“No. Spinster? Shy one?”
“Close. It means pure. Chaste.”
“What about Lilin?”
“I didn’t find it in that book. Its origin is different.”
April sat up straight. “How so?”
“Are you familiar with any ancient Jewish stories on the origin of humans?”
“I’m Catholic.”
“Have you heard of Lilith?”
She drummed her fingers on her thigh. “That was the name of Dr. Frasier Crane’s wife on the sitcom Cheers. Right? And a bunch of female rockers organize concerts. They call them Lilith Fair.”
“Cheers had great writers. And one of those rockers did her homework. Lilith was supposedly Adam’s first wife, not created from his rib, but from the same soil as he was. She refused to submit to him in the standard missionary position. She thought it demeaned her. Likeshe wasn’t his equal. She demanded equality.”
“So far I like what I hear.” April put her hand on Jason’s arm. “And I think I remember something from last night. And it wasn’t missionary.”
He pulled his arm away. “Come on, April. Let me get this out. You said you wanted information to help Agnes.”
“Agnes. By all means, continue.”
He avoided eye contact. “Lilith abandoned Adam and became a demon. The versions go every which way from there, but there is one common thread. She preyed on unbaptized children. And on men. She was able to invade a sleeping man’s dreams and seduce him. Then she’d devour him. Some versions say she ate the men. Others make the vampire tie-in and say she sucked their blood. Pretty close parallel, huh?”
“Are you going to try your fish?”
“Yeah. But there’s more.”
“Okay, but I’m a little lost. You just described Lilith, not Lilin.”
“Oh, sorry. I forgot. Lilith had a number of offspring who were just as bad as she was. Collectively, the offspring were called Lilin.”
April pushed her chair back a few inches. “So Eddie didn’t think much of his daughter, the twins’ mother. Denise, right?”
“Yeah. And it’d be an easy way to rationalize what he did to her. She was evil and seduced him. The unionproduced two offspring. One good and one evil. He couldn’t resist Denise. It was her fault.”
“Or evil’s fault.”
“Good point.”
“Anything else?”
“Just one more letter. This one really bothered me, and it seems to back up what we just talked about.” His hands shook as he unfolded the note.
“Are you okay?” She put her hand back on his arm. “This one that bad?”
“It’s a short letter. Eddie pleaded with Gert. I can only read a little. I get emotional. It says, ‘Please take Agnes. She’s one of the good ones. Not like Lilin. More seed has been spilled. Come get Agnes. Quick.’”
April was silent for a few moments. “What does he mean, ‘more seed has been spilled’?”
“I had to search for that one. It goes back to the Lilith mythology. It seems her seduction of men caused them to spill their seed. In some interpretations, that means to masturbate. That seed was used to produce more of her demon progeny. The Lilin.”
“So you think masturbation was part of his molestation?”
“I don’t know, but maybe it has something to do with Lilin’s use of the severed … uh.”
“Penises. You can say it.”
“Yeah. I hate to think of what Agnes saw.”
“Saw?”
Jason refolded the letter and put the stack back in his jacket pocket. “I don’t think Agnes was molested.”
April’s cheeks puffed with a long exhalation. She tipped her head up, eyes on the ceiling. She nodded as she tilted her head back down. “This fits with everything I’ve been able to get from her, and from the way she reacts. I think I told you I suspected all this. Anyway, with his fixation, I bet he did make her watch when he abused Lilin. And killed her. It was probably a lesson from him to her. Can you imagine? Her twin sister. She must have turned a blank screen during the abuse. But I bet she absorbed all the hate Lilin felt for her father. Transferred it to all men. At least when she was Lilin. This really helps. And it lines up perfectly with my therapy.”
Jason slumped in his seat and looked down at his plate. The fish looked good, but his appetite was undecided.
April swigged her wine and dug her fork into the fish, emitting a whiff of strawberry. “Come on. Try the fish. It’s really good.”
He flaked a few segments and scooped them with a generous coating of garnish. “Whoa. This is really good.”
Jason flashed on his father’s words of caution. The chase was on again.
CHAPTER 7
Agnes was the first to see him. Her favorite reading chair gave a clear view of both hallways that ran from the Day Room at forty-five-degree angles from the far wall.
Stuart the Stud closed in, but his usual stalk posture didn’t fool her, nor did it fool Marsha Herman, who sat across the room.
“Red Alert,” Marsha announced from the line of chairs in front of the TV. “Cover up.”
Agnes swiveled in her chair. Patty was reading in a far chair, over by the high windows, apparently engrossed in a romance paperback.
Stuart picked up his pace. His right hand reached out, fingers spread wide.
“Patty. Watch out.” Agnes stood.
Stuart stopped at the chair and reached his handaround toward Patty’s right breast. The spine of her book came down on the top of his wrist, knocking his hand into the metal chair arm. Stuart whimpered, then grabbed his arm and ran for the men’s hallway.
Patty was up in an instant and on Stuart’s heels, with Agnes just a few yards behind. Stuart turned to look at the women and nearly missed the hall. He shuffled against the wall and sprinted to his door. In a single motion, he opened it, slipped in, and slammed the door behind him.
Patty reached the door a moment later and stood panting. Agnes stopped halfway down the hall. Patty twisted the doorknob and pushed the door in. Her voice echoed in the hallway—every syllable perfectly clear in the Day Room. “You total loser. Your dick’s never going to touch anything but your hand. I know you’ve never had a woman. You’d know something about how to treat one. Go ahead. Do your hand. It’s about the ugliest hand I’ve ever seen.” She turned in the direction of the Day Room and shouted down the hall. “He can’t even get a decent-looking hand. It’s ug-ly.”
The door slammed hard on the Day Room laughter. Patty jumped. The door swung open again, and Patty dodged to her right, in a half-crouch.
Stuart stood in the doorway. Tears streamed down his face. “You’re going to get it. Bitches!” The door slammed again.
Agnes hurried back to her chair. She knew Patty had needed to do what she had done, but she wished there was some other way. Stuart needed help, and this would just make him turn inward even more. And it would ratchet up his fury. She felt like he was building for an eruption. But where else could they put him? All in all, though, she was proud of Patty.
Agnes had learned that prior to her arrival, Patty Figley had been Stuart’s favorite target. He liked large breasts, and Patty’s were the largest in the place. But he also liked new meat, as he called it.
Patty had confided in Agnes, about how before coming to Imola, she had continually struggled with her weight, and seldom made any headway. She had the shoulders and hips of a stereotypical Midwestern farming woman, and they were padded, but not overstuffed. Just enough to make one think that she’d be a bombshell if she’d lose only twenty pounds. Those twenty pounds had turned out to be her downfall. That and her weightlifter husband, Bud.
Bud Figley pumped himself full of steroids so he could be king of the gym. As his lean muscle mass increased, his acne and quick temper battled for second place on his short list of personal attributes. And the larger he got, the more he nudged Patty to slim down. “Don’t want a chub-o on my arm,” he’d say. “I’m getting in shape for you. You’d better
do the same, or I’ll find someone who will.”
And that’s how it all started—her downward spiral. Bulimia made throwing up so easy she started having spontaneous episodes. Anywhere, anytime, it could come up. And if her stomach was empty, she doubled over in dry heaves that produced loud wheezes that would turn heads for tens of yards. It took a while, but she eventually realized that her stomach lurched every time she saw a model-thin woman or a ripped man. That realization gave her a chance. But she never strayed into the middle of a room, and curbside bushes were her best friends. She sought counseling and made progress, and ultimately it saved her.
She was checking her e-mail one day and accidentally called up Bud’s list of internet favorites. He’d book-marked eighteen porno sites. Patty pulled up one. It was a “fat chicks” site. Another, the same. All eighteen featured grossly overweight woman doing things that slender women would decline in favor of a good headache.
It was a bad time for Bud to walk in. He went ballistic. But his fury was no match for hers. She went for his eyes and got one of them. She went for his unit, but had to settle for his shriveled scrotum. She got one of its inhabitants, too.
That’s where her earlier counseling saved her. That and a great lawyer. His main point was made when a skinny woman walked into the hearing room. Patty had puked her way out of jail and into Imola.
Agnes sat back and smiled. She imagined a personalad in the newspaper and on the Web. Single white male, weightlifter, one eye, one shrunken nut, seeking meaningful relationship with a plus-sized woman without fingernails.
Her thoughts went to Stuart. What was brewing in that darkened room? Would he look at his hand the same after what Patty said?
Agnes didn’t have to wait long. Stuart burst out of his door and shuffled into the Day Room. He scanned the room, locked his gaze on Patty, and lurched toward her. She was ready. She deflected his arms and shoved him aside. He nearly went over, bracing himself against the wall. He came at her again, and again she pushed his arms, partially spinning him, and pushed him at the wall. His shoulder hit this time.
Stuart kicked at her, and she dodged his foot. He faked another lurch, she reacted, and he slipped behind her. His left arm went around her neck, and his right hand thrust down the front of her jumpsuit. He fondled her, hard.
Patty gave him an elbow in the ribs, and his hand came out of her suit. Another elbow, higher, caught him just under the armpit. He let go of her neck. She pushed him back against the wall, and he froze.
“You bitch. I’m going to get you.” He looked around the room. “I’m going to get all of you. You won’t know which one first. You won’t know when. But I’m going to get you all.”
Agnes didn’t notice right away, but Milo McGuinn was on his feet. And he was walking—fast. Faster than she had ever seen him walk. He still lifted his feet high and jiggled them at the apex of each step, and it produced a goose walk that reminded her of the Monty Python skit, “Ministry of Silly Walks.” He approached Stuart.
“Keep your hands off the girls, or I’ll—”
Stuart hit him square in the chest with his fist.
Milo didn’t flinch. Not even an eye blink. He looked down at his chest and then at Stuart, who seemed shocked.
Milo smiled, then reached past Stuart’s left shoulder and brushed off the adjacent wall with his hand. He waved it over the plaster from head-height down halfway to the floor, then stepped back and smiled at Stuart again.
This time Stuart smiled back.
Milo grabbed Stuart by the shoulders and moved him a step to the left and then slammed him into the now microbe-free wall. He pulled him back and slammed him again. Stuart’s head hit hard on the second slam. His eyes gushed tears.
Milo held his left leg out straight, at a forty-five-degree angle, and shook it so hard the bell clapper couldn’t keep up with the casing. He returned his foot to the floor, slightly overlapping Stuart’s right leg. A shove and Stuart fell across his leg and onto the floor right under the spot where Milo had shaken his foot.
Stuart crumpled on the floor. “You’re a bitch, too,” he shouted between sobs. “Only fairy bitches don’t eat meat.”
Milo bent down close to Stuart’s face. “That’s right. I don’t eat meat. But I’ll eat a plateful on the day you go to hell.”
CHAPTER 8
April ran her fingers down Jason’s bare chest, drawing a circle in the light mat of hair. The glisten of sweat gave his skin a luminescent tone, still nearly hot to the touch. His chest heaved with each breath like he was fighting the oxygen debt from their sharing. His eyes were closed but not to sleep. Contentment, she hoped.
April reached to the adjacent nightstand and removed a stick of gum from an open pack. She let the wrapper fall next to the lamp base and shoved the stick between her teeth. Her jaw worked up to speed.
She didn’t want to come right out and ask it, but she didn’t want the moment to pass either, just in case her intuition was on the mark. He was too easy to spook. On the other hand, it had been only a week since his last visit.
She traced another circle, and he let out a purring exhalation. She leaned up on her elbow. “Jason, why don’t we ever go to your place?”
He frowned without opening his eyes. “Hmmm?”
“Why is it always here? Are you embarrassed about your apartment?”
One eye opened, accompanied by a feeble shake of his head. “What are you talking about?”
She leaned over, close to him. “Why don’t you have me over?”
The other eye opened, and the furrow in his forehead wrinkled to a chasm. “I thought women were only comfortable on their own turf. You know, avoid the walk of shame thing.”
She poked him in the ribs. “Maybe you just like the walk of fame.”
His flinch pulled him to the edge of the bed. He rolled, facing away, and pushed her hand away from his side. “What’s with the weird questions?”
“I was just wondering if you were embarrassed about your apartment.”
He pulled the covers up to his chin. “No. Now tell me what you really want.”
Her face went hot, so she pushed her head into the pillow and reached for his neck, caressing the hairline. “Nothing. I was just thinking.” She felt his jaw tighten.
“Thinking about what?”
She ran her thumb along his jaw line. “I don’t know. You. Me. Us. What we have.”
She felt him smile. He turned his head and kissed her thumb.
Leaning up, she moved her hand back to his neck and gave a little squeeze. His eyes opened. “Well?”
His head jerked a little. “Well, what?”
“What do we have?”
He rolled on his back, sliding her hand to the front of his neck. “You’re important to me.”
“Your coffeemaker is important to you. I’d like to know if I’m more than an appliance in your life.”
No movement. “Don’t be silly.”
She pulled his chin toward her. “Move in with me. Here.” She almost said it’d be cheaper, but she caught herself.
His expression didn’t change. And still no movement. She couldn’t even feel his breathing, which was so forced only moments ago.
Finally, he blinked. “I don’t think—”
“Shit.” She fell back into her pillow and covered her face with her hands. She peeked between her fingers.
Elbowing his pillow, he balanced his head on his hand. “You wouldn’t like the life of an investigative reporter. And now that I’m working for the Press Democrat and the Chronicle, I get calls at all hours. I have to pick up and run with every one of them.”
“I’m sure that’s it.” Her voice was muffled in her palms.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think you’re afraid of commitment.”
No response. She peeked through her fingers again. His stare seemed to penetrate her screen. It was no time to cower. She had played the hand. Now it was time to lay down the cards—see what he had.
She lowered her hands. “Are you? Afraid?”
“Yes.” His stare continued, but his focus seemed to change.
The gape of her mouth let a quiet gurgle escape. His response was the last she expected—so distant from her mental calculation of possible outcomes. She was speechless. In fact, to her, it was possibly a male first. The shrine on Mount Manhood had probably just lost one of its pillars.
Was he serious, or was this a clever way to derail the charging locomotive? At the least, he’d managed to pull the lever and force a track change.
He shifted over so his face was within a few inches of hers, just above and to the side. “You know I was engaged before, right?”
She exhaled.
“I was in love with her. I’m sure of it. All of the indications she gave—I was sure she was in love with me, too. We set a date. She picked out plates and silverware. I even ordered the invitations. Then I couldn’t get her to complete her list of guests. She didn’t change howshe treated me. She just couldn’t complete the list. I thought she was worried about the size of the reception. The cost.” He paused.
April looked for signs of emotion on Jason’s face, but it was blank, as if he were talking from another plane. She wanted to pull him to her, to comfort him, but she didn’t want him back yet. She wanted to hear more. The wait was short.
“She had good reason to worry about the guest list. She’d met someone else. The only problem was that she met this someone else more than a year before, and she got around to telling me when I had half the invitations addressed and stamped.” He blinked back to the bed. “I was in love. Trouble was, so was she. Once it was all out, she was gone faster than a lightning bolt finds ground, and it left me death-shocked.”
All April could manage was a feeble, “I’m sorry.”
His return was brief; his eyes drifted again. “Now I know the depth of vulnerability when a man gives his heart to a woman unconditionally.” His eyes snapped back; they seemed almost angry. “Excuse me if I’m gun shy. I don’t want to feel that vulnerable right now. Maybe never.”
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