by Edward Lee
Vernon got dizzy from the words.
Impaled, he thought.
The victim was a white female of indeterminate age. She’d been stripped naked, and then her body had been mounted upon a two-inch-thick wooden rod—six feet long and sharpened at one end. The rod ran completely through her body, from crotch to mouth, its point terminating at the roof of her mouth. Her clothes formed a small pile where the rod had been planted, and by now they were sodden with the blood that had poured down from the entrance wound. The woman looked starved, the insides of her elbows pocked with scabs. Yellowed eyes remained open in a death stare, the mouth open, too, an eternal gape that displayed the impaling rod’s sharpened point. When a Technical Services photographer snapped a picture from behind, the bright silvery flash stretched the crime’s shadow all the way down the alley.
“One dead junkie,” Slouch commented. “Must’ve been a snitch. Lately the dope gangs have been hanging them upside-down and gutting them, but this…”
“Definitely a new twist,” Vernon said. “Might be that new skag gang—Z-Mob, I think they’re called. Narcotics said their stoolies are scared shitless of them, a hardcore crew. We’ll have to check out those lines on the body. Probably a gang label.”
Slouch hadn’t noticed it initially but now he saw that the dead woman’s body had been crudely adorned with waving lines running down her entire body. The lines alternated in color. “Black, green, and red,” Slouch said. “Looks like magic marker, for Christ’s sake.”
“Not looks like—it is,” one of the techs informed. He held up a sealed plastic baggie that contained one El Marko red magic marker.
Slouch sighed through a smile. “Let’s start praying to every god on the deity list that there’s a decent fingerprint on it.”
“Amen.”
Yeah, Vernon thought, encouraged. It’s got to be a gang label. Every so often they’d mark their turf with the bodies of sniffed-out in formants, just…not this elaborately.
Vernon finally yanked his gaze from the corpse. Amid the photographic flashes, at times he couldn’t see the pole, which made it look as though the woman were hanging in midair.
“Inspector?” one of the evidence men bid. “Back here. Something written on the body.”
Vernon walked around, part queasy, part curious. Across bony shoulder blades, someone had magic-marked: SINGELE LUI TRAIESTE.
“A foreign name?” someone guessed. Someone else: “Probably some new gang-speak. They make up their own words to throw off wiretaps.”
Vernon scribbled the odd words in his notebook. “Well. Looks like we get to do something we haven’t done in a while. Detective work.”
Slouch offered a lazy smile. “Right on.”
Vernon’s eyes played downward, where the rod had been planted in the ground. Asphalt back here. There must be a hole in the asphalt, Vernon considered. “Hey, Sarge,” he asked one of the techs doing the initial workups. “Is it all right if I pull those bloody clothes off the bottom of the rod?”
The tech, ever blank-faced, passed Vernon a plastic evidence glove. He got down on one knee, and very carefully peeled the sodden clothes away.
Vernon stared.
“What the hell is that?” Slouch asked.
The evidence technician paused, then popped a brow. “Looks like a friggin’ Christmas tree stand.”
(II)
You’re in a hot grotto of some sort, or perhaps a medieval dungeon. You smell niter and soil and you can see water bleeding through walls of uneven bricks lit by wan firelight. The fire gently crackles …
And the woman raises the cup …
She’s robust, beautiful, and nearly nude. The only clothing she wears is hardly clothing at all but the black-and-white wimple of a nun. She seems parched, her lambent skin glazed with sweat, and the firelight lays moving squiggles on it, like faint tongues of light. And the cup—
Not a cup, really. It’s cereal-bowl-sized but of dull brown clay. You can’t see what’s in it. The woman’s breasts jut as she raises it high, as if in offering. Three gemstones mounted on the bowl sparkle, one black, one green, one red.
Behind her, the firelight on the wall…changes. Soon the bricks are squirming with wavering lines of black, green, and red, slowly writhing snakelike. When the nun lowers the bowl just below her bare breasts, you see its contents: blood.
At first you think the nun will drink the blood but she never does. She simply holds the bowl low, so that you can look at it, and then she speaks:
“Singele lui traieste…”
The accent-tinged words echo about the chamber while her flawless flesh shines with sweat. She holds the bowl like a prize. Eventually her intonation is replied to, the gruff but fading voice of a man, who says:
“Kanesae…”
The woman nearly swoons. Where did the male voice come from? The woman—this obscene nun—seems to grin aside, to a dark corner where the light barely reaches.
The luminous black, green, and red lines behind her begin to churn in a fury and then her eyes go wide and she turns her head to gaze right through the mirage—
Right at you—
—and grins, showing two long, narrow, and very sharp fangs …
And that’s when you scream and—
—woke up in a lurch, a hand slapped to her chest.
“Damn it!” Cristina wheezed.
Darkness mottled the bedroom, but she could see the light of day leaking in from around the drapes. That painin-the-butt dream again …She gave herself a few moments to catch her breath. In spite of the room’s coolness, she felt slopped with sweat, her pillow and sheets beneath her soaked. Everything’s going so well all of a sudden but then that damn dream keeps coming back …
She was used to it now, at least. The startlement always wore off quickly, leaving her more curious about it than anything.
The nun, she thought. With fangs …
Just another weird dream—everyone had them—but why did this one plague her with such morbid features? Bowls of blood, cryptic lines of light on a dungeon wall, bizarre intonations. Where does it comes from? she wondered and sat up.
Same place THAT came from, she realized next when she noticed her doodle-sketch of the Noxious Nun sitting on the nightstand.
The whimsily grinning fanged nun holding the bowl of blood…
But the glimpse enlivened her now. She couldn’t have been more excited about her next line of figurines. I… can’t…wait …
Just a few days ago she felt terrified by the prospect of living in New York City, yet now, in an eyeblink, she felt the reverse. Everything came together at once—it was almost uncanny. Her relationship, the house, the neighborhood, and her creative endeavors. The only sore spot was the weird dream. Salvador Dali CRAVED weird dreams, he even INVITED them, she reminded herself, because they fueled his artistic visions. I’ll just have to do the same thing.
The resolution made her feel ten times better. She was up in a moment, to drop the sheets and pillowcases in the washer, turn on the coffeepot, and then she hit the shower. Much better, she thought, toweling off. Her smile shined in the wall-length mirror, along with her nakedness. Then she blushed momentarily when she recalled her sexual acrobatics with Paul yesterday.
The best sex of my life …
She dressed quickly in jeans and a T-shirt that replicated an abstract painting by de Kooning. The Tiffany clock on the living room mantel showed her it was past nine—Paul was long gone; he generally was in the office by eight. Now it’s time for me to go to work, too. She skipped upstairs and went directly to her studio. Her main computer she typically left on, and the first thing she did was look at the digital models for the first four characters of the Evil Church Creepies line. They glowed on the screen, revolving in three dimensions: first the Noxious Nun, then the Sickening Sunday School Teacher, the Corrupt Choir Boy, and the Demented Deaconess. They’re beautiful, she praised the images. Now if Bruno’s company can only make the actual dolls look just as good …<
br />
Her muse assailed her; next thing she knew two hours had passed as she’d made some initial sketches for upcoming figurines and scanned them into the 3-D program. When her eyes began to hurt, she got up and stretched, recalling her and Paul’s ravening sex-play. It made her wonder about herself. Every aspect of me is changing for the good. Why?
It didn’t matter why. That’s what Britt would say. Her body and spirit were in a compatible place.
I’ve never really had that before, have I?
More satisfaction swept her as she gazed at the shelves on which her first two lines were displayed. But…
Wait a minute …
She was certain she put them all out yesterday after the movers had left, yet three figurines from the Cadaverettes seemed to be missing.
Gutshot Glen, Hypothermia Harriet, Leprosy Linda.
I’m SURE I put them on the shelves yesterday …
Or was she? There were still more boxes to unpack—perhaps the three dolls were in one. Yeah, I guess so, she thought and started searching. The task grew frustrating very quickly, however. She searched for a half hour but couldn’t find them.
From behind a hand touched her shoulder—
Cristina nearly screamed. “Holy—”
“Scared ya, didn’t I?” Britt said.
Cristina gawped. “Yes!”
“Sorry.” Britt gave a light laugh. “I dropped off some papers for Jess at the office, and Paul gave me a key. He asked me to pick up some letters he forgot to mail. Said they’re in the kitchen somewhere.”
Cristina’s pulse was just simmering down. “Don’t sneak up on me like that, Britt. I thought you were a burglar.”
Britt exaggerated her pose in a one-shoulder silk dress and white high heels. “Burglars don’t wear Yves Saint Laurent.”
“Yeah, I guess they don’t!”
Britt chuckled it off, then took to examining the studio. “So this is your workroom, huh?” She frowned out the back window. “Great view—of the alley.”
“The afternoon light’s perfect,” Cristina said, then rummaged through one more box, exasperated.
“Need help unpacking the rest?”
“No, thanks. It’s mostly just supplies left. But I can’t find three of my Cadaverettes.”
“Well tell what’s his name—Bruno—you need more. What’s the big deal?”
I guess she’s right. “I probably just lost them,” she said, before giving up the search. They’re just plastic dolls, and it’s not like anyone could’ve stolen them. “I’ve got coffee on downstairs—Costa Rican.”
“Yum. Let’s go.”
On their way down, Cristina asked, “Why didn’t Paul just call and tell me to mail the letters?”
“He thought you might be working, didn’t want to disturb you. I wish Jess was that considerate.”
Cristina smiled over her shoulder. “What do you mean?”
“Most of the time he’s like a caveman, especially when he wants sex. One time he came into my office at social services and had the gall to ask for a quickie.”
“What did you say?”
“Yes, but that’s beside the point.”
Cristina laughed. She poured coffee, then walked to the other end of the island table. “Here are the letters Paul was talking about. Don’t bother with it—I’ll mail them myself.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m going to go walk around town a little while, then do some more work in the studio.”
Britt’s high heels clipped across the floor as she browsed the kitchen and adjoining rooms. “Paul really did a terrific job with the place.”
“I know,” Cristina said, feeling a pang of negligence. He did everything. “He spent a fortune, but I’m going to pay for the refurbishments upstairs.”
“That’s right. You’re Ms. Money Bags now.”
“Not for long if the new line flops,” Cristina guardedly remarked.
Britt giggled, sipping her coffee. “What is it? Evil Church Crazies?”
“Creepies,” Cristina corrected. “But I’m pretty happy and so is Bruno. The first four dolls will be out in a few days, or so they tell me.”
Britt fingered at an imaginary crease in her dress. “The nun—I forgot. From your dream. Have you had it again?”
A split-second’s pause showed Cristina the furious, churning black, green, and red lines behind the vampiric nun. “Actually, yes. Last night. But the more I think about what my old therapist said, as well as what you’ve said, the better I feel.”
“Catharsis and all that, you mean?”
“Well, yeah, and other things, too. My life in the present separates me from my life in the past.”
They both meandered back upstairs. Cristina had the sudden desire to view the 3-D models again, the same way a painter might look repeatedly at a satisfactory canvas.
“I’m glad you’re finally getting the gist. It can take time,” Britt said, peering over Cristina’s shoulder to the computer screen. “You’re changing from what we call the therapeutic evolvement to a causal evolvement, and you’re using your art to do it. Everybody has their own way, and this is your way. The resurgence of your occupational functionality.”
Cristina nodded, even though Britt’s use of clinical terms amid their private conversations sometimes rubbed her the wrong way. “And what’s the other term you use? My therapist in Connecticut always said the same thing.”
“Oh, I know. The ‘impetus of positive conditioning.’”
“Yes, I think that’s it. It really is true.” Cristina smiled at the revolving images on-screen. “It all happened so fast, but I’ve never felt this good and secure in my life. I owe a lot of it to you.”
“No, you don’t. My job is just to put the function of therapy into relatable terms. The only person you owe anything to for getting you out of your shell is yourself.”
“Sure, but that’s pretty idealistic. I owe a lot to Paul, too.”
Now Britt was looking up at the shelves containing the Botchies and the Cadaverettes. “Honestly, it can’t all be from your dreams.” She chuckled at the cute but morbid dolls. “I don’t know how you come up with these ideas.”
“It doesn’t matter much, though, does it? I think that’s why I’ve become successful. It’s funny how after the Cadaverette line was finished, I couldn’t come up with any ideas for the next line. Then it all fell into place over the course of a day or two.”
“That fast?”
“Creative inspiration, I suppose. But then it all goes back to that impetus thing. That’s why I owe so much to Paul.”
“To Paul,” Britt commented. “I know he’s always been supportive of your work, but he was never really into it, was he?”
“No, it’s not his taste at all—it’s too ‘gothy,’ he says. Paul’s just like Jess; he’s into pop culture—Jessica Simpson, Hollywood thrillers, Jaguars, and Rolexes. My tastes are very underground.”
“But still…You’re a success.”
“Yeah. There’s something for everyone”—Cristina knocked on the wooden table—“which is my good luck. But I think that’s why Paul and I click so well. We each have our own separate spaces that don’t cross over.”
“Having too much in common is worse than not having enough. Believe me, I see that in my job every day. It gives you both middle ground, some of which you share, and some of which you keep to yourselves. It’s actually quite crucial for a long-term relationship.” Britt’s lashy eyes fluttered. “But I still don’t understand how Paul influenced this Creepers line.”
“Creepies,” Cristina corrected. “Evil Church Creepies. Most of all, it was the house, and that old church right across the street. I took one look at those places and—bam—the whole thing came to me.”
Britt still looked confused. “Then how do you owe your latest ideas to him?”
“It was several months ago, when he decided to buy the house. This was before the refurbishment started; we couldn’t even go in ’cos it fail
ed the city safety codes. But he told me what he wanted to do and drove me out here just to see the outside of the place. It doesn’t make sense, really, but that’s when all the new ideas came into my head. Don’t know why, they just did. It wouldn’t have happened if Paul hadn’t urged me to move here with him.”
“All things happen for a reason.”
Cristina spun on her work seat. “And when I was thinking about what the lead-off figure should be—”
“That’s when you decided to use that annoying dream of yours to your advantage.”
“Exactly,” Cristina agreed. It was fascinating how Britt could read her so accurately.
“You created a positive out of a negative. And we both did, in a lot of ways. That’s what led me to the psychology curriculum and a career as a social services counselor.”
The side note didn’t bother Cristina now. She knew what Britt was talking about: the Goldfarbs and the foster house. Cristina sighed. “Yeah, I guess we’re both pretty lucky.”
“You can say that again.” She put a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “And we must never forget it.”
Cristina wiped a tear from her eye, hoping Britt wouldn’t see. A tear of joy, however, not one of despair. When you go through what we went through…the bond lasts forever.
Cristina only half-paid attention to the dimensional notes on her main computer. But what am I REALLY thinking about? She wasn’t sure.
The Goldfarbs? All THAT crap?
“The best way to test the therapeutic gauge,” Britt offered, “is simply by self-examining your own sex life.”
Cristina wasn’t sure if the comment was loaded. Was this just a chat? Or something more, one of her older sister’s ways of checking up on her?
“And since we’re on that subject,” Britt continued.
“We?”
“—how’s yours lately?”
Yep. Checking up again. “If you want to know that truth, very recently it’s been great.”
“Really?” Britt seemed surprised.
“I think it’s all part of that evolvement thing you were talking about,” Cristina said. “I’ve changed more in the past few days than I think I’ve ever changed.”
