They All Fall Down

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  Excerpted from the Las Vegas Review-Journal

  Thursday, January 3

  CUSTOMER DIES OF STROKE AT B.I.G. IN VEGAS

  … Cardoza is the executive chef and owner of B.I.G., located off the Strip and known for excess in portion and exotic offerings.

  “I didn’t make him order it,” Cardoza said. “He’s a grown man. And I didn’t tell him to eat the whole thing. Where does personal responsibility come in?”

  Mr. Peter Humphries, 66, of Brooklyn, NY, suffered a stroke on January 2 after consuming a four-patty burger that also boasted smoked oysters, elk pastrami, twelve slices of Muenster cheese and two fried ostrich eggs stacked between two thick slices of Texas toast coated in Brie cheese.

  Humphries is the second diner to die after a meal at B.I.G. In November, Rita Swanson, 70, died of a heart attack …

  TWISTED

  16

  “Ohmygosh, ohmygosh,” Desi kept saying. Her face had turned the color of marble.

  “This isn’t happening,” Wallace, also pale, whispered. “This can’t be happening.”

  “Do something,” I was screaming. “Somebody do something. Help him.”

  Eddie said nothing, just dashed over to Javier, whose smock and face were soaking in a pool of vomit. He unloosened the buttons on the dying chef’s top and then pinched Javier’s nose. Just as he bent to place his mouth over Javier’s, Evelyn scrambled over and yanked the first responder by his collar. The tendons in her neck were bulging as she yelled, “Don’t do that!”

  Eddie pushed her and shouted, “Get away!”

  “He has poison on his lips, idiot!” Evelyn hollered back. “You’ll die!”

  Eddie’s eyes bugged as he stared down at Javier’s blue face. “But … he’s … but…” Those same bugged eyes glazed as he realized that he couldn’t safely save Javier from dying. And his excited breath left his body and his shoulders slumped just like his spirit.

  “We should…” I swallowed, blinked, blinked again. “We have to do something. We have to call someone, call the police or … or…”

  No one moved or attempted to save Javier Cardoza. Peppered around the dining room, we gaped at the chef’s lifeless body now collapsed upon the dining room table. A sob burst from my chest as the shock of his violent end crashed into me. Dead, all because of fish? Fish that had been arranged like a flower on my M plate? Dead because he hadn’t cut the fish right? Fish that I could’ve eaten? Fish that could’ve killed me? Realizing that death had been inches from my lips … dark spots swirled in between unfallen tears. And my chest … like my lungs were being squeezed between a vise and … Dead right now—I could be dead right now.

  Desi hid her face in Frank’s chest and keened like an abandoned cocker spaniel. Her sadness and snot soon covered the front of his guayabera.

  Wallace had frozen in his chair. His hands gripped the arms so tightly that his knuckles looked like veiny quartz.

  Meanwhile, silver rain beaded and trickled down the windowpanes, and expensive wine from our knocked-over personalized glasses trickled off the table and onto the carpet. Javier’s last meal flecked the ivory chairs and the ivory tablecloth, hardening there, hell to scrub out. Only the vases of peach roses had remained unspoiled and upright.

  Eddie had to do something, so he lifted Javier’s wrist and placed his thumb against the chef’s pulse point. He shook his head, more to himself than to us, then reached into his cargo shorts for a penlight. He shone light in Javier’s right eye, then his left. Eddie shook his head again, then muttered, “Shit.”

  Lightning flashed on cue beyond the forest and thunder pounded the earth. Those screaming death’s-head hawkmoths kept throwing themselves against the windows.

  Desi blew her nose into a napkin, then muttered, “I’m not hungry anymore.”

  “Someone has to clean this up,” Frank declared.

  No one offered.

  Eddie searched Javier’s pockets and found the dead man’s silver pill case. He opened the top, and white powder sparkled like magical fairy dust.

  “What’s that?” Desi asked, squinting.

  “Cocaine,” I said.

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  “Cuz he offered me some. Because duh.”

  Eddie dipped his pinky finger into the powder, then tasted it. “Yeah, it’s coke. Bozo.”

  “Probably why he died so quickly,” Frank said. “Not that he looked terribly healthy in the first place.”

  Eddie grunted, then pocketed the blow.

  “We can’t leave him here,” Wallace said, finally speaking, finally releasing his death grip from the chair. “The heat will get him.”

  There was heat? For me, everything in this room had turned to ice again—flatware and wineglasses, the chandelier and the windows. All of it threatened frostbite and hypothermia, and I couldn’t stop shivering.

  Frank lifted Javier’s feet while Eddie hooked his hands beneath the dead man’s armpits.

  “Please be careful with him,” I said, tears welling in my eyes.

  Eddie scowled. “Or, what? We’ll break something? Too late.”

  I glared at him. “Not tonight, Satan. Not tonight.”

  Eddie flushed with shame. “We’ll take him to the cellar. Or maybe the freezer—yeah, he’ll be good there until the Mexican police come.”

  “So you’re gonna call the police?” I asked.

  Eddie said, “Yep.”

  “Will they come tonight?” I asked.

  “Don’t know. Probably not with the storm.”

  “Is it—?”

  “Miriam,” Eddie interrupted, “I don’t know what’s in your left pocket, and I don’t know what number you’re thinking, okay? Stop asking questions that I ain’t got answers for, all right? Can we put him somewhere now?”

  My mouth snapped shut, and I nodded.

  Then, the two men duckwalked out of the dining room. Their shoes clomped in different rhythms as they carried the near-three-hundred-pound man to the kitchen.

  Weeping again, Desi plopped back into her chair. Rings of sweat now darkened the underarms of her no-longer-perfect dress. Her hair had spiraled out of control, and her cries grew louder as if trying to force someone to console her. Aw-roo! Aw-roo! On and on, louder and louder. Aw-roo! Aw-roo!

  All of it made my head ache and my eyes heavy. I heard my patience rip like new fabric, and I snapped, “Will you shut up?”

  She froze in mid-Aw-roo and blinked at me. My words had been a rolled newspaper to her wet nose.

  And for a moment, Artemis sank again into perfect peace.

  “I didn’t mean to…” I said to Desi. “It’s just … This is…”

  “I’ll go get some paper towels and cleaner,” Desi said stiffly.

  “I’ll join you,” Wallace said, tottering behind her.

  I stared at that large map on the wall and wished to be anywhere else but here. Then I glanced at Evelyn—she had quietly returned to her place at the table and was now chewing. Some of the pufferfish petals on her baby blue E plate were missing.

  “Are you actually eating that?” I asked. “You’re eating that fish?”

  Her lips thinned as she stopped chewing. She waited a beat, swallowed whatever she’d been eating, then whispered, “I’m hungry.” Her thick neck quivered.

  Icy tears, not out of sorrow but from disgust, slipped down my cheeks. “You just saw him eat that shit and die. You have a death wish or something?”

  “No.”

  “He didn’t cut it right, Evelyn,” I shouted.

  She offered the weakest shrug in the history of shrugs.

  “Why are you eating that?” I shouted again. “I don’t understand. Help me understand.” Because I didn’t understand—unless she was eating the fish because she wanted to die. “Don’t you smell that? Who can eat with … with … vomit everywhere? With freakin’ puke all over the place?”

  She dropped her gaze to the table. “I’m a nurse. The smell doesn’t bother me.”

&
nbsp; “The ‘killing Javier’ thing—does that bother you? What about the ‘he cut this shit wrong’ thing—you’re cool with that?” Her words had made me even colder and angrier, and every inch of my skin numbed. And my dress squeezed me, and I couldn’t breathe, and worse than that, some of Javier’s vomit had splattered onto my grosgrain bow. “Why didn’t you try to save him?” I demanded to know now. “You’re the nurse. Weren’t you the one who was supposed to do CPR?”

  “Good questions, Miriam.” Wallace had returned to the dining room. He held a roll of paper towels in his hands, flawless yet fragile looking in his suit. His eyes were still sharp and a haughty mauve. “She is a nurse,” he continued, ripping off sheets from the towel roll as if it had stolen something. He was smiling but he didn’t mean it, not by the way he was strangling and snatching those paper towels. “Of course, she’s killed just about every patient she’s ever cared for,” he said. “The cute little lady who collected teapots but couldn’t remember her first name but somehow remembered Evelyn’s name in her will. The other cute little old lady who owned mineral rights to a turquoise mine. And then there’s the little old lady who wasn’t cute at all, but was smart enough to hide a cheap video camera in a flower pot in her bedroom, which caught our nurse here and her secret needle poking air bubbles into the IV lines.”

  “IV…?” I said to him. “How do you know about that? Who are you?”

  “A Taurus,” Wallace said, his eyes sharp as a razor blade. “A Democrat. Lover of sea salts from Provence and leather shoes from New England. I was also Phillip’s confidant and confessor.” He glanced at me and my skin chilled as though he’d cut me with just that look. “He told me everything as he lay dying, as he asked his Maker for forgiveness, especially”—he turned those glinting eyes back to Evelyn—“for defending you.”

  He tsked, then shook his head. “Poor, stupid Phillip. He just kept saving our nurse here, time and time again. We’d argue about the rest of you, but Nursie-Nurse here brought out the worst in both of us. Didn’t know why he did, but he and I would fight about Nurse Pemstein at least three times a month. No matter—he’s dead and she’s still here, and her R.N. certification is still … valid. Unless New Mexico has finally taken that away from you. Have they, dear?” he asked. His grin turned into a sneer.

  Evelyn sensed the danger. With raw-looking fingers, she tore at a hole in her sleeve with nails that had already been chewed down to the skin. “I didn’t want Eddie to die touching Javier’s … He could’ve died from the poison … Doesn’t matter anyway—he’s dead.” Then she stared at me with those stupid goat eyes and breathed her raspy breath.

  Empty, blank. Nothing there. Did she feel? Did she wonder? Could she only blink and chew and futz and mumble? Didn’t she care that Wallace was moments away from ending her with just his eyes?

  I shook my head at the red-faced woman. “Something’s wrong with you.”

  “A mess,” Wallace said. “One big nasty mess.” He glanced at me and gave a slight shake of his head. “If it were up to me, Nurse Pemstein, I would’ve pushed you off the yacht on our way over here. I would’ve smiled as you drowned, then had Raul back up the boat and launch a missile at your corpse, you piece of shit.” He pushed out a breath. “But Phillip wanted you all here. So there’s nothing I can do except actively and loudly hate you.”

  Just as Evelyn opened her mouth to respond, another piercing shriek ripped through the halls of Artemis.

  What now?

  17

  Before racing to the kitchen, I threw an uneasy glance back over my shoulder.

  Just that quick, Evelyn had eaten another slice of fish from her plate. Brave or stupid, I couldn’t tell, but my muscles tensed and I waited a moment to see if the nurse’s arms would flail, if her mouth would froth, if vomit would shoot from her gut to puddle alongside Javier’s. But she didn’t flail and she didn’t vomit—she just chewed and sat there and stared dumbly at her plate.

  Why was she not flailing? Why was she not vomiting? How was it possible that Evelyn was still alive? Did she have four stomachs like a goat, with all four made of steel? Was she immune to tetrodotoxin or whatever the hell came from fish ovaries? The fish on my plate looked the same as the fish on Evelyn’s plate. Maybe hers was a little less translucent? Had only one part of the fish—the part Javier had put on my green plate—been cut incorrectly? Would that have changed the flesh’s opacity? Why was she even willing to take that kind of risk? Suicide—that was the only explanation. She wanted to die.

  And that’s what I thought as I entered the kitchen squinting—because I was still confused. And I continued to squint, because the kitchen was too bright. Golden light ricocheted off the stainless steel refrigerator and sink fixtures, off the perfect skin of the mangoes and papayas piled into ceramic bowls. The kitchen was so bright that astronauts could see it from space.

  Javier’s Crocs-covered feet, crossed at the ankles, vacation style, poked out of the freezer door. Eddie was skulking back and forth, hands clamped over his ears, his face red and twisted. His combat boots crunched pieces of the wineglass that Evelyn had dropped less than thirty minutes ago.

  And Desi … she had been the screamer. Collapsed on the floor, she was hitting her fists against the tile, wailing at the tops of her lungs again. “He ain’t had to die! Oh, lord, help me! Help Javi! Aw-roo! Aw-roo!” She hadn’t been able to get attention in the dining room, so she’d taken her show on the road. Blanche DuBois meets Maggie the Cat meets John Travolta. One giant ham and cheese sandwich.

  Aromas from the dinner that was supposed to have been eaten by now still hung in the air. Grilled lobster and shrimp sautéed in garlic. A platter of glistening asparagus speckled with minced red onions. A pan of melted butter congealing the longer it sat. Six bottles of wine lined up on the sink counter. Each dish was still edible. Each bottle of expensive wine was still drinkable. Nothing left behind obviously boasted cyanide as a key ingredient.

  Frank kneeled beside the damsel and patted her shoulder. “It’s okay, Desirée. I’m here for you. You’re not alone.” Beads of sweat trickled down the sides of his face and soaked into the collar of his shirt, now stiffening from Desi’s snot and tears.

  “I can’t stay here,” Desi said, her pleading raccoon eyes glued on Eddie. “Not with a dead man in a freezer. Oh no, no, no. Aw-roo! Aw-roo!”

  Frank continued to pat her trembling shoulder and her messy hair. He kept cooing bullshit words about Javier not being in pain anymore and that there was nothing to fear and that help would come, don’t you fret none.

  Desi ignored the minstrel’s ministrations as she thrust her hands out to Eddie. “I’m so skeered. I just don’t know what to do. Aw-roo! Aw-roo! I’m so skeered. Help me.”

  I rubbed my temples. “Calm down, Desirée. Eddie’s calling the police right now.” I glanced at Eddie, who was gaping at the satellite phone in his large hand.

  “The storm,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “There’s no signal.”

  Desi pulled herself to kneel. “Eddie, could you be a dear and walk me back to my room? I just don’t feel safe no more.” She wrung her hands and batted her gummy eyelashes.

  Eddie glanced at me, and the corner of his mouth lifted into a knowing smile. He snatched the spray bottle of cleaner fluid off the counter. “Can’t. I have to clean up the mess in the dining room.” Then he marched past the kneeling woman, winking at me as he strode out of the kitchen.

  Desi’s face fell and her hands dropped to her sides. She lifted her face to the ceiling, then wailed, “I’m so skeered. Help me, Lord!”

  “Sweet Desi,” Frank said, taking her arm, “I’ll walk you to your room.”

  “Can you make me a to-go plate?” she asked him, working those clumpy lashes again.

  “Certainly.” Frank darted here and there, plate in hand, taking a little of this, a little of that, and a bottle of wine.

  “Don’t forget forks,” I said, smirking.

  “Oh, yes.” Frank plucked two for
ks from the cutlery drawer.

  “And napkins.”

  He plucked four napkins from the breakfast bar.

  Then Desi let Frank, whose hands were already filled with a plate, flatware, and a bottle of wine, help her stand. “I just don’t know what to do,” she said.

  “I got you,” Frank said.

  “You got me?”

  “Of course, I do.”

  “Can we go to your room?” she asked. “I don’t wanna be so close to the kitchen.”

  Frank smiled and said, “Definitely. I understand.”

  Together, they shambled out to the living room.

  Neither Wallace nor I spoke as Desi’s performance went on the road again and up the stairs. After they were gone, the recessed lighting softened into a silky golden glow. Wallace sighed, then sank against the breakfast counter.

  I approached the walk-in freezer and stared down at poor Javier, who was blue now. Someone had closed his eyes. “Is this … real? I just can’t believe this is happening.” His face had twisted and frozen even before the cold of the freezer had taken him. “He looks dead, like … like … and now he’s … all because of fish?” So very cold, I clutched my elbows and asked, “Should we say a few words over him, or…?”

  “I didn’t come here to bury him,” Wallace spat.

  “I know that, but—”

  Scowling, Wallace swiped at the breakfast counter, sending a loaf of French bread and a basket of strawberries to the tiled floor. “This is bullshit. Bullshit.” Then he sent a pile of paper napkins fluttering in the air. He closed his eyes and took deep, controlled breaths.

  I turned away from him to gaze at Javier, alone on the freezer floor. My heart ached as I whispered, “Good-bye, Javi. May God be with you.” Then I closed the heavy steel door.

  “You never get used to it, do you?” Wallace whispered.

  I glanced at him over my shoulder.

  The anger had drained from his face, and he was now staring at the closed freezer door. “The dead, I mean. The … stillness. My first was my twin brother, William. We were only twelve when he passed, and I remember pinching his face and … His face … it was so cold, so cold … I thought, This can’t be him. That’s what I kept telling myself. This isn’t him, this isn’t my brother. He’d come to me in my nightmares, and he’d touch me, and his fingers … his fingers were like icy stones, and his touch always left bruises on my skin, and…”