Fractal Paisleys

by Paul Di Filippo

  “Will you get that goddamn tongue out of my ear!”

  The hush that followed this astonishingly indelicate and decontextualized admonition resembled the silence one might encounter deep within the innermost chambers of the Carlsbad Caverns. Suddenly, birds half a mile away could be heard singing their vernal songs through the open church doors.

  All eyes were now riveted on the lithe form of the black-suited Widow Wren as she shot to her feet and spun around to glare at the man sitting next to her. Beneath the black lace veil softening her features, a look of rage contorted her face for a moment, and, quivering, she seemed ready to launch into further vituperations. But then, with a visible effort, she recovered herself. Regarding the congregation with a look of pained contrition, she suddenly slapped a hand to her skirted behind and shrieked. And whereas her first imprecation had been delivered in the distinct tones of a Tennessee fishwife, the exclamation that now emerged was couched in a strange Ruritanian accent.

  “I—I—I’ve been stung in the rear!”

  The man on whom her wrath had been momentarily focused now stood. A large shambling fellow wearing a chauffeur’s uniform about half a size too small and a visored cap half a size too large, he possessed a face reminiscent of one of history’s lesser despots, crowned with bowl-cut black hair.

  “Lemme help your Ladyship outa this solemnical and requisitive tent-show,” said the man, taking the widow’s arm in an overfirm grip.

  Mrs. Wren spoke through her reactivated sobs. “Yes, please, Staggers. I—I’d like to wait in the car.”

  The pair proceeded down the church aisle. When they were halfway to the door, the minister resumed his speech, and attention refocused on the altar.

  At the door, the lone man who had been standing approached them. The empty right sleeve of his suitcoat was neatly folded and pinned.

  “Mrs. Wren. Mr. Staggers. Mind if I have a word with you?”

  “No, of course not, Detective Stumbo. But we should step outside in deference to the deceased.”

  The man seemed barely to repress a snort. “Sure.”

  A white stretch limo with opaque windows sat on the gravelled crescent drive before the church. The trio stopped by its left rear door.

  Detective Stumbo snugged his hat on, freeing his solo hand to filch a cigarette from a pocketed pack. He lit a wooden kitchen match with a flick of his thumb and puffed the cigarette alive. For a few taut seconds, he regarded the widow and her chauffeur with eyes that had in the past actually been employed by the FBI to wordlessly end hostage negotiations. Then he spoke.

  “I just wanted you to know, Mrs. Wren, that although the department has officially closed the case on your husbands death, I intend to keep on pursuing it on my own. I’m not convinced that we’ve learned everything there is to learn yet. It seems to me there’s a few loose ends—”

  The woman brought forth a dazzling smile and directed it at the detective. “I appreciate your concern, Mister Stumbo—Grady, if I may. But I’m perfectly content with the results of the investigation. It seems like a waste of time for you to keep on probing—as well as a painful stimulus to a poor wife simply trying to forget such a tragedy.”

  The chauffeur spoke up. “Yeah. And it don’t sound too legal neither, you fuckin’ around on your personal time where you don’t—ow!”

  Mrs. Wren converted the aftermath of her kick into an innocent weak-ankled stumble. “Oh, I feel faint.… Do we really need to discuss this further right now, Detective?”

  “No, of course not. But I’ll be in touch.”

  The chauffeur stepped forward. “Just to show there ain’t no hard feelin’s, Dumbo, let’s shake!”

  Grady eyed the outstretched right paw coolly for a moment before answering.

  “Pigs must have wings these days, since snakes have hands.”

  So saying, Detective Grady Stumbo moved off toward his car, a battered red Ford Escort. Soon, he was driving away.

  “Haw, haw!” laughed Staggers. His glance fell on the Widow Wren, and his manner reverted to savagery. He yanked open the limo door in a highly nonprofessional manner.

  “Get in, you dumb bimbo!”

  Hustling the widow inside, he quickly followed, slamming the door behind him.

  Once inside the privacy of the capacious car, Staggers began shaking his ostensible employer.

  “Now, what’s the idea of makin’ a scene like that in there?”

  Mrs. Wren, a bored expression on her face, said nothing, and Staggers soon grew tired of agitating her flesh without compensatory reaction, and so released her.

  “Are you done?” she calmly asked.

  “Yeah, for now—oof!”

  Mrs. Wren unlocked the club she had made of her interlinked hands and stretched her manicured fingers while Staggers rubbed the rapidly purpling jaw she had smashed.

  “You idiot! Feeling me up in church like that! I told you that we had to keep everything looking proper until the heat died down. Isn’t it bad enough that that sneaky cop obviously still suspects us, without you practically writing him a confession?”

  Rather than seeming angry, Staggers appeared pleased with Mrs. Wren’s gumption. Leering, he said, “I couldn’t help myself, babe. You just get me so worked up.”

  Staggers placed a big hand on the widow’s knee and attempted to slide it up her skirt, but she knocked it away. However, she seemed not entirely displeased, despite her next words.

  “I rue the day you ever found me again. If I had my way—”

  “If you had your way, you’d still be whinin’ about how that jerkola husband of yours was wastin’ his fortune—our fortune—followin’ them crazy ideas of his. If it wasn’t for me, you never woulda had the courage to bump him off.”

  “I suppose.…”

  Staggers reapplied his hand, and it met with no resistance. “Cold one minnit and hot the next. Jus’ like the old Perfidia—”

  Bristling, the woman said, “Didn’t I tell you never to use that name, even when we’re alone!”

  Staggers laughed rudely. “Oh, it wouldn’t suit your Ladyship’s plans now, would it, if all your new friends was to find out that the rich bitch Gasolina Bellyband who gets her picture in all the papers—even the Atlanta ones—was really Miss Perfidia Graboys of Pine Mountain, Georgia. Or as she was otherwise once known for about a year, Mrs. Rowdy Staggers.”

  Rowdy’s hand was now high up Perfidia’s skirt, while the other one was busy inside her unbuttoned blouse. Her head lay back on the cushioned seat, painted eyelids closed.

  “You bastard. You stinking bastard. But you always did know what I liked. A hundred times better than that wimpy little Felix.…”

  There was silence for a busy minute. Then Perfidia spoke.

  “Do you know what the first thing I’m going to do when we get home is, Rowdy?”

  “Mrmph.…”

  “I’m going to have you kill that horrid dog Felix loved so much.

  “Yes, I think old Tosh will be the first thing I attend to.”

  1.

  Your average specimen of the Komondor breed of canine weighs upwards of one hundred and fifty pounds and resembles a small loveseat festooned with long dreadlocks. The matted Rasta hair typical of the breed obscures the dog’s face, giving it a fathomless expression which effectively conceals its sometimes ignoble intentions.

  Felix Wren had owned three Komondors in his life, in sequence. The first had been named Marley, the second Cliff. The current one was named Tosh.

  Tosh padded nervously now from one end of Felix’s well-appointed workshop to the other. Ever since his master’s death, he had been inconsolable. Penned in his outdoor run, he had barked incessantly, throwing his huge bulk against the wire in an effort to escape. The sight of either Perfidia or Rowdy had been enough to drive him to violent paroxysms.

  Fearful that the grief-maddened pet would eventually break free and beseige them in the main house, Perfidia had ordered Rowdy to transfer the dog to Felix’s lab. Rowdy equi
pped himself with a pole-mounted snare; Tosh snapped it in half, and Rowdy felt himself lucky to escape with even one pants leg. Only a tranquilizer dart administered by a compliant vet had succeeded in rendering the beast temporarily manageable. (Rowdy had argued for killing the monster outright, but Perfidia had countered that such a move would appear too suspicious, and should be postponed until at least after the funeral.)

  The familiar smells in the lab seemed to have quieted the dog somewhat, and he now no longer raged, but merely whimpered and paced, claws clicking on the linoleum.

  Around Tosh’s neck was a curious collar. Hard to detect beneath his dreadlocks, it seemed to be composed of burnished, chunky metal lozenges, save for a single oval link of transparent crystal wired to its neighbors.

  A digital clock atop a littered workbench flipped from 11:59 AM to 12:00 PM.

  Tosh suddenly stiffened as if electrocuted, and fell to the floor.

  A wave of distortion blurred the dog’s body. It was as if it had been placed in the middle of an invisible oven, an oven whose superheated air was making the dogbody waver and shift, melting, warping, recohering the shaggy form into—

  The body of a slim, red-haired and freckled man, naked except for Tosh’s collar.

  The man opened a pair of guileless blue eyes. He reached up and felt the collar, loose around his neck.

  “Wow. It works. It works!” The man sobered. “Poor Tosh.” He patted his own head. “Sorry, boy. We’ll get you back soon.”

  An expression as of memories reintegrating themselves wrinkled the man’s face, and he sobered even further. “What am I saying? Poor Tosh? Poor me! They—they murdered me! My own loving wife! Well, I suspected it was coming, but I never imagined it would happen so soon. I thought they were going to spend a little more time working themselves up to it. Still, I should have guessed. Galina never brought me lunch before. I was so amazed—even if it was only a peanut-butter and banana sandwich—that I never heard that rascal Staggers come in behind her—”

  Breaking off, the man got to his feet. “Gosh, I have to remind myself Tosh isn’t here anymore—or at least not as such. I’m so used to talking to the old boy—”

  The man took a coverall down from a hook and donned it, along with a pair of chemical-stained sneakers. “I don’t suppose this is the safest place for us to hang around, is it, Tosh? But there’re things I still need to do without being interrupted. Now, where could we— Of course! Priscilla Jane’s!”

  Picking up the receiver of a phone, the man dialed.

  “Hello, Priscilla Jane? This is Felix. Felix who? Your boss, Felix Wren. Do you know any other Felixes? It’s not that common a name. Hello? Priscilla Jane, are you there?”

  Felix hung up the phone. “Funny. We got disconnected. Oh well, I suppose its just as quick to go over there as to call again.”

  From a plastic bin, Felix grabbed a handful of necklaces and bracelets of varying sizes, all otherwise identical to the one he wore, and dropped them in various pockets. He picked up a laptop computer, and moved toward the lab door.

  The sound of a car entering the grounds of the mansion reached Felix’s ears.

  “Oh-oh.”

  Felix darted outside, hoping to elude the returning new owners of his home before they saw him.

  But he was too late.

  The car halted opposite his workshop while he was still framed in the doorway. His treacherous wife and chauffeur emerged. Busy talking, they at first did not see him.

  “—and the dog should suffer! Shoot one paw at a time, Rowdy.”

  “Haw, haw, Perfidia, that’s the style!”

  Felix’s vision was washed with crimson hues. Before he could stop himself, words spilled out.

  “It’s not bad enough you killed me, now you’re planning to torture poor Tosh!”

  Perfidia and Rowdy were nailed to the lawn. Their eyes assumed the dimensions of peeled onions. Perfidia staggered and clutched the chauffeur. Rowdy’s color drained into his boots.

  “Gallopin’ Jesus! It’s a ha’nt!”

  Felix smiled. If they only knew. He was ten times more miraculous than a ghost.

  Walking calmly across the lawn away from the frozen couple, Felix could not resist uttering a small “Boo!”

  That shattered his wife’s immobility.

  “Ghosts don’t carry computers, Rowdy! I don’t know who he is, but we’ve got to stop him!”

  “Gotcha, babe!”

  Rowdy advanced slowly but determinedly on Felix.

  Felix began taking off his clothes.

  This apparently insane action gave Rowdy pause, but he soon resumed his cautious stalking.

  Felix flipped the laptops screen into position and opened a window. He jacked a cable from the laptop into a small port on the necklace he wore.

  “Do you think sixty seconds will be enough, Tosh?” Felix asked the air.

  “Buddy, you ain’t gonna get more’n three seconds,” growled Rowdy.

  Felix clucked his tongue. “Such ignorance.”

  Then he tapped ENTER.

  The improbable transformation which had wrought Tosh into Felix now recurred in reverse.

  A snarling, slavering, vengeful dog sprang up, whipped his head around to disengage the computer tether, then focused on a stunned Rowdy. The man began to back away. With a yelp, Perfidia fled toward the house. Rowdy turned and sprinted after her.

  Tosh was on him within a few yards. With one huge bound, he knocked the chauffeur to the ground. Rowdy’s head bounced off an ornamental cement lawn frog, and he was still. Tosh lunged for the unconscious man’s throat—

  Felix found himself with a mouthful of uniform.

  “Yuck!”

  Climbing off the still-breathing chauffeur, Felix retrieved his clothes and computer. His wife—Perfidia? Is that what Staggers had called her? How strange everything was becoming!—was nowhere to be seen. Doubtlessly, she was on the phone to either the police or the dog warden. It was past time for him to leave.

  Spitting out a shirt-button that had lodged itself under his tongue, Felix set out for Priscilla Jane’s.

  2.

  Priscilla Jane Farmer hung up her phone and began to weep.

  Damn that morbid prankster! He had had Felix’s voice and goofy intonations down to a “T”! And he would have to call just when she was congratulating herself on being all cried out. Now she’d have to work her way through another bout of runny nose and hot tears and inflamed eyes. And all without benefit of tissues, since she had used them all up, and was hardly in the mood to go out for more. Those damn scratchy paper towels and damn clumsy hanks of toilet paper would have to damn well do!

  And while she was damning people and things and life in general,

  Priscilla Jane felt she may as well toss in a good goddamn for Felix Wren himself!

  “Wha—why’d he have to go and die anyhow?” Priscilla Jane wailed. “So stupid! Sticking himself with a dirty old needle! I’ll bet a million dollars that wife of his had something to do with it! Bitch! I begged him not to marry her. I spotted her as a golddigger from the first! But would he listen to me? No, of course not. Oh, I was a great secretary and Gal Friday, sure enough! Who helped him build the damn business from nothing? Hah! But when it came to personal things, would he take my advice? No! And I—I could—I could’ve made him so happy!”

  Priscilla Jane grabbed the wheel of her wheelchair and spun herself about until she was facing the kitchen doorway. Half-blinded by tears, she propelled herself forward. On her way, she bumped clumsily against a table and knocked a vase to the floor. It shattered.

  “Damn! Damn, damn, damn!”

  Just as she was pulling down three or four towels, the doorbell rang.

  Rolling to the front door, Priscilla Jane called out irritably, “Who is it?”

  “It’s Felix, Pee Jay. Let me in!”

  A pang of grief mixed with a bolt of fear shot through Priscilla Jane. My God, the lunatic caller was here! How had he found where she
lived? What did he want? He must be insane, to be mimicking a dead man this way—

  “Uh, sure—Fuh-Felix. One minute. I—I’m not dressed—”

  “Priscilla Jane, are you okay? You sound weird. Listen, I’m in a bit of a rush. Could you please hurry?”

  The phone was in her hand and she was jabbing 911. I sound weird? “Right, I’m hurrying.”

  The voice of the man on the other side of the door assumed aggrieved tones.

  “Priscilla Jane, something tells me you don’t trust me. Whatever you do, please don’t call the authorities. My wife’s bound to learn from them where I am, and she’s still trying to kill me.”

  The operator was on the line. “Hello? Hello? Do you need help?”

  Priscilla Jane spoke. “Uh, no, sorry, my, uh, cat accidentally speed-dialed. Goodbye!”

  Back at the door, Priscilla Jane secured the chain. “What do you mean, ‘trying to kill you’?”

  The voice of her old employer said, “Well, she is. I mean, she did kill me once—with the help of that fellow, Staggers—but it didn’t take, and now I’m back, in the flesh. Well, not the same flesh exactly.…”

  Priscilla Jane snorted. “You’re back. The same but not the same. Yeah, right.…”

  The mock-Felix grew exasperated. “Priscilla Jane, I can’t fool around anymore. I’m coming in.”

  All her first floor windows were burglar-barred. “Just you try it, Mister!”

  From the far side of her door came the sound of—computer keys clicking? Something rattled around the door handle.

  Then her solid oak door turned to a Japanese screen, all bamboo and translucent tissue paper. The silhouette of the Felix imposter loomed frighteningly.