Dead Souls

by J. Lincoln Fenn

  He seems to read my thought. “I have friends,” he says quickly. “Real friends, not like Alejandro. They slip me things, under the door. I always think maybe this time, maybe this time. Maybe this time it will work. I’ll be blessed. Death is a blessing for the damned.” He traces a finger across his throat, slitting it. I swallow hard, judging the distance of his teeth to my ears. Maybe a foot and a half.

  My reaction amuses him.

  “Look, look at my fingernails.” He holds them out for inspection, and I see they are cut down as far as humanly possible, not a single millimeter of nail left.

  He giggles. “You know what that is?”

  I shake my head.

  “That’s perseverance. That’s what hope does to you. Makes you think you can escape, makes you think you can dig, dig, dig out your jugular vein with your fingernails.”

  He must not have completed his favor. He’s condemned to this life until he does.

  “At least I got some paint out of it,” he adds with a giggle, writing in the air with his finger. “Took two buckets for them to wash away the cantos.”

  Hope does desert me then. Here we are, ladies and gentlemen, the longest surviving dead soul. The expert on double deals. See how wonderful his life is.

  Saul inhales, deeply. Gathers himself. “But I’m forgetting my manners.”

  He pulls the gray blanket from the bed, flicks it out like a matador’s cape. “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord. To think I have been blessed with Saint Theophilus’s angel of absolution. Here, take this my lady. It is cold. And predators abound.”

  I wonder what this would look like to a passing guard, a blanket held aloft midair, taking the shape of shoulders. But it is cold, and I’m naked, so I take it, wrap it around me, and it does feel better. Steadying. Next he pulls up the mattress, places it in front of the window.

  “The bastards,” he says. “They’re always looking. Always looking, never seeing.” With the mattress up, he seems to settle a bit himself. “There,” he whispers. “There.” He turns to me. “Now you can let me see you properly. We can pretend to be civilized for a moment.” He waves at his now barren, steel bed platform. “Two people, meeting on a park bench. Light conversation.”

  It’s more of a command than an invitation. “Aren’t there cameras?”

  “Oh yes, oh yes, but you see . . .” he points to the upper right corner, where a camera is embedded in the wall. The lens obscured by brown mud.

  Then I realize it’s not mud.

  “Like I said, I could feel you here. I was prepared, just in case.” He bites his lower lip, expectant as a young child, and I think about my ears, how I’d like them to stay on my head. But at this point it’s an unavoidable risk.

  I relax my mind, and let the invisibility ebb away, starting with my feet, continuing up my knees, my thighs, my belly. I’m glad for the blanket now, a small modicum of modesty. It’s when my neck becomes visible that that the nausea hits, worse than it’s been in a long time, and I have to make a run for the toilet. I kneel before it, vomit the sandwich I’d eaten for lunch, along with pasty white bits of what I assume is paint from the door. Christ, I never knew that shit stayed inside me.

  Saul doesn’t seem fazed in the least. “Take your time, my angel of absolution. They’re going to assume I’m trying to kill myself again, but it will take them ten or more minutes to suit up.” He settles on the bed platform. “Ten minutes is an eternity here.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  THUMP, THUMP, THUMP on the door outside. “Saul? What you doin’ in there Saul?!”

  I quickly spit the last of what’s in my stomach, wipe my mouth, look for whatever it is that flushes the toilet. A button in the wall, apparently.

  “I’m thinking about what to eat!” shouts Saul. He grins, holding his knees and rocking back and forth on the bed platform quickly. A child filled with glee at his prank.

  “Dammit, Saul, I’m five minutes from clocking out today,” says the guard. “Can you cut me some slack?”

  Oh God, my stomach. Something else rises, but I take a deep breath, calm myself.

  Saul has to cover his mouth with his hand again to suppress a giggle. “How is Doctor Slovenko?”

  Water gurgles as the toilet flushes. I feel sick, feverish, like this place has given me sepsis. Wonder if I’ve recently walked through any walls that contain asbestos—what a sick joke that would be if I got cancer after Scratch collects his favor.

  “Don’t look so worried,” Saul says softly to me, patting the space on the platform next to him. “He can’t break in without his comrades and a face shield. Worker’s comp wouldn’t cover it. Come. Sit.”

  Thump, thump, thump. “Saul! You’re ruining my whole weekend, Saul!”

  Christ, what I wouldn’t give right now to be home. The feeling is so strong that I feel the room start to shimmer . . . but no, I can’t go home. My clothes would be found in the museum toilet, my car in the parking lot, there would be questions, attention. I can’t afford any of it. So whether I like it or not, I have to see this fucker through.

  I gather the blanket around me, pad over to the space next to Saul. Not that there’s much of it—the entire cell is smaller than my tiny walk-in closet. Like a coffin with headroom.

  He looks happy as I settle next to him. Practically beams. “This your first time in the Q?”

  I nod.

  Thump, thump, thump on the door.

  “That’s it, Saul!” hollers the guard. “I’m gonna count to five and if you don’t remove the mattress, I’m going to have to go get the team. You know that’ll add another year, right?”

  “It’s not so bad here,” he says. “I never went in much for people anyway. Don’t miss much, except . . .”

  “Five!”

  His face falls, and I wonder if he’s thinking of his lost wife, his lost son.

  “. . . the rain,” he adds, putting an effort into a smile, covering. “They never let you out in the rain, never out, always in.”

  “Four!”

  “Sometimes, when I’m in the shower, I turn the water cold, close my eyes. Like this.” He closes his eyes, raises his head up slightly, and I wonder if he can feel it, the rain on his face, or if just believing he can is enough.

  “Three!”

  “Saul,” I say quietly, so the guard can’t hear. “I came here to ask you something.”

  “I know,” he says, eyes still closed, his mind and spirit somewhere else.

  “What do you know about the double deal?”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake Saul, you’re really pissing me off!”

  The question obviously pains him. His eyes slowly open. “No, no, no, no, no.”

  “But in the book of dead souls,” I persist. “You wrote notes about it. Torquemada.”

  “Two!”

  “Torquemada,” Saul repeats. “Torquemada.” Something catches then, I sense different neurons firing. His eyes widen, just a bit.

  “Snare trap.”

  “What? What’s a snare trap?”

  “One! Thanks, Saul, don’t you be fucking asking me for extra pudding this week, you goddamn son of a bitch!”

  Thump, thump, thump, then the sound of boots clomping down the hallway, a buzz and a click as a gate is opened and closed. The prospect of a forced entry has set off all the inmates in solitary. I can hear them kicking their doors, screaming, yelling. Shouts of “You go Saul!” “Whatcha gonna eat next, Saul?”

  Saul looks at me, more cogent now. “They don’t understand. Here, the world is safe from me. Relatively. But I have to keep convincing them. Everything I touched, I corrupted. Worlds, they cannot cross. They cannot cross. It bleeds that way. Makes its way through and on.”

  His gaze drops to the floor, and I can sense I’m losing him again. “Saul,” I say. “What’s a snare trap?”

  “Every
thing you think,” he says bitterly. “Everything you do. Your little, small, inadequate hopes about double deals, escape, regaining what’s lost. All of it, all of it . . .”

  Suddenly he grabs my neck, presses his fingers into my esophagus, and squeezes, squeezes hard. Pulls me to him.

  “A snare trap,” he whispers lightly in my ear.

  A PART OF ME IS TERRIFIED, not that he’ll kill me, which he can’t, but that I’ll have to ghost out without learning what I came here for.

  “Saul!” I manage to gasp. I try to pry his hands off my neck, but he has a remarkable, wiry strength, like a gymnast’s.

  He squeezes tighter. “The more you struggle, the worse it gets. Snare trap. He’s always five steps ahead. You think you’ve figured a way out, because hope, that dirty bastard, tells you so, but he’s five steps ahead. He’s always five, five, five steps ahead. You just dig yourself deeper. And deeper. And deeper. Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”

  I start to feel dizzy, light-headed. “All right! All right, I abandon hope, okay? Fuck, okay?”

  He leans in. I can count the inches between his teeth and my ears. “No. You don’t. I can tell. I can smell hope on you. A disease. A contagion.”

  Just as suddenly he lets go, shoulders sagging, spent. I take in deep, wonderful breaths. My neck aches. I’m sure there will be bruises. Something else to lie to Justin about.

  “Saul, please,” I say, rubbing my neck. “Someone I love . . . I could help him.”

  Saul closes his eyes. I can almost hear him think Foolish girl, stupid girl. “Your love is beyond help. Not the first, not the last, not the last, not the first. It’s done. It’s already done, but you won’t believe it.”

  A feeling rises, that familiar sense of being utterly overwhelmed, utterly defeated. It’s impossible. All of it. I feel like the girl I used to be, trying to hold the lock firm while my father pounded the door, used a screwdriver to force it open. The horrid anticipation of the blows to come.

  Think, Fiona, think.

  My mind races through the little I know about him, seeking a crack, what could move him, and then my eyes light on scratches made in the cell’s painted walls. His initials, S.B. Dug with his fingernails probably.

  Recognition. He sold his soul to achieve recognition. Ah, there it is.

  “I had to see you,” I say, hoping he believes me. “I had to see you in person, because Alejandro removed things about you from the book.”

  Saul’s eyes fly open. Bingo. “He altered the book?”

  I nod. “He said you’d tried but failed to make a double deal. That it drove you mad.”

  Success. He jumps to his feet, starts to pace two steps north, two steps south, two steps north, running a hand through what’s left of his ragged hair. A caged animal.

  “I failed . . . I failed,” he sputters. “Everything Alejandro knows, I taught him.”

  I blow on the embers. “Not according to him. Said he hadn’t even talked to you in nearly twenty years. Wasn’t sure what became of you.”

  At this, I think I’ve overstepped because the look Saul gives me is one of pure, intense, and vicious hatred. This is followed by a very bizarre and bitter laugh. “Well, he said that, did he?”

  I don’t reply, let him fill in the gaps with his own paranoia. Try not to think about how long before the guards come, force their way in. But his hate makes him clear, at least for the moment.

  “We were supposed to come here together. A pact,” he says. “I shot him, you know.”

  “Alejandro?”

  “No. The man who had abused him as a boy.”

  I wonder if he’s mixing up his facts, or his insanity is mixing them for him. “But you shot a pastor. Alejandro told me it was a photographer who’d hurt him.”

  “Alejandro says many things. He was supposed to come in with me, finish him, but he couldn’t, drove off. So I took the blame, alone. And he deserted me, except for letters. A few. Too few.” He presses his fists on both sides of his temple. “He says he will buy me paint, but he never does. He never does.”

  Here I tread carefully. “Saul . . . is it really possible, the double deal?”

  A pause. He looks at me, a condemned and haunted man. “Alejandro asked me the very same thing, and I will tell you what I told him. I would not recommend it. Let it go, go, go.”

  But I’m not ready yet. Letting go would mean putting Justin in a casket in a few months. Or maybe days.

  “No point, no point, no point,” continues Saul emphatically. “Thinking you can make a double deal and win, that’s the snare.”

  Just then something slides under the door—a note, folded and attached to clear fishing line. Saul grimaces, bends over, and retrieves it. Opens the paper, a torn page from a Bible.

  “Catfish. Catfish hears the guards coming,” he says. “Five.”

  I press on. “Did you tell Alejandro it’s pointless?”

  He smiles. He’s missing a couple of teeth. I wonder if they came out when he bit the doctor. “I tell everyone it’s pointless. But human beings do as they do—it’s our best and worst quality. Alejandro though, he lies. Lies. He wants it all for himself. Only so many souls, you know. A limited supply. Can’t sell the same one twice. And it takes many, many souls for a double deal. Tens of thousands, at least. Would you want them on your conscience?”

  But if I don’t, then I have Justin’s death on my conscience.

  Thud of more boots down the hall, unknown gear being locked and loaded. Thump, thump, thump. “Saul! We’re coming in, Saul!”

  Saul looks wan, and a little older than when I entered. “You’d better leave.”

  I stand. It’s bad news, but good too. I’ve confirmed that Alejandro is a liar, that the double deal is possible. Now all I have to do is figure out something choice enough for Scratch to consider, in an iron-clad offer that doesn’t backfire. Something that only condemns the guilty, not the innocent. Maybe an offer that targets convicted murderers, pedophiles, corrupt government officials. Flush the world of all the evil people. A niche campaign. That would be a good, not a bad thing, right?

  Saul reads my determination and it seems to depress him further. I hand him the blanket and begin to set my mind to that place where me, and reality, blurs.

  “Wait,” Saul whispers.

  BANG, bang, bang on the door outside.

  He stands, takes a step toward me, holds a hand out to my left breast, hesitates.

  “May I?”

  Although this wasn’t part of any deal, I do feel indebted in a certain way, and such a look of longing, desperate loneliness passes over his face that it would feel immoral to deny him. Strange how that barometer of morality can shift.

  I nod.

  Gently, he reaches out and tentatively cups my breast, like he’s holding a captive bird. Closes his eyes. “Thank you.”

  I do not realize at the time that this will be my last act of mercy on this earth.

  IT TAKES LONGER than it should for me to reappear in the museum bathroom. Usually ghosting is near instantaneous, closing my eyes in one place and opening them in the other, but I sense more time has gone by. I even have the faintest memory of the distance traveled, the route my talent chose—a large open room where guards stood watch behind bulletproof glass, then through a hallway behind a kitchen, the smell of bacon burning.

  I look down to make sure I’m all here, and I am, so then I look in the mirror. Horrible—pale, with dark circles under my eyes, and my hair looks thinned out, like I lost some along the way.

  Call me immediately if you have a hard time becoming invisible.

  God, I want to, I really want to call Alejandro, but now I know he’s already planning his own double deal. He is my competition, a thought that burns. Probably shot the photos to drive a wedge between me and Justin . . . but the handwritten note, that was definitely from S
cratch. Am I next on his list? Are they in cahoots? One of my father’s favorite phrases, directed at friends he suspected were police snitches, or delivered Baggies of white powder that felt light. The standard drug-induced paranoia.

  Knock, knock, knock. “Everything okay in there?” The curator’s voice.

  Right. Museum, prison—I must get dressed, present a mask of normalcy. It helps, having something concrete to do. I hastily throw my shirt back on, ignoring the throb of my mutinous stomach, pull up my jeans. It’s hard though, my hands are actually trembling with rage.

  Goddamn son-of-a-bitch. All that “I would accept my destiny, such as it is,” don’t “perseverate on what is to come,” Zen bullshit. Tearing out the pages specific to Saul, denying he knew what happened, obscuring, deflecting, concealing. The only thing worse than being an expert liar is getting duped by a better one. Fuck me.

  Knock, knock, knock. Why does everyone knock in threes?

  “I’m almost done,” I call out, running a feverish hand through my hair. Christ, I look guiltier than hell. What will they think I was doing in here?

  “I’m going to have to call—”

  I flush the toilet, throw open the door. The curator stands in front of me, perplexed, and the little girl from the family holds his hand, legs crossed in that pained, “I have to pee now” pose.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say as brightly as possible. “I thought I was over the worst of the stomach flu.”

  He pauses.

  “It’s been going around,” he finally says, scanning me closely, looking for what, I don’t know. A telltale white powder beneath my nose perhaps. Something explosive. A cake with a shiv inside.

  The girl yanks desperately on the bottom of his T-shirt.

  “Well, we’re just about closing up.” He peers behind me, still unsure. “Not a journalist, are you?”

  “No. Why, should I be?” My attempt at lightening things up plummets to the floor and dies there.