The Collector

by Cameron

  As Xuan talked about life’s darkest moments and the repetition of danger in her hexagon, Velvet felt a strange sense of panic rising up inside her, making her breath tight in her chest. I feel like I’m drowning.…

  “You have grown used to the danger in your life, Velvet,” Xuan said, looking up from the hexagon to meet her eyes. “You have become complacent.”

  In the words of the I Ching, Velvet had grown too familiar with evil. She had lost her way. Misfortune would be the natural result.

  “But you are not in a position to save yourself,” the older woman continued. “Like water, you must bide your time and try to slowly climb out of the abyss into which you have fallen.”

  Every step led to danger, Xuan Du pronounced, and thus Velvet must act judiciously. She should not overreach and flee, courting disaster.

  “You have not been honest.” Here, the woman looked up slyly to meet Velvet’s gaze. “You are handicapped by your sins.”

  Xuan explained that Velvet’s insincerity had brought darkness where there should be light. “You have surrounded yourself with darkness. You are blind to the danger around you.”

  Because Velvet had made the danger a part of her life, she couldn’t see it there hovering, waiting to bring her down.

  “Take great care, Velvet. Your ambition is leading you to disaster.”

  Velvet stared down at her manicured hands. Xuan, of course, knew of her involvement with Sam and David.

  The logical part of her, the woman who had toiled at law school, burned with anger. She could see clearly how Xuan’s knowledge of her situation had leached into this reading. She wondered if the soothsayer might have manipulated the hexagram, guiding her to Water. Judging her.

  Hadn’t Xuan herself agreed to help in Sam’s schemes? And here she was judging Velvet? Pointing a finger at her actions?

  Xuan asked, “Do you want to hear more?”

  Velvet swept her hand across the table, sending the yarrow sticks to the floor. She stared down at the mess she’d made, littering the carpet.

  “I don’t believe your judgment,” she told Xuan.

  But she didn’t raise her head to look at the fortune-teller, the Vietnamese side of her knowing better.

  Again, she had the sense that Mimi was just behind her. The feeling was so distinct, a chill raced through Velvet. And then the realization came. Mimi’s prediction for David, how much it mirrored Xuan’s warning now.

  Velvet jumped to her feet, the motion a reflex, like a deer hearing the sounds of a predator in the brush. She wanted to run. Wanted desperately to call David and tell him not to come—

  But just then, the doorbell sounded. Velvet stood frozen, paralyzed by Xuan’s predictions of doom. Again, the air seemed to freeze up inside her chest, reminding her of when she was only five….

  The door sounded again, David growing uncharacteristically impatient.

  Too late….

  “You will excuse me, Xuan?”

  She spoke to the woman respectfully, wanting to convey more than a simple courtesy before leaving to open the door. She wanted to admit how poor her behavior had been, to apologize for her outburst. She stood waiting until the older woman nodded her head, dismissing her.

  But even walking into the front room, Velvet heard Xuan’s prediction echo inside her head, the warning dogging her like Mimi’s ghost. Her meaning had been very clear: Velvet could not escape from disaster. She was trapped, incapacitated by her duplicity.

  Standing at the door, she told herself to take a breath. If she were ever to become counsel for Sam, as he wanted, duplicity would be part of her everyday life.

  She reached for the door, forcing a smile, expecting David.

  But it wasn’t David standing on the other side. As the door opened, all those nebulous fears of the week coalesced into the picture standing before her, and Velvet knew why she’d felt weighted down with dread.

  That which is invisible is always the most dangerous.

  No truer words.

  29

  Rocket stared down the corridor of crowded storefronts. He felt as if he were stuck in some Asian convention center or rock concert. The ebb and flow of bodies kept him on his toes.

  No sign of Owen.

  The little fucker had given him the slip.

  He elbowed his way past a milling crop of teenagers at a music store featuring Vietnamese karaoke. The flock crowded around a cinema-size flat screen showing the newest in Vietnamese rock stars. Each and every teen was mesmerized. They didn’t even notice Rocket as he barreled past.

  It was damn embarrassing, him chasing down the kid. Rocket had made a pretty good career for himself in the marines. He’d been right there alongside Oliver North when they’d rescued those medical students off Grenada. Unfortunately for Rocket, he’d also been with Ollie during the whole Iran-Contra bullshit, the result of which had been Rocket’s dishonorable discharge.

  But shit, did he have training. He’d been Special Ops for more than half his military career. He couldn’t believe that, with his background, the kid could ditch him.

  Rocket stopped at the Buddhist temple, where mall visitors could light a taper for their intentions, and scanned the floor below. The problem was, he’d been distracted by the cops showing up. He’d been watching them, and not Owen, to make sure they made it all the way out the doors of the mall. Rocket was on the phone to Mr. David, telling him what had happened, when he’d turned around and the kid was gone.

  Mr. David wouldn’t like it. Not one bit.

  And that was a problem. Something like this was major. Rocket wasn’t so sure Mr. David could handle any more problems with his son—or anything else, for that matter.

  These days, it seemed to Rocket that Mr. David had lost his way. More and more, he was becoming a different man, one Rocket hardly recognized.

  When he had first come to work for Mr. David as his bodyguard, when Owen was just a little guy, Mr. Gospel was all about the business, Gospel Enterprises. Shit, Rocket could even remember a time when he’d been happy with the Missus.

  But that was a long time ago. Before Mr. David’s collection had taken over their lives. Now all his boss seemed to care about was finding a bunch of sacred objects mentioned on an old clay tablet he’d bought through some shady dealer.

  Sometimes, the way Mr. David talked, Rocket worried he was doing the all-knowing and all-powerful thing. What did they call it? Megalomania. Yeah. That sounded right. He was just like those dictators, like Noriega, drunk on some power kick. Jesus, the guy hadn’t even figured out his kid was a sociopath.

  Or was it a psychopath? Rocket wasn’t sure about the terminology, but he’d met all kinds when he’d been training mercenaries in the jungles of Nicaragua. Men who liked it, the killing—and those who didn’t feel a damn thing. Chopping off a man’s head was about as meaningful as stepping on an ant.

  Maybe it was the thing with Owen’s eyes. All those surgeries. There were a few years there when Rocket couldn’t remember him without some patch under his glasses. Like a miniature pirate.

  And the pupils. Always enlarged. Like he was on drugs 24–7.

  Back then, when the kid was young and struggling with the surgeries, Mr. David and his wife, they’d been on the same page about the boy. Those days, the Missus couldn’t keep up with Mr. David. She’d been cute and flirty, but a real lady—a hard combination to pull off, in Rocket’s opinion. But then Mr. David bought that tablet. It was like the whole family had fallen under some curse.

  Rocket felt good and sorry for Mr. David’s wife. Imagine, your son’s a freaking nut, burying pieces of animals in the backyard like trophies, and your husband’s cheating on you. It just wasn’t right.

  The whole situation got to Rocket. Rich folks screwing up their lives. Like maybe you needed the struggle of putting bread on the table in order to keep your head on straight sometimes.

  Rocket figured his own baby brother and his wife had it right: middle class with two great kids. Sometimes, he w
ished he could just walk out on the Gospels. Get on back to Ohio and those two nieces of his.

  But Rocket had never walked out on anything in his life. And now, he was good and fucked. Because there was no sign of Owen.

  He’d done it before, disappeared on Rocket. Sometimes, it turned out okay. He’d catch up with Owen, or the kid would just show up at their digs as if nothing had happened.

  But a couple of times…well, Rocket hadn’t seen shit like that since his days in Nam.

  Once, he’d found the kid with an eye in his pocket. An honest to God human eye. He kept it in a Baggie.

  When Rocket asked him what the hell it was doing in his pocket, Owen had looked straight at him and said it was for good luck. Good fucking luck.

  Rocket had talked to Mr. David about it. The really strange part? Mr. David couldn’t be bothered. He just sent the kid to a shrink, who put him on pills. Owen became someone else’s problem…while the Missus grew all quiet and religious and so thin you could practically see through her.

  Hell, if someone told Rocket his kid had somebody’s eye in his pocket, that sure would rock his world.

  And then there was Michelle. Rocket was pretty sure Michelle had been the first time Owen had gone all the way.

  That’s when Mr. David sent his son away, with Rocket as his “insurance.” Rocket had done his best keeping an eye on Owen. The places they’d gone, it was easy enough to bribe officials if the kid ended up in trouble. Darfur, the Balkans, Rwanda, Haiti—places where human rights violations and a political void made it easy for Owen’s kind of “missionary” work.

  Once, Rocket found Owen with a ten-year-old prostitute. He had her all tied up and scared shitless. Seeing that, Rocket lost it, just lost it, thinking about his nieces back in Ohio. That night, Rocket beat the shit out of the little fucker. He’d stopped only when he got the sense that Owen liked it, that the kid wanted more.

  Seven years Rocket had followed the little prick around the world. That’s how long it had taken. Seven long years and finally, Rocket started seeing a change. Like maybe even Owen could grow up. Sure, he was still a creep, giving Rocket the willies. But the sick stuff—the eyeballs in the Ziploc bags, the ten-year-olds bound and gagged—that stopped. Rocket thought, good enough, right?

  Only, there were those times, late at night, when Rocket wondered if Owen was just getting better at hiding his shit.

  And now the papers were full of stories about this dead fortune-teller. Just like Michelle.

  Searching the mall for any signs of Owen, Rocket reminded himself that Michelle’s death was different. Michelle had been a young, beautiful woman. She’d been in love with Owen, but indebted to Mr. David. The whole father-son thing had been a little weird, maybe pushing Owen over the edge.

  And the way she’d died, a broken glass across the jugular—that was definitely a crime of passion. From what Rocket had read, this Tran woman was killed in some kind of ritualistic fashion. He’d never known Owen to be tidy enough for any sort of rituals.

  After a fruitless twenty minutes, Rocket ended up at the security desk. He’d done his time in Nam. If he was lucky, the underpaid rent-a-cop behind the desk would know what was up.

  Sure enough, the kid took the Benjamin Rocket offered. The security desk had cameras all over the mall—a pretty slick operation, really. From here, Rocket could case the place and target Owen.

  Only, there was one little problem. From every camera and at every angle, he couldn’t find any sign of him.

  The kid had disappeared.

  Gia stood before the enormous canvas, completely covered in paint splatters and sweat. Like a marathoner nearing the end of the race, she was in the zone, unaware of anything other than the images crowding her head.

  Gia had not started out as a painter. Long ago, during another life—a life that belonged to a woman with a different name, one with an alphabet of degrees behind it—Gia hadn’t even owned a sable paintbrush. She didn’t have a mortar and pestle to grind her own pigments, or know how to stretch a canvas over a wooden frame. She didn’t own palette knives to mix colors, or dozens of sketchbooks shoved into the nooks and crannies of her house.

  Gia Moon, the artist, didn’t have a famous mother. In fact, she didn’t have a mother at all—because she didn’t have a past. She had started shiny and brand-new a dozen years ago.

  Now, Gia Moon, the woman born twelve years ago with the arrival of her daughter, was consumed by her calling. She had a gift, one she’d honed and fed until she could do exactly this: stand before an empty canvas and fall into the story in her head, bringing the characters to life with paint and brush.

  The painting was full of color and motion. Gia’s paintings were seldom static pieces. Instinctively, she knew this would be some of her best work. It was a story of talent and destiny, the tale of a young woman named Kieu.

  Beautiful and talented, Kieu came from a royal family. One day, a spirit came to visit her under the moonlight. The spirit cursed Kieu, who had been jealous of the spirit’s beauty when she was alive. In revenge, the spirit told Kieu her name appeared in the book of the damned. She predicted a miserable life for her.

  The images came faster than Gia could paint. She felt almost betrayed by her body and its inability to move faster, catch up with what she saw inside her head before it dimmed from memory. She used multiple brushes, holding one in her teeth as she painted with another. She mixed blues and greens and umber colors, the palette in her hand becoming an enormous rainbow mess.

  This was a story for the ages: beauty betrayed.

  The well-bred Kieu did indeed come to ill. Her fiancé was forced to abandon her and, in his absence, Kieu was tricked into prostitution in order to save her family, who had fallen on hard times. At the brothel, she eventually fell in love with a married client. But theirs was only a physical love, and in her heart, Kieu knew that their attachment was doomed.

  Mommy?

  Gia ignored that whispered voice. She couldn’t stop painting now, in the grip of great inspiration. She needed to stay faithful to the images inside her head.

  Though her lover bought her out from the brothel, disaster once again befell the lovely Kieu. The beautiful courtesan became prey to her lover’s jealous wife, a cunning woman prone to physical violence. Kieu was a captive once more.

  Mommy, please stop. You’re scaring me.

  Cruel fate put Kieu in a position where she must choose between what was right and what would make her happy—

  “Mom! Stop it! What’s wrong with you?”

  Gia felt herself caught between two worlds. Her daughter, Stella, was holding her by the arm, her tiny fingers clawing into her skin, trying to stop her painting. At the same time, the beautiful Kieu sat holding her lute, her skin polished with moonlight. The image called to Gia there on the canvas. She had to work, bring Kieu to life!

  “Mom, please. Please stop!”

  Gia dropped her paintbrushes. She stood frozen in place. She couldn’t move—couldn’t breathe. She wanted desperately to turn and reassure her daughter. She could see Stella standing there at her side, looking young and frightened, shaking her by her arm. And still Gia couldn’t catch her breath.

  I can’t breathe! I…can’t…breathe!

  She kept wondering when it would happen. When her lungs would fill with air and she could finally move and wrap her arms around her daughter. The words of comfort would come then, letting Stella know that everything would be fine.

  Only, everything stayed hard and frozen.

  Can’t…breathe!

  Standing there, watching her daughter, the realization came. This is what it feels like to drown.

  She was familiar with the sensation. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt like giving in. Why fight it? She was like Kieu, her name written in the book of the damned.

  “No, Mom! Look at me. Not the painting. Look at me!”

  Suddenly, Gia took in an enormous breath, filling her lungs with air. Whatever vise had been holding he
r in place suddenly released its hold, so that she fell down like a puppet with its strings cut.

  “I’m okay,” she said when she could finally speak. There on the floor, she took Stella into her arms. “I’m okay.”

  Gia realized her arms ached. She had no idea how long she’d been painting, but the cramped muscles said it had to be hours.

  Over her daughter’s shoulder, she looked up at the canvas. She’d been expecting to see a painting of Kieu playing her pear-shaped lute, the moon and her lover in the background. That was the image she’d had in her head, the vision that had held her in its grip as she’d painted.

  The canvas was completely covered with color. But the image there looked nothing like the vision she’d imagined.

  She turned her gaze from the painting to her hands wrapped tightly around her daughter, and frowned. She remembered mixing blue for the glowing moon and a warm umber for the lute Kieu had been holding. But there was only one color on her fingertips and under her nails.

  Red. A deep bloodred.

  Everywhere in the room, dripped onto the concrete floor of the studio, mixed in a frenzy on the wooden palette, there was only red.

  Red mixed with white. Red so vibrant it glowed. Red approaching a near black.

  Stella pulled away from her and stared up at the canvas. “W-what is that?” she asked in a whisper.

  Gia thought she’d been painting the story of a young Vietnamese woman named Kieu. But on the canvas, there was nothing but death. The picture was of a woman hacked to pieces, the bloodied bits lined together afterward like a grotesque puzzle.

  Her eyes were missing.

  “Mom? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

  “Stella,” she said. “Go to the kitchen and get me some water.”

  “I don’t want to leave. You’ll start painting again—and I don’t know if I can bring you back.”

  “I just need something to drink.” She stood, forcing Stella to do the same. She turned her daughter away from the painting. “Please. It will help. I swear.”