by Edward Lee
Jack frowned. Too many ballbreakers in this world. This was public information. “You think you could do it for Ulysses S. Grant?”
The old man got the picture straight off. “No, but I might be able to do it for Benjamin Franklin.”
“That’s a big piece of paper, pal.”
“So’s a FOIA request. Your choice, son.”
Jack gave the recorder a hundred-dollar bill and Khoronos’ address.
“Course, there’s no guarantee there’ll be a phone number in the file. Might just be names and tax dates. And there’s no refunds here.” The old man held up the bill, brows raised. “Yes or no?”
“Just get the file,” Jack said.
“What are you doing!” Faye whispered when the man went in back.
“Lubing a palm to cut through some red tape. Every plot of land in the state is filed here, along with the name of whoever pays the property tax. If there’s a dwelling, there’s usually a phone number too.”
“You’re bribing a public employee, Jack. Aren’t you in enough trouble as it is?”
Baby, there’s never enough trouble, Jack felt like saying.
The recorder returned from the stacks. “Tough luck, son. Like I said, no refunds.”
“There’s no phone number in the file?” Jack asked.
“No phone number. Just the taxpayer’s name.”
“I already know his name. It’s Khor—”
“Herren,” the recorder said.
“What?” Jack said.
“Fraus Herren, Line 2.” The recorder scanned the open file. “Funny, though. You say there’s a dwelling on the plot?”
“Of course. They don’t put addresses on vacant lots.”
“I know that. But there’s no construction date. Date of the building license should be here, and the closing date, tax dates. When you put a house on a piece of land, the prop tax goes up. All that should be here, but it ain’t. Someone forgot to amend the file.”
“Fraus Herren, you say?”
The recorder showed him the file. “Fraus Herren. Sounds kraut. Lotta German developers buying up the waterfront around here.”
Who the hell is Fraus Herren? Jack wondered. Why isn’t the deed in Khoronos’ name? “Thanks for your time,” he grumbled.
“Don’t thank me, thank Ben Franklin.”
Yeah. He took Faye back out. “I just paid a ball note for goddamn nothing,” he complained.
But Faye was looking at him funny, shaking her head.
“What’s the matter?”
“Jack, someone’s really pulling your leg here,” she said. “First you got a guy named Philippe Faux, and now you’ve got another named Fraus Herren.”
“Yeah? So?”
“I already told you. Faux, in French, means false. Fraus Herren, that’s German. You know what it means in German?”
“What?” Jack asked.
“It means false man.”
* * *
False man, Jack thought. He got out of his unmarked and headed into the city district station. Philippe Faux. Fraus Herren. Both mean fake. It was almost like a deliberate joke, and the joke was on Jack.
Faye had left for LOC already. Jack thought he’d stop by the office and see how Randy was doing. He also wanted a little more time to decide what to do about Khoronos. Should I go there myself, or just give Stewie the address and forget about it?
Randy was hanging up the phone when Jack walked in the office. “This place hasn’t collapsed without me?” he said.
“I miss the lingering aroma of Camel smoke,” Randy told him. “Really. We’ve been grilling Susan Lynn’s boyfriends all morning. Not a weirdo in the bunch, and they all had alibis that washed. Jan Beck came in earlier with the TSD workup.”
“What’s she got?”
“First place, the pubes. We got two different kinds of pubes. Unusually long, she said.”
“Just like the first two,” Jack added.
“Not like. They were the first two. The hairs matched and the semen matched. They also wrote the word — Aorista — twice this time.”
“In their own blood, right? Not hers?”
“You got it. And the subtypes matched the first two 64s. In other words, one guy did Shanna Barrington, the other guy did Rebecca Black, and they both did Susan Lynn.”
Jack poured coffee, contemplating this.
“And they really did the job this time,” Randy went on. “It takes a lot to turn Jan Beck’s stomach, but this did it. Says she never found so much jizz in a 64 in her life. Her whole repro tract was ruptured with it. Says the whole bed was a wetspot, and they gave it to her up the ass too. Beck was talking cc’s; she said she pulled the equivalent of eight nuts just out of her tail. These guys left more wax than a twenty-man gang bang.”
Jan Beck’s stomach wasn’t the only one turning.
“There’s more,” Randy said. “Beck thinks this is the last one.”
“Why?”
“First two, the perps went out of their way to disguise themselves. They wore the black wig. Beck didn’t find a single wig hair this time.”
“Which means they don’t give a shit anymore about being recognized. And that means they’re either ready to stop or they’re ready to leave town, just like Karla Panzram said they would. But I don’t think Susan Lynn is the last one. I think there’ll be one more murder.”
Randy looked at him inquisitively.
“Faye, the state researcher, found out a lot more about the ritual protocol. These guys worship some medieval demon called Baalzephon, some sex demon or something, an incubus, she called it. Once a year this cult would try to incarnate Baalzephon by a specific rite. They’d sacrifice three girls, one for each point of the triangle, then they’d do a fourth, to finish the rite. Everything she’s dug up so far syncs with what’s already happened. So that’s my guess. There’ll be one more 64 before these guys book.”
“That’s very imaginative, Captain Cordesman.”
Jack knew the voice at once. How long had he been standing here listening? “Ah, Noyle,” Jack said. “I almost didn’t recognize you without your face buried in the commissioner’s ass.”
Noyle frowned in the doorway. “I’m a trifle concerned that you haven’t yet enrolled yourself in the county alcohol program. Please do yourself a favor, Captain. Posthaste.”
Posthaste. What a dickbrain. “Why’d you shitcan Faye Rowland?”
“Because her services are no longer integral to this case.”
“They’re not, huh? Well, what have you come up with, besides handfuls of your own shit?”
“You’re a very profane man, Captain.”
“You’re fucking right I’m profane, especially when a no-experience little IAD weasel yanks my homicide investigation and fucks up a week’s worth of hard work. Faye Rowland found out more about these assholes in three days than you’ll find out in a year of hobnobbing around, running rap checks on a bunch of dance-club scumbags and bar cockhounds. Don’t you even want to see the information she’s compiled on the aorist cult?”
“The aorist cult,” Noyle repeated with a reserved smile. “I’ve read your preliminary reports, Captain. They’re quite…amusing. Fortunately we’re a modern police department; we have no interest in devils. What we’re concerned with are two highly dangerous chronic psychopaths, and we will proceed in the effort of their apprehension by following the standard investigative procedures, and maybe if you had adhered to the same standards you would not have turned this case into the biggest embarrassment in the history of the department.”
Jack stood up. Randy rolled his eyes.
“Listen to me, you little buttplug,” Jack said. “These guys are not psychopaths. If they were psychopaths, we could’ve caught them by now. They’re rational, calculated devil-worshipers. The only thing crazy about them is their beliefs and the only way you’re going to bust them is to research their beliefs.”
“Sit down, Jack,” Randy suggested.
“Their beliefs are i
rrelevant, Captain,” Noyle said. “We don’t investigate beliefs, we investigate crime and the perpetrators thereof. You might’ve solved this case by now if you’d spent more time on the suspects and less in the bars.”
“There are no suspects, you idiot!” Jack yelled.
Noyle stepped back without a change of expression. “And I repeat. You are officially advised to enroll yourself in the county alcohol program.”
“Posthaste, right?”
“That’s correct, Captain. Posthaste. A police department is no place for a drunk.”
Jack stood grinding his teeth. Noyle was wearing suspenders, the new craze. Jack was very tempted to give them a good hard snap.
Noyle left.
“You better watch yourself, Jack,” Randy counseled. “Noyle is one guy you don’t want to fuck with.”
“He can bugger himself,” Jack suggested, and sat back down.
“And you better take care of that rehab stuff too. He’ll ax you, Jack. He’s done it to a lot of guys.”
Jack mumbled something not very complimentary under his breath. He couldn’t argue, though. Randy was right.
“Beck left something else too.” Randy picked up a chromatography analysis report. “Whatever you and Faye gave her to go on checked out.”
“The tox screen?”
“Yeah. It turned out to be exactly what you said it was.” Randy squinted at the writing in the comments box. “‘Cantharadine suphate, endorphic stimulant, derived via series-distillation of Taxodium lyrata tubers. Indigenous to central Europe. Produces aggregant aphrodisiac affect through hyperstimulation of libidinal receptors. An oil-soluble colloid, will suspend microscopically in alcohol. Colorless, odorless, tasteless. No field in NADDIS. No record of criminal use in U.S.’”
“Great,” Jack griped. “Indigenous to central Europe. You’ll have to run a CDS trace through goddamn Interpol to find out where this shit’s used. That’ll take months.”
“But what the hell is it?”
“Something like Spanish fly, I think, gets you horny. The aorists used it in the Middle Ages for orgies and rituals. Beck found traces of it in the bloodstreams of the first two 64s. It mixes with alcohol, she says. The postmortems said Barrington, Black, and Lynn were all in heightened sexual states then they died. That’s how our guys picked them up so easy. They were probably putting this shit in their drinks.”
“All this weird stuff”—Randy gestured at his desk—“and I don’t know what to do with any of it.”
“You know one thing, though,” Jack cautioned, “and mark my words. You can bet there’s gonna be one more murder before this is over.”
* * *
“Here it is,” the librarian said. “Be very careful; it may be the only copy in existence, and it’s in bad condition. Turn the pages with the stylus, and I’m afraid you’ll have to wear these gloves. The amino acids on your fingers will damage the paper if you touch it.”
Faye donned the nylon gloves. “What about photocopies?”
“It’s illegal to photocopy any Class D precaution printed material. You can photograph the pages if you have a camera. If not—”
“I’ll use the copy machine I was born with,” Faye finished, indicating her right hand. “Thank you for finding this. I’ll let you know when I’m done.”
The librarian left Faye to her cove. The book had been brought out in a lidded aluminum box, and rested in an acetate cover. It wasn’t thick; it looked more like a brochure than a book. The binding had been removed to reduce page wear. Its faded title in black ink on red seemed to look back at her.
THE SYNOD OF THE AORISTS
No publication date, no copyright. The only printing information read: Morakis Enterprises. Translated from Greek by Monseigneur Timothy McGinnis. No author was listed either, and no contributors or bibliographic data.
The page after the title had a dedication:
To know God, one must first know the Nemesis.
This book is for all who seek God.
Faye Rowland opened the book and began to read.
Chapter 32
Ginny cranked out the last page from the Smith Corona XL that Khoronos had provided. Her story was done. It was only about 1,500 words, but she’d redrafted it obsessively. Even with her novels, it was not uncommon to rewrite eight or ten times. Art did not come easy for some; most of writing was rewriting. And to hell with all this word processor stuff. Ginny couldn’t imagine writing with anything but a loud, clanky typewriter. It was the activity that spurred her, margin bells ringing, keys clacking, the carriage whipping back and forth as her muse poured out of her fingertips. All her friends at her writers’ group told her she was crazy not to own a computer. “Oh, but Ginny, you’ll save so much time!” “I’m not interested in saving time, I’m interested in creating art,” she’d come back. “Oh, but Ginny, it all goes on disk! You just push the print button when you’re done! Laser jets! 256 RAM! 20-gig hard-drive! How can you live without one!”
“I will not sell my muse to technology,” Ginny would then say, and if they kept it up she would politely point out that her books sold millions of copies while theirs sold thousands. To put it another way, Ginny was sick to fucking death of hearing about fucking computers.
Her story was called “The Passionist.” Eight hours of writing left her feeling like eight hours of road work; she’d proof it later. She drifted downstairs, blinking fatigue out of her eyes. Just past nine now, it was getting dark. No one was downstairs. She’d peeked in on Veronica only to find her dead asleep. As for Amy Vandersteen, Ginny hadn’t seen her since yesterday.
She went out on the back porch and smoked. A cigarette after finishing a story was better than a cigarette after sex. The rush lulled her almost like pot and she looked dreamily up to the sky. The stars looked like beautiful luminous spillage; the moon hung low. Since coming here, since meeting Khoronos, she found beauty everywhere she looked. She saw wonders. Her vision had never shown her such things before.
She went back into the kitchen and microwaved a bowl of Korean noodles, which she found bland. She hunted through the spice rack for something to spark them up. Curry. Chili powder. Chopped red peppers. Below the rack, though, stood an unmarked jar. Ginny opened it and sniffed. The stuff looked like confectioners’ sugar, but when she tasted some on the end of her finger, there was no taste at all.
“Try some,” advised Gilles, who sauntered into the kitchen.
Ginny looked at him. God, he’s gorgeous. All he wore were khaki shorts and a red sweatband on his brow. “It doesn’t taste like anything,” she said.
“It’s like oysters. It makes you feel sexy. Try some.”
Ginny giggled and did so. It still tasted bland, but it amused her the way Gilles was watching her, head tilted and arms crossed under the well-developed pectorals. “Where’s everybody?” she asked.
“Erim and Marzen are meditating. They are very spiritual people. Spirit transcends flesh. Did Erim ever tell you that?”
“A million times,” Ginny said. “Synergy. Transposition.”
“Yes. Do you know what all that means?”
“I don’t know.”
“You will.”
Even his weirdness was attractive. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the fresh Band-Aid on his chest.
“My offering. I don’t expect you to understand that.”
His offering? Oh, he was weird, all right, but she didn’t care. The magnificent body and sculpted face were what she cared about. When she turned to rinse out the noodle bowl, his hands were on her back, kneading her stiffened neck muscles, teasing them loose. “God, that feels good,” she murmured.
“What does God have to do with it?”
“It’s a figure of speech, Gilles. Jesus.”
“Him too?”
His practiced fingers stifled her laugh. She wore no panties or bra beneath the sundress (Ginny didn’t like constraints when she wrote; at home she sometimes even wrote nude); she could feel his contours
against her buttocks as he continued to massage her neck. This was all too obvious, though she did not object. Why should she? “I want to touch you,” he said then, and turned her around. What a line, she thought. Now she faced him, backed against the counter. She ran her hands up his chest and grinned.
“I want to touch you,” he softly repeated.
She felt perfectly slutty raising the hem of her dress. His hand slipped over the downy hair at once, then lowered to investigate her sex. The long finger made her moist right off.
“So you’ve finished your story?”
“Uh-huh,” she said. She was fascinated just watching, just looking down and seeing the hand play with her.
“What is your story called?”
“‘The Passionist,’” she breathed.
“A title born of truth, of yourself? You are very passionate,” he said.
Shut up, she thought. Had she subconsciously written the story for him? Her stories were allegories, her characters symbols of emotions. Perhaps she’d written the story for herself. Anything we create is part of what we are, she half thought as Gilles’ finger probed. The last line was this: Come away with me and my dream.
But what was her dream?
The kitchen was dark. Ginny felt slick and hot. Had the white spice really turned her on? She knew it was Gilles. Flesh, she thought suddenly, and absurdly. She wanted his flesh, not his spirit. She was only being honest with herself: his passion could take a hike, for all she cared. She wanted his cock.
He took his hand away and put the finger in her mouth, making her taste herself. She lowered his khaki shorts. Immediately his flesh was hard in her hand. That’s all a cock really is, she symbolized, amused. A handle that women use to lead men through life. She led him down to the floor by it. He stepped out of the shorts. Ginny pulled her dress up as Gilles arranged her on her hands and knees. “Like this?” he inquired.
“Yeah” she whispered, almost impatiently. The wan light from the living room was all that lit the kitchen. She could see the outline of his shadow above the outline of her own — she looked ahead as he inserted himself. The separation of images captivated her. She watched his shadow. He pushed her dress further up her back, then splayed her buttocks to penetrate more deeply. The angle and depth felt so good it almost hurt.
