The Poe Consequence

by Keith Steinbaum

  Seth’s eyes moistened and his face turned red. “I don’t care!” he screamed.

  “What do you mean you don’t care? How will you feel when all of your friends go into seventh grade and you have to stay behind. How will you feel then?”

  Seth turned away. “I don’t have any friends, okay?”

  Kevin stared at his nephew. “You’ve got to start thinking about school again. You need to…”

  “No! You can’t make me! You can’t! I don’t have to listen to you!”

  “Oh yes, you do, young man!”

  “Why should I? You’re not my father! You’re just…just…”

  “Just what Seth? Just your uncle?”

  Seth’s eyes opened wide, a fire raging inside them. “You’re just a drunk!”

  “What? How dare you say that!”

  Kevin watched Seth run into his room and slam the door. He remained in that spot for several minutes, feeling his anger ease with each further swig of Scotch. He wondered if a kid Seth’s age knew what a drunk really was. Kevin just needed a temporary crutch to survive these dark times. He’d stop when things got better.

  Kevin contemplated his options. Should he demand an apology tonight, or let things simmer down and discuss the matter tomorrow? He rubbed his face several times and walked across the room to tap on Seth’s door.

  “Seth? Seth? Can we talk?”

  Silence.

  Kevin knocked again. “Come on, Seth. I want to talk with you about something. Dr. Hobart’s given me an idea about helping you with your grades. You said he’s a nice guy. He knows someone he thinks could help you.”

  After another round of silence, Kevin thought of another angle.

  “Remember, Seth, if your grades improve you’ll start getting more television time back again.”

  The muted response ended a few moments later.

  “Go on,” he said. “I’m listening.”

  “There’s a woman who runs the day care center at the clinic but she’s also a tutor. Dr. Hobart told me she’s helped some of the other kids in your “Care and Share” class.

  “Big deal,” the voice on the other side of the door said. “I don’t care about school.”

  “Seth, can we please talk face to face? You’re too young to get a job and the law says you have to go to school. Come on out.”

  He stood there until he heard the turning of the knob. Seth looked at Kevin’s hands as soon as he poked his head through the door, leaving Kevin thankful that he’d left his glass on the table.

  “Let’s go over to the couch,” he said.

  When they sat, Kevin continued. “Failing isn’t an option, Seth. The situation will be worse if the kids in your class pass you by and you’re stuck repeating a grade.”

  “Isn’t there somewhere else I could go?” he asked.

  “Any school would demand the same things,” Kevin said.

  “Then it doesn’t matter what school I go to, right?”

  “But why start over at a new school with kids you don’t know?”

  Seth’s mouth tightened as he stared at Kevin. “Cause maybe another school wouldn’t have Mexicans.”

  Kevin had a sudden urge to rain more scotch down his throat. “You know I don’t like hearing that kind of talk from you,” he said.

  Seth remained unapologetic.

  “Do the Mexican girls bother you, too?”

  Seth’s head tilted a bit to the side, as if the question caught him by surprise. After a long silence, he answered, “I don’t know.”

  “Have any of the Mexican girls at school ever talked to you?”

  “Just school stuff,” he said. “Like when we’re doing things in class.”

  “Did that go okay?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Then if I’m hearing you right, your feelings toward Mexican girls isn’t the same as the boys. There seems to be a difference.”

  Seth shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  The moment of truth had arrived. “The tutor Dr. Hobart’s recommending is a Mexican-American woman.”

  “What?”

  “She can help you, Seth,” Kevin exclaimed. That’s all that matters!”

  Seth’s eyes narrowed. He stood up, put his hands in his pockets, and turned his back on Kevin. He held his position for a long while before turning around to make eye contact.

  “Okay,” he said. “But if that tutor’s like other Mexicans I’m not going back.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Kevin sat at a corner table for two, away from the early morning patrons at Philippe’s, the popular downtown eatery. Lieutenant Atkinson had called him the day before asking for a meeting at the restaurant. Kevin appreciated the few moments alone. His hangover left him feeling shaky, and his focus as scattered as the sawdust on the floor.

  “Sorry I’m late, Kevin,” the husky, baritone voice said.

  Kevin offered a tired smile. “You’re just in time, Carl,” he replied. “I’m ready to think about something other than myself.”

  Atkinson placed his coffee on the table before perching his sizable backside onto the round wooden stool. “If you don’t mind me saying so, Kevin, you look like shit. And you got your hands wrapped around your coffee cup like it’s a damn life preserver.”

  Kevin placed the cup on the table and rubbed his hands on his face in an attempt to erase the bleariness. “So what do you want to talk about?”

  “I need to ask you something about your interviews at Men’s County.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Can you recall if any of the gang members mentioned anything about their drugs, like maybe something new on the street?”

  “I don’t remember anything like that being brought up,” he answered. “They just wanted to talk about their exploits and how big and bad their gang was.” Kevin raised the cup to his lips. “Why do you ask?”

  “With all the shit that’s happened between the Diablos and Lobos the last couple of months, the heart attacks and all, we’re just trying to cover every base.”

  “One small step for man, one giant leap for thinning out the herd,” he muttered, feeling his head start to clear. “Your inquiry makes sense, though. I’m surprised you didn’t ask me earlier.”

  “The number of heart attacks makes no sense,” Atkinson said. “Everyone’s in agreement on that. There’s so many drugs pushed nowadays, so many illicit lab setups, that anything is possible. The toxicology reports haven’t shown a damn thing, but how else do you explain it?”

  “If the lab results say nothing’s there, you’ve got no choice, Carl. You have to accept their findings.”

  “For now, maybe,” Atkinson said, looking away. “But final reports leave you with more questions than answers sometimes.”

  Kevin put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Like what? You can tell me. You should tell me. Look what those assholes have done to my life. And to Seth’s.” Lowering his voice but not his urgency, he asked, “What are you hiding?”

  Atkinson stared at Kevin for several long moments. “How long we known each other?”

  “Since last September. When I started my interviews.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “Almost a year, now. And I’ve been good to you, wouldn’t you agree? Helped you out with introductions, cut through the red tape, right?”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to cash in on the favor I owe you?”

  “Because I need you to promise me you won’t mention any of this in the newspaper.”

  “You know damn well I’m not the only reporter that comes around asking questions,” Kevin said. “Whatever you’re about to tell me, if I’ve got to go mum on a story, I hope the others fall in line, too.”

  “We’re already under enough pressure to get this damn thing figured out,” Atkinson said. “You’re one dog I don’t need barking his bullshit. But as long as you keep your mouth shut, I’ll make an exception and let you in on some things.”

  “Thank you, C
arl,” Kevin replied, nodding his head.

  “You’ve paid your dues big time when it comes to the Lobos and Diablos,” Atkinson acknowledged. “I respect what you’ve gone through and how you’ve taken on the responsibility for your brother’s son.”

  Kevin remained silent, managing a weak smile.

  “Just give me your word that what I’m about to tell you remains between us. Once I explain it to you, you’ll understand why.”

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll keep a lid on it.”

  Atkinson drank some coffee and glanced around the restaurant before returning his attention to Kevin. “The first reported heart attack was over three months ago. Since that time, there have been ten more.” He paused a moment, as if wanting that statistic to linger a while longer. “All of them, all of them, were either a Diablo or a Lobo. Nobody else.”

  “How can you be sure?” Kevin asked. “There’s hundreds of gangs all over L.A.”

  “And not one death from heart attack reported from any other gang unit in the city,” Atkinson explained. “Except here. Except us. The Diablos and Lobos. That’s it.”

  Kevin dispensed with a low whistle. “That’s really weird.”

  “Weird?” Atkinson replied, his eyebrows rising. “You want weird?”

  Kevin opened his mouth to speak but Atkinson held up his mitt of a left hand.

  “The hearts were ice cold, Kevin.” Pausing, he added, “Fucking frozen.”

  Kevin felt his jaw slacken and his vision seemed to glaze over for an instant. He just heard something impossible. Impossible.

  “Let me guess what’s going through your mind right now,” Atkinson said. “Probably the same damn thing that went through mine when Capital Dean told me. You think you know what I just said, but not really, like some distant echo that didn’t quite register.”

  Kevin nodded his head waiting to hear more. Needing to hear more.

  “I’m going to tell you the same way it was told to me, okay? When someone dies, the temperature of the heart during the early stages is between ninety-seven and one-hundred degrees. By the time most autopsies are performed, the heart is generally around room temperature.” Atkinson rubbed the back of his neck. “Ten of the eleven victims had hearts between thirty-four and thirty-eight degrees.”

  “Holy shit,” Kevin muttered. “But how do you know they were…”

  Atkinson held up his hand again.

  “How do we know they were frozen?” It gets a little technical, but after eleven of these things, I’m turning into an expert. Compare the victim’s heart to frozen meat. When you freeze meat, the water in the cells expands and the cell walls ‘rupture,’ that’s the word the coroner uses. All of the hearts of these dead gang members had ruptured cell walls.”

  Kevin shook his head, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Atkinson. “Isn’t there another explanation for it, Carl? That sounds pretty crazy.”

  “Crazy?” he replied. “You ain’t heard crazy. That eleventh victim, the one whose heart I didn’t include with the others? What if I told you his heart had a thin layer of ice around it?”

  “Ice?” Kevin whispered, his eyes opening wide.

  “Ice,” Atkinson repeated. “This kid was in the Lobos. Went by the name of ‘Juice’, but his real name was Gustavo Robledo. A real piece of work. Spent time behind bars a few times, but never long enough. A man calls the station the other night, sometime about four. Robledo and a second gunman tried to rob this guy and his wife in a parking lot. After he described what happened, it could only have meant one thing. When the officers got there, one of them recognized Robledo. We got lucky with this kid. No known family members. Never even had anybody come see him in jail those times he was there. Maybe we stretched the rules but under the circumstances we felt we had to act. That chest was open before five-thirty.”

  “Before the ice melted,” Kevin said.

  “There’s something else,” Atkinson said. “The aorta valves of all the victims have tiny holes in them. Captain Dean compared it to pipes bursting when the water freezes inside. What they’re thinking is the blood froze as it left the heart and expanded in the aorta valve. That’s how the holes were caused. The aorta burst like a frozen pipe.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “There’s more, Kevin,” Atkinson said. “Every victim had one of their eyes swell up. And they’re covered with some kind of glaze. You can’t even see the real color. It winds up looking blue.”

  “Could that be caused by something internal?” Kevin asked. “Related to the heart’s drop in temperature, maybe?”

  “You’d think so, yeah,” Atkinson said. “But that’s another mystery. The lab results show nothing irregular. Nothing. It’s as if the eye is completely normal.”

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing.,” Kevin remarked.

  “I’m not finished,” Atkinson said. “The victims have multiple scratch marks over their bodies that look like rats got to them. But no hairs or droppings have been found except for one victim. And that includes the one found inside their bedrooms. How the hell do you explain that?”

  “Do you think the rats could have transmitted some kind of disease?”

  “It doesn’t seem so,” Atkinson replied. “The final toxicology results are still pending but so far nothing outside of your garden variety drugs have been found in their system. And no bite marks.”

  “No bite marks?” Kevin exclaimed. “Rats do more than just scratch, Carl.”

  “I grew up around enough of them,” Atkinson said, “so trust me, I know. But there’s only been one death where the flesh was visibly eaten. In the old railroad yard east of downtown a Lobo gang member was found with his face in pretty bad shape. There are plenty of rats around that old yard but he died from heart failure.”

  “The coroner better come up with some plausible answers soon,” Kevin warned. “I don’t want anyone else getting a hold of this story before I do.”

  “Hey!” Atkinson snapped. “You gave me your word…”

  This time it was Kevin who held up a hand. “Yes, I did,” he said. “And I’ll keep quiet, like I told you. But a story this bazaar can’t be kept under wraps much longer. If I find out another reporter gets this story out before I do, all bets are off. I’ll write about everything I know.“ Kevin’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Atkinson. “You’re right about those dues I’ve paid, Carl. This God damn story is mine.”

  “Fair enough,” Atkinson said. “But if you jump the gun and print any of this, I’ll show you first hand what made me an All-City lineman two years running.”

  “That’s one threat I’ll take seriously,” Kevin replied.

  Atkinson nodded before gulping down the rest of his coffee. “Let me tell you something about a real threat, Kevin. I was a mean, hard-nosed defensive tackle in my day, but that was nothin’ compared to the threat these gangbangers are facing.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  He dwelled somewhere in time between desire and culmination, separation and proximity. Reaching out from his own indiscernible space into the lives of the unsuspecting, he sought to destroy his chosen targets, intent on invasion and the dispensing of justice. He’d been reborn as a lethal antagonist of the Diablos and Lobos, craving their elimination through a spiritual impulse predicated on vengeance. Devoid of color or definition, he inherited a life form no longer dictated by his previous humanity. He heeded his instinctive protection of Seth without reservation, serving as the ever-present danger to their existence, the relentless scraping at their souls. He plagued their lives as a rapidly dividing cell of chaos, capable of invading their thoughts and dreams, intent on intimidation and eradication. He was an affliction depleting their sense of power, a scourge infecting their pursuit of domination. And he couldn’t be killed, again.

  * * *

  Warren Palmer lived and loved as a husband, father, son, and brother. As a young man, his intellect and appreciation of the literary masters created the early framework of the passionate teac
her he became. He counseled his students to find pieces of themselves in the books he assigned. “Each of you will find your life somewhere in these pages,” he told them. “Don’t fall prey to our decadent and superficial age.” Each year, Professor Palmer, a.k.a. Professor Poemer, remained one of the most popular teachers on campus.

  Professor Poemer. A student had given him that nickname during his first year, and for every class afterwards he reveled in his reputation. Edgar Allan Poe was to Warren Palmer what the Beatles were to rock ‘n roll fans of their era, an inspiration and a constant source of interest. As a child, his father rented the first scary movie he saw; ‘The Pit and the Pendulum.’ Vincent Price starred in the film and the next night they watched another Price film entitled, ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’. Edgar Allan Poe authored both stories, so when his father told him the man had written a lot more, he asked his parents for an Edgar Allan Poe book. Though some of the tales and poems were difficult to understand, one in particular captivated him from the start, and which he reread to a point of near memorization: ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’.

  Edgar Allan Poe served as the catalyst for Warren’s consumption of books, and, eventually, his B.A. in English Literature. When his college professor told the class that Warren’s recitation of “The Tell-Tale Heart” was the best he’d ever heard from a student, his determination to commit more of Poe’s lurid works to memory grew. He recognized that Poe’s fantasies offered something uniquely mesmerizing about fear and the macabre, fantasies, that upon Warren’s death, turned into realities.

  When Michelle received the news that she had lung cancer, the doctor told her that ten to fifteen percent of those that fall victim are non-smokers, and she turned out to be one of them. Unlike his Vietnam vet father, who chain smoked his way on board a nicotine-filled balloon ride to Cancer Park, Michelle never touched a cigarette in her life. The year and a half that passed between the biopsy and her death turned Warren into the type of father he never had, someone who could offer genuine displays of love. Warren and Seth relied on each other and functioned as a team. They marketed together, prepared the meals, cleaned the house, did the laundry, and catered to Michelle’s needs. His love for Seth took on a much greater dimension during her illness, and he came to appreciate how much his son depended on him.