Intermusings

by David Niall Wilson

  We're on a dirt track now. The wind has shifted and died down somewhat. The crowd is rumbling.

  "If you win, Sammy, you're cured. You get to leave here like you never had the Big C. You'll be fit, you'll be normal, you'll be looking forward to a long, long life." He smiles in anticipation, nodding. "I might even have gambled on this one myself."

  "What if he wins," I ask, glancing over at the black.

  Uncle Louis turns away, taking a drink from his other bottle. "I'd rather not think about that, if you don't mind."

  The moon, like a gambler's face, is sucked behind a cloud. My gaze flickers between my uncles and Death on his horse as we wait. The mounts are nervous.

  "By the way," says Uncle Phil," my horse's name's Go For Broke. I picked him. Had the fastest time ever at Belmont. Louis picked Sunday Kept . . . and he picked your horse: White Lie."

  "So what did White Lie do?" I ask.

  "Great lineage—from Secretariat and Cool White Diamond."

  "But what kind of record?"

  "Well, they expected great things . . . but there was a stable fire."

  I still have to think this is a dream. I can't—I refuse to believe this is really happening.

  Our horses line up on what is now a track, stones as fence. My Uncle Phil is as grim and determined as ever. I catch the black rider staring at me, his pale face as cold as the moon. I avoid his dark eyes, and he looks away.

  "What about the black horse?" I ask.

  "Lucifer's Lackey," mumbles Uncle Louis. He takes a swig from the bottle in his left hand and tosses it. It hits a granite vase filled with dead flowers and smashes. He chugs from the quart in his right and throws it over his shoulder. It hits the ground with a soft thud.

  It seems the moon is our only living spectator, and I can't tell who he's pulling for. The skeletal faces in the crowd are silent, leaning forward, watching, waiting. I ignore them as best I can. My mouth is dry. White Lie trembles between my legs.

  "Remember now: weight in the stirrups, ass up a bit, lean into the turns. Okay?"

  "Okay, Uncle Louis."

  I'm sweating in the cold wind that blows across the track, the graveyard.

  Uncle Louis spits to the side.

  Uncle Phil is grim and cadaverous, wrapped in his sheets as he settles his seat.

  I'm scared out of my mind that this is not a dream.

  Death grins at me.

  And we're off. . .

  I don't know where the sound comes from. Perhaps the moon is announcing—perhaps one of the dead. I don't know, and there is no time to consider it. Wind whips at my face, ripping the tears from my eyes, flapping the thinning strands of my hair in wild, whip-like circles. I cannot even see who is winning . . .

  "And out of the gate, it's Lucifer's Lackey by three. Closing in is Go For Broke, at the rail it's Sunday Kept, and bringing up the rear, only five back from the lead, is White Lie."

  I feel detached. I can hear the announcements, but cannot correlate them to the reality of the rippling muscles beneath me and the wind washing over me. The crowd is a blur, black and white like an out-of-focus t.v. My mind drifts to memory as the announcer goes on, a nasal, mechanical voice repeating phrases learned from years of use . . .

  "Inching up on the inside, it's Sunday Kept, moving in on the leaders. Lucifer's Lackey still out in front, challenged now by Go For Broke. White Lie moves to the rail and moves in, coming to only three lengths off the leader. At the quarter it’s a quick 21 and 3/5. . ."

  I remember finding an old tractor tire on the next block over from where we lived. It wasn't long after Uncle Phil had died. I found this tire that was almost as tall as me, and I rolled it back home.

  Now, I don't remember a lot of details about that tire or that time of my life. I don't recall the smell of the rubber or what kind of tread the tire had. I can't quite picture my house or backyard. I remember, though, wedging that tire into the fence so that it stood upright. I pretended sometimes that it was a black horse named Midnight, and I was a cowboy named Buck Jones.

  More often than not that tire was a tall black racehorse I called Frantic Liberty.

  Even in the dead of summer I would wear long sleeve shirts so that I could more closely pretend I was wearing silks. I had a switch made of elm that I kept hidden inside the tire.

  We ran the same race over and over and over, Frantic Liberty and I. Over and over because I never won. I thought it was so important because I pretended that Uncle Phil was betting on us. We never won . . . and one day the tire was gone . . .

  "Coming midway into the turn, White Lie makes a move on the outside, edging Go For Broke and closing on the leaders, Lucifer's Lackey and Sunday Kept, neck and neck coming into the three-quarter point at an amazing 1:23:2/5. Go For Broke, dropping to trail, is four lengths off the lead. White Lie, still moving up, comes within a length as they reach the final stretch and run for home."

  I feel a sudden anger. Thus far I've let my uncles run the show, allowed myself to be led. The wind stings my eyes and may cheeks burn with a kind of cold heat. Gripping the reins tighter, I lean forward, pressing into the white mane and clamping down with my knees. I urge the horse to speed up, to run like the wind, to run past my uncles, past the pale specter at their side, out of the madness. I feel corded muscle bunch and spring, as though my own thought had held it in check, and we catapult forward. The announcer's voice picks up—excitement ripples through the air.

  "And there he goes! White Lie, moving up the rail, edges Sunday Kept and pulls neck and neck with the leader, Lucifer's Lackey. Sunday Kept drops back three off the lead, and Go For Broke trails as they come down the final stretch. They're nose to nose, it's going to be close . . . and it's White Lie by a nose, by a neck . . . White Lie! White Lie is your winner . . ."

  . . . and we're back.

  My clothes are soaked with sweat; and, with the chill air, I shiver.

  There's a satisfied, relieved look on Uncle Phil's face as he stands there by his tombstone with his eyes closed. He's nodding ever so slowly. He's won. He's pleased. He bet on a winner, and it was a longshot.

  Uncle Louis sits on his own marker. From somewhere he has another two quarts of beer. He laughs softly and takes a monstrous swig from one of the brown bottles.

  "What a race," he says. "What a glorious, grand race. Best I've ever seen. Have you ever seen such a race?"

  I look around. A dry leaf slaps me in the face as it blows by.

  Death stands to the side, glaring. He's taller now. His silks are a hooded robe. The moon adds gleaming highlights to the folds.

  "Damn!" says Uncle Phil.

  "What?" I ask. "What is it?"

  "Damn!"

  I look over at Uncle Louis. He's stopped laughing.

  "Death cheats," he says, and takes another quick swallow. One of his arms is gone. An ear disappears, his hair fades out.

  The same thing is happening to Uncle Phil. First a hand, a nose, an arm. His sad smile goes as his face and body lose form—fading away.

  "Uncle Phil?" He's gone.

  "Do what you can, Sammy," says Uncle Louis as a gust of wind carries his voice, the last remnant of him, away. The moon watches.

  I turn to death and look him in the eye.

  "Are you going to cheat me too?" I ask. "I didn't even make the bet, but I beat you fairly. I won your damned race."

  Death stares back at me. He grows larger again, looming.

  There's a shadow, and I look up as a dark cloud obscures the moon.

  Death opens his robes as if to enfold me. The dark cloth ripples. Blackness is everywhere around me. The night closes in. I hear the sound of thousands of flapping wings beating the air, taking flight . . .

  He's gone. I'm alone and the cemetery is almost still. I hear a few nervous birds twitter from their hidden branches . . . but he's gone.

  I'm alone. I'm alive in a graveyard at night. My uncles' graves are undisturbed except for bits of broken brown glass scattered about among the dry grass.
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  I smile in spite of myself, feeling good, as I turn and leave.

  La Belle Dame Sans Merci

  By Brian A. Hopkins and David Niall Wilson

  I was loathe to leave the warm puddle of Chastekind's blood, but the rising sun was painting his corpse in stripes that had assumed the lavender hue of the bedroom blinds. It was morning, and I was human again.

  In his shower I washed away his sticky sweet blood, suffering the proximity of the water for the sheer delight of it pounding on my breasts, running in steaming rivulets down my flanks. Chastekind had been a damn good lover. It made one wonder why he'd found the need to turn to men for attention. I didn't bother wondering why he'd also found the need to slit their throats after sex. I'd learned long ago that there was no probing the dark minds of psychopaths.

  I thought he might try to slit my throat—actually hoped he would try. There'd been a moment there, when he was diligently thrusting at me from behind . . . but no, dear old Chastekind had been the perfect lady's man, gentle and considerate, more than adequately attentive. I think he even held back his orgasm, waiting for mine.

  Which meant the poor son of a bitch hadn't even gotten his.

  Before leaving his penthouse, I studied his corpse. He didn't look so dangerous with his intestines trailing out across the floor, his abdomen gaping like a ravaged sarcophagi, and that silly second grin. Pity we couldn't have made love again. I suspect he would have been better the second or third time around.

  I ran my finger through his blood for one last taste. Delicious. He'd had champagne with his lobster last night. Hot butter and warm French bread.

  New Orleans had been good to me. Chastekind was the second serial killer in four months. But it was time to move on. The police are as apt to track down a serial killer's killer as anyone else's.

  Martin Zolotow knelt beside the cooling pool of blood and viscera, resisting the morbid urge to search through it, thinking that there was something wrong. It took him less than a minute to decide what that something was. The copious puddle was too uniform, too neat, as if someone had poured the entire mess from a bucket rather than dragged it from the victim and out across the bedroom carpet. His gaze shifted up from the mess to the naked prostitute hanging on the wall.

  God, but this was starting out to be one motherfucker of a day.

  Martin's new partner was struggling to retain his breakfast. Knees protesting, Martin rose and exchanged a glance with him, pretended not to notice the retching and grey-green hue. "Maybe you should talk to some of the hookers out in the hall, Tony. I'm worried some of them will run before we get a chance to question them."

  Tony Saucier swallowed. From the look on his face, some of his breakfast had come up. "I dunno, Marty. I should be helping you look for clues and –“

  Martin clapped him on the shoulder, using the gesture to maneuver the younger man out into the small apartment's living room. "You've been watching too much television, Tony. Forensics finds all the clues. Paperwork and legwork, those are our stock and trade."

  Besides which, it'd be years before Tony could tell a clue from his dick, and he'd probably never develop that special detective sense which was Martin's calling card. How could he? Tony's brain wasn't wired backward. At least that was how Martin thought of it.

  His condition wasn't unique, just rare. Rare enough that dyslexia specialists had studied him more than once. He was born with mixed cerebral dominance, left-handed and right-eyed, the imaginative and logical halves of his brain carefully balanced. The specialists couldn't understand why he didn't exhibit difficulties with reading, writing, and spelling, conditions normally predicted by such a brain-wiring diagram.

  The cross-wiring affected him in other ways. His depth perception and balance weren't all they could be. Airplanes and rollercoaster rides were a guarantee of nausea. Television gave him headaches. He frequently suffered memory lapses; memory holes, he called them. Sometimes he'd arrive at work in the morning with no recollection of getting out of bed and driving in.

  He'd once had trouble remembering a lot of things, but he'd solved the problem by memorizing countless poems: Browning, Shelley, Emily Dickinson. He was especially fond of John Keats. He thought that by memorizing the poems, he'd forced a certain structure on his brain, analogous to formatting a new computer disk. One could write something on a new disk—the magnetic media was there—but it couldn't be recalled because there was no format for finding the data.

  More than his twenty years’ experience with the San Valencez Police Department, the cross-wiring gave him a unique perspective on crime scenes like this, crime scenes where things didn't quite add up. California coughed up more than her share of them.

  "I dunno," Tony repeated, but he'd taken a furtive glance at the rousted hookers crowded outside the apartment, peering around the corner of the door in their teddies and underwear. Some of the grey in his face surrendered to a healthier blush.

  "Go on, get the fuck outta here."

  Tony went. But as he slipped out the door, Chief Grodin slipped in.

  "Chief —"

  "Third one, Zolo! What the fuck are you doing, playing with yourself? Why haven't you found this bastard? Christ on a stick, this is number three! Do you know what that means?"

  "I —"

  "The media's gonna have a fuckin' field day, that's what it means. Number three's when they always give the bastard some cheesy name." Grodin surveyed the spartan apartment, probably wondering where the corpse was. Martin, cut off twice already, bit his lip and decided not to say anything else that wasn't in response to a direct question.

  "So, come on, man! What've you got?"

  "Same M.O. as the other two. Somebody wrapped the prostitute's mouth in duct tape, nailed her to the bedroom wall, and —"

  "Show me."

  Martin led him into the bedroom.

  "Christ on a stick!" Martin and two forensic techs working the room frowned, but the chief was oblivious to the connection between his vernacular and the victim's situation. "Anybody I.D. her yet?"

  "No. Yes. I mean, I know who she is from my days in vice." It went further than knowing who she was. Years ago, Vicki Marsh had been one of his informants. As prostitutes go, Vicki was one class act. He'd slept with her more than once himself. She eventually connected with higher paying clientele and quit selling him information. For months afterward he'd missed her, more so for her company than any information she'd had to sell. Unbidden, a verse from Keats ran through his head:

  And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,

  That I shall never look upon thee more,

  Never have relish in the faery power

  Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore

  Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

  Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

  "Same weapon used?" Grodin asked.

  "No one's calling it a weapon, Chief." Grodin glared, but Martin pretended not to notice. The chief didn't like being corrected. "Preliminary examination says the same instrument was used. It's about fourteen inches long, very sharp, and the tip is hooked."

  Grodin knelt so he could look up between the dead woman's blood-streaked thighs. For a horrifying second, Martin was certain Grodin would probe her with one of his fingers. "Hard to believe you could pull all that out through here." He examined the nails in her wrists and ankles. "I don't understand how the other hookers could keep from hearing these being pounded in."

  "Pneumatic gun," Martin explained.

  "So your killer comes over, pays the lady a hundred bucks, and asks her if she minds if he brings along a compressor and nail gun? Your lady friend might have been into some kinky stuff, Zolo, but —"

  "Professional nail guns cycle their own air, Chief. You don't need —"

  "I still don't see the son of a bitch walking in like Wyatt Earp with the damn thing swinging on his hip."

  "I —"

  Grodin jabbed a finger at Martin's chest. "I don't give a fuck, Zolo. You fin
d this crazy bastard before he kills again. Understand?" Then Precinct Chief Grodin was out the door and gone, the fingers of Martin and the two techs saluting his back.

  "What a cocksucker."

  "But he's right," Martin muttered. Nothing added up.

  Even from out in the hall I could smell Vicki Marsh's blood. Sweet. Heady. Its aroma clung to the back of my throat like a fine wine. Being so close to my time, it made me dizzy. I was unprepared when the young detective cornered me and started asking questions.

  "Kat," I told him. "With a K."

  Pheromones make men do strange things. The detective, Saucier he said his name was, accepted that I had no last name. "Do you live in the building?"

  "I'm staying here."

  "Did you know the deceased?"

  "No."

  He was really quite attractive. The way he kept looking up from his note pad, sweeping not just my face, but every inch of my body, said he was equally attracted to me. Of course, the pheromones gave him little choice. Warmth, spreading like familiar fire through my body, told me I didn't have much time. Vicki Marsh's killer was out there somewhere and I needed to find him.

  "Let's go, Tony," called the older detective.

  "Just a sec, Marty." Tony gave me a coy half-smile. "Look, sometimes we have to follow up with more questions and —"

  "Do you want my phone number, Detective?"

  He blinked. "Uh, yeah. Strictly business though. . ."

  Inventing a number, I whispered it in his ear, nipping at his lobe. "Call me."

  Tony joined his partner, looking back over his shoulder twice on the way. The older detective caught him by the sleeve and started for the elevators. As they walked away, his voice dropped low enough to mimic tact, yet remained loud enough that it appeared I was meant to hear him. Or perhaps not; my senses are often hypersensitive when my time is near.

  "For crying out loud, Tony," chastised the older detective, "she's a hooker. Fuck her if you want, but don't go all dreamy eyed over her!"