(I)
Sunlight from the windows cut across her eyes like a guillotine blade. Oh my God …When Cristina tried to rise from the basement floor, the flare of her life’s worst headache sent her right back down on her back. She looked around in mental chaos as aching vision showed her the dank, cluttered basement. What did I …
Then she remembered, the twisted memories interlacing with her hangover. The celebration with Bruno last night, her drunkenness, then passing out down here of all places. And the dream…
She remained on her back, nude and shivering. The same dream as always…but with new details …God.
A dead man on a stone slab? A strange decanter of some kind? And those women …Not just the nun this time, but other strange, faceless women.
Cristina gulped when she remembered what the women were doing to her…
Jeez, what would Britt say about that? Latent lesbian tendencies carrying over from the Goldfarb house? It was just a dream—made more odd, no doubt, from all the alcohol she’d drunk.
She recalled the disturbing intonation: Singele lui traieste. But why should it actually disturb her? Just meaningless gibberish from a dream. It couldn’t be another language since she didn’t know any.
An alarm blared in her head. What time is it? And …where’s Paul? She groaned, dragging herself up off the dust-and grit-caked floor. He’ll think I’m really out of my head if he finds out I passed out NUDE in the friggin’ BASEMENT! She was about to head up, but then the floor snagged her vision.
That patchwork, she remembered now.
She peered down. Yes, an oblong patch of new cement set into the stonework of the floor. How odd, but…In the better light she saw…something…
Down on one knee she examined the corner of the patch more closely. It looked like a seal of some kind pressed into the cement. She expected perhaps a date or service information from the contractor who’d done the work but instead…
A dragon?
Or a serpent of some kind, within a circle around which were etched the words: O QUAM MAGNIFICUM, O DOMNUL. Latin, she supposed. It must relate to the house’s previous use by the Catholic Church. But it was the seal itself that bothered her most—the dragon. The crude artwork seemed to depict the dragon as dead, its own tail wrapped around its neck.
Then another, louder, alarm screamed in her head. As she’d been leaning to inspect the cement, her breasts edged into the peripheries of her vision.
Cristina stood up in half-shock and strode straight to the window where the most light was.
What on earth did I do to myself!
It looked as though her breasts and belly had been used as a graffiti canvas. Primitive black, green, and red lines encircled each breast, while more wavy lines of the same colors—the backdrop of her dream—streaked up and down her stomach.
Her own conclusion left her appalled. I was so drunk last night, I DREW on myself?
She did recall her hand landing on something that felt like a fat pen. This has to be magic marker …She went back to the cement but couldn’t find the object.
But the worst consideration slammed home. If Paul sees me like this he’ll want me to go to a shrink! Suddenly her nudity had her feeling utterly vulnerable. And there was nothing down here she could cover herself with. She crept up the stairs, listening, then she peeked out the door when she got to the top.
Oh my God!
She could hear Paul’s voice in the kitchen.
“—unfuckin’ believable, Jess. Yes, yes, I know it’s ten o’clock, and I know we’ve got to fax that arbitration rebuttal out to Massaccesi’s people by noon. I haven’t been this hungover in ages, man…”
What am I going to do? Cristina fretted. She glanced down in more disbelief at her streaked breasts.
“I don’t even know where Cristina is,” Paul was saying. “She was pretty lit last night too; I guess she went out to get orange juice or something. We had sort of a celebration party at D’Amato’s with the guy who makes her dolls. Yeah, the guy named Bruno. I thought he was all hot air until he picked up the check. The fuckin’ guy ordered not one but two bottles of Krug, six bills a pop, plus brandy, plus all kinds of fancy appetizers. Bet he dropped over two grand. Funny thing is, Cristina kept right up with us and, man, she never drinks like that. She must be one hurtin’ puppy right now, wherever she is…”
She had no choice but to take a chance. If Paul was facing the kitchen entry she’d be all right, but if not…
He’ll see me. He’ll see his nut-job girlfriend with magic marker all over her boobs …
She stepped wide into the hall, turned, and zipped right into the laundry room. When she looked, Paul’s back was to her.
At least a trifling relief. She pulled a robe out of the dryer and put it on, wrapping it tight. Then…Here goes.
She shuffled into the kitchen.
Paul stood in his boxers, his hair sticking up. He smiled below bloodshot eyes when he saw her.
“Oh, here she is. Anyway, sorry, Jess. My fuckup. Hold down the fort till I get there.” Then he hung up. He walked over and hugged Cristina, gave her a peck on the cheek. “I hope you’re not as hungover as I am,” he bid.
“I’m sure I am,” she said. Her head pounded with each word, along with the embarrassment of what she’d secretly done to herself. “I hurt all over.”
“God bless Bruno. But he must be going through the same thing so at least we’re not the only ones suffering.” Bewildered, Paul shook his head. “I can’t believe I slept right through the alarm.”
Cristina sheepishly pursed her lips. “And I can’t believe I slept in the basement.”
Paul almost spat out a sip of coffee. “You what?”
She kept the neck of the robe tightly clasped. God, I hope he doesn’t see. “Kid you not. I was so smashed last night, I decided to go in the basement for some crazy reason. And I passed out.”
“That’s some shit-face,” Paul laughed. “I thought you went out to the store.”
“Nope. Your nutty fiancée slept off her drunk on the basement floor. I’m never drinking alcohol again.”
“I just might second that motion. But it was a fun night, with Bruno and celebrating your new figure.”
The Noxious Nun, she thought for no reason at all. “I’d cook you breakfast, honey, but I still feel so lousy—”
“Forget it. I’m over an hour late as it is.” He kissed her again. “I’ve got to jump in the shower, dress, and get my tail to the office. Jess isn’t exactly thrilled. Drink some water to rehydrate yourself and get some more sleep. But, in the bed, not the basement.”
She stroked his cheek, then offered a pained smile. “You look hot in those boxers, you know.”
“Oh, I’m sure. My eyes look like road maps—”
So do my boobs …“I have to go lie down. But have a good day at work. I’ll have my act together when you get home, I promise.”
He winked. “Good. Give me a chance to redeem myself after…you know…”
“I wasn’t much in working order either, honey,” she laughed and went to the bedroom. He didn’t notice. What a stroke of luck. But she still felt asinine. Some girlfriend …She hid under the bedcovers and feigned sleep as Paul showered, dressed, and left. Then she rushed to the bathroom.
The mirror’s crystalline clarity made it even worse. The colored lines encircling her breasts and streaking her stomach seemed even thicker, brighter now. Why on earth did I do this to myself! She jumped into the shower, head still thumping, and scrubbed hard with a washcloth and soap, then moaned aloud when she got back out and re-examined herself. The magic marker had barely faded.
Cristina was nearly in tears when she called Britt…
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Britt exclaimed.
Cristina reluctantly opened her robe, showing the marks. “I don’t know what to do. If Paul sees this…”
Britt sat at the kitchen table, flabbergasted. She wore dark Seven jeans, which fit her like tights, a red faux shearling vest, and clear strap platforms. “And you say rubbing alcohol and Lava soap didn’t work?”
“Didn’t even come close to getting it all off.”
Britt opened a paper bag she’d brought, removed a bottle of nail-polish remover. “I remember someone telling me this once. It should work.”
They went to the bathroom. Cristina blushed as Britt carefully blotted the fluid on her breasts with a cloth, then rubbed.
“You’re in luck. It’s working.”
“You’re a godsend!” Cristina exclaimed.
“And you’re a space cadet. Honestly, Cristina. It’s not like you to get drunk at all, but you must’ve been pie-eyed to do this.”
“I know. I can’t explain it.”
Britt looked up from her rubbing. “Is there something you’re not telling me, little sister?”
“No, I’m not doing drugs, and I’m not hiding an alcohol problem.”
Britt shook her head, reapplying more of the remover. “You better not be. Paul would’ve shit if he saw this. And you hassle him about drinking.”
“Pretty hypocritical, huh?” Cristina admitted. She looked to the mirror with relief when she saw the magic marker was coming off. “And he actually wasn’t bad last night. I was the loose screw.”
“And you passed out in the basement? Did I get that right?”
Cristina nodded, ashamed. “And I had the dream again—”
“The nude nun…”
“Yeah, but it was a lot worse. More detail, and…”
Britt looked up again, reading her. “And what?”
“I don’t know, but more and more I think the dream is some kind of flashback effect from the Goldfarbs.”
Britt stopped rubbing and gave Cristina the eye. “Stop using that as an excuse. The stuff the Goldfarbs drugged us with wasn’t hallucinatory. This has nothing to do with the Goldfarbs. It’s just a bad dream, and it was made worse by your getting crocked out of your gourd!”
Cristina stared at the wall through the recollection. “But…there was other stuff in the dream, and it really bothered me. Other—well—people.”
“Yeah?”
“It was lesbian stuff,” Cristina finally said. “A bunch of women…touching me and…other stuff.”
“And let me guess. It turned you on.”
“Sort of.”
Britt sighed, frustrated. “Cristina, every woman on earth has dreams like that sometimes. It’s just subconscious mishmash. It means nothing. And everybody gets drunk on occasion and passes out.”
“Yeah, but they don’t pass out and draw on themselves with indelible markers. I just don’t understand any of it. It’s starting to scare me.”
“For God’s sake,” Britt said. She was finished. The marks were gone, leaving Cristina’s skin pink from the rubbing. Britt looked her right in the eye. “Listen. I know what you’re getting at—I’m a shrink, remember? A shrink for screwed-up women. You think you’re having some kind of psychological trauma that’s being triggered by the shitty stuff that happened to us in the past. What, you think you’re a latent lesbian because of what goddamn Helga Goldfarb did to us, and made us do to each other? That’s ridiculous; we’ve been through this a million times. You’re overreacting, that’s all—like you always do. Wasn’t it yesterday you told me you felt better than you ever have and that your sex life was off the scales? But now you’re acting like that pensive worrywart that you were in the old days, all because of a recurring dream.”
Cristina thought about it. “I guess you’re right, but—”
“No buts. I am right.” Britt narrowed her eyes in some contemplation. “So where exactly did you draw on yourself? Your studio?”
“No. The basement.”
Britt winced. “So you purposely brought magic markers down to the basement, in the middle of the night, to draw on yourself?”
“Uh…Well, no. I think the magic markers were already down there. The place is full of junk. And I remember touching something that felt like a pen.”
Britt grabbed Cristina’s hand and yanked. “Come on. Show me this ridiculous basement.”
Cristina took her down. They wended around old boxes until they came to the oblong cement patchwork.
“Right there’s where I passed out.” Cristina pointed.
“What the hell is that? It looks newer than the rest.”
“I figured a pipe broke so that’s where they dug; then they patched it. I remember falling down there, and my hand landed on the pen.”
Britt looked around the entire area. “No pens here now. So you picked them up this morning?”
“No.”
Britt’s frown deepened; she kept looking at the cement patch. “Kind of creepy. That’s not…a grave, is it?”
“It can’t be. Paul would’ve known from the deed.”
“Still. It’s creepy. It’s no wonder you had the nightmare down here.” She chuckled darkly. “A nun with fangs, a bowl full of blood.”
“And this time there was a man lying on a slab, too.”
Britt looked again to the oblong patch but said nothing.
“Oh, and there’s an insignia down there, on the corner.”
Britt stooped. “Latin, it looks like and—what is that? A turtle?”
“Looks like a dragon, or a lizard.”
Britt kept shaking her head. “A dragon strangled by its own tail. The hits just keep on comin’, Cristina. Let’s go back up. You must’ve put the magic markers away and don’t remember.”
I don’t think so, Cristina answered in thought. Back upstairs, Britt turned away from the kitchen, to the mirror-backed bar.
“It’s a little early, isn’t it?” Cristina asked.
“After cleaning magic marker off your boobs, then listening to your lesbian nun dream, and then seeing the creepy grave-looking thing in the basement? No. Paul won’t mind if I take a nip of this Louis XIII, will he?”
Britt grabbed a crystal snifter. “You want some?”
Cristina’s stomach lurched. “After last night? I’ll probably never drink again.”
Britt shrugged and took a sip of the clear liquor.
Cristina wrapped the robe tighter, as if chilled. Something nagged at her psyche, an idea that had only just occurred to her. But how could she voice it without sounding paranoid? I’ve put Britt through enough for one day …
“Okay,” Britt demanded. “What’s wrong now?”
Cristina could never hide a thing from her. “I don’t remember drawing on myself, Britt.”
“You were sloshed.”
“Yeah, but why would I do that, even that drunk? I’m starting to think that maybe I didn’t draw on myself.”
Britt’s eyes snapped to Cristina’s. “Come on. Paul?”
“No. He was asleep upstairs.”
“Cristina, what are you saying?”
“I’m not sure.” She fidgeted. “But maybe…someone else was in the house.”
Britt slumped. “What? A burglar? Paul’s got a Fort Knox– style alarm system in this place. Jess told me.”
Cristina’s thoughts seemed to drip. “Not necessarily a burglar, but…Yesterday I met the priest who used to look after this house—Father Rollin. He told me squatters would sometimes sneak into the house at night.”
Britt looked as though her brandy had soured. “Squatters?”
“Homeless people, addicts.”
“Street crazies, huh? You’re nuts.”
Cristina struggled to voice the rest of her fear. “I keep seeing these homeless women mulling around the area.”
“They mull around every area in the city, Cristina.”
“Yeah, I know, but there’s more. Yesterday I was in a store and I saw some of them, these homeless girls. And one of them shoplifted some stuff. Guess what they shoplifted?”
Britt set the rest of her drink aside, wearied. “What?”
“Magic markers.”
“I’ll say it again. You’re nuts—”
“Why?” Cristina whined back. “It’s pretty uncanny, isn’t it?”
“Homeless women break into your basement just so they can draw on you with magic markers? Listen to yourself!”
“Then how do you explain it?”
“I already have,” Britt snapped. “You got loaded last night and pulled a moronic move. Alcohol does that to people, especially people who don’t have much tolerance. Christ, one time in college I got so hammered on tequila at a sorority party that I threw up on a whole couch full of people—”
“Yuck…”
“In fact, I drank so much that I was still drunk the rest of the next day. You’re probably suffering borderline alcohol poisoning.” Britt stood up, glaring. “Now stop with all this dumb talk—it makes you sound ridiculous. I have to go.”
Cristina wilted. She could tell Britt had reached her limit. I can’t do this to her; I have to be more stable than this. She’s got to listen to women’s problems all day long at her job—and those are women with REAL problems. An extra headache from me is the last thing she needs. Cristina caught Britt at the door, and hugged her. “I’m sorry. You’re right, I’m just overreacting.”
Britt’s forgiveness was plain when her frown turned to a smile. “You’re a nut, Cristina, but you’re my nut.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you. Sometimes I feel so weak and scared.”
“But each day you’re getting stronger…just like me. You’ve probably still got a bunch of booze in your bloodstream so just sleep the rest of it off, then go for a walk and get some fresh air. You’ll feel a hundred times better tomorrow and you’ll be laughing at yourself. I have to go now, so…just do as I say, all right?”
Cristina nodded. “ ’Bye.”
She looked out the window and saw Britt shaking her head as she got in her car. I really am a pain in the ass.
When Britt raced off in the white Mercedes, a movement caught Cristina’s eye. It was so sudden and slight that at first she didn’t even know where it came from, but then…
Now that Britt’s car was gone, Cristina saw two homeless females sitting beneath one of the windows in the church. It looked like they were sucking the contents from ketchup packets. After a few moments, they got up and began to walk away.
One of them looked right over at the window from which Cristina peered, and smiled.
(II)
“Gemser?” Laura Eastman asked. Her Detex clock swayed like a cumbersome purse when she turned toward her departing coworker. They’d both worked for the security company that had the contract for this closed-down Banana Republic. The twelve-hour shifts were a hassle, and they only let you work three of them per week so you wouldn’t qualify as full-time; that way, the company didn’t have to offer a group health plan. But the work was easy and that suited Laura just fine. Rounds every hour, punch a few key stations, and fill out an hourly report was about it. She liked all the walking (the building was four floors), which kept her lissome physique even more lissome. You got a race horse bod, Gemser had commented once, after which she’d ridden him like a horse. She knew she possessed a stunning kind of beauty, her dark complexion and part-European, part-Polynesian features gave her an exotic air and, somehow, those features coupled with the security uniform made her even more enticing. Just about every male guard in the company had put the make on her—even the married ones. Laura was the kind of girl who liked attention.
But now this.
“Yeah?” George Gemser asked bruskly. He’d been just about to go off-shift, without so much as a good-bye.
“What is wrong with you lately?” she snapped behind the security desk. “You’re acting real shitty to me all of a sudden.”
“Aside from you standing me up the other night, nothing’s wrong,” the large, bearded man informed.
Oh, so that’s it. “For shit’s sake, Gemser. Don’t be such a baby. I told you, I was sick.” But, lo, this was a lie. She hadn’t been sick at all; she’d been detained by a last-minute offer to dinner by an ad exec who drove a Porsche.
“I don’t play those games,” Gemser said. “Some girls like to jerk guys around but I’m not into that.”
“Oh, give me a break!”
“Hey, you do your thing, I’ll do mine. All I’m in this for is to do my job, get my paycheck, and go home. I’m not into all this hot-cold, teasy grab-ass stuff, one minute you want me the next minute you don’t. Not my thing. We see each other every day, we say hello, say good-bye, and that’s it.”
GodDAMN! Laura thought. Usually playing hard to get worked but it was backfiring here. You had to keep them humble, after all, otherwise they shit all over you. “That’s pretty damn harsh, isn’t it? I thought we had a little something going on, you know?”
“No,” Gemser corrected. “All we had ‘going on’ was ‘sport-fucking,’ to use your term.”
Well, it had been her line; meanwhile, Gemser was already heading for the front glass doors.
“Jesus, Gemser!” Laura suddenly shed a few surprise tears. “At least let’s talk!”
“We’ll just be friends,” the sturdy guard said but his eyes were unrelenting in their lack of forgiveness. “It makes it easier ’cos we do have to work together.”
Laura was beginning to do something she never did: yield. “Damn. I’m sorry, okay?” Her eyes fluttered. “I’ve always liked you.”
“Fine. See ya tomorrow.” He turned and walked out.
She ran out after him, ponytail flying. “Hey!”
He turned at the bus stop.
“You know, you can always come in an hour early, I mean, if you want to.” She winked at him.
Gemser offered the slightest smile, then hoppd on the bus.
At least I finally got a smile out of him. Time would tell. If he showed up an hour before her shift was over, then she’d know she still had a hook in. And I’ll make it worth his while, she vowed.
She locked the front doors behind her and officially began her shift.
Most of the first floor was the old display floor, empty save for bare metal garment racks. Much of her shift was spent locked inside, and she had Mace, a Mag-Lite, and a cell phone for emergencies, not that she’d ever had any. Four times a shift she had to make a foot patrol around the building’s exterior, to check the alley out back. A couple times she’d caught some homeless girls loitering back there but they always dispersed when she whipped out her phone. The building had been a department store for decades, then the Banana Republic for several years until a developer bought it. Upper West Side meant low-key—nothing ever happened. Laura got plenty of sleep between rounds.
Upstairs were storerooms and offices; Laura had to make a door-check every hour, and at the beginning of each shift had to enter each room and check its status. Easy but monotonous. She got tired of hearing her own footfalls on the tile flooring. Downstairs, behind the display floor, were more offices and the old loading dock whose door was chained shut. One of the rooms was an employee lounge and the couch was still in it. Laura had had some on-duty fun with Gemser more than once on said couch.
I hope he comes by …
Boxes lined the back wall, all empty. When Laura went to the punch-key, she accidentally bumped a stack, moving them several inches from their place.
Strange …
She pushed the boxes away, revealing a steel door. I’ve been working here all these months and never even knew this door was here. She tried the metal knob but found it locked.
Laura peered at the door. What the hell is behind there?
She strode back to the security desk and retrieved the account manual, flipped back to the site map and blueprints. The map detailing each foot patrol showed no evidence of another door existing in the old lounge, but the blueprints…
How do you like that?
The blueprints showed another room behind that door. BOILER ROOM - INACTIVE, it read.
She noted the discovery on her shift log, then strode back to the room, keys jingling. Must be leftover from the old department store, she supposed.
Laura tried every key on her ring but none of them would open the door.
(III)
“It’s abominable,” the woman told Vernon. Her name was Ms. Lancre, a fortysomething woman in a conservative knee skirt and a blouse that seemed the tiniest bit too tight to comfortably accommodate her bosom. Brown hair back in a bun, which added a severity to her face, or perhaps—Vernon considered—it was the sudden upset of her discovery. This was the first time in his career that Vernon had ever responded to a “church desecration,” which he supposed this was. Her churchly anachronism shattered when her cell phone rang. “Excuse me, gentlemen.”
“Of course,” Vernon said.
Her frumpish flat-soled shoes snapped as she stepped out the pointed doors.
“Is she a nun?” Slouch asked, eyeing her exit.
“I guess she’s just a teacher, or the headmistress or whatever.”
“Some rack, huh?”
“Shut up, Slouch.”
Vernon turned back to the scene, officially a Signal 40 on the code sheet: vandalism. He and Slouch now stood in the middle of the chapel supporting a Catholic girls school called The Sisters of the Heavenly Spring—so perhaps the woman was a nun after all.
“I didn’t even know this place was here,” Slouch mentioned.
“Me, either. I guess that means we’re apathetic cops.” He was looking at the chapel’s modest altar now, whose white cloth had been besmirched by magic marker: wavy streaks running up and down, black, green, and red.
“This is so fucked-up it’s almost funny,” Slouch said of the lines.
“We probably shouldn’t cuss here, but…you’re right.” He walked behind the altar to the tapestry that backed the great crucifix. The perpetrators, in the same marker colors, had crudely scrawled the words: ME ENAMOURER AD INFINITUM.
“It looks Latin,” Slouch observed.
“No duh.” Vernon wrote the words down in his notebook. “But if our girls are what we think they are, how could they know any Latin?”
“The bums? They all had childhoods, probably very traumatized childhoods, and some of ’em may have gone to church. Childhood impressions, you know? They say a lot of a kid’s religious background leaks out later in life, once the schizophrenia sets in. Now they’re crazy and they’re remembering stuff.”
Vernon shrugged.
“It’s a solid connection, though. The magic marker jive.” Slouch seemed delighted by the desecration, just as any atheist cop would be. It was a lead.
“Yeah, but it’s still shit—”
Slouch grinned. “We probably shouldn’t cuss here.”
“And it doesn’t matter how solid a connection we’ve got, Downtown will question the expense of having Technical Services come out here for a workup. So that’s why we’re not going to ask.”
“Why not?”
Vernon whispered, “Because we’ll be laughingstocks, ordering a latent crew and photographer to a minor case of vandalism. Way they see it, those costs should be doled out for the serious stuff.”
“Yeah, like the murder we had yesterday, and ten to one it was the same magic markers used on the fuckin’ junkie chick.” Slouch bit his lip at the expletive.
“We’ll do a little workup ourselves,” Vernon said, “then they won’t be calling us the Two Stooges at Headquarters.” His eyes turned critical. “You’re not very observant, are you?”
Slouch ground his teeth. “If there’s hot chicks around, sure. And you know, you can say what you want but I think the headmistress or what ever she is is hot.”
Vernon lifted the hem of the altar cloth up with the tip of his shoe.
“Well how do you like that?” Slouch said.
“Bag it and mark it.”
Recessed there lay one green magic marker. Slouch turned an evidence bag inside out over his hand and picked it up. “Sounds like Bouncing Betty’s coming back.”
Ms. Lancre’s footfalls grew louder as she re-approached. Her lips seemed pursed in a manner that denoted satisfaction. “An interesting phone call, Inspector.”
“Church business?” Vernon asked.
“Police business, I would think,” the woman said. She crossed her arms beneath her bosom. “That was the school’s secretary, letting me know that earlier today a Mr. Mills called the school to report a curious observation. You see, Mr. Mills’s ten-year-old daughter, Grace, is a student here.”
“Yes?” Vernon said, scribbling notes.
“Last night at shortly past nine, Mr. Mills was driving Grace home from the skating rink and their journey happened to lead them right past the school.”
“Yes, yes?” Vernon tried to hurry her along.
“And they both happened to notice several homeless women loitering in front of the school.”
Vernon and Slouch looked at each other.
“That could be very helpful. I’ll need Mr. Mills’s phone number, ma’am,” Vernon said.
“The secretary will be happy to oblige,” the woman said. “Mr. Mills and his daughter took note of this because it seemed uncharacteristic and a bit odd.”
“Um-hmm.”
“But that’s not all,” the woman continued as if unfolding a great puzzle. “You see, it wasn’t only these homeless women they saw loitering. They said they also saw a woman who appeared to be a nun.”
“A nun?” Vernon questioned. “So it could be someone connected with the school?”
“No, no, Inspector. For this nun, according to them, was dressed in the old pre-Vatican II habit and wimple, something most orders were allowed to dispense with a long time ago—since 1965 as a matter of fact. You simply don’t see it much these days, not in America, at any rate. Only the most austere orders still subscribe to the old dress codes. What I mean is it’s very unlikely that a nun dressed specifically in these sorts of raiments would be seen near the school, especially at such a late hour.”
It’s something, Vernon thought. Now if I only knew what to do with it. He frowned when he caught Slouch’s eye cast toward the woman’s bosom. “If you don’t mind my asking, ma’am…are you a nun?”
Her aquamarine eyes glittered. “I’m a Bride of Christ, yes. But if you’re inquiring as to my whereabouts at the time this other nun was seen, I was attending a blessing at the Cathedral last night—”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant. I was just curious. When I was a kid, we always addressed a nun as ‘Sister,’ yet you introduced yourself as ‘Miss.’”
“The old formalities are fading, sir,” she said. “In church, I’m Sister Mabille Lancre but at school I’m Miss. It’s considered less authoritarian, for the students, though I’m not sure what to think about the efficacy of such modern liberalizations. We simply do as the Holy Father bids. But I’m pleased to know that you’re a Catholic, Inspector.”
How’d I get into this? Vernon wondered. “Well, to be honest I was raised that way but…”
She gave a knowing smile. “It’s easy to lose sight of God in this wicked age; however, once you start looking again, the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven will be back in your hands.”
Jesus. Slouch was grinning at him over the woman’s shoulder. Get back to business …“Who was the first person to discover the break-in, ma’am?”
“The janitor. If you’d like to speak with him, just ask the secretary.” She looked back at the denigrated altar linens. “Regrettably, the school’s chancellor, Father Bosch, has not yet been notified. He’s out of town. He’ll be repulsed when he hears of this offense.”
Vernon tilted his head. “I’m not belittling what happened here, Ms. Lancre, but it’s really not that serious. Just some light vandalism and one pried-open window.”
“A crack gang would’ve torn the place apart,” Slouch commented.
Ms. Lancre looked slapped in the face. “Not that serious? Really, Inspector, and with you raised in the Faith.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am but I’m not sure what you—”
“Something much more grievous than mere vandalism has occurred here, sir.”
“Really?”
She looked at him, yes, like a nun scolding him in school. “You’re not very observant, are you?”
Slouch silently hee-hawed at him behind her back.
“Come here!” She led them to the other side of the altar. On the floor lay several pieces of—
“Wax paper?” Slouch guessed.
“Not quite,” she said, effusing sarcasm, “but I’m sure Inspector Vernon knows, being the stalwart Catholic that he is, hmm?”
Vernon did know what the papers were; he remembered from when he was an altar boy. “The wrapping from the rolls of Communion wafers, right?”
“For the Host, yes,” the woman explained as if sickened. “And seeing that the wraps are empty we can only come to the most repugnant conclusion…”
“The homeless girls ate the wafers?” Slouch assumed, confused. “Since you call that repugnant, I guess the wafers taste pretty bad, huh?”
“That’s not what she means, Slouch,” Vernon told him.
“Indeed not,” she snapped, “and please remember that they’re not merely wafers, Officer. They represent the Body of Christ.”
“Transubstantiation and all that,” Vernon said.
“Yes, the ultimate mystery of Faith. For the Host to be consumed beyond the act of Holy Communion is to represent the most appalling offense. They hadn’t yet been blessed, of course, but still, the very idea.”
“Of course,” Vernon tried to accommodate her, “but where there’s the Body of Christ, isn’t there also the Blood—in other words, the wine?”
“Most certainly.”
“If they consumed that, too, there’ll be some really good fingerprints on the bottle,” Vernon informed her.
She walked to the opposite side of the altar, to a wooden cabinet mounted to the wall. “But as you can see…” She opened the cabinet to reveal several unopened bottles of wine. “They haven’t been touched.”
Fuck, Vernon profaned, then felt a little guilty when the figure of Christ aloft seemed to frown at him. He bagged the empty wrappers. Iodine fuming, he thought impulsively. “Ma’am? And where are the wafers stored?”
She walked to an identical cabinet on the other side, began to reach for it, but—
“Don’t touch that,” Vernon commanded. He put another evidence bag over his hand and opened the cabinet. “Nothing left,” he said. “May I take this knob temporarily, Ms. Lancre?”
Slouch stepped up. “You have his stalwart Catholic promise that it’ll be returned after we tape it for prints.”
“By all means,” she said.
Vernon unscrewed the knob inside of the bag, then inverted it. Now, however, the woman stooped over, hands on knees. She seemed to be peering at something in the back of the cabinet.
“Ms. Lancre?”
“My great Lord. More despicable vandalism.”
Vernon took out a cheap penlight on his keys and shined it inside.
“What is that?” the woman asked. “It’s hardly Latin, like the other writing. It looks Slavic.”
The backing board at the rear of the cabinet was white foam-board, and on it, in the same alternating black, green, and red, the words appeared: TARA FLAESC WALLKYA.
“The hell is that?” Slouch asked.
Ms. Lancre stared at him, outraged.
“Sorry.”
Vernon transcribed the words in his notebook. “What ever it means, I’ll find out.”
“If it really means anything,” Slouch amended. “Homeless schizos like to write and talk in imaginary languages sometimes.”
This was true but…Not this time, Vernon felt. “I’ll be in touch, Ms. Lancre,” he said, his mind cluttered now. “I’ll have vehicular patrols stepped up in this area for the time being.”
“Thank you. Godspeed in catching these corrupted souls. I’d very much like to meet them once they’re apprehended.”
Vernon half-smiled. “To give them a tongue-lashing?”
“Of course not! To remind them that God forgives all.”
Vernon stalled. “Right. Good-bye.”
Slouch stole a last glance at the woman’s bosom, then followed Vernon toward the door.
“Oh, and Inspector?” she called back.
Vernon turned back. “Yes?”
“You’ll find God again, one day.” She smiled very thinly. “I feel certain.”
Vernon got a chill and left the chapel.
(IV)
Doke was the Man on the Scene, black and bad, and no shit for brains. He never touched his product. Never get high on your own supply ’cos if you do, you fuckin’ die. He knew the score. And just as fast as he could bust a move, he could bust a cap in a froggy junkie’s coconut. Business was business.
He was the main bagman on Broadway, from 79th to Columbus—or…at least he thought he was. He’d started out as a clocker at six, and had been dealing rock and black tar for five years, mostly rock. Twenty-three now, but he had the nose for the street like a player twice his age. He knew how to work the trash out there, he knew how to get someone to need his product, and he could always tell when someone was ready to tip.
He sold for the Kings. Z-Mob had been moving on their turf but so far, tough shit. The Kings knew how to take care of their gig; couple of times they’d caught Z-Men punks selling in the zone and these poor fuckers were found a week later in some cubed cars. Boo-yah, Doke thought, hitching up his baggie pants. I’m with the right crew, not these poo-put motherfuckers. He had $120 sneakers that blinked. Cool. Doke was a cliché and didn’t even know it.
Lotta dime-dealers and assholes said working West Side was a ball-buster ’cos so many people here were rich. “Ain’t no good crackheads Upper West Side, man,” a fence told him once and he’d pronounced crackheads as “crackhades.” “They all rich, man. They all pill junkies, man. Oxy, Vyky, that shit, man. They ain’t on the pipe or the needle. Don’t you know nothin’?” Shee-it, Doke thought, laughing. WHO don’t know nothing? He sold to a lot of rich white house wives, as a matter of fact, but of course, he’d sell to anyone. Fuckers coming right out of rehab gave Doke some quality satisfaction in employment. He was always there waiting with a free bag, get ’em right back on the Devil’s Dick. Kids were fun, too,’ cos he liked the idea—he liked the ideology. Tip ’em with a few free rocks and next thing they knew they were ripping off cash out of their rich parents’ wallets and selling shit in the house. They’d take the $80,000 Audi and sell it to a chop shop for five grand and just say some “bad man” stole it, then every penny of that five would wind up in Doke’s kick. Kids tipped the quickest, see, and the earlier you got the hook in ’em, the harder it was to get out and the more it cost the motherFUCKIN’ U.S. taxpayer in the long run. Fuck them, Doke thought, bopping. What they ever do for me? But the rich house wives were always the best. While Hubby’s busy with his job on fuckin’ Wall Street, his squeeze is chipping away at the checking account, lying about the bills, selling the jewelry, and next thing you know Hubby comes home from work one day to find out Junior’s college fund is bone-dry and his “high-class” wife has been a closet crackhead for the last two years. Doke nodded as he continued down the sunny street. Shit-yeah.
And Doke considered himself an equal opportunity drug dealer. He did not discriminate. Rich, poor, young, old, niggers, spics, kikes, white trash, whoever you are—I got what you need …
Worst customers, however, were longer-timers on their way to what they called Rock Bottom. Get it? Mostly chicks who’d been working the street ten or twenty years but by now they looked like such shit they couldn’t snag a john in a million years. Next stop? Homeless City. Lot of ’em were moving over this way ’cos—shit—try being homeless in a crack hood. You’d be dead in two minutes. They kill bums there, cut your throat just for the dirty clothes on your back. Doke had a couple packs of these girls who were sleeping in the closed buildings ’cos it was safer here. They were always a harder sell but if you roughed them up, sometimes you could motivate them. Then give ’em all a free toke on the pipe to remind ’em what they’re missing. They’d find ways to get money. It was never much but Doke’s point guy with the Kings? Dude named Archie. One time Archie told him this: “The smart businessman pursues all profit, large and small.” Straight up. Come on, Doke wasn’t some piece-of-shit player dealing on the street.
He was a businessman.
Cop gave him the eye as he was turning off 72nd, near where some guy he never heard of named Lennon got shot. Doke would’ve given him the eye back ’cept he was carrying so he just went on his way ’cos, thank God, it was a free country and a dude shouldn’t be shook down for walkin’ the street just ’cos he looked like a crack-dealing scumbag. I’ll fuckin’ SUE, and win! It happened all the time these days. I got my rights, motherfuckers. Then, a couple blocks later:
Well, well, well, well, well, he thought.
Up the street two familiar faces turned into an alley, a pair of the same homeless trash he was just thinking about. Haven’t seen those two in a while nows that I think about it. Thought they must’ve croaked by now. If they had, that would be fine with him,’ cos if you asked Doke, white hoes too beat to make crack money had no right to exist. But then he remembered what his main man Archie had said…
Doke picked up his pace.
“Yo! You two!” he called right after he stepped into a side alley. “Hold up!”
The two girls turned. Big eyes in drawn faces showed something like terror. When they turned again, Doke shouted with authority.
“Hold UP, I said. Don’t MAKE me have to run.”
They stopped, leaning against the alley wall.
Yeah, those two. He remembered them. The one that stuttered and he could never tell what color her hair was ’cos it was so dirty. Looked like she was wearing the same jeans he last saw her in over a month ago, but now she had a new T-shirt that said THE DAMNED on it, what ever the fuck that was. Doke had slapped her up a couple of times, not ’cos she ripped him off,’ cos…it was just fun slapping her up. She just LOOKS like she needs it. Other one was the one with pink glasses and missing a bunch of teeth. Shitty orange halter and blue jeans brown with dirt.
Doke loped up, giving them the Look. “Where you think you’re goin’, huh?”
“Home,” Glasses said.
“Home, shit. You ain’t got no home. Ain’t seen you two in a long time. Don’t you owe me for some Bits I slipped you?” he bullshitted.
“Nuh-nuh-no,” the stutterer said.
Doke paused. They still looked like shit but…not quite as shitty as last time. Like they gained some weight or something. “Yeah? Well, maybe I’m thinkin’ of someone else who ripped me off.” But now the stutterer was staring at him, half in fear and half in something Doke didn’t like. Like maybe…loathing? “What’choo eyeballin’, ho?”
“Wuh-wuh-we don’t smoke no more,” she huffed out with a great effort.
Doke laughed. “Only way either of ya don’t smoke no more is ’cos you’re too skanky to turn tricks. But I can tune ya both up right now, if ya got cash.”
The stutterer stiffened up again, “I-I-told you, we don’t do crack no more-no more-no more—”
“Be quiet!” Glasses blared, little boobs swaying in all the halter’s play.
“We ain’t got no money neither!” the stutterer added in a testy tone.
Doke didn’t like this. They were being rude, and no crackhead was rude to him. When he stepped right up to them, they moved back against the wall as if pressured by the distance between them.
“I’d kick both of your white-trash asses ’cept I’d get my shoes dirty.” He tipped up a Nike. “And just one of these shoes is worth more than both of ya and all them other little dirtbags ya’ll hang out with. No money, huh? Well I guess that means I gotta search ya, and I’m keepin’ everything I find.” And then he shoved the stutterer back hard against the bricks and rammed a hand down her pockets.
Fuck. “What’s this shit, cunt?” The only thing he found in her pockets was a can of anchovies.
Did Glasses smile ever so slightly? She actually took a step toward him. “We got some money, Doke, and we’ll crack it up some. We got enough for two rocks.”
“Francy!” the other one exclaimed, looking appalled. “We don’t do that shit no more! What would the New Mother say?”
Doke stared poker-faced. New Mother? Fuckin’ loonies …“Don’t know what you hoes are talkin’ ’bout and I don’t care. Two rocks is fifty bucks, same as always. Lay it on me.”
“It’s at home,” Glasses said.
Doke laughed. “I’m standin’ in it, ain’t I?”
“We live right down here in the old clothes store. There’s a hole. You have to come with us.”
“Francy!” Stutterer shrieked again. “She’ll kick us out of the convent-the convent-the convent, the—”
“Be quiet!” Glasses shoved the other one ahead of her, down the alley.
The convent? Doke loved the shit some of them said once their brains were gone. Man, this is a hoot.
He followed them down a relatively clear alley. Were they whispering? Glasses must be talkin’ the other one into it. She knows the score. Once a crackhead, always a crackhead, even when you ain’t got shit left. Their dirty flip-flops slapped ahead of him.
When they stopped, Glasses pushed a garbage can away from the brick wall of one of those fancy white clothes stores that had gone out of business. A long time ago it was a department store Doke thought his mother worked at, but he didn’t really remember her much. He knew his daddy turned into a hype and always thought that maybe he killed her. Doke didn’t care.
Behind the garbage can was a hole in the wall. “In here,” Glasses said, and then got on her hands and knees. The stutterer had already shimmied in before her, fast as a skink.
“You fuckin’ crazy? I ain’t goin’ in there,” Doke said.
She glared back. “Fine. Then don’t, then we’ll have to cop from the Z-Men. Only way you’re getting any money from us is by coming in here.”
“Bullshit—”
“I ain’t smokin’ crack on the street when it’s light outside!” And then before Doke could raise further shit, she shimmied into the hole.
Doke looked down. He didn’t like that remark about the Z-Men. And I’ll bet they been buyin’ from those motherfuckers all along …And what would he have to fear by going in? It was fucked-up, sure, but there was no way they had a guy or a pimp in there. Maybe I’ll just jack both the bitches out, take their green, and kill ’em, he considered. Doke had killed a few bums in his time. A man needed something to do when he got bored.
Fuck it. He got down on hands and knees.
He could barely get his shoulders in but after some fidgeting, he succeeded. His face seemed to constrict when he squeezed through the narrow passage. Bum piss, he knew. He’d smelled plenty of it in his time. As he inched through, each inhalation felt thick. But then what could he expect following two homeless crackheads into their crib? He squeezed through a larger hole, and when his hips passed the makeshift threshold, he knew he could see light.
Yeah, my time’s worth a lot more than havin’ to crawl into a shit hole for fifty bucks. I’m killin’ these hoes …
He had an ice pick strapped to his ankle for such occasions.
Once inside, Doke smirked and stood up. Several candles provided the weak, urine-yellow light that flickered on the bare-block walls. This was probably a boiler room or something a long time ago, but now only rubble, stacks of boxes and crates, and garbage characterized its stark features. A kerosene heater sat off to the side, next to boxes of candles and some packs of magic markers. Several ratty sleeping bags lay on the floor.
“Over here.” Glasses’s voice.
But Doke remained stalled in place. In one corner a mountain of trash sat piled, and several rats skittered like they owned the place. “Smells like piss in here,” he complained. “Shit’s stingin’ my eyes.”
“Oh, you get used to it,” came a squeaky voice he didn’t recognize but then he looked aside and saw a third girl sitting on a box. She appeared to be watching a television on the floor but the television was off.
“You bitches told me no one else was here.”
“That’s Sandrine,” Glasses excused. “She likes to watch TV.”
“The fuckin’ TV’s busted!”
Glasses giggled. “Yeah. But sometimes you can still see stuff.”
In fetid dark, the bum-chick called Sandrine enthused, “It’s true. Right now I’m watching the man on the stone slab. It’s like a show you see over and over again.”
Watching the man? Doke, frowning, walked over, unconsciously ducking his head beneath low pipes. Something crunched under his foot; then he frowned harder when he saw what it was: an anchovy can.
“Anchovies are easier to shoplift ’cos they’re smaller,” Glasses informed.
“Now the dog’s barking, too!” exclaimed Sandrine like a little kid even though she was probably thirty.
Glasses went behind her, to smile at the television screen.
Doke looked at the screen, too. It was dead, blank. Their brains are garbage. “I ain’t got time to fuck around in this piss-hole. Let’s see that money or else I’ll have to go ghetto on your asses.”
Glasses handed him fifty very dirty dollars.
Awright. Now what? Am I really gonna kill these kooks? Right now all Doke wanted to do was get out of this freaky place. The smart businessman pursues all profit, large and small, Archie’s voice etched at the back of his head. Just give ’em the crack, Doke figured. They’ll want more tomorrow.
He reached into his pocket…
“Oh,” Glasses said. “We don’t want any crack. We don’t smoke that shit anymore. We don’t do any drugs anymore.”
Doke stared.
Sandrine looked up from the dead TV. “We’ve been purged. The New Mother has sanka-fried us.”
“Sanctified,” Glasses corrected.
“We only-we only told you we’d cop some crack to lure you in-you in-you in-you—”
“Be quiet!”
It was the other one, the one that talked fucked-up. Doke wasn’t really nervous yet, but there was something a bit uneasy behind his rage. The stutterer had resurfaced from a back corner. She had something in her hand. Doke squinted.
A brick.
Doke blurred for a split second, and in the split second after that he had his ice pick in hand. “I’m fillin’ all you crazy bums fulla holes—”
“Salut,” another voice said.
Doke froze.
The voice sounded accented and…weird. Like someone talking through the wind.
“She’s here…”
Black knuckles turned white as Doke’s hand tightened around the pick’s handle. That voice he’d heard seemed to come from every direction of the squalid room, yet something he couldn’t begin to define commanded his gaze. He looked to the corner, behind the pile of garbage.
A woman stood there. He could see candlelight flickering up and down her nude body, and he could also see that she wasn’t any bum. She was all curves and enticing female lines. But…
Nude, yes, but there was something like a weird hood around her face…
Then the accented voice repeated what the bum-girl had said:
“Look.”
As Doke’s eyes widened, his vision dimmed to black, and it was in the all-pervading absence of light that he began to see things…
He saw his mother being pummeled by the fists of the man he presumed was his father. “Where’s my skag! Where’s my skag!” the man raged, arms full of needle marks, a candle burning on a table next to a spoon. The fists flew into a frenzy as his mother’s face was pounded open. “Ain’t worth SHIT!” Then the man collapsed her head with a rolling pin…
Doke hitched in a breath. “No…”
“Look.”
Another vision: soldiers from long ago slowly proceeding into a forest, the looks on the faces in the oval chain-mail hoods that of horror and revulsion. The forest seemed to extend without limit, yet between every tree stood a twenty-foot wooden pike on which a Turkish soldier with the invasion force of Mehmed II had been impaled. Some through their mouths, some through their rectums, some through their chests—there were thousands of them—and as Doke was forced to stare harder at the impossible image, he noticed that there were hundreds of women and old men impaled as well…
The blackness snapped away. Then—
Doke was back in the shitty room, staring at the nude woman in the corner. Her eyes seemed alight. She was grinning.
Two very thin, inch-long teeth could be seen in the grin.
“Now, my blessed sister.”
SMACK!
The stutterer brought the brick so hard against the side of Doke’s head that the retinal lining of one eye detached. Half his sight winked out as he collapsed to the dirt-lined floor. The throb of pain at his head had Doke convulsing.
Shadows hovered. Doke couldn’t move.
Hands pulled off his blinking shoes while greasy fingers first extracted the fifty dollars from his front pocket, then the five-hundred-dollar roll. His baggie full of crack was extracted as well, then tossed to the garbage pile. Doke could feel more than see his pants being pulled off.
He continued to mildly convulse from the preliminary effects of hematoma, yet those sociopathized brain cells continued to fire, continued to feel the pain thud like crashing waves. He thought he also felt a hand fiddle with his genitals.
The other bum-girl laughed. “It’s so little…”
Doke was too far gone to feel emasculated, and too far gone to do essentially anything except lie there and shudder as blood and spinal fluid gently leaked from his fractured skull.
“Enough merriment, sisters.” The accented voice. Did Doke sense the nude woman closer now, leaning over him? Her voice seemed to ooze along with his blood.
“Let us pay homage now, to our great and generous defender.”
The girls rose and stepped away. But two of them moved up, each grabbing an ankle. They stepped apart, to spread Doke’s legs.
The oozing voice smeared across Doke’s mind…
Doke’s good eye blinked. He could see a fourth girl now, one with short black hair covered with bald patches, walking around.
In one hand she held a hammer, in the other a long, sharpened pole.