Shifters (32 page)
Authors: Edward Lee
And the rest.
What? Sex? Love? Passion? Locke shook his head, it had seemed so real, but that was impossible.
She was not of his world, not of his reality.
Only a figment of mind…
Or a figment of some
other
reality?
other
reality?
More notions without pretense, without definition.
A puzzle,
he thought.
From my own screwed-up, alcohol-drenched brain.
A puzzle,
he thought.
From my own screwed-up, alcohol-drenched brain.
Angel, my ass.
Just another drunk’s hallucination.
Maybe I should take back Lethe’s money and check myself into a psych clinic.
Maybe I should take back Lethe’s money and check myself into a psych clinic.
Locke roved the grounds, skimmed past the other three cottages…
Jesus, I am SO screwed up…
He stared at the third cottage, frowning. Of course, it was all part of the dream.
Right. Some naked chick in the window? Then Jason strolling in to yank his crank and—pardon me—suck blood out of the girl’s hooters? Have another drink, Locke. Don’t settle for half measures. Fuck up your brain
all
the way why don’t ya?
Then the rest—being tapped on the shoulder from behind by White Shirt, the recurring dead man. Nevertheless, after a blank pause, Locke found himself peering into the third cottage’s front window. Empty, of course. Not even a lamp nor any blinds over any of the windows. Another peek showed him that the fourth cottage, too, from which he’d seen the woman originally emerge, was barren. Locke wandered back toward the flower spread in the center of the yard.
Right. Some naked chick in the window? Then Jason strolling in to yank his crank and—pardon me—suck blood out of the girl’s hooters? Have another drink, Locke. Don’t settle for half measures. Fuck up your brain
all
the way why don’t ya?
Then the rest—being tapped on the shoulder from behind by White Shirt, the recurring dead man. Nevertheless, after a blank pause, Locke found himself peering into the third cottage’s front window. Empty, of course. Not even a lamp nor any blinds over any of the windows. Another peek showed him that the fourth cottage, too, from which he’d seen the woman originally emerge, was barren. Locke wandered back toward the flower spread in the center of the yard.
Dreams of his own death. Lehrling, apparently, drowning in damnation. A resurrected White Shirt spouting more inanities about transposition, and demented kinkoid S&M sex scenes. Locke felt satisfied with himself in the immediacy with which he could dismiss it all as subconscious waste. But—
He came to a halt by a front of orchids and filarees.
Moira,
he remembered.
he remembered.
Another symbol built in his subconscious mind, nothing more. He knew that…so why did he feel such an after-image? He could still feel her hands on him, could still feel the ecstasy of his joining. Like Clare had been…
Something real.
The urge exploded in him, one he hadn’t felt for a long time. He trotted back to his cottage, then the trot broke into a sprint. Words began to spill out of his head; he grit his teeth in a desperate plea to catch them. Once he was back in the cottage he rummaged through his travel bag, whipped out his notepad and a pen, then frantically began to write. Only one problem.
Shit goddamn I can’t believe it!
The pen was dead.
Locke stared in agony at the inkless scratches in the paper. He was going to lose it, he knew. It was going to fly away like a parakeet whose owner had left the cage door up. This happened a lot; the muses were not kind. If you didn’t write it down right away, it was gone forever. As quick as his fear, Locke turned to bolt for the main house and saw—
No. It couldn’t be…
There, in the far corner next to the small bathroom. A small walnut Pembroke table with something on top of it. Something covered by a drape of simple cloth the color of jonquils. Locke knew what it was even before he removed the cover.
Now we’re cookin’! Yes sir!
What sat on the table was a typewriter, a Smith-Premiere Bar-Lock series. More of Lethe’s high-class obsession: the machine was nearly a hundred years old but in mint condition, a fresh ribbon threaded through the type-guide. Locke’s host was a keenly thoughtful man. A stack of white bond paper filled a small drawer in the table. Locke cranked in a sheet and began to chase his muse.
He never saw the tiny yellowed tag on the back of the antique machine which read in tight cursive script:
Property of Robert E. Howard, Author, Cross Plains, Texas.
(ii)
“Yeah, I know, Central Commo already told me,” Cordesman griped into the phone. “The red hairs from the church matched red hairs found at sixteen other 64 sites.” But Cordesman had already figured that; bad luck often arrived in abundance.
When it rains, it pours,
he thought of the tired axiom. Or:
When God takes a piss, He takes a BIG piss, generally right on my head.
“Is that it?”
When it rains, it pours,
he thought of the tired axiom. Or:
When God takes a piss, He takes a BIG piss, generally right on my head.
“Is that it?”
Kerr was calling from his car phone, obviously eating as he spoke. “Yeah, er, no, I mean—”
Cordesman winced. “Didn’t your mommy ever teach you it’s not polite to talk when your fuckin’ chops are full of fuckin’ food?”
Kerr’s lips kept on smacking. “Not exactly in those words, Captain.”
“Where are you, the O.K. Corral? Sounds like you’re eating out of a horse trough.”
“I’m at Ivar’s on Northgate. The halibut fish and chips are great. With the malt vinegar? Yes, sir!” Kerr crunched into another fillet.
“Fine. So that’s it?”
“We got joint photos of the homeless guys in the church. All their prints were on file with the W.C.I. database.”
“All ex-cons?”
“Yep…I mean yes, sir. Non-state charges, just county and city, and the only fells were knocked down on suspended sentences. But they all did a string of short-time, mostly small stuff—car-breaking, repeat shop-lifting, wallet-boosting. The bald guy—you’ll love this, Captain—he got busted by King County PD in ’91 for taking a shit on a 256 bus to Bellevue and pissing on the coinbox.”
Cordesman ran a disgruntled hand through his long hair. “You’re right, Kerr. I
loved
that.”
loved
that.”
“So I’ve got a flatfoot squad running the pictures around the local shelters.”
“You thought of that all on your own?”
“Yes, sir. I’m pretty smart. Say…about that step-raise—”
“Just the shelters?”
“Sir?”
“You’d get the raise if you’d also thought to have the rubber-gun fellas tote those ident pix around all the bridges in, say, a five-mile circle from the church.”
“Bridges?”
“Yeah, Kerr. You know. Things that bums frequently sleep under.”
A stuffy pause. “Yes, sir, I already thought of that, and we’re on it.”
“Uh-huh. And the Yankees just dug up Mantle and gave him a new liver and a five-year contract.”
“I’m serious, sir. Oh, and one more thing. I’m also supposed to tell you that Brock’s on her way to see you.”
“Great,” Cordesman sputtered. “This case is hard enough. The last thing I need is that sour-puss pain in the ass in here again acting like she’s the fuckin’ queen of fuckin’ forensic examination. And when she’s not doing that, she’s bellyaching about my cigarette smoke. And if there’s one thing that pisses me off, it’s these smug fuckers always yammering about second-hand smoke and fuckin’ cancer rates. Christ, I’ll bet she hasn’t been laid in twenty years, takes all her pent-up angst off on the whole world.”
“You’re a real nice guy, Captain,” Kerr said, munching more fish.
“I know. So why’s that poker-faced, dagger-glaring, bad-news bitch coming to my office?”
“Why don’t you just ask me?”
Cordesman’s cigarette fell out of his mouth when he heard the voice.
You stupid horse’s ass…
He hung the phone up without further word, then looked up to see that Jill Brock had been standing in his office doorway the whole time.
You stupid horse’s ass…
He hung the phone up without further word, then looked up to see that Jill Brock had been standing in his office doorway the whole time.
He held his hands up, shrugged. “I’m sorry, Jill. What can I say? I’m an asshole. Don’t really know why—I just am. Can’t help it, I guess.”
First he got the poker-face, then the dagger-glare. “Well, the bad-news bitch just thought you might be interested in some latents,” she said.
“Look, I said I was sorry.”
“I’d point out that second-hand cigarette smoke contributes to the premature deaths of at least 15,000 non-smokers per year, Captain, but you obviously don’t need some smug fucker like me insisting that I have the right not to be forced to inhale
your
carcinogens.”
your
carcinogens.”
“I apologize for what I said, Jill. Shit, I was just joking around, I didn’t mean—”
“So if you’ll pardon the intrusion of this sour-puss pain in the ass, you might be interested to know that while you were off smoking cigarettes, my crew worked their butts off taking apart that church, and we found something most unusual.”
Cordesman raised another cigarette to his lips, then put it back. “Are you going to tell me, or are you going to bust my chops a little more? Go ahead, make me feel worse. I deserve it.”
Brock opened a manila TSD folder and from it produced a second folder of clear acetate. Pressed between the rigid transparent sheets was what appeared to be an unfolded napkin or handkerchief full of orangish blotches that Cordesman knew to be residual iodine from a latent fuming processor. Along with anthracene, this was the method of choice for securing fingerprints from porous and soft paper.
But there was…something…disturbingly familiar here.
“May I see that, please, Ms. Brock?”
Brock handed it over. Yes, it was a napkin fully unfolded, and Cordesman could see the ridges and whorls of a number of fingerprints amid the orange stains. The corner of the napkin read: CONCANNON’S IRISH PUB, and then he noticed something else that made his stomach tighten. Scribbling in ballpoint, and the words:
Evil kisses, or angelic sendings, I want to be in the vale of beginnings, not endings.
Evil kisses, or angelic sendings, I want to be in the vale of beginnings, not endings.
“The city MAC matched the prints to a resident on the 1300-block of North 45th Street in Wallingford,” Brock told him.
“Not Richard Locke,” Cordesman pleaded.
“Yes,” Brock countered. “Richard Locke.”
(iii)
Circles.
Squares.
Triangles.
Planes.
Me,
he thinks in the dark.
he thinks in the dark.
««—»»
The curtains move in a sudden fresh breeze, then the breeze brings a stench of decay, and the curtains rot. In the great bow window, he looks at the sun.
Then the sun turns black.
Everything he looks at changes now. Everything he looks at dies.
And in this darkness—this
reality
—that he’s summoned with his own mind, he sees it all, his destiny.
reality
—that he’s summoned with his own mind, he sees it all, his destiny.
Squares roving the orbiculoid. Triangles churning oblique circles and lunettes and napiform pinnates.
Me, me…
Nonogons scaping the pentahedron, with spatulate quadrilateral septagons on the prowl. Volute styliforms flux between the bicillary acilars. Decussated cuspidates cut down the meek and meager bolus crescents and globose fungiforms in a whirring, terrifying ensiformic helix.
All the weak unishapes and passive globoforms waiting for him somewhere inside this radiant black plane of the world.
From the rive in the chevron he hears a voice—
Malefactor. Curse thee…
But he laughs at the voice, the god he short-changed.
I am greater than you,
he says back.
You think you own the world? If so, why is it that I’m the one who’s standing on it and not you?
But he laughs at the voice, the god he short-changed.
I am greater than you,
he says back.
You think you own the world? If so, why is it that I’m the one who’s standing on it and not you?
You used to serve me.
Now I serve myself, so go back to your brimstone and your eons and your kingdom of excrement.
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