by Lotta Smith
I added. “I’ve once tried to follow her path. And look what I’ve got—a marriage to a cheater-slash-swindler, the following fiasco and a social suicide. So unlike her, who usually had multiple next prospect-husbands-to-be lined up before the end of each nuptial, I ended up as a socialite dropout. A jinx. I guess that’s very significant evidence to rate my taste in men as ‘poor’ unlike ‘super-duper-excellent’ of Mom’s.”
Archangel snorted out laughing.
“Excuse me, but that’s not the part where you’re supposed to laugh! I was…I was totally devastated, you know, feeling like a failure.”
“You’re not a failure. On the contrary, I thought you’re kind of intelligent for the first time. At least, you’re capable of making an unbiased self-assessment.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” I shrugged. “I can understand your criticism for not getting over the previous life with Warren. I know he’s a dirtbag. But my feelings toward him are still sort of mixed and confused, as much as I feel so bitter, I feel sorry for him. Maybe I’m crazy.”
“Of course, you’re crazy. One moment you’re happy for being normal and the next thing, you’re fessing up your abnormality.” He nodded. “But it’s a normal craziness. After all, love is a form of lunacy.”
Without saying a word, I chewed on my lower lip. That was the best I could do to keep myself from bursting into a full-blown sobbing.
Was I pathetic, or what? I felt low. As in how-low-can-you-go-low.
Archangel patted my head like a big brother (or a big sister, considering that he was wearing a skirt). For a while, Camaro sped the way in a companionable silence.
“Mr. Archangel?” I said, “What brought you into the field of detecting and crime solving?”
“It’s Henderson’s fault. He first appeared in front of me with a case when I was in college. I was fifteen.”
“A murder case?”
“Yeah. Whodunit was obvious but he was sooo slooww. I could have just walked off, but I was a good citizen and unfortunately had moral standards, that was my first criminal investigation.”
“Wow. I didn’t know they let a teenager involved in a murder case.”
“Indeed, they did drag me into a murder case. Later, when I was a PhD student in New York, he reappeared from out of nowhere, and guess what? He dared to make me help solve a murder which actually rooted in an art theft case. The art theft case was a well-organized crime which was intended to stay unnoticed for years, but I spotted on a forgery, decoded whodunit, and cooperated with the feds. It was a rather boring case, turned out the professor who stole the real Henri Matisse oil painting by replacing it with a counterfeit was my mentor.”
I gasped. “That must have been really difficult.”
I was not very sure if I could cooperate with the authority at all, if I was in his shoes. Committing an art theft and a murder are unjustifiable, but if it turned out Mrs. Yarborough, my Physics III teacher back in high school, I might have been tempted to turn a blind eye on her mistake in exchange for an A-plus.
“Not really.” He shook his head. “Later, this professor thanked me for turning him over to the feds, saying, actually, he was torn between what little left of his conscience and the mixed feelings of greed and frustration. Not to mention he felt truly terrible about killing a person. So I felt little remorse for my action except it blew off the faculty position I was supposed to land on after getting the degree. Obviously, people in the ivory tower didn’t appreciate a young scholar who ratted out his superior. And in the world of academics, when you screw up with your first step, you’re screwed forever.”
“That’s why Agent Henderson recruited you to the FBI.”
“Yeah. Nothing fancy.” He shrugged. “The only funny part was Henderson found out that I hadn’t yet reached legal drinking age after buying me a tequila sunrise. And before he tried to snatch it back, I hit the bottom with one gulp. I was fine with getting a misdemeanor but he didn’t want any trouble with the ethical committee, so we sort of made a deal: I wouldn’t mention the incident so that he gives me whatever help I need anytime. So I used the card soon, not a smart move, I guess. I was young.”
“Wow, I knew you two had a long history.”
“A history? Come on, Kelly, stop calling it like a relationship.” Archangel complained with a grimace. “He was a part responsible for screwing up my academic career, he owed me big.”
“Still, you and Agent Henderson seem like very close friends.”
“Then you should see an ophthalmologist. You’ve got to thank me for including vision and dental coverage with your health insurance.”
“My vision is fine, it’s just we have different point of views.” I smiled. “Anyway, thanks for covering me with nice insurance plan.”
“Hey, wipe that grin off your face,” he snapped.
“Okay, let’s talk about another topic,” said I. “Why did you leave the FBI?”
“I don’t remember.” He said.
“Yes, you do.” I pointed out. “You never forget anything.”
Indeed, one of the things that attribute to Archangel’s brilliant detecting skills is his uber-human memory that comes with the eye that never misses any subtle unbalance, disorder, or mismatch of anything. Maybe that came from the area of his expertise in art, but obviously, that was considerately helping him with detecting.
“I don’t know. Perhaps I got bored.” Archangel mumbled.
“Bored? No, you weren’t bored. If you were really bored, you won’t be a P.I. who consults the feds.”
“Kelly, I suppose you’ll make a good interrogator. The thing is I got bored with all those politics and dramas. There was an ugly case which changed many things, like everything.”
“Like, your engagement with that Congresswoman being called off?” I blurted out before giving it a much thought. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I apologize, that was a personal question. I shouldn’t have mentioned that.”
“That’s all right.” He shook it off. “Perhaps being my personal assistant involves a certain entitlement to ask me personal questions. And you’re right. Seems like I’m not her favorite person after all those years. She’s grudgy, or what?”
“It indeed looked like she still has a grudge on you.” I said. Though I didn’t mention I also sensed something fiery with Bitchtricia, for example, still smoldering passion or… love. “But life goes on, right?”
“Yeah, life goes on.”
“So, who dumped whom?”
“I’m not authorized to discuss the matter with third parties on the account she insisted that we sign confidentiality clauses, which I surrendered to sign. You know what I mean?”
“I see,” I nodded. So, she’s the dumpee. “She surely seemed like to be a person who likes to sign confidentiality clauses.” And a really grudgy person.
“Enough of the past. Let’s focus on the current issue,” he snapped fingers.
“Okay.”
For a moment or two, neither of us spoke. Then I found myself itching to ask if Bitchtricia had played an important role for my employer to start wearing women’s clothes.
“Mr. Archangel—”
“By the way, Kelly—”
We started talking simultaneously.
“Go on, ladies first.” He interjected. “But don’t forget no-mentioning-the-past part.”
“Well…” I fidgeted with words. “Oh my, I guess what I was trying to say had just slipped out of my mind. So…after you.”
“Alright, there’s a Chinese restaurant around the corner.” He cleared the throat. “If you promise you’ll stick to no-digging on my past deal, the dinner’s on me.”
“Can I order a crab rangoon? And maybe a shrimp chow mein?”
“Be my guest. Throw in pork dumplings, if you like.”
“Deal.” I said and we high-fived.
Digging about the mystery of his past was intriguing and tempting, but I was famished and I could use a free dinner.
At the same tim
e, it felt completely out of ordinary that I was thinking about food, literally minutes after witnessing death. Anyway, my thinking tends to get shaky when I’m hungry.
Chapter 10
“How well are you sleeping lately?”
“Not well.” I said.
“Can you tell me more about your sleep problem?”
The shrink said, with something resembling a concern in his voice.
But somehow, I sensed he showed that just because it was a part of his job. Anyway, the couch I sat on was not bad. It was comfy.
After a brief period of silence, I said. “I often wake up in the middle of night, after a brief sleep, every night. Then I have problems going back to sleep.”
After asking me how long I had been with this problem, what time of night it usually happened, he said.
“Are you aware of anything that might be causing you to wake up in mid-sleep?”
“Well, doctor…” I grumbled. “I see a dream.”
“A dream?” He parroted the word with so much interest that it almost felt ridiculous.
“More like a nightmare,” I corrected myself.
“Can you tell me more about it?”
“Oh, it’s just a silly dream, you know.”
I tried to laugh it off but the doctor wasn’t fooled.
“No matter how silly it may seem, dreams often portray your feelings and thoughts in your subconscious.”
Rubbing his jaw, he said.
“Mr. Reynolds, you can be rest assured. Whatever we talk in this room never gets out of here.”
“It’s a dream about a woman.” I shrugged. “In the dream, or the nightmare is more like it, she is pregnant.”
Following the shrink’s inquisitive look, I added. “I can tell that she is pregnant because of her inflated belly, just like a balloon.”
“Is she someone you know?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Not at the moment, I can’t see her face. She is just something like a dark shadow.”
“I see.” He nodded and encouraged me to continue the story.
“All of a sudden, she is dead. And she is glaring at me grudgingly, except her eyes are no longer with her. She stares at me, with dark, bloodied, empty holes that are supposed to accommodate her eyeballs.”
I was sweating and huffing as I regurgitated my nightmares.
“Are you okay? Would you like some water?” Shrink looked into my face concernedly. I declined his offer with a shake of a hand.
“I’m fine, thanks.”
After taking a deep breath, I continued. “The worst part is, I’m holding the bloodied eyeballs in my hands. Not just hers, but the fetus’s. At this moment, the unborn baby has somehow emerged out of her. Her, I mean, the mother’s abdomen is ripped open, the baby’s strapped to his mother with just the umbilical cord, but I know he has his own will. And he doesn’t like me. No, doesn’t like me is an understatement. It’s obvious he hates me. ‘You idiot! You killed us, you killed us, you killed us!’ He accuses me, finger pointing, with his empty eyeholes full of rage… Then the woman joins the chant with the baby, and the eyeballs I’m holding starts chanting at me, saying Murderer, murderer, bloody murderer. I tell you, it’s horrible.”
I touched my cheek and felt the moisture. At first I thought it was sweat then I realized I was sobbing.
Offering tissue paper, the shrink asked. “Do you think this particular dream is anyhow related to your real life experiences?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head.
Doctor cast me an inquisitive look. So I added, “Just in case, I have searched my home and studio for stray eyeballs that do not belong to me. I’m happy to announce I found none.” I didn’t mention that some peculiar words keep on surfacing in my consciousness and bothers me badly.
I didn’t know the reason why, but I didn’t want to tell him. A complication is the last thing I wanted to add to my already bad situation. At least, I was aware of the jeopardy of sharing your obsession that involves the word “eyeballs” nowadays. I had no idea the meanings of “Eyes of Dragon,” “Dragon Lady,” or why I was so obsessed with this phrase.
Anyway, the shrink nodded like he knew it all. “I see,” was his words.
“Do you, by any chance suspect that I am the serial killer called Eyeball Snatcher?”
“What makes you ask me that question?” He answered my question with a question. As if, to avoid actually making a reply to my question. Then he continued, “Sometimes, for sensitive people, information from outside world, such as TV, newspaper, and the internet is too much. And when your brain is overwhelmed with external stimuli, the border line between reality and virtual reality often gets blurred.”
“Hmm, that’s interesting.”
“Do you use alcohol before sleeping?” He said.
“No. I don’t drink.” I stopped drinking after the crash.
“How about recreational drugs?”
“No.” I denied profusely. Maybe, a little bit too profusely. I tend to get sensitive when they ask me about drug use, not to mention that a little concoction I’m using nowadays is not the kind of drugs he was talking about. So I use a little bit of this and that to help me get numb, but that doesn’t make me a junky, right?
The psychiatrist furrowed his brows skeptically. “How about using them in the past?”
“Well, I did used to use…a bit.”
“How much do you define as ‘a bit’?”
“I prefer not to answer to that question.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, doctor.” I tried to chuckle breezily, in a lame attempt to lighten up the mood but the shrink didn’t.
“No offence, but from my point of view, it seems like you are not 100 percent confident regarding drug matters. And I strongly recommend that you quit the bad habit immediately. Drugs destroy not only you but the people around you, including but not limited to your loved ones.”
“I understand.” I nodded. I didn’t tell him that my ‘loved one’ had already left me.
“I can arrange a proper treatment in the rehab.” He said. “What do you think about that?”
“I don’t think so,” I shook my head. “I don’t want to go to rehab. It’s a waste of time. I’ve already quit using drugs.”
He stared me in the eyes. “Then Mr. Reynolds, please promise that you quit drugs, completely. Can you promise?”
“I promise. I mean it.”
He nodded like he was satisfied with my answer. “By the way, about the people in your dream, are there anyone you know?”
“Yes, I suppose so.” I said, from gritted teeth. “The dead woman is Carla.”
“Your late fiancée?”
“Yes, my best friend, my fiancée, one and only woman I loved… and killed.”
“Mr. Reynolds, you didn’t kill her,” Shrink said firmly. “It was an unfortunate accident.”
“But I was driving the goddamned vehicle!” I snapped. “She was pregnant with our baby. We were so happy. I was such an idiot to drive after drinking. I thought it was OK, just a couple of beers, but it wasn’t…”
“I can imagine your suffering,” said the psychiatrist, with a grim expression. “However, what happened in the past is just a past. Sometimes, we cannot restore the past.”
“I know.” I nodded. “But I just cannot get over it. Every moment, I can’t help thinking what if I had gone more slowly, what if we took a taxi instead of driving myself, what if I had firmly objected to going out to dinner and ordered pizza or Chinese instead.”
“Remorse is a tricky emotion,” Shrink said. “Anyone else you recognize in that particular dream?”
“Well, I believe the woman appearing as a shadow is my mother.”
“She has passed away when you were a student, is that correct?”
“Yes, she died of heart attack when I was studying in Vienna, Austria.”
“How was your relationship to your late mother?”
He asked me the same question I
had answered in one of previous sessions.
Trying to hide annoyance, “I have mixed feelings to her,” I admitted. “She was the harshest piano teacher, it’s true I often loathed her. But…”
“But?”
“It’s also true, without her, I would never have emerged as a musician in the first place, which, I have completely screwed by causing the accident.”
As I said it bitterly, the haunting image of shattered glass, crooked and bloody wrists with bones sticking out flashed back to my eyes. And the pain that comes with the memory followed by numbness. And the despair.
Gritting my teeth, I moved my hands. The hands that will never fully recover.
“I can imagine she’s really pissed off about me, if she sees me from the up above.”
“I doubt it, Mr. Reynolds.” Shrink said. “As you have mentioned, it’s true that you had an accident that resulted in deaths of your fiancée and the expected baby. You sustained a severe injury to your hands, ending your career as an internationally renowned pianist. Still, you have achieved a great success in popular music industry. Now as a singer and a song writer named Yves, you are one of the most successful emerging musicians. It’s amazing, like the pianist Frederick Reynolds has reborn into Yves.”
I cocked my head. It felt awkward that he described me as some kind of a star. People talk about me like a fucking phoenix or something but in my heart, I was just a poor stupid bastard who ended up killing his loved ones, because of his own stupidity. I knew that fact never changes. So being Yves, I got a lot of money. Money can buy many things. Then again, even if I collect all the money in the world, that cannot buy Carla and our baby back.