by Gail Bowen
I try to match her intensity. “Your voice is seductive, but words are just air, Rani. I need to see you, and you need to see me. Otherwise, how can we know what’s real and what’s fantasy?”
“This is real,” Rani shouts, and her voice is desperate. “My feelings for you are real. Your need to be free is real. The parasites who are sucking you dry are real. They make demands, and you give in. I have to be the only one. That’s why I’m clearing the field.”
“What do you mean ‘clearing the field’?”
“Eliminating the ones in my way,” she says. “And that’s not a fantasy, Charlie. That’s real too.” Her voice becomes flat and weary. “It isn’t easy. It was at first, but now that the police have involved themselves, it’s going to be tricky. I was lucky with the one I removed tonight. We have a mutual acquaintance. I was able to find out where she lives.” Rani chuckles to herself. “I guess it would be more accurate to say where she lived.”
“Who was she?” I ask.
“That pathetic creature who drones on and on about her research…”
My body goes numb. “Janet Davidson,” I say.
Suddenly Rani is spitting with fury. “Don’t you lie to me. You called her Marion. Marion the Librarian. That was her name. That was the name of the woman I eliminated.”
I know the police are listening. They need a confession. “What do you mean ‘eliminated’?” I ask.
“Marion’s gone,” Rani says. There is no more silk in her voice. Her tone is steely. “Marion had her chance to get a life…but she was always too fearful. She was a waste of skin, so I eliminated her. Take a deep breath, Charlie D. Fill your lungs with oxygen. For the first time in your life, you are living in a Marion-free universe.”
CHAPTER NINE
The private line in the studio lights up. The caller ID says APPLE. It’s my pal, Dr. Steve. I have a sense the news will not be good. Without explanation, I turn off my mike. “Make it quick,” I say. “Rani’s on line three.”
“Keep her going.” His voice booms with the finality of a church bell at a funeral. “An officer just called from Janet Davidson’s apartment. It’s a shambles. Books everywhere. Aquarium smashed and fish flopping on the floor. Ms. Davidson’s bed has been slashed with a kitchen knife.”
“What about Ms. Davidson?”
“She’s gone. Vanished. Evidence of a struggle but no blood. Rani didn’t have much time. The investigating officers think it’s possible she knocked Janet Davidson out and has stashed her someplace in the high-rise. They think Janet is either dead or will be dead when Rani gets back to her. Charlie, it’s imperative that you flush Rani out. She’s the only one who knows where Janet Davidson is. This is our last chance to save a valued police officer.”
“You’ve got it, Steve,” I say. “One psycho coming up.”
I flip my mike back on. “Sorry,” I say. “Technical glitch. Rani, I have to see you face-to-face. I know you don’t trust my producer. I’ve sent her home, so we can talk.”
“I need to be with you,” she says. “It’s time.” Line three goes dead. I lean into my mike. “We’re moving closer to the midnight hour and that means we all drop our masks and let our real selves come out to play. Here’s another variation on tonight’s theme. Joni Mitchell and ‘The Crazy Cries of Love.’ Listen to the words, Rani, my queen, and fly to me.”
The red light on the private line starts to blink again. I take off my earphones and throw them on my desk. I am tired of talking. I am tired of listening. I am just plain tired. I stare at the red light on the private line. Maybe it’s my imagination, but the name APPLE on the id seems to pulse like a neon sign, saying Pay Attention to Me. I ignore it. I’ve had enough.
“Crazy Cries of Love” fades down, and I’m back on air. “You’re listening to ‘The World According to Charlie D,’ and if I sound freaked, it’s because I am freaked. But freaked or not, I forge ahead. Forgive any technical blips. My producer, Nova, left early. But whoa, here’s a surprise! Nova is back in the booth with her escort for the evening.” I turn on the talkback. “Mama Nova, why aren’t you and that rather forceful-looking lady cop on your way home by now? My queen is undoubtedly on her way… you should not be here.”
Nova picks up the microphone from the desk. I’m baffled. She knows she just has to sit in her usual place to be heard. “Change of plans,” she says. The female cop moves closer to her. This pleases me. I want Nova and her baby to be safe. “I need to be live,” Nova says, and her voice is so tense it’s almost unrecognizable. “We all need to be live,” she says, and she spits the words.
I know immediately that something has gone terribly wrong. Nova is never on air, but when she says she needs to be “live,” that’s what she is asking for. Obviously, she wants the cops to hear everything she says. I flick on the mike in the control room and my own mike in the studio. “So who’s your friend?” I say.
“This is Staff Sergeant Janet Davidson,” Nova says tightly.
The relief washes over me. “Janet Davidson! My own Marion the Librarian. Am I glad to see you.”
Nova’s body jerks oddly, and she moves the microphone toward Marion.
“And I’m glad to see you, Charlie,” Marion says. Nova’s eyes meet mine. I see the terror on her face, and I understand it. Nova identified the woman with her as Janet Davidson. But the voice coming through the microphone isn’t the flat, toneless voice of the police researcher whom I nicknamed Marion the Librarian. The voice in my earphones is low, seductive and unmistakable. It’s the voice of Rani, Queen of the Air.
CHAPTER TEN
The woman standing behind Nova steps a little to the side. In the full overhead light, I can make out her general appearance. It’s disturbing. She’s heavy-set, middle-aged and dressed in a regulation blue police uniform. She wears a cap with the force insignia. She looks like any other female cop. But there are two false notes. She’s wearing makeup that is applied so heavily and awkwardly that it’s almost clownish. And her cap is askew, allowing a number of platinum curls to escape. As I watch, the wig, of which the curls are a part, begins to slip to one side. Clearly Janet was in a hurry when she donned the wig, and she didn’t have time to make the necessary adjustments. Keeping her left hand behind Nova’s back, Janet grabs the microphone with her right. She puts her mouth too close to it, as amateurs always do. The closeness of the microphone distorts the voice, but the seductive growl is familiar.
“I’m glad to see you, Charlie,” she says. “But there is no Janet. There is no Marion. There’s just Rani now.”
I can’t get my head around it. The purring voice, the grotesque makeup, the wig, the curious positioning of Janet Davidson’s body against Nova’s.
“She has her gun against my spine, Charlie,” Nova says. “I need to be live, Charlie. We all need to stay live. Help me.”
“I’m lost,” I say. “Janet…Rani. Why the gun? And how did Janet stop and you begin?”
“Janet was nobody,” the curious creature in front of me says. “She was just a researcher for the Major Crimes Division. All day long she sat in front of her computer, analyzing other people’s emotions: love, hate, envy, passion, greed, ambition. She became an expert on what drove the lives of other people. She had no life herself.”
“And that’s why you…why she became Rani?” I say.
“That came later. At first everything was fine. Janet called your show because she heard that your topic was Nurture versus Nature. She’d read an article that said that the brain of a child who was ignored by his mother for the first two years of his life was different from the brain of a child who was lovingly nurtured. You probably don’t even remember.”
“I do remember,” I say. “The lines were jammed after you—after Janet—called. Everyone had a story. It was a great show.”
“At the end you thanked Janet, but as a joke you called her Marion the Librarian.” The seduction is gone from the voice of the woman in front of me. She sounds dead. “You called her ‘a pearl of g
reat price.’”
“And I said she should call me anytime,” I say.
“That’s exactly what you said.” Rani’s fury is back—hotter than ever. I see Nova’s panic. “Can you imagine what it meant to Janet to be invited into the life of a man like you? To know that, for the first time in her life, she was ‘a pearl of great price’? Suddenly she had a reason to get up in the morning. As soon as she woke up, she would call your studio to find out the topic for that night. She would spend every coffee break, every lunch hour, researching the topic so she would have something to offer you. She lived for those calls.” Nova winces. Rani is jamming the gun into her spine. “Then this person wouldn’t let you take them anymore.”
“It wasn’t Nova’s choice,” I say. “It’s not her fault.”
“She took other people’s calls. Young people. Twisted people. People who sounded…exotic.”
“Charlie, please.” When she calls my name, Nova’s voice is forlorn.
Rani’s face twists with rage. “You sound desperate, Nova. Janet knew that feeling. Every time the show ended and you hadn’t taken her call, she’d go into the bathroom, look in the mirror and then watch herself put the barrel of her gun in her mouth.
“A month ago, I…she almost pulled the trigger. She stared at her reflection for what seemed like hours. Then on the radio, she heard Charlie’s voice. ‘On the air, you can be anyone you want to be,’ he said. That’s when Janet knew that she could be the woman Charlie needed her to be—young, hot, great radio. The kind of woman whose calls would always be welcomed.”
“And Rani was born,” I said.
“Every night Janet practiced the new voice in front of the mirror. It took a while, but it was worth it. When she closed her eyes and listened to the voice, she felt different—desirable, powerful. The voice was easy, but the face was harder. Janet bought the most expensive makeup in the city, but no matter how much makeup she put on, she was still old and plain. And you were perfect, Charlie.”
“I’m not perfect,” I say.
She ignores me. “ Janet knew that a seductive voice might get her on the air, but she realized you’d never be satisfied with just a voice. You wanted a real flesh-and-blood woman. You deserved someone as perfect as you. She bought a very expensive wig. She was ready, but your lines were always jammed. Other people kept getting in the way. There were times when you talked to Ian Blaise twice in a single night.”
“He lost his wife and children,” I say, and even as the words escape my mouth, I know I’m saying exactly the wrong thing.
Rani’s wig slips down over her ear. She moves the microphone closer to her lips. Her hiss is as venomous as a snake’s. “At least he had a wife and children to lose. Janet had never had anybody. Ian Blaise had memories…”
“Marcie Zhang was only fourteen.”
“And she’d already been rejected and laughed at. I did her a favor. I cut her pain short.”
“But James Washington had everything ahead of him.”
“And he still kept calling you. Don’t you see, Charlie? Every minute you were on the air with James Washington, you weren’t with me. I had to get him out of the way. It was nothing personal. He had to go, and now he’s gone. And I’m here.”
Nova is very pale. She sways as if she’s about to collapse. Rani notices and grabs her roughly about the shoulder. The microphone is still in her hand and it knocks Nova’s chin. She winces, but does not cry out. I’ve had enough. “Let Nova go,” I say. My voice is louder than I intend it to be, and Rani tenses—the last thing we need. I try to be reassuring. “Come into the booth with me,” I say. “We can do the show together. Nobody else. Just the two of us.”
Rani looks angrily at Nova. “Your producer will never let me come in there. The minute I move away from her, she’ll stop me.”
“I won’t stop you. I swear,” Nova says.
Rani adjusts her platinum wig. Under the mask of makeup, it’s difficult to read the expression on her face, but her voice is resigned. It’s the voice of a person who feels that events have been taken out of her hands. “Of course, if Nova was dead,” she says matter-of-factly, “she couldn’t stop me.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The control room is brightly lit. It’s easy for me to see exactly what’s happening. Nova is gripping the chair in front of her to keep from falling forward. From the angle of her arm, it’s clear that Rani has the gun aimed at the base of Nova’s spine.
Nova’s voice is pleading. “Just move the gun up, so it doesn’t hurt the baby,” she says. “She hasn’t done anything to you. Let her live… please. Please, Rani. If you’re going to shoot me, okay, but please don’t kill my baby.”
The jaws of the vice clamped to my temples tighten. The threat to Nova and her baby is more than I can take. “Rani, we don’t know how much time we have,” I say. “Let’s not waste it. Nova has nothing to do with our lives now. She’s the one who’s irrelevant. Open the door to the studio and come to me.”
Rani hesitates. She and Nova are frozen, like figures on a TV screen when there’s a transmission problem. My heart is pounding. Under my breath, I say, “Take the first step, Rani. You can do it. Take the first step. Once I get you in here with me, I don’t care what happens as long as Nova and the baby are safe.”
I lean into the mike. “Rani, you know you want to see me. We’ve waited so long—too long. Come to me, Rani. Come to me. Come. Come.”
I watch the hands on the studio clock. It ticks off the seconds with agonizing slowness. Finally, Rani turns away from Nova, and like a sleepwalker she begins to move. I hate and fear guns, but I have never seen a more beautiful sight than the light glinting off Rani’s Glock 22 pistol as she moves toward me. She raises the hand that is not holding the gun to straighten her wig and arranges her face in a tortured smile. When I’m certain Rani will not turn back, I allow myself to look at Nova. She is inching her way slowly toward the door that will lead her out of the control room to safety. For the first time since the show started that night, I exhale.
My relief doesn’t last long. Within seconds, Rani opens the door to the studio. “It’s so dark in here,” she says.
“That’s how I like it,” I say. “Follow the sound of my voice.”
“I want to see your face.”
“Do you?”
“I’ve imagined it a thousand times. I lie awake at night, touching your perfect body with my mind.”
I reach for the light that I keep on the desk for an emergency and flick the switch. I tilt the lamp toward me, so that Rani can see my face clearly. She gasps. “My god. What happened?”
“I was born,” I say. “It’s a birthmark. The human stain. Not the stuff of your dreams, huh?”
Rani raises the gun, so that it’s pointed at me. Despite her crooked platinum wig and her clownish makeup, she’s a commanding figure. Her hand is steady as she takes aim. Behind her in the control room, I can see police officers moving into position. They, too, have their weapons drawn. I am beyond being frightened.
“You were supposed to be perfect,” Rani says. “We were supposed to be perfect.”
“And now you’re going to shoot me because I’m not the man you wanted me to be.”
“I killed for you.”
“No, Janet. You didn’t kill for me. You killed for Charlie D. He only exists on the air. He’s someone I made up because I didn’t want to be me. Just the way you made up Rani because you didn’t want to be Janet Davidson. My real name is Charlie Dowhanuik. Maybe it’s time for Charlie Dowhanuik and Janet Davidson to meet.” I stand and hold my arms out to her. “You’re going to have to put that gun down,” I say.
With agonizing slowness, she places the gun on the desk. In the control room, the cops move into position. “Give us a moment,” I say. Janet Davidson moves toward me. I reach up and remove the wig. Her hair is short and brown. I touch it. “You have pretty hair,” I say.
She reaches out and touches my cheek. “Your skin is very soft,” she says.<
br />
“Would you like to sit with me while I finish the show?” I ask.
And so Janet Davidson sits down beside Charlie Dowhanuik. Facing us in the control room are six cops with their guns drawn. But until the program ends and the microphone is turned off for the night, the police are not a part of our world. The world of Charlie D and of Rani, Queen of the Air, goes far beyond this small dark room in the glass-and-concrete cubicle of CVOX radio. As long as the microphone is on, our world is the air. Our voices travel into rooms and minds and lives we can’t even imagine. I turn to Marion. “They’re waiting,” I say.
“Then help them,” she says.
I smile at her and lean into the mike.
“You’re listening to ‘The World According to Charlie D,’” I say. “It’s March twentieth, the first day of spring, the season of love. Our topic tonight was love—the crazy things we do for love. So…lessons learned? I don’t know.
“I was born with a birthmark that covers half my face. It’s still there. I’m a freak. I look as if I’m wearing a mask of blood. My mother told me that when the doctors and nurses saw me there was absolute silence in the delivery room. They handed me to my mother. She asked them to wash off the blood, but they told her nothing could take the stain away. Then my mother took me in her arms, kissed me and said, ‘Then…we’ll learn to live with it.’
“Maybe that’s the lesson. Maybe we just have to learn to live with the stains that make us human. And you know what? It helps if there’s someone who loves us enough to touch their lips to our imperfect bodies—to see the beauty in our imperfect minds.
“So be kind. As the poet says, ‘There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.’ Put your arms around each other. Forgive one another for being human.”
Janet smiles and reaches her hand toward mine. Our eyes lock and the split second of our communion is so intense that I don’t notice she’s picked up the Glock again. She aims it before I understand what’s happening.
