Carrion

by Gary Brandner

  “Life and death. That’s really what it’s all about, right? Where does one stop and the other begin? A question that has cudgeled the minds of men from the beginning of time. Down through the ages, that last dark curtain at the end of a man’s life has been the single greatest mystery. What lies beyond?”

  He babbled on in this vein, growing increasingly nervous as he sensed he was losing the crowd. He should never have agreed to this. If it were possible, he would personally hand their money back on the spot and make a dash for the street. Maybe the gang out in front had not had time yet to strip his Camaro.

  While Fain droned on about life and death without saying anything of substance, he saw Olney Zeno ease through the door, bedecked with his camera equipment. The lanky photographer raised two fingers in a small salute, and Fain could have kissed him. It was the friendliest gesture he had seen all night.

  “There are stories,” he went on, “told by people who claim to have crossed over into the realm of death and returned. I guess we’ve all heard or read about them.”

  Not a flicker of agreement from the increasingly restless crowd.

  “Well, anyway, there are such stories. Books have been written on the subject. But do we believe them? How can we ever be sure?”

  He gazed around and caught the glint of light off a number of crucifixes resting on brown bosoms. Better touch on religion, he thought. Might make them less inclined to rip my arms off.

  “And what does the Bible have to tell us about this matter of life and death?”

  A loud blap from the speaker, a shower of sparks, and the room went dark. For a terrible broken moment Fain thought God had spoken.

  Silence for a slow beat of five, then a babble of voices. Chairs scraped back. Dishes clattered, feet thudded on the floor, bodies collided. Excited voices rattled a mixture of English and Spanish.

  Fain stood where he was without moving, wondering if he was going to be blamed for this. He tried to remember where the exit was. Ivy Hurlbut grasped his hand.

  Then the lights blinked once and came on. Everyone looked around a little guiltily. Several started to laugh. Then a woman screamed.

  “Miguel!” she cried. “Miguelito! Ai, Madre de Dios! My little boy!”

  There was a surge of people toward one corner of the room. For an instant, when no one blocked his view, Fain saw the prostrate body of a boy lying next to the overturned speaker. The boy’s eyes and his mouth were open. He did not move. A man ran up and yanked the speaker’s crackling electric cord from the wall plug. The crowd closed in around the fallen boy.

  For the next few minutes the room was a confusion of babbling voices as the diners milled about. Women cried; men swore. Olney Zeno was standing on a chair, shooting over their heads.

  The crew from Channel 34 hastily unpacked their equipment. The young woman fluffed her hair, and the man with the Minicam pushed his way toward the boy.

  “Maybe we ought to get out of here,” Lendl said.

  “No, wait,” Fain told him. “We can’t just walk away.”

  “Why not?”

  Frank Silvera whistled through his fingers for attention. “Okay, everybody, stay calm. The paramedics are called. They’re on the way. Stand back and give little Miguel some air.”

  From the looks of the small, pale figure with the empty eyes, Fain did not think air was going to help.

  A siren wailed outside, and footsteps pounded up the stairs. Two young paramedics rushed in with oxygen and first-aid equipment. They immediately started to work on the boy with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and CPR techniques. A stout woman, apparently the boy’s mother, stood by, wailing while friends comforted her and held her back.

  The woman from Channel 34 was interviewing anybody who would talk, positioning herself so the Minicam could keep her in the frame with the rescue attempt.

  “Let’s go,” Lendl said again.

  “No.”

  Lendl and Ivy turned to stare at Fain. He was surprised himself at the firmness of his answer. He had no logical reason, but something he could not explain held him there. More quietly, he said, “It would look bad if we ran out now.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Lendl said grudgingly. He shot a cuff and checked his imitation Rolex. “I only hope this doesn’t keep us here all night.”

  Some minutes later, one of the paramedics took Silvera aside. Fain heard him say, “There’s nothing more we can do. There was a drink spilled there on the floor. The boy was standing in it when he grabbed the bare wire. It was a massive electrical shock. There’s no respiration, no pulse.”

  “You giving up?”

  The paramedic chewed his lip. “We’ll keep working on him until the coroner’s man gets here, but I’m afraid the boy’s gone.”

  Silvera expelled a long breath and nodded. He walked over to the boy’s mother and put an arm around her shoulders. He spoke to her softly in Spanish. The woman gave a keening wail and ran back toward her son. Several of her friends stopped her and held her before she could reach the boy.

  “I don’t like this,” Ivy said. “Can’t we go now?”

  “Okay, I guess we might as well,” Fain said.

  “Well, thank God,” said Lendl. “Let me just talk to Silvera about our check.”

  While Fain and Ivy waited for the agent to push through the crowd to Silvera, the mother of the little boy loomed suddenly in front of them.

  “You!” she said, leveling a forefinger at Fain. “Why don’t you help?”

  “Me?”

  “You made that woman come alive again after she was dead. They said so in the newspaper. Do it for my boy now. Bring back my Miguelito.”

  Fain held up his hands as though to fend her off. “I’m sorry, ma’am. You’ve got the wrong idea.”

  By this time a dozen other people stood around the mother. Their eyes were on Fain.

  “Believe me,” he said, striving for the right note of sincerity, “if there was anything I could do to help …”

  A bright light hit him in the face, and the man with the Minicam pushed into the growing circle of people. The young woman thrust a ball-head microphone under Fain’s nose.

  “Are you McAllister Fain?” She had a pleasant, soft Spanish accent.

  He nodded, looking around for help from Lendl.

  “You are the man who claims to have brought a dead woman back to life last week?”

  “Well, there was this story in the Times….”

  “And now this mother wants you to work on her son. The little boy the paramedics say they can’t save.”

  “Help me, por favor!” cried the stout woman, moving into the bright light. She clutched at Fain’s hand. “Save my little boy.”

  “There’s nothing I can do,” Fain said, sensing a growing hostility in the people watching. “The paramedics are doing everything they can.”

  “They can’t help my Miguel. They say he is dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” Fain said. “I’m really sorry.”

  A thin man with dangerous black eyes stepped forward.

  “How sorry are you, man? As sorry as me? I’m Alberto Ledo. The boy is my son.”

  Fain looked around for some sign of support. He found none. “Mr. Ledo — ” he began.

  “What is the trouble, man? You don’t like Mexicans? You only do your thing for rich Anglo ladies?”

  Several voices seconded the accusation. Fain looked toward the exit and saw that his path was blocked.

  “It’s not like that at all,” he said, fighting to keep his voice calm.

  “Then why don’t you help me and my wife? You’re so good, let’s see you bring Miguel back to life like you did the rich Anglo lady.”

  The man’s voice broke on the last word, and he looked angrily around at his friends, who voiced their agreement.

  Barry Lendl squirmed past the Channel 34 crew to Fain’s side. “Come on, you people,” he said. “If there was anything Mr. Fain could do, he would. Make way now.”

  The crowd mov
ed closer. Somebody shoved Lendl out of the way. Ivy clung to Fain’s arm.

  “He’s not going to do nothing,” somebody said.

  “He wants to go home to his nice clean Anglo house.”

  “Let’s teach him Mexicans are people, too. Teach all three of them.”

  “All right … enough!”

  Fain’s voice rang above the din in the room. The angry crowd fell silent. He looked slowly around at the ring of faces, giving them the gray-eyed stare. The Minicam moved closer. Alberto Ledo and his wife watched him expectantly.

  “Take me to the boy,” Fain said.

  Lendl grabbed his arm and muttered, “What the hell are you doing?”

  Fain gently removed the agent’s hand from his arm and walked through a path made for him by the crowd. Close behind him came the Channel 34 crew.

  One of the paramedics was still trying to force breath into the dead boy. He looked up as Fain approached.

  “It’s too late, mister. He’s gone.”

  “Just give me a minute,” Fain said.

  The paramedic frowned, but he rose and stepped back from the boy’s body. Fain spread his arms, turned his face toward the ceiling, and closed his eyes.

  What the hell was he going to do now? These people actually expected him to bring the dead kid to life. From the tone of the crowd it was a good bet there would be some kind of violence if he did not look as if he were making an effort.

  But he had no props. No candles, no colored powders, no assistant. He didn’t remember any of the chants he had used or the symbols he had drawn on the floor. He vowed that if he got out of this in one piece, he would retire forever from the Lazarus game and go happily back to reading fortunes.

  “Ralé Méné Vini” It was the only thing from the whole rigmarole that he could remember. Call. Bring. Come.

  “Ralé. Méné. Vini.”

  Fain stood for a painfully long minute with his arms spread, eyes closed, head tilted back. The unnatural silence in the room pressed down on him. He felt the sweat run from his armpits down his sides.

  Someone screamed.

  “Él es vivo!”

  “The boy is alive!”

  Slowly, Fain opened his eyes and looked down. Mrs. Ledo was on her knees beside the boy, palms pressed to her plump cheeks. Her husband stood behind her, frozen in position. Miguel was sitting up, looking around. The boy began to cry.

  Fain heard Lendl mutter, “Holy shit!” somewhere behind him.

  The Channel 34 Minicam pointed at him, but the young woman was transfixed by the revived boy. Zeno moved through the crowd, shooting in all directions.

  As Fain watched, Miguel’s mother disengaged herself from the crying boy and came over to him. Before he could speak, she seized his hand and kissed it. She pressed the hand to her big soft breast and looked into his eyes.

  “Gracias, sēnor, mil gracias,” she said, then added fervently, “Tu eres mi santo.”

  McAllister Fain swept his gray eyes over the hushed crowd and gave them a gentle saintly smile.

  Chapter 15

  Nine-year-old Miguel Ledo rode to County General in an ambulance with his mother and father. The ride itself was exciting enough, but Miguel did not like the idea of going to the hospital. That was where they took people and never brought them back. And they had doctors there who were always poking at you where you didn’t like it and jabbing needles into you. Miguel insisted that he felt fine, except for the burns on his hands, and wanted to go home to his own bed, but as usual none of the grownups paid any attention.

  Miguel’s mother, her tears still flowing, and his father, trying hard to appear macho, were occupied with their feelings of relief. Their little boy, whom they had seen with their own eyes lying dead, was given back to them. How it happened and why could be talked about later. This was a time for giving thanks.

  They arrived at County General only a few minutes ahead of the reporters and the cameras. An ambitious employee at Channel 34 had passed along the story to the news director of Channel 5. He gave it to their radio station, and within an hour every news department in town was hot after the boy who came back from the dead.

  The parking lot and the streets bordering the hospital were soon jammed with cars, camera vans, reporters, and curious pedestrians. It was a slow news week, and Miguel Ledo’s resurrection was a big story.

  Inside the hospital, Alberto and Maria Ledo listened as a heavyset doctor with a tiny brush mustache told them about their son.

  “He is a very, very lucky boy. From the looks of the burns on his hands and the soles of his feet, enough electricity went through him to kill a mule. But aside from those burns, which should heal in a couple of days, he seems to be all right.”

  “Seems to be?” said Alberto.

  “His vital signs all register positive.” The doctor’s eyes flicked away for a moment.

  “There is something else?” the father asked.

  “Only a slightly delayed response in some of the neural reflexes.”

  “Is that bad?” asked Maria.

  “I don’t think so, but I’d like to make some more tests. If he could stay overnight — ”

  “Is he sick?” Alberto demanded.

  “I wouldn’t call him sick,” the doctor said, “but there are questions — ”

  “The hospital is for sick people,” Alberto said flatly. “My boy is going home with us.”

  “Well, of course it’s up to you.”

  “That’s right. Thank you, doctor. Can we take him now?”

  The doctor started to say something more but decided against it. “I’ll have him brought down.”

  The crowd waiting outside, which had heard a half dozen versions of what happened, none of them accurate, burst into applause when Miguel and his parents came through the door. Lights blazed; reporters and cameramen moved in. Police from the Hollenbeck Division cleared a path for the family to their car, which a friend had driven from the banquet.

  “How does it feel to have your boy back?” was the question asked over and over as the Ledos pushed through the clusters of reporters.

  Patiently, the parents answered as they made their was through the crush. “Fine. It feels good. Real good.” What else could they say?

  A woman from Channel 7 with stiff blond hair thrust a microphone at them. “There are stories that a man who was at the banquet tonight brought your son back to life. Would you comment on that?”

  “Our boy is alive,” Alberto said. “A man helped, yes.”

  “Was the man McAllister Fain?”

  “I think that is his name.”

  “What exactly did he do to revive Miguel?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care. My boy is back with us. That’s all that matters.”

  “That man worked a miracle,” said the mother. “A miracle.”

  A policeman moved in front of the Ledos and spoke to the crowd. “Come on, folks, make way. These people have had a rough night, and they’re tired. We’re all tired. Let’s go home.”

  Reluctantly, the reporters fell back, and Miguel and his parents were deposited in their car. A police car led them to the neat stucco bungalo in Alhambra where they lived. The officers discouraged the media people from hanging around, and the family was at last able to relax and feel what had happened to them. Several times during the night one or the other of the parents tiptoed into Miguel’s bedroom for reassurance that the boy slept peacefully.

  • • •

  In the morning they awoke to learn just how much their lives were changed. Alberto’s employer, who owned the Apex Furniture Mart in San Gabriel, insisted he take the day off with pay. Alberto was uncomfortable staying home on a workday, but his boss meant well, and he could hardly turn the offer down.

  The reporters returned with the first light and wanted to know everything about the family. They took pictures of all of them inside and ouside the house. They interviewed the neighbors and the people in the little market at the corner. When they ran out of f
amily and neighbors, they interviewed one another.

  As soon as they had a chance, Alberto and Maria put on their good clothes, dressed Miguel up, and drove across town to Holy Name. The reporters piled into cars and turned the trip into a motorcade. When they arrived at the church, Miguel, who until then had been enjoying the attention, did not want to get out of the car.

  “Come along,” said his father. “I don’t want to stand out here all day.”

  His mother examined the boy’s bandages. “Do your hands hurt, Miguelito?”

  “No.”

  “What is the matter, then?”

  “I don’t want to go in there.”

  “It is our church. You have been there many times. Today is a special day for us. It is a day to give thanks.”

  “I don’t want to go in.”

  Alberto’s patience began to fray. “We will talk about what you want later. Now we are all going in.”

  Maria gave her husband a disapproving look, but the tone of his voice made its point with young Miguel. The boy climbed reluctantly out of the car, making more now of his injuries than he had before.

  The cameramen and reporters gathered around for the surefire scene of the grateful family going into their church. Some of them went along inside and filmed Maria placing flowers at the foot of the Virgin and lighting a candle for her personal saint, McAllister Fain.

  While his parents prayed, Miguel remained silent, almost sullen, avoiding the statue of the Virgin and the tragic eyes of the crucified Jesus. His father glanced at the boy with a worried look, but Maria nudged her husband back to their prayer.

  As they left the church, Miguel seemed to regain his usual good spirits. He laughed and talked eagerly to the reporters, proudly displaying his bandaged hands. He posed happily for pictures while Maria looked on smiling and Alberto consulted his watch.

  Back at their house, it was more of the same, with friends, relatives, neighbors, reporters, and strangers filling the little bungalow to a point where Alberto found it hard to breathe. While Maria prepared nachos in the kitchen, a gray-haired man in a powder-blue blazer motioned Alberto aside and handed him a business card.