by Sam Christer
29
DOWNTOWN, LOS ANGELES
JJ is surprised to see Emma Varley hanging back as the shopfloor clears at the end of the day. She smiles when she spots him. Looks him straight in the eyes with her baby blues. ‘You locking up?’
He jangles the keys in his hand. ‘That’s what they pay me to do.’
‘Want some help?’
He figures she’s angling for another ride home. ‘Sure, I’m always in the market for unpaid overtime.’
‘Well, there’s a surprise.’
He waves to the rows of distant machines: ‘Can you just check that they’re all off? Operators usually leave one or two on. They don’t realise, or don’t care, that it burns out the motor. Wastes a lot of energy as well.’
Emma doesn’t give a damn about energy. All that crap about greenhouse gasses and ozone layers doesn’t affect her. You don’t worry about stuff like that when you haven’t got enough money to run a car or put the heating on if you’re cold. Given the chance, she’d burn three times as much energy as she does.
JJ turns off the lights and for a moment the two of them stand in a quiet darkness broken only by the pale spill and hum from overhead tubes out in the corridor.
‘How romantic,’ jokes Emma.
Too many random thoughts are trying to connect in his mind. The darkness – a woman alone – the excitement he feels rising inside him. He has to control himself. Mustn’t get carried away.
She senses his arousal – goes with her impulse and leans close. The kiss is gentle, hesitant, uncertain. She’s giddy, treading the tightrope between rejection and acceptance.
JJ feels strange. Magnetised to her. Physically unable to pull away. Her sexuality has a powerful hold on him.
She shuts her eyes, takes his face in her cool hands and kisses him more deeply.
He feels his heart jump as he breaks for breath. Without thinking, without censoring his thoughts, he finds himself pulling at her sweater, lifting it over her head. He must have her naked. Her hands fall to his belt and pull at the buckle. ‘Stop.’ He puts a hand to her face – thinks of covering her mouth – then he gently touches the strawberry birthmark with his thumb. ‘Wait. Let me lock up. I don’t want anyone to walk in on us.’
Emma Varley kicks off her shoes and smiles as he disappears in the darkness.
She leans back on the long workbench behind her and gets ready to offer herself to him.
30
WALNUT PARK, LOS ANGELES
Mitzi has the same bedtime ritual every night. She goes into the girls’ room and turns out their light. And usually the TV, which they’ve fallen asleep watching, even though they’ve been told not to. She kisses them and pulls their quilts up snug, kisses them again and slips out the door, making sure she leaves it open just enough for Amber and not too much for Jade. Sometimes she wonders if boys would have been less fussy.
She uses her own en-suite bathroom, slips into a modest black nightdress and then sits at a small dressing table with a tiny book-sized mirror and takes off what little make-up she ever wears.
The blow to the back of her head sends her sprawling face down on the bedroom floor. It catches her by surprise, even though it wasn’t totally unexpected.
‘Do you think you can treat me like shit? Like I’m one of your bum collars?’ Alfie bends low and throws another sweeping right-hander that smacks her ear and sends bells peeling through her shocked brain. ‘I oughta kick some respect into your cheap fat ass.’
The attack is her husband’s response to a scolding she gave him an hour ago. A bawling out for not finding work or doing anything around the house other than sinking beers. He slides the leather belt from around his waist and lashes wildly at her. ‘You don’t think I’m a man, do you?’ He’s slurring his words. ‘Cos I can’t get work doesn’t mean I’m still not a man.’ He folds the belt in two and this time when he hits her raises a crimson welt on her thigh.
Mitzi tries to get to her feet but he lays into her with the leather, slashing hard at her arms and legs, his anger fuelled by her cries and the sight of the deep red marks he’s creating. Finally, she catches the belt. She slides towards him as he pulls, and slams her left foot into his ankle. He tugs harder and she drives the flat of her right foot into his balls.
Alfie drops the strap. Staggers backwards. Falls.
She’s standing and he’s flat out now. There’s no room to aim a kick at his head. No way to land a meaningful punch in his face without him getting hold of her. Mitzi grabs the chair she’d been sitting on, flips it and jams the top of the seat across his windpipe.
Alfie clutches at the wood. She can see fear in his eyes. She leans down on the chair and watches his face redden. Alfie gasps for air. She presses harder. Knows what she’s doing. Knows that within a minute she can end it all. End Alfie.
He kicks with his legs. Thrashes for his life.
‘Mommy!’
Amber at the door. Watching her mother choking her father to death. Mitzi drops the chair like it’s electrified.
‘It’s all right, baby.’
The look in her child’s eyes says it isn’t – it never will be again.
‘Come on.’ Mitzi pushes her daughter towards the bedroom. ‘Go back to bed. Mommy will be there in a minute.’
Alfie’s still on his back. He’s holding his throat, making gasping, choking sounds, struggling for breath. Screw him. Mitzi sweeps a hand under her side of the bed and pulls out her force-issue Smith and Wesson. She checks the magazine, points it at her husband and looks down the barrel. ‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get your shit together and get out of here. Come into the girls’ room or even still be here when I come out and I’ll blow your damned head off.’
31
CARSON, LOS ANGELES
JJ feels unusually excited.
He’s never brought a woman home before. Never even considered doing so until Emma came along and boldly suggested they go back to his place. He could tell from the sparkle in her eyes that she was the one he could take a chance on. Full credit to her, she’s special. More than special – she’s blessed.
He closes the front door and carries her carefully up the dark stairway. He’s crossed a threshold, created a spiritual bond. Breathless, he reaches the top of the stairs and the creaking wooden boards of the landing. Being with Emma, ‘Em’ as he’s going to call her from now on, has made him realise that he’s been lonely, isolated, cut off from the big wide world. It’s not healthy. Not what God would want.
In the flickering candlelight of his bare bedroom his thoughts run fast as he tenderly undresses her, his excited fingers drifting over her smooth, cool skin.
Em is beautiful. Even more beautiful dead than she was alive. God had told him it was her time but he can’t leave her yet. Can’t be without her. His mouth greedily finds hers. The hot breath of passion passes from space to intimate space until he breaks for air.
She lies still beneath him, her eyes shut, lost in another world, as he marvels at her. His attention falls on her distinctive birthmark and he smiles. It’s not a blemish. Not a fault, not a mar of perfection as the rest of the world may see it. It’s nothing of the sort.
He knows what it is. He alone understands its importance. She had been marked out. Chosen for him. JJ’s never felt anything like this before. Never felt so complete. In the calmness and silence that follows he reaches to one side and pulls a long linen sheet around them both. He makes sure she’s well tucked in. He doesn’t want her getting cold. Not colder than she already is.
He leans over her and kisses her neck, then whispers in her ear, ‘Dominus vobiscum, my sweet darling. Dominus vobiscum.’
PART TWO
God is dead! And we killed him!
Friedrich Nietzsche
32
THE LEBANON
Beyond a thick grove of giant cedars, hidden in the shadows of the snow-covered slopes of Mount Lebanon, a kiln master performs a job passed down his family line for centuries.<
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His name is Ziad Keffy. He is forty years old, bald and fat. His skin has been roasted chestnut brown by the scorching sun. As he nears the opening of the blistering furnace his bare, sweat-glistened stomach looks like it is about to pop. Keffy’s decades of expertise tell him the kiln’s temperature is at the level he needs, and the clay inside begins to shimmer like molten gold. He stands in front of the fire and watches.
Periodically, he quenches the monstrous oven with water to produce the surface glaze that will protect the bricks. Each of them has been hand-crafted by his team of uniquely devoted workers, who have engraved their own personal marks on the precious blocks.
Keffy turns from the kiln to check on the labourers. It’s a brief escape from the broiling heat. Some are mixing clay with water and others are driving oxen over a fresh mix and trampling it into a thick slurry. Soon they’ll scoop it into wooden frames, then use wire-strung bows to cut the bricks before they’re moved to his kiln ready for firing.
It’s hot and dirty work. Toil that drains you and dries up your organs from the inside out. You’re never more than a few seconds from being desperately thirsty. Behind him Keffy hears his brother’s voice. ‘They are ready for you. They say it is time for you to come.’ Dany, younger than him y ten years, tall and slim, so unlike Ziad it is hard to believe they are related.
The kiln master uses a filthy cloth tied around his waist to wipe the sweat from his forehead. ‘Then they shall be obeyed,’ he says. ‘Don’t let anyone near the fire.’ He lives in fear of someone ruining his work or injuring themselves. If they did, there’d be hell to pay.
There’s no bounce in his stride as he ducks under a small brick archway and descends a steep set of cold, stone steps into the thousand-year-old building that dominates the grove. The hairs on his arms prickle. Partly because of the change in temperature. Mainly because of the task he’s about to carry out.
Just as Ziad is the only one entrusted with firing the bricks, so he is the only one ever called upon to supervise their use. His leather sandals make thin, echoing slaps as he walks the narrow slit of an underground passage, lit by fire torches on the walls. He shakes his head as he goes, unable to understand how people can spend any time down here, how they can live as they do.
The passage opens into a large subterranean square. The only light is from the candles placed around the central fountain. In the middle of the constantly pooling water is a statue. It’s a tall figure, with a stern face. The founding saint of the monastery. Ziad makes the sign of the cross and dips his head respectfully as two black-robed monks approach him. The older of the two holds a sledgehammer in his liver-spotted hands, the younger – a youth of no more than eighteen – three stone chisels. The kilnsman wonders why the teenager didn’t do the heavy lifting. Perhaps even here men are still keen to demonstrate their masculinity.
‘Is it the same one?’ he asks, fearfully.
The elder doesn’t speak but his eyes confirm it. The old man never speaks. That is to say, he hasn’t spoken for more than half a century. Ziad purses his lips and relieves the monk of the hammer. ‘Please lead the way, Brother.’
He follows behind them, his thoughts turning to the job in hand. How best to strike the first blow. How to do minimum damage to the tiny but sacred structure he only just erected. Most of all, how not to injure the beast of a man they so recently sealed inside it.
33
WEDNESDAY
WALNUT PARK, LOS ANGELES
It’s 3 a.m. and Mitzi hasn’t slept. She’s sat bolt upright in Amber’s bed, her two daughters finally asleep in the twin bunk beside her.
The Smith and Wesson dangles from her strapped-up hand. Her legs and arms are still red and stinging from the strapping Alfie gave her and her hearing is clouded with a constant buzzing from the blow to the ear. But she is oblivious to the pain. Her eyes are fixed on the bedroom door she’s barricaded with a chest of drawers.
A while ago she heard a door slam, a car start and then squeal away. Hopefully it was him. Please God let it have been him. She still won’t put the gun down – not until she’s certain. In the darkness she’s been thinking about the girls – the fights they’ve seen – the damage that’s been done. Strange thing is, he’s not been a bad father. Far from it. He adores them and they adore him. He’s never raised a finger to them. Only her. For her own good. To teach her a lesson. Because he loves her and he’s scared she’ll leave him.
Mitzi’s heard all the excuses and made them all to the girls – even told them it’s normal, said that all parents fight from time to time. She remembers how, battered and bruised after a fight, she’d let him hug her while they’d both tell the kids how much they loved each other and loved them. The most sickening thing of all was they’d meant it. Really meant it.
Crazy. She’d been certifiably insane.
She creeps out of bed, slides the chest of drawers slowly away from the door, picks her gun back up and takes a deep breath. Very slowly she prises the door open and heads back towards the bedroom where they fought. Maybe she should have called the cops when she’d floored him. Put up with the inevitable humiliation, the wagging tongues at work – what the hell. Come to think of it, she should have called them a long time ago. Right after the second time he punched her and then turned into a cry baby and asked her to forgive him.
She swings her gun around the doorframe and takes a shooting stance.
Empty.
Even in the soft glow from the bedside lamp she can tell he’s gone. She backs out onto the landing and wonders now how she fell for all the old baloney he’s given her. Sure, love stretches a long way. Love and two adorable kids stretch even further. But she should have known better.
Mitzi walks tip-toe down the stairs, gun out in front, clutched in her professional but still slightly shaking hands. She doesn’t switch on a light until she gets to the kitchen. Then she wishes she hadn’t.
The brightness falls like Judgement Day. A bolt of lightning straight from the hand of God rocks her head. She sweeps the gun around to see if the monster in her life is lying like a whale on the sofa.
He isn’t.
Thank God for small mercies.
Five minutes later Mitzi is sure she and the girls are alone. She bolts the doors and sits at the kitchen table staring at the place where Alfie used to sit. Where he’ll never sit again. In front of her is a bottle of whisky, a glass, the gun and a whole scary future.
34
CARSON, LOS ANGELES
She’s cold now.
Colder than JJ thought human flesh to be. It fascinates him. Cops on TV call it the death chill, the stage of decomposition scientists know as algor mortis.
Poor Em.
Every hour her body temperature has been falling by one and a half degrees and right now it’s barely that of the unheated room she’s lying in. Her room. Her resting place. He strokes hair from her ghostly white face and tenderly wraps an arm around her. Strange noises surface. For a moment he thinks she’s breathing. Rising from the dead. He places an ear to her heart and listens for a beat. Nothing. He moves down her torso, hands on her slim hips, cheek against her smooth abdomen. Now he knows what it is.
Gasses and liquids inside her. She might be dead but there are things living inside her – organisms feeding in her intestines – little parts of Em that are still alive. Life after death. He wonders if there are thoughts still in her brain moving like the bacteria, twitching in their final throes. Do memories just vanish like a heartbeat or do they hang around after the final breath and putrefy over hours, days or months? He knows the brain can be kept alive when all other organs are dead. Perhaps that’s where the soul is.
He slides up alongside her and looks into the empty eyes and says something he’s never said before. ‘I love you.’
It feels good. Saying it. It’s what God wants. God is love. God has brought him Em. She is his. He puts his mouth close to her face. ‘I do, Em. I love you. I really do.’
35
VATICAN CITY
Two Swiss Guards accompany the special advisor through the Cortile de Sisto V, the courtyard of Sixtus the Fifth, the former swineherd turned Pope. Their boots clatter as they briskly climb stone steps to the top floor of the Apostolic Palace. Since the seventeenth century the ten rooms in front of them, including a medical suite, have formed the appartamento nobile, the official winter residence of the Supreme Pontiff.
The papal secretary shows Andreas Pathykos through the vestibule and leaves him in the small study. The earnest Greek has known the Holy Father for thirty years. He is his eyes and ears in the outside world. Andreas paces until the doors open and his old friend enters.
‘Your Holiness.’ He bows, then adds, ‘I trust you are well.’
The old Pontiff smiles. ‘As much as a mere man of eighty ever will be. You told my secretary you had urgent news?’
‘I did.’ His demeanour changes. ‘It is not good, I am afraid.’
The Holy Father eases himself into a high-backed chair. ‘Urgent appointments seldom bring good tidings.’
‘The lady writer – she is dead.’
The Pontiff looks shaken. ‘God bless her.’ He makes the Sign of the Cross. ‘Under what circumstances did she pass?’
‘She was found in the sea close to where she lives in America. It was not an accident. We are reliably informed that the Los Angeles Police Department is treating her death as murder.’
The Pope lowers his head in solemn contemplation. Later he will pray for her soul. And he will pray that the worst of his imaginings is not true.
The advisor does not add any more details, certainly not the bloodier ones that he knows – the loss of an eye, the torture. His Holiness looks up. A pale blue gaze that has seen much sin and witnessed much wisdom falls upon his trusted servant. ‘Andreas Pathykos, if you have any information that can help the police catch this lady’s killer, you must inform the authorities.’