Passionaries (The Blessed)

by Tonya Hurley

  Jesse took a step back, and flicked his cigarette to the side. A nervous sweat broke out above the top of Mayfield’s lip, and he removed the nylon cap containing his ’fro. Jesse could see relief and anxiety in the man’s eyes. Jesse had just been poking around, not really believing there was anything to Lucy’s story. Now it was different.

  “His heart was stolen?” Jesse said, cringing. “Why?”

  “Now, how the hell would I know? People do crazy shit like this for fucked up reasons.”

  “Why would Frey do it?” Jesse wondered out loud.

  “Dr. Frey?”

  “You know him?”

  Mayfield dropped his butt, consumed almost to the menthol filter, to the ground and stamped it out without answering.

  “Frey didn’t take it.”

  “What?”

  “He sent a team down from Perpetual Help to supervise the autopsy, but they arrived late and the detectives were already out searching for coffee and donuts. The tech in charge refused to let them in. The next day, the heart was a gone.”

  “Did he ever do something like that before?”

  “Nah.”

  “None of this was ever reported?”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Mayfield cracked. “When the higher ups discovered the heart was missing, the orderly was fired. The cops scrubbed the record clean so none of them would get screwed for leaving, and the rest of us were told to shut up or we’d be the next pink slip. I got kids, man.”

  “They had to know it would come out somehow.”

  “I guess they just figured that if word got out, they’d say it was some kind of crackpot story made up by the superstitious old timers who wanted the church to stay open.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “Bullshit. You know.”

  “Back the hell up, man,” Mayfield spat. “Before you dig a hole you can’t climb out of.”

  “Don’t worry about me. What about the heart.”

  “Look, I’m trying to turn my life around. Do the right thing for a change. I didn’t tell him.”

  “The right thing? You? Don’t tell me you found religion, dude,” Jesse said.

  Mayfield stared hard at Jesse. “I didn’t want to get involved.”

  Jesse wasn’t convinced. The more they talked, the better he was able to size up the guy in front of him. Yellow bloodshot eyes, graying skin, scratchy forearms, runny nose. He looked sick, but not with the flu. It was hard for Jesse to tell if he as being sincere or just fronting for some quick cash. “That’s not what it looks like to me.”

  “Yeah, what’s it look like?” Mayfield slurred.

  “I see a dude who needs some bread for a fix.”

  “I said trying, didn’t I?” Mayfield admitted. “It’s been tough staying clean lately.”

  “Frey’s people asked and you told them, didn’t you?”

  “I ain’t told them shit.”

  “And you’re still breathing?!”

  “I ain’t scared.”

  The look in Mayfield’s eyes and the shakiness of his voice said otherwise.

  “But you do know?”

  Mayfield was barely listening. He was off topic, in his own head, but revealing far more than any answer Jesse could have expected.

  “I’m no puppet,” the tech snapped, his mood souring. “Nobody controls Mayfield. Not like them other dogs he keeps on chains.”

  Mayfield was angry and Jesse could see that the Frey questions had hit a nerve. Not telling the doctor was obviously personal, and Jesse sensed he had little time left to get what he came for. The tech was closing down fast. Jesse made his appeal a bit less aggressively.

  “You said you wanted to do the right thing.”

  “Yeah?” Mayfield asked, his voice dripping with suspicion.

  “You know who my friends are, right?”

  Mayfield nodded. “Them saint chicks. I’m hip.”

  “Then do the right thing. Tell me where it is.”

  Mayfield pulled a pen from behind his ear and tore off a piece of his paper lab coat. He scribbled a name and an address on it and handed it to Jesse.

  “This is the last I heard.”

  “Thanks.”

  Jesse folded the scrap and slipped it into his back pocket.

  “No need. We got a relationship, you and me,” Mayfield joked, looking relieved, like a man who’d just confessed a mortal sin. “Don’t I always save the best for you?”

  “Yeah, we go way back,” Jesse said skeptically. “Knowing what you know, you’re one lucky mofo to still be walking around.”

  “Tell me about it. Guess Frey didn’t need no more dead bodies stinking up their world.”

  “Could be,” Jesse said coolly, surprised at how much Mayfield seemed to suspect about Frey.

  Mayfield rubbed his empty fingers together. Jesse took the rest of the bankroll he’d brought with him and held it up for Mayfield to see.

  “Nothing like getting paid to do the right thing,” Jesse griped.

  He handed over the cash.

  “Now that’s the way to show appreciation,” Mayfield said, stuffing the bills in his pocket.

  “Just wondering, the ‘tech in charge’ that turned Frey’s people away during the autopsy, that wouldn’t have been you, would it?”

  “I’ll take the fifth, my man.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet. A fifth, a liter, a pint, a flask.”

  The morgue worker smiled. “You know what they say: size don’t matter.”

  “Sorry to see you fall off the wagon,” Jesse said sarcastically. “Don’t spend it all in one vein.”

  Mayfield sniffed hard and wiped at his nose. “I don’t need no pity.”

  “None given,” Jesse said, forcing a smile.

  “You ain’t gonna report this are you? Because it won’t be hard for them to figure where this came from. These people, they don’t like losing.”

  “It’s all off the record, man,” Jesse mumbled, almost totally lost in thought. “Background.”

  “Listen, I gotta go; a fridge-full today. Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” Jesse said. “I think.”

  Jesse watched the tech walk back to the reinforced door and thought about all the secrets the place held inside, and about the one secret that just managed to escape.

  “One last thing, G,” Mayfield called back to him. “Just because he didn’t take it don’t mean he stopped looking for it.”

  7 “Security!” a woman yelled at the gatekeeper near the Brooklyn Navy Yard entrance. Suddenly, two guys in uniforms came out to get Lucy and escort her through the small crowd gathered at the gate. They took her to the check-in.

  “Name?”

  “Lucy Ambrose.”

  The woman behind the glass scrolled down her list. “ID.”

  Lucy poked around inside her Chanel bag and pulled out her wallet. She handed over her New York State driver’s license. Her picture looked like a publicity headshot, unlike everyone else’s the guard had ever seen.

  The woman reviewed it, looked at her, and paused for a moment, obviously starstruck. She instructed Lucy to step back and look at the camera. Lucy knew the protocol for entering media outlets. She looked at the camera and gave it her best face. The woman quickly snapped, ran off a lo-res sticker with Lucy’s name and photo, and handed it to her to wear. Lucy took the badge but didn’t want to put it on, didn’t want to ruin her look, so she just acted like she did. The woman quickly snapped another photo of Lucy.

  “You need another photo?” Lucy asked, knowing it wasn’t typical.

  “For the file,” the woman said, a little tense.

  The woman called for a pickup in her walkie-talkie. “Lucy Ambrose is here.”

  Before long, a cart arrived carrying a production assistant wearing the blasé expression and indifferent attitude that all PAs somehow manage to perfect. Lucy was ushered into the dark, cavernous television studio, crowned with massive lighting rigs and speakers suspended above the set.
She eyed them suspiciously.

  “Anyone else joining you?”

  “Just me.”

  The production assistant crossed Lucy’s name off a guest list and handed her a laminate to hang around her neck. “This way.”

  The studio was buzzing. A lion’s den of activity. Writers arguing over cue cards, makeup conferencing with wardrobe, directors arguing with lighting, producers interfering with everything. A typical day at work for them. People preoccupied with little things. All of them making a casual but concerted effort to get a look at her. Craning their necks, shooting a quick sideways glance as she walked by. Judging her.

  The smirks from the media types inside were in stark contrast to the reverent stares she’d encountered outside, but she was getting used to it. Here she was, on enemy territory yet again. But there was no point in preaching to the converted. No point at all, she figured, and Lucy was determined to practice what she preached.

  Be yourself.

  Still, there were the haters to contend with. Before, they used to hide in the nooks and crannies of the local nightclubs, former classmates waiting for a wardrobe malfunction or any unguarded moment to capitalize on. Friends to her face just waiting for the chance to take her down a notch. Put her in her place. It was the same now, except professionals doing the dissing.

  Today’s booking was a huge get for her. It was her biggest interview to date. And it was different. It was live. And rather than the typical sit-down with the typically hostile talking heads, the Fourth Wall was controlled by the audience, more like a town hall than a chat show. The audience submitted questions, which often meant putting the guests in uncomfortable situations, or putting them on blast, which meant ratings. For Lucy, it was a chance to go over the head of the media gatekeepers and reach out to the younger teen demographic of the country’s biggest video music channel.

  But the biggest difference was that they picked a special interviewer for every guest. You didn’t know who’d be interviewing you until you got there. This both terrified and excited her. She hoped it would be Cecilia or Agnes waiting for her in the other chair, but she was pretty sure it would be Jesse. He knew the booker and had been opposed to her doing the show. She thought there might be a bit of reverse psychology going on.

  Lucy was shown to the green room, a pseudo-comfortable area decorated to look like some idyllic 1960s sitcom living room. She wore a flesh-colored pantsuit with garnet bead embellishment on the shoulders that dripped down onto the front, sleeves, and back in the shape of droplets and shades of blood. Gorgeous rhinestone haute couture faux gore. Her eye makeup was charred black and her lips were painted a matte flesh.

  She took some of the colorful gumballs out of an apothecary glass urn and threw them in her mouth, admiring the Saint Lucy statue they had painted over in a superwoman motif.

  “Super Saint.” Lucy laughed to herself. “Very funny. It’s mine now,” she joked, tucking it in her bag.

  “Can I get you anything?” the PA asked hurriedly. She left without waiting for a reply.

  Lucy helped herself to a bottle of water from the minifridge and looked around at the framed pictures of celebrities who had been prior guests of the show. She couldn’t help but wonder if she’d make the wall too.

  “Someone will be in shortly for your touch-up and to mike you,” a girl said, popping her head into the green room and then disappearing. Everyone looked like they’d just rolled out of bed, scurrying around, noses to their clipboards.

  The door slammed shut and Lucy sat alone, wondering exactly what it was they’d be discussing, and more importantly, who would be interviewing her. She saw some pretty cool shows where guests were interviewed by their idols or people they really loved. It was a kind of gift to the guest, and it made the whole thing fun and even touching. You really got to know the person.

  “Ready?” the tech asked, holding her microphone pack.

  “I am.”

  Lucy knew the drill. She lifted her halter unreservedly for the thirty-something audio tech, who seemed nervous to be in such close proximity to her tight and toned belly. He attached the pack at her waistline and handed her the cord to snake it up through her top. She pulled the wire through and then handed back the little black mic. He clipped it to her top and tucked in what was left of the cord. Yet another girl came in, heavily made up, and began powdering Lucy’s face and blushing her cheeks. She was chewing gum and cracking it in Lucy’s ear, distracted and barely interested in the task at hand.

  “You know what? I’m good,” Lucy said to her before the girl could take a brush to her hair.

  “You think so?” the makeup person asked, scrunching her nose.

  The color bars came on the monitor bracketed to the wall and the stage manager counted down. Showtime.

  Another knock and Lucy was escorted to a hallway that exited onto the set, right beneath another monitor where she watched the opening credits both live and on TV, experiencing the oddest kind of dissonance. The camera panned feverishly over the audience, zigging and zagging, music blaring and lights strobing. Everyone was busy doing their part, talking into headsets, riding on camera dollies, and operating lights.

  “Our guest today needs little introduction. In just the span of a few months, she has gone from socialite to, some say, a saint.”

  “When the announcer says your name, just walk to the X mark in front of the couch and sit down there. You will be perfectly framed in camera. Make sure you are on the X.”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, and one last thing,” the producer said right before walking her onto the set. “You’re going to be interviewed by . . .”

  Lucy anxiously waited to hear, like a kid waits to open a present on her birthday.

  “. . . What do you think, and more importantly, what does she think! Welcome, Lucy Ambrose!” the announcer said, drumming up excitement.

  “Who?” Lucy asked the producer.

  “And welcome the woman who looks like she could be her sister . . .”

  Immediately an I was right smirk washed across her face. She waited for either Cecilia’s or Agnes’s name to be called. Or both.

  “The woman who helped make her . . . ,” the announcer screamed. “Clare Ambrose! Lucy’s mom!”

  Lucy’s heart sank. A stranger with the same blood coursing through her veins stood before her. She was nothing short of shell-shocked as the lights and cameras moved manically around them and the audience shrieked in surprise and satisfaction. They knew the story. Everyone did. Lucy’s mom left her when she was born for something better—the spotlight. Lucy felt like someone had punched her in the chest.

  “Go!” the director ordered from the control room, so loudly that Lucy could hear the command through the producer’s earpiece.

  The producer nudged her out into the spotlight. Lucy walked out, disoriented. She hit the X marked in gaffer tape in front of the center of the couch just as she was told. Her mother made her way from the other side.

  Lucy sat, leaning over and whispering as the audience burst out in applause. “Why are you here?’

  “For the same reasons you are, honey,” Clare said in her direction. “To get the truth out. I am your mother.”

  “Now you are,” Lucy said.

  “I have always been your mother and I always will be, Lucy.”

  “I don’t have a mother,” Lucy said, taking her seat and regaining her composure, not giving her mother, or the audience, the reaction they were hoping for. A reason for even more attention and a Where Were You My Whole Life item on Page Six.

  “You look divine,” Clare replied into the microphone, taking in Lucy’s flawless appearance. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  “You might have made me who I was,” Lucy said confidently. “But not who I am.”

  The audience was left with little doubt that this was truly mother and daughter as they turned toward the camera, straightening their outfits and their postures identically, smiling to mask their obvious disco
mfort.

  Lucy looked like she’d just seen a ghost, and in many ways, she had.

  “Doesn’t she look gorgeous?” Clare said, trying to win over the audience.

  Lucy’s smile tightened to a clench-toothed grimace.

  The applause light flickered on and off.

  “How and why are you here?” Lucy asked.

  “I called the show.”

  “You called the show?”

  “Yes, I got you on!” Clare said. “I thought this would be the best way for us to reconnect.”

  “You mean, you got yourself on the show using me?”

  “Lucy,” Clare whispered. “We’re on TV.”

  “Living your dream at last,” Lucy snarked. “At my expense, as usual.”

  “Well, I am delighted to be here to interview my only daughter,” Clare said, trying to get the interview on track. “How have you been?”

  “What do you care?” Lucy asked. “Oh, right, you care because you’re on TV.”

  “You know, when you were little, I used to take you to church every Sunday.”

  “Yes, you did,” Lucy said. “Before you left and never came back, you loved to dress me up on Sundays.”

  “And you loved the attention,” Clare said. “Like mother, like daughter.”

  “I am nothing like you.”

  “Oh, my darling, but you are.”

  The applause light flickered on and off and the audience burst out into thunderous claps and catcalls.

  “We can help each other.”

  “You mean now I can help you.”

  “Lucy, let’s get to the viewers’ questions,” the host chimed in. “What the people want to know.”

  He handed a blue card to Clare to read. “Mariana from Bay Ridge asked, ‘What really happened inside the church?’”

  “I don’t think there is anything I can add.”

  “But you were there?”

  “Yes, I was there,” Lucy said, trying to slice into her mother. “Between the investigators, the lawyers, and the press, I think you have a pretty good idea.”

  “Ah, yes, the lawyers,” Clare ruminated. “I’m sure Daddy has the check in the mail.”

  Lucy felt like a little girl again, at her father’s mercy, not good enough. Needy. Starving for his attention. Just like her mother.