The Cleopatra Murders

by Mic Palmer

  Just then a couple appeared. The woman was youthful looking for her fifty years. Dressed in long a skirt and boots, she felt the eyes of every man in the bar.

  “But I never let it stop me,” Will proudly added. “I got two degrees, one in business and one in marketing.”

  “Aren’t you a printer?” said the bartender, constantly stretching his tree trunk neck.

  “Life’s funny, isn’t it? I spent most of my life running from words; now I’m buried in them.”

  “That’s great,” interjected the woman. “My nephew has the same thing, but after a lot of hard work, he’s an “A” student.”

  “It’s all about regular effort,” said the winner of the bet. “The mind adapts.”

  The women nodded, then turned to the bartender. “Two rum and cokes.”

  “And let me have a Hofstout,” added Will.

  The bartender cleared off a few plates and tossed them in a bin. “The brain’s the most durable organ, but people like to act like there’s nothing they can do about it. Like in my building, there’s this woman claiming that her kids are screwed up because of lead in the paint. That’s all we had when we were kids.”

  Having pulled out his wallet, the woman’s husband dropped a twenty onto the bar. He was short and bespectacled with wide shoulders and a thoughtful countenance. “Some of us more than others,” he commented.

  Serving Will his beer, the bartender’s face appeared all veiny and swollen, like someone holding his breath. “You know you can lose half your brain and do just fine. It’s been documented. What happens is the other side takes over. That’s why I roll my eyes when I hear someone going on about some sort of head injury. It comes back.”

  Putting down her drink, the woman looked as though she had swallowed a fly. “Have you ever met a stroke victim?”

  The bartender’s voice became even higher, rising to the level only a dog could hear. “All I’m saying is that sometimes people don’t do everything they can. I don’t mean any offense.”

  “Listen,” said the woman. “My father hasn’t been able to carry on a decent conversation in ten years. Are you saying it’s his fault?”

  “Alright,” whispered her husband, as he passed his wife her drink. “Why don’t we move over there.”

  “Fuck’n asshole,” she muttered, as she was ushered away.

  “Don’t mind him,” yelled the dyslexic. “He was hit in the head with a keg.”

  Looking at Jack for support, the bartender cracked his neck. “Jesus Christ. What’s with her?”

  Not wanting to get involved, Jack shrugged. Even with the blackened scalp, seven day growth of facial hair, and thick framed sun glasses, he couldn’t help but feel exposed.

  “The mind is plastic,” declared the newest visitor to the bar. The accent was English, but not quite right, as if he had picked it up as an adult. Nearly a head taller than most of the men in the place, he sat down next to Will and grabbed a handful of peanuts. With a wide putty nose, choppy skin, short grey beard, clunky black glasses and a mop of artificially thick platinum blond hair, he almost appeared as if he were wearing a disguise.

  “Seems familiar,” Jack thought to himself. Then it hit him like a punch in the teeth. Perhaps he was a cop. Having tracked him down and maybe even searched his apartment, maybe they felt they didn’t have enough evidence.

  Unaccustomed to wearing glasses, Jack didn’t like the way they pressed against his nose, the result of which was that he’d periodically push them up towards his eyebrows to relieve the pressure. “Calm down,” he told himself. If the police were following him – which was doubtful given the precautions he had taken – they’d send someone more normal looking – not this circus freak.

  “Take the amygdala,” went on the large fellow. “That’s the organ that controls the fear response, but it can be treated, even in the worst of cowards.”

  “How’s that?” asked Will.

  “One of the ways is through meditation, which helps to reduce the chemicals produced during the fight or flight response. As a result the amygdala shrinks, making further intervention unnecessary. Now instead of hiding in the shadows, you might find yourself standing up for someone. As a matter of fact, that just might be what a hero is – someone with a shrunken amygdala.”

  “Ya sound like a doctor,” offered the bartender.

  “A neurologist.”

  “Really? We’re among royalty.”

  Will was impressed. “So where ya from?”

  “Cambridge. As a matter of fact I spent a good portion of my life teaching there, but then they forced me to retire, and I thought, to the devil with the whole lot of them. I’m moving to the States.”

  The barkeep extended his hand. “Welcome.”

  Will smiled. His teeth were small and yellow, like tiny kernels of corn. Standing between Jack and the foreigner, his face appeared thin and drawn. “So you agree with me?” he told the physician, “I fixed myself.”

  “Absolutely,” said the professor, “but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that anybody can be fixed. Unfortunately, it depends on the problem.”

  “What about that guy who was shot in the head?” submitted the bartender. “According to the show I was watching, he lost half his brain and was fine.”

  The professor had an imperious air about him. “That,” he told the mixologist, “is simply idiotic.”

  “I saw it on the news.”

  “What you’re probably alluding to is that Canadian case, where the boy went on to graduate from college.”

  “Right!”

  “If memory serves,” commented the doctor, “he remains bound to a wheelchair and suffers from severe cognitive deficits.”

  “Then how’d he graduate?”

  “Pity?” offered the professor.

  Sliding a beer to him, the bartender appeared discomfited. “Well, at least he didn’t let it stop him.”

  “Your point is well taken,” agreed the learned stranger, “Gunshot wounds aside, you can become smarter, braver, more creative, more sensuous, anything you want, and not just superficially. What I’m referring to are basic changes in your wiring.”

  The typesetter appeared mesmerized. “That’s exactly how I felt, like something deep was going on.”

  “Well you hit the nail on the head. I noticed that you were careful to say that your improvement required regular effort, as opposed to a little something here and there.”

  “I make it a practice to read and write for at least an hour a day, and to test myself on it.”

  “That’s what it takes.”

  Will had a big smile on his face. “A little help from above doesn’t hurt either.”

  “From above?” chuckled the doctor.

  The bartender was smirking. “You’re talking to a scientist Will.”

  “Belief can help,” said the doctor.

  Will lifted his glass as if giving a toast. “For me it’s ninety-nine percent of the battle.”

  “Then why don’t you forget about studying and just spend all your time praying?” quipped the bartender.

  Will was about to place a peanut into his mouth, but held it in his hand, just inches from his face. “Let me tell you something,” he excitedly went on, “It’s the prayer that made the studying possible.”

  The doctor appeared amused. “As a matter of curiosity, have you ever seen him?”

  “Who?” asked the printer.

  “God.”

  Still feeling good about the bet, Will was more than happy to play along. “I don’t know if I can say I’ve ever seen him,” he haltingly responded, “but there have been times where I’ve sensed his presence.”

  The doctor stood up for a moment and stretched his back. Nearly making contact with the light fixture suspended over his head, his preternaturally yellow hair had the look of a wheat field on a bright summer’s day. “I have no doubt that you truly believe what you’re saying, but for me – well you understand. I need evidence.”

  Thinking
for a moment, the printer gestured toward his surroundings. “Take a look around,” he confidently answered, appearing a bit addled.

  Wiping down the counter, the blood vessels in the bartender’s neck stood out like a map of the interstate highway system. “Oh now that’s just brilliant,” he laughed.

  “What are trying to say,” asked the professor.

  Will had a determined look on his face. “Somehow, someway, in the face of infinite space and time, we exist, not just to reproduce, but to see ourselves, to learn, to pull each other up. What does that tell you?”

  “You’re asking a neurologist?” carped the server. “What do you expect him to say?”

  “He knows,” chuckled the doctor, “which is why I’m not going to say it.”

  “Let’s put it this way,” Will continued. “I’ve seen something, maybe not with my eyes, but still it was something, and for me that’s enough.”

  “There’s no arguing with that,” said the doctor.

  The bartender took a swig of water. “Come on Will. All of us – even the doc here – are noth’n more than talking chimpanzees. Let’s not be stupid.”

  “Speak for yourself,” snapped the printer.

  “Lighten up,” said the server. “I don’t want to have to cut you off.”

  Just then Jack recalled something that had come to him years before, over a heavy meal and bottle of wine. Like a gentle breeze it washed over him and then was gone, but for that moment, he felt as though he were about to dematerialize.

  “Are you ok friend?” asked the bartender.

  “Fine,” said Jack, but he wasn’t. After years of gestation, his subconscious had given birth to an idea that could no longer be suppressed. Nevertheless, he urged himself to keep quiet. At this point no one had really taken a good long look at him, and that’s how he wanted to keep it, but having the professor there was a powerful temptation.

  “Be smart,” he told himself. “It’s ridiculous,” but before he knew what he was doing, he found himself speaking. “I read somewhere that atoms were like 99.99 percent empty space.”

  The professor nodded. “He’s right.”

  With all eyes on him, Jack regretted having broached the subject, but instead of sloughing it off, found himself completing his thought. “Well then why do we as kind of clumps of empty space perceive other clumps of empty space as the things we see?”

  “What do you think you got a brain for?” said the bartender.

  The professor smiled. “Does a tree fall in the forest if no one’s there to hear it?”

  “Come on,” squawked the bartender. “Gravity is gravity, whether you’re there or not. Put a tape recorder there, that’ll show ya.”

  Rubbing the small of his back, Jack stood up. “But why do we hear what we hear and see what we see?”

  The bartender couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Cause there are waves and particles and our brain puts it all together.”

  The professor rested his foot on the stainless steel rail. “But what comes first?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” asked the bartender.

  “The power of the perceiver on what’s perceived,” said the doctor. “Science refers to material things as a convention, as a way to label and relate what we see, but the thinking nowadays is that matter is an illusion, the byproduct of the conscious mind on a limitless array of possibilities, or what physicists like to call the collapse of the wave function.”

  Shaking his head, the bartender went to help a customer on the other end of the bar.

  “It’s like nothing seeing nothing,” intoned Jack.

  “In a way,” said the doctor, chomping on some nuts. “Not that it proves there’s anything divine going on.”

  “Well, it doesn’t disprove it,” interjected Will.

  Having returned, the bartender took a swig of water. “So what are you saying, science is all bullshit?”

  “Not at all,” said the doctor. “Science makes sense of what I would call our reality, and it’s very good at it, resulting in all sorts of improvements to our lives, but as far as an ultimate answer, I’m afraid that’s asking for too much.”

  “From science,” said the typesetter.

  “Cheers,” said the doctor, now turning to Jack. “Nothing seeing nothing, huh? That’s a recipe for anxiety.”

  “It was just something to say.”

  “You know, some things are better left unexamined, and as Will put it, belief’s important; Whether its inspired by a divine being or some other influence, one needs to develop a definite sense of things, a philosophy, a system of thought, but in the end, it’s got to come from you. Rather than sit back and allow events to set your path, fight back, create something, do something useful.”

  Will scratched his belly. “You mean like charity?

  “That’s one way.”

  “Not to beat a dead horse, but what encourages charity more than religion?”

  The bartender turned his hands so that his palms faced the ceiling, the result of which was that his biceps popped out like a couple of grapefruits. “Are you kidding, what’s caused more wars?”

  “Really Will,” said the doctor, “you don’t need to be religious to do the right thing.”

  Will’s neck started to tighten again. “That sounds like something Pol Pot might have said.”

  “Who,” said the bartender.

  “Pol Pot, the Cambodian dictator. Killed millions – all in the name of what he thought was right.”

  Setting down his empty glass, Jack got up to leave. “Well on that happy note…”

  While the others became absorbed with some sort of sport’s update, the doctor turned toward him. “I don’t mean to overstep my bounds, but I can’t help but think something’s not quite right with you.”

  “Do I know you?” Jack politely commented, rummaging through his pockets for a tip.

  “I know what you said,” smiled the doctor.

  “That was just bar talk.”

  “Of course.”

  “We all have questions.”

  The doctor rubbed his hands together as if they were cold. “When I was younger that’s all I had, even after medical school. For a while there nothing seemed to make any sense.”

  Having left a few dollars on the counter, Jack padded his pockets to make sure he had his wallet. “Apparently, you’ve gotten over it.”

  “I have,” said the doctor, confidently, “and the answer was focus, singularity of purpose.”

  Jack chuckled. “Well that’s something I don’t have to worry about. Trust me; you can’t even imagine.”

  “Excellent,” uttered the doctor, “and is this out of some sort of challenge?”

  “You might say that.”

  “Shit, turn up the volume,” uttered the printer. “There’s been another murder!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Every eye in the bar was glued to a screen. What they saw was a blood drenched carpet, live cobra, and body so mutilated that it was beyond recognition. In addition to having been relieved of her hands, feet, and uterus, her eyelids had been cut out, making her appear manic, terrified, hysterical. Nevertheless, she had managed to survive. Having dulled the pain and slowed the heart, the venomous neurotoxins helped to prevent her from bleeding out, but instead of allowing her to reveal her killer, they only served to prolong her agony.

  Shooting downward into the alley from above, the cameraman most likely was positioned on the roof or fire escape of an adjacent building. Before long, however, one could hear the police chasing him away, at which point the feed went black.

  “She’s still alive!” Jack thought to himself, excited not so much for the victim, who probably would have been better off dead, but himself. Assuming the attack took place within the last hour or so, which Jack figured was likely the case, he’d finally have an alibi.

  “How long can someone live in that condition?” he inquired of the doctor.

  Smiling ever so slightly, the phys
ician had a knowing look on his face, as if he could guess Jack’s motives. “Normally, just a few minutes,” he bellowed, “but even with the snake venom, she should have bled out by now.”

  “Then why’s she still alive?”

  “The sick bastard must have done something to stop the bleeding.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like clamps, a cautery, stitches. Clearly, he wanted her to suffer.”

  “Shouldn’t she be in shock?”

  The doctor put down his drink. “Yes, she should be. She has quite a constitution.”

  Indeed, had there still been a camera present, it would have caught her weakly flailing what remained of her arms, frustrated at the thought that she might not ever be able to expose the man who did this to her. If only she could cry, to achieve some closure, to have a release, but he had seen to that by cutting away her lacrimal glands.

  “Calm down, honey,” the detective told her. “Stop trying to move.” Then he turned to the paramedic. “Give her something for Christ sake!”

  The woman, however, was determined to speak, the result of which was an incomprehensible gurgle. Unaware that her voice box had been cut out and laid upon her stomach, she had one thought, one purpose, one dream – to describe the monster who did this to her, but try as she did, she couldn’t come up with a way to communicate, and she cursed herself for it.

  “So beautiful,” commented the doctor, as the photo from her driver’s license appeared on the screen.

  Juxtaposed on the television were shots of Marc Antony, the carpet, and a rather skimpy looking snake, which in the grips of a three foot long retractable tong was being dropped into an evidence bag.

  Bill Butler’s treated white hair shimmered in the stark lighting of his midtown studio. How lucky could he be? While already in the process of doing a show on the serial killer, he got to break the story on his most recent attack.

  “Tragic,” commented the psychologist. “And it all goes to what we had been talking about: the planning, the ritualistic violence, the brutality. What strikes me, however, is the blatant phallic symbolism wrapped up in his use of the snake. Could he be more obvious?”

  “I’ll leave that one alone,” joked the newsman, but his mind was elsewhere. They had already been through this. What the people wanted to know about was the cobra, and before long the psychologist was replaced with an expert in reptiles.