Transgressions

by Ian Rankin (ed)

  "No. He's the guy working the counter. Making the sandwiches. I seen him before and I almost recognized him that night, but I didn't."

  "You tell anyone else?” Armand asked. They were pulling to the side of the road now. “Your mother, your friends, anyone?"

  "Ain't seen my mother since day before yesterday,” the boy said. “Ain't told a soul."

  "And did the guy seem to recognize you? The guy with the gold tooth?"

  The kid shrugged. “I dunno,” he said. “Maybe."

  When they got out of the car, it was raining even harder than before, so Armand pulled the hood of his raincoat over his head and jogged into the store, Lamar right behind him. Myron's was crowded again, the same group of high school kids playing pinball, banging the edge of the machine with their hips, laughing. One of them put a quarter on the glass, called next game.

  "Be cool,” Armand told Lamar, taking off his jacket, tucking it under his arm. “I'm gonna order a couple of sandwiches and when you see the guy, hold your horses until we sit down."

  But this time, it wasn't a guy at the register, but a young, dark-haired woman, maybe nineteen or twenty, exotic, maybe Arab or Italian. When she smiled, Armand noticed her nice teeth, and he ordered a couple pastramis on rye with relish and mustard. She rang those up, and he added a couple Cokes, glancing over her shoulder toward the kitchen, where two black guys were making sandwiches. A fat old man with a moustache—probably Myron, maybe the girl's father—sat at a table in the corner with a pile of receipts and the boys at the pinball machine shouted and laughed. He felt Lamar breathing beside him.

  "You all right?” the girl said.

  Armand nodded. He was fine. He gave Lamar one of the Cokes, told him to go sit down.

  "Twelve fifty-five,” she said.

  And Armand pulled out his wallet and gave her a twenty, trying to get a better look into the kitchen to see if someone else was in there, around the corner, or working the microwave. But he couldn't see and the girl counted out the change and handed it to him, a pile of ones and some coins clattering into his palm.

  But the clattering didn't sound quite right, and he looked down just as the girl was pulling back her palm. Around her wrist was a gold bracelet with maybe twenty tiny gold coins jangling from little chains.

  Somehow, Myron's Deli got very quiet just then. The coins gleamed on top of the bills in his hand and Armand looked at the bracelet around the girl's wrist, at the little gold coins dangling from it. Rain tapped against the windows. And then the noise in the Deli resumed.

  "You sure you're all right?” the girl asked. “Sir?” she said, glancing nervously toward Myron, who hadn't noticed.

  Armand opened his wallet and slid the bills inside, then turned it so she could see his badge. “Don't say anything,” he said. Then, “Now, quietly, tell me where you got that bracelet."

  "Jimmy gave it to me,” she said. The door opened and a couple more kids came in. They skulked over to the cooler, reached in, pulled out a couple popsicles. It was raining even harder outside, rain filling the streets and sluicing over the great Deli windows.

  "Jimmy work here?” Armand asked, as casually as he could.

  "Used to,” she said. “He quit. Just yesterday. What's this about?” She glanced over to Myron again, but he was busy with the receipts.

  "He got a gold tooth?” Armand asked. “Good looking guy with a gold tooth?"

  "Yeah,” she said. “Is he in trouble?"

  "I want to talk to him,” Armand said. “That's all. You know where I can find him?"

  She shrugged. “I'm seeing him tonight,” she said. “We're going out. I'm supposed to pick him up, you know? At 9pm. His car's broke."

  "Where you picking him up?” he asked.

  "Westport,” the girl said. “He's not in some kind of trouble, right? Because if he is, I hardly know him. He just gave the bracelet to me yesterday, when he asked me out.” The boys were waiting behind Armand now, holding their popsicles. Armand stepped aside so they could pay.

  Lamar was sitting at the table by himself. He was looking at Armand, his eyebrows raised, an unopened Coke in his hands. He turned back to face the girl at the counter.

  "He said it would look good on me, he said I should wear it on our date.” She shrugged. “It's stolen, right? I knew there was something funny about him.” She had big, innocent eyes and Armand liked that. But he nodded.

  "I'm going to need to talk to you,” Armand said. “Before you go to meet him. I'll be sitting right there—” he gestured with his head toward the table toward Lamar. “I don't want you getting in trouble with Myron, but when you get a break, come sit down with us."

  * * * *

  The sad thing was, she did look good in that bracelet. It suited her perfectly—jangly, eastern. It was just right for a young, exotic girl with long, curly black hair and olive skin, and Armand could see why the Charm Killer—why Jimmy—had chosen her. But he wouldn't get her. He wouldn't get her, because Armand was going to call Franklin at the station, and Franklin would talk to Bowery, and Bowery would talk to the Chief, and they'd set something up. It was as good as done.

  He sat at the table with Lamar. The sandwiches arrived and they began to eat. The girl behind the counter kept looking at him, concerned.

  She had a right to be worried, but it would go down just fine. They'd have a couple street cops in plainclothes on the sidewalk in Westport by 6pm, even in the rain, and they'd have a car at each corner. And Armand would ride with the young woman in her Honda to the meeting point, he'd ride with her and, when they got there, she'd point the guy out and Armand would call it in. “The guy in the black coat, corner of New Hampshire and 41st,” he'd say. And wouldn't that guy be surprised then, when the radio cars pulled up in the rain, their lights flashing? Wouldn't he be surprised, surrounded on the street corner in Westport, the cars flashing lights in the rain and nowhere for him to go, nowhere at all?

  Armand thought about how it would feel when he snapped the cuffs on the Charm Killer. Nice silver cuffs for the Charm Killer's wrists. A satisfying click, and his partner, Franklin, coming around the corner, gun drawn, serious, as ever. Armand hadn't felt this strong in a long time, the Charm Killer lying on the sidewalk in the rain, cuffed, his jacket and hair grown wet, his gold tooth glinting in the street lamp's glare.

  The girl behind the register was coming on break now, hanging up her apron, coming around the counter to meet them. Armand gave her his most casual smile, then looked across the table at Lamar, who was just finishing his sandwich. “I think you did good,” he told the boy. “You did real good, kid."

  Lamar smiled, sipped his Coke. The rain beat down on the windows. For a second, Armand remembered his own son, but he pushed that away. The kid kept smiling.

  "Anyone ever tell you that before, Lamar? You did damn good."

  Copyright © 2007 Kevin Prufer

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  WORK IN PROGRESS by Scott Nicholson

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Scott Nicholson is the author of six novels, including The Farm and The Home. His vampire novel They Hunger will be released in April 2007. He lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where he tends an organic garden, eats sushi, and dreams of raising goats. His spirit lives at www.hauntedcomputer.com

  * * * *

  The cutting was the most demanding.

  During his career as an artist, John Manning had sliced glass, trimmed paper, chipped granite, chiseled wood, shaved ice, and torched steel. Those materials were nothing compared to flesh. Flesh didn't always behave beneath the tool.

  And bone might as well have been marble, for all its delicacy and stubbornness. Bone refused shaping. Bone wanted to splinter and curl, no matter how light John's touch on the hammer.

  How did you build yourself alive?

  Bit by bit.

  Karen on the wall was a testament to that. Because Karen never lied.

  And was never finished, an endless work i
n progress.

  So building himself had become a mission from God. John knew from his time at college that art required suffering. He'd suffered plenty, from no job to canceled grants to broken fingers to Karen's last letter. His art had not improved, though he'd faithfully moved among the various media until his studio was as cluttered as a crow's nest.

  He crushed out his cigarette and studied the portrait. Much of it had been done from memory. The painting had grown so large and oppressive in his mind that it assumed capital letters and became The Painting.

  When he'd started it three years ago, the memory had flesh and was in the same room with him. Now he had to stagger through the caves of his brain to find her and demand she undress and model. And she had been so elusive lately.

  Karen.

  Her letter lay in a slot of his sorting shelf, just above a cluster of glass grapes. The paper had gone yellow, and rock dust was thick across its surface. If he opened the letter and read it, maybe she would come out of the smoky caves inside his skull. Except then he'd have to finish The Painting.

  Looking out the window was easier, and had a shorter clean-up period. Painting had been foolish anyway. Every stroke was wrong. When he needed a light touch, he cut a fat swath. When he needed bold colors, he bled to mud.

  He was born to sculpt, anyway. And now that he had the perfect subject, his frustrations could fall away. The anger and passion and sickness and hatred could go into the new work in progress and not poison his brain any longer. No more dallying with oil and charcoal, no more dancing with acrylics. That was a dilettante's daydream, and the dream was over.

  Because this was real.

  This was the most important moment in the history of art.

  This was The Living Painting.

  Except the materials didn't cooperate. Not Cynthia nor Anna and not Sharon in the trunk of his Toyota.

  Life was a work in progress. Nothing was sacred. Art was a work in progress. Nothing was sacred.

  If you rearranged the letters of sacred, you got scared.

  John had not been scared when he asked Cynthia to be his material. Cynthia was a work in progress. Cynthia was an artist. Cynthia was art.

  The body beneath the canvas in the corner of John's studio dripped.

  John wondered if the blood would seep between the cracks in the floor and then through the ceiling of the used bookstore below. Even if it did, no one would notice for months. His studio was above the Classics, a section almost as long-dead as the authors themselves. Proof that even when you created something for the ages, the ages could care less.

  So all that was left was pleasing himself. Envisioning perfection, and striving for it. Pushing his hands and heart to match his mind's strange hope.

  He lifted the razor and was about to absolve himself of failure forever when the knock came at the door.

  The studio was a shared space. John loathed other human beings, and other artists in particular, but his lack of steady income had forced him to join five others in renting the makeshift gallery. They were drawn together by the same fatalistic certainty of all other dying breeds.

  Knock, knock.

  And the knock came again. Some people didn't take no answer for an answer.

  One of the five must have knocked. Probably wanted to chat about art. Not like they had anything better to do. John threw a spattered sheet of canvas over the corner of the room and went to the door.

  Karen.

  Karen in the hallway, glorious, almost perfect.

  The last person he expected to see, yet the right person at this stage of the work in progress.

  Karen as a statue, as a painting, as the person who shaped John's life. John tried to breathe but his lungs were basalt. Karen had not aged a bit. If anything, she had grown younger, more heavenly. More perfect.

  John could read her eyes as if they were mirrors. She tried not to show it, but truth and beauty couldn't lie. Truth and beauty showed disapproval. That was one look she hadn't forgotten.

  John weighed every ounce of the gray that touched his temples, measured the bags under his eyes, counted the scars on his hands.

  "Hello John,” Karen said.

  Just the way she'd started the letter.

  "Hi.” His tongue felt like mahogany.

  "You're surprised.” Karen talked too fast. “My old roommate from college still lives here. I had her look you up."

  "And you came all this way to see me?” John wanted a cigarette. His hands needed something to do.

  "I was passing through anyway. Mountain vacation. You know, fresh air and scenic beauty and all that."

  John glanced out the window. A plume of diesel exhaust drifted through his brick scenery. College buildings sprawled against the hillsides in the background. The mountains were lost to pollution.

  John had been silent too long and was about to say something, but his words disappeared in the smoky caves inside his head.

  "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?” Karen asked.

  "You're not interrupting. I was just thinking about my next piece."

  That meant his next sculpture rather than his next sexual encounter. Karen knew him well enough to understand.

  She could never interrupt, anyway. John was an artist, and artists never had anything to interrupt. Artists had years of free time, and artists would rather give their free time to other people. Art was sacrifice.

  His time was her time. Always had been. At least, it had been years ago. Now she lived two thousand miles away with no forwarding address and John had endless buckets of time to devote to his art.

  Except now she stood at the door of his studio, eyes like nickels.

  "Can I come in, then?"

  Come.

  In.

  To John's studio.

  With Cynthia lying in the corner, weeping blood and becoming. Becoming what, John wasn't sure.

  Himself, maybe. His soul. The shape of things. A work in progress.

  John tried on a smile that felt fixed in plaster. “Come in."

  Karen walked past him and lifted objects from his workbench. “A metal dolphin. I like that."

  She touched the stone sailboat and the driftwood duck and the rattlesnake walking stick and John watched her until she finally saw the portrait.

  Or rather, The Painting.

  "Damn, John."

  "I haven't finished it yet."

  "I think you just liked making me get naked. You painted me slow."

  Not as slow as he should have. He wanted the painting to take a lifetime. She had other plans, though she hadn't known it at the time.

  "It's a work in progress,” he said.

  "What smells so funny?"

  Oh, God. She had flared her wondrous nostrils. John did not like where this was headed.

  "Probably the kerosene,” John said. “Cheaper than paint thinner, and works just as well, if you overlook the stink."

  "I remember."

  She remembered. She hadn't changed.

  Had John changed?

  No, not Had John changed?. The real question was how much John had changed. A soft foam pillow in the corner was studded with steak knives.

  "Did you ever make enough money to buy an acetylene torch?” She ran a finger over the rusted edge of some unnamed and unfinished piece. “I know that was a goal of yours. To sell enough stuff to—"

  John knew this part by heart. “To buy an acetylene torch and make twelve in a series and put an outrageous price on them, hell, add an extra zero on the end and see what happens, and then the critics eat it up and another commission and, bam, I'm buying food and I have a ticket to the top and we have a future."

  Karen ignored that word future. She was the big future girl, the one with concrete plans instead of sandstone dreams. John's future was a dark search for something that could never exist. Perfection.

  Karen walked to the corner, hovered over the spattered canvas.

  No one could see it until he was finished.

  John looked at
the shelf, saw a semi-carved wooden turtle. He grabbed it and clutched it like a talisman. “Hey. I'll bet you can't guess what this is."

  Her attention left the mound beneath the canvas. “How could I ever guess? You've only made five thousand things that could fit in the palms of your hands."

  "Summer. That creek down by the meadow. The red clover was fat and sweet and the mountains were like pieces of carved rock on the horizon. The sky was two-dimensional."

  "I remember.” She turned her face away. Something about her eyes. Were they moist? Moister than when he'd opened the door?

  She went to the little closet. John looked at her feet. She wore loafers; smart, comfortable shoes. Not much heel.

  Beneath the loafers rested Anna. The experiment.

  The smell had become pretty strong, so John had sealed the area with polyurethane. The floor glowed beneath Karen's shoes. John let his eyes travel up as far as her calves, then he forced his gaze to The Painting.

  "Aren't you going to ask me about Hank?” she said.

  As if there was any possible reason to ask about Hank. Hank had been Henry, a rich boy who shortened his name so the whiz kids could relate. Hank who had a ladder to climb, with only one possible direction. To the top where the money was.

  Hank who could only get his head in the clouds by climbing. Hank who didn't dream. Hank who was practical. Hank who offered security and a tomorrow that wasn't tied to a series of twelve metal works with an abstract price tag.

  "What about Hank?” he heard himself saying.

  "Ran off.” She touched a dangerous stack of picture frames. “With an airline attendant. He decided to swing both ways, a double member in the Mile High club."

  "Not Hank?” John had always wondered about Hank, could picture him reverting to Henry and going to strange bars. Hank had been plenty man enough for Karen, though. Much more man than John.

  At least the old John. The new John, the one he was building, was a different story.

  A work in progress.

  "What are you doing here?” he asked.

  She turned and tried on that old look, the one that worked magic four years ago. Four years was a long time. A small crease marred one of her perfect cheeks.