Uninvited

by B. G. Thomas

  Myles got a surprised look on his face.

  “Yea-huh,” I said.

  “All night? What time did you two… ah, hook up?”

  “Around five yesterday evening,” I told her. “I picked him up and we went for coffee.”

  “At?” she asked.

  “The Shepherd’s Bean, just around—”

  “I know where it is,” she said. “How long were you there?”

  I shrugged. “Hour? Less?” I looked past her to Myles.

  “Something like that,” Myles said, still breathing hard.

  “Then what?” She looked almost like she didn’t want to know.

  “We came back here for dinner.”

  Townsend snorted. “I’ll bet! Sausage?”

  “Lasagna,” I replied. “Really good lasagna. No torn pasta. The secret is—”

  “And then?” Brookhart asked.

  Myles answered. “Is that really any of your business?”

  “It is if it clears you for the third murder,” she said, her voice calm, yet like steel. Townsend was shaking his head, all but snarling.

  “Then we went to bed,” I replied and felt myself blush. For some reason that pissed me off. “All night.”

  Brookhart nodded. Turned to her partner. “Okay?”

  “How do we fucking know he wasn’t in on it?” Dt. Asshole barked, pointing at me.

  Brookhart snorted. “Taylor?” She laughed. “He almost threw up on his shoes trying to take some pictures of the bodies. I don’t think cutting people’s hearts out is a part of his repertoire.”

  “Goddammit!” Asshole shouted.

  “It would still be nice if you two could answer some questions,” she said calmly.

  I looked over at Myles. He was still clearly upset. Could I blame him? I was upset. “Myles?”

  He sighed and his shoulders fell, tension at least easing a bit. “Fine,” Myles said. “But I’m making coffee.”

  “Chicory?” I asked.

  “Hell, no,” he said. “They get Taster’s Choice.”

  I DIDN’T want to leave, but I knew I had to go get pictures. I didn’t want to get pictures. Far from it. Taking pictures of people with their chests split open was not getting easier. But so far Mencken hadn’t taken my story away, and that was good. Right? He was sprucing them up, or someone was (please don’t let it be Chadrick or Rockower), but not changing the byline. That is good, right?

  But as I looked at the grisly remains of the older man, I couldn’t help but feel like a fraud. I found I didn’t want to be here, looking at a dead man. A dead man named Ramon Martínez, aged fifty-five, five eight, one hundred ninety-five pounds, married, father of two, and yes, in town for a convention. A human-resources convention, and could there be anything much more boring than that? He’d been found at the Just Off Broadway Theatre, which for nearly a century had served as offices for the Parks Department, a barn for the horses for the mounted police of Kansas City, and finally for storage for parks equipment before becoming a theater. I always thought of it as a little lost castle, because that’s what it looked like. Something right out of England that had somehow mysteriously transported itself to Kansas City.

  But then, looking at that dead man splayed out, surrounded by candles and dead chickens and face-painted with a skull, I got that shuddering little feeling of familiarity. Like I had seen something like this before. Before a few days ago, that is.

  Then something clicked in my head. The murders. Several of them…. Why they reminded me a hell of a lot of that movie The Believers. It was almost like they were inspired by that movie—which wasn’t about vodou to begin with. Could it be…?

  And if it were true, that would mean Myles really wasn’t involved at all! Not that I thought that for a moment. At least not anymore.

  I looked but didn’t find any words in blood about serving “Baron Mange Key.” Of course there really wasn’t anyplace to do that in this case. The big tan stone blocks wouldn’t make a good easel.

  So I took my pictures, and I took them fast. I wanted to go to the vic’s hotel room, and wonderfully, Daph had told me where to go. She was turning into my hero. Turning? Hell. She was my hero! Wasn’t she the one who had caught one of the guys who beat the stuffing out of me the year before?

  Stunningly, I was able to do something that showed me miracles do happen. There was a laptop open on a desk in his hotel room, and while the cops milled about, no one paid me the least bit of attention when I checked Mr. Martínez’s recent browser history. I thought it was completely weird—how could they not notice me? But not one to look a gift horse in the mouth (and oh, what did that make me think of?) I checked that damned computer.

  And what do you know? E-MaleConnect, a gay hookup site. Interesting. While the cat’s away, that cat had been playing. Apparently, playing was the last thing he did. I wasn’t able to open his e-mail, not casually, but I did see the ad he’d answered said, “Sex in a Castle? Blow Me Now!”

  Sex in a castle, huh?

  I amscrayed and called Brookhart. “Hey, Daph,” I said when she answered.

  She growled.

  “Any chance the previous vics might have used computer hookup sites the night they died?”

  There was a long pause. Then: “Yes. How did you know that?”

  “I have my ways.”

  Another pause. “The first guy”—pause and the sound of shuffling pages—“Brightwell. He apparently placed an ad for hotel sex. I guess that’s pretty common for married men on the down-low? Business man away from the wifey—”

  “Where he can get away with all kinds of stuff and not get caught because he doesn’t have to worry about running into them at Walmart when he and said wifey are shopping. Tale as old as time. Why do you think so many conventions are in Las Vegas? And in Martinez’s case, what’s the chance that anyone will recognize him? Especially if he’s far from home? Where was Brightwell from?”

  “San Marcos, Texas,” she said after a moment.

  “Yeah. See, he doesn’t have to worry that someone will figure out who he is when he’s out of town—and who knows, some married couples even have an it’s-okay-if-you’re-out-of-town rule.”

  Brookhart sniffed.

  “And the girl. She was from… Nebraska?” I asked.

  Shuffling paper. “Weeping Water. She used a different site, though.”

  “Not a woman.”

  “Not a woman,” Brookhart said.

  “And this last guy answered an ad for someone who wanted public sex at the Just Off Broadway Theatre.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I don’t know that I am thinking anything. Only that these were people who kept their romances on the road and away from home. Anonymous. No way to really track down where they found their love.”

  “We’re working on that.”

  “You are?” I asked, surprised. Could they do that?

  “Most of what you see on TV cop shows is pure bullshit,” she said. “But not all of it.”

  “Okay,” I said, and hung up before she could tell me I couldn’t use the information for my next story. I got it to Mencken right away. He hooted and said that was “effing great, kiddo!” I smiled. Maybe I could do this.

  Then I headed to Lucky Charms. I wanted to see Myles.

  The protestors were back. I started to turn away, then to cut through the crowd, and finally decided to do my job. I went to the preacher, the one who looked like Two Face in that Batman movie, but before the acid bath.

  “Do not turn to mediums or necromancers,” he was bellowing. “Do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord, your God.”

  “Excuse me,” I said, pulling out my press badge. “I’m from the Chronicle. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions, Mister….”

  He looked down at me, finger still pointed at the sky. “Reverend,” he barked, and then seeming to be just as surprised that he yelled at me as I was, shook himself and stepped off his folding met
al chair.

  Couldn’t he find a soap box? I wondered.

  “Reverend Doctor Royle Van Young.”

  I bit the insides of my mouth to keep from laughing. Royle? Really? “Reverend,” I said instead.

  “How may I help you, young man?” he asked, and once more I had to fight not to laugh. Was he maybe ten years older than me? Maybe? And calling me “young man?”

  “I was wondering if you might tell me what this is all about?” I waved to indicate the protestors, then gestured to Lucky Charms.

  “We are here to drive out the serpent,” he said in a tone that indicated I must be an idiot.

  “The serpent?”

  “The serpent. The Devil. Satan. Lucifer himself!” Van Young pointed to the ground with a downward thrust finger.

  “I see….”

  “This place of evil must go. The proprietors of this den of sin—devil worshippers—have brought the fallen angel to Kansas City.”

  “Proprietors? I was only aware of one.”

  “His partner,” the rev-doc said, and pumped his finger to the storefront of Lucky Charms, “has already fled, gone back to New Orleans from where she rose up—tail between forked feet.”

  “Ah,” I managed. “I didn’t know Mr. Parry had a partner.”

  “One down and one to go,” the Aaron Eckhart look-alike said.

  I nodded in what I hoped looked like sympathy. “And you’re glad she’s gone because they brought Lucifer to town.” Somehow I managed to keep myself from giggling. I thought of open chests and blood and winced. It had the desired effect and my laughter was buried.

  “Yes, young man. By driving out this other sorcerer, we can save our children from the Devil’s influence. By marching outside this evil place, we are driving away those who would seek his aid. Aid which the proprietor of this evil place receives from the Prince of Hell!” The reverend pointed once more to Myles’s shop. “‘And he burned his son as an offering and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.’”

  “Son?” I asked. Myles had a son?

  “Human sacrifice,” Rev Royle said. “Surely you know about this, if you’re a reporter.”

  “Well, I know there have been killings,” I replied. “But I don’t know that it was human sacrifice.”

  “How can you know it not?”

  Know it not? Really?

  “Their hearts were cut out! No doubt eaten by he who did it.”

  Eaten? “Now that’s a considerable jump in a train of thought, isn’t it?” I asked. “From human sacrifice to eating hearts?” I shuddered. For some reason I thought of the dark man from my dreams with the heart painted on his face.

  “Leviticus 19:26: ‘You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it,’” he said. “‘You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes.’ That man in there tells fortunes.”

  “But that doesn’t mean he eats hearts.”

  Van Young’s eyes narrowed. “He has already poisoned your mind, hasn’t he, my son? Get down on your knees and pray with me. For as it says in James 4:7, ‘Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.’”

  “Look,” I said, stepping back. I had no intention of getting on my knees. Not for Van Young, anyway. “I’m fine, really.”

  “That man in there. The beautiful man.” The reverend pointed once more at Lucky Charms. “He has ensorcelled you, hasn’t he? My son! Make no mistake! Vodou is nothing more than witchcraft! It is the summoning of demonic forces! It is the raising of demons to perform evil tasks. These ‘vodouisants’ pretend to help people, to heal, to mend relationships. But they are summoning evil with their words and rituals. They are making a deal with the Enemy, himself! And make no mistake about it, Satan does not do anything for free. He does not do favors in return for cigars and bottles of rum, does not care about sacrificing chickens and pigs! I have seen it! I have the discerning eye. Mr. Parry practices witchcraft!”

  It was then that the police arrived. Finally.

  It turned out the Reverend Doctor had no permit. He’d been told twice before to get one.

  “I’ll be back,” he shouted as he was ushered to his van. “The Lord will not be silenced! Evil will not be permitted to thrive here in this city. It will be driven out!”

  Thankfully I didn’t have to listen anymore. I went into Lucky Charms. I went there for a little sanity.

  WE HAD dinner at my apartment that night. It wasn’t lasagna, but I had a little hibachi grill, and I cooked hamburgers out on my balcony this time. I liked the fact that almost all the tenants in my building—the Oscar Wilde, and wasn’t that a great name?—were gay and lesbian. Both apartments next to mine belonged to gay men. The couple to the right were nudists and were often right out on their balcony naked. We were on the sixth floor, and since there were only houses across the street, no one could see anything. I had to admit the situation and my neighbors had given me the freedom to sit out naked myself.

  I was clothed tonight.

  While I flipped burgers and traveled back and forth to the kitchen, cutting tomatoes (and opting against onions tonight—I was hoping for much kissing) and lettuce and such, Myles found my scrapbook from my Chicago-suburb days.

  “Oh, God, Myles! Don’t look at that?”

  “Why not?”

  I swallowed hard. “It’s embarrassing.”

  He looked at me, concern in his dark eyes. “Why embarrassing?”

  “It’s—it’s just it’s all such sappy stuff. You know, ‘Kid With Autism Confronts His Bullies with Forgiveness,’ and ‘Old Man Turns His Garage Into a Shelter For Strays.’ That kind of bullshit.”

  “It doesn’t sound like bullshit to me.”

  I gave up and let him read.

  Which surprised me all the more when I came out on the balcony with cheese for the burgers—I mean, who eats burgers without cheese?—and found him with tears running down his face. “Myles!” I said, alarmed. “Are you okay?”

  “This story,” he started to reply and then his voice broke. “Th-this story about the twins….” His voice broke again and he pointed. I looked.

  “Twin Carries Injured Brother Across The Finish Line At 800-Meter Race.” My breath caught. I remembered that day. It had been a spring morning, a Saturday, and I’d been planning on going to the Rocks on Lake Michigan to sun myself and maybe get lucky when my boss called and asked me, as a favor, to cover the sporting event at the high school. I didn’t do sporting events. Not even high-school sporting events. Maybe especially high-school events. But I went. As a special favor. I’d been there in the bleachers, trying not to kill myself from boredom, when I saw the kid fall down. Saw another kid, who had been in the lead, stop, go back, and pick him up and carry him the rest of the way. “They came in dead last,” I said quietly.

  “…but for the very best reason.” Myles read, “‘I couldn’t leave him there,’ said fourteen-year-old Julian. ‘He’s my brother. And I’m my brother’s keeper.’”

  Myles sighed and wiped his face, and I was surprised myself when I realized there were tears gathering in my eyes as well.

  “Oh, Taylor. You’re ashamed of stories like these?”

  “Not—not ashamed,” I said.

  “But embarrassed.”

  I shrugged, suddenly at a loss for words. It had been a powerful day. Imagine if more people stopped to help their brothers.

  “Taylor, I would read the paper if there were more stories like these.” He pointed at the article, carefully cut from the Daily Herald and glued on the scrapbook page. “Imagine,” Myles said, “if more people stopped to help those in need. Not caring if they come in first place, only in making sure everyone crosses the finish line.”

  And once more I had to entertain the idea of wondering if Myles could read my mind.

  “This reminds me of the Marassa.”

  “The Marassa?” I asked.

  Myles smiled. “Th
e Lwa twins. They are always the second to be honored in any vodou ceremony, after Papa Legba. Some say they were one soul born into two separate bodies. They bring good fortune. But watch them!” Myles chuckled. “They are children, after all, and they can be impish! Kids will be kids.”

  “Even… on the other side?” I asked. “When they became saints?”

  “Of course!” Myles exclaimed. “How else can they help us if they don’t feel like we do? That is why I always had trouble with Jesus. We are supposed to follow His example, but how can we? He was God on earth. Christians say He knew what and who He was, even as a child. So how could He have been tempted in the wilderness? I mean, really? He knew the devil couldn’t give Him anything because everything already belonged to Him, right? How could He have been afraid of death? He already knew He was going to rise on the third day, right? According to the Christian stories. But we humans have only faith. So how can we live up to Christ’s example? We aren’t God!”

  I nodded slowly. It’s something I hadn’t thought of in a long, long time. But part of why I had let my mother’s religion slip out of my life. How could I possibly follow the example of a perfect being who knew He was God?

  “Now the Lwa on the other hand,” Myles continued. “And the spirits of our ancestors? They were human, and sometimes, even though they are powerful, they are still human. If you have a relative that was always trying to set you up on a date because she never realized or couldn’t figure out you were gay—then don’t ask her to help you find a mate. She’ll still be looking for a woman. Unless you finally let her know. Tell her. And in vodou, you can tell her. Then with the wisdom she has with the Ghede, she will do what she can to help.”

  “What are the Ghede?” I asked.

  “They are the recently dead. They know all about human suffering. They remember it clearly. The altar at the store, the one covered in purple? That is their altar. I go to them for healing. They can be pranksters, though. Like Dasou and Dasa, the Marassa.”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “You really believe this stuff, don’t you?”

  “Stuff?”

  “I don’t mean stuff. I….” I didn’t know what I meant. It was hard to believe. It sounded like wishful thinking. Like just another religion created from man’s fear of death.