St. Agnes' Eve

by Malachi Stone

  The heavy white incense smoke from the censer smelled like a medicinal soap. Father Seraphim seemed to give the censer a couple of extra shakes my way as he passed. That’s what my soul needed: fumigating. After vespers, one of the church ladies was kind enough to take the children downstairs and sit with them in the church hall while I waited in the front pew, reciting the Prayer before Confession.

  Under the stole, facing the Icon of Christ, I spilled it all to Father Seraphim. Father Seraphim gave the Prayer of Absolution and told me to go in peace. My hand was already on the doorknob when he asked, “Have you gone to the cemetery yet to visit your mother?”

  I flinched. Was this some newly devised penance?

  “Whatever happened to letting the dead bury their dead?”

  He regarded me curiously, seeming to look right through me. “That job is finished,” he said. “It is the dead who have long since buried her there. Pay your respects, then look to heaven for the salvation of your own soul. Now go in peace.”

  “You already said that.”

  “I am old,” he said. “I’m allowed to repeat myself now and then.”

  I dropped in on Liz Hare that Monday around noon. She declined my lunch invitation, so I told her what I’d come to say while the two of us faced off in her occult shop. I stood by the cash register. She perched on a high stool behind the counter flipping through a set of Star of Isis tarot cards and laying them out in patterns that looked to me like a four-handed game of casino blackjack.

  “This town’s been a convention of tabloid TV and print journalists since the Diaz story broke,” I said. “Get much spillover?”

  “Just some local television reporter wanting a human interest sound bite on the satanic angle,” she replied.

  “Guess you’re kind of nervous right about now.”

  “On the contrary, Ricky. I’m serene. Serene as the dead.”

  “So what do the cards tell you?”

  “Change. Loss. Death. Treachery lying in wait close by. Since you ask.”

  “Must be something to those cards after all. I mean, what if Diaz decides to talk and cuts a deal, giving you up on the Gwendace murder-for-hire? Talk about your treachery lying in wait.”

  “Dear boy,” she purred, “I’m reading for you.”

  “Diaz told me all about how you were after Gwendace to have a baby with you and how she turned you down flat. You must have been dealing with some deadly rage all right, what with that old biological clock of yours ticking away like the one in a crocodile’s stomach. An old crocodile’s stomach. What had you invested in that woman, twenty years? I’ll bet you were fit to be tied when she refused you the patented Lilith cult finger-fuck, am I right, Liz?”

  “You know how crazy you sound right now? Look, I just turned up the Sorceress.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That means inadmissible hearsay. And here’s the Magician.”

  “What does that signify?”

  She must have been annoyed by my patronizing smirk. “That’s the race card you’ve heard so much about, Ricky,” she said quietly. “It signifies your wife’s fucking a nigger.”

  I swept the cards off the counter onto the floor in one wide swipe. “Ooh, bad luck to do that,” she keened. “Get a grip, Ricky. You want to strangle me right now, don’t you?”

  “You killed Gwendace.”

  “I loved Gwendace.”

  “You loved her enough to kill her.”

  “You know what they say in court,” she answered. “Prove it.”

  When I got back to the office a lone reporter sat waiting for me in the lobby, literally hat in hand. It was one of those Front Page reporter hats they wear inside. He sure looked the part. He’d done the legwork and ferreted out Diaz’s moonlighting for our firm, probably by combing through summons returns at the Circuit Clerk’s office and finding Diaz’s name on most of the service affidavits for our civil cases.

  He worked for an e-zine called Running Head. It fell to me to throw him out. Instead, I took him up on his offer to buy me a drink. At the No Nonsense Saloon we sat at the bar, a discreet half-dozen stools down from a couple of serious afternoon drinkers. You want to talk Grisly Discoveries, I’ll talk Grisly Discoveries with you—if you buy me a drink first. So we talked Grisly Discoveries. Harvesting the Hands of His Victims. Nice Guy, Kept to Himself. Take My Hand, I’m a Stranger in Belleville. The man from Running Head turned out to be a college junior with ambitions of being the next Stone Phillips. I liked him more and more with each drink. Silly drunk by now, by way of a joke I told the kid if he looked any better I might go queer for him.

  Despite the noise from the gathering happy hour crowd, the bartender—a Semper Fi type who might have been the owner—overheard me and told us both to haul our asses out of there, he wasn’t runnin’ no Frisco bathhouse.

  I felt bad for the kid after having gotten him eighty-sixed for no better reason than guilt by association. It was already dark outside, but the Sphinx Lounge was out of the question. The kid looked at me strangely when I said that he should accompany me to my car, that I had something to show him—something that would jump-start his career.

  After taking him down the wrong block by mischance, I finally located my car where I had parked it that morning. I popped the trunk, grabbed the red-foil gift bag where I’d replaced it, and, as in some absurdly paranoid spy fantasy game, wrapped my hand in my pocket handkerchief before retrieving the Betamax tape. I opened his jacket and dropped the tape into the inside pocket, warning him mysteriously not to touch it with his bare hands.

  I hit a couple more bars after the man from Running Head abruptly took his leave of me there on the street. Unencumbered by companionship, I imbibed freely. Perhaps too freely. Once home, I dismissed the church-lady babysitter, endured her shock and outrage, and flopped onto the marital bed, which commenced spinning out-of-balance in Diane’s absence. I managed to slow the bedspins using mind over matter, although vomiting helped considerably. The bed was down to 45 RPM when the first call came in.

  “Mr. Galeer? I’m awful sorry if’n I woke you all up.”

  “Misty? Is that you? How did you get my home number?” I was in no condition to perform wacko maintenance, especially for a case that had already settled for near blue-book price. But the case wasn’t what Misty wanted to talk about.

  “Celestal’s gone, Mr. Galeer.”

  Why did a cash settlement always provoke crisis in poverty-stricken marriages? “Well, Misty,” I began, “I don’t do divorces, and even if I did, I’d have a conflict—”

  “No, Mr. Galeer, you don’t understand. He’s gone. Along about midnight he gets this call? You know, at the house? Says it’s from some strange woman who gives him an address, makes him write it down, and then tells him to go there tonight if’n he wants to shake hands with the woman what murdered his daddy. He said that’s just how she put it: shake hands.”

  I waited a couple of beats, trying to make sense of it all, then said, “You know, Misty, I must have a touch of the flu bug or something. Forgive me, but I’m having a little trouble following all this.”

  “Celestal’s daddy kilt hisself, Mr. Galeer—he waren’t murdered. But Celestal up and hightails it out the door with that address in his hand not two hours ago. I ain’t seen hide nor hair of him since.”

  “Hide nor hair? What time is it, Misty?”

  “It’s nigh onto two-thirty in the morning, Mr. Galeer. I’m sorry to bother you all, but I got nowhere else to turn. You are our lawyer.”

  I told myself I really didn’t need this with stale whiskey fumes billowing in my stomach. I told her that there was nothing I could do but that she should call the police and the hospitals, figuring it would keep her busy for a while at least. It’d be good therapy for her until she calmed down and Celestal skulked in the door with a below-average flat tire tall tale to tell.

  If Misty was Marley’s Ghost, the next call was the Ghost of Christmas Past. Mark Kane, telling me I’m the man
. I made him repeat it, my voice a dry whisper.

  “I said, you’re the man for the job tonight, Ricky. I need you to make an urgent house call.”

  Irritation crept unbidden into my tone. “We’re not curing cancer here. What’s the emergency?”

  He gave me the address. I recognized it as the Kokker mansion. Diane’s at Kirk’s.

  “I need you over here right away, Ricky. You’re the senior Missouri-licensed attorney.”

  “What’s wrong? Has something happened to Diane?”

  A long, Mark Kane trademark pause. Everybody waits for the Great Man to speak. He said, “You should have taken that offer while you still had the chance.”

  “Why? Has something happened to Sandra?”

  Before the line went dead, he said only, “Things got a bit out of hand.”

  I checked on the children. All were sleeping soundly. The church lady would never consent to return tonight. She’d suspect me of sneaking out to another bar to drink off my hangover. I could hardly blame her—what lawyer makes a house call at three in the morning? Against my better judgment, I left them home alone sleeping in their beds and headed west to see about putting right whatever shameful debauch of Kokker’s had escalated into a legal crisis.

  I picked out Kane’s Lexus where it stood parked like a white shadow amongst three Town and Country squad cars and the coroner’s wagon. I nosed my smoking car behind and almost touching his, hoping mine would drip a prodigal amount of oil. I rang the bell, staring at the great mahogany doors that had probably cost more than my last three years’ raises. Sin—the massage parlors, the gambling boats, the quack clinics, and the glib lies under oath—had built this house. Sin and the luck of the Lilith talisman cohabited and took their ease here, fattening the heart as well as the purse of the householder. They were master and mistress of this house, not he—he was their slave.

  Hephzibah answered, taciturn as a cigar store wooden Indian and in as much of a hurry. Before I could identify myself, she announced, in an accent more East Saint Louis than Haiti, “They down in the rapscallion room.”

  I knew the way. I knocked and heard slipping chains and the clunking release of the Fox lock before the big door swung open. Through my hangover, I heard Kane’s oily voice saying, “Join us, Ricky. We’re watching CNN.”

  Kokker and Janis sat together in the conversation pit, fully dressed as if for the office, him holding her hand. Diane sat at his feet like one of the Manson clan, wearing nothing other than a crimson robe, her head shaved completely bald like his, her arm twined around his calf. They made a pensive threesome, but who was consoling whom, and why? I didn’t speak to her.

  Kane reset the elaborate locks behind us. As I followed him into the rathskellar and skirted the industrial-strength fire in the gas hearth, my eyes focused along with everyone else’s on the huge TV hovering like a UFO.

  The man from Running Head was on CNN. They’d made him lose the Hildy Johnson hat, but he still wore the earnest look that would probably slingshot him to fame. His name was Jerry something, according to the video byline. I recognized the darkened Belleville courthouse and the fountain in the background. We watched with the sound down. No one spoke; there was only the metallic hiss of the gas flame.

  The scene switched. Kane said, “Here it comes again.”

  The screen showed a place I hadn’t seen in years and one that evoked memories better left forgotten: the Salome Spa’s waterbed room. Black velvet paintings of busty nude women were rendered cubist by digitally added dancing squares. Carla was on her knees, clothed only in a blue bikini of optical censor dots. The woman behind Carla with her arm around Carla’s neck looked like Madeleine with a couple more years on her, but I knew it had to be Janis. The heel of her hand against Carla’s right temple, Janis made Carla’s head face left while her body stayed at parade rest. Carla’s head lolled, her body held up between Janis’s powerful arms. Janis produced the dagger, held it at present arms—blade upraised like a sword—then plunged the glinting blade again and again into the center of the top soft-focus blue dot, which modestly obscured everything but the bloodied blade and Janis’s forearms gloved in gore.

  It was the money shot to end all money shots. Kokker turned up the volume. We heard a sound like cleaning a chicken. I knew in that moment the scene was destined to take its rightful place in the television iconography of man’s inhumanity to man, right up there with the Vietnam street execution and the Zapruder film.

  A youthful Diaz stood unnoticed behind Janis almost from the beginning, watching it all from the doorway, then joining in. There must not have been enough blue dots to cover up what followed, because CNN cut back to Jerry at the courthouse just before the first hand came off.

  Kokker said, “Leave us.” Still half-drunk, I started toward the door before realizing that had to be the vocal command to shut off the TV.

  Kane broke the silence that followed. “The unspoken question on everyone’s lips, of course, is how? How did a local reporter get his hands on that tape? Kirk feels you might be able to elucidate, Ricky. Are you?”

  I said nothing but glared at Diane cuddling against Kokker like a favorite daughter, resting her chin on his knee.

  Kane added, “Kirk can’t help but suspect that his current domestic mélange may have something to do with what appears, unfortunately, to have been an egregious—even deliberate—breach of attorney-client privilege and the rule of confidentiality, not to mention rendering our Janis here a wanted woman.”

  “Why are the police here?” I asked. “And the meat wagon?”

  “I think the issue under discussion is rather more urgent,” Kane said. “Let the dead bury their dead. And now Kirk informs me you may be the person responsible for the theft not only of the tape in question but also of a priceless ancient artifact from his private collection. What do you have to say for yourself about that, Ricky?”

  I turned my back to the conversation pit, faced Kane, and said, “Here’s what I have to say: fuck everybody else’s priorities. All anybody seems to want around here is that damn talisman. Tell Kokker to give me my wife back or I drop it off the Poplar Street Bridge into the Mississippi River to see if it floats.”

  Janis let go of Kokker’s hand. “Diane wants to stay here with us,” she said. “Why don’t you ask her yourself? She’s right here. You want to stay, don’t you, Diane dear?”

  Diane, eyes glazed, nodded.

  “Take that damn necklace off her and then ask her the same thing again,” I said.

  “It’s after ten o’clock, Ricky. Do you know where your children are?” Janis asked.

  “Who’s watching your daughter, bitch?”

  “Let me put it this way, Ricky darling.” Janis’s tone was patronizing yet filled with menace. “Bring us the talisman before midnight tomorrow, or you’ll never see your children again. It’s the Lilith Sabbat. Diane is going to be our guest of honor. Please don’t deny us the pleasure of your company. You’ll see Diane be introduced to Demon Mother herself and complete her initiation. It’s her destiny, you know. If you behave, we might even let you give the bride away.”

  “What the hell’s the matter with you people? What have you done with my kids?”

  “Don’t worry, Ricky,” Janis cooed. “They’re in a safe place. For now. Auntie Liz has them. She let herself in using Diane’s key, woke them, and told them they’re going to go see their mommy. It all happened not ten minutes after you left them at home alone. Sad, isn’t it? You can’t trust anybody these days. Give us the talisman, Ricky. Not even the blood club wants to hang your kiddies upside down and slit their little throats for them. Not really.”

  I ran for the door. Janis—or was it Diane? —laughed when I fumbled, struggling to open the locks. Halfway up the stairs I heard the locks closing again behind me.

  Was it possible none of them knew Sandra had stolen back the talisman? It had to have been secreted either in her clothing or in her suitcase when she left our home. Had she managed to keep
it from Kokker?

  Hephzibah stood at the head of the rathskellar stairs like a suit of armor. “Where’s Mrs. Kokker?” I demanded.

  She smiled malevolently. “She in the tub,” was all she said.

  A uniformed officer blocked my way into the master bath. “You another friend of the family?” he asked. Kane must have already identified himself as such.

  “No, I’m Dr. and Mrs. Kokker’s attorney.”

  “What’s he think he needs an attorney for?” The cop had a brusque manner for someone who must have spent most of his night shifts refereeing rich people’s domestic disputes and keeping it all out of the papers.

  “How should I know what he thinks? What’s going on?” Two of the coroner’s people were lifting a black body bag onto a gurney. The smell of cordite cut the perfume of lavender bath salts. I noticed a uniformed security guard sitting between two detectives, disconsolate, head resting in his hands. Acne-scarred, with a weed whacker haircut and a Wolf Pack Armed Response shoulder patch, the kid looked like an overgrown cub scout, a clone of the one who’d terrorized Celestal and Misty cleaning the office.