The Starry Sphinx

by V X Lloyd

  Moony was thoughtful. "What if it's true what people say, that at the moment of death, everybody you know lines up and they all tell you what they think of you?"

  Perry smiled, his mind clearly elsewhere. A brief empathic sweep revealed to Moony that Perry was in love with Moony’s mother. On the one hand, he found that hilarious. On the other, he found it immensely endearing: relieving, even.

  Deb, meanwhile, was not her usual self. From appearances, she had not a care in the world and was all smiles. Moony sensed it had less to do with the missed Cinnabon opportunity and everything to do with the fact that she was trying hard not to feel hurt about Perry's emotional distance from her. Even without calling on the Sphinx's empathic ability, Moony was finding it easy to recognize when people were trying hard not to feel something.

  Celia sat her bags down in front of the airport check-in counter and looked at him. "Your jacket smells like... perfume. Nevermind."

  "Yeah, I'll never mind," he said.

  "What is that supposed to mean?"

  "Nothing."

  "OK then. It means nothing. So there's nothing to talk about."

  "So then let's stop talking about it."

  "Two bags for you, ma'am?" said the ticket counter lady.

  "Yes."

  "All the way to Seville?"

  "Yes."

  "Have a nice trip."

  "Thanks."

  "Just the one bag for you, sir?"

  "Yes."

  "To Seville also?"

  "Yes."

  Have a nice trip."

  "Thanks."

  Moony changed the subject. "Empathy, you know? It's something that people say you just have, you're born with it, it's not something you learn. But I feel like it was something that was encouraged not to be there for me. I was so cold as a kid. I mean, I keep thinking about the time my brother was in the talent show, and he won, so I made fun of him at dinner till he cried."

  "You did that?" she asked.

  "Or when I had sex with six different women that one night."

  "I didn't know about that." She paused. "Was I one of them?" He shook his head no, and he wasn't sure which emotion was at the forefront for her, disappointment or disgust. "How does that specific scenario have anything to do with not having empathy, though?"

  "Maybe it has more to do with how I was raised to live like I was the center of the world."

  "OK, well, I think I've heard enough for now. You don't hear other people blabbing as if life were a confessional booth, do you?" asked Celia as they walked through a large crowd of Catholic school kids. Moony felt embarrassed that they might have overheard, but smiled at them as if he proudly wore devil horns.

  *

  Heath, stepping out of his car, heard a tinny, subdued yipping coming from a closed Dumpster. Inside a burgundy handbag was a scared puppy. He recognized the handbag as one he’d once owned and didn’t remember throwing out.

  “Is this my puppy?” he asked, cradling it. “Are there more of you in there?”

  The dog, a young pit bull, wasn't in a position to understand his question. Heath glanced in the Dumpster, and seeing only bags of trash, pressed his ear closer, hearing only the faint rustling heartbeat-sound of plastic whipping in the wind. He took the dog upstairs, fed it, gave it water, and laid down to take a nap with it on the floor.

  “It was such a good thing I got fired today so that I could get my good parking space and hear you complaining.” The puppy was asleep. “I’m going to feed you until you get six feet tall, and that’s a good thing. Your furr is so brown, such a good thing,” and Heath was asleep.

  *

  Celia sat down in her window seat and pulled down the shade.

  "Why can't you leave the shade up?"

  "Because it's sunny."

  "Sunny is pretty."

  "You sit here."

  "I like the aisle."

  "Then don't complain."

  "I like the window to be open, because whoever sits in the window seat should like to look out. See the view."

  "Right now the luggage guys out there are filling the plane with gas."

  "I meant later."

  "I don't make you sit in the aisle seat any certain way."

  "There's only one way to sit in an aisle seat -- on your ass."

  "With the shade down."

  "The window seat with the shade pulled down is the worst possible seat because you're trapped in and have no view."

  “I'll show you a view.”

  "Of them filling gas."

  "Of the clouds. See the pretty sky?"

  Moony felt like he was hungry, but wasn't aware of the possibility that he was also feeling a bouquet of other emotions. When Celia started crying, Moony didn't know what to do, so he held her. His hand around her, he felt something crumple like a plastic sack. He intruded into her pocket, curious. A plastic sack of cocaine.

  From across the aisle Perry's eyebrows raised higher than anyone had ever seen eyebrows raise before. They raised a foot above his actual head and even stayed up there for a half hour.

  "Who are you?" Moony asked.

  "I never get searched," she smiled.

  "That's insane -- just get cocaine in Spain!"

  Celia giggled at the rhyme. She often felt it easy to laugh after a brief cry. "Oh, whatever," Moony said, "Keep up the good work smuggling, I guess.” The overweight man in the seat in front of them made the seat groan as he turned around, made the sort of face only a baby boomer could, and put on some noise-canceling headphones. Celia squeezed her nipples at the man and made a face.

  *

  It wasn't easy to say how long the trip took, with all the time changes they went through, but Moony was pretty sure it took around 114 hours. Considering they had been up all night packing and fussing like newlyweds on what to bring (he had forgotten his watch) and which airline to take, they were both able to get some rest on the cozy Lufthanza plane. Moony only had two tiny bottles of wine, but for some reason, he didn't want Celia to know he had been drinking.

  It was night when they arrived in Seville. The four of them stepped outside and Moony waved at a cab driver. He was fairly short, had a bit of a belly, and a softish face with dark eyes. He was balding, and his clothes hung on him as if they disdained touching his skin. He had a wide mouth that seemed frozen halfway between a grimace and a smile.

  "Donde esta la casino?" Moony asked.

  "El casino?" The driver looked at Perry for clarification. Perry smiled, naively and impatiently, which is how a monolingual American smiles when no longer standing on his native soil.

  "Si, para el poker," Moony continued. "Para jugar a les cartas. Quiero... uh, donde van los bigshots..."

  The driver took a second to grasp his meaning. "Si, si. Un lugar con los big spenders."

  Moony nodded with absolute casualness, like he himself was a big spender.

  The cab driver appraised Moony and his friends. Because the man's face was constantly held in the expression of a grimace, his current feelings weren't clear, though if Moony's psychic telepathy was functioning, it signaled that the man believed Moony to be a guy he'd like to play poker against, which is to say that he believed Moony to be a rich blowhard. Truth be told, Moony was terrible at poker.

  The driver looked at Celia.

  "Y usted?"

  Celia had taken French as a foreign language, and didn't have the slightest idea what the two men were talking about. She was just wondering why they didn't seem to know where they were going, and why on earth they would need to ask her.

  "To the hotel?" She looked at Moony, one eyebrow cocked adorably.

  Now was hardly a fine time for Moony to explain the real reason he wanted to come to Spain. Moony just hadn't thought to mention it, for reasons that could be known only to someone who had experienced a relationship with a dynamic as lazy and entitled as that between Moony and Celia.

  "I'm wanting to go out to this place, uh, Heath mentioned..." Moony heard himself take on a kind of o
verbearing tone that generally made Celia bored to listen to, as when he was "mansplaining" something to her. "Perry, uh, you remember..." He beamed him the overall plan.

  "Casino, yeah."

  "Yeah, the casino!" Deb said, apparently really, really excited about going.

  Celia shook her head. "You all do whatever. I'm tired. Just drop me off at the house and I'll see you later."

  "You sure?" Moony asked, leaning in to her.

  Celia nodded. She didn't know the details, but she definitely knew it wasn't something she wanted to get into. For someone apparently without an alien telepathic ability, Celia had a great deal of psychic sense.

  Moony arranged for a separate driver to take Celia and the luggage to the farmhouse where they were staying, then he, Perry and Deb hopped in the cab with the forever-grimacing driver.

  The way was winding and bumpy and the cab smelled like rice vinegar. The driver took them through a series of turns and dark roads, but thanks to the perimeter of Sphinxy gold he felt around the whole experience, not once did Moony doubt that the driver was taking him just where he said he would. After awhile, they pulled up to an ornate wrought-iron gate and a guard poked his head into the car. The driver gestured back at the Americans, then up ahead, and said some things so rapidly Moony couldn't follow.

  The gate opened and the cab continued on a winding path up to the top of a hill and pulled into a gravel drive to a big stone building that looked very expensive and very old. Moony wished he had gotten more money from the airport ATM. Seeing the other cars in the driveway confirmed that he had arrived at a place where truly only big spenders went.

  He also wished he had thought to rent his own car. The driver said he would wait as long as it took no more than one hour. He wanted them to pay in advance, because he was convinced they wouldn't have any money after an hour spent inside. Moony assured him he was overreacting and waved him toward a parking spot. He was pretty sure that the driver's grimace this time was an amused smile.

  After embarrassing himself with confused Spanish, he learned that the doorman spoke English. Moony handed the man his bomber jacket and they all stepped inside.

  They were all under-dressed. Perry and Moony's matching Denver Broncos t-shirts had been a bad idea. They were given sports jackets, which looked lame on Moony with his khaki pants and even lamer on Perry with his cargo shorts.

  "Hey, we aren't here to impress anyone," Perry reassured himself. If they conformed to stereotypes about how Americans were classless slobs, so be it. It was one of those stereotypes that was almost completely true, which is why, when asked, Moony suggested they say they were from Canada. That would keep everyone on their toes.

  Deb pulled what looked to be a tiny black handkerchief from her purse.

  She asked the two men to wait there for a minute and retreated into a side room. When she returned, she wore a striking short black dress that fit her figure tightly. She looked like a knockout.

  "Shall we mingle?"

  The two men were feeling better about themselves that they were here with her.

  The building might have once been a sprawling and elaborate home, maybe a palace of sorts, though its current layout was that of a high-class casino. Beautiful furniture, numerous massive paintings of all shapes and styles, trays of niceties and small intimate groups of people who all seemed to know each other, all of them engaging some manner of high-stakes vice. Dice games, betting games of all sorts. Many games he had never before seen that looked to be hybrids of different games put together: shuffleboard craps, backgammon charades. They sauntered through room to room, trying for casual while at the same time scanning every single face for hints that it might belong to Shane Shakahara, the man with the path to darkness would solve all their troubles.

  Heads turned somewhat as they passed, though always they averted their eyes, as if to look these travelers in the face would be an invitation that was beneath them to entertain.

  Moony was pleased to note that there were in fact several other classless males of about his age, though on closer inspection they all had at least some subtle design sense, and that proved they weren't truly American. These were international males who had made or otherwise found their way to quick riches and had the notion that coming here to risk losing it was the best way for them to enjoy their wealth.

  Strangely, the place was nearly entirely male. There were very few of the ballgown-wearing arm candy girlfriends and wives he had expected to find. There were only a few women, and they weren't standing around or blowing on dice for good luck. All of them were gambling.

  They meandered out of a room into a long maroon-walled corridor. At the far end was a tall, handsome man whose features were similar to Moony's own. After a second, Moony recognized him as the guy that Celia had made out with at the Cherry Creek Mall. He wore a suit so strangely tailored it might have been spandex. The suit showed off the guy's physique -- he was supernaturally muscular. Everything about the guy was sharp, and he walked with a feline grace that painted him in Moony's eye as something of a diamond thief. He matched eyes with Moony.

  From above him, Moony felt a distinct pulsation followed by a stream of golden language:

  If the truth does not set you free,

  then in twos and threes

  They go missing.

  In ones

  They escape.

  There was no mistaking the fact that the diamond thief did not look happy to see him. Taking strides toward him, he pointed right at Moony. "You've got some nerve," he said, his eyes sharp as daggers. "You owe me." His voice wasn't loud, but it carried an intensity.

  Moony turned to look behind to see whether, surely, the diamond thief was pointing at someone else. But behind him were only Perry and Deb, who looked back at him warily.

  To their right was the door to a bathroom. Was going in there a good idea or bad idea, he wondered? He pictured himself being cornered in a small room by a mad stranger who might discover only after knifing Moony that he'd gotten the wrong man.

  Going into the bathroom was a bad idea, he decided.

  The truth will set me free, he told himself.

  "Hi, my name's Moony. I think there's some misunderstanding here. I've never met you before. I've actually never even been here before." He continued pacing forward, though more slowly than before.

  "Celia told me you'd changed your ways. Now I see how it is. Celia lied. Well, she’s not here to help you." Based on Moony's experience watching movies and playing video games, he deduced that the diamond thief reached his hand inside his suit jacket for only one of two possible reasons: Either he was checking his wallet or he had a gun in there.

  Approximately five meters separated the two of them. Just ahead on Moony's right, his eyes landed on a yellow door with no plaque, no indication where it led to. But he had a good feeling about it. Or anyway, his feeling about taking the door was less bad than confronting the diamond thief.

  He grabbed its brass handle, pushed it open and the three of them passed through.

  And just like that, they found themselves in a very different space.

  Sweet relief! Doors were heaven-sent miracles, he decided.

  They stood now in a magnificent ballroom with a huge arched ceiling painted dark blue like the sky at dusk, with gold-leaf stars all throughout. The room carried a preternatural silence that seemed muffled by something important happening here.

  The yellow door's knob had the feature he was hoping for, thus far his favorite find at the party: a simple button-style lock on the knob. He shut the door, clicked the lock, and sighed.

  Then he noticed that there were two other identical yellow doors along that same wall, doubtless connecting to the same hallway where he had met the diamond thief.

  Deb rushed over to one and saw that the handle was beginning to turn. By the time her hand reached the handle, the door was already swinging open.

  Carried by the momentum of her sprint, Deb rammed her shoulder against the door with a rever
berating thud. Clearly the person on the other side hadn't anticipated such intensity, and the door clicked shut. She locked it.

  Then she turned around, adjusting the neckline of her blouse, sighing.

  The room was straight out of a James Bond movie. Men dressed to the nines, ruffly vests and velvet pants, many smoking pipes or cigars, the air nevertheless still crisp, spiced with cognac and gin. Quiet banter in low voices and a general vibe of high-stakes concentration and intrigue.

  Perry raced to the third yellow door and clicked it shut.

  Though there was some distance between where the three of them stood and the various crowds gathered at the room's long bar and several of its tables, Moony was certain his presence had been noticed. Pleasantly, no one reacted to the Denver Broncos fans' bit of buffoonery at locking the doors. The yellow doors were on a relatively vacant side of the ballroom.

  It would only be a matter of time until the diamond thief made his way into the ballroom through another means.

  What had Celia told that guy? The mention of her had struck Moony hard, but now was no time to think. The clock was ticking. Moony walked quickly toward a collection of tables at which men sat playing cards.

  One of the largest poker tables was directly beneath a yellow chandelier of hundreds of tiny paper lanterns. Each of the men who sat there wore similar blue velvet suits.

  Sure enough, one of them was really fat.

  Moony took a deep breath. This guy wasn't just fat. He was immensely, abundantly corpulent. A man who sits always in a wreath in himself, a man whose body was a packed dance hall, everyone exhausted and sweating. He wore gold jewelry: bracelets, a watch, two large heavy necklaces. He also wore a gold earring. Also gold rings with black gemstones on his index and pinky fingers. Clearly he liked to put his wealth on display.

  The corpulent gambler deftly put his cards face down onto the table and looked up. Oddly, he didn't seem to be looking at Moony, but behind his left shoulder. No matter, Moony thought. Maybe he has lazy eye or something. Nothing wrong with that. It would take more than a lazy eye to get between Moony and Shane's darkness.