The Grimscribe's Puppets (36 page)

Jesus
. Smythe pushed himself up off the couch. As a rule, he was leery of psychoanalytic readings of a writer’s work, but in this case… He shook his head, deposited Linus’s manuscript on the work table. No doubt, the thing was publishable—the sensation value would probably move more copies of it than anything else Linus had written. But as a last book, a summation of his career, it cast a light over his body of work that was, to put it mildly, less than flattering. Perhaps there was something else, another collection of stories that might better serve as Linus’s final publication. He would have to ask Dominika about it when he saw her tonight, at Linus’s wake.

III

Smythe had expected Linus’s sendoff to be a somber affair, but he was unprepared for the full, depressing extent of it. For one thing, both the funeral parlor Dominika had selected and the neighborhood in which it was located had, to put it mildly, seen better days.
Which one of us hasn’t?
Smythe thought as he steered up the potholed street to the tall old house.
Especially Linus
. Aside from a wire garbage can whose side bore a long, jagged gouge, the curb before the funeral parlor was empty. Smythe parked his Metro directly in front of the place, and before he left the car, locked all its doors. He could not conceive of even the most desperate of criminals finding anything of value in or inside his vehicle, but the prospect of being proved wrong and having to walk the blocks to the nearest bus stop was sufficiently unpleasant for him to secure the car. A scrape on the pavement behind him jerked his head around. A scrap of newspaper was being hustled along the sidewalk by a breeze too slight for him to notice. There was nothing in the shape of the paper to remind him of a large, pale crab scuttling over the concrete. He hurried up wooden stairs that announced his climb in a series of dull booms, into the funeral parlor.

Inside, the air was clotted with yellow light that made the narrow hallway more, rather than less, difficult to distinguish. A podium whose carver had doubtless intended its sinuous leg as a vine, and not the tentacle it actually resembled, held aloft a marble composition book whose repurposing as a Book of Remembrance was announced by the spiky handwriting on its cover. Opening the book, Smythe was more surprised than he would have expected to find the first page empty. Perhaps the entries began further in…? No: the rest of the pages were equally blank. Granted, Linus had made his fair share of enemies, but surely, at a moment such as this, a flag of truce could be raised over old battlefields, the scars of old wounds covered over? Apparently not, if the pristine pages, the silent hallway, were to be believed. A surge of emotion that was equal parts pity and outrage rose in his throat. He seized the Bic lying beside the notebook and wrote his name in large, jagged letters that crossed a half-dozen of the page’s pale blue lines. Beside it, he wrote, “Into the Darkness, Fearlessly!” It was the phrase with which he had titled his laudatory review of Linus’s first collection of stories, and if it did not quite fit the manner of Linus’s death, Smythe intended it to evoke that earlier, happier time.

Spurred by indignation, he strode down the hall to the viewing room. A piece of paper with the word, “Prise,” magic-markered on it had been taped to the wall to the right of the doorway. Smythe paused at the threshold, confronted by one end of Linus’s coffin, which crowded most of the doorway. Its lid closed, the coffin was plain, unvarnished wood, no railing along its side for pallbearers to grip. A small, potted cactus rested on its opposite end. There was no point to the sour taste that filled Smythe’s mouth. Linus had been possessed of, at most, minimal resources; what he was looking at was what Linus’s bank account would cover. In fact, it was probably more than he would have expected Linus to afford. The cactus was a bit much, even if he could imagine Linus snorting at it. He squeezed around the coffin, noting as he did that there was no kneeler in front of it. Already, he had seen Dominika at the other end of the small room, seated in one of the folding chairs lining the back wall, something on the chairs to either side of her. He ran his hand over the coffin’s smooth surface, wishing he could think of a remark that didn’t reek of sentimentalism. He had attended the wakes of a number of writers, most of them figures he had grown up reading, met, and occasionally published at the ends of their careers. A few had been his contemporaries, the victims of accidents or aggressive cancers. Linus was the only writer—the only person—Smythe had known who had been murdered, and so horribly, at that. A weight seemed to pull down the center of his chest. He supposed he should speak to Dominika, offer his condolences, maybe discuss Linus’s manuscript with her. He turned towards her, and what he saw made him jump back into Linus’s coffin, which gave a muffled thud and rocked on its supports. On the chair to his widow’s left sat Linus’s head, resting on its truncated neck. The eyes were closed, the mouth was closed, the expression slack. Smythe struggled for breath. “You,” he managed. “You.”

Dominika laughed, that same, bray she’d visited upon him years ago, coarsened by the wine she’d consumed from the bottles open on the chair to her right. “Oh, Smythe,” she said. “You think—?” She nodded at Linus’s head. “This—?” More laughter. She rested her hand on top of Linus’s head in a gesture almost tender. “It’s a model,” she said in a stage whisper.

“Wha—a what?” Smythe said.

“A model,” Dominika said, “you know, like a mannequin. I had it made when the police could not find the real thing. Actually, it was after they looked and looked, and it was still missing. I waited to have the funeral, because I wanted to bury all of him, you know? Who wants to be buried without his head? But then the detective says to me, ‘I don’t know if we are going to find your late husband’s head.’ He thought the woman ran away with it. So, I decided not to wait, anymore. I went on the Internet, found a man who could do this, and here it is.” She slapped the head. “It was not cheap, either. Of course, the minute, the second after I hung up the phone with the man telling me the thing is done, who calls but the police? I couldn’t tell them I didn’t need their head, I had one of my own, so I decided this one would keep me company while I sit here. Linus would approve, I think.”

No doubt he would have; though I’m not so sure about your outfit
. Dominika’s clothes were mourning-black, but her high-necked blouse, short skirt, and thigh-high boots lent her the appearance of a dominatrix.
Scratch that—he would have loved it
. Smythe seated himself on the other side of the wine bottles. A scattering of plastic cups surrounded them. Smythe selected a cup. “Do you mind?”

Dominika waved the hand holding her own cup. “Go ahead.”

The bottle was tall, heavy, the label one Smythe did not recognize. A vineyard in Bulgaria, apparently. The liquid that poured out of it was thick, ruby bordering on black. Its nose was the grape of children’s fruit juice. Smythe raised his cup and said, “To Linus.” He waited for Dominika to join his toast; when she did not, he put his cup to his lips. The wine was cloyingly sweet, more like cough syrup than alcohol. Nonetheless, he served himself a second cup of it. If he was going to be sitting here with Dominika, he fancied he would need all the assistance he could get. After he consumed that cup, and set himself up with a third, he said, “Before, you mentioned the police. Has there been any more news—”

“Nothing.” Dominika shook her head. “The woman is gone, vanished.”

“I assume they told you—”

“Oh yes, I know everything. They were fucking, and this is what happened.”

“They were—what?” Smythe thought of Linus’s book, that final story.

“But Linus was Linus, and you know…”

“Wait—who said they were—the police told you this?”

“No,” Dominika said. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“Certainly not,” Smythe said. “Linus hated that woman. He detested her. He thought she was a fraud.”

“And such things don’t make sparks?” Dominika said. “What we detest, we also desire. I thought you would know that.”

Smythe ignored the implications of her axiom. Instead, he refilled his cup. “Linus was not involved with that woman.”

“He told you this?”

“He didn’t have to,” Smythe said. “I read the manuscript.”

Dominika frowned. “The manuscript?”

“The book—Linus’s book.”

“Ah. What did it say?”

“That he despised Suzanne Kowalczyk.”

“Which would have made the fucking better.”

“Linus was not having sex with her.”

“Why is this so upsetting to you?”

“Because it isn’t true,” Smythe said. “This isn’t some relationship gone horribly wrong. This is murder.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Dominika said. “It does not bother me to think that Linus was fucking another woman. Good for him, you know? Except when it wasn’t.”

“I’m not worried about you. I’m concerned with my friend.”

Dominika patted the head. “Your friend doesn’t need your concern.” She listed towards Smythe. “Actually, his cock wasn’t bad. I’m sure she enjoyed it.”

Was the bottle empty, already? Smythe hardly felt the effects of the wine at all. He replaced the empty, selected one mostly full.

Dominika continued. “That was why I turned you down all those years ago, my husband’s cock.”

Smythe’s cheeks flushed. “This is hardly the place—”

“Linus doesn’t care,” Dominika said. “He wouldn’t care if I fucked you right now. Would you?” she asked the head, whose features seemed to have taken on an appearance of distaste. “You see,” she said, “nothing.”

“I was wondering if I could speak to you about Linus’s book,” Smythe said.

“His book?”

“The manuscript—what was it?
A Grammar of Dread, A Catechism of Terror.
”

“What a title!” Dominika said, slapping her leg. “He was very good with titles.”

“He was. I’m not sure if you’ve read the collection—”

“None of it. I never read any of Linus’s things.”

“You never—”

Dominika shrugged. “Linus’s stories were difficult. He told me so, himself. He was proud of it. ‘Not just anyone can understand my stories:’ that was what he said. I said it was more like, ‘Not anyone can understand any of your stories.’ He didn’t think that was so funny. But come on! You read them. You know what I’m talking about. The long sentences. The strange words. The people in them no one could like. Sometimes, he would tell me his stories—that only made me glad I hadn’t read them.”

For an instant—less—Smythe was possessed by the absolute, unshakable conviction that the woman he was speaking with was not Dominika Price. She might be Suzanne Kowalczyk—no, she was someone else, altogether. Quickly as it had come, the feeling passed, and Smythe swallowed another (his eighth? ninth?) cup of wine. “Linus Price,” he said, “was a great writer.”

“So you say,” Dominika said. “Who knows? Maybe he was. But he was not a very good writer, I think.”

“What is your position, then, on publishing his final work? If,” Smythe added, “it is his final work.”

“How should I know?”

“Haven’t you gone through his things?”

“Why should I?”

“Because you’re his executor—executrix.” Smythe struggled with the word, his tongue suddenly full of the alcohol he’d consumed. “It’s your responsibility.”

“To whom?” Dominika said. “Linus is dead.”

“To posterity,” Smythe said, a still-trickier word. “To his readers.”

“What? Ten people? That was something else he used to say, when he was depressed: ‘I’m lucky if ten people buy my books.’”

“If you feel this way, then why did you give me his manuscript?”

“What manuscript?”

“The book, Linus’s last book.
A Grammar of Terror
—no,
A Grammar of Dread, A Catechism of Terror
.”

“I didn’t.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t?”

“What I said. I didn’t give you Linus’s book.”

“But I found it at my front door this morning.”

“So?”

“Did you give it to someone to give to me?”

“Smythe,” Dominika said, “I haven’t seen the fucking book, okay? Maybe Linus’s wife gave it to you.”

“His wife?”

“Her—the woman who killed him. Whatever.”

“She was hardly his Goddamned wife.”

“Yes, yes. It doesn’t matter. Whatever you want to do with Linus’s book, you do.”

Smythe choked down his anger. “Of course, I would ensure you received the proceeds from such a project.”

“With nothing for you?”

“I—”

“It’s okay,” Dominika said. “I don’t need this money. You can have it.”

“I wouldn’t—”

Dominika waved her free hand. “Shhh. We’ll drink to it.”

“All right,” Smythe said. He lifted the bottle from which he’d been serving himself, found it, too, empty. He set it down, chose a third. “To the beginning,” he said over his brimming cup, “of a beautiful friendship.”

“Don’t get crazy,” Dominika said.

“It’s—never mind.”

Another portion of the syrupy wine, and a wave of intoxication rolled over him, as if that last amount had tipped an internal scale, plunging him into a full drunk. His head seemed to rise above his body, which felt simultaneously hot, heavy, and hollow, as if he were no more than the suit and shirt he was wearing, held in place solely by its purpose. Linus’s coffin appeared mere feet away, the cactus at its head large as a bush. Smythe stretched out his right hand and slid his fingers over the coffin’s side. He turned his head to Dominika to remark on this—the room swaying lazily as he did—and saw that her neck had grown, carrying her head a good foot, two, past the edge of her high-necked blouse. Her lids were lowered, her lips parted. She had set her cup down, and was playing with the top button of her blouse with her left hand, while her right flopped in her lap.