Of course.
But what was the connection to the second story? That awful business with the teeth…
“Darcy, I want you to look at the second message.”
“I already did.” He held it in his hands. “ ‘In the multiplied objects of the external world I had no thoughts but for the teeth.’ ”
“Do you recognize that quote? Is it from-”
He was already turning the pages. Less than thirty seconds later he found it. In a short story I’d never heard of, titled “Berenice.” I flipped to the end.
… there rolled out some instruments of dental surgery, intermingled with thirty-two small, white, and ivory-looking substances that were scattered to and fro about the floor.
The story was about some maniac pulling out a woman’s teeth. And letting her bleed to death.
“I told you he had a prodigious memory,” O’Bannon said. “Eidetic. Not only can he recite back word for word something he read years ago, he can tell you what page it was on.”
I’d heard of such things in school, but never actually encountered it. “And he reads a lot?”
“Constantly.”
“That’s… an amazing gift.”
“Yeah. With virtually no practical application. Or so I thought.” O’Bannon frowned.
I held the book up. “I read a little Poe in college. Kind of liked it, as I recall. But I didn’t see the pattern.”
“And now you do?”
“I’m beginning to. Thanks to your son.” I patted Darcy on the shoulder. He immediately reacted to the touch of my hand. It was sort of like he was wriggling away and sort of like he was snuggling against it. “I hope you’re not one of those collector types who won’t lend reading materials.”
O’Bannon shook his head. “It’s just a book.”
I hope he agreed that this interview was over. Because I had some real work to do now and I wanted to get to it. The book was more than a thousand pages long, for God’s sake. It would take me hours to get through it, to see what other clues might be in there. I needed to reexamine everything in light of this new lead. And then…
And then I got an idea. “Is the first crime scene still restricted?”
“Sure. We’ve got men posted.”
“Good. I want to go back out there tomorrow morning.”
“Okay.”
“Would it be all right if I bring Darcy?”
Darcy’s eyes lit.
O’Bannon’s didn’t. “Are you out of your mind? What for?”
“He might be useful. He sure as hell was tonight. There might be more Poe clues lying about. Stuff only he would spot.”
“Susan.” He sidled closer to me and lowered his voice. “Darcy may look like a man, but inside, he’s a little boy. You saw him with that spider. What’s he going to do at a crime scene?”
“The body has been removed.”
“But still-”
I hated this business of talking about Darcy as if he weren’t present, when he was standing barely two feet away. But I had a strong feeling that I was right about this. I couldn’t even explain why, not coherently. But when you’re Empathy Girl, you learn to trust your instincts. “You said you wished he could learn to do something productive. Hold a real job. So humor me here. Maybe you’ve got a budding detective on your hands.”
“Susan…”
“As I recall, Sherlock Holmes was pretty odd himself.”
“Susan!” I was not prepared for his anger. “You’ve known Darcy for what? Ten minutes? I’ve been living with him for twenty-six years.” His voice dropped. “There’s no way in hell he could cut it as a cop.”
“I’m not asking you to give him a badge. Just let him tag along. Humor me.”
Darcy jumped in. “C-C-C-Can I go, Dad? I would like, would you, I could, I could be good. Can I go with that one?”
He gave me a long look. “Don’t make me regret bringing you in on this case, Pulaski.”
“I won’t. Darcy-pick you up at nine in the morning.” I winked. “Don’t be late.”
See I knew I could help I knew I could help if only he would let me but he wouldn’t but the girl did and the girl’s name is Susan I heard that was her name and she was nice to me just like she was before. There was a girl at the clinic who was nice to me like that and she was pretty too but not as pretty as Susan and she told me to read one of her music books so whenever she forgot the words I could tell her and she was nice but I think maybe Susan is nicer and smells better. She has something funny about the way she smells but it’s not so bad I remember people’s smells and everyone has a smell if you smell hard enough. I’m glad I could remember those stories like I did and my dad didn’t he read the stories too but he forgot and I remembered.
You shouldn’t be reading those horrible stories. You should be reading a nice book like
The Hardy Boys
or
Two Years Before the Mast. Susan says I could go see where they found this lady’s body and I don’t like killing I think it’s mean to hurt things but if I go with her it would almost be like I’m a policeman and I know that would make my dad happy even though he pretends like he doesn’t care whether I’m a policeman but he does. I hope it’s not too gross. I don’t like gross. I would never hurt anyone, no matter what.
Mostly I want to go because I’ll go with Susan. I like Susan. Susan is pretty even though she has a cigarette burn on the back of her right pant leg and she bites her fingernails so much two of them have been bleeding. Susan is babies and sugary and I like the way she flips her hair back when she’s being funny even though I don’t understand the joke I can tell she’s being funny and she smiles at me and lets me sit next to her and I think she must like me and that’s good because I know I like her.
9
He felt such intense revulsion that it became difficult for him to breathe. He was physically ill. He knew his face was ashen, and he feared he might soon relinquish custody over his lunch. It was so disturbing, so depraved.
Certainly he had expected to be offended. But he had no idea how bad it could be. Sexual relations were a gift given us for the perpetuation of the species, not, he thought, a commodity to be bought and sold. But here, in this Haunted Palace of a sort Poe never imagined in his most fevered dream, it was all garishly on display, everywhere he turned. He had never seen so much unclothed flesh in his entire life-and it sickened him. Everything here sickened him.
From the start he had understood that his visit to Nighthawks was one of duty, not pleasure. Vegas sex clubs were notorious, and this one had a reputation worse than most. Its dark ambience, the decorative whips and chains, bespoke a debased sensibility with a strong sadomasochistic bent, inimical to all standards of decency. Not a place for the avatar of the prophet. To begin with, there was the music-which was not at all musical. How could this electronic rap dissonance be music, which by definition is a melody played in rhythm and in counterpoint to a harmony? Where was the melody in this hip-hop mishmash? It was just sound, mindless decibels, played blaringly, unbearably loudly. And the light was blinding-silver shards glittering all about him, reflecting off the mirrored walls and the discothèque balls on the ceiling. It was a grotesque de Sade bacchanalia, all justified by suggestions that indulgence and degenerate fantasy fulfillment were salubrious for the psyche. Well, he did gainsay it, as would any decent soul with an eye on Dream-Land.
“Good evening,” said the woman at the door, who was wearing a skintight black leather bodice exposing extraordinary mammarial engineering. “I am the mistress of pain.”
“Good evening to you, madam,” he replied in his most elegant southern accent.
She rammed a riding crop under his chin. “Your heart’s desire can be yours. All you need do is ask.”
“Most obliging.” He removed the crop and stepped inside. The décor reminded him of those hideous films of the 1960s purportedly based upon the prophet’s stories. Victorian furnishings, faux marble pillars, red curtains, padded sofas and love seats. A throne at each table, such as it was. Waiters dressed in silk Italianate tunics. He almost expected to see Vincent Price emerge from behind the drapes. But in fact, the most noteworthy figures inside were women, naked or all but. He didn’t object to nudity in and of itself. But it was never meant to be distorted and turned into a weapon, much less an industry. He was surrounded by unclad women, more than a hundred of them in bikinis, G-strings, negligees, all manner of exiguous attire. Some wearing nothing more than a few carefully cantilevered scarves. None of them much older than their teens. Undulating and thrusting and rubbing and pressing. Trying to excite the worst of passions. Parading their sex for the entertainment of the unworthy.
He staggered through the narrow corridors, his mouth dry, searching for a spot with an open seat and a modicum of oxygen. The music, the smoke, the cachinnation, and the Caligulan revelry all assaulted and oppressed him. Most of the rooms had stages upon which young women removed their clothes in time to the rhythm of that relentless music. He saw one stage-he couldn’t help but look-with an uncommonly limber woman spread across the floor, twisting and writhing like a snake, hands flat, breasts pressed against the stage, her thighs locked around the head of a middle-aged man in a blue leisure suit. In some of the smaller, more private alcoves, women performed one-on-one, straddling the men’s laps, rubbing themselves against their patron’s personal areas for his despoiled gratification.
He was tempted to run outside, retrieve the axe from his truck, and bring them all to account for their crimes against decency.
But that was not the plan. He pressed his hand against his forehead, forcing himself to maintain focus. He had a destiny to fulfill, and he would not shirk it.
He found an empty chair wedged between two young men in matching shirts, both in the throes of lap dances. He tried to make himself comfortable, but the girls on either side constantly poked him with their stiletto heels or other protuberances. They giggled, smiled, then returned to their business. Their
business.
A woman wearing a red lace teddy appeared before him. She had no concept of personal space-or perhaps she did-and stood so close to him that the tips of her fairly enormous and probably artificial breasts touched his face.
“You look as if you could use a friend.”
He tried not to stammer as he spoke. “We could all use a friend.”
“I’d like to be yours.” She had vivid red hair-not natural, he felt certain-parted in the center, and a mole strategically positioned just below her lower lip. He rather suspected that wasn’t natural, either. She appeared to be about twenty, which in this place made her a senior citizen. “Can we do business?”
“I’m looking for a girl.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“No, you don’t understand. I’m looking for a particular girl.”
Her smile faded a few notches. “Don’t be put off by the laugh lines, Skippy. I’ll rock your boat like it’s never been rocked before.”
“I’m sure, my dear, but-”
“Just give me a chance.” She pressed a knee into his lap and leaned closer. “I know what you want.”
“I don’t believe you do.”
“Trust me.” She squeezed.
“Stop that!” His voice came out much louder than he intended as he slapped her hand away. Fortunately, the music was so thumpingly loud that even his immediate neighbors did not notice. He took several deep, cleansing breaths, trying to regain his genteel demeanor. “Listen to me. I am looking for a specific girl who works here. Her name is Lenore.”
The redhead arched an eyebrow. “You like them young, don’t you?” She pulled away. “What else is new? Give me a minute, slick.”
He waited. While he did, the young man to his left apparently reached climax, shouting and bellowing and putting a very satisfied expression on the face of the purposeful titian-haired teenager who climbed off his lap. Money changed hands, a lot of it.
And then he saw Lenore. She was an Asian girl, as he’d known, but her hair was dyed blond. Or perhaps it was a wig? She was much smaller than her predecessor, and younger. Almost a child. Poe would’ve loved her. He thought he perhaps loved her himself, in his way.
“April said you wanted me?” she said with a ruby-red pout.
“She was correct.”
“Okay, so a table dance is two hundred, all right? You want anything more, we negotiate.”
He gazed at her, the impossibly rouged cheeks, excessive bee-sting lipstick, breasts like pomegranates. She was wearing a tight red bustier with dragons embroidered on each side. She was a lovely thing, delicate as a rose blossom.
He had been right. She was the offering. And the third would fulfill the prophecy.
“This may seem odd to you, dear,” he said, oozing gentility, “but all I want to do is talk.”
“You like to watch. That’s okay, I get it.”
“No, ma’am. Listen to me carefully. I want to talk. With you.”
“Believe it or not, mister, that’s about the only thing we’re not allowed to do here. They don’t want us wasting time with conversation. And they don’t want patrons getting hung up on a particular girl and starting some kind of trouble.”
“I can pay you. Well.”
She pursed her oh-so-red lips together. “I don’t know.”
“Please. I’ll make it worth your time.”
She considered a few more moments. “I wouldn’t do this if it hadn’t been such a shit of a night.” Her eyes scanned the room, checking for supervisors, then scrutinizing the numbered lights on a neon sign by the door that told her where vacancies existed. “Okay, look. I can get us a couch in a semiprivate room. But it’ll be three hundred to me. And you’ll have to tip the bouncer.”
“And we can talk?”
“You can do anything you want. I’ll be working. Come on.”
She led him through the madding crowd to an alcove farther down the main hallway. After he took care of the bouncer, Lenore gave him a gentle push onto a black upholstered couch. A moment later, a woman wearing a black dominatrix outfit appeared bearing a tray with two glasses of champagne.