The Diviners

by Rick Moody

  “Just a moment! Mrs. Maiser, I object!” Dr. Maevka shouts, and now it’s really a carnival. He pulls a surgical glove from one hand, a punctuation mark, and thrusts it to the floor, where he stamps on the glove as though he were challenging Lois to a duel with Russian eighteenth-century pistols. “Mrs. Maiser! I will not stand by while you calumniate my professional practice.”

  Lois’s voice is beginning to rise, to ascend to its more shrill register. “I have brought myself here as a cautionary tale, and people are free to make whatever conclusions they want to make!”

  In the voluptuousness that is the sun and its reflection and the westward retreat of daylight over the swimming pool, the women begin to sneak out of the house of Melody Howell Forvath, without making even abbreviated good-byes. It’s stealthy at first and then more like a stampede. And Melody, a little light-headed, as if the hornets have got the best of her, doesn’t know what to think. Friends clutch at her hand as they sneak toward the door. Diane Collins clasps Melody’s hand between her own and she says nothing, because Melody has the stuff in her now, as if it’s her secret, her postmenopausal fetus, the botulinum toxin, slayer of American mushroom soup eaters. She doesn’t know who to be angry with first, so she puts ire aside, for now, and she goes and stands with the Wife of Bath, who is stooping before a sculpture of a water nymph. The Wife of Bath is cleaning away a dollop of lobster salad that somehow landed there.

  “There’s a phone call for you,” the Wife of Bath says. “In the kitchen.”

  She holds up the offending lobster salad clotting a lavender cocktail napkin. Nearby, Lois and Maevka are referring each other to their lawyers in apoplectic whispers.

  Melody leaves her own party behind as though it never happened. There’s no other conclusion but that it was a disaster as a party, a blot on the escutcheon of Melody Forvath. She has no intention of lingering. Maybe she, too, should sue Maevka, that quack, who claims to have a license to practice in California and who probably has no such thing. Melody leaves it all behind, for the kitchen, where the portable phone is handed to her as if it were a baton. Her office is beyond, and she hasn’t visited her office in days, but now she takes a long slow stroll in its direction. Vic Freese’s voice reverberates in her poisoned head. He has a weak voice, a loser’s voice, as if he was never taught to breathe properly. He’s the television agent, or at least she thinks he’s the television agent, and television agents share most of their genetic material with cockroaches, that Ceylonese subspecies that hisses loud enough to scare dogs. Melody much prefers her American literary agent, though sometimes her British literary agent is nice, and also his Italian co-agent, who is very sexy, and then there’s also the French agent with that beautiful accent. They all send her gifts at Christmas.

  “Melody, didn’t you once write a big fat novel called The Diviners?” Vic Freese asks.

  “Do you remember what it’s about?”

  17

  The two detectives, according to reports filed later, spend the first hour of the stakeout arguing about doughnuts. They introduce various facts into the discussion; for example, that Krispy Kreme sells a billion doughnuts per year and thus cannot be considered inferior to the more popular brands, that Krispy Kreme can produce, in situ, up to twelve thousand doughnuts an hour. Imagine if twelve thousand original glazed doughnuts were to become suddenly available at a particular Krispy Kreme franchise, for example, the World Trade Center location. What a boon to New York City policing. The detectives feel that the more complex doughnut varieties, such as the chocolate ice cream filled or the glazed lemon filled, are tasty, but these are not really the doughnuts that the detectives consider the essential business line of the Krispy Kreme corporation. The essential business line is the original glazed doughnut. The detectives speak of the cultural penetration of the original glazed, how it has acquired an almost fetishistic reputation among consumers. Consider, for example, tiered doughnut wedding cakes. Concentric rings of original glazed doughnuts, in a fractal design, with lightweight bride and groom ornaments at the summit. This wedding cake design is taking off now, and it proves that the only way to go, with a business line like the original glazed, is up. Original glazed no more than five hundred feet from every American household. Original glazed on every block in every major city. Original glazed available at other fast-food addresses. Original glazed in public schools. Original glazed when you register to vote.

  The detectives are considering investing in the Krispy Kreme corporation, a common stock listed on the NYSE, one that has been doing quite well, a fact noted with pleasure by the detectives, who are currently getting their asses kicked on some of their other securities, for example, QualComm. Krispy Kreme has the Krispy Kreme “mythodology,” which is based on the work of the critic Joseph Campbell. Krispy Kreme has strong brand recognition, a proven growth record, as well as the Doughnut Theater Concept, which is more than you can say about QualComm. The Doughnut Theater Concept is the on-site Krispy Kreme production event made visible to the consumer. Better even than the Ford production line. The Doughnut Theater Concept begins when the red light comes on, the red light indicating the presence of the core line of business, the original glazed doughnut. The Doughnut Theater Concept is the detectives watching as the original glazed doughnuts begin to come off the production line, twelve thousand strong, toppling onto cooling trays as if they were lemmings free-falling into a ravine. Yes, with the Doughnut Theater Concept, the detectives can know the business in which they are investing and they can conduct surveillance on the core line of business, which conforms to the style and habits of the metropolitan detective, who does not have time to figure out which parts of his cellular phone use QualComm technology.

  The stakeout continues in this way until one of the detectives, the one not reading the tabloids, announces that the sister of the suspect is now on the move. He uses the code agreed upon earlier, “The worm has turned.” The sister of the suspect is now leaving her East Village address, she is slamming the front door of the walk-up behind her, proceeding west, and so the detectives stir like ravens in a dead tree. That is, the detectives abandon their vehicle, and each brings a doughnut. It is Sunday, and the detectives would normally have the day off, but they are concerned that the suspect, the older brother of the young woman currently under surveillance, may have fled the metropolitan area to points unknown. The sister may be the only credible link to the suspect.

  There will be observation of the movements of the sister of the suspect, in the event that the sister makes known the whereabouts of the suspect.

  The sister of the suspect, according to reports, is, it should be noted, “very attractive,” and is wearing “leather pants” on the day in question. It’s another day of steady drizzle. Nonetheless, the detectives hasten westward, following the sister of the suspect at some remove. What they know: The sister is an employee of a boutique film production company, which boutique has made a number of films that the detectives have not seen. The boutique film production company hires out work to the very messenger company at which the suspect in the assault case previously worked. A connection has therefore been established, between suspect and sister, first in the identical surnames of these two persons. Second, this connection was verified in a quick data search of credit and medical records, confirming that the suspect has been both a failed graduate student and a client of a variety of mental health professionals. He is, in fact, “bipolar,” or manic-depressive, whatever the current terminology is. According to the detectives, it is established that the suspect has a history of mental illness, and this is likely to be material to a jury trial, especially in view of the fact that the assault incident is being prosecuted as an attack without motive.

  The detectives have leaked this information to the press.

  They know, and the knowledge is bittersweet, that both the suspect and his sister, the woman currently under surveillance, are adoptees. They know that the children were adopted, some years apart, by white parents, thoug
h both the suspect and his sister are African American, and to the detectives this is a sorrowful part of the investigation because one of the detectives, while educated in the city college system, is himself from the projects. The projects speak through him, and the projects are with him, and there is no shaking off the projects, which are an engine of African American identity in this city. He knows: When you take a black kid out of the neighborhoods and you put this black kid in the white neighborhoods, this kid will be like a duck raised by geese. And in this instance, the adoptive parents are church folk. The father is a minister of some kind, and the mother is a psychologist. The suspect and his sister were adopted and they were raised up in New England. The detectives also happen to know the names of the natural parents of the two children, and they know that one of these children was born in Chicago and one in Las Vegas. They surmise that the two siblings are as close as natural siblings because they are two supererogatory kids. Later there was a natural sibling, a white baby, born to the formerly barren mother. This is why they think the suspect will contact his sister. He can’t do otherwise. They want to be there when it happens.

  The sister of the suspect proceeds up Avenue A at a brisk clip past a Mexican joint. Mexican food in NYC is almost always a disappointment. Nevertheless, the detectives duck inside this establishment briefly and throw away their tabloids, inhale cilantro and tomatillos, wait for a suitable interval, and then they exit and continue the surveillance. The detectives continue west on Eighth Street, passing examples of a genus that doesn’t seem to exist in any other neighborhood, the men and women wearing black leather jackets, all of them with dyed black hair, all of them with various piercings, all come to the region around St. Mark’s Place. The sister of the suspect, picking up the pace further, makes a right-hand turn at the cube sculpture, a known squatter and runaway hangout, past the still unpalatable Kmart franchise, first of its type in the city. To what destination would the “very attractive” sister of the suspect be bound? Might she be making for the cheap hairstylists of Fourteenth Street? For the extremely large music and media store nearby? Is she going to kill time in the park, reading some tome? Or perhaps she is bent upon the farmers’ market? Not possible. No farmers’ market on Sunday.

  It is the best of all outcomes for the detectives. They have eaten little but doughnuts since the stakeout began. They could not have hoped for this, for how the sister of the suspect passes through the threshold of a restaurant in the Union Square neighborhood, a restaurant beloved by the detectives, a restaurant that is, yes, “model owned and operated.” Indeed, the restaurant, which was once a run-down Greek American coffee shop, is painted a nauseating teal on the outside and is notorious for attracting only the most delectable of feminine examples, each of them over six feet and with legs of limitless majesty. The detectives do not seek out such places. They are made of sterner stuff. They will stake out the Fulton Fish Market if required, they will stake out mortuaries in the outer boroughs. But if their work brings them to the former coffee shop, they will allow themselves a moment of bedazzlement as the hostess takes them to their table, a table where their concealed audio recorder can pick up some of the conversation at the next booth, the booth that currently contains the sister of the suspect and a certain coworker from the film company known as Means of Production, namely Jeanine Stampfel. Born: Scottsdale, Arizona, July 15, 1976. Educated: University of Arizona, BA, in English. Moved to New York City: 1998. Lives: Upper West Side.

  The detectives settle on entrées as follows: media noche and paillard of chicken. They each order a mochaccino beverage. Then they eat and listen. Christmas lights festoon the walls. Synthetic hits of the nineteen-eighties throb on the sound system.

  “It’s . . . I . . . just thought, you know. I, uh,” Annabel Duffy replies. The detectives have missed the opening of the exchange. However, exact transcription of the remaining conversation follows: “I mean. It’s stupid that we never get together at all. We’re . . . I mean, working together in the same office and everything. We should be . . . And especially with all the pressure that this—”

  “Television thing —”

  “Yeah,” Annabel Duffy replies. A waitress saunters by, and the detectives begin to speak to the idea that there are secret affiliations between these women who don’t eat enough food. Look at that waitress. It’s as if they recognize one another or something. They are morphological kin. They are like greyhounds. And they are exchanging secret signals about what might be eaten without danger of caloric intake.

  “I don’t know what to think. I hate television, know what I mean? I don’t even want to work there if we’re just going to be thinking up television shows.”

  “I don’t even have one. A TV. I mean, I have one, I guess, but I don’t have it on very much. No cable or anything. I watch what’s that show the —”

  Stampfel mentions the name of a certain show, and this show is not as audible as might be wished, and yet, using the most up-to-date digital editing tools, the detectives will later be able to surmise that Stampfel mentioned a popular television show about a pack of werewolves, The Werewolves of Fairfield County. By night, suburbanites are transformed into baying, lonely lycanthropes, and so forth. It’s a program that the detectives have not seen, though they have heard it is very popular among the young, for nearly four seasons now. In four years, many things can befall a lycanthrope. Meteor showers, droughts, floods, spontaneous forest fires, suburban sprawl, the complete elimination of nature, mad love. Such things make for ratings, which make for syndication.

  “I watched some of one of the World Series games,” Jeanine says. “With a man.”

  “Right. With —”

  “How are we going to develop television stuff if neither of us watches any television? And Madison is going out to parties all night?” To the waitress: “Another one of these? When you get a chance?”

  “Minivan is acting weird.”

  “Totally.”

  “She’s totally out of her mind, even on a good day.”

  “I go home and cry,” Stampfel says. “I can’t do anything. My parents are worried. They’re saying I should just come back to Arizona. What’s so great about the movie business? Why do you have to be so far from home? Arizona is not as glamorous, but it’s . . . it’s —”

  “We should film there,” Duffy says. “I mean, Arizona would be great. We could stay at some really good hotels, right? We could get massages.”

  “Have you read the coverage?”

  “Sure.”

  “I thought it was really junky, personally. I don’t even think Madison reads the stuff. She just passes it on.”

  “I didn’t think it was so bad,” Duffy says. The detectives turn, as if to signal for more hot sauce. It’s part of their undercover cloak of veracity. They only briefly attempt to catch a look at the awkward conversation of Annabel Duffy and her friend. The two of them are stabbing at salads as if they’re trying to put the salads out of some misery. “I like epics, big things, politics. And maybe it’s sort of fun to think of stories that anyone could like.”

  “That’s so cynical. I don’t mind being, you know, the priss on the staff, so that everyone can feel all superior, and, well, yes, I guess I do mind it, it kind of hurts my feelings, but don’t expect me to pretend everything is fine. The story sounds like it was written by some romance novelist or something. In fact, Madison was telling me that the author is a romance novelist.”

  “Come on, Jeanine. You know I —”

  “Sorry . . . I’m —”

  “Maybe it’s just, like I said, I’m worried that if we’re just doing television, then we’re all going to become —”

  The suspect’s sister signals the waitress again, plunks down a large ring of keys on the table, keys as numerous as if she were a prison guard at a county jail.

  Stampfel says, “I dated this guy from Harvard one time, and now he’s writing a reality show where people try to inform on their coworkers.”

  “You
don’t really —”

  “No, you’re . . . you’re . . .”

  “Look,” Annabel remarks, “Minivan wants us to hate each other; it’s like, it’s really easy to hate each other. That’s what professional women do, you know. They’re like, they’re supposed to hate each other and fight over the same men, all of that,” Duffy says. “I’m supposed to hate your projects, you’re supposed to hate mine. We’re both supposed to hate Madison’s projects, and we’re supposed to talk about what a bitch she is.”

  “She is kind of a bitch.”

  “And we’re not supposed to talk about Thaddeus.”

  The detectives asphyxiate, momentarily, on extremely spicy Brazilian fare, because one bit of information available to the detectives that is perhaps not available to the two employees of Means of Production in the next booth is that a Casanova named Thaddeus Griffin has been romantically involved with both of these women. And that’s the least of it. One of the detectives tailed Mr. Thaddeus Griffin very recently, just for fun, and went to the gentlemen’s club with him and, just for fun, asked Thaddeus Griffin for an autograph in this gentlemen’s club. Contrary to stakeout protocol, of course, endangering the security of the investigation, et cetera, but the detective in question considered it information of a kind. Would Griffin bolt if recognized by an action film fan in a mob-owned strip club? Or would he return to the Asian lap dancer, the one who looked much like the victim of the crime they are investigating? Griffin brushed off the overture of the detective, shoved aside his black laundry-proof marker without comment. Later the same night, Griffin was observed outside the building of Annabel Duffy.

  “You aren’t . . .” Stampfel stutters, can’t get it out. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “Big deal. So we both slept with him,” Duffy observes. “He gave me chlamydia. That’s a boundary for me.”