The gal opens her eyes.
He winks at her.
She smiles.
And the sideburns guy says, “That means a lot right now. I love you, too.”
He hangs up, and he pulls the gal’s face into his.
And Nash takes the ten off the bar and stuffs it into his pocket. He says, “Nope. I didn’t hear anything.”
The gal, her feet slip off the bar rail, and she laughs. She steps back up and says, “Was that her?”
And the sideburns guy says, “No.”
And without me trying, it happens. Me just looking at the sideburns guy, the song flits through my head. The song, my voice in the shower, the voice of doom, it echoes inside me. As fast as a reflex. As fast as a sneeze, it happens.
Nash, his breath is nothing but onions, he says, “It sounds kind of funny, you asking that.” He puts his stirring finger into his mouth.
And the gal down the bar says, “Marty?”
And the sideburns guy leaning against the bar slides to the floor.
Nash turns to look.
The gal’s kneeling next to the guy on the floor, her hands spread open just above, but not quite touching, his pin-striped lapels, and she says, “Marty?” Her fingernails are painted sparkling purple. Her purple lipstick is smeared all around the guy’s mouth.
And maybe the guy’s really sick. Maybe he’s choked on a cherry. Maybe I didn’t just make another kill.
The gal looks up at Nash and me, her face glossy with tears, and says, “Does one of you know CPR?”
Nash puts his fingers back in the onion dip, and I step over the body, past the gal, pulling on my coat, headed for the door.
Chapter 13
Back in the newsroom, Wilson from the International desk wants to know if I’ve seen Henderson today. Baker from the Books desk says Henderson didn’t call in sick, and he doesn’t answer his phone at home. Oliphant from the Special Features desk says, “Streator, you seen this?”
He hands me a tear sheet, an ad that says:
Attention Patrons of the French Salon
It says: “Have you experienced severe bleeding and scarring as a result of recent facials?”
The phone number is one I haven’t seen before, and when I dial, a woman answers: “Doogan, Diller and Dunne, Attorneys-at-Law,” she says.
And I hang up.
Oliphant stands by my desk and says, “While you’re here, say something nice about Duncan.” They’re putting together a feature, he says, a tribute to Duncan, a nice portrait and a summary of his career, and they need people to think up good quotes. Somebody in Art is using the photo from Duncan’s employee badge to paint the portrait. “Only smiling,” Oliphant says. “Smiling and more like a human being.”
Before that, walking from the bar on Third, back to work, I counted my steps. To keep my mind busy, I counted 276 steps until a guy wearing a black leather trench coat shoves past me at a street corner, saying, “Wake up, asshole. The sign says, ‘Walk.’”
Hitting me as sudden as a yawn, me glaring at the guy’s black leather back, the culling song loops through my head.
Still crossing the street, the guy in the trench coat lifts his foot to step over the far curb, but doesn’t clear it. His toe kicks into the curb halfway up, and he pitches forward onto the sidewalk, flat on his forehead. It’s the sound of dropping an egg on the kitchen floor, only a really big, big egg full of blood and brains. His arms lie straight down at his sides. The toes of his black wing tips hang off the curb a little, over the gutter.
I step past him, counting 277, counting 278, counting 279 . . .
A block from the newspaper, a sawhorse barricade blocks the sidewalk. A police officer in a blue uniform stands on the other side shaking his head. “You have to go back and cross the street. This sidewalk’s closed.” He says, “They’re shooting a movie up the block.”
Hitting me as fast as a cramp, me scowling at his badge, the eight lines of the song run through my mind.
The officer’s eyes roll up until only the whites show. One gloved hand gets halfway to his chest, and his knees fold. His chin comes down on the top edge of the barricade so hard you can hear his teeth click together. Something pink flies out. It’s the tip of his tongue.
Counting 345, counting 346, counting 347, I haul one leg then the other over the barricade and keep walking.
A woman with a walkie-talkie in one hand steps into my path, one arm straight out in front of her, her hand reaching to stop me. The moment before her hand should grab my arm, her eyes roll over and her lips drop open. A thread of drool slips out one corner of her slack mouth, and she falls through my path, her walkie-talkie saying, “Jeanie? Jean? Stand by.”
The last words of the culling song trail through my head.
Counting 359, counting 360, counting 361, I keep walking as people rush past me in the other direction. A woman with a light meter hanging on a cord around her neck says, “Did somebody call an ambulance?”
People dressed in rags, wearing thick makeup and drinking water out of little blue-glass bottles, they stand in front of shopping carts piled with trash under big lights and reflectors, stretching their necks to see where I’ve been. The curb is lined with big trailers and motor homes with the smell of diesel generators running in between them. Paper cups half full of coffee are sitting everywhere.
Counting 378, counting 379, counting 380, I step over the barricade on the far side and keep walking. It takes 412 steps to get to the newsroom. In the elevator, on the way up, there’s already too many people crowded in. On the fifth floor, another man tries to shoulder his way into the car.
Sudden as breaking a sweat, me squeezed against the back of the elevator, my mind spits out the culling song so hard my lips move with each word.
The man looks at us all, and seems to step back in slow motion. Before we see him hit the floor, the doors are closed and we’re going up.
In the newsroom, Henderson is missing. Oliphant comes over while I’m dialing my phone. He tells me about the tribute to Duncan. Asks for quotes. He shows me the ad on the tear sheet. The ad about the French Salon, the bleeding facials. Oliphant asks where my next installment is on the crib death series.
The phone in my hand, I’m counting 435, counting 436, counting 437 . . .
To him, I say to just not piss me off.
A woman’s voice on the phone says, “Helen Boyle Realty. May I help you?”
And Oliphant says, “Have you tried counting to 10?”
The details about Oliphant are he’s fat, and his hands sweated brown handprints on the tear sheet he shows me. His computer password is “password.”
And I say, I passed 10 a long time ago.
And the voice on the phone says, “Hello?”
With my hand over the phone, I tell Oliphant there must be a virus going around. That’s probably why Henderson’s gone. I’m going home, but I promise to file my story from there.
Oliphant mouths the words Four o’clock deadline, and he taps the face of his wristwatch.
And into the phone, I ask, is Helen Hoover Boyle in the office? I say, my name’s Streator, and I need to see her right away.
I’m counting 489, counting 490, counting 491 . . .
The voice says, “Will she know what this is regarding?”
Yeah, I say, but she’ll pretend she doesn’t.
I say, she needs to stop me before I kill again.
And Oliphant backs away a couple steps before he breaks eye contact and heads toward Special Features. I’m counting 542, counting 543 . . .
On my way to the real estate office, I ask the cab to wait in front of my apartment building while I run upstairs.
The brown stain on my ceiling is bigger. It’s maybe as big around as a tire, only now the stain has arms and legs.
Back in the cab, I try to buckle my seat belt, but it’s adjusted too small. It cuts into me, my gut riding on top of it, and I hear Helen Hoover Boyle saying, “Middle-aged. Five-ten, maybe one hundred s
eventy pounds. Caucasian. Brown, green.” I see her under her bubble of pink hair, winking at me.
I tell the driver the address for the real estate office, and I tell him that he can drive as fast as he wants, but just not to piss me off.
The details about the cab are it stinks. The seat is black and sticky. It’s a cab.
I say, I have a little problem with anger.
The driver looks at me in his rearview mirror and says, “You should maybe get some anger management classes.”
And I’m counting 578, counting 579, counting 580 . . .
Chapter 14
According to Architectural Digest, big mansions surrounded by vast estate gardens and thoroughbred horse farms are really good places to live. According to Town & Country, strands of fat pearls are lustrous. According to Travel & Leisure, a private yacht anchored in the sunny Mediterranean is relaxing.
In the waiting room of the Helen Boyle Real Estate Agency, this is what passes as a big news flash. A real scoop.
On the coffee table, there’s copies of all these high-end magazines. There’s a humpbacked Chesterfield couch upholstered in striped pink silk. The sofa table behind it has long lion legs, their claws gripping glass balls. You have to wonder how much of this furniture came here stripped of its hardware, its drawer pulls and metal details. Sold as junk, it came here and Helen Hoover Boyle put it back together.
A young woman, half my age, sits behind a carved Louis XIV desk, staring at a clock radio on the desk. Her desk plate says, Mona Sabbat. Next to the clock radio is a police scanner crackling with static.
On the clock radio, an older woman is yelling at a younger woman. It seems the younger woman has gotten pregnant out of wedlock so the older woman is calling her a slut and a whore. A stupid whore, the older woman says, since the slut spread her legs without even getting paid.
The woman at the desk, this Mona person, turns off the police scanner and says, “I hope you don’t mind. I love this show.”
These media-holics. These quiet-ophobics.
On the clock radio, the older woman tells the slut to give her baby up for adoption unless she wants to ruin its future. She tells the slut to grow up and finish her degree in microbiology, then get married, but not have any more sex until then.
Mona Sabbat takes a brown paper bag from under the desk and takes out something wrapped in foil. She picks the foil open at one end and you can smell garlic and marigolds.
On the clock radio, the pregnant slut just cries and cries.
Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can hurt like hell.
According to an article in Town & Country, beautifully handwritten personal correspondence on luxurious stationery is once again very in, in, in. In a copy of Estate magazine, there’s an advertisement that says:
Attention Patrons of the Bridle Mountain Riding and Polo Club
It says: “Have you contracted a parasitic skin infection from a mount?”
The phone number is one I haven’t seen before.
The radio woman tells the slut to stop crying.
Here’s Big Brother, singing and dancing, force-feeding you so your mind never gets hungry enough to think.
Mona Sabbat puts both elbows on her desk, and cradles her lunch in her hands, leaning close to the radio. The phone rings, and she answers it, saying, “Helen Boyle Realty. The Right Home Every Time.” She says, “Sorry, Oyster, Dr. Sara’s on.” She says, “I’ll see you at the ritual.”
The radio woman calls the crying slut a bitch.
The cover of First Class magazine says: “Sable, the Justifiable Homicide.”
And fast as a hiccup, me only half listening to the radio, me half reading, the culling song goes through my head.
From the clock radio, all you can hear is the slut sobbing and sobbing.
Instead of the older woman, there’s silence. Sweet, golden silence. Too perfect to be anyone left alive.
The slut draws a long breath and asks, “Dr. Sara?” She says, “Dr. Sara, are you still there?”
And a deep voice comes on, saying the Dr. Sara Lowenstein Show is temporarily experiencing some technical difficulties. The deep voice apologizes. A moment later, dance music starts up.
The cover of Manor-Born magazine says: “Diamonds Go Casual!”
I put my face in my hands and groan.
The Mona person peels the foil back from her lunch and takes another bite. She turns off the radio and says, “Bummer.”
On the backs of her hands, rusty brown henna designs trail down her fingers, her fingers and thumbs lumpy with silver rings. A lot of silver chains loop around her neck and disappear into her orange dress. On her chest, the crinkled orange fabric of her dress is bumpy from all the pendants hanging underneath. Her hair is a thousand coils and dreadlocks of red and black pinned up over silver filigree earrings. Her eyes look amber. Her fingernails, black.
I ask if she’s worked here long.
“You mean,” she says, “in earth time?” And she takes a paperback from a drawer in her desk. She uncaps a bright yellow highlighter and opens the book.
I ask if Mrs. Boyle ever talks about poetry.
And Mona says, “You mean Helen?”
Yeah, does she ever recite poetry? In her office, does she ever call people on the phone and read any poems to them?
“Don’t get me wrong,” Mona says, “but Mrs. Boyle’s way too much into the money side of everything. You know?”
I have to start counting 1, counting 2 . . .
“It’s like this,” she says. “When traffic’s bad, Mrs. Boyle makes me drive home with her—just so’s she can use the car-pool lane. Then I have to take three buses to get home myself. You know?”
I’m counting 4, counting 5 . . .
She says, “One time, we had this great sharing about the power of crystal. It’s like we were finally connecting on some level, only it turns out we were talking about two totally different realities.”
Then I’m on my feet. Unfolding a sheet of paper from my back pocket, I show her the poem and ask if it looks familiar.
Highlighted in the book on her desk, it says: Magic is the tuning of needed energy for natural change.
Her amber eyes move back and forth in front of the poem. Just above the orange neckline of her dress, above her right collarbone, she has tattooed three tiny black stars. She’s sitting cross-legged in her swivel chair. Her feet are bare and dirty, with silver rings around each big toe.
“I know what this is,” she says, and her hand comes up.
Before her fingers close around it, I fold the paper and tuck it into my back pocket.
Her hand still in the air, she points an index finger at me and says, “I’ve heard of those. It’s a culling spell, right?”
Highlighted in the book on her desk, it says: The ultimate product of death is invoking rebirth.
Across the polished cherry top of the desk is a long deep gouge.
I ask, what can she tell me about culling spells?
“All the literature mentions them,” she says, and shrugs, “but they’re supposed to be lost.” She holds her hand out palm-up and says, “Let me see again.”
And I say, how do they work?
And she wiggles her fingers.
And I shake my head no. I ask, how come it kills other people, but not the person who says it?
And tilting her head to one side a little, Mona says, “Why doesn’t a gun kill the person who pulls the trigger? It’s the same principle.” She lifts both arms above her head and stretches, twisting her hands toward the ceiling. She says, “This doesn’t work like a recipe in a cookbook. You can’t dissect this with some electron microscope.”
Her dress is sleeveless, and the hair under her arms is just regular mousy brown.
So, I say, how can it work on somebody who doesn’t even hear the spell? I look at the radio. How can a spell work if you don’t even say it out loud?
Mona Sabbat sighs. She turns her open book facedown on the desk and
sticks the yellow highlighter behind one ear. She pulls open a desk drawer and takes out a pad and pencil, saying, “You don’t have a clue, do you?”
Writing on the pad, she says, “When I was Catholic, this is years ago, I could say a seven-second Hail Mary. I could say a nine-second Our Father. When you get as much penance as I did, you get fast.” She says, “When you get that fast, it’s not even words anymore, but it’s still a prayer.”
She says, “All a spell does is focus an intention.” She says this slow, word by word, and waits a beat. Her eyes on mine, she says, “If the practitioner’s intention is strong enough, the object of the spell will fall asleep, no matter where.”
The more emotion a person has bottled up, she says, the more powerful the spell. Mona Sabbat squints at me and says, “When was the last time you got laid?”
Almost two decades ago, but I do not tell her that.
“My guess,” she says, “is you’re a powder keg of something. Rage. Sorrow. Something.” She stops writing, and flips through her highlighted book. Stopping at a page, she reads for a moment, then she flips to another page. “A well-balanced person,” she says, “a functioning person, would have to read the song out loud to make someone fall asleep.”
Still reading, she frowns and says, “Until you deal with your real personal issues, you’ll never be able to control yourself.”
I ask if her book says all that.
“Most of it’s from Dr. Sara,” she says.
And I say how the culling song does more than put people to sleep.
“How do you mean?” she says.
I mean they die. I say, are you sure you’ve never seen Helen Boyle with a book called Poems and Rhymes from Around the World?
Mona Sabbat’s open hand drops to the desk and picks up her lunch wrapped in foil. She takes a bite, staring at the clock radio. She says, “Just now, on the radio,” Mona says, “did you just do that?”
I nod.
“You just forced Dr. Sara to reincarnate?” she says.
I ask if she can just call Helen Hoover Boyle on her cell phone, and maybe I could talk to her.