Heartless

by Alison Gaylin

  “That’s weird,” Zoe said.

  “What?”

  “Patty Woods’s light is still on.”

  “Still?”

  “I noticed it this afternoon, but Robin said Patty had definitely left—Dave had told her.” She turned to Warren. “Don’t you think that’s strange? Patty leaving town and keeping her light on?”

  “Patty Woods is a strange woman,” he said. “Come with me.”

  He pulled her across the street, past Dr. Dave’s and Reiki Master Paul’s. He seemed to want to get away from the house as fast as possible—a little odd, Zoe thought. She knew Warren didn’t like Patty, but Patty had left town. It wasn’t as if they were going to run into her.

  The lights were on at Studio Rafael. She heard flamenco music coming from within. “Seems like the party’s started,” she said.

  “Yes, it has.”

  “Listen, Warren . . . I don’t know about this—”

  “Zoe, I told you. I would never steer you wrong.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I’m really tired and—”

  “Before you make any decisions, I want to show you something.” He waited for a break in traffic, then took her hand and led her across the street to the jardín.

  “Where are we going?” she said, but the question was barely out of her mouth when she found herself standing in front of La Cruz de San Esteban with Warren directly behind her. She felt his hard stomach against her back and his palms on her bare shoulders and the heat radiating off the cross in front of her, a presence even stronger than Warren’s. . . . She stared into the eyes of the bird carved into its face and went breathless.

  “Close your eyes,” said Warren. His hands slid down the length of her arms. He pressed his body against her, took her hands in his and placed them up, over her head, on opposite arms of the cross.

  She felt it immediately—a warmth, much like the warmth she’d felt when Rafael had healed her wrist, only about a hundred times more powerful. Like a fireworks finale under her skin. She gasped, and fell back against Warren. He held her there, kept her palms pressed to the granite as that heated force turned to something else . . . an overwhelming rush of emotion. Tears sprung into her eyes. Zoe wanted to blame it on the tequila, on the altitude, on some strange scientific phenomenon. Because she had never felt this way. People like her—rational people—did not feel this way. Awestruck. If Warren hadn’t been holding her, she would have fallen to her knees.

  Slowly, Warren released Zoe’s hands. Her face was hot; her fingertips throbbed. She stepped back from the cross, and she couldn’t stand on her own. She leaned against Warren’s chest and breathed, blinking tears away, heat still pulsing through her.

  “I told you,” Warren whispered. “There are some things you can’t explain in words.”

  Zoe couldn’t speak.

  “Will you go with me to Rafael’s?”

  She nodded.

  He reached into his pocket, and seconds later, Zoe felt the obsidian cross pendant at her throat, cool and delicate.

  He fastened the chain, kissed the back of her neck. “You’re ready now.”

  Warren at her side, Zoe walked through the front door of Rafael’s studio. The energy from La Cruz still coursed under her skin; Warren’s words scrolled through her mind. I would never do anything that would hurt you, Zoe. I only want to fix you and make you strong. She felt his hand at her back, and leaned against it.

  Zoe believed Warren. She knew how deeply he understood her guilt over the Daryl Barclay murders. He’d been there himself ten years ago, the guilt probably more intense since the blame had been direct. . . . All these years, his friend never found, a gun locked away in his safe that, as he’d just learned, belonged to another dead man. . . . Warren was surrounded by ghosts. Yet he seemed so strong, so free from guilt. Maybe there was something to this secret group. Maybe Zoe could be fixed.

  She gazed at the studio. The space seemed weirdly familiar to her, but maybe it was because it looked like a movie set. Unlike most of the homes and businesses here, there was no open courtyard—just a clean, dramatic space with very high ceilings; blinding white walls lined with oil paintings of cactuses, snakes and birds; high, track-lit ceilings and a circular staircase—a New York gallery beamed South of the Border, but with one shocking native touch. At the center of the room, a section of the floor had been removed to make way for a monstrous desert plant, each of its spines at least four feet long. “Is that a maguey?” she asked Warren.

  “Yes.”

  She shuddered a little. The spines looked like the talons of a prehistoric bird. Just a plant. An indigenous plant.

  Zoe focused on the Gypsy music emanating from the very impressive speaker system and scanned the group of revelers, relieved to see that, so far at least, the party was just that—a party. There were around thirty people there, most of them in their late fifties or sixties, drinking, chatting and milling about in pale gauze shirts or dresses, silver and gold jewelry glittering against tanned, vacationers’ skin. She wasn’t sure whether it was the guests’ age, the way they were dressed, the beatific smiles many of them wore or the way they seemed to walk—as if they were moving through clouds. . . . But they reminded Zoe of a flock of angels she’d once seen on a cream cheese commercial. All they needed was wings and bagels.

  Among the group, she saw Guadalupe, talking with an elderly American man in a white Panama hat. Guadalupe looked a little alarmed when she caught sight of Zoe, but then she saw Warren and her face relaxed, and she and her friend waved. “That’s Ned Hayle, the American counsel,” Warren said, smiling at the man in the hat. Zoe peered at the counsel’s hands. From this distance, she couldn’t make out any scratches. As if he were reading her mind, Warren said, “Relax, Zoe. The learning will come later and you will love it. But for now, just have fun. . . .”

  Warren slipped an arm around her waist while shouting, “Hello, Mariposa” at a very tall, androgynous creature navigating toward them in a flowing white caftan.

  “Where’s Rafael?” Zoe asked.

  “Rafael,” Warren said out of the corner of his mouth, “is always late for his own parties.” Warren didn’t seem to mind.

  From the depths of the crowd, Zoe heard Warren’s name being whispered over and over and over. . . . Funny—back in the city, she’d be out to dinner with Warren and he’d occasionally get recognized, a soap fan might shyly approach and ask him to autograph her cocktail napkin. Here, though, in this town where the only thing on most TVs was Magnum, P.I., Zoe might as well have been standing next to Johnny Depp at a Pirates of the Caribbean premiere.

  Zoe was getting gawked at, too—she was Johnny Depp’s date, after all—but the looks she received disturbed her. . . . Everyone seemed focused, not on her face, but on the cross she wore around her neck.

  Relax. It’s just a party. . . .

  Zoe turned away from the maguey plant, closed her eyes for a moment and swatted away the image that had buzzed into her mind—maguey spines in the hands of lifeless, mutilated bodies. An indigenous plant.

  When she opened them again, Mariposa was kneeling in front of Warren, one of his hands grasped in hers (his?), and peering at it as if he (she?) were looking for a ring to kiss. “I could bask in your energy for the rest of my life,” Mariposa told Warren, in one of those smoke-ravaged Bea Arthur/Harvey Fierstein-type voices that brought no new information as to the gender of its owner.

  Bask in your energy for the rest of my life? Did I really just hear that?

  “Mariposa, I would like you to meet Zoe.” Warren smiled. “Mariposa is a very talented sculptress.”

  A woman. Thank you. Zoe almost said it out loud. “Nice to meet you.” She shook Mariposa’s large hand. Her grip was weaker than Zoe had expected. Her wrist was thickly bandaged.

  “Warren, you have such wonderful taste.” Mariposa was staring at the cross at Zoe’s neck, and Zoe wasn’t sure whether she was talking about her or the necklace. Either way, she didn’t take it as much of
a compliment.

  “Thank you,” Warren said, and Mariposa beamed at him as if he’d made her whole day.

  Very quietly, she whispered, “The new master.”

  “Sssh.”

  Zoe gave Warren a questioning look, but he just smiled at her. It was a red-carpet smile, all teeth with nothing behind the eyes. He turned his gaze to a couple waving frantically at him from around twenty feet away, and cranked up the smile even more. The man bowed deeply, and the woman nearly swooned. “You’ve got quite the fan club,” Zoe said, but Warren wasn’t listening to her. It’s as if he’s on camera.

  Zoe was beginning to think she’d made a mistake in coming here. Whatever Sangre Para La Vida turned out to be, this party was a huge ego trip for Warren, and Zoe was not enjoying the ride.

  She felt a cold hand at the crook of her arm and nearly jumped out of her skin. “The guest of honor,” said a voice she recognized.

  Warren said, “Dave, good to see you.”

  Zoe turned. Dr. Dave was wearing jeans and a white shirt with the top three buttons undone, a gold cross glistening against a surprisingly hairy chest.

  He held a drink in each hand, and while he seemed much more relaxed than the previous times she’d seen him, Zoe still hated the way he looked at her—as if she was an interesting new development taking place in a petri dish. She was also pretty sure he’d been referring to her when he’d said, “The guest of honor,” and she didn’t like that much either, the cool irony of the tone. . . . She smiled politely at him, thinking, If you touch my face, I will injure you.

  Dave said, “Pulque?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He held out one of the glasses, filled nearly to the top with a thin grayish white liquid. Zoe grimaced at it.

  “Fermented maguey,” he said. “Undistilled.”

  “I adore pulque,” said Mariposa.

  Warren said, “A lot of people do.” He looked at Zoe. “It’s like tequila, only thicker and not quite as strong.”

  Zoe took a sip. It was nothing of the sort. It tasted like sour skim milk, with a little baby shampoo thrown in to make foam. A young Mexican man in a butcher’s apron and bow tie walked up holding a tray full of similar glasses. “Thank you, Emilio,” said Warren. Zoe watched him raise the glass to his lips. He polished the drink off quickly, with a sense of obligation—the same way Zoe’s grandfather would drink his four cups of Manischewitz on Passover. “Drink the rest of yours, Zoe,” Warren said. “You’ll see. It’s an acquired taste.”

  “I don’t really like—”

  “It’s better when you drink it fast.” He said it in a way that pushed her hand to her mouth.

  Reflexively, she drank. To her surprise, she found that Warren was right. This soapy, viscous stuff had a wonderful, sweet aftertaste. When Emilio offered her another glass, she took it.

  “Paul makes it himself,” Warren said, gesturing toward the Reiki master, who stood just inside the door with Vanessa and Robin, all three of them in white. Dr. Dave said, “He’s quite the alchemist.” And to Zoe, Paul did look like some sort of Renaissance-era wizard, in his billowing white shirt and pants tucked into fringed suede boots.

  Either that, or he had lost his way to the Fleetwood Mac tribute band audition . . . That wasn’t very charitable of you.

  Zoe was surprised. She never chastised herself for sarcastic thoughts. It was as if the pulque was working to erase her cynical streak. A few more of these, and she’d be like Robin, swearing by Reiki and homeopathic pills, judging people solely by the energy they exuded.

  After she finished her second cup, Zoe was not so much drunk as different—soothed and energized and slightly more alive. She wasn’t annoyed anymore. She wasn’t quite so uncomfortable either. In a way, she felt like the rest of the people in the room looked—that same beatific smile overtaking her face . . .

  Mariposa moved away and back into the crowd as Warren greeted a couple—German folk singers by the name of Dietrich and Eva. They both watched Zoe with a little too much interest, but at this point, she was used to it. She gazed across the room at the two grown women she knew in town. Robin wore a high-collared white dress that reminded Zoe of a Victorian nightgown. She looked a little older than in her usual black—more mature, anyway—and she didn’t so much run up to them as float—a vision, like Paul, from another era. Vanessa, on the other hand, just looked hot.

  “What a lovely dress, Robin,” said Warren.

  “Thank you, Warren.” She blushed and made some fast, eager move with her knees and hands that resembled a curtsy. “You and Zoe found each other,” she said. “I’m so happy.”

  “I stopped by Dave’s office, and asked Robin if she’d seen you,” Warren told Zoe.

  Robin said, “He was so worried. He told me that . . . Dave, I don’t really like that.”

  Dave was touching Robin’s face, as if determining the source of the blush. “You miss Patty?” he asked her. “I know Warren doesn’t.”

  “Maybe you should go sit down for a little—”

  “How quickly the blood comes to the surface of your skin,” he said, “like it’s rushing to the door to greet him.”

  Warren said, “I think a certain doctor has had too much pulque.”

  “Patty never blushed for you, Warren,” Dave said. “Why was that? All the other women blush for you . . .”

  Warren’s eyes went hard, and Robin said, “Please stop, Dave.”

  “All right.”

  The doctor moved away, but the strangest feeling seized Zoe—a cringe from deep within her. If she didn’t put twenty or thirty feet between Dr. Dave and herself as soon as possible, she was afraid she might scream. Bad energy. She had never felt this way around anyone, except . . .

  “Poor Patty,” said Dave. “Immune to Warren’s charms. Only one way you could get that bitch’s blood to rise to the surface, right, Warren?”

  “Excuse me,” Zoe said. She took another pulque from Emilio and quickly left the group. Warren didn’t ask where she was going. He just stood there, his back rigid, the red-carpet smile long gone, his eyes aimed like lasers at Dave’s face.

  She could feel more people watching her as she passed an hors d’oeuvre table and moved into the kitchen, downing the glass of pulque on her way there. Relax. . . .

  The kitchen was huge and modern, with an enormous island at the center and a stainless-steel refrigerator. Servants hurried in and out, holding trays packed with pulque and tapas. Zoe wondered how Rafael could afford all this stuff as a painter of relatively mediocre still lifes. It couldn’t be from guest lecturing at high schools. . . .

  She saw a polished wood dinette table and, past that, an open door. “Qué es esto?” she asked a young female server.

  The server frowned. “Sunroom,” she said with no trace of an accent. “It’s not for guests.”

  Zoe nodded.

  The light was on in the sunroom, though. And the door was open. She wondered if that was where Rafael was hiding. Once the kitchen emptied out, she stepped inside, and quietly said his name.

  The room was empty. She looked around. Zoe didn’t see what the big deal was. It was just a room. A lovely room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking yet another incredibly lush garden. She thought of Guadalupe and cringed. Zoe would never look at a garden the same way again. She turned away from the window. A fireplace filled one corner of the room. It wasn’t lit, but it had been earlier; the scent of mesquite hung in the air.

  Zoe moved toward the fireplace and noticed the large painting on the facing wall—a very young American woman with huge, haunted eyes.

  There are times when a painting unintentionally reveals secrets—when it says less about an artist’s talent than about his feelings about the subject he is trying to re-create. Zoe couldn’t take her eyes off this painting—so different from all those dispassionate still lifes in the studio.

  Who is she?

  Her prominent collarbones, her delicate rib cage, her small, bare breasts were visible throug
h the fabric that draped her body. The artist had paid such careful attention, every detail perfectly rendered. And her eyes reflected such longing. . . . Zoe recalled Rafael mentioning his dead wife and thought, He loved her so much.

  A voice behind her said, “She whose name we dare not speak.” Zoe turned, her breath catching, the cringe rushing through her once again. Dr. Dave. He reached out, probed her jawbone with his fingertips.

  “Please don’t do that,” Zoe said.

  The hand fell away, but Dave didn’t move. He stood inches from Zoe, staring at her skin, his voice calm and clinical. “It’s interesting,” he said. “In previous centuries, so much more meaning was placed on the physical. A high forehead was a sign of honesty, full lips connoted a wasteful, sensual nature . . . The facial bones. The length of the spine, size of the rib cage, the way it all fit together . . . People saw all those things as indicators of a person’s character.”

  “That’s interesting, all right,” she said. “You know, though, we should go back—”

  “Of course we know now it is not true at all. The set of a person’s flesh and bones reveals nothing about the workings of her mind. The most perfectly assembled person is often the most treacherous. You,” he said slowly, “you’re a bit older, of course. Different hair and eyes and not quite as thin . . . but . . . your bone structure is very similar to hers.” His gaze drifted to the painting, then settled back on Zoe’s face. “I’m sure it’s why Warren chose you. Never bothered to examine the rest of your character before he brought you here, though, did he?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He should have. Bones mean nothing. Patty Woods’s were similar to hers as well,” he said. “And so were Jordan Brink’s. His bones were almost a perfect match.”

  Zoe stared at him, her heart starting to race. “You knew . . . Jordan?”

  His small black eyes were narrowed and a little rheumy. Warren was right. Dave had way too much pulque in him, and it seemed to be affecting the doctor in the opposite way it did everyone else. He smiled. There was nothing beatific about it.