Crime Spells Part 15

I rushed it to the local vet, but the dog died on Christmas morning.

On good adventures I save people and dogs. I couldn't save the dog, so I had a hunch I hadn't saved the person either in this one.

But that didn't stop me from trying some more.

I tracked down Julie and called her the day after Christmas with the hope of trying to convince her to change out the breast implants. She heard my voice and hung up.

I called a few friends I knew in Vegas who could be trusted to go talk to her. Both of them said she got rude and angry at them the moment they brought up the subject or my name.

Julie had made her decision, and by all the gambling G.o.ds, she was sticking with it.

Somehow, I had to convince her to change that decision.

I had to keep trying.

That's what superheroes did, usually against all odds and at some cost and danger to their own lives. And trying to convince any woman to change her mind always had danger involved.

So throwing all caution to the wind, I jumped on a plane and headed for Vegas.

She wouldn't see me and had me removed from the Circus Circus when I went up to her blackjack table and sat down. Even my Empathy Superpower couldn't cut through the anger, although it made the guard very nice and apologetic for escorting me to the door.

Since the direct approach hadn't worked, I headed out into the desert, to where I knew the Silicon Suckers had a pretty good-sized village. It was impossible to see unless you knew exactly what you were looking for, and I did. The entrance to this one was hidden right under a billboard beside the highway.

The entrance led to a huge underground cavern cut out of the sand and rock and filled with castlelike buildings. I was welcomed into their castles, as I knew I would be, since I had helped them recover one of Dr. Doubleday's mistakes.

The main leader of this band clicked at me in Silicon Sucker language, and I used what I called my Understand Most Anything Superpower to talk with him, asking him for more time to convince Julie to get their sacred dead off her chest.

He clicked that he would give me two full moons, or something that meant two months.

I thanked him, backed from his castle in a show of respect, and went back to Vegas.

I left the message on her answering machine that I had the money for the exchange, had contacted the best doctor in Vegas to do the job, and had prepaid for it. All she had to do was show up. I left the time and date and address of the doctor, the most famous and expensive in Vegas, hoping that might convince her to change her mind.

Nothing. She missed the appointment.

So I pulled some strings in the Casino G.o.ds area of the superhero world, and got the Blackjack G.o.d named Danny to talk to her pit boss at work.

That didn't work.

I talked to her friends, even called her mother, then I set up another appointment for her with the great doctor.

Again she missed it.

So one last time, with Danny, the G.o.d of Blackjack keeping the pit boss busy at another table, I went in to talk to her.

She was shuffling and didn't see me coming.

When I slid the doctor's business card with a third appointment written on it across the table toward her, she glanced up, the anger in her eyes almost knocking me back a step.

"Why are you insisting in meddling in my life?" she demanded, ignoring the stares from the older couple sitting at the table.

"Because you are in real danger," I said, using every convincing power I had in my superpower collection. With this much energy turned on at a poker table, I could have convinced a world cla.s.s player I had a pair of deuces instead of aces.

Julie, on the other hand, was a little tougher. She just glared at me, so I went on.

"I have enough money to help. You won't ever see me again, but please, just do this. It's paid for."

She stared at me as I radiated super levels of good will and empathy and convincing. My superhero powers were on full tilt right at that moment, and for a second I thought she was faltering a little.

"I'm being honest with you," I said. "Your life is in danger. Please just do it, either with this appointment or on your own. It's your life, I know, and your body, but I care about your life."

Then I turned and walked away.

There was nothing else I could do.

I got back on the plane and went home.

I finally heard three months later that they had found her body face down in the desert, as flat-chested as the day she had come into the world.

I think back and wonder at times what more I might have done to convince her I knew what I was talking about. More than likely nothing. She needed to believe I was still the loser she left for abusive husband h.e.l.l all those years before.

She needed to believe that those special b.r.e.a.s.t.s made her a better person. For her, a certain self-image was more important than life itself.

For me, Poker Boy, I have my hat, my leather coat, and my superpowers. What more could I want out of life?

Nothing, except maybe winning every time. But even the best superheroes have to lose once in a while. I learned that lesson on the poker tables and with Julie.

Still, you have to feel bad for a person like Julie, caught in a self-image nightmare. And besides, pulling those sacred suckers out of her a.s.s just had to have hurt.

Second Sight.

by Ilsa J. Bick.

I.

I'm not, she thinks, I'm not Lily.

Her brain folds like an accordion, because there's not-Lily, squeezing her consciousness against the bony vault of her skull.

I'm not Lily; I was, but now I'm not.

She's naked, legs scissoring spaghetti twists of off-white sheet. Her expensive dress Mother picked for her that evening, the scarlet one slit from her ankles to her thighs and a vee plunging to her navel, pools on the floor like hot, fresh blood.

(Mother? Her mother is dead. Cancer. When her father started up with someone else-twenty-two and Lily's only fifteen, and she might have to call that b.i.t.c.h Mom?) Her mind is very cold. The weatherman is forecasting snow by morning, and the mayor promised salt trucks and snow removal crews at the first flake. Yeah, and every guy in prison didn't do it. This is Was.h.i.+ngton, for Christ's sake. This is what Call-Me-Bob, the bald man with the big nose who's chosen her for this evening, says as the news winks on. Call-Me-Bob's breath is sharp as burned wood from Scotch, but he wants to watch the late news at the same time. He makes jokes. I like to watch, Eve. Even though Eve is not her name either.

And there is no Call-Me-Bob, not in this room, this bed where Lily lies.

Her skin p.r.i.c.kles with the memory of jungle heat, though the only jungles Lily has seen are concrete and tarry asphalt and rusted steel. The village Not-Lily remembers is like something out of a movie, populated with people who have almond eyes and wear straw hats.

But she-Lily-is hot just the same. A burning flush oozes across her skin like lava. With a small impatient movement, she kicks her feet free.

Just as Not-Lily did when she was very small: wanting to be free of the coa.r.s.e blanket yet scared to death of the monster beneath the bed; how Auntie, a black stinking ghost smelling of rancid flesh and fruity Special Muscle wine, chanted her muon to bring out the Rakshasas. The demons erupted from Auntie's skin to sit on her chest, and they held her legs and arms so a son of Yama-naked, flat-faced and very hairy-could nibble her toes with his yellow fangs and bite her neck and hurt her in places that still cause her shame. Yet, always, her toes somehow grew back, and Auntie invariably melted into the Daylight Woman everyone else knew at the first hint of dawn. No one believed her about the nights. Every morning at the well the other girls t.i.ttered behind their hands even as they stoppered their mouths because it paid to be careful. You never could tell if a stray Rakshasa still lingered and might ride in on your breath so that not even a kru khmae What? Who?

could help you.

A table lamp splashes a fan of yellow light, and a thin silver-blue wash pulses from the television, its screen of silver fuzz scritch-scratching silent hieroglyphs like the yantra What?

which only the monks on Ko Len know. The DVD player's red light winks like a lost firefly because Call-Me-Bob Mackie likes to watch.

No, it's Mackie who can't get enough of the d.a.m.n awful thing. It's Mackie.

There is enough light to see, or maybe she possesses some preternatural second sight, like a jungle cat for whom darkness does not matter and is, in fact, all to the better. Her eyes jerk over the ceiling of the hotel room. Tiny cracks fan the plaster, like the crackling glaze of a pottery vase, because the roof leaks and the way the manager figures it, the only people on their backs long enough to care are the girls. The johns aren't sh.e.l.ling out twenty-five bucks for the view, for Christ's sake.

Lying next to Lily/Not-Lily, Mackie sleeps, hugging the only pillow. Not Call-Me-Bob... and who is that?

Get up.

Gasping, she lurches upright, arms flailing, like a marionette whose puppeteer's been caught napping. Mackie mumbles, s.h.i.+fts, doesn't wake. The sheet pools at her waist. A scream b.a.l.l.s in her Not-Lily mouth. But Lily doesn't scream. Can't.

Up, get up.

In the half-light, she staggers to her feet, clawing at air. The room's so cold her nipples stand, and the floor's icy against her soles, and she-Lily-wants her fluffy pink rabbit slippers, the ones her mama bought along with a thick pink terry-cloth robe for her thirteenth birthday. Lily wants to go home, where she was someone's little girl once upon a time.

Not-Lily doesn't care. Not-Lily can't go home either. That they have in common. And there are other things.

She-Not-Lily-takes two minutes to make it to the bathroom. By then, however, her movements are more fluid, as if all Not-Lily needed was a little practice. Lily's mind screams, but her consciousness is like a spectator in the second balcony of a badly lit theatre, the stage faraway, the characters Lilliputian.

Pawing open the medicine chest, her fingers walk over bottles. Pills, lots of pills: Darvocet, Vicodin, OxyContin. And Mackie's works: two syringes, two halves of a Coca-Cola can, cotton b.a.l.l.s for straining heroin, a lighter because discards are way too easy for the cops to match up to a pack. Mackie's knife, the one he uses on the cans. For an old guy-has to be sixty, if he's a day-he really goes through this stuff. He explained it once: Spoons are probable cause, but c.o.ke, anyone can have a c.o.ke can, for Christ's sake, this is America.

Pills. Jesus, but Lily wants pills. Pills make things hazy, so she doesn't care so much.

Mother Who?

likes uppers. Feed a girl enough, she works for hours. And men will pay a lot of money for the young ones, especially the virgins. Virgins are good luck. They will cure a man of AIDS. Mother once knew a doctor in Poipet who could make virgins, over and over again. Doctors will do anything for enough money.

Not-Lily's fingers twitch, flex, grab the knife. The blade locks into place with that sweet, metallic snick.

She says his name three, four times before he rolls over. Mackie's fat, he's a pig. Too much beer and Thai takeout, and the grease they use in those spring rolls'll kill ya if the MSG don't. His belly jiggles like quick-silver in the light of the dead channel.

"What the fuh?" He scrubs eye grit with the b.a.l.l.s of his fists, an oddly childlike gesture. "What you want, b.i.t.c.h?"

"I'm not a b.i.t.c.h," she whispers, the Lily piece of her mind finally realizing what is coming next, and, G.o.d forgive her, she wants it. She's even happy because this is revenge, a sort of stand.

"But I'm not Lily." And she brings the knife down. "I'm not."

She doesn't know if, through his screams, he hears. Certainly, in a little while, he's past caring.

II.

I was dead asleep when my pager brrred at one A.M. Technically, I was supposed to be at the station for third s.h.i.+ft, but plenty of guys took calls from home. Not that I was home, mind you.

On these odd Fridays, I was sure my colleagues in homicide didn't know what to make of me. I can guarantee you that the Black Hats at the synagogue-in Fairfax, off Route 236-thought my presence among them pretty weird. Me, too. Most days, I didn't understand why I chose to study with the rabbi or occasionally come for a Sabbath meal and good conversation.

We'd met years ago on a murder I and Adam-my best friend, my partner-caught. Later, he'd tried to help Adam. Couldn't, and Adam died. I don't know if he thought he was helping me now.

Mostly, I was the student. I listened. I asked questions, very pointed ones, mostly about Kabbalist mysticism. The rabbi had interpreted a spell left at the scene of that case, so he knew his stuff. Not like Madonna-kitsch. Oh, sure, Kabbalah was magic, just as the mezuzah tacked to virtually every doorway in the rabbi's house was an amulet. But Judaism was pretty specific: Suffer not a witch to live. Exodus 22, verse 18.

But. That's different from saying magic doesn't exist.

And Judaism has its protective spells and amulets. Every letter of the Hebrew alphabet has magical connotations. Name-magic, some of it. Heck, even Solomon bound demons to build the First Temple.

So we talked. Sometimes, we drank bad coffee, but only if his secretary was in that day.

I crept downstairs, guided by nightlights. The lights were on timers, as was the oven, the compressor on the refrigerator. The refrigerator light bulb was unscrewed. How Orthodox Jews made do before the invention of the automatic coffeemaker, I'll never know.

Halfway down the stairs, though, I caught the unmistakable aroma of fresh coffee. Hunh. Turned the corner. "Rabbi, what are you doing?"

Dietterich shrugged. He was a bearish man, with a thick tangle of brown beard that was showing more threads of silver these days. In his black robe and slippers, he looked like someone's scruffy, huggable uncle.

"I had... a dream. Don't ask me what. Anyway, I couldn't sleep, and I heard you moving around, so..." Another shrug. "You'll need coffee."

"You turned on the coffeemaker. Isn't that forbidden?"

"Pikuach nefesh." Dietterich was a native New Yorker. Every time he opened his mouth, I thought Shea Stadium. " 'Neither shall you stand by the blood of your neighbor.' From Leviticus. To save a human life supersedes all other commands."

"Well, they usually call me when it's too late."

He handed me a travel mug. He did think ahead. "But when you catch a killer, he can't kill again, right? It evens out."

The coffee was hot and smooth going down. Clearly he hadn't taken lessons from his secretary. This was a bigger relief than you can imagine. "I suppose that's true."

"Think of this as an advance, a down payment. Save one life, it's as if you saved the world. Making coffee so you don't end up wrapped around a tree seems a no-brainer."

"What about the Guy Upstairs?" For the record, I wasn't sure where I stood on the G.o.d thing, but I can tell you this: I've seen what evil does, and I have no trouble bringing evil down. I'm not wrath of G.o.d about it. It's what I do.

"Hashem can take a joke." Dietterich hesitated, then said, "Jason, why do you come here? Don't misunderstand me. We're friends. But, in you, there is something missing. Here." His bunched fist touched his chest. "You're a detective, a seeker. You strive toward light where others see only darkness. But I still think you are a little bit like my hand here. You need to open, just a little." His fist relaxed. "Like opening a door to a second sight. You can't hold anything in your mind unless you open your heart."

I don't know how I felt. Not embarra.s.sed. More like I'd been filleted and gutted.

He read my face. "I'm sorry. I'm intruding."

"No. Don't apologize. A lot of the time I'm stumbling around in the shadows."