little candle was swallowed in one
gulp by the darkness of the swirling haze.
Swaying slightly to the music I took a half step closer and
something tickled my nose. Suddenly an electric shock of fear syndicated
my already shot nerves. My fear was only overpowered by my curiosity,
and my leaden feet. I was frozen from the waste down, but vibrant and
buzzing from there up.
I brought the candle up quickly, but dropped it when the hot wax
burnt my hand. I tried to catch it before it hit the ground, but the back of
my hand brushed against something rough and hairy.
I recoiled as the light was extinguished. It seemed like forever as I
waited for the lamp to revolve around again to unlatch my vision.
The light came slinking along the floor and inch by inch, ever so
slowly, lit up my vision like a horrible birthday cake. The thing that had
touched my nose and my hand were the same. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Somehow I was entangled very loosely in miles of twine. I turned
around, but I wasn’t sure how I could have found my way through the
intricate spasmodic weave. It was like a very bizarre cats cradle, and I was
stuck dead in the middle.
A nasty annoying ticking and scratching noise like a skipping
record was coming from where I had come from and I realized that the
lamp was stuck in one position. It must have jammed its antiquated
mechanism somehow and was illuminating the corner where I stood in its
entirety just as ‘Smashed, Blocked’ by Johns Children came over the
speakers, a disorienting song at the most sane of times.
351
I turned back around to view the unknown
The first thing to catch my attention was the twine. Miles of it
zigzagged across the room in different lengths and geometric patterns.
Tied to different bits of the string were other common place things such as
rubber bands, bits of parchment with symbols scribbled on them as well as
more unusual things like twigs, door knobs, and bits of upholstery
swatches.
I couldn’t detect any movement, but the twine seemed to be
closing in on me. I felt like I was being restrained by madness in a straight
jacket of string.
Looking beyond the rough string I could see glimmering images
dancing in the dark recesses of the corner. All the walls were painted with
a combination of Egyptian hieroglyphics, African looking symbols, and
what appeared to be Sumerian cuneiform. I was thankful for all the hours
I’d spent watching TLC.
At first I didn’t see what could really have caused me so much
discomfort when I had first caught a glimpse of the corner when I had
come into the room. I realize that I had seen the twine, but misinterpreted
it as something else, but…
I turned to leave, but couldn’t fight my way back through all the
string. I became hopelessly entangled.
I panicked. Again…and this time it did not abate in the least.
Frustrated I fought as the rough twine burnt my skin. I fought to keep my
footing, but lost the battle. I fell over onto my side, but didn’t hit the
ground. Only one of my feet stayed on the floor. I was suspended in the
352
string, and one strand was tearing into my face and across on of my eyes.
Just as I was regaining my center of calm and trying to formulate a plan I
detected a motion deep in the bowels of the corner.
I screamed loudly and sustained. This was the source of my earlier
horror.
Hidden was a withered old man. Considering the Egyptian theme
of most of the symbolism I at first took the creature as mummified remains
until the eyes blinked. He must have been a hundred and fifty if a day.
He was suspended mostly upside down like an Indian fakir in the string.
It was like looking into the very heart of insanity; everything that wasn’t
meant to be. Only recognizable by his illustrious mustache I realized that
the living corpse with wispy strands of white hair was somehow Dali.
Looming over the shell of the impossibly aged artist was a shadow
of something powerful, a shadow but somehow much more solid. It had
the shape of a man, vaguely, except for the swirling masses that swarmed
around its feet. Its head was horned, but also seemed to be very hawklike.
The music stopped dead before the end of the song.
The appearance of silence was broken when I could just make out
Dali chanting wordless snarling incantations. He extricated himself from
the twine by some strange yoga maneuver and sat cross-legged on the
floor.
I struggled against my bonds as the shadow was sucked into Dali
like water draining from a bathtub. He grinned. I should have been
353
relieved that he was okay, but the look in his eyes showed the cracks in his
lucidity.
Even as I watched his naked body began to wither, mummify
almost. He looked dry and brittle and very weak. He started to shrink
and as he shrank he began to transform into something even more
hideous.
His head shrank, but his back widened and hardened. Two small
but very hairy arms protruded from his wrinkled skin on his sides. The
smaller and nastier he got the more I noticed something else growing in
the corner. From the ashes of a small fire a little gray worm wriggled and
grew into a miniature red bird, no bigger than a thimble. The bird became
pale and round, until it looked just like a very small pebble.
I had the feeling I was seeing something very important, but I
didn’t understand the meaning behind it all. With each passing second the
pebble grew, turning into an egg, which grew with every passing second.
I struggled, but was still unable to free my claw. Unfortunately
with all writhing amongst the twine my artificial wooden foot became
entrapped further before falling off entirely.
I looked back towards the corner as sweat stung my eyes as much
as the panic did in my resolve.
Dali had completely transformed into a dog sized, twisted and
hairy mutation; a cross somewhere between man and beetle, and neither a
pretty specimen of either. He limped towards me, but shrank further with
each step.
354
The egg behind him swelled and quivered and seemed covered in
moisture, sweating with expectation.
I wasn’t sure which to fear more, the unknown threat within the
egg or the monstrous deformity that was making it’s way over the peanut
butter pentagram and through the twin towards me.
The Dali creature was now fist sized and only inches from my face.
I snorted at it, but its nasty little face only mocked me with an evil little
grin.
The hairs on its arms were rough on my face when it finally
touched me. It’s chitin twitched.
His gleaming smile was more than a little upsetting on his scarabsized body. His moustache was twisted like a question mark with a
broken spine. I jerked downwards in the twine as I felt his tiny body
entered the tear duct on my right eye. It felt like a piece of grit working its
way into my body.
I fell.
I fell still.
I fell for 7 days; I counted them as best I could.
When I hit the reeds with a muddy slap my body was limp and
broken like that night all those years ago. I lay there trying to work out if
anything had been real. Perhaps, I though, I had had a brief but very real
dream, and I had really been at the bottom of the ravine the whole time.
Maybe this time everything would be different. Maybe I still had
all my limbs and I could testify against my sister and live a happy life.
355
I tried to raise my arm to test my theory, but it seemed I was made
out of wet sand bags. It took all my energy just to lie still without passing
out.
I looked around as much as my strength would allow and
something was very strange; everything in fact. The sky didn’t look right,
but not in a way I could really put my finger on, the colors were all wrong.
What I had taken for reeds weren’t. They were all of uniform shape, and
appeared like tall trees, ten to twelve feet long and curved gently towards
me near the top, but I had no idea what they were. They were arranged
neatly in a row off to either side of me, standing patiently like wooden
soldiers.
I could hear something very far away. Like someone shouting
through a chesterfield cushion, muffled and distorted. I looked back up at
the sky, but it still didn’t look right. It reminded me of a very blurry
picture of melons and something was coming towards me. I couldn’t
make out any details, but it was moving very fast. When it was perhaps 15
feet from a sudden impact with my face I realized what it was and rolled
out of the way just in time. It was my wooden foot, and now it was
thoroughly embedded in the firmament, toes first, where my mouth would
have been.
“Pull on your foot and come on over,” someone shouted from over
to my right. Getting into the doggy position, and then onto my knees I
looked around, but couldn’t see anyone in either direction.
I could hear water lapping nearby, just beyond the ‘reeds’. I got to
my one foot, I had gotten quite good at balancing, and looked towards the
356
voice. Someone had just run around the edge of the trees out of view. I
could see my wooden foot, shoe still intact, and extracted it with a sludgy
suction noise. Far in the distance I could see one massive mountain.
“Come on hurry up, sloth. The water looks so inviting.” The voice
called again from just out of view.
I screwed my wooden foot, my damned wooden foot, into it’s
socket, tightened the buckle and started into a very hesitant jog. Turning a
corner I could see a naked Dali shimmying up one of the enormous reeds
monkey style. The top was very flexible and his weight enabled him to
bend the reed towards the water. With deft footwork he took two steps
with a child-like grin, bounced twice on the makeshift diving board and
jumped.
I looked at the water and noticed it’s unusual clarity and the
brilliant white sand beneath it.
“Go on you try now.” He said with a pop of his mouth.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“No.”
“No what?”
“Dali will do no more speaking until you have attempted to best
my dive.”
“But I’m not much of a swimmer, and I have no swimming trunks
or anything.” I was very much trying to avoid jumping into the water.
Ever since the accident I have had such an adverse reaction to being
submerged.
“Swimming is not a prerequisite in the molecular aperture.”
357
“Huh?”
“Jump. I will meet you across. Or would you prefer I let you
here? By yourself…where you know not.”
I didn’t like either option, but while I debated them I found that I
was already making my way up the overgrown reed. Perhaps drawn by
the cool water because the sun had become very oppressive, almost fascist.
The reed appeared smooth but was actually covered with a rough scale
that made the climb fairly easy. The only daunting part was my claw
hand. I always flirted with the idea of gene therapy to grow a prehensile
tail that I’d seen on a science program. Now would be the perfect
justification.
Dali began to swim away from me, towards the other shore while I
continued to shimmy up the frond adjacent to the one he had chosen. He
seemed about a half mile off when he stopped and waited on the border of
an immense icy blue coral reef.
I stood as best I could on the top of the high perch and stood
amazed at the view. I screwed up my eyes to be sure of what I was seeing.
It was a massive eye, maybe five miles across from duct to corner filled
with water. The frond I was squatting on was just one of a few thousand
lashes. I was on the lower lid it appeared. I couldn’t tell if the pupil was
made of clear water over black sand or if the water was inky jet black.
Behind me I could tell that the mountain I had seen earlier was in fact a
nose.
Except for the slight gentle waves and a twisted breeze everything
was motionless. Somehow I feared being blinked out of existence, literally.
358
I prepared to dive, a little worried about oxidation on my claw hand. I
stood balancing as best I could, but my emulation of his proud dive didn’t
turn out the way I had pictured it would. On my first bounce my foot
slipped. My second bounce was right between my legs, a perfectly painful
seven ten split.
I slipped into the water clutched my stinging nettles with a
horrible grimace. Dali’s laughter echoed off the waves.
The water was warm and salty just as I should have expected, or at
least some sort of saline solution. While I started my swim I noted that
even the voice inside my head was starting to sound more Dalinian. Not
the accent, but the words and phrasing had definitely changed both inside
me, and the spill over to my mouth.
I swam towards the bobbing Dali, uncoordinated and splashy.
“Lake of tears, they call it.”
“How appropriate.”
“All the tears cried over lost love end up here.”
“Where are we?”
Quite, and perhaps a fifth more.”
“I don’t understand. You’ve really got to start making sense if you
want me to understand you.” I sputtered, struggling with my dog paddle.
“This place…”
“Wait I can’t hold up much longer, let’s swim for the lid.”
“If you wish.”
Even through all the splashing I could hear him continue his
description effortlessly.
359
“This place is where I go to rejuvenate. This is the place I went to
after dying, or just moments before I suppose.”
“So that shriveled corpse in the room?”
“Was I.”
“And the beetle and egg? And String?”
“Your perception of the process. Perception is reality. Those were
methods for opening the portal to sub atomic mineralization of rebirth.
The phoenix and the Pharaoh.”
“Hmm, I, ah…”
“The ritual of symbolism. I won’t tell you who, or how, just that it
saved me.”
“So why am I here?”
“A witness? I really don’t know. I’ve never had company before.”
He said with an aqua shrug.
Dali swam with graceful strokes towards the center of the eye. I
followed blubbering. We entered the iris. Contrary to my guess the water
was actually a brilliant blue. I stopped briefly to try to figure out how the
clear and blue waters weren’t bleeding into each other, but didn’t have
time to examine the phenomenon.
The whole lake seemed to tilt to one end ever so slightly and I had
to swim uphill to keep from falling too far behind Dali. I managed to catch
up to him at the edge of the pupil.
“I was expelled twice in University, you know.” He said quite
unexpectedly, “The idiots.”
“I didn’t know.”
360
“Of course not.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw something strange. I turned to
face it, but couldn’t see it straight on. Dali must have seen me turning my
head and squinting.
“Try not to look at it and you will see it better.”
“What is it?” I asked. It seemed like I was in two places at once
somehow. Swimming in an eye and sitting very calmly in a comfy chair at
the same time.
“I don’t know. Every time it is different. What do you see?”
“Um, I’m in a library or something and there is a man with a tall
hat boiling something in the corner.”
“Does he have green hair?”
“I can’t tell…oh no he has spilled the liquid!”
As the words left my mouth a storm overtook us. A squall began
and wind whipped at us through the choppy waves.
“Quickly swim to the bottom of the pupil. I suspect we have very
little time left. Very little.” He swam into the black water and dove in.
I swam into the blackness. As warm as the blue water had been,
the black water was freezing cold. The icy waves stabbed at me like
barbed shivs. The storm pulled me every way. Debris cluttered the air and
water. I dove in to avoid being skulled. The cold water bit me hard, and
all sense of up and down went out the window.
I couldn’t see anything. I pried my eyes open as wide as I could
but the darkness poked at them. An eerie green haze came from one
direction so I swam towards it with protesting lungs.
361
A minute had passed by since I took my last breath. I couldn’t
remember not breathing for such an extended period and was very
panicky. Brief snippets of the accident flashed through my head.
I was in a new surrounding bathed in an aqua moss green light. I
wasn’t sure if I was standing or floating outside a group of giant glass
balls. Spires and turrets prodded like crooked teeth behind the balls. All
manner of algae, kelp, and various green sub-aquatic fauna surrounded
everything.
I knew I couldn’t hold my breath much longer. My life was
throbbing and scratching at my chest. I couldn’t turn back; I’d never make
it.
I reached out for a doorknob shaped like a rhinoceros horn labeled
number 13. It sucked me in, swallowed me whole.
I fell again. This time I was jolted by surprise. I had expected to
fall forever, but I only perceived a short drop of a foot or two. I got up
quickly to avoid more falling feet. The landscape was barren, more than
barren in fact.
The ground looked the color of Martian sand, but it was more like
a seamless tarp than stretched all around me. A giant blanket in soft hews
of yellow and orange. Nothing moved, there was no wind, and nothing
made a sound. Somewhere near the horizon was a very still body of
water, but I couldn’t see a mountain or even a lump. The horizon was
another mystery. It seemed like a haze hovered over everything just
beyond a few hundred feet, severely limiting my perspective. It all
362
appeared completely two dimensional, like I was standing on a very
strange, bleak, postcard.
“Now this is new.” Dali said, surprising me from behind.
“Where were you hiding?”
“Behind that pile of rocks.”
I spun around, amazed that I could have overlooked a pile of rocks
anywhere, but I still couldn’t see them.
“What rocks?”
“Oh, I see. There seems to be some sort of hyper-dimensional
pollution obscuring everything.”
“Yeah…hey what…do you hear that?” I cocked my head for
perspective. There was a low rumble, I could almost feel it.
“I don’t…”
“Just hold on.” I said waving my hand. I could tell I had annoyed
him with my sharp words.
“Oh!” He said, straightening up.
“What is it, do you have any idea?”
“No, I’ve never been here before.”
“I thought this was your rebirth.”
“The other place is. This…” he said pointing to the sky, “is a
mystery. It’s coming.”
“What is coming?”
“Whatever.” He shrugged. “The noise is getting more
voluminous.”
363
He was right. The noise was getting louder, and it started to
sound more like a freight train with every second. Then something caught
my eye.
“Where did you get that vest.”
“Vest?”
“This.” I said pointing out the garish yellow vest. “You weren’t
wearing it earlier. Are there clothes behind those rocks?”
“Hmm, I don’t know…but I like it.”
“Look!”
I was pointing towards the haze. Some movement was breaking
through the smog very high up. At this point the noise was thunderous,
shaking the ground under our feet.
“Pachyderm stampede!” He shouted.
“Elephants? But….”
“My elephants.”
“They are a hundred feet tall! How do their spindly legs support
them?”
“They’re surreal.”
“Yeah, so real they are about to stamp us out of existence. What
are they carrying?”
“Obelisks.”
The lumbering, only vaguely graceful elephants passed safely a
few hundred feet to the approximate south. Even as they faded into the
blanketing haze on the horizon, the thundering continued to increase.
Perplexed I turned around and they were almost on top of us.
364
“Swans!” I screamed at Dali, trying to pull him towards the rocks.
“Oh, no. Look at their eyes, Max. Those are enormous amorous
swans!”
Dali was really spooked.
They weren’t what I would consider giant swans, not after
comparing them to the elephants we had just seen, but they were still truly
massive. Five feet tall at the top of their heads, and if I had to guess, they
probably weighed a hundred pounds a piece or more. I couldn’t tell how
Dali determined that they were amorous, and didn’t really want to know
how he could differentiate.
“Here, try to defend yourself with this.”
He thrust something warm and stiff into my hands. It was
pulsating and I dropped it full of repulsion..
“What is it?”
“I think it is a breathing machete.”
“Well, whatever. I’m not using that to defend my self.”
They swans were almost on us. I tried to help Dali up the pile of
stones. With each step the pile was turning into a hill. It was like a
cartoon that was being drawn as we watched. Each stone revealing itself
the further we moved.
Dali struggled.
“Ahh!” He shouted.
One of the swans was trying to mount him while another was
pecking violently at his thighs. Feathers and wings were everywhere.
Somehow he managed to fight them off with the heaving machete. The
365
swans took to a half hopping flight attack. I tried to scramble up the rocks,
but where could we go?
“The cave!” Dali shouted, almost reading my thoughts.
I looked and sure enough there was a small opening above us. I
was very uncertain, regardless of the risk, of entering the cave.
“Maybe there is another way?” I wondered aloud.
“Get into the cave! It’s our only hope.”
“But it looks…” I didn’t know what to call it… well I knew, but
was having a hard time saying.
“Like a vagina? Yes I thought that too, you can clearly see the
labia, and even the lichen above it could represent pubic hair.”
“I’m not going in there.”
“I see…”
“No, hold on. Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not….”
“Women don’t have teeth down there, you do realize that don’t
you?”
One of the swans had managed to remove his jacket, but he was
still fighting with one sleeve. Another was working on his belt buckle. I
couldn’t have been more grateful for the swans taking more of a liking to
him instead of me.
“I know that! I’m no virgin, despite my innocent looks.”
As if the word virgin was a cue, the swans dropped their pursuit
of Dali and swarmed towards me. Nothing more compelling than a
swarm of libidinous swans, I promise.
366
I climbed voraciously towards the vulva-like opening. The swans
pounced, one on my back humping, another tangled in my feet, and yet a
third thrusting towards my feet. I saw Dali scramble past me refastening
his belt. I flailed out, trying to deflect the wings and claws from my face. I
caught one beak between my two-pronged claw. It bleated in pain and
flew off to nurse its wounds. Just when my sodomization seemed
imminent a bejeweled, and gloved, hand grabbed my roughly by the scruff
of my neck.
I was thrust into the cave.
Everything was completely dark, like a heavy velvet drape had
fallen onto my head. The cave was warm, too warm, and damp as I had
suspected. Even the sound of the maniacal swans was muted.
“Are you there?”
I could feel his breath on my neck, but Dali didn’t answer. I
groped out, but couldn’t find him. The breath seemed to be coming from
all around me.
“Salvador?”
“Be very careful,” he warned, “It is very dark and slippery.”
“I know. I’m disabled, not stupid. Should we just wait here until
the swans lose interest?”
“That could take hours.”
“So we just sit and wait.”
“Or continue on…”
“To where?”
“Forward.”
367
“What’s up ahead.” I said with a tired sigh.
“I will inform you when we arrive.”
“Fine. Should we hold hands, or what?”
“I thought you said you didn’t want me to get the wrong idea
about you?” He said with a chuckle.
I could his footsteps, so I put me arms up like a zombie and took a
few tentative steps forward. I smashed my hands into something hard,
and couldn’t stop in time to save my nose from achieving the same goal.
“It’s not as deep a cave as I thought it would be.” I said rubbing
my bruised proboscis.
“They never are.”
The ground fell away from beneath us and I was falling again.
Tiny pinpricks of light shot passed me like fireflies as I fell.
From far away I heard an echoed sentiment.
“Finally, after all failed attempts. I’ve got levitation!”
And I was back in the corner where I had seen Dali leaned up
against the counter in the exact spot I had seen him withered and naked,
but this time Dali was nowhere to be seen. The twine I had been entangled
in was gone, and in fact I could detect no sign that it had been there at all.
The room was lit by a warmly glowing swag lamp in one corner, and
decorated in a tasteful bohemian chic.
I was soaking wet, and gulping down air. I realized that I was
rocking back and forth clutching my knees. My jaw was clenched as tight
as a taut bowstring and I was shivering and cold. I felt like a small child
awakening from a particularly lucid nightmare.
368
A noise somewhat akin to bacon sizzling on a griddle caught my
attention. I turned my head to see that the egg was vibrating like a bass
drum and small cracks were forming all around the enormous shell.
Whatever was inside, and now there was no mistaking that something was
contained inside, was now fighting to get out. As I watched the egg
exploded beside me scattering bits of shell like a pineapple grenade.
From the topless egg burst a very slimy, naked, Dali with a strange
triumphant look on his face. He slicked the straggling mop of hair from
his face, twizzled his moustache and thrust his finger to the sky, or one of
the strange symbols on the ceiling.
“I feel delicious, and ravenous!” He disappeared into the shell
again but emerged almost immediately with something in his grip.
“And now for the ritualistic symbolism.” He said rolling his r’s
prodigiously. Somehow he had managed to turn ‘symbolism’ into a fivesyllable word.
He produced loaves of bread, three if I counted correctly, a
handful of small fish, and a small eyedropper.
“Bread, fish, and the blood of the nuclear atom-atic Gala, featuring
her dianucleic acid.” At which point he squirted the red liquid into my
general direction.
Splashes of the red liquid squidged me. I tried to wipe the
blotches away with my phantom hand, but nearly ended up putting out an
eye, again. The whole ‘pirates who have hook hands and eye patches’
couldn’t have made more sense to anyone else.
369
He kicked and clawed his way out of the calcium shell and
extended a hand towards me. I reluctantly accepted his offer of aid and
wobbled to my feet. I grabbed at the counter top to steady myself and
waited for the world to stop spinning.
He casually strolled over the wall across from my and smudged
the symbols on the walls. He wiped at the hieroglyphics, but didn’t seem
to be trying to erase them as much as disfigure them.
“What really was all that?” I asked when I had regained some of
my composure.
“You tripped and I splashed some water on you to revive you.”
“And really?”
“Pelicans and dirty dangly things.”
“No, they were swans actually.”
“I presume you were hallucinating. Perhaps you are merely weak
from hunger.
I wanted to press him and get a sensible scientific answer, but he
had turned his back on me, and any hope of reason. He told me to read
between the lines with his rhetoric a few days ago, and that everything he
said made sense on some level. I didn’t buy it. I really think he said things
to obfuscate situations, blur the distinction between sanity and madness,
and just generally piss me off because I wasn’t as eccentric as he was.
It was beginning to piss me off.
I didn’t want to be looked down on because of my less than
worldly upbringing.
370
He mumbled something in Spanish, I think, found some clothes in
a heap and proceed to dress. I never imagined that I’d watch another man
get dressed and I felt uncomfortable. Luckily he was facing the other way
so that I couldn’t see his twig and berries. I don’t think I’d ever met
someone who was so comfortable about his or her nudity around other
people.
I wanted to look away, but I had never seen anything like the way
he was dressing himself. It was like some sort of practiced ritual.
“What are you doing?” I had to ask.
He struggled to put both socks on at exactly the same time, one in
each hand, as he strained to get them just right. The he put both feet in his
underpants, but didn’t pull them up. He did the same thing with his
slacks, both feet at the same time.
“I am proceeding to dress myself of course.”
He got to his feet, naked ass staring at me in the face like the eyes
of a snowy barn owl. I quickly turned away and stared at one of the dead
fish on the floor. I didn’t look back until I heard the zipper.
“Have you ever heard the phrase ‘we all put our pants on one leg
at a time’?” He asked, turning to face me. “To me that is unacceptable
entirely. It implies that everyone is the same and I simply could not sit for
that.”
“Don’t you mean stand for that?”
“I do not.” He said to me with a raised questioning eyebrow.
371
He buttoned up a crisp white shirt over a thin Kevlar vest. Over
the shirt he slung a leather gun holster, before hiding it beneath an unusual
patchwork jacket.
The gun surprised me. Had I know that he would arm himself I
would have expected a musical chainsaw, or even a flatulent budgie. The
vest scared me. Anyone who was as crazy as this man, whoever he really
was, who took precautions for his safety, expected to be shot at. And that
meant me as well.
“Now what about that food.” He said. He picked up his beloved
silver handled walking stick and headed towards the kitchen area.
“And do close your mouth,” he added. “A gaping orifice has its
place and this is not it.
I bit my tongue trying as fast as I could to clamp my jaw shut. I
tried my best to compose myself, considering the circumstances. He
stopped and stood perfectly still in mid stride towards the kitchen except
for his right hand which twitched spasmodically.
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Are you certain, because I have gotten some pre cooked oolichan
that has been marinated in mandarin orange juice and mint. I’m just going
to heat them up.”
“Oolichan, what is that?”
“Small, very oily fish. Delectable!”
“I think I’ll pass.”
372
“You’ll regret that.” He said, popping the fish into the microwave
oven.”
“Even still.” I said with what I imagined to be a distasteful
grimace.
He spun around and walked towards another area. His cane
banged into the ceiling and suddenly the room was lit up by bright
halogen track lighting. I tried to find the concealed switch when his cane
had tapped the ceiling but couldn’t see it. By the blank, but busy look on
his face I didn’t want to even imagine where his head had gone.
He sat down at a small wooden stood in front of a blank canvas
perched on an easel constructed of pine. I moved in closer to see what he
was up to, hugging the walls for support.
He ignored the selection of paintbrushes and instead picked up a
fine handled knife. He set to work, but I still couldn’t see what he was
doing. I crept a little closer, trying to stay quiet, but my sloppy shoes made
a squishy sound on the tiled floor.
He scratched away furiously at the canvas, slashing and jabbing in
violent, yet graceful strokes. He worked feverishly for 15 minutes, maybe
more. I stood transfixed by the process. When I had gotten close enough
to see that the canvas was still blank he spoke and I nearly jumped out of
my skin.
“Dali worked in all kinds of mediums from sculpture, to full size
bronze rhinoceros. I worked in oil, in watercolor, on canvas, cardboard
and … I used unknown and untested techniques, gouache on
photographic paper for example, which I used in fantastic piece entitled
373
‘Ceiling of the Palace of the Wind’. I designed clothing furniture and
jewelry. I went through my surrealist stage, my cubist phase, my
hyperrealism, and my religious. I was the innovator, the dominator and
the great Masturbator.”
“Now in truly Dalinian fashion I have created yet another
technique for my genius. It is a much more…physical representation of
method.” He said with triumph burning in his eyes.
“But I don’t see anything.”
“You will see when the art is ready,” he said mixing up some sort
of liquid in a small glass beaker. “I believe I have also perfect a new
method using a laser pointer and a specially coated filament. You
wouldn’t believe the results…unfortunately all my equipment for that is
still in Cadeques.”
I watched him combine small amounts of liquid from three
different beakers to the larger one he had started with. He stirred the new
solution exactly three times with a glass stir stick. The solution was a
milky brown/bronze, which shimmered with sparkly red flecks. He
poured the results into a common mister bottle and screwed the lid on
tightly.
“Do you want to do the honors?” He asked me.
“No, it’s your art.”
“I insist. You see each piece is different and this will imbibe the
painting with part of your insatiable curiosity.” He said shoving the spray
bottle in my hand.
374
I never really thought that I was overly inquisitive, but of course
my pondering the statement made me even more curious.
“How should I do it?”
“That I will leave to your discretion.”
I held the sprayer out and pushed down on the trigger. Before the
jet of water left the nozzle my hand was deflected to the side.
“Please use the other hand,” he said, motioning to my chromed
claw. “I am curious as to the results.”
“But how could that effect anything?” I asked, a little pissed off at
his insistence to use my handicap.
“Everything has repercussions…butterfly wing tornados, Martian
meteors…especially in the creative mediums. One never knows what the
results are, and the more unexpected sometimes the more wondrous. Now
please spray, as you must realize by now I meant no offense. On the
contrary I believe we have a strong bond now that we have
circumnavigated our previous adventures.”
“Okay. You’re the artist.”
I thought to myself, “or at least that is who you claim to be.” But
even the words in my head sounded hollow. As much as I tried to
convince myself that the whole swimming eye scenario was a hallucination
brought on by some sort of narcotic infused incense, I was really starting to
discount my skepticism. He seemed genuine, and so did the ordeal I had
just been through.
I held the spray bottle gingerly in my claw hand, but before
dousing the scratched surface with the chemical brew I studied the
375
material quickly. It wasn’t what I had first assumed. I thought it was a
regular canvas, but up close I could tell that it was some sort of plaster slab
with a cloth material affixed to the front. It was cut up and shredded, but I
still couldn’t make out a distinct pattern or picture. I was very curious to
see how this would turn out, and if the results were positive than I may
even have to reduce my doubt about his character.
I squeezed the trigger.
The plain white slab leapt to life. The colors were unusual, vivid,
and vibrant. I was having a hard time squeezing the trigger to emit the
mist and brought up my other hand to steady the bottle. Dali didn’t object.
I used broad circular motions and the more I sprayed the more the picture
began to make sense. There was a bay of water with enormous cliffs on
either side, and a sparkling sunset glimmering off the waves.
Near the bottom of the picture a woman slowly appeared. Dali let
out a little gasp of surprise. I looked over and he seemed almost as curious
as to what might show up next as I did.
“Not too much, just lightly,” he said. “That’s it, that’s it.”
On the right hand side a lanky form was taking shape. With
another spray of chemical it formed into a menacing multi jointed
mechanical dandelion. It seemed to leer at the woman, who was cutting
bread with a large knife. As I looked closer I notice that the knife wasn’t
actually in her hand, but hovering just above it. Other objects on the table
she was working at were also in mid air.
“Ah, Dandelex Still Life, Fast Moving in the Blood of Sol.” He
announced. “Desist, please.”
376
He took the sprayer from my claw and placed it back on his
worktable beside the beakers and jars. He stood up and pushed the stool
aside. We both took a couple of steps back to admire the picture, as it was
not properly a painting since no paint had been applied. The picture
continued to mutate slightly as we watched on.
“It will continue to change slightly as the mixture seeps into the
material.”
We stood for another ten minutes, and maybe more until I heard a
stomach rumble. I couldn’t be sure if it were mine or not, but it seemed to
be a cue to move on.
“I very much like this piece.”
“Me too. So what was that stuff in the sprayer?”
“A proper magician never reveals his…” He stopped mid
sentence, but didn’t seem to feel a need to finish the thought.
I wasn’t going to wait around for his blank stare to pass. I was
feeling a little better and needed to clear my head; get back in the game.
“Okay then, now that we have our proverbial shit together, we
should get going.” I was still very wobbly, but needed to get outside and
fast.
“Wait the phone…”
“Look it’s not ringing, lets just go.”
The phone rang.
“How the hell did you…” I didn’t even finish. I was beginning to
learn the lesson of futility. Comprehension was not a perquisite to the Dali
experience.
377
“Hello, this is Dali!” He said, picking up a phone that looked
remarkably like a lobster. On of the claws looked prepared to clamp itself
onto his nose.
“I understand completely. And then…” he said hanging up the
phone as if the conversation had come to some sort of logical conclusion. I
wasn’t thoroughly convinced that anyone had been on the other end of the
phone.
Dali removed the now cold again fish from the microwave and
began to pick at them with a tiny two pronged fork.
“Are you sure that I can’t temp you with a bite of my Oolichan?”
“I’m sure. I’ve never liked fish.”
“Hmph!” He snorted.
He put the food aside and strode towards the door.
As we left I sighed with a pang of guilt as I removed my bionic
arm number 3, the car opener, from the special holster above my wooden
foot.
The fresh air felt good. It cleared my head as I looked up and
down the street for a suitable ‘lender’.
“Please hurry. Dali has vital attending needs to.”
I just shook my head with a little internal giggle.
378
Chapter 23
“I’ve never been to New York before.” Wilkes-Chu stood beside
Hargrave surveying the crowded streets from the skyscraper window.
“Have you?”
“Many times.”
“Business or pleasure?” She asked.
“Business,” he sighed, “always business…but I guess that’s one of
the reasons that my wife left me. Too much work…”
‘Made you a dull boy?”
With all due sincerity he asked, “Do you think I’m dull?”
“No, I was just being funny. I think that you are introspective,
and…mysterious.”
“Mysterious?” He seemed puzzled. “Hardly. What makes you
say that?”
“Oh nothing.”
379
She was playfully biting on the end of a disposable plastic pen.
Her eyes were coy, but her body language could almost be considered
‘flirty’. There was a momentary frown on her face. She put the pen aside
and sat down at the desk in front of a computer screen.
He looked surprised at her abrupt change in demeanor. Getting
up from his chair, he set his lapful of papers aside on a little table in the
corner.
“What have you got?” He asked her. He crossed the room and
came around to her side of the desk. He put his hand down to stabilize
himself and leaned in close to look at the screen over her shoulder.
“A Mr. Ritchie Hawthorn spotted Charlie and Jenny entering the
warehouse district two days ago with a third man in tow. They seemed to
be searching for something..”
“What have we got on the third man?”
“Scruffy looking male. Early 30’s, blond hair, heavy cigarette
smoker.”
“Not too many of those any more,” he said, a tinge of surprise
frosting his voice.
“Scruffy males?”
“Heavy smokers.”
“Oh.”
“Clothing?”
“Black, and lots of it, but very well tailored.”
“So what makes him scruffy?”
380
“Well I guess we’ll have ask Mr. Hawthorn just that when we meet
him at 3:30.”
“Well sounds like the mystery man that we’ve had other reports
on. Composite yet?”
“No, but it’s still a fresh lead.”
“Probably the same guy from the museum interviews.”
“Must be.”
He seemed tired of staring over her shoulder, so he walked away
and pulled a chair up within peaking distance of the monitor. He flicked
the tip of his nose with the back of his fingers.
“Fresh lead? I thought you said he spotted them a couple of days
ago.”
“Yes, but he didn’t report it until Jenny’s agent posted the million
dollar reward for information leading to her safe return.”
“I guess I should thank the boys in blue for filtering out all the
spurious reports.” He looked out the window at the dull gray sky. He
appeared tired and distracted. “So what made them think this guy was
telling the truth amongst the rubble of lies?”
“The third man. Not one of the papers have mentioned this other
guy, but we’ve had those other sightings that have been verified.”
He gave her a tired smile, “ Nice work. Good, then at least we’re
not wasting our time with Hawthorn.”
“Makes our job more complicated, though. No serial killer profile
I have ever read was anything like this.”
381
“I think we can safely discard any notions that we have a serial
killer on our hands.”
“You are joking, right? The man has been linked by every method
at to our disposal to the murder of a great deal of innocent people.”
“Oh, I have no doubt that he killed all those people, not even a
skinny shadow of a doubt, but you said it yourself it doesn’t fit a serial
profile. He’s a murderer many times over, but he’s no serial killer, and I
think we should approach it that way. Chuck the rulebook out the
window and approach this mess from a different perspective.”
“But he’s killed more than five people, so technically…”
“I don’t care about the technicalities at this point.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.”
“Good.”
“I thought you lived by the rulebook?”
“I did, but this case changes things, doesn’t it? I think we should
just catch the guy and try him for murder. It would be a mistake to try to
anticipate his next move by the casebooks of previous crimes. We just
have to follow our guts and track him down like the animal that he is.”
Wilkes-Chu opened her mouth to speak, but stopped when a man
entered the room loudly. He was about 6 foot 6, and thin as a broomstick.
He was wearing very fashionable big-framed glasses, but they were
crooked on his nose. Everything seemed a little out of sorts. His pants
seemed a little too short, and one pocket was hanging out. His yellow
dress shirt was wrinkled and only tucked in at the front. He was carrying
382
a small stainless steel box the size of a toaster and a bottle of that new
iridescent water.
“Hi guys.”
His voice was deep, yet lilting. He slammed the box on the desk a
little too roughly. He began swapping cables on the back of the computer
that Wilkes-Chu was working on with the box that he brought in.
“Hi Agent Kincaid, um this is Agent Wilkes-Chu.”
“Uh, yeah, we met on vidcon the other day.” Kincaid said with a
warm smile. “Hi Nadia.”
“Hiya Chet.”
“What’s vidcon?” Hargrave asked rather sheepishly.
“Video conference. Remember I did that on Tuesday when you
were back in Outin getting more first hand perspective.”
“Oh right.”
Chet had usurped the keyboard from Wilkes-Chu, and was
already pulling things up on the screen with lightening fast fingers.
Somehow she had been pushed aside from the pole position, and even
behind Hargrave. They watched the 27” flat screen UHD (ultra high
definition) plasma screen as a series of program prompt screens flashed by
in the all too familiar Windows Next 8.2 government only format.
“What have you got for us Chet?”
“I’m going to pull up the airport surveillance footage that I told
you about. Because the images were digital to begin with it was very easy
to clean them up. I mean, it’s not 3d or anything, but I’ve got a very good
picture.”
383
“Okay so let’s recap.”
They were strolling down the corridor of one of the New York
Homeland Security offices. The offices were very busy. People with
badges and nametags flittered amongst the hive.
“Well Chet was very well prepared for us,” she said, thumbing
towards her back then giving a thumbs up in one fluid motion.
“Yes, and I saw the way you looked at him, too.”
“You’re crazy.” She was playfully upset.
“You were practically undress…”
“Please! He is not my type. Work please…I don’t know what’s
gotten into you.”
“Okay the security video has told us that Jenny has not been
kidnapped, but is in fact working with an unknown individual on some
sort of covert operation. Charlie appears to be separate from the group,
although integral to the group dynamic.”
“That may not be the case. We don’t know what kind of duress
she may have been under, despite her lack of physical restraints.”
384
“Noted. Our Mr. Bishop appears to have gotten up to something
with an older woman in the washroom facilities.”
“Yes, Chet confirmed that the old woman entered the toilets, but
did not exit.”
“We’ve got to circumvent the laws about cameras in public
Restrooms.”
“Despite my position in law enforcement, I disagree.”
“Has anyone reported the body? I didn’t see that noted
anywhere.”
“No. I will have to ask about that.”
They turned a corner nearly overturning the pastry cart girl, but
continued on without breaking stride. The girl tried to avert certain
personal dysfunction in slow motion as they rushed by in the zone.
“They seem to be orchestrated by one or more people, one of
whom may have a severe mental disorder.”
“Hold on. We have no proof of that. What brings you to that
conclusion?”
“His attire,” he said, pushing the elevator down button.
They got in as the doors opened and turned to face the retina scanners.
The scanning beep-beep-beep continued longer on his scan and he sighed
with irritation.
“You’ve got to relax and stand still if you want to get a positive
read.”
“I hate these things!” The elevator stopped at their floor, but the
doors were waiting for the positive scan before they would open.
385
“Look, if you’re stressed out I’ve heard that you can get a negative
ID alert.”
“…And you can’t drastically change your diet, or take allergy
medication…I know, I’ve been briefed.” He took a deep breath and rolled
his shoulders.
The green light lit up and the beeping stopped. The elevator doors
opened almost immediately, and they walked into the containment
hallway. They swiped their cards through the magnetic reader and
walked through the security door. He continued on as if they had not been
interrupted.
“His unusual gesticulations and mannerisms, but then again he
may be just trying to throw us off the scent.”
“…And maybe he’s just a messenger whose strings are being
manipulated from elsewhere.”
“Good thought, but doubtful. He seemed to be in control.”
He opened a door for her to an office marked 2785. He had to stop
himself from pulling out the chair for her in the nondescript office by an
extreme amount of self-control, if the look on his face was any judge.
“We know that he mysteriously left them plane tickets, but did not
reveal himself to them at the time. Now what did we learn about the
scruffy blond suspect? We know that the unknown individual who is with
our two subjects has disguised his identity with some sort of… face gel?”
“Right. Chet said it was some sort of experimental face cream that
was developed in Japan. It works on cameras much like aircraft chafe on
radar. Somehow scrambles the digital signal.”
386
“Very ingenious. I’m afraid we’ll be seeing a lot more of that in
the coming months and years.”
“Unless it is leaked out that in secret government tests it has been
found to cause cancer and a host of other nasty diseases,” she said with a
sly twinkle in her eye.
“And that rumor has already started to circulate?” He asked with
a seriously set brow.
“Months ago.”
“Good.”
She remembered, “We have also discovered that all three subjects
are being followed by a fifth person.”
“And the kicker is that he may be handicapped.”
“It could be a disguise.” Wilkes-Chu pondered aloud.
“Doubt it. Did you see the way he handled his utensils?” He was
scribbling copious notes in a tattered notebook.
“True, and the way he struggled to cover up his limp.” She
paused keystrokes to think. “Definitely not faking.”
“I agree, but before we start dotting I’s …”
“So there was nothing on him in the databank?”
“Nope. We’ve got another mystery man on our hands.”
“I’m still not clear how…let’s call him Scruffy, got his hands on the
experimental gel.” His voice wasn’t cut with anything; it was 100%
straight concern.
“Maybe we’re onto something with international implications.”
387
“Well we were told to share any information we had with
Homeland Security.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that they aren’t usually this generous with their
facilities.”
Hargrave gave her a strange hand signal, and her body language
changed. He was obviously aware of the fact that even they might be
under surveillance by the newest governmental arm. He nodded for her to
continue.
“I’m just looking it up now. Hmm…Digigel. Here I’ve got a
couple of thousand hits.”
“That was quick. I remember when we switched from dial-up to
cable and that seemed fast.”
“Well I’ve just upgraded from T1 to government only Ion Quark,
so now we have achieved actual speed.” She said with a proud smile.
“Mainline for the information junky.”
“Nice.” He said, but was unimpressed.
After a brief pause, she said, “This guy has a pretty basic recipe
that you can make at home. The ingredients are pretty easy to access it
looks like; watch battery, wire, lemon oil, LED’s.”
“LED’s? Wouldn’t that look a little strange on a persons face?”
“Not red flashing lights, some sort of ultra violet ones hidden in
the hairline. Apparently you can pick them up at Radio Shack. They’ve
got a diagram here. Watch batteries go behind each ear. Thin wires snake
through the hair connecting to the LED’s.”
“Let me see that.”
388
They looked at the flashy animated graphics on the monitor. A
computerized human male was dipping a Q-tip in lemon juice and tea tree
oil. He carefully traced out an invisible grid pattern over his entire face,
and then attached the free ends of the wires from each LED to the grid
complete the loop. Left to dry the face is then covered with a compound
composed mostly of an alcohol free hair gel and zinc powder. The result
leaves the complexion a little shiny, but not overtly strange.
Hargrave pulled something from his notebook. “I forgot to tell
you. I was doing some research, looking through my old files, and came
across a very small old newspaper clipping about the Bishop farmhouse
being some sort of landmark. It had been in the family for generations.”
“Can I see that?” She asked.
“Here,” He said, handing over the yellowed newsprint. “They
were one of the founding families and built it on top of what was
purported to be either Viking or Phoenician ruins. In fact most of the
foundation stones still bore ancient quarry marks, and even some had
markings, drawings and an un-deciphered writing “
“Hmm, interesting. I’ll email it to the head archeologist in charge
of the dig at the farmhouse.”
“What’s his name again?”
“Sylvain…Sylvain, something.”
“Right.”
389
“Well Mr. Hawthorn certainly didn’t give us much information.”
Wilkes-Chu said, discouraged.
“They are all scraps, but you sew them together and you can make
a nice quilt.”
“You talk to your Mom way too much, Hargrave.”
They were walking away from a large beaten up warehouse across
a busy parking lot. Forklifts were rushing around laden with pallets,
beeping their horns.
“Well we have at least a rough composite sketch of ‘Scruffy’, so it
gives us something to go on.”
“I want to get in touch with Smeghead. He’s supposed to have a
bunch of info for us.”
“That’s a nasty way to relate to a co-worker.”
“You have no clue, do you? That is Dave’s new online handle.”
“Right,” he said, mentally kicking himself for his lack of modern
sophistication.
390
“I got an email from Doctor Sylvain.”
“The archeologist?”
“Well, not from him directly. His assistant, um, David Johansen
got back to us. Should I just read it to you?”
He nodded.
“They had come to the end of what comes to be known as the
corpse circle at 110 years before current. While digging around the site for
further relics hey find yet another circle directly below the first one
containing even more bodies, and more signs of a ceremonial center by
American Indians.”
“Doctor Sylvain was very interested in the writing. He was very
quick to determine that different groups had used the stones for multiple
purposes over the centuries. He had been researching the writing and
determined that it is very similar to an as yet undeciphered writing found
in such diverse places as Mohenjo Daro in India, earthworks and mounds
in Maine, and the cryptic pictography virtually identical to the enigmatic
Voynich manuscript.” Looking up she grinned, “Whatever that is!”
“They dug further and find yet another circle under the second.
This time, with the aid of radiocarbon dating, the date of the oldest corpse
is at least 8,000 years old and possibly older. Curiously the bodies of the
391
corpses are fairly well preserved, almost mummified, due to the high salt
content in the geology. They are very confused that some of the oldest
bodies had red hair, and they also found corpses of a very Asiatic race of
people who wore their hair in massive dread locks.”
“The
Amerindians had spread their killings over a time of one every 50 years.”
Again she looked up from her screen to comment, “How can they be so
precise about the dates?”
“Don’t ask me.”
“The bodies are more ritually killed as the dates get older. The
other races chose throat slashing, or sometimes an unknown projectile
object to the head. The Amerindians chose a swift blow to the head with a
stone axe. “
“They brought in experts from other fields such as linguistics,
cryptography, geology, and cultural geostratification.”
“Apparently, from some of the pictures they sent they’ve got
conveyor belts, and 50 or 60 people in disposable hooded white suits
sifting through miniscule piles of rubble with paint brushes.”
“Wow,” he said, looking at the screen.
Yellow tape, string grids, security, and satellite press vans seemed
to dwarf the farmhouse.
“This isn’t a murder investigation anymore, it’s twisted into some
sort of heathen sacrificial mind warp.”
“Wrong. Charlie still killed those people. That we know. He’s still
guilty and we still have to track him down and bring him to justice.”
“But what about all the other stuff?”
392
“That’s for the white coats, and the history spinners. We can’t let
that distract our focus from catching a killer.”
“Surely, it’s all relevant to us figuring out his motives?”
“Doesn’t matter in the least anymore. At this point we know he’s
guilty, regardless of his mindset.”
“Aren’t you curious at least?”
“No, I have this gut feeling that this is something huge, something
really bad, and I don’t want to know.”
They have a new staff car, unfortunately it is a turns out to be a
very warm spring day and it is a dead stock model. No AC, no power
windows, not even an AM radio.
“I thought those were standard issue. I can’t even remember the
last time I was in a car without one.”
“One what?”
“Radio. Actually, I can. It must have been the day, I guess, when I
was newly married and I was driving my wife and I to a picnic. We had
been fighting because I had been away a lot. She never understood that. I
was trying to make it for it.”
393
He signaled to make a left turn. He looked over at her waiting for
traffic before continuing the story. She had a perplexed frown on her face,
but he continued.
“It was dead silent in the car because we weren’t talking…”
He looked over again with a small grin. Still more traffic and the
frown was deepening. If it could be compared to a color it had gone from
a mild pumpkin orange to a rich burnt sienna.
“…And I tried to put on the radio, lighten the mood with
something bright and cheery, maybe some 70’s mellow gold…anything to
stifle the silence, but that’s when I realized that the radio had been stolen.
I was always good for details, it’s what made me such a good Agent, but
somehow I never noticed that the radio was gone.” He said with a
chuckle, turning the corner. “Love muddles the brain, the confounding
frustration of it.”
“Okay look, I’ve decided to confront you about this.” Left jab.
“Huh?”
“You’ve been lying to me since day one.” Right cross.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ve been bombarding me with your textbook marriage
stories, Sunday afternoon made for TV romance gone sour movie tales…”
Fancy footwork, looking for an opening.
“Fact is you’ve never been married!” Haymaker. He stared, slack
jawed eyes glazing over. 1, 2, 3…
“Did you think I would never find out?”
No response 4,5,6…
394
“What could possibly motivate you to lie about something like
that? To me…your partner.”
The ferocity in her voice startled even her.
Her cheeks were flushing. She stared at him with wide eyes, but
he avoided all eye contact. 7,8,9 a K.O. was almost a foregone conclusion.
Except, he looked poised to spring back to life. Something was on the tip
of his tongue, and he was bursting to say…something.
“And not only to lie about it, but to embellish the lie so
gratuitously. It’s unfathomable.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but something stopped him. He
seemed to deflate, defeated at last, like a discarded balloon caught in a
leafless autumn tree. His shoulders slunk down and all of the life left in
him was swallowed down along with the giant lump in his throat. He
continued driving, but reduced his speed through a construction zone.
“You don’t understand. When you get to be my age, and still
single, without so much as a steady girlfriend…” He rubbed his face with
both hands. “Hell, without even a date for the better part of a decade,
people start to talk. I hate being alone, and I don’t want to be considered
defective, ok?”
“I’ve never heard you swear before.”
“Hell hasn’t been a curse word for at least 20 years.”
“It still was to you.”
“We are all on our best behavior with some people, for different
reasons.”
He slapped his thighs with his hands and stared out the
windshield at nothing. The traffic was still at a standstill.
395
“I’m getting very tired of being married to a job that doesn’t put
out anymore. It’s been a life-sucking career. I thought I could help, make
a difference, but it’s just a rotten fruit.”
“I don’t understand?”
He shook his head, letting the question roll off his shoulders.
“I even made the stories more elaborate to make them more
believable…. but the more I talked about it the more real it seemed. Even
the stories I made up about my mistakes and foibles made me feel better. I
looked forward to reliving the spurious past, and looked, waited for any
opportunity I could find to slip in a little anecdote. They filled a hole, if
even for a little while.”
“Who else have you told these stories to?” She asked sheepishly.
“No one, uh, everyone…variations…but I only elaborated, and
played the little game with you.”
“So the whole story about your partner running off with your wife
after that huge brawl in the Bishops back yard?”
“Made up. Well, we did get into a huge fight in the Bishops back
yard, but that was because we were both so stubborn about our own pet
theories.”
Finally there was a break in traffic, and he was able to make his
turn. The cars were moving much more quickly on this road than the
previous one.
“Why me?”
“Because when I first saw you, that first day in the office in
Chicago…”
396
“Uh, huh?”
“I knew that one day…um, no.”
“Go on.”
He took a deep breath and turned to face her. The lump had
returned in his throat returned ten fold, transforming his voice into a
husky whisper.
“I told you those stories because I…” Two more little words that
could, would, have changed everything…
But he was interrupted when she screamed.
Watch out!”
397
Chapter 24
Hargrave turned his face back to the road and swerved within
inches of a head on collision. Tires squealed in anguish of the forceful
blacktop.
He noted that he had not wandered onto the wrong side of the
double yellow line. The on coming car had swung around a corner really
fast and did a power slide through the intersection which had nearly
caused the fatal collision.
“They are being pursued by someone,” he noted, trying to swing
the car around to join the pursuit. A look of adrenalin fascination flashed
through his eyes. “Better call for backup.”
“On it,” Wilkes-Chu replied.
As the driver of the rebel car passed by his window he got a face
full of the occupants.
He shouted in disbelief, “It’s them!”
398
“Them who?”
“The actress, and the serial killer, and Scruffy is behind the wheel,
it looks like.”
“Then who is that chasing them?” She asked, pointing out a
pursuing car sliding around the corner.
It was a door on door collusion.
He had been turned around to go after the first car when the
second car attempted the same maneuver. It slammed hard into the
Agent’s car jolting them.
“It’s him,” she said, losing the grip on her cell phone. It smashed
into the dashboard before sliding beneath her seat.
“Who?” he asked, not daring to take his eyes of the first car as it
sped down the busy street.
Trying to recover her cell phone at her feet, she shouted, “Look for
yourself.”
He had already stepped on the accelerator, but his tires smoked in
protest. He looked over. The other driver wore the same perplexed but
maddening expression.
“Don Miguel Juan Saint Morisivitch!” He cursed under his breath
teeth clenched. “How the hell is he mixed up in all this?”
The other man nodded, wide eyed as if to say ‘Yes it is I, your
archenemy’ comic book style. He carried a passenger who had a tattoo of
an ear on his left cheek.
“What is that!?”
399
“It’s a ritualistic symbol for tribal anger and aggression.” She said,
sitting back in her seat.
Both cars smoked tires attempting to get a grip on the black top.
They looked like old school street racers.
“How do you know that? I’ve never seen a tattoo like that before.”
“Nether have I, I was talking about the fact that he is giving us the
finger.” She said. “Oh great, and now there’s the gun.”
The passenger had pulled out an unusual looking small gun with
an oversized revolving barrel.
Finally the tires bit in and the cars were separated with the
hellacious sound of twisting metal. Both sped off towards the samecheckered flag.
Jenny Haniver.
“Got it,” She said, as the car jerked forward and the cell phone slid
towards her feet. She held it down with her foot then retrieved it.
“I can’t get a signal. It must have been broken in the fall.” She
said, jiggling the doublewide lipstick tube sized cell phone.
“Use mine,” He said, speeding through the heavy mid-afternoon
traffic. “It’s in the glove box.”
Slamming the glove box door she smashed at the buttons like she
was trying to master an old school street fighter video game.
“How do you switch it on?”
“Just hold down the green button for three seconds.” He said,
glancing over at her and then at his rival racer.
“Oh, ok I got it! Which speed dial is the office?”
400
“Um….” He winced, “I never figured out that whole speed dial
thing. I just kept all my numbers up here.” He jabbed at his temple with
his forefinger, his other hand still white knuckled on the steering wheel.
“Keeps the brain flexible…mental yoga.” He grinned sheepishly,
narrowly avoiding an older model Nissan sport wagon.
She stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth. She looked at
the aged cell phone with heavyset perplexion.
“I can’t figure it out. You gotta help me.”
“Can’t figure what out?”
“The number! I don’t know the number”
“Huh.”
“I don’t know any phone numbers of the top of my head. Who
needs to anymore?” She looked frustrated. “There are to many area
codes, and passwords…”
“Dial 1 509 667 555 1801.”
“Hold on, slow down.”
“But we’ll lose them!”
“No, not the car, the numbers.”
“Seriously?” He asked, but by the frazzled look on her face, and
the strain in her voice, it was clear that she couldn’t be more serious
without a straight jacket.
“Dial 1-509.”
“Okay, 1-509.”
“667.”
“Uh, huh.”
401
“5…”
The car containing the flamboyant revolutionary had dodged
some traffic and was now pulling close. The doors bumped again, and as
she was keying in the ‘555’ the window smashed accompanied by the
thunderous sound of a gun discharging.
The phone was blasted to bits, and tiny pieces of plastic shrapnel
ricocheted inside the car.
“Get your head down!”
“My hand!” She screamed.
“Are you okay?” He asked as the two cars collided again. He
could see the passenger with the ear tattoo spinning the barrel of the
weapon reading for another shot. He glanced ahead at a huge bottleneck
of traffic up ahead. The car containing Jenny, and possibly Charlie, had
sped across two lanes.
“I, I think I’ll be okay.” She said, looking down at her grazed
fingers. She tried to stem the flow of blood by forcing her hand against her
slacks. “You just drive.”
“Where’s he going?” Hargrave wondered, watching Morisivitch
turning a corner, apparently giving up the pursuit.
“Forget him. Jenny’s stuck. We’ve got them now!”
True enough the car containing Ms. Haniver was stuck behind
large truck at a construction site about six cars ahead.
“Let’s go!”
The Agents were out of the car quickly, with weapons drawn.
They ran along the street in pursuit. They were on the car quickly.
402
“Government Agent!
“Out of the car!”
Rick laughed in Hargrave’s face as the construction traffic moved
on and he pulled away.
“Back to the car!”
The Agents ran quickly back to their car. People were honking for
them to move before they even got their seatbelts back on.
Two blocks on and Morisivitch slammed into them again from a
side street.
The car resembled a Christmas snow globe with all the debris
flying around inside it. Hargrave could see that there was no way he
could cut across and catch the lead car, not with St. Morisivitch in the way.
With a jerk he slammed on the brakes and turned hard on the
wheel. Don Miguel’s car pulled ahead, but spun out of control when the
Agent rental crashed into the rear quarter panel.
Both cars came to a rough stop high-centered on a dividing
median, while Charlie, Rick and Jenny got away. A third car screeched
behind them and dominoed both cars as well as a Caprice and a turbo
Toyota Echo.
The busy street was a mess.
Hargrave tried to reach for his gun, but he moved slowly. He had
been cut and bludgeoned by a flying stainless steel chrome coffee mug.
His wound was superficial, despite the ringing in his head and the stars
and birds orbiting it.
403
Wilkes-Chu tried to open her door, but it was jammed shut from
the multiple collisions. She tried to follow him out his side. She valiantly
struggled, one handed, to negotiate her way over the shifter console.
He blinked hard trying to focus on removing his seatbelt, shoving
the deflated airbag out of his way. Just as the clasp was released and he
opened the door she shoved him hard out the drivers side. He spilled out
into the street on shaky legs. He tried to get to his feet, but she exited right
behind him. They collided and he tumbled back over on his rubber stilts.
She had her weapon drawn, but had lost her bearings after their
spill.
St. Morisivitch seemed shaken up, but still agile. He hurried to the
trunk and tried to retrieve something with an unusual bright aluminum
handle. She could see him struggling with some sort of contraption. His
partner was already half a block away and moving swiftly amongst the
traffic.
“Freeze! Government Agents!” She shouted.
The noise of horns, coming from the angry traffic jam they had
created, drowned out her words. She circled around to the front of the car
as Hargrave recovered and started to move around the rear.
Don Miguel had unfolded and snapped together a very compact
scooter. Two tires parallel to each other seemed to almost float above the
concrete. It looked like a very high tech push mower and he was standing
where the blades would be. He sped away rocket fast leaving the Agents
slack jawed.
“What the hell was that?”
404
“Silver Ginger Segway personal transport 15, professional
edition.”
“Doesn’t look like the regular Segway, and man was it fast.”
“Not even due to hit the market for another year. It’s supposed to
be for military/police use only. In fact we’ve been issued them, if the
budget holds up, for next year.”
“Well that doesn’t do us much good right now, does it?”
“No, not really.” She said, shaking her head.
They stood watching St. Morisivitch weave amongst the traffic. A
block and a half down he threw the Segway into the back of an old Lada
and his assistant took the wheel to continue the pursuit. The car that had
smashed them both from behind quietly backed out of position and turned
down a side street. It’s flaccid bumper dragging softly along the freshly
lain blacktop.
She picked up a copy of Glint, a celebrity glamour and fashion
magazine from a corner store while Hargrave was still talking to one of the
city police. It featured a photo of Jenny Haniver on the cover, and
405
contained a shocking expose of her career. Never being a real girly girl she
didn’t usually pick up this type of magazine, but she convinced herself it
was more research.
As soon as she got back to the car she opened the magazine right
away. She skipped down to an interesting part, after carefully studying all
the pictures and began to read.
Desdemona, the film adaptation of ‘the Franchise Affair’ by
Josephine Tey was one of the finest detective novels ever based on a true
story The big screen adaptation was to be Jenny’s reemergence as a
serious actress.
The story takes place in London on New Years Day, 1753. It was
shot half in a grainy black and white and half in a strange washed out
color. The techniques were intermingled depending on the point of view,
character, or situation.
Jenny plays the part of Elizabeth, now renamed as Desdemona, a
young girl who is kidnapped by a pair of n’er do wells. She is held in a
small room, without food in a dark upstairs room. Her captor, she claims,
is an old witch of a woman, who is running a brothel. Somehow she
manages to escape and accuse the old woman but that’s when the holes in
story start showing through. While the true mystery was never
conclusively solved, the director seemed to offer a solution, or strongly
hint at one very near the end.
At first the director was somewhat wary to cast Jenny in the main
role. He wanted to keep the story as accurate as possible, but the
description of Elizabeth was in stark contrast to the real life Jenny.
406
Elizabeth was described as being fresh colored, pitted from small pox,
eighteen years old with a high forehead and she stood a mere 5 feet tall.
Jenny was not only much more attractive, even on a rough morning with a
hang over, but she also stood 6 inches taller.
After a surprisingly good audition, and yes even the director was
surprised that Jenny actually requested to do an audition, she was given
the role of the mysterious girl.
After reading the book and heavily researching the role, and the
era in which it took place, she leapt into the part with both feet. The threemonth shoot was more grueling that she had expected. The costumes and
make-up were not only unflattering but extremely uncomfortable as well.
Somehow even in the tense times she managed to stay in character, even
when the camera wasn’t rolling.
She lived each day during their filming in a house lit only by
candles and gas lamps. She really felt this was going to be the great role
that she would be remembered by for many years to come. She even tried
to suppress fantasies about awards; she felt her portrayal was that
impressive.
She gained the respect of the rest of the cast and crew for her
professionalism. A lot of them were very surprised when the infamous
tales they had heard about her various tantrums were behind her. For all
the good her on set behavior was rumors persisted about her drug use.
The bottom fell out two weeks before the end of the shooting
schedule. The producers backed off when money ran out, and no amount
of fast-talking could produce enough capital to finish shooting, let alone
407
the editing and advertising budgets. The filming was stopped and it
looked like all the hard work and self-control she had expended had been
for nothing. Her chance at a glorious comeback was locked away in some
studio vault.
Rock bottom was a nasty little hole filled with rats, stagnant water,
sharp prodding jagged objects, and an alleged mountain of cocaine. She
took a guest spot on the TV sitcom ‘the Life of Colleen Bartock’ during
sweeps to pay her heating bills and for more of the addictive powder. No
one in the industry knew how bad it had gotten because she stopped
hanging around with her old Hollywood rat pack. Rumors claimed that
they had dumped her because of the drug problems and her erratic
behavior.
She studied and researched the world’s religions, faiths and belief
systems as though she were studying for a role in another blockbuster.
And then she stumbled upon, quite by accident, the House of
Illuminated Perception. Like a light switch her drug addiction was
switched off, as her interest in her new faith became her new focus.
Being a level based religion, each ‘House’ had 18 doors which
needed to be opened, they needed the Teacher to help them progress
through each door to enlightenment, or Illuminated Perception. Whether
this cult was at all directly influenced by the work of Huxley, or even
McKenna, is debatable, but the connections pointed in that direction.
Since each ‘House’ had an infinite amount of windows each
student was constantly trying to keep evil out by keeping temptation out
of the house. All this confusion was exacerbated by the fact that there was
408
no written record of the rules or practices, nor was there traditional
teachers or priests. Some of the customs were conveyed by word of
mouth, but most were through shared common experience while under
influence of the potent South African herb known as…”
She turned pages to see where the article continued just as
Hargrave got in the drivers side. She was loath to put aside the magazine,
but did with a sigh.
“I’ll have to remember to read it later. Remind me, will you?”
“Somehow I don’t think you’ll need reminding.”
He glanced over when a voice pleaded from her laptop, “Mail you
have.” The annoying Scottish girl had been replaced by what he could
only imagine was a rough sounding Buddhist monk after a marathon
session of throat singing.
“Is that any better?”
He shook his head with obvious eyes, “Not really.”
Turning back, he stamped hard on the brake pedal when a
pedestrian was crossing against the lights.
409
He honked as the man scurried back towards the way he had
come.
After the pedestrian was out of harms way, the moment had
passed for any sort of ‘confessional’. The car had suddenly gone cold.
Had they been paying more attention to the road they may have
recognized the pedestrian as one of their prime suspects.
“So what were you going to tell me?”
“When?”
“Earlier. Remember, when we discovered the fact that you were
lying to me about having an ex-wife?”
“Um…” he stalled. “Oh, right. I apologize about my behavior.
I’ve never had a creative bone in my body and these fictional memories
just made me go a little too far, I suppose.”
“That’s it? That’s what you were going to reveal?”
“Of course. I just feel really ridiculous.”
He chuckled, but it was a dry and bitter cackle. His eyes looked
tired and sad. He could feel her gaze drilling a burning hole in his head,
but he didn’t dare turn to face her.
410
Chapter 25
“I can’t believe this weather.” Charlie said, mopping his forehead
with a kerchief. “Everyone’s been talking about it lately. Weird weather.
It’s been dismally dark lately, and then we get this. It’s only barely Spring,
but today it’s hot.”
“And the humidity!” Jenny said, trying to smooth a slight frizz
from her hair.
“Yeah, I was just going to say.”
Rick looked like he was biting down hard on his tongue.
“It’s probably chemtrails and all the weather modifications they’ve
been experimenting on us with.”
Rick grinned. Charlie seemed puzzled. Jenny caught herself from
saying more.
“I think we’ve lost ‘em” Rick said.
“No thanks to your driving skills, limey.”
411
“As I noted previously, if you’ll remember, I will never be used to
driving on this side of the road, right? So get off me flaming back!”
“Christ!” Jenny moaned, rubbing her temples. “You two are
going to send me back to…” Jenny stopped short of letting Charlie in on
her murky past.
“Back to where, sweetness?” Charlie dug.
“Burbank, flaming Burbank! I’m right or not?”
“Um, yes. That’s what I was about to say, Rick. Now if you two
are finished playing schoolyard would you mind telling me who the fuck
that was trying to kill us?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“Me either.”
“Well, they obviously recognized me.” Jenny said with a hair
flick, and glamorous eye flitter.
Rick was scratching his stubble. “The problem is…I recognized
the passenger, I just can’t place him.”
“Right, yeah, I felt the same way.”
Charlie wondered, “Could be just vigilante justice”
“No, the car a couple back,” Rick explained, “that blue one…that
was definitely cops, or government Agents of some sort.”
“I thought that,” Jenny agreed.
Rick smiled, “Did you see the look on his face when we pulled
away from him?”
Jenny giggled, “Priceless! But what about the other car?”
412
“The primered muscle car with all the Bondo. Good eye! I didn’t
honestly get a good look at them, they were too far back.”
Charlie continued theorizing, “Bounty hunters? I mean there is a
reward…my face is plastered all over the front page.”
“My photo was bigger!” Jenny piped.
“Fine…our pictures. Somehow Rick here hasn’t been tagged
yet…” Charlie noted, picking something from his teeth.
“Which is more than suspicious…”
“Interesting theory, old man,” Rick agreed, “they did seem to give
up on the bullets pretty quickly. Maybe they didn’t want to kill our
resident movie star.”
“That’s it!” Jenny screamed. “A movie, one of my movies.”
“Do you ever stop thinking about yourself?” Rick muttered,
pulling the car down a dark side alley.
“I heard that! I’m not being self-centered. I studied that man for
months to nail a role. I don’t know how I…”
Charlie seemed very surprised. “I never knew you played a
man?”
Rick grumbled barely more than a whisper. “She’s playing us right
now.”
“No, I starred in a fiction movie based on the real life escapades of
that man!”
“Who is?”
“Don Miguel Sergei St. Morisivitch.”
“The terrorist?” Charlie was suddenly furious. “Let me at him!”
413
Rick explained, “He isn’t a terrorist, per say, he was a political
activist turned democratically elected ruler of an obscure European
nation.”
“That was a mouthful.”
“You seem to know a lot about him.” Jenny said, almost under his
breath.”
“It’s all bullshit.” Charlie coughed. “What news channel have you
been watching?”
“I don’t watch that product placement riddled entertainment
gossip glossy pap that they call ‘news’.” Rick said with a frothy sarcasm.
“I watched an expose on him on News Now when he was
storming the embassy, remember that? With his little band of circus
freaks… I thought about reenlisting when I saw that, but I was too old
already.”
“They were gymnasts with an agenda.” Rick corrected, adjusting
the rearview to meet Charlie’s eyes.
“He killed dozens of innocent people, cut off their ears for
souvenirs.”
“Propaganda.”
“Horse hockey! I saw the mutilated bodies on the TV.”
“I can’t stomach the people who believe everything they are told…
content to be fed their pabulum without knowing the GMO ingredients.
You were in the military, you should know better.” He swiveled in he seat
to come eye to eye with Charlie.
414
“It’s about ratings, and keeping the populous too scared to use
their brains, or ask questions. It’s about advertising and big business, and
news anchors are just as much actors as you.” Rick punctuated his
thought with a finger jab towards Jenny.
Charlie shook his head, “Not here in the land of the free.”
“Don’t you realize that 90% of all news media is controlled by a
hand full of companies? That’s power…and who owns them? The oil
brokers. It’s all about money, and power. They put a spin on the St.
Morisivitch story because he was protesting the cover up of zero point.”
“Zero, huh?”
Jenny apologized, “You’ve lost me on that one, too, I’m afraid,
Rick”
“When usage outstrips supply of all petroleum products, and that
includes natural gas. The world won’t come to a complete stop, but a lot of
people are going to die. Some predict 75% of the population.”
“Because we run out of gas? That is ridiculous.”
“How do you think they harvest food? Transport the food? With
no way of getting food to those who need it, people will turn to violence,
cannibalism, and worse. Civilization as we know it will come to an end.”
“What are we talking about here, 200 years from now or
something?”
“Zero point has already happened, now it’s all down hill, we’ve
got maybe 30 years, 40 tops.”
“They’d tell us, Rick,” Jenny hoped, “someone would tell us.”
“Did they warn us about dairy, or fluoride, aspartame?”
415
Charlie protested, “There’s nothing wrong with any of that stuff.”
“Oh, come on Charlie,” Jenny said with disbelief, “even I have
eating cheese, and drinking diet soda.”
“That’s because for the past 4 days, 4 very long days…”
“Don’t you start with me, Charlie. You know full well I had to
stick to the back roads. After that malarkey hit the papers they’ve got all
the interstates out of Florida under surveillance.”
“He’s been making you read all that poison on the…crotch
rocket.”
“Laptop,” Rick grinned, “They call it a lap top.”
Jenny giggled, “For a second there I thought he’d picked up some
of your bogus cockney.”
“I just don’t believe a word of it.” Charlie sneered. “We’ll never
run out of petroleum.”
“I’m not sure I believe that, Charlie, but I am sure someone in the
government would come up with an alternate energy source way before
that happens.”
“It’s too late for that. St. Morisivitch was just trying to warn us
before it got really bad.”
“Jenny, you aren’t believing any of this are you?”
“Err!” Rick shook his head. His eyes were overflowing with
frustration.
“I’m a proud American, Charlie.” She said with a heavy sigh.
“But I just don’t know what, or who, to believe ever since 9/11. I only
hope that this great country wouldn’t let us down.”
416
“I’ve got to get some air.” Rick said, with a tiny bit of triumph in
his voice.
He straightened himself up, rubbed his eyes, and opened the car
door.
“Where are you going?” Jenny asked.
“I’ve…I’ve just got to stretch my legs, and have a smoke,” he said,
looking up at the sliver of sky poking between the skyscrapers. “Looks like
they are really dumping on us big time today. I’ll be back in a few
minutes.” The car door slammed behind him.
Rick walked briskly for two blocks, his cigarette trailing a smoke
tendril like an old time pilots scarf.
“Only a dog will eat his own shit.” He mumbled, but his face
didn’t reveal the context of the statement.
He waited at the corner for the light to change, inhaling his last
drag. Crushing the butt beneath his boot he entered the intersection. A
very large advertising truck drove by with a strange song playing over a
loud speaker. The tune was catchy and whimsical, but somehow tinged
with a sinister element, like a candy apple laced with a razor blade. On the
417
side of the truck was a now familiar logo of cello f-holes facing off amongst
stylistic lines and a lance. This time the logo had an enigmatic tagline
written below it.
“Morte carent animae.”
Rick pulled out his phone and tapped the phrase in for future
research. He studied the advert with growing interest.
On the opposite corner was a neon sign that read, ‘Sam and Al’s
Quality Firearms’. Below was a smaller, less well lit, sign that read,
‘refurbished, loans, trade-ins’.
Two people were leaving the store. They climbed the half dozen
steps from the recessed entrance with two large bags each.
Before he had reached half way, Rick froze. It was Salvador and a
strangely familiar companion. He hadn’t been spotted, but he was unsure
what to do.
A car horn honked and jolted him out of his stupor. He quickly
swiveled around, to dodge the coupe. He hunched his shoulders up,
slammed his hands into his pockets and tried to dodge traffic back the way
he had come.
418
“Are you sure it was him?” Jenny asked, reapplying a vivid
purple lip-gloss.
“How could you mistake him?” Rick said with a shrug.
“This is New York.”
“It was him.”
“I thought you said he was dead.” Jenny fired at Charlie.
“Did I?” It was more a statement of uncertainty than a cheeky
denial.
Jenny was taken aback by the look of blank confusion on Charlie’s
face.
“Yes you fucking well did! And if it wasn’t for that very fact, we
would already have the money in our hot little hands.”
“If you could just decode his scribbles,” Charlie shouted, “like you
said you could, it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“I’ve been driving this whole time!” Rick was bewildered and
angry. “I haven’t had more than two minutes to work on the software to
crack that code, and you know it.”
“Enough!” Jenny shouted, “You’ve been going on like this for 4
straight days. I don’t know if I can take it anymore.”
“Well, if you’d share your little tidbit with us, I’m sure it would
speed things along.”
Jenny folded her arms, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I saw Sal whisper in your ear, back in the museum, right after he
studied that painting.”
Charlie was caught off guard. “I didn’t notice that.”
419
“Well he did, didn’t he Jenny?”
She closed her eyes and sighed. A little smirk graced the corner of
her mouth as she admitted, “Yes. He did. And right now that is the only
thing keeping both of you from killing me and splitting the cache between
you.”
“Nah,” denied Rick.
“I’m not a moron. I’m just an actress. I’m not a spy…”
“Woah, now Jenny…” Rick warned.
She continued, “or a serial killer…”
“How many times do I have explain myself?!? I am not a serial
killer!”
Rick sparred, “So armed with this so called big lie, how can you
possibly believe in the news?”
“They’ve just got it wrong, somehow.” Charlie was clearly
frustrated, but didn’t seem willing to be pulled into a fight.
Jenny asked, “Who was with him?”
“Not sure, but I have this strange feeling I’ve seen him before. He
was a good looking kid with curly hair, maybe a rock star. Maybe I’d seen
him in a music video? No, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him involved in this
somehow. I got a queasy feeling when I saw him. Fucking hell, we’ve
been set up from the get go.”
“Okay, so just to confirm, we are being pursued by the police, the
government Agents, international terrorists…”
“Alleged.” Rick warned.
420
“Don’t forget vigilantes, possibly, and now a confirmed madman
who believes he is Salvador Dali, sweetie.”
“Our advantage is they are chicken without heads, the way I see it.
None of them have a bloody clue what we are up to.”
“Except Salvador.” Charlie added.
“Right, but we’ve got his sketch pad.”
Jenny offered, “He might have memorized it.”
“Maybe has the exact address.” Charlie wondered.
Rick hung his head. “I’ll bet he has more information than us. Oh,
and I nearly got run over by those two Agents.”
“The man and the pretty girl?” Jenny asked.
“The very same.”
Charlie warned, “You weren’t spotted, right.”
“No, I was stealthy as a rug box.”
“You know what we need?” Jenny asked the frustrated pair.
“What’s that, then?”
“Guns, and lot’s of ‘em…and yes that is a line from ‘Drown the
Baptists…”
Both of the men spoke at the same time.
“I know a guy.”
“I know a bloke.”
“Surely you can’t both know someone, can you?” Jenny smirked,
trying to defuse the oncoming battle.
“Bloody right, I do!”
421
“Oh come on. Who are you trying to fool.” Charlie mocked. “I’m
an ex-military man, 30 plus years in the service. I lived with guns and
ammo most of my life…”he lost his train of thought, and tried to regroup
with a more potent venom. “Who are you? An alleged ex-government
intelligence agent who is now in hiding?”
“Wanker. My mates Sam and Al could get me guns any time I
wanted…all your friends died before they invented the microwave oven.”
“Does it make a difference who gets us the guns, really?” Jenny
pleaded.
“All the difference in the world, it does.”
“Now we agree.” Charlie sighed.
“Men…” Jenny said, rooting through her purse. “Let’s just flip a
coin.”
“What?”
“You can’t be serious, love?”
“I am.”
“Typical of a woman to trivialize…”
“Look, my agent says that…”
“If I hear ‘my agent says’ one more time…” Rick cautioned with
vigor.
Jenny looked stunned at his aggression.
“It is getting a little bit annoying.” Charlie reluctantly agreed. “I
mean it’s not as if he’s the Dolly Lama or anything.”
“Dalai Lama.” Rick corrected.
422
“If I am trying to elevate your knowledge base by imparting on
you the wise words of my esteemed…agent, then I apologize.” She
crossed her arms, and looked out her window.
“And while we’re at it, stop being so condescending, we’re not
thick.”
“Yeah, and talking down to us, too.” Charlie added.
Rick shook his head.
“Rick, I suggest you start picking an ally.” Jenny advised with
malice.
“Look it’s pretty clear we don’t see eye to eye, none of us,” Charlie
began, “and that’s fine, we’re not in this to make friends. Let’s try to keep
it together until this is all over, collect our winnings and go our separate
ways. We don’t have to like each other to respect, or trust each other.
Why don’t you just flip the coin, Jenny darling, and get it over with?”
“Are you sure, Charlie?”
He nodded.
“What about you, Rick?” She asked with daggers.
“Fine.” He said with a pouty shrug.
“Let’s get out of the car, so we can have no controversy about the
landing.” Jenny suggested.
Rick caught his jacket in the slammed car door, and with difficulty
unlocked the door to free himself. The alley air was cold as they stood
around waiting for the coin toss.
“Heads or tails?”
“You go ahead, Rick, you pick.” Charlie nudged.
423
“Err, right then. Uh, tails…no heads. I pick heads.”
Jenny rolled her eyes at his change of mind, pushed her hair
behind her ears and tossed the coin into the air.
Both of the men seemed pensive, but Rick seemed the more
nervous of the pair. Charlie seemed to be concentrating heavily on the
coin as it wobbled from Jenny’s hand.
“You seemed relieved when I won the coin toss.” Charlie
chuckled.
They were sitting in the backseat of the car, while Rick was
bringing up information on his laptop. The online flea market website
‘Fleabay’, was featured in the biggest window. Little did Charlie suspect,
from his angle, that Rick was bidding on discount firearms and body
armor. In another, much smaller window, he had a phone number
highlighted on a phone book search engine.
“When you got tails, or the first time when princess pain in the ass
was too feeble to catch the nickel and it got lost down the sewers…”
Rick was agitated. “And your point is?”
424
“Both times you had the skitters. You don’t have to explain. I just
noticed it is all. Look you’re information and I’m the muscle, got it? No
hard feelings.”
“And Jenny is?”
“A spoiled fucking bitch about sums her up.”
“Here, here!” Rick snickered.
“I’ll tell ya, all our outbursts…butting heads, like, brings back
memories of the old army days. The stress of an upcoming battle, you
know, blow off a bit of steam.”
“Aye.” He said, very unconvincingly. “Found it.”
“Perfect.”
“Mark Manning. Do you want me to write his number down for
you?”
“Nope, I’ll remember it. I might be old, but I’m still sharp.”
“You sure?” Rick asked, his eyes wide with disbelief.
“Go on then, but only to put your mind at ease.”
“Rick smirked and grabbed the telescoping pen out of his breast
pocket. He wrote a phone number down onto the back of a gas station
receipt and handed it to Charlie.
“Do you want to use my cell phone?”
“Naw. I don’t trust them new fangled things.”
“Sensible, but don’t worry I’ve got it heavily shielded from
radiation.”
“That’s not it.”
425
“Right, well you’re worried about having your conversation
tracked? Again, not to worry, I’ve fitted it with two different signal
scramblers…you can never be too sure…”
“Or paranoid. No. I just don’t like the way it makes my plate
tingle.”
“Your plate?”
“I got blown up a couple of times overseas ant they patched me
together with bits of old cars. That’s the way they did things back then.”
Charlie said on his way out of the car. “I’ll catch you up at the café later.”
“Right.” Rick said with a confused nod, or more accurately a head
wobble.
Charlie slammed the door and walked off.
“Then why didn’t the metal detectors go off at the airport then,
you crafty old beggar?” He wondered aloud with a sly squint before
diving headfirst back onto the web.
426
Chapter 26
“Who were those two other people?” I asked him
“There were hundreds…specificity please”
“The man and woman who were also involved in the chase.”
He did not respond, but appeared to require more details.
“The pair that were shot at… the car in front of us, remember?”
Still nothing. He was now applying liquid paper to the dashboard
in a series of fine lines.
“The blue…”
“Ah yes the officers of public security.”
“The who?”
“The agents of intelligence central, of course.”
“The CIA?”
“Maybe FBI…maybe even black project government Agents.”
427
“How did you know that?”
“Dali knows all, sees all, and paints it for the dreams of the future
generations…and have you ever seen a civilian that looked like him?”
“Now that you mention it, no. He looked like a cardboard cut-out
of Dick Tracy.”
“That reference is lost on me, I’m afraid.”
Surely he’d heard of Dick Tracy? He was frustrating in his choice
of memory, but at least he was keeping his answers short.
“And those two guys with diplomat plates?”
“Now there is an interesting story.”
I didn’t want to relive any more of his reminiscing about people
I’d never heard of, and some of the outrageous stunts he’d been involved
in. As entertaining as they were, they tended to be over long and
confusing, plus his accent was still such a stumbling block.
I cut him off before he could start, “So where to?”
“Guns.”
“Guns? I don’t…”
“They have escaladed the situation. It is beyond our control
without the proper defense.”
“I’m not sure.”
“I am also very wary of firearms, but what must be eaten is the
sandwich.”
“So these people, Rick and Charlie, how dangerous are they,
really? I got the impression that Rick was some sort of international spy.”
428
He giggled slightly, “No, he was a simply a patient of mine. He’s
not even British. I think he’s originally from New Jersey. His parents
brought him to me because he was getting too wrapped up in internet
conspiracy theories. He was on parole for some minor computer
coughing…”
“Do you mean hacking?”
“Probably,” he shrugged. “He’s out there, but I your sister is
much more dangerous than Rick. She was also a patient of mine. Charlie,
on the other hand…well, you’ve read the papers.”
“So he is a serial killer?”
“Very much so,” as an afterthought, he added, “and senile as
well…maybe even Alzheimer’s. A very hazardous combination.”
“So, what do you mean when you say they were your patients?”
“Enough of this, now. We have to concentrate on shooting irons.”
I really didn’t like this turn of events.
“Okay, look. There is no way I can buy a gun. First off I can’t use
this fake I.D. anymore, after the whole plane incident. Who knows what
went on…wait! You know. You should really explain that to me. I still
can’t get that clear in my head.”
“I would love to illuminate you. We, all of us, were on the aero
plane, when suddenly…stop!” He shouted at me unexpectedly.
“I can’t stop just anywhere! Are you nuts?”
I could tell I’d made a poor choice of words when I saw the sour
look on Dali’s face, enough to curdle the whole Milky Way. He reached
out for the steering wheel.
429
“Hands off! Don’t you realize how dangerous that is?”
“You’re passionate!”
“What?!”
“The gun store…you’re passing it.”
He pointed out, somewhat desperately pleading, that we were just
passing a pawnbroker that specialized in quality consignment handguns.
I ended up finding a parking spot almost a mile away from our
intended destination. I parked the car Dali had procured for us from an
old friend. Legally procured, he assured me with an accusing waggle of
his finger.
I’ve always been stubborn about parking spaces. I hated the
circling of blocks and never minded to have to walk rather than wait
around for a space to open up. Dali on the other hand was frothing fit to
be tied.
What a sight we must have been. A limping cripple and a puffed
up dandy, then again this was the big city, and not the little towns I had
been used to. I didn’t register any more stares than I would have gotten
back home. I could get used to that.
430
“So tell me again, what’s next?”
“We get the guns.”
His single-minded determination bordered on obsession. He
seemed to become more paranoid with each passing hour. His eyes were
busy searching the crush of the crowds, and the only thing that seemed to
pacify him was the mere mention of guns.
“Yeah, I’ve gotten that part, but what about after that?”
“Showdown; and some of the weeds are bound to be thinned out.”
“Umm…”
“I need to contact one of my trusted associates. He will supply us
with the information to rendezvous at the location of my glorious
artwork.”
“I thought you remembered where it was?”
I was confused. He had made some strange phone calls, but he
hadn’t directly mentioned an associate directly before.
“I know the precise location, but things have changed infinitely
since I had been. Access is being worked on.”
“So we’re close?”
“Exceedingly.”
“And you trust this ‘associate’? I mean, he’s not another fickle
backstabber.”
“I trust them.”
Now the single buddy had multiplied into a vague ‘them’.
“You’re sure?”
“Oh, yes!” He said with a smug chuckle.
431
It seemed whomever he was talking about was on either a very
tight leash or they were completely beyond reproach. He seemed very
amused about my caution.
“Good. So what about Jenny and her pals?”
“I fear a confrontation is imminently. Their destiny is intertwined
unbraidingly with ours. They are close, but I don’t know that they have
the proper information to actualize their goals. Finding the precise
location in a city this big would be like finding the proverbial hay in a
needle stack. Plus gaining entry…but there is no use profundicating about
that now.”
“But you said confrontation.”
I was confused once again by his pedantic intellectual jargon and
tiresome double speak.
“Yes, that confuses me too. Somehow I feel it is imminent despite
their failings. It is not very often that my instinct trips over my left brain,
but I do tend to have two left feet.”
“Better than only one foot total.” I shrugged quietly, but I don’t
think he heard me.
We turned and walked down the few steps to the storefront. The
door was actually about four feet below street level, and by the look of the
bricks I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that it was actually sinking
year by year.
“Dali has never been wrong before, despite his catastrophic
miscalculations in the name of a beautiful experiment.”
432
I held the door form him as we went into the gun
shop/pawnbroker.
He was admiring a very abused old gun in a display case that was
highlighted with red velvet and gold coins.
I moved in closer and asked, “What’s with the rusty musket?”
“Crusty pistol, I thought.”
“Hey that would be a great name for a band. Reminds me of a
pirate movie I just saw on cable at the motel last night.”
“I have no time for pirates.” He said, moving on.
I left Sal to negotiate with the guy behind the counter to look at
their selection of portable personal music listening devices. Grr…I hated
talking in Dali speak, but it was contagious somehow. I was looking at
mp3 players.
He was busy with arguing with Ralph about six shooters that shot
twelve bullets due to the double barrel. Ralph was frustratingly trying to
explain that only shotguns had double barrels. Personally I couldn’t
picture us walking out of there without a police escort by the way the
conversation was escalading. I tried to position myself as close to the door
433
as I could get. Then Dali began repeating the same mismatched phrase
over and over again. At first it reminded me of a small child pleading with
their mother to buy them candy. It never worked for me, but I’d seen it
work for other kids growing up. Never.
“In the case underneath like Lee Van Cleef.”
Over and over again, but his voice evened out and soon the words
had no meaning from their droning rhythm.
Then it hit me, in the pit of my stomach, it all flooded back to me;
the hypnosis the plane, everything…the embarrassing discharge of my
weapon, which nearly killed a plane full of people. Now I understood my
newly acquired repulsion for firearms a little better. I shook my head to
get his voice out.
“Fantastique! We have a deal.” Dali chirped.
I moved closer, but still poised to print out the door if things
turned nasty.
“And which will you chose, Max?”
“Me? I don’t know. Something smallish, I suppose.” I didn’t
know anything about guns, so I assumed that concealment would be a
benefit.
“Small?” Dali remonstrated me with his mocking eyebrow.
“Well, you know, not too small, but hideable.”
I was uncomfortable and I could feel my panic entangling my
vocabulary.
“Concealable…. and, whatever holds the most rounds, I guess.”
434
The only thing I could picture was an old slasher movie I’d seen
where the victim had run out of bullets a crucial moment and threw the
empty pistol at the killer in desperation. I wanted lots of bullets.
“Do you want a comfort grip?” Dali asked.
“Yeah okay, with the comfort grip.”
“What’s a comfort grip?” Ralph asked as though still affected by a
dentists freezing.
“You know…comfort grip.” Dali repeated while demonstration a
fist clenching like he was using pruning shears.
Ralph ignored the comment.
“Hmm…do you want a magazine then?”
“He doesn’t want to read about it.” Dali waved his hands in front
of a clearly glazed Ralph to put him further under.
Ralph shivered and unlocked a case from behind his protective
cage.
“I have this beauty right here?”
“Too feminine.” Dali shook his head in disgust.
“Well…” Ralph seemed to be fighting with himself.”
“You have a something to tell us?” Dali leaned in close and
whispered something in Ralph’s ear.
“I’m not really supposed to have these, but you are a special
customer.” His voice sounded tinny and robotic.
From a double locked cabinet he lovingly retrieved a pair of
identical pistols. They were black with a rubber ribbed grip that appeared
to be quite comfortable.
435
“These hold 33 rounds each. 280 grams each. Fully automatic
machine pistols, but they also have a semi-automatic mode. Just hold
down the trigger and the bullets just spray out like a fire hose. You got to
treat them like a wild woman. Be firm, concentrate, even lean into them a
little bit, but seduce them. They are very dangerous, but they have 3
safeties.”
“He’ll take them, and whatever necessaries.”
Ralph began packing our substantial order. Dali had chosen two
six shooters in lieu of a single twelve-bullet revolver, a dangerous looking
gun with a laser sight and a shotgun.
I wasn’t sure if Ralph had been hypnotized by Salvador’s words,
or by the enormous wad of cash he was waving under the poor attendants
nose. We turned to leave, but as we were walking out Ralph called us
back.
This was it. The hypnosis had worn off and now he was sealing
the place up and calling the cops all with the press of a single button. I
dropped my shopping bags and slumped my shoulders.
“I almost forgot our sale this week. With any purchase over a
thousand dollars you receive free body armor.”
He had extricated himself from his protective cage and was
striding towards us with a single Kevlar vest.
“Here you go, and have a nice day.”
Up close I could see that his eyes were still very much glazed over.
The pretty vacant look made me feel uneasy, so I quickly averted my eyes.
436
I felt nauseous vaguely recalling the plane incident again through
muddied thoughts. Had I looked that dead under those conditions?
Dali handed the vest to me.
“I won’t require this, so please…”
“What?” I said, turning in surprise.
“Please, you take it. I am at least partially to blame for the danger
you are in presently.”
“Hmm. I’m not so sure about that. Look, you should…”
“I emphasize.”
“Insist?”
He only nodded.
“It’s not required. I am entirely incongruous to harm.”
His madness proved, I put the vest into my oversized shopping
bag. Dali was holding the door open for me. I walked quickly, trying to
put some distance between Ralph, his dead fish eyes, and the police, which
I still assumed would be on us any minute.
Dali began a confusing tirade out of nowhere about the sociopolitical destabilization of Spain during the time leading up to the civil war
as we were climbing the stairs to street level. He stopped suddenly to
watch a truck pass slowly by. There was an unusual logo on the side,
which looked very familiar, and yet so alien. On the back of the truck the
doors had a phrase that left a metallic taste in my mouth.
It read: Sangre Eterna.
“Hey, it’s you! You are the one with the mystery ad campaign that
everyone has been talking about.”
437
“Don’t be ridiculous. It is probably a new scent introduced by one
of these bubblegum pop stars slash clothing designers slash actors.”
“Media whores? No, no, no…you can’t get out of this one so
easily. You invented the whole shameless self-promotion. This is
subliminal, isn’t it? I’ve been reading your bio. Artist, clothing designer,
home furnishings, movies…”
Before I could pursue more probing questions Dali stopped cold to
watch a hapless pedestrian nearly get knocked over in an intersection. He
seemed very displeased. I tried to follow the character with my eyes, but
he was stealthy and I lost him amongst the throngs of people. By the look
on Dali’s face I wondered if we’d both seen a phantom.
When I turned back to continue my new theory of the mysterious
ad campaign, Dali was already a half block ahead of my. His long lanky
strides reminded me somehow of John Cleese. I struggled to catch up,
damning my wooden foot the whole way. He already had a cell phone up
to his head. He was so proud of his cell phone ring tone. It was, he would
say, a polyphonic spree. I was dying to find out whom he was talking to
after all the cryptic calls I had heard.
Still completely cautious of his motives, whether I’d saved his life
or not, I was determined to get the armored vest on at the first
opportunity.
“That was embarrassing!” I chuckled, catching up to him at the
next red light.
“I’m sorry?” Dali said, rather excitedly trying to look behind me.
“Just, you know…” I swiveled with a frown.
438
“I thought you said you were bare assed.”
“No.” I jerked my head from the direction we had just come.
“My mistake.”
“I was just saying how embarrassing it must have been for that
guy back there. He took off like a shot.”
“It might be us wearing the cape of chagrin if my fears are correct
about that etourdie gentleman.”
“Foolish, but not turdy.” I corrected, but I could tell from his
expression of mixed amusement and condescension that I had
misunderstood something.
We got to the car and placed our aggressively delicate parcels in
the trunk. I realized that we were parked outside a popular nation wide
chain of coffee vendors, and my sweet tooth ached.
“I’m going to get a latte or something. Do you want anything?”
“No. I have to make a phone call. I’ll wait in the car. Maybe I’ll
even take a nap. I am feeling completely enervated.” He coughed, and his
eyes rolled as he searched for a word. “Tired.”
His phone rings again, and it sounds like a chorus of distant
angels. He still won’t tell me where he downloads such great ring tones
from. He says a few words in a foreign language, really abruptly but with
a smile. The language only vaguely sounded Spanish to me.
He gets off the phone and scribbles something on the back of a
twenty-dollar bill and shouts. He’s discovered something that made him
very excited.
I shudder.
439
I still can’t shake the feeling that we were being watched. It had
been nagging at me all day.
“Maps, they don’t love you like I love you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry it reminded me of a song. I need a map, quickly.”
“Oh, okay. No problem. There’s a souvenir shop over there. I’m
sure that they would have one.”
“Let’s go.”
“Uh, why don’t you go? I’m going to grab my coffee. I’ll meet
you back here, okay?”
“But…”
His bottom lip was quivering. He shrugged a couple of times and
I could sense his discomfort going into the store by himself. He was a
living quandary.
“Or I could go with you…”
Instantly he regained his swagger.
“Good idea, Max. We should stick together, just in case.”
We retrieved the maps, he had to get three identical ones, and I left
him on his own in the car. Somehow sticking together only applied when
he had left his comfort zone.
440
“We were very lucky to get out of the clean up on that whole
traffic mess.”
“Thanks to your quick tongue, Wilkes-Chu.”
“Well, I it’s not like I was lying. We were still in pursuit. You
know you can call me by my first name? It’s Nadia,” she pronounced it
Nad eye ah. “in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Not when we’re on a case.” He dismissed the notion. “I’ll handle
all the paperwork. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
“I actually think you’re looking forward to it.”
“Maybe a little.” Hargrave allowed.
“Look, I’ll only be a minute. I just want to get a coffee, and maybe
a scone. Just come in and sit down.”
“No thanks. I can’t stand the atmosphere in those places. It’s
stifling.”
“Fine. Just wait out here. I won’t be long.”
441
I slipped into the coffee house to get the caramel macchiato that I
had been daydreaming about. Venti, extra shot, which made it a triple,
and heavy on the caramel.
While waiting by the red lamp, like an espresso hooker, they called
out my drink and I reached for it at the same time as a beautiful half
Japanese girl. They do it to me every time. My drink twin. I smiled and
we determined that this particular drink was probably mine, but I offer it
to her in reference to her beautiful skin. Well, maybe I offered it to her
minus the compliment, but with the addition of an awkward grin.
“Don’t I know you?” She asked me with a coy squint of partial
recognition.
“Isn’t that an old school pick-up line?” My wit surprised me.
She shook her head with a perplexing smile. I could feel the heat
on my blushing cheeks. I tried to keep from looking directly at her; it
would be like trying to stare into the noonday sun. I brought up my claw
hand and absently brush a curl out of my eyes. She didn’t turn away
repulsed, but neither did she show pity. I began to worry, because her
smile had faded into a thoughtful look of concentration. I worried that she
may have recognized me from the trial. My picture was all over the TV.
My hair had grown in a lot since the pictures they used, and I’d lost a lot of
weight, but it was still me.
I was spared further interrogation when a man, possibly her stepdad, shouted at her to hurry up from the doorway. I didn’t get more than
a quick glance at him, but something twitches in my guts. She left slowly,
442
clearly annoyed at the guy. Her eyes were still magnetized to me with an
over active curiosity.
Then I realize who she was.
She was on the TV when my sister went to trial for my murder. I’d
also just seen her from the back only hours ago with the Dick Tracy
photocopy that had been chasing down Rich, Charlie and Jenny.
I avoided deep shit, but I could still smell it on my shoes. I was
waiting for my coffee while they were outside discussing something,
probably me. This could be very bad, I decided. I grabbed the next drink
order that was up, damn the repercussions, and made for the back staff
room exit.
I heard someone shout as the door flew open behind me.
“Hey that’s my drink!” Someone else shouted.
I heard the commotion behind. I burst through the backdoor and
erupted into a very non-descript staff only back hallway in the mall. With
no visible exit I knew I was screwed, right and truly without a pound of
magic and a fairy godmother. There was a door leading to the highly
populated mall at one end of the hall, at the other a more industrial
looking door to the loading dock, I guessed. A normal man could
probably sprint to either in time, but with my wooden foot I had no
chance.
Three doors and I tried them all in the blink of an eye. The third
one opened and I slipped inside. As soon as I heard the latch catch they
were in the hallway. I transferred the coffee to my claw hand to lock the
door with my nimble fingers. I heard their raised voices, muffled behind
443
the thick door behind me. I twisted the dead bolt slowly, trying to be as
quiet as I could. Someone tried the door just as the deadbolt bit ever so
slightly into the recess. It was only just enough to block entry.
“I just realized who that was.” Wilkes-Chu said with a stunned
glaze.
“Where?” Hargrave said, craning his neck to take in the crowds.
“Mmm, this is the best coffee I’ve ever had.” She paused,
desperate for a sip. “The guy in the coffee shop that I was talking to…the
guy with the old style claw.”
“I didn’t get a good look at him.” Now he was holding his hand
up to shield the reflection so he could peer through the glass.
“That guy?”
“Yes. It’s…”
“It’s the guy
from the pursuit! He was chasing Ms. Haniver,
too. He was in the car behind us in that big mess. Let’s bring him in!”
“And he’s also…”
444
Before Wilkes-Chu could finish her thought Hargrave knocked her
coffee out of her hand and was already bursting through the door to the
coffee house.
“Hold it right there!” He said to an already vacating Max, flashing
his credentials from across the crowded room.
Hargrave unleashed his revolver from his holster as Wilkes-Chu
bumped up to him. Six people threw their hot coffee in the air to avoid
potential gunfire. Tables were overturned and at least one very
fashionable young bohemian woman was scalded in the neck and upper
chest area from an extra hot skinny Valencia mocha, hold the whipped
cream.
“Lot drop!” Wilkes-Chu sneered.
“We’ve got a runner!” Hargrave shouted, pushing his way past
the burning bodies, screaming babies, and ducking pony nubs.
By the time they spilled out into the blank hallway, Max was
nowhere to be seen. Not even his limping shadow was lurking.
“Why do you have to be so dramatic?” She asked. She was
stretching her neck to get the kinks out.
“I was going to ask you the same thing. What the hell is lot drop?”
Stuttered a panting Hargrave, still clutching his revolver with his fused
fists and starched elbows.
“It’s car lot slang for a customer leaving the lot without a
satisfactory conclusion being reached. I took a training course to be a car
sales person a few years ago.”
445
“And you gave up that noble profession to chase down perps and
pervs? Hard to believe.”
He nodded for her to check the door directly across from them.
She tried the first two, but both were locked. She frowned and
tried the last one, but it was locked, too.
“Well, he must have either run into the mall, or into the shipping
area.” She said with a shrug.
“You’re probably right. Let’s go.” Hargrave said, but catching her
eye he was shaking his head to negate his vocalization.
He nodded to her with a twitch of his head for her to put her ear to
door number three. He did the same to door number one. She briefly
followed instruction, but pulled her head away with a shrug. He held his
hand up for her to be patient.
She put her ear back to the door.
They were there, just outside the door. I could almost feel their
heat through the door. I took a restrained sip of coffee.
“Egh!” I whispered with a hot sneer.
I had managed to pick up a latte with a shot of Irish crème.
446
Thoroughly repulsive, no question.
Crouching down I held my breath hoping that they hadn’t heard
my unstoppable revulsive outburst. In that moment of tension I was
scalded, and bit my tongue to quell a more riotous outburst. My claw had
held the venti coffee too tight and had penetrated the cardboard sleeve and
cup. Two blistering jets spurted from the cup and onto the sensitive skin
on the inside of my upper thighs.
Wilkes-Chu shook her head again and moved onto door number
two. Again he urged her to be patient with his narrative expressions.
“Why?” She mouthed to him.
One minute, he signified to her with a raised finger and a squint.
He removed his ear and took a step back. He studied the hallway
again, up and down. She gave up and came over to him.
“He’s probably,” she said, but he cautioned her to keep her voice
low, “miles away by now. Why are we waiting around?”
“He’s behind one of these doors.”
He was obviously proud of his deductive skills, but still wore a
reasoning reflection.
447
She shook her head, “He’s gone.”
“A man with an artificial leg would never have been able to exit
through either one of those doors at the end of this hallway without us
seeing the door close. And now one of the men we need to question is
behind one of these three doors”
I set the steaming abuse aside and already the hot crotch was
turning cold. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could tell I was in a
very small pizza kitchen. I made my way towards the cracks of light in
front of me. There was a roll up shutter on the topside of a counter where
a cash register used to be. I rolled up the shutter and started to slide over
the counter when I looked up into all the faces trained on me in the busy
food court.
“Dude, you opening up? I could use a slice, man.”
“Does it look like we have any pizza?”
“Sorry, my bad. Y’ain’t no captain obvious, tho’.”
Baffled by the teen’s statement I jumped down and tried to leave
quickly without trying to display my desperation for flight. I was two
448
steps from the counter when I heard the door fly open in the kiosk that I
had just abandoned.
“Well we can’t call for back up again, can we? Not after the fiasco
with the traffic.”
“Negative. Pursuit is the only option. We’ve got to get through
these doors.”
“Without causing undue panic.”
“Understood.”
“That means no guns.” She stressed. Her eyes were trained on
Hargrave’s weapon with distinct displeasure.
“Fine.” He said, sulking.
“Which one should we…”
Hargrave pushed her aside gently, took a quick look at the puddle
coming from beneath door three, and kicked it open with one well-placed
boot.
449
I scrambled by the crowds to try to get a good look at the mall
map. I was desperate for orientation. I limped for the west exit as fast as I
could. It was less direct, but more well traveled.
I was trying to spot my ‘borrowed’ 1966 Dodge Dart that was still
in the process of being reconditioned. The body wasn’t quite smooth yet,
and it was covered in a dull gray primer.
I got to the car and, in panic, jiggled the door handle. Dali had
locked the driver’s side door, barring easy action. I didn’t have time to
fumble with keys. Looking in the car I thought for a second that I had
been duped by a manikin distraction. Dali had reclined the seat back 45
degrees and had completely swathed his head and face in a colorful
chenille scarf that I had never seen before.
I pounded on the window and he popped one bulging quizzical
eye through his swaddling. Convinced of my veracity, the seat spring
back into the upright position. He leaned over to open the door with what
I determined was an overdramatic slow gesture, considering my
adrenaline plight.
I was in and I put wood to the pedal. I didn’t see the Agents in the
rear view, but I did see a particularly well-dressed scruffy character jump
into a rather beat up late model.
450
The person had moved very quickly, so I didn’t want to alarm
Salvador if I had been mistaken. Then it hit me. It was the same guy that
we had seen nearly get knocked over earlier. I hadn’t seen his face earlier,
but now I recognized the fashionable, but wrinkled, black slacks and
charcoal gray turtleneck sweater.
“Where did he get to?”
“Could have gone any number of ways.”
“Shit!” Wilkes-Chu said stamping her foot in irritation.
“Must you be so coarse?”
She jammed her hands into her slacks pockets, “Sorry. I’m
frustrated”
“So am I. Do you think I want my last case to be a fruitless
shuffle?”
“So this is for sure your last case?”
He only shrugged with a disappointed sigh.
“You’ve always said that you have good cop instincts. What is
your gut telling you?”
451
“Indigestion.” He blanked. “Seriously? I’m really afloat on a sea
of apathy this time.”
He rubbed his face with his hands. She shifted her weight from
one foot to the other. He looked back up, took a deep breath and started
scanning up and down the streets with an awkward frown.
“You have no idea how hard it is for me to admit my failings. I
have had cases much more challenging than this, but…”
“Sure I do. No one likes to fail, but we all do it. You’re not
impervious. It’s what teaches us, and makes us stronger.”
“Naw. You don’t understand.”
“It is a tough case. We’ve got no motives, no real leads, and only a
vague idea what this whole thing is about.”
“That’s it! What is going on? That’s the tough part. Serial killers
don’t ‘team-up’ to become celebrity kidnappers.”
“It’s almost as if these suspects and hangers on are all teams in
some sort of scavenger hunt, or capture the flag or something.”
“You hit the nail on the head. They are pitted against each other,
and I’ll bet there is a huge prize or reward in it somewhere. I’m still not
convinced that Jenny is a captive in the least.”
Wilkes-Chu raised a disapproving eyebrow.
“And then we have these sketchy peripheral characters…how do
they fit in? Scruffy, ‘Stache, St. Morisivitch is tangled in this whole thing
somehow, and now Limpy…”
“Oh, that’s what I was trying to tell you before you rushed off.”
“Initiated pursuit of a key suspect and/or witness?”
452
“Yes. I believe that our handicapped friend is…”
She paused. She moved in closer and kept her voice low. He
instinctively took a precautious step back. She took another step closer
with a look of warning.
“Max Haniver.”
“Ms. Haniver’s brother? But he’s dead.”
“Body was never found.” She said, shaking her head. “Look
maybe we should…”
“It’s possible I suppose, but what…revenge! She knows he’s out to
kill her so she hires a serial killer for a bodyguard. For all we know Scruffy
is even worse than that.”
“Sorry Hargrave, I can’t think without some coffee.”
“You already had one.”
“If you’ll remember, you tossed that one aside.”
“Right. Sorry.” The apology came out awkwardly as he stumbled
over sorry. “But we can’t go back in there after that mess.”
“That’s okay, there’s another one kitty corner.”
She turned to walk towards the other outlet coffee house of the
same name. When she had turned her back he his into his pocket to
retrieve his bottle of pills. He palmed three and popped them into his
mouth where they went down with a well-practiced dry gulp.
453
Wilkes-Chu has come back from a very long trip to the washroom.
She has already returned the soup ladle that had the washroom key
attached and is making her way back to the table.
Hargrave looks very annoyed, but bites his tongue when she sits
down to stop himself from blurting out the question: what the hell took
you so long?
She drains the dregs of her half-caf fat-free soy mochaccino, clearly
deliberating something.
“I got a phone call.”
“When?”
“Before. I had my phone on vibrate, and it rang on my way to the
washroom. I…” She squinted, trying to get the words right.
“Well, what kind of a phone call?” He leaned forward in his seat.
He could sense the urgency in her hesitation.
“A case breaker.”
“Really?” Hargrave asked with his best skeptical fatherly
expression.
“We’ve got a source.”
“Hmm…”
“An inside source.”
454
“How inside?”
“Jenny Haniver.”
“What! We’ve go to call this in to the office right away. Wait; let
me get my pad out. Did you record the conversation?”
“No.” She said calmly.
“Why ever not?”
“Well, the way I see it, we have choices.”
“Choices? We’re going by the book. I’m not sure what you might
be implying, but I always go by the book.”
“And where has that gotten you so far?”
“It’s…my whole career.”
“Exactly.”
“Wait a second…how do you know it’s her. Maybe it’s some kind
of prank.”
“She called me on my cell phone.”
“So?”
“Well, when I was working on her trial we got to talking on day. I
gave her my cell phone number in case she needed someone to talk to, you
know, out of her clique.”
“You could have jeopardized the proceeding! Didn’t they brief
you about…”
“Well, I didn’t. It was just girl talk. I never hoped…” she stopped
suddenly, “imagined she would actually call me. It was just a gesture,
you know? She seemed really nice and everything, very cool, and she was
very upset at the time.”
455
“So someone calls your cell phone, tells you she’s Jenny Haniver
and then says what? I’m sorry for my abject disbelief, but it’s all a bit hard
to swallow.”
“Look, it was her, alright? She brought up certain things that only
the two of us could know. I asked her. I checked her out, okay?”
“What things? Specifics please. This is serious.” He got up from
the little table, pushed his blazer back and rested his hands on his hips.
“Sit down! Let’s be civilized.”
“Fine.” He turned the chair and straddled it back to front, resting
his arms the back. “Go on.”
“You know…stuff you talk about.”
“No, I don’t know. Was it pleasant weather chat? Or maybe
movie stuff from an obsessed fan to her idol?”
Wilkes-Chu looked as though a hand had slapped her face. She
was silently furious, rage bubbling just below the surface.
“You want to know?” Her voice was a shrill hiss through angry
clenched teeth. “I lent her a tampon and when she called she thanked me
again. Happy now?” He sat back in her chair and crossed her arms.
“But…” He was agape. “but, you were a cop…”
“And cops aren’t allowed periods?!”
She got up from the table and turned to leave. She stopped, took
one look back at Hargrave, who was getting up as well, and stomped her
foot in frustration.
“Men!”
456
“Wait. I realize that,” he said cutting the air with a disregarding
hand, “but that was contraband. You can’t pass the prisoner anything.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“You’re right. You didn’t…”
“I’m not stupid! Of course I didn’t pass her anything else. Her
period came early and she didn’t want to go out in front off all those
cameras with a bloody stain on the crotch of her prison issue gray
jumpsuit. It would have devastated her. It was just one woman helping
another woman, and now she wants my help again.”
“Okay look, I’m sorry.” He said, reaching out a consoling hand to
comfort her shoulder, but the shoulder jerked away before the action could
be completed. There was a red flag on the play for an incomplete gesture
of kindness.
“You’re correct. I don’t understand. I’ve never been a woman,
but…”
The both grinned.
“But you’ve always wondered what it would be like to wear a
garter and stockings?”
“No. I was going to say, ‘but I can imagine how mortifying it
would have been for her’. I don’t think I could have shown compassion
beyond duty. I regret that.”
She motioned for him to sit back down, but he shook his head then
nudged her towards the door.
“We’re better off with some privacy. Let’s sit in the car.”
They remained silent until the car doors slammed beside them.
457
“Now onto our choices.”
“Actually, I’d rather hear what she had to say first.”
“I’ll get to that. Choice one, we do things your way, by the book.
Call in for back up, write up the reports, let everyone take a slice of our
credit pie.”
“I’ll take that option.”
“Boring. Choice two, we take Jenny’s safety as goal number one,
share the credit pie between us, and top off your career so you can go into
a stellar career in politics. I’ll get promoted to something infinitely
meatier. We’ll become celebrities overnight, maybe even sell the movie
rights to our story.”
“Politics?” He wondered to out loud.
He folded his hands behind his head. His elbow smacked against
the window on the way up, but in his daydream he disassociated from the
pain. A thoughtful, dreamy look glazed his eyes like a Krispy Kreme
donut hot from the red light.
“The cameras are going to see the whole thing, or nearly. The
whole world will watch us capture an infamous serial killer, a suspected
terrorist, and save the life of a movie superstar. Everyone has been
watching this case in the news, millions have been climbing this mountain,
and we will be the summit.”
“Huh? First off, simplify. Secondly, what the hell do you mean
that we will be on camera?”
458
“One of the major news channels will be tipped off approximately
one hour before this whole thing goes down. Jenny’s already arranged
everything but the time.”
“So let me get this straight. She calls you, calls god knows who in
the media…with that much freedom why is she waiting to be released?
I’m telling you this still sounds like some sort of publicity stunt.”
“But you didn’t hear the fear in her voice on the phone.”
“She’s an actress. Lying is what she’s good at.” He gestured
grandly with his hands to get his point across.
“Well we have one way of proving it. Take a chance for once. Risk
something.”
“This is insane! Do you realize how dangerous this whole thing is,
even if she is telling the truth? We don’t know what Scruffy is capable of,
but we certainly do know what Mr. Bishop is.”
“We can call for back up at any time. We do surveillance on the
location, and as soon as we are ready to go in we call the office. Cameras
show up, we go in, and the blue boys show up to keep some sort of
containment. By the time they’re ready to rob the glory we come out with
cats and the canary.”
“It’s all so…I don’t know…glossy. Hollywood, and it sounds too
easy, almost tranquil.”
“Maybe it will be. As far as I know there are just Scruffy and
Charlie, and they won’t see it coming, so we have the element of surprise.”
“So when you say, ‘go in’, where is in?”
“Ahh, good! I’ve sold you on it.”
459
“Not yet.”
“Senator Hargrave.”
“But I am ready to keep an open mind.”
460
Chapter 27
“Where are we going?”
“Just drive for now, Max, please.”
“Okay. So you were her therapist…”
“Counselor.” He corrected.
“Well what did you think of my sister?”
“Some people are perfect despite, or perhaps because of, their
flaws. Jenny was flawed because of her apparent perfection, in the early
days at least.”
“Like a deal that is too good to be true?”
“Exactly. And so it was much easier for the public to turn on her,
every stumble was a secret smile behind a mask of pity. They always
suspected that she was capable of something horrible.”
“Like a quiet neighbor. And they were right.”
461
“There was an epidemic of broken ankles, so many people were
jumping off her bandwagon, when the trial hit the headlines.
“Are you defending her?”
“I…”
“Because, need I remind you, that she murdered me?”
“I disagree strongly. You sit beside me as proof of that fallacy. Le
faux mort.”
“Wrong. She killed Max Haniver. He no longer exists.”
I fumbled in my pocket for my wallet. I found the heavily creased
news clipping that I was searching for and held it out the evidence for Dali
to see.
“Here’s my obituary to prove it.”
“Where?”
“Right there, between Betty Halverson and Paul Junger.” I was
holding the paper up for him to see, and jabbing at my name.
“It’s only two small lines.”
“Well…” I was at a loss as to how to respond to his attempt to
impoverish my demise. “I was cut down before my prime. Most of my
relatives were already dead…regardless! I am not who I was. She has
crippled more than just my body, but also my ability to exist in the real
world. I am a ghost.”
“A phantom now, perhaps, but your self pity is your true fatality.
You are still young, and very soon you will be very rich. You will enjoy a
new identity, and a life that the chubby solitary teenager you once were
could only dream of. Money, they say, can’t by happiness, which I
462
strongly disagree with, but neither can poverty. Max Haniver is about to
be reborn.”
“Careful,” I said pointing to his crotch with a goofy grin, “your
optimism is showing.
He looked down with mock terror, but froze when his face came
back up.
“Wait! Don’t move a tendon.” His eyes pierced mine with a
frantic penetrating look of panic. He was flipping his sketchpad to any
available page.
“You look eye tentacle…” he stopped, searching for words.
Great, I thought, I’ve discovered a new Dali unintelligibility; I was
completely puzzled, and had no choice but to pursue questioning. He had
found a blank page, but was still searching frantically for a stub of charcoal
“Right now I look like the bundle of muscles that keeps an eyeball
from falling out?”
“Umm.”
“I didn’t get much sleep last night, but I’m sure I don’t look that
bad.”
“No, not eyeball tentacles. You look exactly like…” Again he
paused, still searching desperately for a scribble stick.
“Oh, identical! Identical to who, err, what?”
“No, you moved. The moment has passed. It has gone where
icebergs go when they melt, or flames go once they ware extinguished.”
“Sorry.”
463
“No matter. Now, I don’t know if I told you about my work with
Walt Disney.”
“You did, actually.”
“But what I didn’t tell you, and certainly didn’t tell the others
was…”
Dali paused, waiting to pounce with his juicy information. The
glimmer in his eyes was infectious. He had a way of working a person up.
Slavering for the climax I took the bait to spring his attack.
“Go on.”
“I completed the film!”
“But I though you’d said…”
“I did say, but it was only a morsel sized fib. You see, once Walt
realized the controversial nature of Destino, or my interpretation of it, we
quarreled. Years later we reconciled, but at the time…”
“So you finished the film? What about all the rumors of missing
animation cells, and the recent release of the film reconstituted by Disney
artists. What happened?”
“I became very friendly with many of the artists at the studio.
Once the original six minutes, and don’t let them tell you otherwise there
was an original six minutes, were completed the plugged was pulled. I
retained the work, leading to the rumors of stolen art, and shelved it for
many years. I always intended to complete it, but I never seemed to get
around to it…until the late sixties. The sixties were very uninhibited. I
know it was much before your time, but there it was a heady time of
recreational mind altering drug use.”
464
“I’d heard that somewhere.” I said with a barely concealed cheeky
grin.
‘Everything was alive with experimentation. A number of films at
the time were featured consciousness expansion, hallucinogenic images
and subjects. El Topo, Viva La Muerte, and then I saw Roland Topor’s
Fantastic Planet. Have you seen it?”
“With the little humans?” A vague memory of nightmares
suddenly flooded back.
“That’s correct.”
“Once as a kid, I think.”
“Well, once I had viewed it I remembered Destino. I was enjoying
a period of being en vogue again, and decided to resurrect my movie. I
poured my own money into the project, and worked with a half dozen
animators, most dead now, sadly.”
“So you finished it?”
“Yes. Short by today’s standards at 68 minutes…” He said with an
idle wave of his hand. “but from concentrate, you understand?”
“hmm…”
“Like a suitcase that you have to sit on to close. Some of the
images, and the images within the images would spring open hours, even
days after viewing my masterpiece.”
“No filler, all thriller.”
“Precisely!”
“So why wasn’t it ever released?”
465
“Ahh…” He said with a wistful grimace. “The process took so
long…I had no concept for these things. By the time it was completed, to
my complete satisfaction, the moment had passed. 1977 was the death, I
believe, of independent thought.”
“Really?” I blurted out, completely blown away. “That’s a bold
statement.
“Well, the mass appeal and acceptance of it. Star Wars thrust a
dagger into the heart of film as art for the most part, in North America at
least. Any celluloid artwork post Lucas was viewed as pretentious or
ignored completely by all but the dreamers. It was, I believe, an
opportunity to devolve the intellect. Profit over spirituality.”
I reminded him, “There are exceptions, of course.”
“Always.”
“It is a very interesting concept,” I said nodding my head.
“You are a dreamer.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Most people would have discarded the entire theory.”
I blushed I think at the compliment he was implying. I
immediately started to try to come up with exceptions, but another
thought smacked me.
“I had begun to thought they had run out of fresh ideas for movies
lately. They have been remaking so many 60’s and 70’s films lately, and
reworking old TV shows into features. It’s a retro world, now.
Prepackaged nostalgia…” now I started thinking aloud.
Dali grinned at my cranial gears.
466
“But like everything, even too much of a good thing has to get
boring.”
Thoughts started bombarding me. Ideas, theories.
“The timing is right. Now more than ever.” I said, nodding.
“The film, the artwork…it will be a true Dali renaissance, and I
will live forever on that energy.”
“It will be like a domino effect. Others will be inspired, people too
young to have lived through the …Dali experience.”
“It’s time. And this is what I look forward to. Not the gold, the
stock certificates, or property deeds…that is just a marinade.”
“Gold?”
“I didn’t mention that before? Yes in the late sixties, sometime
after my fiftieth birthday, I became very conscious of money. Gala, I
imagined, was robbing me blind. I had to protect myself, so I made some
contacts with associates and sealed a third smaller crate with valuables,
Destino, and a few small paintings and sketches.”
“That sounds purposely vague, and mysterious.”
“I designed it thus.”
“So was she?”
“Sorry?”
“Robbing you blind.”
“Yes. She gambled it, gave it to her actor lovers, God knows what
else, snorted some of it…” With far away eyes he sighed, “If only I could
have her back.”
467
I guess I’ll never understand the married mind, and if that was
love did I really want any
“Um, Salv…”
He pounced on my waffling voice, “Yes Max?”
“I’ve been meaning to mention this…”
“I know.”
“How do you know? Err…what do you know that I was about to
reveal?”
“Rick is following us.”
“How could you possibly know?”
“I saw him in the crosswalk. I reasoned that he must have
doubled back, got the car and trolled the immediate surroundings. You
looked startled when you checked your mirror, so if I’m not lukewarm
then two and two always makes up five. It’s the devils way now, there is
no way out.”
“Very good. Radiohead, Hail to the Thief, track one.”
“And I thought you have not been paying attention.”
“Okay, you can quit now.” I said, rolling my eyes with a dramatic
sigh that even my backstabbing sister, the actress would be proud of.”
“North East at the next set of lights. Head towards the bridge.”
“What direction is that? I don’t have a compass!”
He seemed frazzled by the question. He began fussing with the
map in a panic. His face was flustered and flushed.
“There’s no time for that.” I was almost at the intersection and the
pressure of the traffic was stressing me out. “Which way?”
468
“I don’t know…this way!”
He was gesturing with one of his hands, but with my eyes on the
traffic I couldn’t see which one.
“Which hand? Left or right?”
“This one.” He was struggling with a proper identification for one
of his limbs.
I went with my gut. I signaled right, and swiveled to do a quick
shoulder check, but as it glanced over Dali he was still gesturing tongue
tied with a look of eye boggling desperation.
He was wriggling his left arm.
I was already part way into the right hand lane.
I swung back around in my seat, shoulder checked left and
ploughed violently into across the lane, into the intersection on amber
narrowly avoiding a Vespa. My first instinct was to pull over while the
adrenaline buzz was still riveting my hands to the steering wheel but, as
Rick had not been reckless enough to follow us through the lights, I
decided to continue on. I was blocked by a red light at the next
intersection.
I glanced over at Dali with my pulse still death metal double kick
bass fast in my ears. Salvador was sheet white, perspiring, and one tendril
of his moustache was drooping limply. I turned my attention back to the
road just as the first spittle drops of rain kissed my windshield.
The lights changed and with all the traffic ahead of me, but I
barely made the amber again. Just as my ass end scooched past the
469
crosswalk a familiar car swung from the cross street on the blinking green
arrow.
He was now two cars back.
“Crap!”
Dali didn’t respond until his phone rang.
“Why didn’t we just go around the block? What was the mad
panic that we had to turn just then?”
“Not sure. I’ve got to take this.”
“Should I try to lose him?”
“You couldn’t even if you tried. No., it’s much more important to
him to keep his anonymity. We’ll just aid him in his fantasy…now if you’ll
excuse me.”
Ugh, how frustrating! I yanked angrily at the rearview mirror to
avoid any eye contact with Rick.
Dali removed his cell phone from his breast pocket. He released
the seat from the upright position, reclining it into the back seat. I think he
even wiggled farther into the corner. He talked in a hush, so much so that
the only words I could make up were ‘glass shrimp’, or something that
sounded like it.
I let the car crawl itself through the heavy traffic, while my brain
was busy trying to work out a way to get out of the whole situation. The
sun was just coming down, and I felt that it was coming together on our
little ‘team’ as well.
“Turn left at the next set of lights. Take your time.” He said with a
soothing encalmed tone.
470
“So was it good news? The non ‘me’ related portion.” I asked him
with a nod towards his phone.
“Interesting, but I am still weighing its value.”
“Look…” I said, my anger starting to bubble over the pot. “You’re
going to have to start including me on this stuff. You’re feeding me truth
through a straw…and I need to…” I was starting to spool up.
“A straw?”
“Look we’re partners, right, a team?”
“Yes.” Dali said with a hesitant head wobble.
“So I’m not just some sort of chauffer slash companion?”
“No.” He said vigorously shaking his head in protest. His hair
became unhinged and untidy.
“Well if we are going to continue our…friendship,” I said with a
shrug, signaling to make my left turn.
But Dali stopped me before I could finish. He began ranting
furiously in what I guessed was a mixture of Spanish, French, and very
stilted English.
“Look, I can see that I’ve said something to upset you,” I said with
a perplexed brow furrow, “but the only thing I understood out of that
whole tirade was something about ‘old tomatoes’.
“Oltimato!”
“No, sorry.” I still couldn’t make out what he was so mad about.
“Ul-tee-may-tum?” He said slowly and deliberately pronouncing
each syllable. “Gala gave Dali ultimatum, many times, but Dali no like
being forced to choose.
471
“Sorry, not an ultimatum. I simply want to know where I stand. I
think we have become friends; I just don’t want to find out that I’ve
misunderstood the situation.”
This seemed to diffuse the situation. I knew that he still had sour
feelings when it came to his former wife, but didn’t realize they were still
as raw as the sudden rage illustrated.
He smoothed his hair down, trying to compose himself. He
ruffled his clothes as though his anger were cookie crumbs he was trying
to shed.
“You are absolutely correct, and I regret the fact that I have been
forced to keep certain information from you. However, I do intend to
rectify that very shortly, when we are in a less…” he paused, and his voice
lowered to a whisper, “survielled locale.”
So he suspected that the car might be bugged? That thought
hadn’t even crossed my mind. I don’t think I had any idea of the scope of
the operation I was involved in.
His phone rang again. He picked up quickly and started to talk,
but it was mostly small talk, until…
Then Salvador started to giggle.
“Max has tousled, tightly curled dark brown hair. In school the
kids used to call him shaggy, I think he said. He has soft hazel eyes that
twinkled with glimmering specks of purple, but they betrayed wisdom
beyond their years. His face is youthful, and eager, even for his 25 years.
His nose is small, but not freakish and his mouth is always ready for a
bright honest smile, as rare as the occasions have presented themselves
472
lately. His jaw line is square, but in all he had the features of someone
creative, open minded and honest, with only the hint of darkness lurking
just below the surface.”
“Who are you talking to?” I asked in an annoyed whisper, hoping
he could read my lips in the rear view mirror.
“Yes, he is. A bit shy, though. Oui. Non…non. But, I know you
two will coalesce. You are severed spirits. I am convinced. Goodbye,
then. See you shortly.”
Dali finished his call and pulled the seat control lever. He sprang
back up like a demented jack in the box.
“Who was that?”
“Someone.”
“I know that, but who?”
“You don’t know her…yet.”
“But you were describing me.”
“Yes, I was. Subject closed.” He said with an aloof smile.
Dali made me stop two blocks from the bridge in a nearly deserted
and greatly aged warehouse district. The shadows were already long and
night would be on our backs shortly. I started to worry about vampires,
real or imagined. Each dark corner writhed with the forgotten inhabitants
of the neverwhere. Rick pulled into an alley a block or so behind us, and I
could feel the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. I could feel his
eyes blasting me from behind an overturned shopping cart that he had
scrambled behind. The corners of my eyes were clocking in for overtime.
473
Dali got out of the car and unfolded the map onto the hood of the
car. He kept his face down, his chin buried in his collars. When he spoke
the words were muffled, filtered through multiple layers of linen and
wool. However, I didn’t have any more difficulty understanding him than
I usually did.
“We are going to lead him to believe that this is the location of the
cache.”
“So it’s not, then.”
“Negative. Let’s be dramatic about our excitement once we
illustrate our discovery.”
“Okay, but we shouldn’t ham it up too much.”
“Pork would be bad at this point…” he paused for a moment of
introspection and then added, “or at any time, actually.”
The pantomime began. First we checked out the addresses around
us, and then consulted the map again. Dali even withdrew a sketchpad
from the folds of his jacket and studied a drawing briefly. He crumpled
the map up and tossed it into the open window of the car. We shook
hands, using our left hands, of course. We congratulated each other and I
think Dali even clapped his gloved hands together at least once
We walked towards a dilapidated three-story warehouse, kicking
old washed out invoices and fast food wrappers aside as we went. I
grinned at Dali and almost a grave error. In my spurious joyful mood I
motioned to slap Salvador on the back, and only his concerned glance of
panic stopped me from planting my claw into his shoulder blade. I gave
474
him a hangdog shrug of apology, but I don’t think I ever heard him exhale
from his split second gasp.
The door to the shipping office of the storage and shipping facility
was open, so we went inside.
As soon as the door creaked closed behind us I could imagine old
Mad magazine spy versus spy pitter-patter of scruffy footsteps on the
move.
“There is someone I very much find it important that you meet.”
He said with a sly wink.
My hackles were still up, so I didn’t question him about the
mystery person, nor did I take the time to decipher his intentions.
We were in a very sparse and equally rundown lobby. A sign on
the wall pointed to city call, but Dali didn’t stop to examine things. He
stormed off in the direction of an old freight elevator. He motioned
mechanically for me to open the gate to gain entry. He seemed to want to
keep his gloves shocking white.
“You’ve been here before.” I said, opening the elevator door.
“Thrice at the most.”
“Thrice times?” I attempted to question his grammar for the
umpteenth time.
“Yes.”
“So this was no random occurrence to try to get Rick off our
backs.”
“Random? I don’t believe it exists. Our subconscious would not
allow such a heresy.”
475
It took me a moment of experimentation to get the lift working,
but eventually it jerked into action. Dali told me to aim for the top, as if I
were controlling some sort of guided missile.
The elevator moved so incredibly slowly I couldn’t tell if we were
going up or down for a moment. When we got to the top the noisy
contraption stopped wheezing and I slid the gate open. We were in
another shabby little vestibule. A single flickering wall sconce illuminated
an old telephone table and a worn through rug. Staring at us, directly
across from the mouth of the elevator was a very imposing heavy oak door
with multiple padlocks and deadbolts. Someone was very determined to
keep people out, or in I suppose since the locks were on this outside. Very
strange.
“Now what?”
“You’ll see.” Dali walked up to the door and peered into the
fisheye. He tapped three times on the ceiling with the tip of his cane and
stomped twice on the floor.
“Even if someone is in there…” I protested, “they’re not opening
this door for us. The locks are on this side.”
“I concur.” He said with a smug grin.
I lent my ear to the wall and thought I could hear the muffled
shuffling of footsteps, soft at first, but quickly gaining volume. I was
startled when on of the wall panels behind me swung inwards and a
blood-spattered arm beckoned. Vampires, now I was convinced.
“You are late.” A voice purred from the depths of shadows.
“I don’t wear a watch. They always seem to melt on me.”
476
Dali swaggered into the dark orifice.
“Wait a second!”
I reached out to hold Dali back from the creature. He dodged my
pleading claw, but I was caught by the bloody hand and pulled inside.
Caught off balance by my own momentum I was inside quickly almost ass
over teakettle. I was inside quickly and plunged in darkness as the door
panel slammed behind me before I could mount a cohesive defense.
“I don’t want to give away my little secret entrance, do I?” Her
voice was hot breath on my neck. Her words were threatening, but her
tone was mysterious and playful. “Loitering is strictly prohibited.”
The alcove was unlit, but I could see the shadows of Dali and the
woman walking away into the brightness of a well-lit room far off.
I caught up to them in the glare of the sunset. They were greeting
each other in low voices. The sunlight negated my foolish impression of
vampires, but I was still concerned about the blood on her milky white
arm.
We were in a large open loft. It was one large unfinished open
space, of maybe 10, 000 square feet, with high ceilings and windows on
three sides.
Paintings in every imaginable stage of completion were
everywhere, from envelope-sized watercolors to multi piece murals. Some
were on easels while most were leaned up against something. Either
propped up against a chair or a support beam, or perched in a window.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” She asked Dali as they turned
to face me
477
I had to squint in against the bright sunlight to make out any
features. Both were enveloped like angels in halos of multicolored sunset
rays. One step forward and a support beam blocked the sun from my
eyes. When she came into focus I was more blinded by the brilliance of her
perfection than the sun.
She was very pretty, which I always found more appealing than
the cookie cutter look of say a super model. She had black hair with a
Chelsea bang, made popular by Bettie Page, I believe, but the rest of her
hair was a twisted mess of shoulder length spirals. She had big brown
eyes and a cute, but mischievous smile. She wore a simple black knee
length dress that was covered up by a plain white chefs apron. The apron
was splattered and splashed with more of the gory crimson paint that I
had seen on her hands. She brandished a large paintbrush in her fist like a
large butcher knife.
“Anisette Pinon…”
“Meet…”
“Um, Max, just Max is fine.” I said with what I imagined was a
bemused grin.
“Infinite pleasure to meet you, Max.” She held out her right hand
gracefully.
“Umm…” I squirmed awkwardly offering my left hand in
substitution for my claw.
“That thing doesn’t scare me.” She said unwaveringly holding her
right hand out.
478
I swallowed and offered the claw. I didn’t attempt to grip her,
unsure in my nervous state at the strength I might exert.
Then my mouth sprinted past my brain. “That’s an exotic
sounding name.” I blurted out, but quickly attempted to apologized,
“Sorry, I didn’t…”
“No, that’s okay.” She added with a girly giggle.
“You have a fantastic accent.”
“Do I? Most people can’t even detect one, but it is true. I was born
in Rouen, which is in France, but moved to America many years ago when
I was 12. My mother is a singer in Paris, my father is a gypsy, or Roma, as
we like to call ourselves.”
“Really?”
“So Max. Is that Jewish?”
“Far from it, actually.” I looked over at Dali to see how candid I
was able to be with Anisette. He encouraged me, I think, with a double
wink. “In fact it’s short for Maxim…”
“A general truth in science.” She said, curious. “While I was
named for my dark licorice colored hair. Please go on.”
“Yeah, my parents were scientists and like almost militant
atheists.”
“Militant atheists?”
“Well, not really combative, but yeah they were very vocal about
their beliefs. They were not only atheists but, paradoxically, also antiDarwinist intelligent design advocates.”
479
“How can someone not believe in a higher power, a god, but
believe that a higher power designed everything?”
I was surprised at her knowledge base. I had never met anyone
who was able to discuss philosophy, other than Dali, although admittedly
I knew very few people.
“I don’t know, they just were. Maybe I should get you a copy of
their book. I haven’t read it personally, but…”
“Were? They’re not born again, are they?”
“No. They are dead.”
“Oh. That is too bad.”
I thought it was a strange reply, not rude or bad, just unusual.
Most people, when they found out my parents were dead, said they were
sorry. I could never understand why they would be sorry for something
that they had no direct cause in.
There was a moment of awkward silence before she asked, “Can I
offer you a drink, Max? Coffee, juice, Ouzo, Pernod?”
I had no idea what Pernod was, and I wasn’t thirsty at all but I still
mumbled, “ Um, water is fine, thanks.”
“My, you are so polite,” she smiled, coyly tilting her head and
batting her eyelashes. “Doctor Jacinto?”
“The green fairy?”
“You finished off my absinthe last time you were here. Pernod
then?”
Skeptically he asked, “How is the louche?”
“The louche is lovely from this bottle.”
480
“Yes that sounds alluring.”
“Be right back. Why don’t you show Max around, Doctor?”
“Aha.” Dali said with a nod, and a slight bow.
I was dying to hear about this new Doctor Jacinto wrinkle.
Finally, when the ever so lovely Anisette had retreated to what
had passed for a kitchen, I leaned in and whispered to Dali, “How much
does she know?”
“She is very well educated,” he assured me.
The clock was ticking. She was already opening a cupboard for
glasses.
“I mean about us, you know, the artwork, the crates…”
Waving his hands like a magician he whispered, “Nothing.”
“What about me?”
“What about you?”
The water was now in the glass and she was reaching into a
different cupboard for Dali’s alcohol, I presumed.
“How much does she know about me? Does she know who I
am?”
“No.” Dali was being uncharacteristically quiet.
“What did you tell her?”
“She is very used to my secretivity. I only mentioned that you
were a friend of mine, and new to the city.”
I nodded. It seemed reasonable enough, and yet vague enough to
give me open license to build my new personal mythology. Very
important, Dali often preached, if I were to become a new person.
481
“So who is doctor Jacinto?”
“One of my alter egos.”
“So you aren’t a real doctor? I thought you told me that both Rick
and Jenny were once your patients?”
“Oh, no. I am most certainly a doctor. I am more than fully
qualified. I was a lifelong Freudian, and even met the man shortly before
his death. I wish I could say that he was enamored with me, but there are
enough words written to the contrary, so I won’t exaggerate. Recently I
became very interested in Jungian and Eastern philosophies.”
It seemed like Anisette was either taking her time to allow Dali
and I a chance to chat, or some of the preparations for one of the drinks
wasn’t as straight forward as pouring it into a glass.
“Especially Egyptian.” I remembered with a shudder the incident
in his basement studio.
“That was Galas influence. In fact one of her tarot cards, from a
very expensive set I had purchased for her as a gift, enabled me to eschew
death.”
This reminded me that, “You never did tell me that story.”
“It was a very rare deck,” he continued, reminiscing. “It was a
hand painted set, many hundreds of years old, in Arabian, based on a very
important original Egyptian deck that contained the missing three cards.”
“And how did a deck of cards save you from death?”
“When I perished I had the very same experience that most report.
I found myself moving through a tunnel towards a very bright light. Gala
was there, standing next to an Ibis…”
482
“What’s an Ibis?”
“A bird, although I believe this was just a symbol for Thoth…”
“The Egyptian god of knowledge and geometry.”
“Very good, Max! He was holding an emerald tablet. I was so
pleased to see my Galarina. I wept with passionate joy as I moved towards
her. She slapped me very hard…”
“That’s cruel.”
“Not at all. I could see the love in her eyes. All of her bitterness
and anger had left her. She sent me back, telling me I had more to
accomplish.”
“When I regained consciousness, from what I imagined was
nothing more than the death bed hallucination of a very sick old man, I
noticed something in the folds of my bed sheets. It was one of her tarot
cards, from that special deck. The hierophant. Impossible! I hadn’t seen
that deck for many years, certainly not since her death. On the back of the
card, in Galas hand, was the word Benu, which is Egyptian for phoenix
and a page number.”
“With the help of Arturo I located the particular tome that
contained a specific ceremony. That ceremony which you witnessed, and
inadvertently became a part of.” He paused, noting that Anisette was
making her way over. “I’m not sure that the ceremony was the solution
entirely, but it helped focus my intense fear of death into a practical cure
for the disease that is death and old age. In case there was any doubt
about my near death experience, I had a bruised handprint on my face for
483
days afterwards. Molecules, DNA, glands, cells, these are in place in each
person. They just need to be stimulated into…”
“Here are your drinks. Won’t you please sit down?”
Trying nervously not to make eye contact I said, “Thank you.”
Dali bowed and said something in Spanish or French. I could
never separate the two languages when they had been uttered with his
confusing tongue.
“So what were you two discussing?” She asked, sipping at a cup
of very strong smelling tea.
“Reincarnation and immortality.” Dali admitted.
“Oh, very interesting. I was once hypnotized for past life
regression, did you know that?”
He had placed a sugar cube onto a strange looking spoon that was
precariously balanced on the lip of his glass. He poured water of the cube
slowly.
“That is a lovely louche,” he observed.
I wanted to listen to Anisettes story, but had to go. “Can you
continue that when I get back?” I asked. “I really need to use your
washroom.”
“Of course.” She pointed in the direction of a very colorful fish
watercolor, “It’s that way, but mind your head.”
By the time I got back from the washroom, they were gone. A note
on the table stated that they had an appointment, and that they were late. I
could help myself to anything in the fridge. It also pointed out that I was
staying the night there, and that the bedroom, Anisettes I presumed, was
484
off limits, but that there were some hammocks set up in the south end of
the loft.
I hadn’t been gone, even allowing for the detour through the
confusing maze of paintings, more than 6 or 7 minutes. Dali hadn’t even
touched his drink. Curious, I thought I would take a sip.
485
Chapter 28
Rick was alone in the car with his best friend: his laptop. He had
downloaded a new theme for his desktop that looked like ice, or frosted
bluish glass. The effect of light reflection on the icons and toolbar were
quite impressive. The car was quiet, except for the incessant clicks of his
track pad, and his blazing keystrokes.
In one window he was running some sort of scanning software
with graphs, in another he was monitoring an Above Top Secret
conversation about cattle mutilations in Texas, and how they might pertain
to government black ops. He quickly closed the scanning software,
minimized a browser window that was hiding beneath it and maximized a
new window. The new display was a detailed street map of the city. He
clicked on an icon that looked like a magnifying glass and zoomed in on a
red dot. After zooming twice the red dot separated into a series of red
486
flashing dots. Each dot had a little title hovering above it. He zoomed in
closer and the names of people became apparent over each moving avatar.
Once was is convinced of Jenny’s location he minimized the
window, but restored it quickly when he realized that Charlie is on the
move back to the car. He clicked on his semitransparent blue x and closed
the window, then restored his browser.
He pulled up one of the biggest online auction sites and logged in
with very careful and deliberate keystrokes. Welcome BellarusAndi, the
screen flashed. He clicked on military surplus. He bid on three items, all
of which involve satellite equipment, and all the assets of a small
independent radio station in Venezuela. Price tag on all three auctions was
pushing $500,000.00 Just before closing off he ran the tracking software
again and realized Charlie was about a block away. He logged back onto
the auction site again as Freemantle83. He quickly bid on the components
to assemble a ballistic missile in your backyard, minus the warhead, from a
bloke in Australia.
The closing on all the auctions was between five and seven days.
He closed all windows except the chat room. He left the room he
was in and logged out. He clicks on an ISP scrambler icon on his desktop,
then logged back into the site as CatsPotato. He entered a private room
labeled as Gymkhana. It said that this room was dedicated to the
discussion of RPG’s, or role playing games. This room required two
passwords, one that was primarily letters, and a second that was a long
string of numbers.
There was only one other person logged into this room.
487
AmbroseSlade.
Rick, or rather CatsPotato, bragged about auction bids that are
very ‘interesting’ and ‘furtive’. Due to the wording it was obvious that
they both knew each other, possibly aside from the online chat room, and
that they are speaking in some sort of code. They throw around words like
‘gentrification’, ‘kerf’, ‘naval orange’ and ‘happenstance’, but all of them
horribly out of place. For example AmbroseSlade typed, in a stylized
knock off Carolingian font, the following:
“I wish to donate my adoring paternal reflex to the moons grief.”
To which CatsPotato replied:
“Your lavish hospitality nicks my sarcastic priestess.”
All very ornate, but cryptic.
Only one clue revealed anything. The final post left by CatsPotato
before logging off was a reply to a question from AmbroseSlade.
“Tithes owing me obscure rotting ripples of wrath.”
Unlike the rest of the friendly, if obscure and perplexing, chatter,
this clearly says something if only the first letters of each word were used
to form a single word.
Tomorrow.
488
In an exiting roar, Rick whispered, “I’ve managed to track down
the address for the warehouse where the paintings are!”
“And the gold.” Jenny reminded him.
“Nearly forgot about that.” He snickered, feigning memory lapse.
Rolling her eyes, Jenny smirked, “That didn’t take too long.”
“We’ve had that discussion, and it’s at least half your fault.”
She gasped at the horror of the blame shifting before her, “Don’t
forget about Charlie’s part.”
“Either way, love, my hands are clean and hard working. Now do
you want to know, or what?”
”Shouldn’t we wait for Charlie before you tell us?”
“No chance. The sooner he finds out, the sooner he and his buddy
slit our nanny goats and leg it with our sugar and honey.”
“Right.” She was shaking her head and befuddled by his unique
use of language. She did get the gist, although the actual word for word
translation was once again lost on her. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Maybe you’re just too good natured to believe the geezer would
rook us with his mate.”
His sarcasm was the third person in the room. Her only come
back was a jagged dagger glare.
They were waiting in a dingy two-bedroom apartment above a
vacuum cleaner/sewing machine store. The rundown abode was,
according to Charlie, the home of a old army buddy.
489
“Yeah, so I did a record search on our Edward James, Dali, Gala,
everything…renting warehouses, leases, the works.”
“Well not under her name, surely.” Jenny was placing a protective
shield of toilet paper on the arm of the couch. Even with the barrier she
was still loath to rest her well-insured rear, but she did despite her
hovering displeasure.
“Gotta check tho’, right. So I found it, right, under a James
Edwards. It’s a 100-year lease, originally taken out May 9, 1942. You
wouldn’t believe how many decrepit databases I had to crawl through to
find this. The city, public libraries…” He shook his head in disgust, “but
there’s a catch.”
“What kind of catch?”
“Problem is that when I did a search at the address it came up as
being converted to condos and retail a few years ago, so I’m not cocksure it
hasn’t been carted off already.
“But the lease is still valid?”
“As far as I can tell.”
“We’ll just have to go down there first thing tomorrow and find
out. Baby needs her glitter.”
“Well maybe we should do a bit more research, eh? This is a big
city and I’ve still got some feelers…”
“No! First thing. Salvador is still out there somewhere, and the
law…”
“True enough.”
“So what’s the address?”
490
“It’s…ahh, nice! Very smooth.”
“No, really. You can trust me. We’re in this together, you and I.”
“Pull the other one. No, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until we get
there; it’s my only insurance…wait, scratch that. I’ve still got…”
Just then the door flew open.
“Charlie!” Jenny purred.
“My ears aren’t burning, are they?”
“Fucking rights.” Rick muttered with a bold sneer, but backed off
when he realized that he was out numbered.
An old man followed Charlie through the door. In his prime he
would have been impressive, and probably threatening. He still stood well
over six feet tall, but now he was hunched over and heavy. He wore thick
glasses, but one lens was blacked out. He looked to be Charlie’s senior, no
pun intended, by 10 years, but he was actually a year younger. More
credit to Charlie’s daily exercise regime, healthy diet and penchant for
fresh air.
They were carrying a heavy old world war two, by the looks of it,
duffle bag between them and the new geezer was huffing just this side of a
heart attack. Charlie seemed no worse for wear other than a single bead of
sweat on one gray temple.
“Pay him no notice, Charlie. He’s kidding of course. We’ve
actually got good news!”
“Good news? Well make that two scoops…but you go first.”
Charlie lowered his end of the heavy burden carefully. His friend
was not as deft.
491
“Careful!” Charlie warned the newcomer as the bag landed with a
lumpy thump.
“Rick has located the warehouse! Isn’t that great?”
“Certainly is. So where is it?”
“Ah well, you see, I haven’t got the precise address yet,” he said
blasting Jenny with an evil eye, “but I have narrowed it down. I am very
confident that by the time we meet up tomorrow I should have the exact,
that is to say the explicit, location sussed out.”
“Not telling, huh?” Charlie surmised.
“No.” Rick said. He folded his arms and braced for a head on,
gloves off.
“S’okay. No harm, no foul.”
“Are you going to introduce us, Charlie?” His friend asked.
He had removed his glasses and was cleaning the one good lens
with the corner of his well-worn and stained army propaganda t-shirt from
the 70’s. You could see that the cause of his one eye blindness had been
some sort of very nasty trauma to his left eye socket, which not only
removed his eye, but also left a number of very marked scars around that
side of his face. The eye socket was hollowed and the wrinkled skin
puckered around the old wound.
Jenny stared unabashedly at the man’s unfortunate mar. He
looked up quickly as he put the glasses back on. Rick averted his eyes, but
Jenny refused to even blink.
“Mortar shell, ‘fore you ask…and I was the lucky one.” He
remarked coldly.
492
“Jenny, Rick this is …”
“My friends call me Jimmy, but you can call me James.”
Only Rick attempted, half heartedly, to shake hands, but when no
one else seemed keen, he crammed his hands back into his very stylish, but
wrinkled, slacks pocket.
“Nice to meet you, James.” Jenny stuttered, turning her attention
to a compact for a powder touch up.
“Ugh.” He grunted with a nod.
“So what’s your good new, Charlie?” Rick said with a murmuring
challenge of ‘top this’.
“Well…” Charlie said, crouching down on old popping knees. He
unzipped the duffle. “We now have guns.”
Her mouth curled into an ugly sneer, “There is no way I’m staying
here tonight!” She said, lifting an old stinky shirt from a permanently
reclined chair, whose footrest was propped up on a plastic milk crate. “I
had a hard enough time roughing it in the Super 8 Motel a few nights
ago!”
493
“You’re balmy if you think I’m kipping down here. No chance. I
might not have Jenny’s tidy flash, but I’d still sooner splash out for
something.”
Charlie had just dropped the bombshell about shelter, and the first
load of Jenny’s luggage from the car. Check items 3 and 4 from his mental
list.
“Oh, I think you are.”
Instantly there was an unbroken stare of tension building between
Charlie and Rick. Charlie seemed resolute, while Rick squinted with a
semblance of planning.
Jenny winced, “Careful with those, but the other ones are even
more delicate.”
“There’s more? For Christ’s sake, these are heavier than all the
guns were!” Jimmy huffed, hands on knees.
“I’ll get ‘em.” Charlie said, without blinking. “I can see you’re
struggling. I think I can get the rest in three trips.”
Mopping his brow with a very discolored rag, Jimmy wheezed.
“Are you trying to move Bulgaria brick by brick.”
Jenny giggled. “A girl needs her things.”
“Look mate,” Rick started to bargain, “At least let Jenny stay at a
hotel, or somewhere’s. This isn’t the place for a celebrity. Besides there’s
only one bed in this place…”
“The chesterfield folds out into…” Charlie stopped, blinking as
though he’d awoken from hypnosis. “Maybe you’re right. A pretty lass
like Jenny, this ain’t no place for her.”
494
“That’s so kind of you two!” Jenny said all pansies and butterflies.
“I’m not taking these bags back down, no how.” Jimmy
complained.
Turning to grab her purse, Jenny bit at her lip to fight back a
glowing smile. By the time she turned back to them, purse in hand, her
face had transformed into an unpleasant grimace.
“So you thought it would be that easy, did you? I may be a
natural blonde, but that doesn’t make me gullible. No. Back to plan A.
We all sleep here, all nice and cozy. You need me more than I need any of
you, or didn’t you learn that last week when you left me ‘by accident’ at
that…that…what do you call it? Smorga, something or other.”
“Buffet?”
She waved her hand in dismissal. “Can you imagine how easy it
would be to bring the authorities in here? They already think that I’ve
been kidnapped by you, and held against my will.”
“Why don’t we just kill her?” Jimmy asked.
Both Rick and Charlie were startled at the sheer frankness of the
statement, but both for different reasons, it seemed. Jenny looked on with
an evil challenging sneer, pushing up her sleeves in preparation for an
attack, or as a show of fearlessness.
“You can’t…” Rick sputtered, raising hands to her defense.
“He’s kidding!” Charlie laughed uneasily. “You are kidding
right?” He asked Jimmy with a heavy elbow to the ribs.
“Of course, of course.”
495
“He didn’t tell you, did he Jimmy?” Jenny spread an evil smile,
“I’ve got the final piece of the puzzle right up here.” She said, dabbing at
her temple with a nicely manicured digit. She threw herself into her new
demented role. “Without me, you’re screwed, all of you. It could take you
months of trial and error to find the right bin location in that warehouse.”
“Ah ha!” Rick pointed. “So he gave you a bin number!”
“Well a location number of some kind…but you’ll never get to the
gold without me.”
“Gold?” Jimmy asked.
“I’ll tell you about it later.” Charlie dismissed.
“Oh, no. We’ve already agreed on his cut.” Rick warned, pointing
at Charlie. “There is no room for negotiation unless it is coming out of
your portion
“Regardless.” Jenny snickered, her eyes swirling with madness.
“This is were we spend the night. Together.”
She crept into the bathroom with her purse around 7 o’clock.
Before she lowered her voice to inaudible volume, other than the
occasional girlish giggle, she said, “Hi Nadia, it’s Jenny.”
Three ears pressed against the door were unable to make out much
more than that.
496
She got up early, much earlier than the others. She wanted to use
the shower, and be prepared before anyone else awoke. It didn’t take a
team to make her look glamorous, but a couple of hours in the bathroom
could work wonders.
She wrapped herself in a robe and got up from the bed
chesterfield, her hair a snarl of birds nests. She grabbed her purse and
took a couple of steps towards the lone washroom in the grimy apartment,
but stopped. Today was going to be a big day, and she would need all the
guidance she could get. She reached into her overnight bag, not the small
one by the door, the bigger one beside her other suitcases. She retrieved a
small plastic container and cooed.
Closing the bathroom door behind her, she quickly realized that it
was going to take a lot of elbow grease to clean the room to her satisfaction
before she could even remove her slippers.
She worked quickly, with a pair of yellow rubber gloves she found
balled up behind some dirty magazines, 3 issues of Girls with Guns from
the 1980’s, in the cupboard beneath the sink. She scrubbed and cleaned
everything until it was acceptable and then had a quick shower. 35
minutes, and she only turned off the taps when all the hot water was
completely drained. Quick in her estimation.
She put on a pair of satin pajamas and started to work on her face.
Jenny was a pretty girl even without makeup, but with the addition of
lipstick, etc., she became stunning. Even magazine were surprised by the
497
limited use of airbrushing that was required when she graced one of their
covers. She decided to put her hair in two cute pigtails. It would be
practical, she decided. Her blond roots were only just starting to show
from beneath her glossy flaxen locks.
She stood back, posing in the mirror as she normally did, and
noticed the plastic container on the counter top.
It was time to seek guidance.
Preparing her leaves, Jenny started to reminisce about the first
time she met with the Teacher outside the confines of the basement the
served as the church. When the seed had been planted to kill her brother.
She sat waiting for the chemicals to alter her brain chemistry to
enable her to inhabit the other vibrational plane. She sat in a darkened
room concealed under a staircase in the last house she still owned. She
was contorted in a painful posture, the Yong Tlang position. Her forehead
pressed to the wall in the sacred way of seven that she had learned from
the other initiates
As the room melted away she found herself afloat in a very large
crate on an agitated sea. The darkened sky was as violent as the sea, and
nearly imperceptible on the horizon. Paper fish fled and flew amongst the
churning current, their soggy fins drooping against the wind. Naram-Sin
unfolded from the ocean like a gigantic origami aquatic giraffe, a Kraken
induced vision.
“The Outworld others are self reflected. Seeing others as Self, the
soul seeks to make amends. Balanced again the Fool descends. New
thoughts become wrought deeds.”
498
Even though she was a bright woman Jenny could not always
comprehend the words of the master, try as she might. She knew better
than to question his words too much, because as he instructed her many
times, sometimes the words weren’t as important as the paintings they
created in the mind. The meaning would come when viewed as a whole
when complete. On this occasion, however, she needed more clarification,
and felt that he wanted her to ask. Perhaps it was something in his body
language. As he took on a more acceptable form the vision of the paper
giraffe faded and they found themselves on a calm newspaper seaside.
“I don’t understand teacher, I know the Fool is a alchemical
parable for the initiated, but what thoughts must become deeds?”
“All below is image, and names perish. The Virgin in the Fool’s
eye does not perish. The Virgin Waters generate their own light. Without
separation, there is no illumination..” He focused his energy into burning
a mandala in the pulp paper hillside. Three circles overlapping, but each
separate and somehow obscured by images of tiny birds, or squiggles.
“To become the virgin, to generate my own light I must separate.”
She thought about this for a moment before continuing. “To regain my
face, and my vision…To become what I should be, to evolve, I must
separate from what I was.”
“You are learning, but the way of the door is still the handle. The
event that has caused all this pain within you is the death of your parents.
The only thing that reminds you of that is your brother. You must sever
the tether in order to soar. I quote one of my own openers of the way, ‘the
weapon which tears apart, rob the senses. The tooth skinned them off.
499
Tearing apart he stretched upon the land. The canals he filled with blood
in the Enemyland for dogs like milk to lick’.”
“Kill him?”
The guru didn’t answer did not answer this question. Instead he
turned his attention to a small crab in the form of back-to-back capital E’s
and an ‘A’ that had torn itself from the print down by the beach.
“If I kill my brother I will shrug off the heavy coat of my pain. I
shall cast aside the baggage…but kill?”
“Death is ever lasting life. Without relieving his burden of life you
will be delaying his ascent to the higher levels. Do you seek to punish
him? Are you still that human?”
“No teacher your words are wisdom without you even thinking
them. I love my brother, and he deserves to ascend to the greater path of
Illuminated Perception. I have been selfish to wait as long as I have…but
what shall become of me? Surely the uninitiated will punish me in their
ignorance?”
“They punish the guilty, and elevate the victim. Become the
victim to become the virgin, to become the Fool.”
“I will find a way. I am not worthy of your enlightenment
master.”
“To show you my faith in you I will confide in you my most secret
name, the name only the chosen are permitted to know. My old name
from before time began was Naram-Sin, when the Gods walked the earth.”
He held a book up to her face. The pages blew by too fast to read,
but somehow she was able to consume the contents rote.
500
“It is such an honor. Just the very transference of the knowledge
of your name is enough to allow me to ascend to the next level of spiritual
purity and divine virtue.”
“All are worthy, but not all are prepared.”
“Thank you Naram-Sim teacher of the way. Zelator of the August
Plane of Ascension. Magus of the…” Before she could finish he was gone
and she returned to find herself back in her room filled with the
overwhelming odor of sandalwood incense, although she had burned
none.
She sat down on the edge of her bed. Her room was dark and
flickering. The walls were, in the daytime, a warm aged yellow. At night
however they took on the sinister tone of mottled decay. She was
determined to formulate a plan to shed herself of the past, without
screwing herself.
She lay down and watched the flickering shadows battling with
the weakening glow of the single candle. The darkness took the room over
with an icy breeze just as the idea came to her. She listened to silence,
searching for something amongst the shadows.
Someone pounding on the bathroom door jolted her out of her
daydream just as the dried leaf touched her lip.
“Hurry up in there, would you?”
“Why are you so polite, Charlie? If she’s not out of there in two
minutes I’m going to smash the fucking door in.” James said, dancing to
retain the contents of his bladder.
501
“You’re going to smash in your own bathroom door?” Rick asked
from under a tattered afghan.
“Fucking rights!”
“Maybe she’s dead?” Rick wondered.
“She’s not dead.”
“Overdosed then? You’ve been pounding on that door for almost
fifteen fucking minutes already, she should have answered by now. All I
know is that is she is in fact brown bread, then my portion of the wealth
just grew, is all I’m saying.”
“She’s not fucking…” Charlie paused mid-protest to think.
“That’s it little lady, I’m breaking the door down before I bust my
bladder.”
Before Jimmy could rush headlong into the destruction of his very
own bathroom door, Jenny emerged.
“Blimey.” Rick said before he could stop himself.
“You look…” Charlie started, but stopped when he couldn’t find
the appropriate compliment.
“About fucking time!” Jimmy said shuffling past Jenny.
“We were beginning to worry about you, angel.” Charlie said,
trying to get in the bathroom before Jimmy closed the door.
If Jenny had kept silent, the illusion of perfection would have been
maintained.
“Don’t fuck with me Charlie, I heard every word. And you’re the
worst, so watch your back!” She said squinting at Rick.
The door to the toilet slammed behind Jenny.
502
“Kidding I was, pet.” He yawned. “Without you we’d be daffy
ducked, and don’t I know it.”
“All this attention, and I’m only in a bathrobe.” Jenny said
ignoring Rick and focusing back on herself. “Imagine if I were really
glammed up.”
“You must be tired. Why don’t you hover and spit on the settee?”
“Look, no one understands a word of your cockney,” she paused
to restate her point, “mockney crap.”
“’Ere, I’ll have you know I’m born and bred.”
“Your accent is all over the place. What the hell does hover and
spit mean?”
“Sit. I was saying your should sit down. I was trying to be kind,
but I wish I hadn’t, now.”
“Hmm.”
“I’ve got a nasty crink in my neck from…”
“Kink.”
“Wot?”
“You mean you’ve got a kink in your neck.”
“Crink, I believe you’ll find, is the correct dicky bird, love.”
Charlie and James were in the washroom. Charlie was using the
toilet, while Jimmy relieved his gasping bladder in the shower stall.
Rick was unraveling his expensive clothes from an untidy heap,
while Jenny moved into the kitchen to search for sustenance. Someone
fired up what sounded like a diesel-powered shaver in the bathroom.
“Charlie must have put the groceries away.”
503
“Why’s that?”
She answered from the cupboard. “Because I usually keep my
milk in the fridge.” She produced an already unpleasant smelling carton
of milk.
“I think he’s going senile or something.”
“Definitely.”
Now where do you think he put the coffee?”
Rick peered underneath the still unkempt bed chesterfield. “Seen
me sandal hooves?”
Jenny looked over. “Guys probably hid them so you couldn’t
sneak out.”
“I’ve snuck out of places with less on than this. Besides, Charlie
slept lying against the door all night and I couldn’t get the window open.”
Rick was wearing a mischievous grin.
Still shoeless he was unwadding his shirt from a compact ball. He
stood up, bare-chested, still looking around.
“I didn’t know you had a tattoo.” Jenny said, admiring a beautiful
woman painted over his heart.
“I don’t, actually.” He corrected her. “It’s a temporary. Should
fade in a couple more months, I expect.”
With a cheeky grin, Jenny asked. “Why did you get it then? You
haven’t been doing some modeling have you?
Rick looked down at his average pale body. “Hardly.” He pulled
his buttoned up black shirt over his head, but didn’t elaborate on his skin
art.
504
“Listen. While they’re in there this could be our last opportunity
to speak. How are we going to sneak that gold from these two ruffians?”
“Oh, so now we’re in some sort of cabal, are we? Working
together and all that? And I’m supposed to believe that you’ve not had
this convo with old Charlie?”
“I have.” She admitted “Purely for self-preservation.”
“Charming.”
“But I didn’t mean it. Charlie is a scoundrel, I’ve been warned as
much by more that just you.” She leaned up against the counter and her
face softened. “Look, as much as we bicker, you and I, it’s all sort of
harmless. We’ve got, what you’d call, an unspoken bond, despite our
rocky start.”
“Yeah, we get along in our own way, I suppose.” Rick smiled,
rubbing the crink from his neck.
“I can’t make any promises, okay, but I think we’ll find an opening
and take it. I don’t want to make a formal plan, because so much is up in
the air right now.”
“True enough.”
“Rick, we’re never going to fall in love, or get married or anything,
but I think we’re friends. We’ve just got to trust each other.”
Rick walked to the island separating the cooking area from the
living room and rested his hands on the countertop. “It would be pudding
and rice to be able to trust you, but that’s a hard thing for me.”
Jenny put her hand on his. He recoiled slightly, but she squeezed
his hand reassuringly.
505
“It’s a precarious bond, but I’d like to believe that we have each
others back.”
“Me and all.” Rick nodded.
506
Chapter 29
Wilkes-Chu got off the bus and advanced towards the corner. She
walked past the family owned convenience store still closed from the night
before, a sliver storefront of a shoe repair shop, and a vacant all night
video rental place.
She checked her watch.
3:48, it read.
She hoped that she wouldn’t have to wait long, being a little over
ten minutes early. It was very chilly, and her breath was almost a rigid
steam mass in the air, like a cartoon speech balloon. She inched her collar
up further up her neck and tried to keep to the protective halo of any
streetlights that weren’t broken, or shot up. She felt for the bulge of her
concealed standard issue revolver and picked up her pace.
507
Past the rundown block of tenements she looked up at the sign for
an application to rezone. She turned sharply left, heals clickity clicking
with an echo on the deserted streets.
She spotted a suspicious looking beat up van poking out of the
alley. All of its windows were tinted limo black. One of the wheels had
been removed, probably stolen, and now it was perched precariously on
cinder blocks. She passed a trash bin. A very fresh bouquet of flowers,
still wrapped in decorative cellophane, peered out from beneath the
loosely placed lid. She could smell the carnations, lilies, and even baby’s
breath. She stopped and half debated removing them. They were so
lovely, but before she could scoop them up and cradle them like a
newborn baby she heard a noise coming from behind her. She was startled
and her breath momentarily fogged her vision when she gasped.
She moved closer to the van to investigate. It was parked on a
gravel shoulder beside a telephone pole at an awkward angle. It had dual
rear doors and one of the windows had been long since smashed out and
replaced with a piece of plywood.
There was movement inside.
She tried the handle. It wasn’t locked, but the dome light didn’t
come on when she eased the sliding side door open. Hands grabbed her
and pulled quickly inside, startling a pair of nesting pigeons. The door slid
closed menacingly slowly.
508
“You didn’t have to be so rough, did you?”
“I just wanted to make sure you weren’t seen getting into the van.
Sorry. I didn’t hurt you did I?”
“No. I’m a lot tougher than I look.” Wilkes-Chu said with a
cheeky grin.
The dim light of blinking LED lights turned her harmless grin into
a leering snarl.
“I can’t believe you talked me into this.” Hargrave said, not
making direct eye contact.
“Well good morning to you too.”
“G’morning. God, you’re not one of those horrible cheery
morning people are you?
“Guilty. So where did you get this old surveillance van?”
“Mervin.”
“Steve Mervin? I didn’t know you two knew each other.”
“No, Willy Mervin. His father.”
“Oh well. Nice touch with the cinder blocks.”
“I can’t take credit for that. Some punk kids did it a couple of
hours ago. I must have nodded off or something.”
509
“Oh.” She scrunched her nose up. “Have you been drinking?”
She asked, moving in closer to smell his breath.
There was an awkward pause before he answered. She recoiled
slowly when he appeared unable to speak with her in such close
proximity.
“Well, I had a bourbon just before midnight. There’s a small Irish
pub a couple of doors down. I met Mervin there when he brought the van
by.”
She seemed very concerned about his uncharacteristic behavior.
She’d never know him to imbibe. Then she realized how heavy the current
situation must have been weighing on him.
“You’ve been here all night?”
“I suppose.”
“Why are the recorders flashing 12:00? Hold on. I don’t think
they’re even running!”
“Correct. I’m no good…I know how much you are into that kind
of thing, so I waited for you.
“Let me have a look.”
He leaned back in his seat so she could get by. Hunched over in
the modified full sized van, her ass came very close to his lap as she passed
him to check out the equipment. He couldn’t take his eyes off the straining
polyester against her taut glutes.
“When was this van last in active use…the late 70’s? This
equipment is ancient.”
510
“Err, 1989 I believe. It was the best I could do at such short notice,
especially without official approval.”
“This is all analogue. The only thing digital about this whole
system is the DAT machine, and that’s marginal at best, but I don’t even
see any tapes for it.”
“Doesn’t matter.” His voice seemed labored and sounded flat. “I
think it’s more a sit and wait situation than a record and gather evidence
stake out anyway.”
“Well at least let me set the time on these, I can almost feel a
seizure coming on. Why don’t you get some rest?”
“No. I’ve already gotten my two hours. I don’t need much sleep.
Two or three hours at night and a couple mid afternoon.”
“That explains why everyone used to snicker when I’d ask them
were you were after lunch. Research, they ‘d say, but I couldn’t ever find
you in the archives.”
The humor lost on him, his hackles were up.
“Actually, I did solve many problems, or come up with a new
slant to a case when I’d nap in the afternoon. A regular Edgar Cayce.”
“Who.”
“Never mind. Do you want anything? I think I might take a stroll
down the other block. I’ve got a set of coveralls I can use as a disguise.”
“Hmm…I would love a grande Amazon blend with one cream and
two sugars.” She blurted out.
“That hasn’t been on your mind.”
511
“Not until I woke up. I know you can’t have coffee, because,
well…but maybe you should try a chai latte or something instead?”
“No thank you. I had one once about a year ago, but never again.”
“Why? I think they are lovely.”
“They taste like my aftershave smells.”
“Huh?”
“Like old spices. No, I think I’ll just get an earl gray or English
breakfast tea.”
He quickly slipped the coveralls over his ever-present gray suit. It
probably had Tuesday sewn on the inside of the breast pocket so he had
some way of distinguishing between the other plain gray suits in his closet.
Either that or he just kept wearing the same one day after day, and only
rotated his boring palette of ties.
Hargrave ruffled his hair and slipped out the drivers side door
that was wedged against a dumpster for cover. As he was half way out
something fell off his seat. Wilkes-Chu tried to alert him, but bit her
tongue to keep their cover from being blown.
She picked up the fallen pieces of crumpled paper and tried her
best to smooth the wrinkles out. It was a receipt, dated last night, for the
flowers she had seen in the garbage can
512
Cardboard coffee cups carefully discarded in the corner, Hargrave
and Wilkes-Chu sit in silence. The clouds above had brightened the mid
morning sky to match Hargrave suit. They were closely watching a
moving van that had just pulled up to the dock at the warehouse they had
been watching.
Three very unkempt looking men got out.
By their features they appeared to be of European or
Mediterranean descent, and two of them could have been brothers. They
were all wearing identical white coveralls. Suspiciously each suit was too
short to be fashionable to even movers. Out of the three badly fitting
uniforms, only one of the men had the great misfortune to have the male
equivalent of a camel toe.
One of the men, a olive skinned man with a facial mole and a
dangly earring checked his watched. Nodding, he directed the group to
head out of the alley.
“I think he said they should get something to eat.” Wilkes-Chu
whispered.
Hargrave nodded.
They both seemed to hold their breath as the three men passed
precariously close to the van.
“What do you think?” She asked once the men were safely out of
range.
“Something tells me that they aren’t ordinary working stiffs.”
513
“I think you might be right. I read your notes on Charlie’s case
last night.”
“Mr. Bishop?”
“Yeah. Fascinating stuff.”
“Frustrating. I mean I just couldn’t get a conviction, but he was…
is guilty as all hell. We even had a great guy working the trial, but it just
wasn’t enough.”
“So what went wrong then?”
“You read the file.” He said with a shrug. But the bait had set on
the hook and his eyes were wide, ready for bean spilling.
“True, but I want to hear it. Unlike you words don’t leap up from
the page with me. I need to hear it, and read the inflections.”
He sighed, tried to act resigned and bit for the wriggling worn.
“”He was just a scared skinny kid when he got married. From her
autopsy we determined that Mrs. Bishop had complications early in life
from a miscarriage. That’s why they never had kids. She had probably
gotten pregnant and he was forced into some sort of shotgun wedding. In
those days you got a girl pregnant you got married. After they got
married he moved into her parents home. I can only imagine the tension
in that house, especially after the pregnancy went wrong.”
“His uncle, his only legal guardian, encouraged him to join the
army, probably thought it would grow him up. He jumped at the chance
to get out of that house. When he was overseas he got the news that his
uncle had died under mysterious circumstances.”
“What kind?”
514
“Car accident.”
“Nothing strange about that.”
“He didn’t drive. He never got a license. For some reason the old
records don’t even say who’s car he was killed in, but he was behind the
wheel.”
She shook her head, “Weird.”
“Well, it pushed Mr. Bishop over the edge. He signed up for
dangerous assignments, experimental stuff. You read his file, well the
stuff that isn’t still classified. He blamed her parents, but was never clear
on the details. He signed up for a second tour, but came back after he
found out that his father in law had died. He lived with his wife and her
mother for a few years. He was henpecked close to death, I imagine, and
signed up again when a new war started up.”
“So you think he just snapped one day and killed his wife once he
was free from recrimination from her mother? Or do you think he killed
the mother as well?”
“She died from complications due to surgery, so I think we can
rule out foul play.”
“What was the second war overseas? I found his records that
confirm his involvement in some sort of conflict for an extended duration,
but none of the reports I came across mention a location. I assumed
Vietnam…”
“I came to the same conclusion…at first. Now I’m not so sure. I
did a little digging at the time, enough to realize I had dug too far. You
ever see that commercial about landscaping, you know phone before you
515
dig? I got phoned after I dug, and then some. I think our government may
have been involved in more than one altercation during the mid sixties to
late sixties, but it was something very covert if our Mr. Bishop was
involved…and probably very experimental.”
“Emphasis on the mental. So what did he have to say when you
interrogated him? I’ve got the transcript, but…”
“He didn’t admit anything. He kept waving the flag in my face.”
“Figuratively, I hope. No contraband in the interview room, you
know.” She cautioned him with a smirk.
“Of course. No, really he just sat there when I questioned him
about the suspicious death of his wife and he acted like a true soldier.
Name, rank, serial number, yes sir, no sir. Very polite, until I asked him
about his relationship with her family. He slipped a little. He didn’t come
right out with anything but denial, but I saw that look in his eyes, if even
just for a second. I don’t know how many times I’d seen that look in the
face of abused women when I was still wearing a blue uniform. They
would deny everything, even the cuts and bruises, and testify to high
heaven their love for the abuser. I never doubted his love for his wife, not
for a second, but after all the years of abuse, and his uncles very irregular
demise…” He shrugged, “I don’t know what the exact straw was, maybe
he was aided by some murderous Dutch courage, but he killed his camel.”
“So what about the killings then?”
“I think it was some obscure family tradition, but I don’t think he
agreed with it, or even vaguely understood it…I don’t know, really.
Maybe he killed her when he found out…found all the bodies. Maybe Mr.
516
Bishop continued the killings to ease his guilt for ending Mrs. Bishops
life.”
“That’s a lot of maybes.”
“True enough, but it doesn’t change the fact that he has ended
many lives.”
“You didn’t mention the older killings…”
“I’d rather not know.”
“It’s all so very horror fiction, though, isn’t it?”
“Sorry?”
“You know, family moves into land that was once an Indian burial
ground…”
“I don’t read novels.” He frowned, thinking it over, “No, that
doesn’t quite sum it up.”
“No, you’re right. I think there was a lot more involved than that.
I just can’t help feeling how weird the whole thing felt.”
“I know what you mean! Just being near the place…” he shivered.
“I don’t want to focus on any of that, to do that would be walk to far down
the road of madness. For my own sanity I have to just reduce this case to a
man who killed a lot of people…”
“And today we’ll put a full stop to that spree.” She bit her lip, and
frowned a little.
Her hand slipped inside her jacket pocket, feeling for the crumpled
paper.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you…”
“Uh, huh?”
517
“I found this…”
“They’re coming back! Shh…”
518
Chapter 30
I was surprised to see Dali so early. It was the first time I’d seen
him up before 10:30, let alone 7:00. But I think I was more surprised by his
method of transportation. He arrived in a black stretched Cadillac
Escalade limousine. A driver was supplied, but I couldn’t make one out
through the dark tinted glass.
Anisette had already left for her morning jog by the time I was
pulling up my pants. I knew she had to be back by nine to open the art
space.
Dali was screaming at the top of his lungs something in Catalan,
followed by ‘Max, for gods sake hurry’. It was a good thing it was an
industrial neighborhood.
I took the back stairs that Anisette had shown me the night before,
down to the back alley. It was the entrance that allowed access to the
artists. I circled around the block quickly.
“Good morning, Max.”
519
“Hi.”
“Did you eat?”
“No, not yet.”
“Would you like a slice of my urchin on rye?”
“No thank you,” I replied with subdued disgust. “I think I’m too
nervous to eat, anyway.”
Biting into his toast he asked, “How was your night amongst the
artful ruffians?”
“Interesting,” I said, but admitted, “but I mostly kept to myself.
You could have warned me, thought, about all those art students showing
up once the sun went down completely.”
“Didn’t I mention that?” Dali tutted, “You really must learn to
engage people, open yourself up in conversation.”
“I know. I really want to work on that. Maybe you could
hypnotize me again, it did wonders for me since the plane ride. I hardly
ever swear now.”
“I didn’t help you with that. You conquered that on your own.”
“I did have a nice little conversation with Anisette, once you
dropped her off.”
“I thought you might.”
“Hard to have a proper conversation with all the music, and
people around…” I cracked open the window to get some air. The urchins
on toast gave me the same nauseous feeling as mayonnaise or ketchup did
too early in the day.
520
He was uncomfortably shifting in his seat. He retrieved an errant
pair of scissor from underneath his thigh.
“When this is done,” Looking up from the last bite of toast he
asked, “Surely we will still be friends?”
“I hope so.”
“And Anisette?”
“We will have to see.” I could feel a blush singe my cheeks.
“It feels so weird to be here, in this city under the specter of the
towers where my parents were killed.”
“There is no time for the past anymore.” He said, annoyed. He
leaned forward in the seat, “What will your life be like tomorrow, when
this is all done, and each tomorrow after?”
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot the last couple of days, too. I
really don’t know. I always had my head in a book when I was still that
chubby kid. I was always so scared to try…I was a failure at everything I
tried.”
“You didn’t fail, you just didn’t succeed.”
“Maybe you’re right. I remember been frustrated and depressed
one night in particular. I was sitting on a moldy couch watching my stolen
TV in a roach infested apartment. I was down about the usual stuff: the
death of my parents, my bad luck, and my sisters attempt to kill me.
Throughout all those difficult months I could taste the previously
unsampled dish of rage burning the back of my throat. I had obtained a
bottle of cheap vodka from the corner store to wash down the bitterness.
521
The clerk took pity on me because of my handicap. I never had any ID at
the time, and still don’t look 21.”
“I was trying to pour the vodka it into my orange juice with my
newly acquired hook. I wanted to get really drunk. I’d never had alcohol,
but at the time it seemed like the answer to all my problems. My
physiotherapy, by library book, was going to be a long road, and I still
couldn’t judge my strength. The bottle smashed in my grip. I almost
broke down in tears from my frustration at that point. I couldn’t even
drink myself into oblivion. As I got up to clean the mess I felt dizzy, and
lost my equilibrium. I was still very uncertain with my wooden foot and
lost my balance.”
“I fell as if in slow motion. I must have been pointing towards
myself, in blame for the mess, and as I looked down at my carpeted
destination I could see my index finger still pointed up towards me. As
much as I struggled and tried to wriggle free of fate I could see the finger
coming closer and closer to my face. I wanted to shut my eyes to avoid
having one of them put out, which at this time I believed to be a forgone
conclusion, but I was powerless to stop the powerful kinetics working
against me.”
“As my elbow struck the floor with a muffled thud, I was luck my
accusing finger was deflected from my eye. As my body followed its
course, the offending digit ended up contacting a point on my neck.”
“The contact was brutal.” I shuddered just thinking about it.
“Not only did the force of my fall lock all the joints of my finger
into an unrepentant and unforgiving shiv, but the exact and particular
522
location of the spear had somehow managed to reach one of the
acupressure points originally mapped by the very ancient Chinese. A
bright blue flash of lightening bolted through my eyes, my brain, chakra,
and soul, if there be such a thing.”
“Up until that point my view of religion, souls and the like had
been that of an interested skeptic, scholarly curious and fascinated, but
doubtful to say the least. This was probably due to my upbringing by
parents that were rigorous scientific. Even when I had technically been
dead after the accident I don’t remember enacting any sort of near death
experience. But in that moment everything cleared like a pond after a
rainfall. I could see all and know all. I felt no pain only a gentle calm. I
could feel, more than hear, a gentle but persistent buzzing noise, but tried
to ignore it.”
“When I came to I was relaxed and rejuvenated. I felt like I had
had a restful night sleep, but I noticed that virtually no time at all had
passed. I walked around the apartment examining everything with a fresh
perspective. Strangely the confusion and frustration I had been feeling
was completely gone. In fact my mental acuity was sharp and focused.”
“I sat there on that stained carpet amongst the shards and pizza
boxes feeling really good about myself, finally. One day I would be
somebody to someone. I didn’t know what, or how, but I knew that
someday everything was going to be okay, I was going to be ok.”
“And now it is. You just need a plan, and you need to move away
from your past. It is like the broken guts of a rancid cockroach.”
523
“I have come up with a lot of plans for my life, but everything
requires money…and that’s where my sister came into things. My whole
self-devouring plan after the accident was to exact revenge on my sister, by
whatever means necessary…and part of that included blackmail. All I
could see was the revenge and the money. I can’t tell you how many times
I fantasized about threatening her with violence if that’s what it came
down to.”
“Making a gun is far more than fantasizing.”
“For self defense!” I half-heartedly protested.
“Your sister has no money, now. She sold everything to pay for
the court case, and on illicit substances.”
I was stunned. “What about the insurance money she got for my
death?”
“It wasn’t forthcoming because of the circumstances and the lack
of a body.”
“Oh.”
I hadn’t even thought about that possibility. I had always
assumed that she was famous and fame equaled money.
“So it’s a very fortunate event that use saved my life…for both of
us, actually.”
“Hmm?”
“Well now you can have it both ways. You can have a portion of
the gold. I owe you at least that much. Plus you have ample opportunity
to at the very least exert physical displeasure on your sister, if not
524
extinguish her life completely…but for your own personal growth, I think
you should move on.”
“Right.” I said with a weak grin.
I hadn’t planned actually getting a payoff from Dali. I never really
believed in the artwork, and the gold… it all seemed like some sort of
capricious scavenger hunt, with each Salvador story of the mythical crates
getting more fantastical.
“So what did you intend to do with the money?”
“I had prioritized a short list of goals once I had the money. The
first thing I would do would be to supply Dr.Escano with enough cash to
get perform transplant operations. He swore up and down that he could
perform surgery if the right donor limbs became available, but it would be
expensive. That was priority number one, and as miraculous and
unconventional as the techniques were, I just knew deep down that they
would be successful.”
“And I really want to get a proper headstone for my parent’s
graves. Something that Jenny never had time for, even when she had the
money.” Dali seemed uncomfortable. As a man who had come back from
the death, I imagine it was a sensitive subject.
“Is it enough?”
“No. Now that I have had a taste of actual adventure, it is starting
to give me a different perspective on life. I am ready for something…for
everything. “
525
I sensed another Dalification of history coming on. “Bunuel…” he
stopped himself from going on the tangent, shaking his head. “I suppose
ego can be cultivated.
“What will be the very first thing you will do when tonight, once
all the crates are unloaded into my new studio?”
“I haven’t really thought about it.”
I lied. Something had been on my mind the whole time, over and
above the riches and revenge.
“Would you like a ride over to Anisette’s or will you take a cab.”
“A cab I think.” He was so adept at reading my mind sometimes.
“Good choice. I happen to know that she will have a lovely dinner
prepared for you.”
We drove around the same block three times. The driver seemed
to be waiting for sort of signal. Three movers in ill-fitting overalls
jaywalked in front of us. One of them smiled to us. Was that a signal?
“Are you wearing your vest, Max?”
“Yes, I am.”
526
The traffic was surprisingly light. I was going through every
possible scenario I could think of. Thinking of every possible exit, every
conceivable moment of glory.
We pulled up outside an upscale block of condos. It was a
beautiful old building that had been tastefully renovated, while still
retaining its charming old city character.
It didn’t seem to be the right place. Something didn’t seem right. I
was expecting another run down warehouse like the place Anisette was
living in.
“Where are we?”
“Here. We are right here precisely. Where else could anyone be,
but where they are?”
I chuckled at my own foolishness for expecting a proper answer.
We hung around the outside until someone was leaving. We climbed the
14 steps and snuck into the lobby before the door had a chance to close.
Dali was searching for something.
“You really should have eaten something, Max.”
“I’m fine. I’m too nervous to eat. You don’t want me throwing up
in a crucial moment do you?”
“I suppose not, when you put it that way. So you can sense the
impending storm, too. I can sense it…these guns are going to be more
than just hand candy.” He was shifting the shoulder bag that contained
the weapons. I had offered to carry them, but he had insisted.
“Ahh! This way!”
527
He led me around a corner and into a stairwell. The stairs leading
up into the suites was completely remodeled, but the flight down looked
original, but clean. We went down, to what would have been street level
at the back of the building.
“In the old days,” he explained, “This side of the building had a
small café fronted on the side street. Below that was the warehouse.”
“Below the street?”
“Yes, subterranean.”
We were in a mostly disused area with storage lockers. The room
was full of lurid shadows cast by the irregular spaced lighting fixtures.
Dali was looking for on locker number, but we were coming to a wall.
Two windows and a doorway, probably leading out to the street as he had
said, were bricked up. At the last locker we had to shimmy sideways
between the chicken wire and the brick in a narrow aisle way.
“Help me with this, Max.” He was shifting a pile of very dusty
bags in the darkness of the corner, but they looked more like demented
stuffed animals in the long grimy shadows.
“I got it.” I said helping him with a heavy old fruit crate full of
geological survey rocks, or something just as heavy.
“Here it is!” He was proud to be showing me something that we
had uncovered, but in the crappy light conditions I couldn’t make out
what it was.
He must have detected my lack of wonderment and slide the panel
aside to reveal a square hole in the wall.
528
“It’s a dumbwaiter! The café used to send food down to the
warehouse with this.”
“Okay.” I said still highly under whelmed.
“This is the only way down to the warehouse.”
“The only way?”
He backpedaled, “Not the only way. The other entrance, the last
proper one would be completely covered in surveillance. Not knowing
about this way down, the others,” he meant Jenny, Rick and Charlie, if not
another group, “will all attempt to use that entrance.”
“How do we get these massive crates…”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” He crammed 6 syllables into the word, I
swear. “Once we have gotten the crates, it is a simple matter of removing
the barriers blocking the old shipping dock.”
“That sounds like a lot of work…”
“I brought sledge hammers…”
“That’s why the bag is so heavy!”
“And bolt cutters, and flashlights, of course. We’ll need those for
certain.
We finished removing the rest of the crates from the dumbwaiter
in the near total darkness.
“The warehouse,” he explained, “once was a single big room, but
over the years it was compartmentalized. We have to make our way
down, through the trouble section, and into the one that contains the items
that we are seeking.”
529
“WE can put everything on a cart, come back to this
compartment,” he said, pointing out the area below us with a jabbing
finger, “remove all barriers to the outside. From there we can just unload
everything into a truck that is parked in an alley to the north.”
“Sounds straight forward,” I kidded. “But a lot of work for two
people.”
He asked with an enigmatic smile, “What makes you think that
there are only two of us?” He motioned for me to get into the dumbwaiter.
“Me first then, huh?”
“If you insist,” he answered as if it were my choice. “Take this
flashlight.”
I took the flashlight and climbed into the dumbwaiter. I examined
the 50-year plus old rope with great unease in the eerie light of the
flashlight. The descent wasn’t as bad I had suspected it would be, but with
each inch down the scent of mildew became stronger. When I
disembarked I immediately saw water damage present. I hoped that the
other compartments weren’t similarly harmed.
I sent the dummy back up. The next load that came down was the
heavy sack with the tools and the guns, followed by Salvador on the next
trip. He looked furious about cobwebs in his hair.
“Should we open our exit now?”
“No. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves, if someone is
in the alley.”
“But if we need a quick get away?”
530
“We should get the artwork now.” He was squinting to make out
the time on his watch. “That way.” He pointed with his flashlight.
I started to lead the way when he called me back.
“Don’t forget this.” He reminded me, shoving a pistol in my hand.
“And put a couple of these in your pockets.” He handed me three clips of
ammo.
“Thanks.” I said weakly
He warned me with a very serious and creepy, in the light of my
beam, look, “And whatever you do, Max, don’t shoot the movers. Or
anybody, come to think of it, other than those three.”
“I’m going to try not to shoot anyone.” I mumbled.
I started towards the outline of the boarded up door that Dali had
pointed out, feeling the weight of the pistol more on my heart than in my
hand. We became separated almost immediately. I suspected he had
another agenda to deal with, so I didn’t call after him.
Someone else was coming down the dumb waiter behind me in
the darkness. I hurried forward to avoid confrontation, but there was no
mistaking the scratchy sound.
The old planks were removed easily. I opened one of the big
double doors on creaking long disused hinges and was bathed in light.
Before I had a chance to get my bearings the gunfire started.
531
Chapter 31
“I ran a bug detector over the area. It’s clean. I also checked for
unusual EMF reading, but that came up nil, too.”
“But you’re still sure this is the place.”
“Yeah, this is the address.”
“It looks like a bunch of pansy assed yuppie condos to me,” Jimmy
snickered.
Jenny frowned, “Keep your voice down!”
“Good idea.” Rick agreed.
“Just give me a minute,” Jenny paused. “I need to make a quick
call.”
Charlie narrowed his eyes and asked with suspicion, “Who you
callin’?”
“My agent, if you don’t mind!” She prompted them to move along
with a dismissing hand.
532
She caught up quickly, that pussycat who’d eaten the canary.
“I think the entrance is in the alley down the hill a bit.”
Rick looked shocked and insulted, “How the heck did you know
that?”
“I just assumed…”
They walked half a block.
“Here we go!” Rick announced, turning a corner. “Arnold Lane.”
“An alley with a street sign?” Charlie wondered.
At the mouth of the alley, a plain white moving truck was pulling
out. The single occupant didn’t acknowledge the group. Rick seemed to
make a note of the truck, more than just a cursory glance, to be sure. The
alley sloped down, and off to one side, their left, were two loading docks.
Jimmy had a way of unlocking the door with a strange multiheaded tool.
“That’s why it’s called Jimmying the lock.” He revealed the open
door proudly
They snuck in quietly, not sure what adversity may accost them.
The warehouse was a huge compartmentalized area below street level
with a three mezzanines connected by catwalks. Portions of walls were
bricked over, or boarded up. Twenty foot pallet racking lined one full
wall, while 12 foot racking was laid out in aisle ways.. Only the area
closest to the last remaining bay doors, where they had just entered, had
seen any recent activity. It appeared to be more for very long-term
storage, and was probably used as a bomb shelter in case of emergency.
533
The floor was laid out in a grid pattern with faded and worn
yellow tape, or maybe paint. An alphanumeric system seemed to be in
place for each bin location, which would have made finding the crates easy
(if Jenny had a bin number), but the system seemed long disused. Pallets,
obscured by dust, blocked aisle ways, some wide pallets took up more
than one bin location in the racking.
Jenny stuttered, “This is insurmountable”
“Don’t be so discouraged, Jenny. You have the number and this is
quite obviously organized, albeit roughly, into bin locations. The older
stuff wouldn’t need to have been moved around, so it should be right
where he told you it would be.”
“I’m going have a look around,” Charlie said, retrieving a
handgun from the tag along bag. “Why don’t you keep them company,”
he nodded to Jimmy
Rick was insistent. “So what’s the bin number?”
“What?”
“The bin number, remember?” He seemed more annoyed and
impatient than confused. “Sal whispered some sort of location number in
your ear before Charlie…err…thought he killed him.”
“Oh, right.” She said with a nervous laugh. “Yeah, I made that
up.”
“You wot?!?”
“I made it up so you guys wouldn’t kill me.” She bent down and
retrieved a very used sub machine gun. “Now I have a new insurance.”
She said with a wink utterly devoid of humor.
534
“But…but…” Rick protested. “I saw him whisper summit in your
ear!”
“He whispered,” She paused for full effect. “This is going to be
exciting. That’s what he whispered.”
“You bitch!”
“Careful.” She warned, releasing the safety catch on the gun.
“There’s an office of some sort up there,” Jimmy noted, pointing
out an enclosure up on one of the mezzanines. “They must have records of
all this stuff, surely.”
“Let’s go!” Jenny smiled.
Rick got a handgun out of the bad and slid it in the back of his
pants. He also picked up a double-barreled shotgun and filled his jacket
pocket with shells.
Jimmy led the way. Jenny motioned for Rick to go second. As he
passed her he whispered, “You should have told me if we’re in this
together.”
“I couldn’t take the chance, no offense.”
“As long as we’re still on the same page, love.”
Something crashed to he ground down one of the aisles. Three
jumpy guns sprang to the ready.
Jimmy turned to face Rick, “What the hell was that?”
“Charlie?” Rick shrugged.
Suddenly running footsteps echoed throughout the cavernous
warehouse.
535
“Let’s hurry!” Rick slapped Jimmy on the back, “Something’s
afoot.”
Across the floor, around some bins, and up the stairs they ran.
They had to push aside the very intricately tied and gagged forms of 2
security guards to squeeze into the office.
“We’re in it now, for sure.”
Inside the office Rick and Jenny pillaged the filing cabinets, while
Jimmy tried to oversee the warehouse from the catwalk.
“Anything?” Jenny asked with her head in a stack of files.
“Naught.”
“You said it was James Edwards, and what…3?” She looked up,
confused. “Was it 3 or 4 crates?”
“Err, good question…” Most of Rick’s hair had come out of the
little ponytail and its greasy tendrils were hanging limply, obscuring his
face.
Rick shouted, “Got it!” He was feverously clutching a few sheets
of very yellowed paper, stapled together.
“Let me see,” Jenny said, dropping her stock of paper like a flock
of dusty doves.
Rick was studying the pages. “This is weird…I mean it is a
manifest with all the dates that this has been accessed, but look…” He was
pointing to the columns, and flittering between the pages.
“So? It’s like he told us.”
536
“He told us that only Edward James had access to this stuff, and
that the last thing stored was in the fifties sometime, but loot here. The
date is 1967, and the file was still being accessed.”
Jenny shrugged, “Maybe he got the dates wrong.”
“But look at the signature,” Rick protested, “for five of the last six
entries.”
“Oh!” She gasped.
“Salvador Dali.” He sat back in the chair. The movement caused
something to fall from the pages.
Jenny watched the paper fall to the floor. “What’s that?”
He retrieved a newer sheet that had been just placed in the file
without a staple.
“In 1983 three folio’s were added from the safe by Edward James.”
“What safe?” She asked.
“I don’t have a…”
Jimmy entered the room with panic in his voice, “You two better
come quick! Whoever tied up those two guards is roaming around and
they’ve got even meaner looking guns than we do.”
They snuck to the edge of the mezzanine, and hid behind a large
stack of office boxes that read tax receipts from 1979 to 1984.
The two movers were walking amongst the pallet aisle below them
“I’m going to pick ‘em off now, like cats in a barrel,” Jimmy said
with a gleam in his good eye.
“Wait!” Rick whisper shouted with panic. “You can’t just kill
them.”
537
“What’s the problem?”
“Can’t you just wound them or something?”
Even Jenny giggled when he said that.
Jimmy leaned forward on the stack of boxes to get a clear shot.
“We’ve given them ample time to feel safe. Time to move in.”
Hargrave was agitated, and she could hear it in his voice.
“Maybe we should give them another minute.” Wilkes-Chu was
nervously looking around the alley.
“If you like, but we don’t want to give them too much time. God
knows what they’re up to in there.”
“This is the only way in or out. All the other exits were closed up
years ago. So don’t worry.”
“I’m still very concerned about the two movers who went in and
never came back out.” He got up from his seat, edgy and moved towards
the door. “That’s it. I can’t wait anymore.”
“Just one more…”
538
He had just slid open the side door of the van when a satellite
news truck screeched around the corner and into the alley. One moment
sooner…
“Let’s go!”
The cameras were already rolling before the Agents got anywhere
near the shipping door. Hargrave automatically put his hand up to shield
his face from the camera, but Wilkes-Chu forced it down again.
“Don’t forget,” she whispered to him, “why these reporters are
here.” She held up her badge for the cameras. “Agents Hargrave and
Wilkes-Chu! This is a dangerous area. I would ask you to move back.”
“Is it true that Jenny Haniver is being held against her will by
suspected serial killer Charlie Bishop behind those doors?” The
microphone was thrust forward like a jousting lance.
“No comment.” Hargrave grumbled.
Wilkes-Chu glared at him. “We have reason to believe that is the
case, yes.”
The newsman continued to fire questions about Jenny Haniver at
them, but they went unanswered as the Agents turned to enter the
warehouse.
Tires squealed behind them as two police cars crammed into the
alleyway. Both their sirens and lights were turned off. Another news van
entered the alley from the other end.
Hargrave turned to her and mumbled, “This place is going to be
swarming with people in no time.”
“We can only hope,” she smiled. “More witnesses to our heroics.”
539
The cops were on them quickly. Hargrave began explaining the
situation to them as one of the reporters tried to get towards the door with
a video camera.
From inside there was a muffled bang, followed by two gunshots.
“Get these people back!” She shouted.
“We’re going in. Call for backup and for god’s sake don’t let
anyone in this door until you are sure that it’s safe to do so.”
Wilkes-Chu gave officer Pak her cell number to keep in contact,
and programmed his number into her phone for quick one button dialing.
Already two dozen, or so, spectators were straining against the newly
strung police security tape.
Hargrave put on a stern face, took one quick glance at the camera
and whipped open the door, gun poised.
“Government Agents! Put down your weapons!”
Both he and Wilkes-Chu rolled into the warehouse. Before the
door had even closed bullets ricocheted towards them.
Jimmy leaned too far forward. Two boxes of files fell from the
mezzanine heavily towards the movers, and his gun went off twice
540
simultaneously. The movers barely managed to avoid the falling boxes
and leapt very nimbly for cover as the door burst open.
“Government Agents! Drop your weapons!”
Charlie fired first from a hidden perch in the pallet racking. Rick
assumed, not seeing Charlie hidden, that the Agents had opened fire. He
fired both barrels at the time that Jenny squirted of a quick burst of semiautomatic spray.
“Fucking hell!”
The Agents took cover, emptying three or four bullets into the
filing boxes that Jenny and Rick were using for cover.
Jimmy recovered slowly. “You two go for the catwalk. I’ll cover
you. I can’t run like I used to.”
Rick was still clutching the paper with the bin location. “Come on,
Jenny!”
“What about the safe?
“Fuck the safe for now. Let’s just get at the crates, eh?”
She was wearing a strange look, like she was transforming herself
into someone else. A new role “But…how are we going to get out of here,
you know…after.”
“Rick was visibly stumped. “We’ll have to worry about that
later.”
Six feet across the catwalk and two bullets bounced off the metal
railing. Jenny and Rick broke into a sprint.
541
As they looked down they could see one of the ‘movers’ cartwheel
across and aisle, while the other shimmied very quickly up the pallet rack
to where Charlie was repositioning himself.
Jenny squeezed off a few more defensive rounds over her shoulder
in the general direction of the agents.
The dove behind some wood stacked aside when they reached the
other mezzanine.
“What’s the location?” Jenny asked.
Rick referred back to the piece of well-clutched paper. The looked
in his eyes spelled out terror. “Q493A, B and C.”
Jenny stared, open mouthed, at what she had just heard.
“Where,” she asked in disbelief, “has your accent gone?”
“Wot?” Rick said, trying to compose himself.
“Your accent was, like American a second.
“Don’t get soft on me, Jenny.” He shoved the paper into a pocket
and retrieved two fresh shells to replace the spent ones. He was struggling
to figure out how to access the weapon. “This isn’t the time to drop your
marbles.”
“Uh, huh.” She mumbled obscurely. “Here give me that.”
She took the gun from him, and quickly reloaded it for him.
“Learned that when filming ‘Drown the Baptists’”
Another round of gunfire went off as they made a run for a set of
stairs leading back down onto the warehouse floor.
542
Two uniformed police officers entered the building and gunfire
focused on the door again.
Charlie was battling with one of the ‘movers’. While Charlie
seemed more powerful, he was nowhere near as quick or flexible. They
were wrestling around on top of a skid of long expired dehydrated potato
flakes. Charlie’s gun got kicked away, where it tumbled 15 feet down to
the ground.
“You are strong for such an old man.” The ‘mover’ complimented
him with a strong European accent.
“And you are predictably stupid for a foreigner.” Charlie said
with a well-placed kick to the solar plexus. This sent the man sprawling
towards the edge of the pallet.
The ‘mover’ shifted his weight, rebounded to his feet and grabbed
Charlie by his shirt, flinging him from the racking. Charlie managed to
grab onto the ‘mover’ and they both fell headlong towards the floor.
Charlie fell flat on his back on one of the pallets blocking the aisle,
knocking the wind out of him. The ‘mover’ bounced effortlessly from one
pallet to another, doing a handspring to the floor.
Jimmy called from a jiggly run down a set of stairs, “On my way,
Charlie!”
543
One of the uniformed policemen shouted, “Freeze!” before
emptying two bullets to Jimmy’s chest.
He tumbled down the stairs, blooding squirting from his rolling
body like a gory Catherine’s wheel.
Charlie regained his sense and recovered his gun from between
two pallets. He fired four shots towards the office, sending him writhing
to the floor. One leg almost amputated by two closely placed bullets.
“They shot him!” Wilkes-Chu screamed, reaching for her cell
phone.
Hargrave whispered harshly, “Just keep moving. I want to get
behind them so we can herd them back towards the front where we can see
them.”
“I’m going to call this in.” She stopped, stooping behind a stack of
empty pallets, holding one finger to her ear. “It’s Wilkes-Chu. We’ve got
a man down. Who the hell sent those two in here?!? I don’t care what you
thought! Now one of them is bleeding and badly in need of medical
attention and the other is pinned down, too scared to move. Keep your
heads down and get those two out of here!”
544
She put her phone and looked up over Hargrave’s shoulder. “I
don’t believe it,” she gasped.
“What?” he asked, ducking for cover.
“Look.” She pointed down the aisle they were in through the gaps
in the tower of skids.
“St. Morisivitch! How the hell does he figure in? Keep your head
down, I don’t think he’s seen us yet.”
“It looks like you’re right.”
He turned to her with a large grin on his face, “It’s my lucky day.”
By the time they turned back he was gone.
“Where did he go?” He asked.
“I don’t know. All I saw were limbs and bouncing.”
They retreated to a hiding space under the first row of shelving.
I saw Rick and Jenny come down the stairs, but I didn’t think that
they saw me. I couldn’t see any of the so-called ‘movers’, but I gripped my
gun tighter with every sound, no matter the volume or intent.
Good thing I got the comfort grip.
Spotted.
545
A bullet came in my direction and I ran for cover. I could see that
it came from a very frightened looking young cop. I had no intention of
returning his fire. I ran towards the stairs in a gunfire dance.
“It’s gotta be, right, two aisles over, three sections that way.” Rick
pointed out to Jenny.
“Okay. Then what?”
“How do you mean?” His voice was a hoarse whisper. His eyes
and head kept darting around like a pigeon.
“Once we find the crates, then what?”
“Oh, I see.” Rick had clearly not planned that far in advance. “I
don’t know. None of this was supposed to happen. We were just
supposed to come and locate the crates, that was it.”
“Well, things have changed.” Jenny took on a determined look
and with a deep breath, “Grab one of those machines.”
“A forklift?”
“Yeah. If the aisle is clear we will load as much as we can onto
that machine and you just drive it out of here.”
546
“I’ll be fucking Swiss cheese before we hit the door.” His face was
red and beginning to sweat.
Matter-of-factly she said, “I’ll create a diversion”
“It won’t work,” he bleated.
She slapped him hard, drawing blood from one of her ornate
rings, no doubt.
“That hurt!”
“Good, it was meant to. You got a better plan?”
“Yes. Wait until everyone else has gone and just sneak out.”
“I never pegged you as a coward.” Her voice took on a mocking
tone as though she were onto something, “Surely you faced more potent
scenarios than this as a spy?”
“Maybe that’s why I quit.” He sneered.
“Wait.” She gestured, “Was that Charlie that fell?”
“It was. Did you see the moves on that, err, ‘mover’. I’ve never
seen anyone move that quickly.”
They watched Jimmy’s spurting corpse tumble down the stairs.
Charlie dropped from his pallet and fired towards the front.
“One less cut.” Jenny said callously.
Rick blubbered, “Fuck me.”
“If you’re not going to use that thing.” She violently ripped the
shotgun away from Rick, “I sure will. Besides this piece of shit is out of
ammo.”
Rick, recovering his stunned senses, removed the gun from his
waistband.
547
“It’s Sal!”
But Jenny had already started to sprint heedless towards the
forklift. She saw Salvador and quickly changed direction towards the aisle
that Rick had said the artwork was in. Rick used Jenny as his own
diversion and sprinted for a new hiding spot beneath the mezzanine.
548
Chapter 32
He stepped into the once raucous room and everything fell silent.
From peepholes and around slivered corners every eye fell on him. He
was suddenly the focus of everyone’s attention.
You could almost hear the spaghetti western flamenco guitars
strum up in the background from somewhere ethereal. Strings plucking,
the rhythm built to a fever pitch. Hidden amongst the guitars, violins and
fiddles joined in and some sort of high-pitched wind instrument. Maybe a
hint of gypsy campfire music, and a dash of accordion, or even the sounds
of a bamboo flute were hinted, lilting softly. Although it was not expressed
up front, something hidden in the melody way in the back was not only
sinister, but also haunting. You could almost not tell the Spanish flamenco
guitars amongst the almost Aramaic Middle Eastern strains. Maybe if
Algeria had ever made a spaghetti western you could imagine the sound
entering the room behind Salvador Dali.
549
He took two confident steps forward, flavored with more than a
dash of swagger. His wide brimmed floppy hat reminded one of
Alexandro Jodorowsky in El Topo, the main difference being that this one
was made of a plush purple crushed velvet and the brim was much wider,
of course.
He swept back his fashionable mid thigh length jacket with a
grand flourishing gesture revealing two highly polished, almost chromed,
ornate six shooters. He wore one on each hip slung low in a decorative
hand tooled leather holster. The bullets displayed along a single leather
sash gleamed almost as brightly as the evil intensity in his eyes, even as
speckled with wonder and madness as they were. One of his eyebrows
was raised in a rakish grin. His mustache stood at attention.
He stood there like a gun fighter from the old west somehow
mixed with a foppish dandy and it worked. Guns at ready. Hands
outstretched, with fingers, tempered in steel, twitching with anticipation.
The delicate curves of his artists digits yearning to paint a macabre
masterpiece, ready for the slightest movement to set them off. He took a
couple more confident steps forward. Any music imagined stopped at this
point with a high squeaky sustained note from a fiddle that just hung there
in the air like yesterdays laundry resonating until it’s life was choked out
in a painful completion of sound.
He readied his stance prepared for anything. As vulnerable as he
was standing there mere feet from the doorway, every eye upon him like a
pack of hungry hyena, he not only stood unwavering, but seemed to swell
550
with an inner strength at the adversity that was about to befall him and
everyone else in the room.
He cocked his head with a suddenly curious expression. It was as
though he were listening for something, perhaps the dying strains of the
flamenco guitars, or listening to someone whispering cryptic messages in
the cool draught.
Something rustled in one corner of the warehouse and suddenly
everything seemed to explode. Bullets started hailing down from every
corner, crevice and crack.
His eyes were wide with amazement in that split second. It was
almost as if he couldn’t believe that they hadn’t surrendered at the sight of
him and they actually had the gall to start firing at him. Dali leapt into
action with a cartwheel, twisting his body to one side with the agility of a
handsome Anglo northern dancer, firing off four quick shots in the
direction of Jenny’s swiftly streaking blond hair, before quickly slipping
for cover behind a beat up old red electric forklift.
His jacket fluttered in a swirling fury like a pack of satanic doves.
He quickly blasted off his twelve rounds from behind his semi safe hiding
place. Instead of reaching for bullets from his leather sash, which would
undoubtedly ruin the effect that he was going for, he reached around
behind himself returning with more shiny rounds and a speed loader.
Within moments both smoking barrels were ready to go. He looked up
just as a stray bullet ricocheted dangerously close to his inner thigh,
causing him to flinch an inch.
551
For the most part the lead projectiles had stopped their flight, but
someone was still firing at something way in the background. Dali
couldn’t tell exactly who or where the bullets were coming from, but they
weren’t aimed in his direction so he planned his next move with more
confidence.
Someone was shouting, almost chanting, over and over again.
Even though the words made no sense, the structure of the syllables made
it obvious that it was a real language and not some form of glossalalia.
Dali couldn’t tell if it was because of the loud blasting of the pistols that
had made the words so obscure, but he tried to force himself not to try to
make to much sense of the madman emitting them.
“Don’t shoot the crates! You’ll ruin the artwork for Christ’s sake!”
Rick screamed from somewhere underneath a mezzanine staircase.
The shouting stopped, but something was definitely taking place
on the other side of the warehouse behind a stack of large wooden crates.
A shuffling sound indicated some sort of scuffle, but the direction from
which it came was hard to determine in the echo rendered warehouse.
Then someone screamed. It was impossible to tell whether the scream
came from a man, woman, or beast by the high pitched sharp retort. He
looked up at the overhead halogen lights. The one above him was
swinging like a church bell having an epileptic seizure, flooding his corner
with brief glimmering blades of light. The cool silence washed over him
like the evening tide.
And then someone was running across the warehouse.
552
Dali only got a quick glimpse of her before she was obscured by
more stored boxes that were tied down with an old dusty orange tarp. Her
cheeks were both stained with long streaks of glittery blue mascara. By the
expression set on her face it was clear that these tears were not caused by
fear, she looked determined and very into the moment. She gripped her
shotgun like it was a very powerful extension of her arm. Her face
glistened with sweat, but she seemed invigorated and full of color.
Dali clutched at his straining stitches and craned to see where she
went and from a new vantage point he could just see most of her face as
she stopped behind some dusty boxes. From his angle he knew he could
get off a clear shot, but he didn’t want an anonymous slug to mar her
features. Timing.
Something, whether dust or splintery shrapnel from one of the
wooden crates had gone beyond her lashes and was now irritating her
eyes, obviously the cause of his earlier noted tears. Not only smudged and
smeared with mascara her eyes were now puffy and red, in need of a steak
or a bag full of ice.
Rick was still nowhere to be seen, but as Dali shuffled around to
the other side of the forklift and closer to a pile of neatly stacked crates he
could see into the open heart of the warehouse.
Charlie was standing on one of the crates, and it was obvious that
this was the voice he had heard chanting earlier. He was screaming,
ranting, in what appeared to be a strange foreign language full of
consonants and stinging vowels. He held a Luger tightly in his right white
knuckled fist. His other hand was hidden behind his back.
553
“I thought you were dead!” Charlie screamed with a mad when
he locked eyes on Dali.
Dropping from his perch, Charlie rolled over a crate and began
stealthing around down low and out of site.
I scrambled from my hiding place behind a tall rack on the
mezzanine. A hole in my pant leg revealed a fresh bullet wound in my
wooden leg. I hobbled, wide-eyed I imagined, trying to get a better view
of where Charlie might have snuck off to so that I could cover Dali’s back.
I thought about making my way towards Dali, but decided that my current
position was better for the both of us. I had a clear site line to the stairs, so
no one would be able to sneak up on me, and a good overall picture of the
entire warehouse as big as it was.
I could sense that Rick was somewhere beneath me under the
mezzanine skulking around. Even though I had already scoped out my
spot I still couldn’t help but feel a little worried because I couldn’t exactly
pinpoint his location. For all I know he was searching for the crates, but I
didn’t trust him in the least.
554
I didn’t spot Charlie yet, due to his cat like stealth, but I could see
Dali hunched over in a quiet corner behind an aging machine. He was
working on something, but I couldn’t determine what he was up to.
Someone grabbed me by the shoulder and the amount of selfcontrol exerted by myself not to shoot my gun off as a reaction to my
surprise can’t be measured with a store bought gauge of any sort.
He leaned in close to me and whispered into my face with garlic
breath, “My name is Don Miguel Sergei St. Morisivitch.”
He had a calm, but very confident and powerful manner. He was
well dressed in a dark pinstriped suit, and a wide tie. I noticed that he
held no weapon, and didn’t seem to be objecting to me still clutching my
own. “The ‘movers’ work for me. I’m sure our friend has already filled
you in on my presence.”
“Um, he mentioned something.”
“I need your aid.”
“How can I help you?”
“We will go next door, while these heathen are searching in the
wrong location, and killing each other in the process. I’ve already
prepared the crates with the artwork.”
“What about Salvador?”
“Don’t worry him, he is more than capable of defending himself.
Besides my associates will keep him their eyes on him.”
“I don’t understand. If you’ve got the artwork all ready to go,
why do you need me?”
555
He seemed to be getting impatient with my questions, but his
voice was still gentle. “I understand that you have some skills with
electronics and such. The crates are loaded onto a forklift, but the key has
been misplaced.”
“And you need me to start it?”
“I’d heard you were smart.”
“Okay, let’s go. You lead.”
“No Max, it’s this way.”
He led me away from the stairs to a ladder next to the separating
wall. He was down quickly, but again seemed agitated waiting for me to
descend.
An industrial hook light attached to the forklift cage was the only
meager light in the other warehouse compartment. I was much colder,
and I could see my breath.
It was an old electric forklift, with peeling red paint and a number
of old automotive decals. All the contacts were corroded, and two of the
cells were almost bone dry. I stripped the ignition wires, but couldn’t get
it to turn over.
He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed, “Is that the best you
can do?” Anger seemed just below the surface as he paced the floor just
within the halo of light.
“I can clean some of the contacts, but I’m going to need some
water to top up some of these cells. It shouldn’t take long.”
556
“Sorry, Max. I’m sure you understand the pressure…” He
explained. “I’ll go fetch us some water if you don’t mind working on it
while I am gone.”
“No problem.”
“There’s Charlie.” Wilkes-Chu whispered.
“Where?”
She pointed through a narrow gap in the double row of pallet
racking, “He’s right there.”
Hargrave was trying to find his own peephole. “Who’s he talking
to?”
“I can’t tell,” she shrugged.
“There’s no way through…” he was examining the dusty product
for a way to the other side, but it was far too crammed. “You go that way.
I’ll circle around this way. We’ll trap them both in the aisle.”
“Got it.”
Wilkes-Chu walked quickly because she had a longer distance to
travel. Hargrave crept more cautiously. He loosened his tie, and wiped
his face into his shoulder to remove sweat from his lips.
557
Stepping over the freshly mutilated body of one of the ‘movers’.
Charlie moved forward to challenge Dali.
“So it has come to this, has it?” Salvador looked hungry.
“Yup. Time to pay the piper, freak show.” Charlie was wiping his
blood soaked hands on his trousers.
“I don’t hear a piper.”
“And this time you don’t have Jenny to save your ass.” He cast
aside his gun.
Inspired by the challenge, Dali cast aside his weapon as well.
“No sword this time?”
“As long as you leave your socks on this time.”
“You have no idea how much I’ve dreamt about this very
moment,” Charlie said, pushing up his sleeves. “And this time there will
be no doubt as to your demise.”
Dali swerved as a figure darted from behind a tall pallet. One of
the movers smashed Charlie over the head with a large plank, just as he
was winding up for a left jab at Dali. Robbed from his sweet-fisted
revenge, Dali turned to face the spoiler.
558
“You are not Stan! What have you done with Stan?”
The plank swung towards Dali’s face. He dodged it narrowly,
firing a quick blast of a single shot to the left ear lobe, and then the right.
The blood sprayed over the white ill-fitting jump suit like dark red
raindrops. To add insult to injury he knocked the man unconscious with a
clout to the head, gun in hand.
Hargrave turned the corner, and Dali took his cue to exit. He ran
to the end of the aisle, only a series of tall pallets between he and Hargrave
clogging up the aisle. He slithered around the corner and into the large
cross aisle. He stopped when he heard swift footsteps coming his way
from below the mezzanine, somewhere in front of him.
He brought back an old coffee pot filled with water. I had cleaned
the contacts as best I could.
The forklift started up easily. I lifted the forks from the frame and
tilted the precious cargo back.
Looking around for an exit I asked, “Where’s the door.”
“I wasn’t able to clear the barriers without causing suspicion, so
you will have to drive it through the wall.”
559
“And by that you mean…” Surely he didn’t mean what I thought
he meant.
“Smash through.”
He did.
I thought he was kidding, but at the first hint of my grin he turned
on me, as I somehow suspected that he would.
“Put that thing in gear,” he threatened. “This isn’t some sort of
game! Do you realize that?”
“But…”
“You are well protected in that cage. You’ll be fine, just keep your
eyes closed on contact to keep small particles from blinding you.” He put
one hand on my shoulder and pointed with the other to a discolored
section of the wall. “Aim for that section. It is a merely a thin partition, a
virginal membrane. If you hit it straight on…the other side has a wide
aisle that is mostly clear.”
“It’s not safe,” I protested. “Once I’m through they’ll shoot me to
bits.”
“We are counting on you. Besides, my men have already tidied up
most of the mess.” I couldn’t decide with was thicker; his head or his neck.
“I’m not doing it. There’s got to be another way.”
“You will!” He jumped up onto the crates at the front of the
forklift and pulled out a gun. He sneered, pointing the barrel in my face.
“I guess I will, then.” I slammed the cage door and buckled myself
in with the five-point harness.
560
I jerked the forklift into reverse and stepped hard on the
accelerator. I tried to aim for the section of the wall that he had pointed
out. The closer I got, the more I realized how small the safe section was.
I took one last look in the rearview mirror before impact. St.
Morisivitch had protectively draped his body over the crates like a blanket.
“Dead?” He asked his partner.
She hovered over Charlie, checking his pulse. “No, but he’s going
to have a hell of a headache when he wakes up. Yours?”
“Alive.” Then he chuckled, “But he won’t be wearing earrings
again any time soon.” He was deftly putting a pair of plastic handcuffs on
the limp form
Wilkes-Chu used the real handcuffs on Charlie, and used the
plastic ones for his ankles for added security.
“Isn’t it funny?”
She looked up from her task, “Isn’t what funny?”
“The silence.”
“Maybe everyone is either dead or unconscious?”
“No. I saw ‘Stache a minute ago.”
561
Suddenly she seemed very intense, “Any sign of Jenny?”
“None.”
As a response to the silence a single gunshot pierced the air.
Rick sprinted from the relative anonymity of a cubbyhole beneath
the mezzanine and entered the wide-open cross aisle.
Dali fired a single shot, penetrated Rick’s upper thigh. The force
of the bullet, and his inertia, spun him around.
“Ahh!”
He wobbled on his feet, clutching at the bloody mess. His eyes
locked into Dali’s steady gaze for only a brief second.
The wall beside him exploded.
His body was tossed casually aside be the speeding forklift, and
quickly covered my debris. An enormous cloud of dust obscured the
whole scene
Dali ran for cover as the forklift continued on an out of control
skid.
562
The Agents got to the scene of the collision quickly. Wilkes-Chu
had her finger tightening on the trigger at a grinning, but dazed and dusty,
St.Morisivitch. He jumped out of sight before she could fire a single shot.
“Nice of you to show up, Agents!” He snickered from the dust.
She trained her gun on the figure exiting the forklift. Max
stumbled from the cage.
“Freeze!”
She lost her focus when the last remaining ‘mover’ sprung from a
ladder. He moved quickly, riding the ladder down, while climbing it. He
fired at the Agents, and the bullets went wild, ricocheted off racking and
pallets.
“I can’t get a good shot.” Hargrave complained.
“Ahh! I’m hit!” She cried.
The mover landed, discarding the ladder, and came in for the kill.
Hargrave emptied six rounds into his torso. The ‘mover’ still propelled
forward on dead mans legs, while blood gushed from his wounds.
“Let me see.”
“It’s alright. I think it just grazed me.” She was examining ripped
flesh just above her left elbow. “Did you get the bastard?”
“Condition terminal.”
563
“Rick? Rick!” Jenny was whispering, searching under bits of
wood and drywall.
“Here I am.” He responded weakly.
She was fast to remove the obstacles in his way. His face was
powder white from the dust, and a trickle of blood snaked out of his nose.
“You look rough. How do you feel?”
“Not bloody good.”
“These,” she hissed, dangling the location sheets in his face, “are
all wrong. This whole mess is all your fault.”
“You wot?!?”
Jenny gave him a quick, but brutal kick to the ribs.
“I never feel as good as when I’m bad.” She says, laying in the
boots.
“This one is for you kicking me under the table in the hotel lounge,
this one,” she kicked at him again, “is for calling me a dozy cow. And
this,” she wound up for an especially brutal kick, “was for not helping me
with the bags when we first met.”
564
He moaned, writhing in pain. Red spittle dribbled from his
clenched teeth.
“Oh, come on. Don’t be such a big baby. Does it hurt? Don’t you
know that ‘a little pain never hurt anybody’?”
She got an evil look in her eye suddenly.
“If you can guess which one of movies that I said that line in I
promise that I will stop kicking you.”
His voice was a hoarse gurgle, “Ride a White Swan.”
She looked taken aback, “I’m impressed!” She turned to leave, but
came back at him with ferocity, “I lied!” And she laid the boots in one last
time.
Winding up for another brutal toe job, she stopped as a bullet
whizzed by her head, followed by two more. Fleeing, she took one last
look at the motionless Rick with a satisfied grin.
In the din of the gunfire Jenny was unable to hear a very weak
sounding, “I’m still…four and five.”
565
Dali grabbed me by the elbow out of the way of all the carnage. I
kept my head down, and tried to look out through my tangled mess of
hair.
“It is a crude reality of violence and blood.” He looked disgusted
by the whole ugly mess. He sneered, “Let my enemies devour each other!
Let’s just wait here for a moment until you regain your composure.”
“Thanks.” I slumped down against a box and tried to wipe some
of the mess off my face.
“I see you’ve found my artwork! Good work, Max!”
“Well I had some help.”
“I’m not sure if that was the most prudent method of getting the
crates through, but they don’t appear damaged.”
“No thanks to your friend.”
Dali seemed confused by this, but stood up when we spotted some
movement. I got up and circled around a pallet of boxes to get a better
look.
Jenny was storming towards us with a shotgun in her hand. Her
eyes seemed irritated and red. She was rubbing them with her free hand.
She turned left, away from us.
Down one clotted narrow aisle I could see that the male Agent had
left his bloodied partner and was coming towards us. Neither Jenny nor
the Agent could see each other, they both walked steadily forward
oblivious to the others presence.
Jenny stopped and looked back over her shoulder. She must have
heard the same scraping, shuffling noise that I heard. One of the lights
566
above and behind her blinked out casting even more degraded gloom onto
the scene. The Agent emerged around the corner and brought his gun up.
“Drop your weapon!”
Jenny turned around slowly, not cautiously, but playfully. She
shifted her wait on one jaunty hip.
“But officer, aren’t you here to rescue me?” Her voice had taken
on a strange timber. It reminded me of Estrella, the female mafia boss
from her role in the movie ‘Romeo Bravo’. The slightly husky Italian
accent was unmistakable.
The Agent’s female partner got to her feet quickly when she heard
Jenny’s voice, and rushed towards her partner.
“I mean it Miss Haniver. Put down your weapon, or I will be
forced to shoot.”
“Would you shoot me, officer?” She blasted one barrel into his
arm and stomach.
I left my perch and walked into the aisle way, still obscured in
shadow. I felt repulsed, utterly sickened by what I’d just witnessed.
The officer dropped his gun and clutched at his bloody guts. The
female officer rushed into Jenny’s view.
“Jenny put the gun down.” Her voice was very uncertain. She
looked over at her wounded partner, then back to Jenny.
Again I heard a shuffling noise to my left. I was watching Jenny
with one eye on the other side.
Dali whispered to me from his crevice, “Don’t move.”
I had moving on my mind.
567
“Nadia. I thought we were in this together as friends…more than
friends.” She purred in a little girl voice, the shotgun slung low on her hip
like a violent belt.
“I thought that.” She agreed with tears in her eyes, gun still
trained on Jenny. “But, you can’t…”
“Him? What does this old relic mean to you? More than I do?”
“No…I mean yes. I’m confused. Why don’t you just put the gun
down and we talk this over. There are plenty of cameras waiting for you
outside.”
“Let me make the decision for you.”
“Don’t!”
But it was too late. Jenny fired the other barrel, sending all the
minute pellets deep into the male Agents chest. He slumped to his knees,
looking up at his partner with helpless tears rolling down his cheeks. He
was struggling to say something, but nothing came out except an eerie
gurgle.
Still the female Agent refused to fire. She was frozen between
helping her partner and rushing towards Jenny with her claws out, or
that’s what it looked like. Jenny was casually reloading the shotgun with
fresh shells.
“Why?” she sobbed, “How could you do that?”
“I forced you to chose. You could have saved him, but you
decided not to shoot me.”
From the darkness an ugly growl snarled, “I decide to shoot.”
568
There, huddled on the floor propped up against the forklift was a
very decimated Rick. He held a gun in an uncertain mangled hand, but his
eyes were clear and definite.
“Jenny!” I shouted, rushing forward to push her to safety.
She turned around and saw Rick and his intentions. For one split
second, just long enough to stop her from firing her weapon, she looked
up and are eyes met. Her eyes were wide with surprise.
“Max?”
Rick fired his gun once into her abdomen.
“Not the face!” She screamed. Dropping the shotgun she tried to
block further shots with widespread hands.
Rick’s second shot went through her left hand and lodged into her
neck just above the collarbone. I was still moving, not close enough to Rick
to stop him from firing again, and still to far from Jenny to push her to
safety. The third shot pierced her in the middle of her chest.
The female Agent unloaded her full clip into Rick.
Jenny fell to the ground at the same time as the male Agent. I
rushed to her side. The female Agent was already cradling her limp body.
Her badge was splayed out on the floor, and I read her name for the first
time.
The male agent, in his death throes whispered, “I love you Nadia.”
His confession was drowned by Wilkes-Chu, his partner,
declaring, “Don’t die, Jenny, I love you! You can’t die!”
“Jenny?” I touched her forehead, but she was already dead
“I thought you wanted her dead.” Dali almost whispered.
569
“I…” swallowing tears, the realization hit me. “She’s my big
sister! I only ever wanted an apology.”
Confused by my strange conflicting emotions, between a twisted
form of revenge and loss of my only sister, I could think of nothing, but to
stroke her hair. The room had been overcome by an eerie silence, but for
the soft weeping of the female Agent.
I thought I saw Jenny’s eyelids fluttered softly, but Nadia pushed
my hand away from my sister’s hair and scooped her up in her arms. She
looked into my eyes, piercing me with a curled lip, but softened. “Just go,
Max. You’ve suffered enough. Just take what you came for and go.”
“She’s right, Max.” Dali said, helping me to my feet.
Nadia carried the limp body of the not so immortal Jenny Haniver
lovingly towards the exit.
I jumped back into the cockpit of the forklift and started it up,
ignoring Rick’s gore. The granny knob was slick in my hands with blood.
Dali had opened up the large double doors that lead back towards the
dumbwaiter and the bricked up exit. He closed the doors behind me and
was already nailing them shut and pushing things in front of them.
570
“That should buy us some time.”
The only lights were two dusty spotlights on the forklift cage. One
of them hung limply pointing at the floor, a casualty of the wall smashing.
“But we’re still not going to have the time it takes to remove all
these bricks by hand.”
“No, you’re right. What to do?”
“I’ll just use the forklift as a battering ram again. A few well
placed nudges should take care of.”
“If it doesn’t bring the whole building down on top of us.” Dali
looked very distracted by his thoughts. “Why don’t you try it then?”
I reversed the forklift into the wall gently, as a test run, focusing
on the most recent bricked up archway. The contact jarred me, but the
bricks yielded slightly. I moved forward, giving myself plenty of room to
get a good run in for a solid second hit.
Dali encouraged me, “That’s it!”
The hard rubber tires squealed when I mashed the pedal down.
The collision stunned me, and I bit down hard on my tongue. The salty
tang of blood was thick in my throat. Many of the bricks had fallen away,
but to be able to use the exit properly would require one final push. I
shifted into forward, but the forklift wouldn’t advance. The tires spun, but
I was trapped. I looked down to see what was holding me back. Wedged
under the tire was a rusty metal bar. On the other end of the bar was a
grinning character in an expensive suit.
“What are you doing?” I asked him.
571
He answered me with a smug smirk. He got up and came around
to the other side of the forklift to greet Dali.
“So finally we meet.” He extended his hand to Dali, but it wasn’t
taken up.
“It would appear that way.” Dali was poised for anything. His
face was a strange cocktail of fear, revulsion, and anger.
“I am Don Miguel Sergei St. Morisivitch, and you are?”
“Salvador Dali!” He seemed annoyed that this wasn’t completely
obvious.
“I’m confused…” I squirmed, trying trapped in the forklift cage,
the wall pinning my only real exit closed. “I thought you two knew each
other. In fact, weren’t you two working together?”
“You couldn’t have been farther from the truth.”
“Let me illuminate you, Max.” The very confident St. Morisivitch
“You see, your delusional friend here has been following the same trail for
this artwork,” he patted the crates with a well-manicured head. “That I
have been for many years.”
“He is Dali!” I protested, frustrated by my inability to move. The
words amused Don Miguel, but seemed to alleviate some of Dali’s fear.
“Regardless. We both want the same thing, but only one of us can
have it.” He turned back to Salvador with burning eyes, “Isn’t that right?”
“It is my artwork, my life! I don’t intend to surrender it now, after
all these years.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to take it over your dead body.”
572
Knowing his utter and crippling fear of death I half-expected Dali
to step aside and let St. Morisivitch take the crates without a fight, but this
didn’t happen. He removed his coat and set it gently aside. He was
unarmed and stepped forward with fists clenched at his sides.
This further amused Don Miguel. He mockingly removed his own
jacket and laughed, “This won’t take long, I hope. I have a lunch
appointment at 1:00 and I want to have time to clean the blood of my
hands.”
Dali was quick. He rushed in a brought one gloved fist quickly up
from his side, catching an off guard St. Morisivitch squarely under the
chin. He was knocked from his feet, but sprung up instantly, doing a very
controlled aerial salto, combined with a very floral kick to Dali’s face.
Dali tackled him to the ground and managed to get in a swift
flurry of blows to the ribs, before Don Miguel cast him off. Regaining his
feet he did a full twisting straddle jump, and a pirouette.
Sal attempted a spinning tango throttle chop, but his hand was
caught by St. Morisivitch and forced behind him. Dali countered with a
full nelson, but Don Miguel dropped down and caught him with both feet
square in the chest. Dali reeled backwards, caught off balance with a
grunt.
“Had enough?” Morisivitch panted, his underarms already
stained with sweat.
“Enough of your prancing!”
Don Miguel tried a piked double backwards salto, but Dali threw a
well-placed punch to his teeth mid jump, sending him sprawling to the
573
corner like a broken doll. The insult of interrupting the pretty maneuver
seemed to infuriate Morisivitch. He came out of the corner swinging a
pallet board with a number of crooked nails at Dali’s head The
devastating blow was dodged and the end of the plank splintered against a
shelf
Morisivitch leapt on Dali like a wild animal, all gymnastic
elements aside. A gash opened up above Dali’s eye and he was clearly
stunned. His eyes became unfocused and he stumbled. Don Miguel saw
his opening and pushed Dali to the ground where he struck his head
Astride Dali’s chest, pinning down his arms, St. Morisivitch
recovered the broken board, now a snarling wooden stake. He jabbed the
wood into first Dali’s left hand, then his right.
Dali wept at his mangled and broken hands, blood staining their
purity like a demonic stigmata.
“Surely this is the end, eh?” He chided. “Now, in your last
moments renounce you false identity.”
“Never! I am Dali!”
St. Morisivitch raised the wood above his head with insane blood
lust distorting his face into a monstrous visage.
“Salvador!” I shouted, trying to rouse him.
Unable to squeeze between the bars on the forklift cage to come to
his defense, I unfastened my sharpened claw and tossed it to him through
the bars.
He rolled aside to retrieve my claw, and Don Miguel’s blow
splintered into the concrete floor. The only other object within reach was
574
the rusty metal bar under the forklift tire. He pulled it out and ran full
speed at the still recovering Dali with the corroded spear. Dali tripped,
stepped aside, and kicked his feet out from under him, but St. Morisivitch
dragged him down on top of them.
They rolled around on the floor, Don Miguel’s hands choking the
life out of my friend. Dali’s face was red and his eyes were bulging. He
brought the claw up and thrust it into his opponent’s neck. A single
geyser of blood spurted from the gymnast like an uncorked cask of wine.
Dali pushed him off and came over. He adjusted the forklift light
to obscure the figure, all but his twitching feet.
575
Chapter 33
I helped Dali untie his friend Stan, and another man, that were tied
together in the back of the moving van. Stan and the other guy decided to
stay with the crates in the back.
With the crates loaded securely, I helped Dali into the passenger
side of the moving van. He was weeping, staring down at his destroyed
hands.
“I’ll never paint again.”
I tried to reassure him, “If I can have a hand reattached, then I’m
sure they can fix those.”
“You don’t understand,” he was shaking his head. “The magic
within them has gone. I can feel it.”
I left him to his thoughts and tried to drive the truck towards
downtown. I turned the corner past the police cars and crowds, glancing
back at them in the rear view.
576
I looked down between the seats and noticed an old leather
doctor’s bag.
“Maybe there’s something in here we can put on those hands to
stop some of the blood.”
“No. Within that bag are the contents of the safe. All my
important documents and papers are in there. Property deeds, gold
certificates…”
“Oh. When did you have a chance to…”
“Must have been when you were helping St. Morisivitch.”
The next morning I passed by the crates that Stan and his buddy,
whose name I never did catch, had piled up in the foyer.
It was still very early, but Dali had already switched on a beautiful
42” wide screen plasma TV. The news was unfolding about Charlie’s
capture, and the death of my sister. He sat cradling his damaged hands in
his lap like a dead pet.
It was probably going to take me a few days to decode the feelings
I had about my sisters, so I was able to watch the morbid scenes with an air
577
of disassociation. Maybe in a couple of days I would decide whether to
laugh or cry.
Dali said, almost to himself, “The one thing the world will never
have enough of is the outrageous.” The words started out like a triumph,
but ended on the whisper of a fading ghost.
They were mentioning the crates of Dali’s artwork. They
explained that they had possibly been the cause of all the bloodshed, but
that they had been removed. I had no idea how they were tipped off, but
Salvador’s glassy eyed grin gave me a pretty good idea. They broke for
commercial, and I saw the mysterious Sangre Eterna, Dali created
advertisement, for the first time. I still had no clue what he was
promoting, other than himself in a cryptic sort of way. I had to look away
when some alternating colors flashed at the end. Very subliminal, I
decided.
When the news came back on they showed a very beat up Charlie
in shackles being led from a van. Dali seemed annoyed by this, but perked
up when they mentioned the excitement surrounding the artwork on a
manifest they had obtained. They showed 30 seconds of the 2003 Disney
release, but Dali seemed disgusted by this. They were talking to the
female Agent, Wilkes-Chu about her partner, but she still seemed more
upset about the death of Jenny Haniver. They did show some of the
bodies being wheeled out of the building, and I instantly recognized Rick’s
shoes, and wrinkled gray slacks.
“What about St. Morisivitch? Why haven’t they mentioned his
involvement, and his death?”
578
“He’s like me. You can’t kill that which is already dead.” Dali
replied cryptically, getting up and going into the bathroom.
I noticed that he had made a pot of coffee so I went to pour myself
a cup. I couldn’t find any mugs, so I filled up a bowl instead. CNN was
already rehashing the story again without anything new, so I switched off
the TV.
I sat down on the sofa that was shaped like a pair of lips. I was
still buzzing. Everything seemed so unreal. I needed to ground myself.
Yesterday’s newspaper was on a coffee table that was designed like a
painter’s pallet. An article caught my eye on the front page of section 3.
Dali was still in the washroom, but he seemed to be having a
hushed conversation with another man, but I had never seen anyone
follow him into the washroom. Perhaps he was on a cell phone, but that
wasn’t really like him.
“Hey, did you see this in the paper?”
“What is it?” He shouted with a slightly annoyed tone.
“Have you ever heard of the amber room?”
“No.”
I paused. Did I hear scissors?
“Please, go on.” He said, but his voice sounded different and
somehow clearer.
“It was a room that was entirely decorated in massive amber
panels encrusted with jewels and backed with gold mirrors and gold leaf.
Some people called it the “Eighth Wonder of the World”.
579
“We have so much still left to do. Are you suggesting that we visit
it?”
“We can’t. It was stolen from the Russian imperial palace in the
1940’s and it has been missing ever since. Wow! Six tons of amber!”
He dropped something and it clanged to the floor.
“The whole room is missing?”
“That’s what the article says. There is an interview with a treasure
hunter that has narrowed it down to a few possible locations, but you can
almost hear the interviewer sneering through the text.”
He entered the room slowly and sat down on the couch. His face
was no longer contorted his eyes no longer bulged. He had cut his hair,
short and messy. More surprisingly he had shaved off his gratuitous
moustache.
He smiled, removing his white gloves, “The whole room?”
“Yes. All the jewel encrusted panels.”
Suddenly, maybe due to the light, or his dramatic shift of physical
attributes, maybe it was his mannerisms, but suddenly I recognized him.
How unbelievably dense had I been to have not realized before? I thought
my head was about to explode.
“May I see that paper?” He said with a clear, unadulterated
American accent quickly hitting the number 7 on a cell phone that I’d
never seen before.
“Anisette, can you handle the rest of this ridiculous Dali stuff?
Perfect. Oh, and more importantly, dig up everything you can on the
amber room and tell the team to pack for Europe.”
580
Fin
581