The ad was in the entertainment section of the paper, amongst those for plays, and the billboard amongst others advertising plays in the theater district, and so it mustn’t be a film…but when exactly would it open, and where, and who had written it? Obviously the ambiguity of the ad was a form of hype meant to garner the play advance attention.
Monty scanned for more on Meathearts, sipping his first coffee of the shift. His boss had been irritated that he’d left early, especially since those bundles of papers Monty had neglected to put away had been strewn throughout Blue Station by kids on their way to school. Monty didn’t let it bother him. Mauve Pond had agreed to meet him for lunch two days from now. She hadn’t elaborated on why then, specifically. Busy schedule? Other men-friends to see? Or did she want her scars to be pretty much gone for their next encounter?
Mulling this over, Monty flipped the page to a shock.
PAXTON THEATER CRITIC FOUND SLAIN.
It was attached to the entertainment section. And it was Yancy Mays.
“My God,” muttered Monty, his eyes racing down the column. He had to break away for a moment, impatiently, to sell a magazine.
“My God,” he said again.
Yancy Mays’ roommate (male lover, Monty conjectured) Isaac Angeles had found the body upon returning home from work in the early evening, last night. Poor Isaac must have had a horrible shock, much worse than Monty’s now, to find Yancy hanging upside-down by his ankles from a ceiling fixture, naked, his throat cut.
Like the goat in the play Shit for Breakfast…the play Yancy Mays had helped shut down, in his outrage. Monty recognized the similarity immediately, but found no mention of that play. A motive was unknown, as of yet, the article said—robbery ruled out.
Who had written that play, directed it? Monty couldn’t remember now if Yancy had mentioned this in the review he’d read of Pandora’s Box. Would someone connected with that play have come after Yancy for revenge?
Why after all this time, a year and more?
Monty thought about calling the police with his observation.
Then he thought about Yancy Mays’ scathing recent review of the Ferule Cangue production of Meathearts.
And he remembered the scathing review of Pandora’s Box, back when he and Opal Cowrie and Yancy Mays were all dying of M-670…filled with these memories, and surrounded in his prison of headlines.
*
“I’m Detective Juarez, heading the investigation into the murder of Yancy Mays,” the round-faced, cold-eyed man on the vidscreen introduced himself. “So who are you, again?”
Monty had called Police Central, asked to speak to the lead officer investigating Yancy Mays’ murder in whatever precinct that fell under. Now he introduced himself. “My name’s Montgomery Black; I’m an ex-health agent, dismissed after I contracted M-670 at Toll Loveland’s presentation Pandora’s Box. Mays contracted M-670 at the same show and reviewed Pandora’s Box, and in that review he made mention of a play called Shit for Breakfast, in which…”
“A live goat is strung up and has its throat cut. I know.”
“Oh, good, I wanted to be sure…”
“Good observation. I appreciate your calling.”
“So do you think the director or writer of that might have…you know…”
“The writer/director Twitch Member has already been questioned and he has an alibi. He submitted eagerly to a truth scan because he knows how bad this looks. He’s innocent. He thinks someone’s trying to frame him but I doubt it. Right now we’re trying to track down the cast for questioning. It could even be a fan who liked that play and resented Mays for shutting it down. Whoever it is, is a psycho.”
“It might be the director or writer of another play Mays attacked,” Monty suggested. “But he doesn’t want to give himself away, so he killed Mays in a way that suggests he wants revenge for his criticism…but not in a way that reveals his identity.”
“Maybe. But Mays has reviewed a lot of plays and movies and dance productions, and his reviews are often unkind. Could be some walk-on actor Mays said two words about in a play five years ago—who knows?”
“Well, it seems to me he would have killed Mays before this. Mays must have recently stirred things up with someone. Some of these plays he’s cut up have been made by very disturbed people…violent people. Look at Pandora’s Box.”
“Yeah. Well, at least we can rule out Toll Loveland as a suspect, huh?”
“Mm,” said Monty.
“Like I said, I appreciate your calling. Sorry to hear you lost your job over that fuck, Loveland. Call me again if you think of anything helpful. You didn’t know Mays yourself, did you? Or speak with him at Pandora’s Box?”
“Never even saw him.” Christ, thought Monty, I’m not stupid, pal. I didn’t fucking kill Yancy Mays. But he said nothing. Juarez was just doing his job…but no doubt now he’d poke into Monty’s background a little. Oh well; Monty would do the same in his position.
Monty disconnected without getting specific about Mays’ bad review of Meathearts. After all, he hadn’t wanted so much to help the police investigation as to rule out the creator of Shit for Breakfast in his own.
*
“Beak.”
The tall, weasel-like being with the little black bird’s beak, wearing a bulky jacket and a purple ski hat against the morning cold, spun at the voice, ripping his zipper open. Two small children were with him.
“Hey!” Monty said, holding up his spread hands.
Beak had torn his pistol free and shoved it out on level with Monty’s face. “Get in the house, kids—move!” They hesitated, uncomprehending. “Now!”
“It’s me, Monty, Beak—take it slow!”
“I know who you are, man.” The kids ran to the tenement steps, up them. They had longer, lighter, fluffier fur than Beak, and their black beaks were three times as long as his—like hummingbird bills. They disappeared inside.
“Cute kids. Why the animosity, Beak?”
“I heard about your shooting spree in the supermarket and your stand-off with the forcers, man. I’m taking no chances. How do you know where I live and what the hell are you doing sneaking up on me?”
“You snuck up on me and Opal the night of Toll Loveland’s show, remember? And do you forget, you yourself invited me and Opal over here once with the rest of Organic Control to celebrate your marriage to the mother of those cute little chicks of yours?”
“The mother of those cute little kids was raped and stabbed to death last year, Black…and like I said, I take no chances.”
“What—are you kidding? Oh my God, man, I’m sorry…”
“That’s fucking life, right? That’s fucking life. So you still haven’t told me why you’re here, Black.” Beak hadn’t lowered his pistol an inch and cars were going by. No one had stopped, though. That was fucking life.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Beak…I didn’t know…”
“Why?”
“It’s about Toll Loveland.”
The gun wavered a little like it was getting heavy. Then it lowered, slowly, to Beak’s side as he straightened up from his tense firing stance. “Yeah?”
“Did you ever get to see his body when they brought it in?”
“No. Why?”
“Did you see photos or vids of it?”
“Photos.”
“Was it really him, Beak? The same guy from Pandora’s Box?”
“Yeah, you could tell it was him. He was dead four days and he was practically a skeleton from M-670, but he had the same high forehead and slicked-back hair and whatever. And he had some ID…”
“Let’s stick to the physical body.”
“What’s this about?”
“I have this feeling he’s alive.”
Beak squinted at Monty, who stood near the end of Beak’s car, his hands still held out of his pockets so Beak could see them, despite the chill. Beak asked, again, “Why?”
“The theater critic Yancy Mays was murdered in the same way
a goat was killed in a play. The writer of that play has an alibi, but the play was mentioned in Mays’ review of Pandora’s Box. And just recently Mays mentioned Loveland again, in a not-too-kind way, in a review of a new play.”
“So you think Loveland is still alive and killed a critic?”
“Maybe he was cloned.”
“By who?”
“A black market outfit. The Teeb Family will do that. Or maybe he did it himself.”
“Himself?” Beak sounded like he thought Monty might be mad.
“He majored in bioengineering at Paxton Polytech before he went on to P.U. for his Liberal Arts degree. In his play The Godfucker he cut off his left hand’s little finger, swallowed it, and at the end of the play cloned it back himself on stage in three minutes.”
“Yeah, I remember that, now.”
“Me and Vern went to the Hill Way Galleries to see a Loveland painting called Matter of Life and Death. It’s a light painting that changes at various times of the day. First it showed a baby boy inside the rib-cage of a skeleton, trying to break out, his arms in the same pose as the skeleton. Next I saw it, the skeleton had changed into a man: Toll Loveland. This time the child had turned into a skeleton but only his arm was reaching out of Loveland’s chest. Next it showed a huge naked chest—baby within Toll, and Toll within this third body.”
Yeah—so?”
Matter of Life and Death. Flesh. Bones. Rebirth.” Monty let it sink in. “Cloning.”
Come on, man, this mutant shit kind of art can be interpreted a million fuckin’ ways.”
Loveland likes to leave clues. In the same painting he had Bedbug Navigator globes in the eye sockets of the skull, in reference to the teleporter he had rigged up that me and Vern found…”
Yeah, and Vern found his way into a hospital for that one, thanks to Toll Loveland and you,” Beak hissed.
Let me finish, dammit. He gave himself a cameo appearance in Auretta Here’s vid to the news people, remember? Then he killed Here in his movie Cupid of Death, turned her to sludge and planted a ticket for The Godfucker on her. Having his fun, playing his games…”
And?”
And so maybe he wanted us to think he died of M-670, and left an infected clone of himself for us to find so we’d believe it was all over…”
Beak was already wagging his head. “Mutant shit. Crazy paranoid mutant feces, man. It’s been a year. We’d have heard about this psycho already, he’d have struck again—that’s his passion. Was.”
Maybe he has, and we haven’t realized it was him. He’s got a new identity; he was Manuel Hung in school and Vicelord Godfucker after that. Maybe he’s in Miniosis, or went to Earth. Or maybe he’s here…just been taking his time and working on his next project.”
Man, I know what you’re going through.” Beak sighed, cold steam puffing out. Frost sparkled on his car; winter was on its way, striding in on huge white legs taller than Punktown’s towering buildings. Most of them, anyway. “On weekends I leave my kids with my brother and his wife for a couple of hours and look for the punks who killed my wife. Every weekend since it happened. Some weeknights, too. My people mate for life, man. For life. Your people laugh at us, but that’s your fucking problem. I’ll never stop until I find those fucks and skin them alive. Never. My kids don’t understand…they still ask me when she’s coming home, or will she come on their birthdays, or whatever. They don’t know what a fucking afterlife is any better than I do, but I do my best, and my brother’s wife draws for children’s books, so she draws pictures of their mother playing in heaven, or wherever. That’s my biggest help. So I try not to let them see how hate-filled and despairing I am…I gotta be strong for them, I can’t be selfish and irresponsible. But when they’re not around, I look. And some day, when they’re not around, I’ll find those two human punks. And my kids won’t be there to see what I do to them.”
Monty sniffed from the cold. “I’m so sorry, man,” he breathed.
I know you are. And I’m sorry for you and Opal. I know what you’re after. Same thing as me. Only difference is, my boys are probably still alive. And your boy isn’t. You wish he was, so you yourself could kill him. But Toll Loveland is dead.”
Monty let out more than he’d first intended to let Beak know. “A new play just opened; Meathearts. In it, on stage, a woman has her face carved up and another one gets her arm hacked off. Then backstage, for their next act, they get patched up—and for the rest of the week until the next show, the slashed woman heals and the armless woman grows her arm back, using a new long-distance cloning technique. Sounds Lovelandish to me.”
Sounds to me like a Loveland emulation. I’m not surprised, Black. You’ll see more of this. People hopping on the Loveland bus. The controversy. The publicity. He’s a genius and a hero to some sick fucks.”
The playwright is fairly well-known and established, but the director sounds suspicious, Beak. His name…”
Black.”
His name is Ferule Cangue. I know a ferule is a stick or ruler you punish children with, and today I looked up ‘cangue.’ It’s a heavy wooden yoke they made you wear in ancient China, on Earth, as punishment. It isn’t his real name, Beak. Ferule Cangue is the Punisher. And Yancy Mays has been punished.”
And my name isn’t Beak, and half the people in this fucking town, at least, don’t use their real names, Black—you know that. A Toll Loveland fan, maybe. Look into this guy if you have to…you’ll see. But I’m telling you. You’re chasing a ghost, Black.”
I’m haunted by ghosts, Monty thought. Opal’s. Maybe his own. And while he was on the subject of ghosts…
Where’s Vern at, now? You must have heard from him.”
Leave him alone.”
Beak.”
I mean it. Leave him alone. I’m sorry what I said about the tran incident—nobody held a gun to his head to get involved—but I don’t want you going up to him with this crazy obsessive shit you’re throwing at me.”
I just want to know if he’s all right, dammit. I haven’t heard from him or seen him in a year. I have to know he’s all right.”
He’s all right. That’s all I’ll say. I mean it. He’s all right.”
Monty sighed, calming a bit. “Thank you.” Though he wasn’t sure how much he could believe Beak on this.
I have to go; my kids’ll be late for school, and I’ve gotta get to HAP. Don’t worry, Black, I won’t mention our little talk. Especially the stuff about Loveland.”
Thanks, Beak. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about your wife. Why don’t you let me come with you sometimes on weekends? We can cover more ground…”
Beak wagged his head, chuckled a little. “I’m honored, man, I’m honored you’d suggest that. And it’s tempting to have somebody along to lean on and to understand my pain. But I have to be alone. It’s personal, it’s a private thing, it’s my thing. And I’m afraid that if you were with me I’d talk too much of it out of my system. You’d talk me into staying home with the kids. You’d try to get me to take a new mate in the human way. I can’t, man. I’ve got to stay alone and stay sad and stay full of hate.”
Just let me know if you ever need any kind of help. If you change your mind, at least give me enough info that I can hunt for them on my own.”
Nobody’s ever offered me so much help. I can’t believe you, Black. People tell you they feel sorry for you, and two weeks later they’ve forgotten you had a problem; at least they ignore it ‘cause it makes them uncomfortable ‘cause they got their own problems. And here you are with your own problems, and you’re offering to help me. You’re empathizing with me. I’m impressed, man, and I’m touched. Only my old buddy Woodsy, I think, would have done that for me.”
He did it for me,” Monty said, smiling.
Beak stuffed his gun away and held out his small furry hand. “I won’t forget this. You let me know if you ever need help. But drop the ghost, buddy, drop it. All right?”
As soon as I can. Look after those cute little chicks, Beak
. That has to be your top priority.”
Always.”
They let go of each other’s hands. Monty patted Beak’s arm and turned to walk back the two blocks to the subway kiosk he’d emerged from.
He felt sorry for Beak and his kids, sorrier now than for his own loss. He and Opal hadn’t been married, nor had children. He almost felt guilty, as if his obsession were trivial. But Opal wasn’t the only one who needed vengeance, was she? Many others had died as a result of the opening of Pandora’s Box. There was Auretta Here, however tainted her innocence had been, and of course Yancy Mays to be avenged.
But even if it had only been Opal, that didn’t mean Monty had no right to feel his own pain. A person with a cut-off finger needn’t feel guilty that the pain of a person with his entire arm cut off is greater.
This was his pain. His personal, private thing.
And if someone, anyone, were still alive to be punished, then Monty would designate himself the Punisher.
*
Mauve had no scars today. More unusual to Monty was that every other time he’d seen her she’d been glamorously attired in skirts, stockings, heels—but today she was wearing faded blue jeans, sneakers, a heavy gray sweater over a white blouse and an oversized, drab green military rain parka, the hood up over her head. “Incognito,” she explained as they walked, side-by-side.
Is it that bad already?”
The play is doing really well—the best box office right now for a non-musical in Punktown. The movie talk is big. But I won’t get it…watch them give it to Malka Tribe or Patricia Gates…”
Or Lhinda Sanchez.”
Right. They always get the juicy parts.”
But do they have the guts to let your pal Dwork cut their faces open?”
I really hope they ask me, but I won’t bank on it. My agent is letting them know I want it. But even if I don’t get it, I’ll have got enough attention to maybe nab a nice film role someplace.”
So are you dressed like this only as a disguise, or am I seeing the real Mauve Pond?”
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