Dark Kingdoms

by Richard Lee Byers

  Dunn tossed the .38 back into the drawer. I he gun landed with a thud. Taking the psychiatrist in both hands, the SAD agent turned him around with no more difficulty than Nolliver would have had shifting a squirming kitten.

  The psychiatrist tried to kick Dunn in the groin. The agent twisted, and the blow merely glanced off his hip. He began to shake Nolliver, jolting him back and forth, not quite hard enough to injure him but forcefully enough to demonstrate his vastly superior strength. Much as he suddenly wanted to live, Nolliver realized it would be pointless tO Struggle any further. He went limp in the other man's grip.

  Dunn stopped bouncing him around. "It's good that you tried to fight," he said. "A man shouldn't die like a sheep,"

  "Who are you really?" Nolliver asked. "What are you?"

  Dunn shook his head. "I remember I said I'd show you if you crossed me, but it's better you never know. You finally found some courage, here at the end. I wouldn't want to take it away from you again. Now, where's your john? We'll do the dirty deed in the bathtub and give the cleanup crew a break."

  Astarte looked at the line of French doors that made up the facade of the Old Absinthe House. A number of them stood open, leaking bright swirls of Dixieland jazz into Bourbon Street. "I think I've heard of this place," she said.

  "Probably," Bellamy replied, "it's reasonably famous." A trio: of Sight-seers, as drunk as nearly everyone else in the Vieux Carre seemed to be tonight, stumbled off the sidewalk to detour around him.

  "Let's go in. I'm starved."

  "I'll get you some take-out next time we pass a stand." He had discovered during the course of their first afternoon together four days ago that she had no credit cards, no checkbook, and only a few dollars in cash.

  She grimaced. "You're a real sport. I can probably pay for myself, at least if I order something cheap."

  "The money isn't the point," Bellamy said, although heaven knew he couldn't see any reason why he should be expected to pay for her food and motel room, even though that was the way it was working out. It wasn't as if she was his date. "I'd rather not take the time."

  "What's an hour going to matter?"

  "You never know. It could save someone's life. Maybe even ours."

  "If a person carried that attitude to the extreme—and I bet you do—he could never have any fun. No wonder your wife dumped you."

  Bellamy clenched his jaw, holding in an angry retort. He wished he hadn't told Astarte anything about his personal life, but it had been a ploy to induce her to open up about her own. And it seemed to have worked, at least to some degree. She'd told him her real name was Emily Dodds—but nobody, she'd added with a scowl of warning, called her that—she was eighteen, and she worked part-time in an alternative boutique. Her father was dead and her mother received disability benefits for crippling migraines, chronic fatigue syndrome, and a bad back, judging from her daughter's description, the woman would lack both the motivation and the moral authority to compel Astarte to go back to Ohio even if Bellamy could get in touch with her.

  "You have no idea why my wife divorced me," he said, "and I have no intention of telling you. Now, maybe you aren't in any rush to get to the bottom of our situation. Maybe you've forgotten what happened to Keene. Maybe you feel safe. But—"

  "All right!" Astarte said. "I get the point. Which way is it?"

  "This one," Bellamy said. He led her northwest on Bienville Street. As they moved away from the press of giddy tourists and the raucous bars and souvenir shops on Bourbon Street into a more residential section of the Quarter, the night grew quieter, darker, and more desolate. The narrow streets were nearly empty, and most of the streetlights were broken. Wooden gates leaned drunkenly, and cryptic graffiti— generation last, adore the pale queen—blemished the walls. One of the ubiquitous balconies overhanging the sidewalk groaned ominously as Bellamy and Astarte stepped beneath it. A shadowy figure rooting through a reeking trash can scuttled away at their approach.

  The gloom and general atmosphere of decay reminded Bellamy of the area in which he'd found Waxman. Grimacing, he tried to push the comparison out of his mind.

  Finally a point of blue light appeared in the darkness ahead. "Bingo," he said.

  "Amazing," Astarte replied. "I thought you were lost."

  "You shouldn't have," he said. "I know the Quarter about as well as a non-resident can, or at least I used to."

  As they moved forward, quickening their pace, the smudge of blue radiance became a tinted bulb burning beside a dilapidated, iron-bound gate. Somewhere beyond it, someone was playing the piano, the music a schizophrenic medley of schmaltzy passages from fifty year-old Broadway and Hollywood show tunes which shattered into crashing dissonance after the first few bars.

  Bellamy knocked five times, just as a furtive clerk in a dusty little rare-book shop on Royal Street had told him to do. After a few seconds a brown eye appeared behind one of the cracks in the gate. "Step back," said a bass voice. "I can't see you."

  Bellamy did as he'd been told. "She can come in," said the doorman brusquely. "I think you'd fit in better someplace else."

  Bellamy held up his FBI credentials. The gate clicked and swung open, the hinges creaking. The agent noticed that the doorman, a handsome young black man with mocha-colored skin, a shaven head, a bodybuilder's physique, and a pink triangle tattooed on his left biceps, had to hoist the barrier up slightly so: it wouldn't drag along the cobblestones..

  "Did I see that right?" he asked, his tone considerably less truculent. "Was that an FBI badge?"

  "Yes, but it's all right," Bellamy said. "No one's in any trouble. I just need to talk to Marilyn Sebastian, A friend of hers told trie I might that I might find her here;"

  "Come in," said the doorman, stepping aside. "I just came on duty, but I'll find out if she's around.

  The black man conducted them down a short, dark passage into a courtyard which had been converted into an open-air bar illuminated by strings of blue and yellow paper lanterns. At firscglance it appeared that about half the customers were men and half, women. On closer inspection, however, it became apparent that most of the latter were transsexuals or males in drag, though in some cases the illusion of femininity was nearly perfect, marred only the breadth of their shoulders or the prominence of their Adam's apples. Same-sex couples- embraced in shadowy corners, moaning: and gasping, their clothing in disarray. The odor nf marijuana hung in the air.

  Just as Bellamy smelled it, the doorman winced as if he'd just noticed it:too, and expected the Federal agent to make an impromptu drug buston the spot. "Can I get you anything?" he asked, "On the house, of course."

  "Nothing," Bellamy said.

  Astarte shot him a glare, and he belatedly remembered he'd promised to feed her. "I could really use something to eat," she said to the doorman. "And a beer,"

  "WeVie: got some good jambalaya," he said. "I'll get you some." He hurried over to the bar, and Bellamy and Astarte sat down at small round table with a Cinzano umbrella rising frOm its centen When the FBI agent rested his forearm on it, it rocked precariously.

  "Sorry," he said. "I forgot you were hungry."

  "No harm done," she said, smirking asuperior little smirk. "You're probably lucky you remember what we even came here for. I'll bet this place really weirds you out."

  He smiled back at her. "Sorry to disappoint you, but no, not much."

  The doorman brought two mugs of beer and two paper plates heaped high with a steaming mixture of rice, shrimp, and sausage. When he smelled the spicy aroma, Bellamy realized that he was hungry, too.

  "Now I'll find Marilyn," the doorman said. He turned and vanished through a door in the far wall, into what had probably been an apartment house at one time, Astarte eyed Bellamy, skeptically. "I figured a straight-arrow FBI agent would disapprove of stuff like this."

  "Don't believe every stereotype you see on TV," Bellamy said, wondering fleetingly why he was explaining himself to her. "I got into police work to keep, violent people from hurting inno
cent ones, not because I'm some kind of moral fascist. I admit, I don't go to places like this for fun, but I also don't care about what consenting adults do for sexual gratification, or if somebody smokes pot. I don't think their private lives are any of my business. Mind you, if I had to chase marijuana dealers for a while to have a career in law enforcement, well, I guess I'd do it. But I'm very glad to be part of VICAP instead." He picked up his plastic fork and scooped up some jambalaya. It tasted as good as it smelled.

  "If you say so," she said, clearly not entirely convinced.

  "It's true," he insisted. "I've lost count of how many times I've come to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Do you know what it's like in the Quarter on Fat Tuesday ? Thousands— well, lots—of drag queens wandering the streets in sequin gowns and feathery headdresses. People exposing themselves and groping each other everywhere you look. If I had a problem with things like that, I couldn't enjoy the party, but I do."

  "I've always wanted to go to Mardi Gras," Astarte said wistfully. "Is it still as good as it used to be? Somebody told me it's getting too commercialized and touristy."

  "I don't think that's true," said Bellamy, not remembering until he spoke that he'd missed the celebration for four years running, and thus was scarcely in any position to judge.

  Astarte took a long drink of beer. "Okay," she said, giving Bellamy a challenging stare, "if you don't have a problem with gays, drag queens, or pot heads, why don't you like me?"

  "I like you all right," he said. "But you aren't trained to handle dangerous situations. You shouldn't be here."

  She shook her head. "I'm not talking about that stuff. There's something personal going on."

  Well, if she really wanted to know... "Don't you think you're a little sarcastic and a little hostile?"

  She peered at him as if she was honestly surprised. "I guess maybe," she said at last. "But it's just my style. It doesn't mean anything. I'm glad we stuck together. I mean, considering what happened to Mr. Keene."

  "Your piercings bother me, too," he admitted. "Don't get me wrong, I know that what you choose to do with your body is none of my business, either. But it's just something that's always creeped me out. It's like self-mutilation."

  She gave him a wicked smile. "Don't knock it until you've tried it. It's supposed to be great for sex. It increases sensitivity and creates new sensations for your and your partner both."

  He imagined how it might feel to kiss her, the contrast between her warm, soft flesh and the hard steel in her lower lip and tongue. He tried to push the phantom sensation out of his mind.

  The doorman emerged from the table and strode back over to their table. "Marilyn is here," he said. "If you'll come with me, she'll see you now."

  Abandoning his half-eaten meal with a pang of regret, Bellamy wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and stood up. Astarte opted to carry her plate and mug with her, a decision which annoyed him. An investigator shouldn't arrive to interview an informant with food and drink in hand, and neither should the detective's unofficial assistant. It was unprofessional.

  The doorman led them through the door, up two shadowy flights of stairs, and along a narrow hallway lit by two dimly glowing cut-glass fixtures designed to resemble gaslights. Judging from the ornate molding and the peeling, faded flock wallpaper, the onetime apartment building had been pretty posh in its day, but the current owner had allowed it to fall into decline. There were rat holes in the baseboards, rat droppings on the threadbare runner, and a stale, musty smell hanging in the air.

  Sighs and moans whispered through the gloom. Evidently people were making love in various spots throughout the building, though some of the soft cries seemed less expressive of rapture than despair.

  Bellamy's guide opened a door and said, "This is them."

  "Come in," said a breathy contralto voice. "That is to say, 'Enter freely and of your own will.'" The speaker giggled.

  Bellamy stepped across the threshold. The room beyond displayed the same kind of rotting elegance as the other parts of the tenement he'd seen. A grimy, flaking painting of fleshy nymphs and cherubs occupied the center of the ceiling, and a veil of cobwebs shrouded the softly glowing blue and red Tiffany floor lamp. Someone had chalked a line of cryptic blue symbols or hieroglyphics around all four walls, just above the floor. Glancing backward, the agent saw that the characters ran across the inside of the door as well, completing the circle, creating an indecipherable text with no apparent beginning or end.

  On the brass bed in the center of the room lounged another drag transsexual, an angular figure in a lacy black negligee and a long platinum wig. From the wrinkles at the corners of "her" eyes and mouth, lines which heavy makeup couldn't quite disguise, she was probably in her forties. Propped up a mound of red satin pillows, she held the mouthpiece of a hookah in one of her large, powerful-looking, red-nailed hands. The scents of hashish and sex hovered around her, and she had needle marks on the ins ides of her forearms.

  "Marilyn Sebastian?" asked Bellamy, displaying his credentials.

  "Yes," she replied. "Go on, Tony, it's all right." She waved her fingers in a languid shooing gesture. The doorman frowned as if he didn't want to leave, but then retreated down the hall.

  Marilyn nodded toward a vanity, its surface covered by a jumble of cosmetics, stained tissues, paddles, vibrators, and handcuffs, and the straight-backed chair in front of it. "One of you can sit down, anyway," she said. Astarte took the seat and balanced her plate in her lap. The voice of the piano sounded through the open window, still alternately crooning and snarling as if the instrument were afflicted with Tourette's syndrome.

  Bellamy told her his name. "And this is Emily Dodds."

  "Astarte," his companion corrected through a mouthful of jambalaya.

  Bellamy tried not to grimace. "She's not in the FBI—"

  "Really," said Marilyn, as if she could scarcely believe it.

  Bellamy felt his face grow warm. "—but she is helping me with my current investigation."

  "I'll bet she is," said Marilyn with a trace of a leer. "And what might that investigation be? What brings an upright young detective and his—" she hesitated, evidently searching for the proper turn of phrase—"plucky girl Friday into this den of sin?"

  Astarte shot him a glance which seemed to say, See? It isn't just me that thinks you look like a homophobe.

  "I spoke to a book dealer named Oscar Grace today," Bellamy said. "He told me you're one of his best customers for rare volumes pertaining to the supernatural, and that he suspects you belong to a secret society called the Arcanum."

  Marilyn lifted a thin, arched, painted eyebrow. "I'm very disappointed to learn he's so talkative."

  "We threatened to sic the IRS on him," Astarte explained. "He's keeping two sets of books."

  "How did you know that?" Marilyn asked.

  "Instinct," Bellamy said, and he really couldn't explain it much better than that. Once in a great while, he met someone and just sensed what crime the stranger had committed. Of course, it helped if the guy was as jumpy as Grace had been, and kept sneaking guilty glances at the ledger sitting beside the cash register. "Was Grace right? Do you belong to the Arcanum?"

  Marilyn tittered. Bellamy wondered just how stoned she was. "My goodness, darling, if it's a secret society, I wouldn't be very likely to admit it if I was, would I?"

  "If you are a member," Bellamy said, "you probably knew a man named R. J. Keene. Someone killed him earlier this week, evidently because he was trying to help me solve a series of murders. If you want to see the killer brought to justice, you should cooperate with me."

  Astarte set her paper plate on the vanity, knelt beside the bed, and took one of Marilyn's hands in both of hers. "Please," she said. "I've been searching for something like the Arcanum my whole life. If it's real, you've got to let me in." Marilyn looked her in the eye, then sighed and shook her head. "You poor kid," she said, her voice dropping half an octave, "what do you think the Arcanum is?"

  "A doorway," A
starte said. "The path into something wonderful."

  Bellamy wondered how she could possibly say it with such conviction, with such a gleam in here eyes, after what she'd experienced in the cathedral.

  "That's what I used to think, but it isn't like that," Marilyn said. "Human beings shouldn't try to shine a light into the darkness. You never like what you see."

  "Then you are in the lodge," said Bellamy, just to nail it down once and for all.

  Marilyn smiled. "Do I look like your image of an intrepid ghost breaker?"

  "I don't care about your personal life," Bellamy said.

  "I don't blame you," Marilyn said. "Some evenings, I have trouble staying interested in it myself. Lying here with one cruel young man after another, knowing that, if I had to rely on my rather faded charms, every one of them would choose to spend the hour with someone else. But they think I can work magic to help them accomplish their hopes and dreams. Some of them even think my kiss can make them immune to AIDS."

  Astarte stared at her. "Can it?"

  Marilyn laughed, a sound like glass breaking. "My goodness, child, where are you from? Of course not."

  "Then how can you play such a terrible trick on them?" Astarte asked.

  "Easily," Marilyn said. She paused to take a long drag on the mouthpiece of the hookah, held the smoke in her lungs for about ten seconds, and then coughed it out. "Once upon a time, my sordid little trysts would have repulsed me. I wanted one true love to last my whole life through. But that was before I looked into the heart of the night. Now I need something more intense than romance to help me forget what I saw. When I'm lucky, my adventures in this bed do the trick, and so I'll do anything necessary to keep the cruel young men coming back.

  "Besides, I'm not really hurting anyone. The whole world already has AIDS, haven't you noticed? It's rotting away, right on schedule, just like St. John the Divine warned us it would."

  "Maybe not," Astarte said. "All through history, people have thought the world was about to end. They believed the prophecies in Revelation referred to events happening in their time. But so far, they've always been wrong, and you could be wrong, too."