The Polka Dot Girl

by Darragh McManus

  “Hold up,” I said. “Wait. I want Odette to do it. Whaddya think, lover? For old times’ sake?”

  She smiled, embarrassed, anxious; she looked to LaVey for guidance. The guru smiled herself, much more at ease. “Yes. Why not? I rather like that notion. A certain…poetry to it. A certain symmetry. Yes, come forward, Odette.”

  My ex-partner began walking extremely slowly towards us. Odette had no stomach for something like this, I knew. At least it might buy us a few seconds. I looked up at her and said, “Now I guess it’s your turn, babes. Time for your story. How did a nice girl like you et cetera et cetera blah-dee-fuckin’-blah. Don’t tell me ’cause I know already: you met that idiot Queneau in Hera U, she ‘initiated’ you. You took to it like a duck to water and kept it from me the whole time. I think I’ve got that right?”

  She stopped at the far side of a table. “I… How do I explain something like this, Genie? It’s…sort of beyond words in some ways.”

  “Tut tut. You’re just not trying.”

  She had that vacant look in her eyes—that look which used to be so familiar to me, an endearing look of contemplation. Now it was the hollow-eyed stare of a statue, a lifeless thing, cold, inert, distant. Odette said, “You know, you think you know someone. But it’s not always like that. No matter how well you know them, there’s always another…a secret, other life, another self…”

  I muttered to Virginia, “Christ. She sounds like you,” then said to Odette, “Stop. I actually don’t care anyway. I don’t give a shit about your stupid cult. Just confirm one thing for me: you phoned Madeleine that night because you knew—you all knew—she’d trust you. She’d trust good old Odette. Civilized, cultured fucking Odette. You offered her help, a way out; you knew she’d come to meet you. Do I have that right!?”

  I’d started to shout. Odette nodded and didn’t reply. The room was quiet—much quieter than before. Silence and electricity hung in the air like molecules in a laboratory jar, drifting slowly, bouncing gently off each other. Then I realized that the storm had stopped…and time was up. Fuck.

  I turned to Virginia, whispered: “I’m sorry, honey. I truly am sorry.”

  By now Odette had reached us. I looked at the ground and sensed LaVey handing her my gun, Odette taking it hesitantly. LaVey said, “Go on, dear. One squeeze, two squeezes, and it’s done. The Goddess will reward you.”

  I could feel a tear trickle out, hot and bitter, as I thought: You beat me, LaVey. You win, you bitch. And Nana is going to spend eternity telling me, I told you so—I took a set against her from the very first minute.

  I looked up at LaVey, that hag, in all her finery, her jewels and sculpted hair, and said wearily, “For what it’s worth, and that’s not a lot, I still don’t believe you. I think you had Madeleine murdered.”

  She shrugged. “So be it.”

  “So you, you, have no moral regrets over any of this? You just…it is how it is.”

  “None. Exactly. It is how it is.”

  “I need to know one last thing: do you even believe in it? The Goddess Rising, all that crap. Genuinely—do you believe?” LaVey gestured to Odette to pause; she considered my question. After a long moment she said, “Do I believe…? I do. I do not. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Does it matter? …I believe in power and money; in knowing how to use them and enjoying their benefits. I believe some women were put here to serve others. I am not one of those women. I am here to be served. …I believe in the goddess within, Eugenie. I believe in me.”

  Even now, at the very point of death, I was disgusted by her cynicism. I spat, “God. It almost would have been better if you were some kind of religious nut—a real one, and not the fake you are. At least, I mean at least that would have given some sort of meaning to Madeleine’s death, however fucked-up it was.”

  “Yes, well… Death has no meaning, my brave little detective.” “No resurrection, then? No eternal life with your fucking Goddess Rising?”

  “Psh. One minute you’re here, the next you’re not. As you are about to find out. Odette.”

  She nodded. Odette raised the gun to my head. I screwed my eyes shut and soundlessly cursed them all to hell. I could hear the bullet being chambered, that dull clunk of metal moving on metal. Then I heard Virginia say wryly, and so sadly, “We need a miracle now, Genie.”

  I opened my eyes and looked at her. We smiled at each other through our blurred vision and I thought, This ain’t so bad. Not such a bad way to go at all.

  And then the miracle happened: it materialized in that room like a whirlwind, a spinning dervish of pastel-colored fabrics and flying hair and clawing hands.

  “Liar! Fraud! Imposter!”

  Orianne Queneau had launched herself at LaVey, who stepped back, stumbling, laughing, half-concerned and half- amused. Her sidekick had evidently entered from the circular stairs without anyone noticing; now she was attacking LaVey, who pushed her off and took another step away. Odette and Tussing tensed and drew the guns on Queneau. They looked at LaVey for guidance. She breathed rapidly, brushed away an errant lock of hair and said, “My God, Orianne. What’s the meaning of all this?”

  “You devil! You faithless whore!” Queneau was screaming, spittle flying, her hair tangled around her face. “I heard, Azura. I heard it all! I heard you admit you were without faith. By your own words are you damned!”

  LaVey laughed again, almost enjoying the situation in all its strangeness. She said, “What on earth are you babbling about, sweetie?”

  “I heard you! You told this woman you didn’t believe in The Goddess, but only in yourself. I always suspected it, I knew it in my deepest heart. But not until I heard you utter those words did I know! …Everything, Azura. Everything we have worked for, for so many years. Everything… All the best parts of me, all that I am…” Queneau’s shoulders slumped; she breathed slowly and heavily. She said quietly, “I believe, you bitch. For me it is real and true; it is everything. Now I know I have been foolish. I put my trust in a manipulative witch, heartless and cruel. We built The Goddess Rising from nothing in order to create something, a very great something, the only something that matters. And now, and now… Money and power—you said it yourself. Those are your gods, Azura. Those were always your gods. I see that now… Witch! Liar! Demon!”

  She went for LaVey again, nails like talons, an unearthly scream coming from deep within her. LaVey stumbled again, not so amused now, genuinely frightened. She tried to slap Queneau’s hands away but the other woman was too strong, she was on her, raking those nails down LaVey’s cheek, drawing blood, drawing an anguished yell from the other woman.

  LaVey shouted, “Get this demented bitch off me!”

  Tussing and Odette hesitantly moved towards her. And that’s when the second part of the miracle happened.

  I heard a holler, a rough bellow: “Freeze! Hera City Police!” I knew that voice. Cella, you big fat fucking beautiful ball of a woman. She peeked her head into the room, from the stairs below, gun stretched in her two arms. Odette and Tussing looked at each other, looked at Cella, looked at me and chose the most sensible course of action: they each fired off a shot that went a mile wide and dashed for cover, at opposite sides of the room, crouching low behind the furniture. LaVey and Queneau were still entangled in their wrestle. I sprang to my feet and said urgently to Virginia, “Run. Hide somewhere.” She didn’t move. “Go,” I whispered and pushed her towards the back, away from the others. Virginia hunkered down into a squat, pulling her knees up and hiding her face.

  I ran over and reached down and pulled Cella into the room. She took one look at me and said, “Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?”

  “Later, sweetheart. You got a second gun?”

  She pulled one from her inside jacket pocket, flipped it around and handed it to me by the butt. I chambered a round and stood in the shooting stance, feeling more than a bit ridiculous given I was only wearing my underwear but willing to get over it for the moment, and shouted: “Everybody hold it! You’re all
under arrest, you motherfuckers.” Then I took a deep breath and fired one into the ceiling. The shot sounded like the loudest echo you ever heard in your life.

  Then LaVey and Queneau sprawled across our sightline, locked together, a bizarre hydra of flailing hands and screeching mouths and hair torn out in clumps. They tripped and fell against one of the tall candelabras, knocking it onto the rug, wax spilling like thick yellow blood. The rug caught fire, burning its own fabric and more wax and then Queneau’s garment trailed into it and that too was set ablaze. She didn’t even notice, still clawing at LaVey’s eyes and throwing every damnation she knew onto her newfound enemy’s head.

  LaVey noticed, though: she looked down in shock at the flames licking up Queneau’s robes and said, “Orianne—stop— your clothes. Stop, you’ll burn…”

  Queneau didn’t care; let the whole world burn, she was a fanatic on a mission. Death was of no importance. By now the fire was spreading, devouring a second rug and one of the couches, licking hungrily at the curtains, splintering wine glasses. I turned to Cella, shouting, “Fuck! This whole place could go up. We’ve gotta get out of here.”

  She nodded in agreement just as Odette made a dash for the light-room off the main area and moments before Mary-Jane Tussing emitted a fearful shriek and ran towards us, throwing her gun aside, seeking freedom, driving for it. Cella raised that meaty fist and cold-cocked her, bang, right under the chin. Tussing dropped like a sack of cement.

  I jerked my thumb back at Virginia and said, “Take care of her, and get this other shithead out. I’ll try to break these two up.”

  Cella nodded again, beckoned Virginia towards her, bent and lifted Tussing’s prone figure onto her shoulder. They clanged away down the stairs as I turned back to LaVey and Queneau, almost indistinguishable now in their tangle of clothing and limbs and frantic violence. I dashed to them, tried to shove my little arms between their bodies, but it was pointless. Queneau was totally manic now, crazed; she didn’t care if she lived or died. She knocked me aside with her elbow, I think without even noticing I was there. LaVey looked terrified—she glanced at me, sprawled on the floor, a look of supplication, an appeal for help. And I hated her at that moment. So callous in snuffing out the lives of Madeleine and Bethany Gilbert, and probably Poison Rose too, she now had the gall to ask for aid, to save her own goddamn worthless life. I hated her right then. I wanted her dead.

  Would I have given aid if I could have? I don’t know. I didn’t get to make that choice. Suddenly Queneau was all aflame, her robes erupting in strangely beautiful colors, her screams of pain almost muted within the hellish roar. She fell forward, trapping LaVey, and I knew her goose was cooked as well. The two of them burned together, locked in one another ’s arms, an infernal embrace. Sweet fucking dreams, ladies.

  I scrambled to my feet and turned and my exit route was blocked: flames dancing and leaping across the room, over the stairway entrance, fiercely hot, almost enough to singe the skin. Alejandra Villegas was still standing at that side of the room, dumbstruck, incapable of action. I shouted and beckoned her to me: “Hey! Come on! You’re dead if you stay there!”

  She smiled vacantly and didn’t move. I realized: the girl was dead already. There was nothing I could do for her. I turned back, spotted Tussing’s gun and grabbed it from the ground, then sprinted to where I’d seen Odette go: the small anteroom, from where the light used to shine. The door was jammed—I shoved at it, once, twice, black smoke starting to cloud my sight, breathing that toxic, deadly miasma, clouding my head too, I had to get out now. I shoved again and thank God, it gave, just a little. Another shove and I was through, stumbling into the small room. A jolt of cold air gusted in the window and cleared my mind. Vision readjusting, lungs filling with fresh air…

  Then I saw her: Odette crumpled in a lifeless heap by the round window, a large shard of glass in her neck, actually running her through. Blood gurgled down her chest and robes. Her eyes were closed, thankfully. She must have tried to smash her way out, broke the glass with something and attempted to crawl clear. It hadn’t worked; some of it obviously fell on her, slicing her fatally. Odette had fallen back into the room and now half-sat, half-lay under the window, contorted, pale, dead. Sweet fucking dreams to you too, O.

  The fire roared again outside and I could feel it heating up the door, preparing to launch its assault on this final room. I ran towards the window, looked outside and smiled; for the first time in my life I was completely happy to be such a little woman. I bashed the rest of the glass out with the gun barrel then looked around for something to wrap myself in, something to protect me. A few threadbare blankets, some old Styrofoam padding, sheets of cardboard…it would have to do. I tossed the gun, swiftly bound myself in the blankets and pulled the polystyrene over my head, and as the conflagration roared into the room like a dragon’s tongue I took a run at the window and bounced up and through and out…

  Chapter 28

  Misericordiae

  WHEN Cella and Virginia pulled me from the water I was soaked to the bone, very cold and a bit bloodied but I didn’t mind: I felt lucky. I was lucky. I was still alive. I’d looked out the window of that lighthouse room and seen life: a pool, directly beneath me, big enough and deep enough to jump into and come up breathing. No jagged rocks, no stony death awaiting, greedy mouth wide open. That pool of water—small, choppy, freezing, murky—it really was life for me.

  I jumped and plunged down deep and kicked like a mother- fucker and pushed myself back to the surface. I broke the water and gasped in air. I gasped from the cold. I saw car headlights and managed to wail for help and heard Cella calling to me and coming towards me. And I knew I was saved.

  She was great: she hugged me and briskly rubbed my goose- bump arms, found an old rug in her car and wrapped me in it. Tussing was fixed to the steering-wheel by a plastic cable tie, waking painfully out of unconsciousness. Virginia stood next to the vehicle, smoking a cigarette and shivering. Looking like a goddess.

  I smiled and said, “You look good in your underwear. I’d forgotten how good.”

  She smiled too, then sniffed back a tear. She looked shattered, overwhelmed by relief and adrenaline and happiness. Too much to take in. She didn’t say anything.

  “It’s all okay, Virginia,” I said softly. “It’s over now. They’re all dead.” Then I turned to Cella and said, “Thanks, big mama. You’ve got some sense of timing.”

  She slapped me on the back. “You’re welcome, little mama. Sorry I was, uh, so late getting here. Caught in traffic, you know.”

  “Cella—was that a joke? An actual joke?”

  Cella handed me a cigarette and I sucked on that death-stick like it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever tasted. “Did you see Klosterman?” I said. “She left a few minutes ago. Came downstairs.”

  She lifted a fist and grinned wickedly. “This did. Met her coming out of the building. I punched that blonde asshole right in the puss. Knocked her clean out, cuffed her and stuck her in the boot. Still got my old set from the old days, the HCPD days.

  …Two for two, that’s my record for today. Two punches, two KOs. Pretty good going, huh?”

  “Yeah, pretty good, Cella. You sure you don’t wanna come back to real detective work? I can get you an in with the Chief.”

  I returned the back-slap—more on her waist than her back, really—then we turned and looked at Hecate Point lighthouse burning. A white tube glowing red and orange and blue-white on the inside, like some kind of giant child’s toy, something expensive, with batteries and intoxicating lights. The top roof hadn’t gone yet; it mightn’t, the building being made of stone. Maybe just the inside would be gutted, burned away, ruined, reduced to ash and blackness. I pictured the four bodies in there: Queneau, LaVey, Villegas and Odette. There’d be nothing left by the time the fire had run its course. Good job I wouldn’t need dental records, but I had witnesses; others who could retell the narrative of Madeleine Greenhill’s death at the hands of The Goddess Rising.
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  I turned to them and said, “I still don’t believe her, you know. LaVey. I don’t believe her denials. And Orianne Queneau said nothing to confirm or deny her partner ’s story. I think she was the one.”

  Virginia muttered, “Who killed Maddy. That evil bitch. I’m glad she’s dead.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah. Guess I am, too. But don’t quote me on that to Chief Etienne.”

  The lighthouse continued to crackle and burn, incredibly thick smoke wafting into the night air. It smelled like paint and hair and old dust. I went to my car—still open—and rummaged around for a spare pair of track pants and a stinking old sweater that I’d forgotten was shoved underneath the passenger seat. Then I called it in: summoned two patrol cars, a crime scene unit and paramedics. Chief Etienne could wait until the morning, I figured; fuck it, by that stage she’d know the whole story herself anyway.

  Finally, we sat and waited. Smoking, resting, watching a bad part of this world burn away.

  I woke earlier than I wanted to—about five in the morning. It was after midnight by the time I got home, after giving all the details to the patrol cops, filling in a report, ushering Virginia into the ambulance, getting some on-the-spot repairs myself from the medics. I’d wanted to sleep for longer but I woke early; I don’t know why that was, I felt exhausted, but what can you do? Your body decides what it decides. I fixed some coffee and dug into a fresh pack of Dark Nines: my emergency 20, secreted away in the top drawer of my bedside locker.

  I’d come home on my own; I wanted quiet time to think it all over, get it straight in my head. Virginia and me, well…that could wait. If there even was something to wait for. It was still dark so I flicked on a lamp, its warm light gently filling the room. I crushed out my smoke and lit another, poured more coffee and sort of let my mind go free: let it float like a breeze over the events of the last several days, gazing down upon them like a bird in flight.