Command of Silence

by Paulette Callen

  “No. It was sort of...company. It wasn’t doing anything. Just trying to be warm. I talked to it. Named it Slimman. Not bad for a four-year-old, huh? I was always the precocious one. When he pulled us up, I was afraid when he saw it he’d kill it. But he just laughed and threw it in the grass along with me. I could hardly walk. While he was dragging me back to the house, I left. I knew nothing good was coming.”

  I remembered the drag back to the house and my legs and back hurting me. I thought he’d beaten me, even though I didn’t have any bruises. I blacked out a lot during my childhood and never understood why till after Ray told me in the asylum. But I still didn’t remember going into the bucket.

  “Thank you, Dora. Now let Isadora come back, please.”

  “Make me.” She stretched, languorously, and put her hands behind her head. Gazing upward, she said, “Since El Snako, I’ve been watching everything—strangely…from above. Like an outof-body experience, you know? Like Casper, the fucking ghost, stuck up on the ceiling. It feels good to be back, embodied, as it were. I’m not nearly ready to go yet.”

  Ray is always as fascinated as she is frustrated by Dora. The rest of us just find her aggravating, especially Hester. I’m fascinating. Why doesn’t she find ME fascinating?

  Oh, she does, Hester, she’s just more used to you, that’s all.

  No she doesn’t. Hester is so predictable.

  Oh shut up.

  Dora is my twin. The other alters look different, more like themselves, but Dora looks exactly like me, Ray says, except for the wicked cunning shining in her eyes and the almost exaggerated expressiveness of her face. Ray has also warned me, “She’ll kill you and die laughing.” Dora has power of her own. She is mercurial and beautiful and has landed us in trouble repeatedly since we were children. When the Company began to function together, we gained the strength to keep her in the background, like Mr. Rochester’s wife. The gatekeeper is our Mrs. Poole and, occasionally, Dora slips out and starts fires.

  “Isadora needs to work,” Ray said, reasonably. “Lives are at stake.”

  “So?” She yawned and cuddled deeper into the pillows.

  “Don’t you care that she might be able to help?”

  “Why should I? Who cared about us when we were living with the devil?”

  “You always managed to duck out of the worst parts, from what I hear.”

  “You don’t hear everything. Anyway, you’re not that concerned about this case. You’re not even sure she can solve it. I know what you’re doing.”

  “You do.”

  “You think this will put enough pressure on the Company so they’ll get all shook up, the status will get all un-quo’d, and voila! Fusion! Isn’t that right? And then, you can write the last chapter of that book you just can’t finish, because, without fusion, there’s no cure—no big whup. No talk show tour, no movie option. No reclining on your lucrative laurels. But mostly you just want to get rid of me. You’ve never liked me.”

  Ray laughed. “As usual, Dora, you are the overweening egotist. You’ve made all this about you. You, I must remind you, are nothing.”

  Dora raised herself up on her elbows. “I am the only whole person here. She’s a shell for all of us. That’s all she is. She’s a waste of your time, Signora Doctor. And the rest of them are just brain farts. I’m the real deal.”

  “Isadora is the firstborn. You are all come-latelies.”

  “We saved her.”

  “She saved herself. You’re the by-product. Like ash from a coal fire. I think it’s time to clean the furnace.”

  I sensed a tiny flicker of fear in Dora. She turned to her side again, assuming a sensuous curve. “I’m the one you should be talking to. We could do more than talk. I don’t mind that you’re a woman.” She traced little circles with her index finger on the wine-colored brocade of the spread.

  “I’m here to help Isadora. That’s my job, that’s my wish. That’s all I’m ever going to do…is try to help Isadora.”

  “Isadora schmora! There is no ‘I’ in Isadora.She’s nothing.A big empty.” Her expression transformed like images on a screen without transition, from vicious to sympathetic understanding, and in honeyed tones, she said, “You’re afraid I’ll tell? I won’t tell.”

  You won’t have to tell, you know I’m here and if I know they’ll all know.

  “Yes you will. But that’s not why I won’t have sex with you.”

  “I wouldn’t tell,” she pouted. “Who would I tell? They don’t talk to me. They won’t talk to me. And I can’t talk to them. They don’t hear me.” A note of quiet despair crept into her voice. “I’m really quite alone, you know.”

  Ray laughed out loud. “You remind me of Susan Hayward in those old movies that Maria likes to watch. You’re very good, really.”

  “I walk alone,” she muttered.

  “Not entirely,” she corrected her briskly. “Why do you think I’m here? Bethy-June called me.”

  “That whining virus.” Dora dropped her tragic air. “She’s like a remora. You know, those weasely sucky little fish that attach themselves to the big fish.”

  “To sharks, actually.”

  Dora’s eyes gleamed. “Yes, sharks, actually.” And she smiled like one.

  “Cootie has been out, too. He left a note for Isadora in her pocket, just in case you didn’t wreak your usual havoc to get everybody’s attention.”

  “Those fucking brats! Why don’t they just die?” she said through a nearly clenched jaw. Then she started to giggle. “Why don’t they grow up…” Her giggle escalated to laughter, “…and leave home!”

  Ray smiled at the joke and at her.

  Her laughter subsided and she let her head fall a little sideways as she studied the psychiatrist. “Oh, Ray, I’ve missed that smile of yours. Your pearly whites against that lovely dark skin…it’s enough to oil the hinges on a lady’s heels.” I felt her pushing her tongue against the inside of upper teeth, revealing a glimpse of its underside through her relaxed and slightly open mouth.

  “You wouldn’t tell the Company. If you were successful in seducing me, you would call Maria.”

  “Oh! I would never do such a thing.”

  “Of course you would. Calling my partner of thirty years would give you more pleasure than the act itself.”

  “You’re one clever little spic, aren’t you?” She was through acting now. “How did you pay for medical school again? Cleaning other people’s houses? And how many years did it take you? Let’s see, you weren’t that young when we first met, and you were still an intern. Doing the math—”

  “And you, my dear, are as entertaining as ever. But, now you have to leave.”

  “Like I said. Make me.” She stretched, this time without sensuous intent, merely to anchor herself more securely to the spot.

  “You know how I can tell you aren’t the real deal? Because you can’t stay out forever.”

  “Neither can she!”

  “She can. Now, when she leaves, it is by choice and she doesn’t go far. She stays out of the gyre.”

  That hadn’t been true in the last couple of days.

  “You don’t know everything.”

  “Isadora has been in charge for four years now. The others come out when they are needed and by invitation only.”

  “Not lately.”

  “Seeing a snake is an unusual circumstance. You are an entity. An alter. Not real.”

  “I’m as real as you are.”

  “No. You are not. You will never be anything on your own. You will always be just a piece of her. If you die, Isadora lives on. If she dies, you’re…dead.”

  “Play your psycho semantic games if you want to, Signora Doctor. You have no power over me. Neither does she. Nobody does.”

  “I’ll have you arrested.”

  “For what?”

  “Shoplifting.”

  Oh, Ray, good!

  Dora picked up a silver bracelet and positioned its crystal charm to shoot a mini rainbow on the
wall. “Hester is always whining about not having pretty things.” She tossed it down with a flip of her wrist, sighing, “You try to be nice…”

  “You never do anything nice and you don’t care about Hester. You like the thrill of getting away with it. So here’s your deal. You go away now—let Isadora finish this case—I’ll let you get away with this. Don’t go away, and I’ll call the cops right now.” Ray took her cell phone out of her pocket and flipped it open. “I have the number on speed dial.”

  “You wouldn’t put Isadora in jail.”

  “I would put you in jail. I will not pay your bail. And you’ll stay there with the drug addicts and puking drunks—”

  “You’ve made your point.” She flattened the pillows with a sweep of her hand and lay back once again, voluptuously. “Sure you wouldn’t care to share this bed with me before I go?”

  Ray pressed a button on the phone.

  “All right! But when this case is over, if Isadora isn’t locked up with the loonies again, I’ll be back.”

  “Fine. See you then.” Ray snapped the phone shut.

  She sat up. “No, you aren’t going to let Isadora stay in jail. As soon as I go back to the gyre, they’ll all be back and you will bail them out.”

  “Go!” Ray displayed an unusual flash of anger.

  “I have a right to be in the world!”

  “Go now, Dora, and I won’t send you to jail, and when this case is over, I’ll give you more time out.”

  “You can’t make promises for the Company.”

  “No, but I can persuade them.”

  “How do I know—”

  “Dora, you have lied to me every time I have seen your face, but I have never lied to you.”

  “I’ll get more time out?”

  “Yes.”

  “And a trip?”

  “Fine. A trip.”

  “I want to go to an island and lay on a beach and sip cold gin and fuck my brains out with the natives. She’s got the money. She and Olive just won’t let any of us spend any, the tightwad bitches. Besides, I am in control. The brats just came out when I took a little nap.”

  “You’ve been sleeping for two years. You’re telling me you needed a nap? Give it up, Dora. I promise that when the case is over, I will tell the Company that you need more time out, you need a trip. Now go. I’m through with you.”

  Dora lay back again and closed her eyes. Her breathing became quiet.

  Chapter 18

  “Is she right? Do you want to finish your book?”

  “Isadora?”

  “Yeah.” I reached for my boots, which Dora had tossed some distance from the bed.

  “You were here?”

  “It was like she said, only I was the ghost on the ceiling this time. I was sort of hearing it from outside instead of inside. Well, both, actually. What’s that about?”

  Ray was smiling at me in a way I didn’t like.

  “Stop smiling. Like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “You have that proud parent look on your face. You know I hate it.”

  “It’s been awhile since you’ve seen it.”

  “It’s been nice.”

  “You going someplace?”

  “I don’t know, why?”

  “You’re putting your boots on. And you’ve rebuttoned the top two buttons on your blouse.”

  “Dora always leaves me feeling undressed. So what’s the look for?”

  “Dora.”

  “You’re happy to see her?”

  “That’s not all that happened.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She came back, but she shared space with you and the others. And you shared space with her. That’s never happened before. And there’s some…emotional integration.”

  “So what? We still aren’t talking. I don’t want to share space with that bitch. She just slows me down. Interrupts things. And emotions don’t help me think. I need to think.”

  “But it’s a new development. Like sharing space with Hawk.”

  “We can discuss the Return of Dora some other time. And the…Hawk thing…just has to wait. Right now I have a kid to find before she’s just a body. If she isn’t already. Make yourself useful. Read these.” I handed her a bunch of papers I’d picked up at random.

  “What are they?”

  “Pay attention. I told you. They are the home pages of all the sites that the Burkes access from their office computer. And I’m told it’s just Spencer—Manfred supposedly never touches them, but that might not be true. According to the police file, the sites were the same on Spencer’s home computer.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “If I knew that I would tell you, or I wouldn’t need you to read them, would I? And get that look off your face.”

  “Isadora, I will examine these papers, but you can work on this case and drop the resistance at the same time.” She’d lost the smile and spoke almost softly.

  “Not now, Ray. Just not now.”

  “All right.” She spread the pages out on the counter and put on her reading glasses and concentrated. Without looking up she said, “And to answer your question, yes, of course I would like to finish my book. You are my cash cow.”

  “I’m also your biggest headache.”

  She eyed me over her reading glasses. “We’re even, then?”

  “Uh-huh. Hungry? I’m starved. I’m going to order Chinese.”

  Ray dialed her cell, and I heard her speak to Maria in Spanish. I always thought at least one of my alters could have bothered to learn Spanish, but none of them ever had.

  She snapped the phone shut. “The neighbors dropped in while she was waiting. They have eaten up all my dinner. So I am ready for Chinese.”

  I ordered while she read, and then I went back to reading myself. When the food came, we sat at the counter and ate and read at the same time. When we were through with our respective batch of home pages, we exchanged them and read and ate some more. We finished eating and reading at about the same time.

  “Well?”

  She slid her empty carton of chow fun away from her and burped discreetly behind the back of her hand. “I’m not the detective. I don’t see anything here at all. Pretty standard-looking Web sites,but I don’t know anything about the wholesale business, or finance either, for that matter. Shopping sites…well, Maria does all the shopping. You need to show them to experts in the field. You said the police already examined all this stuff?”

  “Yes. They didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Maybe there is nothing to find. Did you eat all the dumplings?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Maybe what you’re looking for isn’t on a home page. But then, I don’t see how you’re going to find it. The possibilities are infinite. Almost.” She shrugged and reached for a fortune cookie. Cracking it open, she pulled out the tiny banner and read, “Put no trust in cryptic comments.”

  “Well, that’s mine, obviously,” I said. “Now read yours.”

  She smiled good-naturedly and cracked open the second. Her smile broadened. “There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know nothing about.”

  I smiled back. I can’t say I ever felt this ticklish feeling go through me before that caused this smile. It wasn’t entirely pleasant, and yet...Ray laughed. I like Ray’s laughter. I prefer it to that proud parental smile she gets when I seem to make progress, even if the progress is more in her mind than in mine.

  She gave her knee a little slap. “It’s getting late. I’ve got to go.” She slipped off the stool. “Remember what I said. Call me. Frequently. Dora promised to stay away while this case is open. I don’t trust her, but she knows she can trust me to call the cops if she comes back early. Let me take the evidence.”

  We used the plastic bag from the Chinese food to contain Dora’s loot. “I don’t know how she does it. Anybody else would have gotten caught,” I said.

  “Dora has a way about her. If
you could work together, she could be a great asset.”

  “In case I need something shoplifted or some other reason to be arrested.”

  “Like you said, she gets away with things. That’s a good quality in a detective, don’t you think? If you could harness that quality…she’s devious, manipulative and quite beautiful.”

  “You think Dora is beautiful?”

  Ray chuckled. “The children of Lucifer are often beautiful.”

  “Who said that, Freud?”

  “No, Agatha Christie. Maria reads her aloud. It’s how she learned English. You’re beautiful, too, Chiquita. You just don’t know it.” She tied a knot in the top of the plastic bag. “I’ll hang on to this stuff till the case is over. I’ll need the evidence. Then I’ll find a way to get it back to the Gift Building and they can sort out where it all goes. I don’t know what else to do. In the meantime, I’m an accessory to shoplifting.” She shook her head and said goodnight.

  I shouldn’t have bothered to put my boots back on because I just had to take them off again. I was dead tired. Staring at these pages any longer would do no good. I’d have to have a fresh look at them in the morning and find some experts to show them to—people who were not connected to the Burkes. I couldn’t explain the feeling I had that there was something here, if only I had the eyes to see. Tomorrow I hoped I could find the right pair of eyes. Tonight, I hoped that Dora’s fear of Ray calling the cops would keep her at bay. I had no illusions that she was really gone.

  I sprawled on the bed in my clothes and murmured, “Lance, tell me a story.”

  How about a little Edgar Allen Poe?

  “A bit creepy for our present situation, don’t you think?”

  No,I think you should hear this one.This is called The Purloined Letter.

  “Have you told me this one before?”

  No. It’s about hiding something in plain sight.

  “Oh?”

  On a gusty autumn evening in Paris, begins the tale of something simple, and something odd…

  Friday

  Chapter 19

  The first thing I noticed upon waking was the kitchen knife sticking out of my forehead, and the taste of blood in my mouth was particularly strong. I did my usual finger check…it came up clean. Focusing on the far wall, I could see that all of our portraits, except for Aurora’s, had been slashed or gouged, but the knife was left in mine.