“I don’t understand,” Flip said. “And this is why you kill twins?”
Nash hesitated.
Rocked back and forth.
Prayed.
For a moment, Flip was afraid the man might have stopped speaking for good. But then Nash coughed—as if clearing dust from his lungs—and spoke again.
“It has been a crooked, muddled path. I did not always understand why He needed me to do these things. See, I didn’t know that twins had stolen something. I just knew He made me hate them. But then. . . one day he showed me. Whispered it to me on the wind. He said I had proven trustworthy, so now he could tell me about the secret of the ramps. The ramps don’t know better, you see. They’re free and easy. They give their power away to anyone. But He. . . He was the first to discover them. Long before the Indians, or even the wanderers who muttered and fished here before the Indians. He was first. He haunts this place because He wants the power all for himself. He lives forever and can never die, but still, He wants. He wants to hoard the magic like a dragon wants to sit on gold. The ramps are such a powerful magic. You could use it to become mayor, or governor, or even President of the United States. To become a millionaire, sure, or the most famous man in the world. But it’s all stolen power. You don’t know it at the time, but it’s not yours to take. A man comes here—a receptive man—and he has some sense of what the power can do. But he doesn’t really know. Not really. The Indians, bless them, had a better understanding than most. Why else would they even name this place—this little nothing river inlet? I’ll tell you. It wasn’t an invitation. It was a warning. The Indians understood to stay away. But then the white settlers came anyway. The Frenchmen and Englishmen passed through, and they didn’t know better. Some of them got blessed—blessed by something, even if they ain’t know what it was. Du Sable for sure felt it. Thought he would use the blessing to get rich here. And for a while he started to. But then the thing in the lake drove Du Sable off. Ask me, Du Sable got off easy. The thing in the lake. . . it let him live. I think it was kinder then. It thought interlopers would be rare. But people never stopped coming, did they? The builders who made this city? They felt the magic. They stole blessings from the ramps. Then, fifty years ago, the whole damn city burns to the ground. They act like they ain’t understand why, but it was him, of course. Jealous. Angry because they took it. Angry because the blessings of the ramps are his and his alone. He didn’t come out and set the fires himself—because He can’t do that—but He molded the minds of the ones who did. Yessir, he got his revenge.”
“Why does he want you to kill twins?” Flip asked. “I don’t understand what twins did. You killed identical triplets in one case, too. Why?”
“It all came together for me this summer, while I was doing the jobs for Durkin,” Nash said. “The one in the lake. He spoke to me—this time, in a dream—and showed me the second part of the mystery. He told me why I always wanted to kill twins, ever since fifteen years ago. He showed me a scene in my mind, like out of a photo play. Two twin Negro boys, one dumb in the head, and one smart as a tack. Playing together along the lakefront, right near here, where the ramp is thickest. The sharp one pretended to transport a pebble from one hand to the other by magic, without the dumb one seeing how it was done. It delighted the dumb one—made him so happy—which gave the smart one great pleasure. The ramp immediately understood what the boy wanted. He wanted the power to bring this delight to others, just like he’d done for his brother. And so the ramp gave it to him. The ramp acts on its own, y’see. The one in the lake is like a jealous man whose woman gives her favors away. That’s how He sees it. Yes, the ramp might have given . . . but the ramp don’t know better. And it wasn’t that boy’s place to take.”
Flip’s eyes searched the ground. He lingered on a spot where he imagined two youngsters might have frolicked innocently.
“The Tark boys?” Flip said. “Drextel and Ike Tark? That’s why you hate twins?”
Nash nodded, still looking away.
“But Drextel Tark is just a carnival trickster!” Flip objected. “Nothing in a lake gave him any special power! I know his tricks and how they work. I’ve got them back for him when they’ve been stolen by other magicians. They’re simple props. Flim-flam. He’s not. . . magic.”
“No matter,” Nash replied. “The thing in the lake is still jealous. Still angry. That’s why I had to switch the heads. I didn’t understand that part either at first—why He was always telling me to do that. But then it hit me, that day when he showed me the Tarks in my dream. Drextel Tark had used the gift of being a twin for success on the stage. But it was the ramps that had given him the idea, shown him the way. It was them, not him. The thing in the lake wanted me to send a message. Switching the heads. It shows that you don’t get away with nothing when you steal from him. You like your twinning? You like being interchangeable. Then be truly interchangeable, young man! Be truly one with the other who is you and not-you at the same time! Be that way forever. Be that way in death.”
“My God,” Flip said, shaking his head.
“And that’s why I always done it so clean,” Nash said. “Not like a butcher. It couldn’t look like body parts thrown together. Like a jumble. It had to look like what it really was. It had to be a particular message. A message to anybody who would think of stealing from him.”
Flip opened his mouth. He hesitated for a moment, but a moment only. He knew if he did not speak now, he would forever lose his chance.
“You killed these children two at a time, or even three in a go. They didn’t escape. They didn’t bleed everywhere. How? How on earth was that possible? In all my years in law enforcement, I never saw anything like it.”
Nash smiled a dumb smile like a grinning animal. Like a pleased horse. It was one of the most disturbing things Flip had ever seen.
“The smaller ones were easy,” Nash said. “I only had to be a little bigger and faster. For the others, well. . . Twins have a bond closer than any other sort of kin. You use that against them. Grab one and start beating on him, but make it a tussle. Give the other the feeling he can jump in and save the day—fight you off, yeah? So he always does come back and try. That’s when you grab the other. Then, when you got your arms around each of their necks, you squeeze real hard and end it. Triplets were a challenge, yes, but I still found a way to make it work. I’m no magician, but. . . I do have a trick or two up my sleeve. I learned how to strangle a boy with my legs.”
Nash continued to vibrate and sway.
Initially, it had seemed to Flip that Nash might be imitating a rocking way of prayer that he had seen Jews perform. But now he realized this was something else entirely. That Nash was imitating the leaves of wild ramp as they swayed and shivered in the breeze off Lake Michigan. And it was a skilled impersonation. Nash seemed to literally blow about in the wind, as though his body were no more solid than a wiry green leaf. Nash had done this—moved his body like this—a thousand times before, Flip was sure. He must have. He was practiced. Expert.
“I wondered what it meant, of course, when I found Durkin dead among the shoals,” Nash said, as if in afterthought. “The water washed his body up right here; it come to rest against this very promontory. I took the body home and thought on it some. And I realized He had another message for me. That Durkin might be gone, but that didn’t mean my project was over. It meant I should continue.”
Flip swallowed hard and did a quick mental review. He asked himself if he had everything he’d come for. All the answers.
Nash’s mania was wild and beyond explaining—beyond anything Flip had ever encountered. Any further justification the man might give seemed liable to raise twice as many new questions as it would answer. Flip decided to close the book while he had the chance.
Then Nash spoke up once more.
“He’s telling me to kill you now.”
Flip raised his 1911.
“He’s telling me to kill you now. . . but only so that you will kill me.”
“The world can’t know about him,” Nash said. “He’s telling me I tried my best, but it’s over now. He’ll send another to finish what I started. Then another again, if that don’t work. He’ll send even more until all who take from him see final justice.”
Nash stopped swaying and rose to his feet.
Flip reluctantly lifted his 1911 once more. It suddenly seemed that one of Nash’s hands had grown spiky and deformed, like the paw of some undersea monster. Nash raised it up high.
Against the moon, Flip saw Nash held a trench knife—a small sword with a knuckle duster extending around his hand and over his fingers. Needle-sharp protrusions jutted out at each finger joint.
“Put that down or I’ll shoot you,” Flip said.
“Can you see him?” Nash asked.
Flip hesitated, then risked a whip-fast glance along the waterline.
There was nothing there.
“Drop it to the ground,” Flip commanded.
“Can you see him up there in the sky?” Nash continued. “He’s standing out there in the water and he’s about a thousand feet high. Big head like a triangle. I only seen him before in my dreams.”
Nash turned to face Flip, a stark mania in his eyes.
“Before tonight,” he cried ecstatically, “I only seen him in my dreams!”
Nash charged.
There was no one to hear the report of Flip’s 1911. Three shots. Each connecting. Each opening a hole in Nash’s chest. Flip delivered them near to instantaneously, through a reflex he could not properly control.
Nash went limp and the spiky weapon dropped from his hand. The killer fell face-first into the muck, beginning, almost immediately, to sink down into it.
Flip breathed-in the sharp stink of gunpowder. Cautiously, he put his 1911 back into his coat.
He looked down at the body, already half-consumed by the oozing bed of ramp. Thinking on it, Flip realized that, actually, he had about a thousand more questions he still wished to ask. Maybe a thousand thousand. But he had all the answers that he would ever get, and he knew it.
In the sky above the lake, a seagull cried. Then another. Then several more began to shriek together. Twenty or thirty birds—not known by Flip to be active nocturnally—circled the promontory in a strange display, bleating out their jagged calls. The ramp around the body seemed to shudder in response.
Flip looked up, then, into the night sky. He tried to gaze a thousand feet high, to the place that Nash had described.
The seagulls distracted and confused Flip’s eyes as they sped back and forth across his line of sight. They flew out over the vast lake, and also inward toward the promontory. One nearly brushed against his face. They zigged; they zagged. They created a practical wall of motion. Flip realized it was the kind of thing that might distract you from seeing a thing that was very large, very tall, and very far out into the water.
Then—one by one—the gulls began to dissipate. They flew inland, or else off down the coast.
And Flip realized, very gradually, that there was nothing left to see.
EPILOGUE
The uniform was dark, royal blue. The brass buttons down the front gleamed if you kept them polished, which he did. So did the star. The fabric, though, was almost too heavy for the humid summer nights. It made him sweat in the armpits and also down his back. Even so, Flip liked the uniform because it made him look wide and substantial in the shoulders. It was not quite a leather jacket, but it would do.
A Friday night in summer. Still early. Glorious weather, and the sun not yet set. Flip walked alone. Despite the clear sky and pleasant breeze, the street felt more than a little off. Wrong. Subdued. Like when they hold the parade even though the president or the Pope has just died. You still go through the motions, yeah, but nobody’s really feeling it.
The other men—and a few women—who walked past Flip seemed furtive. Hunted. They kept their eyes low and their hat brims lower. They looked straight ahead, giving no indication they intended to duck into a storefront or head down a dark alley, until the very last moment when they did.
South State Street felt like a one-industry town where the mill has just closed. Only just. People want to pretend that it’s going to be fine. Just a small setback. But you can see it in their faces. They know. Inside? They know.
The Palmerton came into view, and here, Flip saw a welcome sight. A familiar figure, furtively taking in the air on the front porch.
He made a beeline.
When he got close enough to be noticed, Sally turned her head and ducked back through the doorway. There she paused, examining the approaching policeman more carefully. After a moment’s hesitation, she crept back outside.
“Shit,” she said as Flip walked up. “I’m still getting used to you in that thing.”
“So am I,” Flip said, running a finger around his collar.
It had been weeks since he had seen her last, but ages since they had really talked.
“How the twins?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
“About to turn four,” Sally said. “Can you believe it?”
“Four already?” Flip said politely. “How the time does fly.”
The look in Sally’s eyes told him her mind was far away. It hardly taxed Flip’s skills of deduction to know she was thinking about what the future might hold for her young ones.
Flip glanced through the front window of the Palmerton. There were customers, but not as many as there should have been. And those there were seemed cautious and reserved. The funereal mood held here too. Visitors had the sense it would be gauche to celebrate anything too heartily.
“There’s ways around it,” Sally said glumly. “That’s what we’re all finding. You can’t sell booze on the open anymore, but it’s not illegal to drink what you already had in your house. So we’re thinking: What if my place was a private club, which is practically a house in the eyes of the law? And lord knows we got a stockpile in the basement. I ain’t a fool. I knew this was coming.”
Flip nodded. If anyone had sensed the shifting winds, it had surely been Sally.
“And I’ve partnered up with some people,” she said, brightening a bit. “There are organizations that specialize in operating under this kind of situation. Did you know that? I aim to work with the best of them.”
Flip leaned against the railing of the Palmerton’s front porch.
“I’ve heard about those organizations,” he told her. “We known each other too long for me ever to tell you to be careful. But, Sally? Do me a favor and be careful just the same. These folks moving in. They give me a feeling.”
Sally smiled.
“You mean a feeling like making hooch illegal ain’t gonna get rid of all crime forever? That feeling you used to talk about?”
“That . . .and some others too,” Flip said.
“Anyhow,” Sally continued, “they’re not so bad. They know how to handle things. And that one over there’s even kind of sweet.”
Sally gestured to the entryway of the Palmerton. Her new partners had installed a pair of their own as doormen. They were meaty Italians who bulged in their suits. Sally waved to one—indicating he should join her and the police sergeant.
The man could not have been much more than twenty, but his face already seemed to hold a lifetime of experience. He had an unpleasant nose, ugly fish lips, and deep scars that ran all across one cheek. Flip immediately recognized these as what happened when somebody tried to slit your throat, but you lowered your chin just in time.
“Alphonse is one of their best,” Sally said. “Helps with hospitality and security both. Does top notch work.”
The young man turned to Flip and shook his hand vigorously.
“If there’s ever anything I can do for you, officer—anything—you just let me know,” he said.
Flip assured the young man that he would. Then Flip and Sally returned their attention to the street, and Alphonse hustled back to his post.
>
“Ursula used to say it would happen again,” Flip observed, looking down at South State Street. “A war in Europe again. Big Bill mayor again. A killer in the city again. Maybe she’s right. But the other day I was thinking . . . maybe that also means the good times will come back, yeah? We’ll have Mardi Gras once more here along this stretch. Maybe your arrangement with these people is temporary. Maybe it just gets you through . . . until those good times come back.”
“It’s not all that bad,” Sally said, shaking her head. “Like I told you, they’re nice people.”
“For now,” Flip said.
Sally’s face curled into a tight, forced smile. Flip realized she was thinking of something deeply troubling. Or painful. The policeman wondered if perhaps he had been too unserious regarding her predicament.
“Forgive me, Sally,” he said. “You’re your own woman, and you make your own decisions just fine. I don’t mean to come across as though I’ve forgot that. You got—what?—about a thousand times what I do in the bank? Counting that money the city let me keep. If anybody has proven they can handle themselves—whatever the times—it’s you.”
“No, it’s not that,” Sally said. “You’re sweet, Flip. But it’s not that. It’s just . . . I seem to remember that there was a woman named Ursula Green . . . Right? Like you just said. And she lived in the back of this building, down in the basement? And told fortunes?”
Flip nodded slowly and encouragingly.
“There are times I start to think she wasn’t here at all,” Sally continued. “She doesn’t feel real, you know? Some days, I wake up and I just forget about her. Not like I forget that the capital of France is Paris. But like I forget France exists altogether. It’s like I can remember another past in which she wasn’t there. Or where there was just a pile of rags and wood in the basement that maybe we called ‘Ursula Green’ as a joke, but it wasn’t a real woman. But then, other times, I’m sure she was there. That I spoke with her and knew her. Isn’t that strange, Flip?”
“It’s strange,” Flip agreed. “But I’ve seen stranger.”
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