“Your story?”
“It’s always the same one. The setting… the characters… may change, but at the core it’s always the same.”
“Life and death.”
“Life. It’s always life - even if death casts a wide shadow.”
“You’re scaring me Farrow with those bulging eyes.”
“Do you have a new book?”
“I do…”
“How far along are you?”
“I’m close. Really close.”
“You always say that, but you never finish.” It never got any easier for Missy to understand. From the day I first started, I was always close to finishing.
“Farrow do you know there’s an art to taking a prisoner?” Kiko leaned over me, gently exhaling as the tip of her breast hit my mouth. With finesse, she adjusted the knot creating some slack, which she used in another loop tightened around my crotch.
“There’s no reason to take me prisoner. You know I’d come willingly. I think real highly of you.”
“And I of you. Oh, but there is a reason?”
“Oh a reason?”
“I can’t tell what’s more beautiful my knots or you.” Kiko nodded with mischief taking a step back to admire her work.
“You see Farrow if you tied up your girlfriends on a regular basis, it wouldn’t be so hard to escape right now?” Kuroneko burst in toppling over. Bent over in laughter, her long black hair whipped around, veiling her face. Taking pleasure at the sight of me, she bum rushed me, only to wildly massage my head. I could feel her nails in my scalp. More words which I didn’t understand. The powder white woman grabbed me by the rope around my crotch. Kiko took hold higher up on my chest. They didn’t bring me far.
{XXXIII}
“IS THIS HER?” A CHARCOAL drawing of Missy hung crooked over the fireplace in Percy’s den. Kiko studied her body, taken aback by how Missy fit the obscene pose.
“Yeah...” In a trance, I traced her outline with my fingers.
“I know this woman.” Something was getting under Kiko’s skin.
“You what?”
“I met her the same day I last saw Percy Featherton, but he introduced her with a different name.”
“Evelina?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“She was the seductress from his bestselling novel.”
“Hmmm. Anyway, Percy had some half-baked proposition that Monika likened more to the effect of standing in front of the firing squad than the Nobel foundation. He never really let on clearly what he was asking her to do. Instead, he spent more time explaining how the plan was foolproof. He had every angle covered. Bribes to company boardmembers were set in place. A team of Hitler youth propagandists were standing by ready to social network their cockrings off. He showed us these miniature ads that he would use for skyscraper wraps, challenging us to guess what subliminal messages were hidden inside.”
“What did Monika say?”
“Monika barely heard him out. It was everything she wrote against. With her cult following she could afford this lone wolf philosophy. She was about to go out on her own anyway. Start her own publishing house.”
“She was? So that’s why…”
“That’s why what?”
“Huh… nothing.”
“Who knows if it would’ve worked? Her fan base was so loyal, that if she endorsed anything, the vampire bats would come out in legions.”
“Or covens. What did you think of Missy? What was she wearing? Did she make any mention of the baby? How about…”
“Woooh. Farrow slow down. She didn’t say anything. She just looked around the house like she was taking notes. Casing the place. She made no mention of the baby. She only asked if we read her new book.”
“She’s not even a fucking writer.”
“That’s how she struck me. Writers usually have this extra-terrestrial outerwordliness about them, which she had, but she showed no signs of the pathetic desperation. From the second I saw her I felt she was occupying two realms at the same time. One with us and the other where she had the dark master at the bottom of her Ponzi.”
“That’s just her personality.”
“Mystically sexy, but it seemed more than that. So this deal you had going with Percy?” Kiko’s face contorted.
“I didn’t have a deal going with him?” The sinister insinuation lingered in my ears.
“Oh you didn’t. I thought you said…”
“I was just…” I didn’t remember what I told her. If I didn’t, someone else did or Kiko could see right through me. “…that’s how it goes… wait what was Gloom’s take?” I leaned forward attempting to swallow back the words.
“When Percy and Missy left, Gloom went over how it might play out with me at least a hundred times over. I was sick of hearing her talk about work all the time, so I suggested we get some fresh air. We went for a walk and we passed Percy staring at our house. I wasn’t sure why at the time, but instinctively my stomach convulsed in fear. Monika thought nothing of it and told me not to worry. If I only…” Kiko was sinking in despair.
“Untie me.”
{XXXIV}
A SERVANT TO THE HOT spirit, Kiko coerced me up the spiral staircase to the third floor. We twisted a couple times. Then out of the corner of my eye - I saw it. The door at the end of the hallway was left open just wide enough to see Chiara’s crib.
“Farrow… are you telling me everything?” Kiko’s voice trailed off as I slid past the cracked door. I didn’t want to touch anything. This was the real crime scene. The place where another man stole my daughter.
Her room was in perfect order. Instead of making me jealous or angry, it made me calm. Overwhelming joy in every hanging star of her mobile. I could feel her close. It was a good start for her, because it was a start - and that is all you could ask for. She would soon forget it as are the benefits of that age. Other things are impossible to forget.
“That’s why it’s so serious. From the first day I found out I was going to be a father, you’ve threatened to strip me of the miracle. From the first second I always had to worry about her being taken away from me.”
“She needs you.”
“I won’t lose her.”
“You’ll probably write that in your book.”
“Farrow, what are you doing in there?” Kiko cautiously pushed the door open.
“She haunts every crevice.”
“So while you were in here being haunted…” Kiko closed in on me with Percy’s pulp trash masterpiece. The binding of the book worn like the sampietrini of Rome. Most importantly the pages were still in place. I could picture Percy flipping soiled wax-thin pages, spitting out a few lines, attempting to drop a little wisdom on Missy.
“Ever make your way through this?”
“Ghost piss.”
“What?”
“Forget it.” Kiko cracked the book open a little too wide and the fifty year spine finally split. A neatly folded page fell to the ground.
“What’s that?” Something about the paper was unsettling.
“That’s not from the book.” Kiko bent over to pick up the loose paper. “It’s something new.” She had it in her hands. “It looks official…” Then she stopped in her tracks.
“What is it?” I could tell by her face it was something worth knowing about.
“Uh Farrow…”
“Kiko…”
“It’s your daughter’s birth certificate. It says Chiara was born on January 6th at Bellevue Hospital.”
“She was born exactly on the due date. Does she have a middle name?”
“No it just says… Chiara… Chiara Featherton. Farrow it says Percy is her father. Legally, I mean.”
“Motherfucker.”
Kiko handed me the birth certificate. I couldn’t even touch it. Somehow, the document was alive. Replete with a hex of manipulation that became both my venom of paralysis and vein-bursting shot of pure revenge.
{XXXV}
I STARED AT THE BAC
K of Chiara’s birth certificate letting Kiko block her face with it. She was absorbed. A one page life story for her to read and me to feel.
“She’s out there somewhere. Kiko help me find her. I can’t think anymore. My mind is empty. My heart is so full, but my mind is empty.”
“Look who the signed witness is…”
“Hawaii.” My voice hung in the air just long enough for whoever opened the front door to discover that the company had made it home before them.
“Farrow.” Kiko’s mouth moved without a sound, stretching in slow motion, so I caught the drift of her air breaking.
The door latched with a sound loud enough to make it clear that we were all locked in together. Only a faint shuffling followed. There weren’t any sirens in the air. No voices on the sidewalks. No construction, banging, clacking. No trucks idling or horns honking. NYC wasn’t even here anymore. We were in America I guess after all. It was a dead man’s apartment that resembled a colonial house. My daughter’s birth certificate missing my name was balled-up flying out the window. The cops were tip-toeing up the stairs.
Sgt. Bethany Powers stared me down with a joker’s grin, keeping a hand on the gun in her holster for effect. Kiko seemed to wish she had longer nails. The type that could skin alligator scales.
“Hey Farrow, you got your book back.” The cop moved in on me shifting my dick with a carnivorous lick of her lips.
“I’d rather have Chiara back.” Saying her name felt powerful. A new strength was building inside me that should have always lived there.
“Chiara. Funny this must be her bedroom. Strange it never came up in conversation when we first met.” Sgt. Bethany Powers stood over the crib, spinning the soft cartoon stars attached to the mobile. “But I guess your heart isn’t aching for Percy, her legal father. And the mother… Hmmm… what I would do to meet Missy Featherton. Think she’ll come back for her share of the inheritance? Did you know he left her this townhouse? Think it’s worth twenty million in this market?” Sgt. Bethany Powers drew her gun, jabbing me in the belly with it.
“If you cops are so fucking smart, where’s Missy? Where?”
“Answering questions with questions, are we? It must annoy you that we figure out so many things before you. When you do something day in and day out, you get good at it. Just like writing Farrow. Except for us somebody already wrote it, but we can’t see the whole story. We have to play with what’s missing until it makes sense.”
“Sounds the same to me. Maybe you should become a writer and I should become a cop.”
“Farrow you’re more than a writer. The con you pulled with Percy was no less than criminal genius.” Sgt. Bethany Powers pursed her lips with yearning.
“You’re sitting on a fortune now, time to invest in some new shoes.” Detective Anderson stepped on my dirty sneaks with his combat boots.
“What did you do Farrow?” Kiko tugged on the neck of my shirt pulling me into her ribs.
“Tell us or we’ll write it ourselves.” Detective Anderson had both hands in fists, but didn’t seem aware of it in the least bit.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I want is to see my daughter. I can’t get my friends back. Please help me. I don’t want to lose her.”
“Help yourself Farrow. We’re taking her with us.” Sgt. Bethany Powers grabbed Kiko, twisting her arms behind her back.
“Someone’s got to take the fall. No way around it.”
“It’s okay Farrow. I’ll go with them.” Kiko’s loyalty gave me chills.
“Take me not her.”
“Farrow you’re not here. I don’t hear you. I definitely don’t see you.”
“She’s innocent.”
“Nobody’s innocent.”
{XXXVI}
FADED DEVIL IN MY POCKET, I stood lonesome squeezing the carved oak of Chiara’s crib. I flicked the mobile’s dangling stars one more time. It was still spinning as I stuck my head out the window facing the street.
Kiko kicked her legs wildly knocking trash into the street as the two cops shook her around like a vending machine that ate their money. I didn’t have to say much to get their attention. The three of them looked up at me in anticipation.
“It was a fucking hoax. A false flag attack. A marketing ploy. I’d known Percy a long time. He was overdue to put something out for me. He could afford the patience due for the perfect moment to arrive. He told me that my technique finally caught up with my passion in A Greater Truth. I wrote two different endings. He liked them equally and we figured out a way to use them both. We hustled Missy because of her charisma. She breathed sex. She wanted to be a writer and took the credit. We set her up to be the thief and for me to be the victim. Percy put enough money behind it to turn it into a best-seller and while I was waiting for the scandal to break: I got restless. Somebody else got homicidal.”
“Who’s that somebody Farrow?” Sgt. Bethany Powers yelled up to me filled with satisfaction.
“You already know don’t you?”
“When will you ever learn that life’s only a mystery if you want it to be?”
A new look I had never seen before. The pages were in Missy’s hands. Haphazard scribbles and stains. I went out to wander away from my edit. I returned to catch her in the act. She saw me writing, but never asked to read. Now she was deciphering it. Connecting pages to a man. She might as well chew on all my pens until the ink runs down her chin.
Sgt. Bethany Powers played with Kiko’s hair a little before she took the cuffs off. Furious Kiko’s spit flew everywhere. Sgt. Bethany Powers wiped it off her eyebrow and flung it back at the inconsolable girl. Then she threw Kiko on her ass and hopped in the passenger side door. Detective Anderson looked up at me, chuckling behind the steering wheel. Embodying heartbreak, Kiko hammered her fist into the cement swallowing fumes to the sound of squealing tires.
{XXXVII}
“YOUR LIES ARE SO NATURAL they’re dangerous.” I guess the details were easy to obsess over. Kiko and I were standing in the same spot I found Percy’s body. Bookshelves from the floor to the ceilings, filled with classics, closed in on us by design.
“As fucked up as it sounds… the deal I had with Percy was one of the greatest successes of my writing career… the career, but not the writing… when it was happening… it was just happening… you know what I’m talking about?”
“No. I don’t know. Monika’s dead. Percy’s dead. Lars’s dead. Books are ruined. Lives are ruined. You don’t even care about your daughter. I understand how Missy felt. She must have found out. Everyone is just a pawn in your grand strategy to make writing worth something in a time when it’s worthless. In a time when everyone can write their own stories. We don’t need writers anymore. We don’t need you.”
“I made you need me.”
“You did you bastard you did.” Kiko stretched both her arms out in a martyr’s stance grabbing an encyclopedic hardcover from each wall. Howling with anguish, she clapped both books together on my head. It was all adrenaline. My brain rattled as I dropped to kiss a familiar floor.
I couldn’t believe how angry the truth made her. Kiko went ballistic. Books rained down on me as she emptied the bookshelves. I got flashes of Percy’s corpse. He was long removed, but I was his chalk outline. Gritting her teeth, Kiko jabbed her bony knee, pinning me where my repugnant idol finally made sense of it all. I didn’t take it serious enough while I still had a chance. The beating didn’t stop. Her anger turned the lights out.
“Da-da. Da-da.” It was a voice I’ve never heard before. Just hanging in the air. The words lifted me up. I looked down at her. My daughter. Could she look like that? Was she even that old already?
{XXXVIII}
“YOU KNOW FARROW I HAVE a confession of my own to make.” Kiko was on her knees caressing my face. I was lying flat on the floor of the sauna in the same spot I saw the lioness. Beside us, Kuroneko was digging up the floorboards. Her eyes had a luminous clutch as she manipulated the crowbar seeping rapture.
“Hawaii’s not dead. She vaporized same as Missy.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I’m blackmailing Hawaii. She doesn’t know it’s me, but I’m blackmailing her.”
“Huh? Wait… what?”
“Everyone has something private that if exposed will ruin them. It didn’t take long to figure out the ghost in Hawaii’s closet. I charged her weekly installments. I did it all through Kuroneko. She’s not my birth mother. She sponsored me for a visa and helped me out when I first came to New York. She needs money to keep the sauna up and running. I am forever indebted to her, so I took an interest in it.”
“Hawaii didn’t resist?”
“I didn’t even think she’d make the first payment, but she just kept on paying. I wasn’t sure how she got the money. I could only guess that she was taking it from Percy. Somehow she was shaking him down for much more than I was taking. Hawaii and Percy both thought Monika was behind this. I had Kuroneko drop hints to help them figure it out. For some reason, I was invisible to them. I’d be lying if I didn’t realize this from the beginning. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t use this to my advantage. Farrow I’m starting to fall for you and I’ve already hurt you so much. You can never love me after what I did. How will you be able to love me now that you know the truth?” The sound of the sewer water boiling was faint and recognizable.
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