by Edward Lee
Dim yellow lights burned on the first floor (which was actually raised half a floor above the street); the remaining three stories were dark. Close to midnight, Rollin observed. Were they still up at this hour? An attorney had bought the house; that’s all Rollin knew. One very HAPPY lawyer, he thought, considering the price he’d paid. Paul Nasher was the man’s name. But did he have a wife? Children?
Rollin gulped at the consideration. Good God, I hope he doesn’t have children with him in there …
Drapes were left open on the elaborate, pointed windows fronting the house, but the designer blinds hung down, open to slits. The slits provided enough open space for Rollin to effectively continue his voyeurism. He spied an indulgent living room on one side, and an equally overopulent kitchen on the other. He must’ve converted one of the back rooms for the bedroom …Rollin manipulated his slightly elevated vantage point, then—
Ah. There’s something.
The center pane of glass on the fanlight over the front door was keystone-shaped and clear, while the glasswork on either side was multicolored. Rollin found that when he moved over several inches, the binoculars could be zoomed right through that center glass. A door stood open at the end of a hall. The room was dark yet the bathroom door could be seen standing open, some lights on.
Movement in the bathroom urged Rollin to zoom closer.
A glittery shower curtain flung back, and now an attractive blonde woman, wet and naked, could be seen. I’d say that’s definitely NOT Paul Nasher. So he did have a wife or significant other. Rollin struggled with some shame, trying to attain an optimum focus as the woman dried herself with a black towel. When she turned and bent over, Rollin winced at the exotic sight, then—worse—she reversed her pose and stretched upright, displaying a flat stomach and dark blonde pubic area. Rollin closed his eyes and sighed.
He didn’t feel like so much of a pervert when the woman donned a robe, then strode out to the kitchen. He noticed a stunning tamber cabinet topped with crystal against one wall, and then recognized a kitchen nook with flooring made of herringbone Waterfall maple. He only knew this because he’d been to a billionaire’s home once in Barcelona, trying to convince the magnate to contribute to some European orphan charities. Rollin groaned as more of his own material lust cringed. Travertine marble, good Lord! These people have a lot of money …
His thoughts re engaged when a man walked into the kitchen, boldly naked, and came up behind the blonde woman. He caressed her from behind, gave her a smiling start. Pretty girl, Rollin noted when she grinned over her shoulder. The man stood trim but stocky, well-muscled, had short dark hair, clean shaven. Mr. Paul Nasher, attorney-at-law, I presume. He and the woman laughed silently as some cat play ensued. Oh, please, Rollin thought, groaning: Paul Nasher had removed a can of whipped cream from the double-doored refrigerator and was now cornering the woman with it. Nasher mock-muscled her against a dining table, shucked the robe off of her, and began to lay her back as she halfheartedly objected. Rollin frowned when Nasher kneed right up on the table, which probably cost five or ten thousand dollars, and began applying lines of the whipped cream around the woman’s breasts and belly.
I guess I really shouldn’t be looking at this …
He peered more closely at the rest of the floor, then examined the dark windows upstairs. Some moonlight filtered in through a rear window on the second floor, and Rollin noticed stacks of moving boxes. What do they even need a house that big for, especially if it’s just the two of them? But then he frowned at his own oversight. But of course, he’s a LAWYER who deals in REAL ESTATE. To him the house is an investment that will turn into a cash cow …
Then, Rollin aimed the binoculars down toward the basement. Good, he thought. The sidewalk-level basement windows remained securely covered by iron bars…
But tomorrow I’ll have to check the windows in the back …
There was no conscious thought when he roved the glasses back to the dining room table and saw at once that the previous whipped-cream frivolity had now been abandoned in favor of full-blown and rather frenetic sex. Nasher had the woman on her hands and knees on the sumptuous table, he behind her, thrusting. The look on Nasher’s face appeared focused, determined, very much like an attorney in court. How hackneyed, Rollin thought. He makes love like he’s deliberating over a lawsuit. And the woman…
She shined in sweat now, her full breasts rocking beneath her. Her head rocked as the muscles of her lithe physique tensed, highlighting a raw, primal beauty. Rollin knew he shouldn’t be watching, because he knew it was from something primal in him as well. Now the woman’s head arched back, her blonde hair disarrayed as her climax became evident. Rollin actually heard her ecstatic shriek through the windows…
The woman collapsed on the table, a cheek flat against the expensive wood. Her eyes closed and she made a sated grin.
Rollin had a feeling he knew what Nasher was about to proceed with next, and that’s when he pulled the binoculars from his eyes.
But how much of his deeds had been motivated by sin? Forgive me, God, a thought whispered. It was a test—something God was known to do to him quite often, a real-world circumstance that his duties had forced him to see, and then the notion that threatened to be the saddest regret. What he’d been watching on the table was an act he’d never in his life performed himself. He felt better when he recalled the crucial words from his ordination:
Thou art a priest forever …
A moment later, Father John Rollin, the custodian and pastor of St. Amano’s Church, walked out of the room and back down to the chancel, to pray.
Forgive me, God. Sometime’s it’s REALLY DIFFICULT being your servant …
But what would happen now? How much of it was actually true, and how much myth? Those people across the street have no idea what they’ve moved into …
Nor did Rollin have any idea that Paul Nasher and the blonde weren’t the only ones in the house. Instead of allowing his binoculars to drift to the ribald scene on the table, he should’ve looked more attentively at the second-floor windows. There he would’ve seen those two homeless women lurking about in the shadows, as well as a third figure, who looked like a nun…
(II)
Paul felt about as masculine as he ever had when he carried Cristina in his arms and put her to bed. Three times tonight, he thought. Not bad for forty.
Or maybe it was simply her…
The new Cristina, he considered.
Whatever had gotten into her was fine with Paul. She murmured in his arms, made a luxurious stretch when he laid her down on the bed’s black satin sheets.
Her eyes looked up at him, as if beseeching. “Thank you,” she said.
Paul laughed. “For what? Sex?”
“No, silly. Thank you for giving me the time I needed. Most guys would’ve dumped a moody ditz like me by now.”
How odd. He tried to joke back, “Well this lawyer ain’t gonna be dumpin’ nothin’ except maybe some clients who pay lousy retainers.”
Cristina curled atop the sheets, perfect white skin glowing against the luxuriant fabric. “I’ve haven’t felt this good, this complete, since…well, ever. And I know it’s because you convinced me to move here. This environment, plus you, has made me a new person, and I just know it’s the person I’ve always been inside but could never…show.”
This was getting deep, not that he objected. He sat down and stroked her thigh, which felt as satiny as the sheets. “You’ve always made me happy, and I want you to be just as happy. All that’s going to happen now. We have our lives together, and now we both have the careers we’ve wanted more than anything.”
She kept looking at him. “I owe you so much…”
“Quit talking like that. People in love don’t owe each other anything.” Seriousness in the bedroom often duped him; he didn’t know how to respond. “What you owe yourself is a good night’s sleep. You’ve got your meeting with that developer guy coming up.”
“Bruno—”
>
Paul buffed off some of the seriousness. “Is he as good-looking as me?”
“He’s gayer than Liberace, and, no…”
Paul splayed a hand over her breast. She was so arousing like this. I could probably do it again …He felt the large, warm nipple between his fingers; it seemed to get firmer in seconds.
“And I guess this sounds pretty crude,” she added, “but you’re the best lay of my life.”
“Crude works.”
“And if I wasn’t so tired right now…”
“Ah, I wore you out?” he chuckled.
“No shit.”
“You really know how to pump a forty-year-old’s ego.”
“Crude-ism Number Two. I’ll pump more than your ego tomorrow.” Then she brought a hand to her mouth. “I can’t believe I said that.”
“Believe it. So this is the new crude you, huh? I have no objections…”
“I love you, Paul…”
He kissed her, a kiss that lingered. Give her a break, she’s tired, he told himself, even as his arousal became more apparent. I love you, too, he thought.
She was asleep. He carefully got up and slipped out. A nightcap seems in order …Naked, he walked boldly to the bar and poured a small scotch. The mirror reflected back his nakedness, his broad shoulders and well-defined chest. Nope. Not bad at all.
He browsed around the living room, then the kitchen. Can’t think of a single reason why I shouldn’t be able to walk around my own house buck-naked. The freedom made him feel unrestrained; it made him feel much more human than he generally did at his job. Damn, he thought. There’s one reason not to. He sidestepped to the front window, noticing the blind’s walnut louvers open an inch. Good job, Paul. Give everyone on the street a show.
Before he closed them, he noticed the church across the street. The place looked abandoned.
He kept wandering, sipping his drink. He examined a Pollock print on the stairwell—Eyes in the Heat, it was called. Even the painting’s dozens of eyes seemed to look at him with approval, or even envy. All the cards are starting to come up aces, he realized. Now that I’ve got Cristina out of her shell, I’ve got damn near everything.
An undefined curiosity took him up to the next floor. Blocks of moonlight and street light jagged here and there from the high undraped windows. He stepped into one small room, sniffing those familiar scents of new plaster, carpet, and paint. Then he tensed—
click …
creak …
It sounded like a door opening, then a careful footfall creaking the old wood. Impossible. The house is locked, and I checked the bars on the basement windows myself. It was just a house noise, he resolved but remained mildly perturbed.
Then, very faintly, he heard the oddest words:
“Singele lui traieste…”
What the hell? and then he stalked out of the room and across the hall to where he swore he heard the words.
A woman’s voice…
He was surprised by how fearless he felt, even knowing that he’d heard a voice, but in the next barren room, he relaxed. He could hear a television squawking through the wall. The next building, he knew, was all condos for wealthy retirees. They’re hard of hearing, he reasoned, and keep the volume up. He made a mental note to look into soundproofing down the road.
He froze again when he stepped back into the hall and faced the back room…
Now he did feel a twinge of fear.
The shadow of a figure lay across the bare floor between moving boxes.
Holy shit …
The shadow seemed starkly tapered. A woman wearing a floor-length dress? And the jet-black shadow of the head was just as peculiar: angled upward with triangles of some sort hanging down.
“All right,” he said with a stout voice. “I don’t know how you got in here, but you better leave the way you came, and I mean right now. I’ve already called the police on my cell phone…”
The shadow didn’t move.
What now? Retreat for a weapon, go back downstairs and call the police for real? It seemed the most sensible tactic, but…That’s got to be a woman, he reasoned. His muscles tensed when he tightened his fists. Someone’s in my house so I better take action. Unfaltered by his nakedness, then, he stepped boldly into the room.
The shadow had jagged during his final steps, and disappeared. Immediately, Paul’s eyes darted out the window, and he exhaled long and hard. Idiot, he told himself. He could see the buildings across the alley, and higher up on one of the balconies a woman was watering plants. It had obviously been her shadow that had briefly played into the room.
All right. So much for that.
He chuckled at the afterthought. For a split second, the shadow had reminded him of that of a nun.
He looked about the room, which was cluttered with boxes that the men had brought earlier. Cristina had opted to use this room for her studio instead of the den downstairs. Better light, she’d said. What ever she wants …Her work desks and computers were half set up now. A large drawing table and brace-frame sat in one corner, and on some walnut shelving she’d already arranged the figurines she’d created in the first two releases.
Cadaverettes, he thought with a tight smile and, Plastic Surgery Botchies. Paul had fronted the production cost for the latter, the first line of figurines. It was about thirty grand, no big deal, and once they’d gotten a distributor, the line, however limited, had sold out. That’s some bizarre stuff, all right, he thought, peering at the row of figures. The line’s motif was plastic-surgery disasters, the grim theme clashing with the “cuteness” of the figurines themselves, each about four inches high. They were little troll-like toys that each displayed some outrageous mistake of cosmetic augmentation, and had equally cute/macabre names, like Liposucked Lisa, for instance, a cute little cherubic woman with a smile on her plastic face, naked with her arms out to highlight fleshy grooves up and down her legs, belly, and buttocks—grooves from a botched liposuction job. Botox Bonnie grinned below huge bright eyes, her lips and face lopsided from inept injections. There were others: Rhinoplasty Robin, Grafted Greta, Facelifted Felicia, etc., which all displayed the most outrageous malpractices of each procedure. Implanted Isobel was the most notable entry in the line: another curvaceous nude kewpie with one breast huge and the other empty. Amused, Paul shook his head. How could Cristina even THINK of things like this?
But it had been the Botchies that had gotten Cristina’s foot into the door of the market. After the line had sold out completely, a doll manufacturer by the name of Von Blanc Toys had offered Cristina a contract for her next line, Cadaverettes. Paul perused the second shelf where they all stood, a dozen of them, with names like Incinerated Ilsa, Over-Embalmed Oscar, Eviscerated Evan, Torso’d Trisha, Electrocuted Ellen, and the like. Damn, he thought, squinting. They even look freakier in the moonlight. Paul wasn’t into this cult-market at all, but he was all for supporting Cristina’s creative endeavors. To each his own…or hers. Ultimately he realized that her creation of these macabre toys was an important outlet of release, or, as Cristina’s therapist had put it, “An all-too-crucial creative purgation of the emotional traumas of Cristina’s past.”
Paul knew all about that, and to this day, it made him furious. Those goddamn Goldfarbs …He swigged the rest of his drink. All they got was twenty years. You fuck up kids like they did you sure as shit should get life with no parole. I wish to hell I’d been the prosecutor on that one …
He let it go out of his head. It was all over anyway, and things were good. So why dwell on it? He found himself looking once more at the row of Cadaverettes and eventually was chuckling at the grotesque whimsey. Runover Rhonda, Floater Frank, Crushed Cassandra, Headless Helen…And lots of people BUY these things, Paul realized. But what the hell do I expect her to do? Knit sweaters? She’s found a niche market for these dolls—more power to her. And let’s not forget—she made a SHITLOAD of money on these things last year.
At least that’s how he tried to deal with it. Somet
imes he’d get a snicker or two from some opposition attorney—“Hey, Paul, isn’t your girlfriend the one who makes those ridiculous dolls?” or “Man, that’s one morbid fiancée you got there, pal.”
To hell with them, Paul always reasoned.
He was about to leave but caught himself snagged by something.
The shelves…
He didn’t seem to see several of the figures that were most memorable to him. Gutshot Glen, Hypothermia Harriet, and Leprosy Linda.
Hmm, he thought. I guess Cristina hasn’t put those up yet …
CHAPTER FIVE
(I)
Jesus Christ. And yesterday I was complaining that nothing ever happened in this precinct …
Vernon was stupefied by what he stared up at in the Dumpster cove behind the brewing company on 76th and Amsterdam. Alleys in New York tended to reek of urine but this one stank of hops and barley, the combination of which stung his eyes like CS gas. Beat cops were cordoning the perimeter while TSD techs snapped pictures that caused Vernon to wince.
“This is some shit, huh, Inspector?” a tech asked.
Vernon opened his mouth to respond but nothing came out. Instead, someone else said, “This is fuckin’ ghastly…”
And someone else: “Hell of a thing to have to look at at five in the morning.”
You got that right, buddy.
Slouch shuffled up, his hair a mess from the sleep he’d just been jolted from. “You know, How, when you rang my phone a half hour ago, I was really pissed ’cos I thought sure it’d be another namby-pamby call.”
“This look namby-pamby to you?” Vernon asked, still stifled by the visual shock. “Looks like a hardcore psycho job to me.”
Slouch huffed the grimmest laugh. “I hope the M.E. gets here quick and gets the stiff out of here. Can you imagine what the papers are gonna do with this?”
“You don’t have to tell me. Maybe we can hold them off for a few days but eventually…”
Slouch nodded. “We’re gonna look like the Keystone Cops. I can see the headlines already. ‘Woman Impaled in Twentieth Precinct.’”
