Rachel leaned forward and whispered to Kathy, “At least ‘Wiseacre’ is cleaner than the one I normally use.”
“Me too,” Juanita added.
“I’m confused,” Rachel said, “When, exactly, did you and Amy have time to sit and chat about all of this?”
“In our dreams,” she said. “It’s the only time we see each other.”
Slackening a bit, Duncan said, “Tell us some of Amy’s hangouts. When she’s not hanging with you, I mean.”
Kathy thought for a moment. “Well, she likes to talk a lot about a place called the Shallows.”
As if the word were a preprogrammed trigger to release her from a hypnotic trance, Juanita turned to Kathy, and said direly, “What is this place you said, the Shallows?”
Kathy, having been nearly pushed off her seat by Juanita’s verve, said, “It’s where eternity is.” She straightened in her chair. “Geez.”
“‘I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord’,” Duncan said, his Catholic birthright showing through. “Revelations. Chapter one, verse six.”
“Verse eight,” Juanita corrected.
Duncan leered at her. “I’ve got a twenty in Rachel’s purse that says it’s verse six.”
“I do not bet,” Juanita said. “You do not pay me enough to.”
“Then what do you call your Thursday night bingo parties?”
“Tithing.”
Rachel, bewildered, said, “Wait a minute. For eternity, there is no beginning or ending.” She looked at Duncan. “Is there?”
He was rubbing his eyes. “I think that was my point.”
“Amy says that eternity is like a dog chasing its tail,” Kathy said, “and that our souls will go on forever because they’ll never catch up to themselves.”
Elbows on the table, Rachel rested her chin in her hands. With a regaled sparkle in her eyes, she said, “Do you understand everything Amy tells you?”
“Mostly,” she said. “Amy also said that the Shallows is everyone’s home eventually.”
Juanita patted Kathy on the shoulder. “It’s true. Once you die, you have everlasting life,” she assured her. “That is God’s promise.”
“As either a harpist or cord of kindling,” Duncan agreed.
Kathy shook her head. “It’s not like that at all.”
“Then what is it like?” Rachel said, now showing serious interest.
“Amy says heaven’s like a pizza. It’s round, and you can have whatever you want put on it.”
“Round meaning eternal?” Rachel said.
“I guess so.”
Duncan said, “What did she say hell was?”
“Anchovies.”
“Oh.”
Rachel said, “What else has Amy told you?”
“That there is only love and fear, stuff like that. Oh, and that her dad, Mr. McNeil, used to be a Seminole.”
Proudly pushing out his chest, Duncan said to Rachel, “Told you I was a half-breed.”
“Oh, please,” Rachel said. “You’re a lot of things, carrot top, but Indian ain’t one of ’em.”
Looking very confused, Kathy said, “A Seminole is an Indian?”
“Native American,” Duncan corrected.
“Oh,” Kathy said. “But...I don’t think that’s what Amy meant. I think she meant someone else used to guard the Shallows.”
Rachel was left spinning in the dust again. “What are you talking about?”
Duncan, however, suddenly looked like a patron who was deciding if the piece of BigMac in his throat was wedged sufficiently enough to start panicking.
With something resembling concern, Juanita said, “Señor Duncan, are you all right?”
“Fine,” he finally said, looking at Kathy. “Hon, are you sure it was ‘Seminole?’” He glanced back at the cashiers, the lines of patrons, as if an eavesdropper might be in their midst. Turning back to Kathy, he said, “Could Amy have said ‘sentinel?’”
“Sure, I guess.”
“What about ‘criminal?’” Juanita offered. “It’s a good possibility, and a better rhyme.”
His alarm had receded now to a witless mien. Oblivious to Juanita’s jibes, he continued to stare intently at the girl, as if the answers to life were hidden in a series of anagrams scrawled across her forehead.
The seraphs were the wardens of eternity, Amy had told him.
“Wardens,” he murmured, his rapt gaze having surrendered to a tenant of bohemian ancestry, as premonitions now oozed down the backs of his eyes like the driveled curses of a toothless gypsy.
Sentinels.
“You’re scaring her, Duncan,” Rachel said. She waved a hand in front of his face. “Hey, knock it off.”
Duncan continued to stare at Kathy. “Did Amy say anything about what’s happening now? Something about to happen? A war, maybe?”
Concentrating, Kathy said, “A long time ago, the mind of man found a wandering piece of God, trapped it, and has been building on it ever since. Now, a nation has risen from there to defeat the keepers of the Shallows.” She gave a big nod and smiled winningly, obviously quite pleased with herself.
“Whoa,” Duncan said. “You just left skid marks from here all the way to Nazareth.”
Rachel leaned in. “In other words, you lost us, hon.”
“I didn’t get it at first, either,” Kathy admitted. “So, Amy said that there’s another place now, another hell, a fake hell, and it’s fighting the real heaven for the Shallows.”
Duncan said, “This other place, this ‘fake’ hell, came from the wandering piece of God Amy talked about?”
“Uh-huh. So did the fake heaven, but she said the fake hell pretty much got rid of it.”
“So,” Rachel said, “is there a fake devil in this fake hell? And a fake god in the fake heaven?”
“Sure,” Kathy said. “Who else would there be?”
Being the deft authority on such matters, Juanita said, quoting the First Commandment, “‘Thou shalt have none other gods before me’. There is only one God, one heaven—and you will go to only one hell for believing anything else.”
Duncan glowered at Juanita. “Then we’re all in beeg trouble. Really, do you think the alleged God in all His infinite compassion would punish an innocent little girl for her beliefs? Sentence her to eternal damnation?”
“Si,” she whispered. “In the blink of an eye.”
In a voice not her own, Kathy said, “Imagine the true Heaven as a place of magnificent light, and Hell as whatever light that does not pass through you. You see, the true Hell is just a place to hang your shadows. But the impostor hell is all you’ve envisioned, and more. It believes it can achieve celibate harmony, and does not care about the fragile balance.”
Wide-eyed, Kathy took a sip through her straw, as if to wash down the possessing spirit, then said in her normal but shaky voice, “That freaks me out when they do that.”
“They?” Rachel said, now leering distrustfully at the girl.
“Uh-huh. They say things in a neater way than I do.”
Rachel nodded. “I’ve noticed.”
“They use bigger words, too,” Kathy added.
“I’ll say.”
Juanita just sat there; staring, silent and disturbed.
“Hang our shadows?” Duncan said somberly. “You mean, the real hell’s nothing but a coat rack?”
As Kathy sniggered at the thought, Juanita made the sign of the cross, yet another self-inoculation against that lurking virus called blasphemy.
Rachel said, “Where’s God during all of this? The real God, I mean?”
The sober, taken-aback expression was almost comical on her ten-year-old face. “Amy didn’t say.”
“Well,” Rachel chortled, “smoke ’em if you got ’em, right? Because if the fake hell triumphs, it won’t matter how clean a life or however many we’ve led, we’re still going to burn when we die?” She looked at Kathy. “Is that it, basically?”
Kathy shook her head. “If
the fake hell wins,” she said, “it won’t wait for us to die.”
14.
George Altman hid behind the door as if he’d just stepped from the shower and was embarrassed by his two hundred and forty pounds of dripping nakedness. To his left, a flute case lay propped in a corner, orphaned. He’d rescued it from the snow bank where Ms. Sand’s boot prints ended abruptly. Tufts of snow still clung to its edges, from where rivulets of water sashayed routes of least resistance across the black, corrugated leather, finally pooling on his swank, imported stone tiles.
He momentarily regarded it as if it were an incriminating piece of evidence, the smoking gun that would link him to a crime he did not commit.
With only one wary eye visible, he spoke tremulously through the narrow crack. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.”
The man in the tailored suit raised a detective’s badge to Altman’s lone eye. “I’m not selling encyclopedias or Jehovah this afternoon,” he said, somewhat wearily. “I’m here to get a statement from you regarding the disappearance of a neighbor girl.”
George Altman’s eyes grew wider. He hadn’t yet called the authorities, was still too frightened. Hell, the incident had only happened fifteen, maybe twenty minutes earlier, and he was still worried about the state of his sanity, frantically trying to make some rational sense of it all.
Thumb over his shoulder, the detective offered, “Ms. Higgins across the street thought she saw something suspicious and called it in.”
“Oh,” was all George could muster. He watched the snow descend thickly and lazily around the man, but was confused as to why none of those flakes seemed to fall upon him; his head, his shoulders. He continued to stare.
The detective shifted his weight from one leg to the other and sighed. “Are you going to invite me in, or am I going to have to get a flu shot?”
George slowly opened the door and waved the detective in. Just before he shut the door, he glanced up and down the slushy street. Except for a few familiar cars belonging to his neighbors, there were no other vehicles in sight.
Oh shit, George thought miserably. Shit, shit, shit.
They walked through a richly furnished foyer, the detective curiously leading, as if it were his house and George the visitor, then into an expansive living room of cleanliness and order.
“Dainty,” the detective said, glancing around.
George, his voice back but at a squeakier pitch, said, “I beg your pardon?” He felt a bucketful of adrenaline dump into his chest, but didn’t have the vaguest idea why.
Or maybe he did.
“Your furnishings,” the detective said. “They’re dainty. You know, ‘Fussy.’ Christ, this place doesn’t have a woman’s touch—it’s got her fucking hand prints all over it!” He turned to George, and winked. “You must have one heck of a darling wife.”
“No wife,” George said, firmly believing he was being paid an insult.
A crafty, one-sided grin cracked the detective’s face. “Oh, you’re one of those,” he said, the pinky on his right hand jutting out as if he were sipping tea at a London bath house.
“Yes, I’m gay, if that’s what you mean,” said George. But George had the instant impression that this detective already knew that; that this detective knew quite a lot of things. “Are you normally this rude to every witness before you take their statement, Detective...?”
“Gamble,” he said. “And, yes, I normally am.” He glanced around the room again, put a finger to his lips, as if to ponder upon the stupendous decorating effort, and said, “Tell me, fat boy, was all this your doing, or did you request the expertise of some of your persnickety, limp-wristed butt-buddies?”
George just gaped.
“Oh, come now,” Gamble urged. “Surely you don’t expect me to believe that a cum-drunk queen like yourself did all this? All by your lonesome? Really?”
The adrenaline rushing through George’s veins was turning cold and sluggish. Now he truly felt naked, exposed, vulnerable, just like he did when he found himself in one of his notorious dreams where he was walking around his favorite department store, or down the locker-lined hallways of his old high school, only to look down at himself and discover that he was naked. But the worst part about those dreams, he’d always complained, was that poor L’il Willy was never any bigger than he was in reality. Seemed even more shriveled than normal, in fact. But his big fat gut would prevail realistically.
It wasn’t fair.
Like a full meal deal from Burger King, dreams were often super-sized. Timid little woodland creatures suddenly became carnivorous giants nipping at your heels. A simple elm tree could grow to be the gigantic Kraken of myth, its branches turned into grasping tentacles, its leaves transformed into suction cups big enough to pluck the smoke stacks off a Norwegian cruise ship.
Yes, it seemed that, in dreams, extra large was the order of the day. The order for everything, that was, except his own genitalia. For George, it was one of life’s spiteful peculiarities.
Gamble waited, still frozen in expectation of an answer, that thin half-grin pulling up his cheek like a crooked blind.
No, this tactless man was not a police detective, George was now convinced. But who, exactly, was he?
Deciding that he did not want to entertain the possibilities, he pointed to the door. “I want you to leave right now. Right this very instant!” His lower lip trembled, and a slight lisp had crept into his voice, a mannerism induced not by his ‘fussy’ side, but by a dry mouth. “If you don’t, then I swear I’ll notify the real police.”
“Be my guest,” Gamble chuckled. “But first things first. Tell them that you witnessed a hideous winged beastie snatch poor little Melanie Sands from your front yard, and that you bludgeoned said beastie with your snow shovel—that you have the dents to prove it, by God!—but despite your heroics it managed to fly off with her anyway, but not before it squatted over that cute little snow angel she’d made and left a big stinking calling card. Tell them that. And then, after they take your fat-ass measurements for a straightjacket, you go ahead and tell them about little ol’ me.”
At that moment, George Altman knew that he was going to die. Very soon. He was going to pay the ultimate price for meddling in something that had not concerned him. He’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but was now certain that he’d sealed his fate by swinging that snow shovel—not once, but thrice—at the creature that kidnapped the poor child.
Gamble continued to smile his droll, one-sided smile, then offered up a limerick. “There once was a fairy named George. By the look of his belly he did gorge. Although fond of the same sex, it was food he loved best. And one day ate himself to the core.”
George raised an eyebrow. Ate himself to the core? What does that mean? Christ, it barely even rhymes.
Something pattered across the oak floor, rat-heavy, just to his right. George turned, stared curiously, then began to laugh the way a man laughs when he’s just discovered that sanity is a very loose thing, tethered to one’s being the way a carnival balloon is loosely knotted around a child’s finger, apt to just suddenly unsnarl, then quietly drift away.
And be lost forever.
Hunkered down like a sprinter awaiting the gun, just beside a polished leg of the coffee table, a naked little fat man winked up at George, then joined him in laughter.
Over by the couch, another spliced in with rolling mirth.
George laughed even louder.
Then a third, over by the reproduction High Boy, holding his bouncing belly like old St. Nick as he howled.
The chorus was quickly joined by dozens more, but George Altman was beyond caring now, was too busy trying to keep his eyes shut as his own laughter (or was he crying?) continued to shake him; was too busy wondering if L’il Willy was ever going to stop playing turtle and poke his head out and finally reveal to all those lookie loos in the mall, in the hallways of his alma mater, that he was really the famed Kraken of myth.
Then Geor
ge realized that the laughter had stopped, and he was now the only one in the room making a sound. He stifled himself, then mustered up enough courage to open one eye. There were now dozens upon dozens of fat, naked little Georges staring at him from atop the dining room table, from lamp shades, bookshelves, the arms of chairs, curtain rods, the rims of clay planters...They were everywhere, in every nook and corner, their tiny L’il Willies hidden beneath their overhanging bellies.
Their merriment had been replaced with black, beady eyes, voracious in their intensity.
George finally looked at Gamble, who was now in possession of Melanie Sand’s flute case.
“How about a little dinner music?” Gamble said as he unfastened the silver clasps. “Any requests?”
George couldn’t speak.
“No? Well, I have one. It’s called, ‘Don’t Hurt The Beasties.’ I think you’ll like it.”
The melody was that of “Don’t Eat The Daisies,” the song made famous by Doris Day in the film by the same name. But the music was quickly crushed beneath the charging of wee little feet.
Then another tune erupted, unmelodic and very high-pitched, as hundreds of ravenous, Lilliputian mouths devoured George Altman.
To the core.
15.
They arrived home, wearing their moods like monogrammed sweaters. Juanita was poking and lurking around like a third world bodyguard, Rachel was so infectiously wired that Duncan’s extremities began to tingle when he stood too close to her, and Katherine Bently was just plain chipper. She watched HBO and ate Juanita’s peanut butter cookies.
As for himself, Duncan felt overwhelmed. Goofy-tired.
Weary-eyed, he sat behind his desk, harking back to that infamous day when two bullets dashed through his torso.
It was a funny thing, but not once did anyone from Internal Affairs come slithering around; not when he was in the hospital, and not after his release. Those fellas never gave him so much as a dirty look. And all he could ever remember getting from his cronies were a lot of atta-boys and backslapping. He’d received get-well cards from practically every cop within a hundred-mile radius, and dozens more from police departments around the country. There was even one from Israel.
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