Kissing Carrion (19 page)

Behind her, a movement.

Sherri pauses, nose wrinkling.

The wind has changed.

And the smell boils up from Adage now—an invisible glove of uncured hide, reaching in every direction at once. Prodded by the stench, Sherri turns—

— to meet Adage's eyes.

“Uh,” she says, then, “Susan?”

Hardly.

And Mike freezes, as Sherri starts to run.

* * *

“So why am I telling you all this?”

“Larry was dumb. He wanted power, but he was too lazy to take his own risks. So he tricked me into opening the door, because he thought he could control me. Afterward. When what was always inside me finally came ripping up to meet the waking world, all raw and naked and hungry.

“And he was so wrong it's kind of funny.

“I live my life the way I was meant to now. I get up, and I get dressed, and I go out and meet someone new. And then we dance. And then I take what's left of them home and sew it back together, and the whole thing starts over again.

“Winter's better. They can't smell you coming, at least not as well. But summer's okay too, because by the time the cops find them there's very little to even identify, and I'm gone long before they can.

“I keep my nose clean. I don't get caught.

“But I'm lonely.

“And I don't know how long I want to go on like this. But I don't know how to stop, either. Or even if I can.

“So—

“—find me, Mike.

“And do whatever suits you, when you do.”

* * *

The parking lot behind King Fook's.
This is it,
Adage thinks, through her haze.

At last.

She takes a last step, mainly for effect.

Sherri moans, runs straight into the back gate, scrabbles at it for a moment, then bounces back. It holds, locked tight for the night.

“God!” she screams.

Adage pauses to remove her coat, which is far, far too expensive to dry clean.

Sherri falls to her knees, sobbing, as much with anger as with fear.

And Adage starts to shake.

Sherri looks up, her cupped hands full of snot.

Adage throws her head back. The naked moon, visible at last, ripples in time to her shivering. A red joy cracks her ribs.

And Sherri just watches—

—as Adage rears up, full size, the corners of her mouth breaking open. Rips inch towards either ear. Impatient, she thrusts her hands inside, and pulls.

“Adage!”

To her right. From the elevators.

Sherri stumbles vertical, using the fence for support.

Adage turns, drooling blood.

In surprise:
Mike?

He came.

The fence's lock explodes.

Sherri shrieks. Adage matches her, high and harsh, like a carrion bird sighting a hearse.

She lunges.

“Adage—no!”

And as she turns again, Sherri slips under her arms, disappearing around the corner.

Mike and Adage are left, face to face, with only a gun and ten feet left between them.

Hesitant: “Adage?”

Slouched like a praying mantis, the thing wearing Susan's skin gives a dust-dry laugh.

“See—for—your—self,” she says.

And steps into the light.

Mike's hand—wavers.

Partially stripped, her bloodied skull nods moronically, face a crossfire of nerves. Her nose hangs flat, the torn half-mouth slack. She jerks her head aside, and both flap open, revealing the craters at their roots. A lipless grin chatters from chin to ear.

The nude moon of her left eye bulges and slits, blankly, as its lid smears itself shut.

“I—guess—this—means—you—heard—the—tape.”

Mike gulps.

Adage seems to smile. Then the change grips again.

Mike staggers back, gun at knee-level, as blood sprays.

Adage's borrowed skin snaps at its seams, rucking up like a pair of old tights. She peels herself free. Beneath, the bulge of raw, red flesh. Muscles and mucous, thrust center-stage, spurt and writhe and glisten. Gristle follows, flashing taunting little hints of bone. A spine, vertebrae cracking like a whip as she moves closer. Hands, busy with tendons. Nails, still growing.

Slick, and pale, and sharp.

“Oh, Adage,” Mike whispers.

“What's the matter, baby?”

Almost hear enough to touch, now.

“You're like this too, underneath,” she says. “Know that? You
all
are.”

Half-blind with tears, Mike brings the gun up.

“Stay away, Adage.”

“Oh, but I can't. Don't you see I'm naked?”

Her hand, reaching. Claws ruffle his hair.

“Adage, please.”

“You who have so much,” says Adage Beck, no longer even faintly human. “Old pal, old buddy, old friend of mine. You who have so much, I pray—lend me a yard or two of hide to clothe my awful shame.”

And Mike—

—fires.

INT. APARTMENT. DAY.

RED, oddly textured, fills the screen.

DETECTIVE CARVALHO (O.S.)

So whatcha got for me here?

PULL BACK. The RED is revealed as a splotch of BLOOD on a rug.

RAY WRAY (O.S.)

Something sharp . . .

CARVALHO (O.S.)
(Unimpressed)

Yeah, no shit.

We KEEP PULLING BACK, revealing more and more splotches—a definite trail, like spray from an invisible wound . . . a whole bunch of invisible wounds. Then a tail-end of CRIME-SCENE TAPE and the chalk OUTLINE of where a body used to be.

RAY (undistinguished, middle 30's) is down on his knees next to the OUTLINE, checking notes on his clipboard. He wears plastic gloves and a disposable coverall.

RAY
(Points)

. . . thin, no edge, no blade. Kind of rounded,

maybe an awl, or a big needle.

CARVALHO

What, like some kinda mad knitter?

A NEW ANGLE establishes the rest of the room: Mass slaughter, but no bodies—just tape, chalk and blood trails.

RAY

Well, I need to do more tests, obviously. But

the closest parallel I can get you right now

is something the size of a catheter or a

trocar, like what they use for draining off

fluid during an autopsy.

(Gets up, turns to point)

So here's how it plays out . . .

CARVALHO turns too. He sees—

HIS P.O.V.: A QUICK CUT of an outline next to the fridge.

RAY (O.S.)

Mr. Riker's in the kitchen, getting himself some

Minute Maid; Mrs. Riker's checking the roast.

E.C.U. of an ORANGE JUICE CONTAINER overturned in a dried stain of juice, combined with streaks of red: Equally dry BLOOD.

RAY (O.S.)

Kids are watching TV.

SOUND F/X: The CLICK of a TV dial; TV sound.

E.C.U. of the TV's flickering blue light, cast on the floor between screen and couch.

RAY (O.S.)

Our killer comes in through the front door,

pretty much right behind them, and . . .

ANGLED E.C.U., almost parallel with the jamb, of the front DOOR swinging gently open. FLASH EFFECT.

MONTAGE, linked by FLASH EFFECTS: CRIME SCENE PHOTOS of each body as it was discovered.

—The freshly BLOOD-SOAKED COUCH, with RIKER CHILD ONE and RIKER CHILD TWO's bodies vaguely glimpsed, sprawled in either direction at the bottom of the frame.

—MRS. RIKER's SHOE, kicked against the wall, half-submerged in a flood of BLOOD.

—MR. RIKER on the kitchen floor, full on. ORANGE JUICE everywhere, hands raised and bloody, pierced eye-sockets staring in horror at his attacker.

CUT BACK to RAY and CARVALHO.

RAY

We've got defensive wounds, but nothing

offensive—no fighting back, no evasion.

It's like they never saw it coming.

CARVALHO

Drugs?

RAY

Not unless the kids were on the same stuff.

CARVALHO's gaze shifts to—

HIS P.O.V.:—A casual group PHOTO of the Riker family stuck up on the fridge door. They look nice, normal, happy.

TRACK OVER. On the wall, written in blood: SEE ME.

BLACK SCREEN. OVER:

RAY (V.O.)

Whoever it was washed off in the bathroom,

afterwards. We found blood traces in the

shower, but no human detritus—

INT. RESTAURANT. DAY.

RAY and his sister, LEEANNE WRAY, are sitting over their dinner.

RAY

—no hairs, no fibers. Like they were just

sponging the blood off a coat made from rubber

or vinyl, one of those plastic, uh—

LEEANNE

—slickers.

(Wry)

Nice dinner conversation, Ray.

RAY

Yeah, I guess. Sorry.

(After a moment)

You, uh . . . hear from—them?

INSERT SHOT: A family PHOTO, posed vaguely like the one in the RIKER home—except that the parents (MR. and MRS. WRAY, LEEANNE and RAY's father and mother) are barely looking at each other, and neither are looking at the little boy and girl (CHILD RAY and CHILD LEEANNE) posed uncomfortably at their feet.

BACK TO ANGLE ON LEEANNE, who shrugs.

LEEANNE

Not lately. You?

INSERT SHOT: The same PHOTO, CLOSER UP. Only CHILD RAY and CHILD LEEANNE are visible.

BACK TO ANGLE ON RAY, who shakes his head.

LEEANNE

Well.

INSERT SHOT: The same PHOTO, E.C.U. Only CHILD RAY and CHILD LEEANNE's eyes are visible.

LEEANNE (V.O.)

Not like they ever noticed we were there,

anyway.

BACK TO ANGLE ON RAY, who looks uncomfortable.

RAY

That's kinda harsh.

(She raises a brow)

I mean, it's over, right? We got over it.

LEEANNE
(A dry laugh)

YOU did, baby bro. Me?

(Points at the waiter)

We've been here, what? Two hours? Raise

your hand, he's there. Skips right over ME,

though. Must be able to tell I'm not the one

with the Gold Card.

RAY

Lee. C'mon . . .

He glances out the window, and sees—

RAY's P.O.V.—a WOMAN wearing a see-through RAINCOAT, coming towards him, walking against the grain of the crowd.

E.C.U. ON HIS EYES, locking—

E.C.U.—on hers.

NEW ANGLE. The WOMAN reacts, as though startled that he's looking at her at all. She pauses, turns, stares.

NEW ANGLE. RAY reacts, startled by HER reaction. He meets and matches her gaze, like: Yes?

LEEANNE (O.S.)

Ray. Ray. Heh-LO?

PULL OUT as she snaps her fingers in his face; he looks at her. She leans back, annoyed but vindicated.

LEEANNE

Now, THAT's what I'm talking about.

RAY glances back. Behind him—

RAY's P.O.V.—the WOMAN is gone.

INT. RAY's APARTMENT. NIGHT.

SOUND F/X: A MICROWAVE BUZZER goes off.

RAY sits at the kitchen table, eating a microwave dinner. WE HEAR the TV in the background.

TV ANNOUNCER (V.O.)

. . . still have no explanation for the complete

lack of witnesses, but maintain that forensic

evidence recovered from the scenes holds a

clue to the mysterious . . .

LATER. RAY lies on the floor, working out, doing flys with a barbell in either hand. The TV is still on.

TV INTERVIEWEE (V.O.)

. . . “estrangement”: A certain—alienation—

from society and the world around them. A

sense of being somehow, somehow . . .

LATER. RAY is in the bathroom, door open. WE HEAR the sound of running water. The TV is still on.

TV PREACHER (V.O.)

. . . 'unseen creatures fill the air, both when

we wake and when we sleep.' This, my friends,

is much like how the Lord's invisible but

constant presence . . .

LATER. RAY, hair wet and wrapped in a towel, sits in front of the TV paying bills. He isn't looking at the screen, but BLUE FLICKERING LIGHT illuminates his face.

TV SPORTS GUY (V.O.)

. . . hoo! Buddy, that's GOTTA hurt. In

football, meanwhile . . .

A surge of blooper-clip MUSIC. RAY shuts his eyes.

CLICK. BLACK SCREEN.

E.C.U. RAY's eyes SNAP open.

NEW ANGLE. The WOMAN from the street is standing over him, still wearing her see-through RAINCOAT.

WOMAN

You can SEE me.

RAY

What?

WOMAN

See.

INSERT SHOT, with FLASH effect: The bloody word, on the Riker kitchen wall.

WOMAN

Me.

ON RAY, with FLASH EFFECT: His eyes WIDEN. He's suddenly realized just WHERE he's heard/seen this before.

WOMAN

Out of which EYE can you see me?

RAY
(Dry mouth)

. . . both.

WOMAN

THAT's a pity.

A blurred MOVEMENT, just on the edge of the frame, as she— E.C.U.—brings up a big needle, like a TROCAR.

BLACK SCREEN.

SOUND F/X: We HEAR a puncturing thunk, followed by a SCREAM.

FIRST CREDIT ROLLS.

SOUND F/X: The same noise, again.

ROLL CREDITS.

You are labeled the dark or black Goddess,

the Goddess of graves, killer of man, the unholy.

At Delphi, you are known as Aphrodite on the Tomb.

—Christine Downing

Don't threaten me with love, baby.

— Billie Holiday

SWEAT, FEVER—I WOKE
coughing glass. Down to Lee Earle's for twelve on the dot, just him, me and the other regulars: Two any-age habitual D-and-D offenders—one male, one not—and a clutch of pyramid-scheme drones from the strip-mall office space, still loud and wired after an all-night selling jag.

Listening to Georgia Gibbs' “Kiss of Fire” on endless repeat, slowly teasing my lingering bourbon-fume haze back into a righteous full-on drunk; studying the scar tissue on my knuckles, wondering just how long I would have to keep this up before I either died from liver damage or got myself killed in a brawl. I hoped not that much longer, but suspected I hoped in vain.

The count: four years this Valentine's, and still going.

The record, thus far unbroken: never any more than two or so days spent sober, in between trips to the dry-out ward or the tank.

“Hit me,” I told Lee Earle, tapping my glass. Got a sideways glare back: Hung-over voodoo eyes. Like he wanted to take me literal, but didn't have the guts. I slammed the bourbon, tapped it again.

“Your old partner's back in town,” he said, leaning to fill ‘er up. “Lookinland. You hear about that?”

“No,” I said. “I didn't.”

“Well, he is.”

Another swallow—it went down burning, hot and hard, straight to where I always used to think my heart was located. Before I knew better.

Lee Earle: “Did a Quantico internship, now he's mister big-shit honorary profiler, with a hard-on for cults and crazies. Pitched them some new division—same old freak-show cases you guys used to break back when. Like that rape/snuff job they found Monday on Jenner, in the vacant lot.”

“Didn't hear about that, either.”

He reached under the bar, threw me a copy of the
Highlight
. “Try reading the paper every once in a while, Proulx. In between drinks.”

Fresh ink, smeared fingerprints. The headline, all screaming caps: BRUTAL MURDER! “TORTURED,” SAYS CORONER! LOCAL BOY TO HEAD! Behind me, Georgia's sour-sweet pipes wailed on over piano-wire strings—Argentinian whore-house tango turned over-orchestrated Hollyweird torch song, the words a bad-translation joke.
If I'm a slave, then it's a slave I want to be!

Beck's familiar face stared up at me where he knelt by the body, lifting a tarpaulin corner with his pen—a black-on-grey collage, all dots and shadows. New suit, new grey paling his short brown hair, new glasses: Plastic frames—easier to break, harder to embed. A thin white shadow of raised keloiding along the length of his occipital bone.

Don't pity me!

More bourbon, acid on a sandpaper tongue.

Don't pity me!

His dark, level eyes under dark, level brows, gaze narrow and discreet as ever. A hidden bruise.

Hadn't seen him in the flesh since the day he walked into the locker room, put his crushed and purple nose next to mine, and told me if I ever got this close to him again, he'd shoot me cold and call it self-defense. And all I could think of then, like all I could think of now: How bad I wanted to feel the sharp, new-moon ridge of his scar on my tongue; to taste and trace the damage I'd made, in the heat of the moment.

Smelling his hair, his skin. Feeling my heart swell, rib-locked, so quick and huge it made me want to cry.

Me.

I put the paper down. To Lee Earle: “This dump got a phone?”

“Not for free, it don't.”

Twenty on the counter—receiver in my hand, low-grade magic. I punched the station switchboard, gambling on booze-soaked memory. Itchy flame stinging at my eyes and groin, lighting my way.

Beck's nameplate, hovering phantom in the dark behind my forehead: A blind neon pain.

* * *

“I wish you love, Detective,” she whispered to me, as she went by—Mrs. Silas. First name Maria, N.M.I. I looked it up in her file. Her head was bowed, hair hanging in her eyes; just a breath of a phrase on my cheek, consonants etched in bile and honey. Beck didn't even hear her.

I did. And laughed, because it didn't seem like much of a curse. At the time.

* * *

Afterwards, I went home, called it in from my own line. I.A. found me ten hours later, so long gone they could have used my blood to spike the V-Day party punch.

They brought me a letter of resignation to sign; I signed it. No charges pressed, no publicity, no pension—some deal. Better than I deserved.

They told me Beck told them I did it. I allowed as how I had.

Asked me why.

I swore to Christ I did not know.

Now: Four years later, and I know it all. Not that it helps one fuck.

* * *

“Lieutenant Beckwith Lookinland, Ritual Crimes.”

“Beck.”

Silence—not even breathing. Went on so long I actually started saying, into it: “It's, uh—”

“I know who it is, David.”

So cold.

I bit the inside of my cheek. Told myself:
Don't say it. Do
not
say it.

“This girl in the lot—”

“I'm not going to discuss police business with you.”

“Look, I just think I might have something.”

“Well, we did set up a line for tips—just a minute, I'll get you their number.”

“Fine, that's how you want to play it. Here's your tip, okay? The Cyprian Temple's reopened. Down on Quentin. Off of Jenner.”

“We're already looking into some leads.”

“That one of them?”

No answer.

“C'mon, Beck,” I said. “You know what this reminds you of.”

“Talking to you reminds me of a lot of things, David.”

“You gonna check it out, at least?”

Beck paused. Carefully: “You are not my partner any more, David. You aren't even a cop. This is not your case, and I am not having this conversation.”

“Oh, fuck you, Beck,” I snapped back. “All I want to do is help.”

“And why would that be, I wonder?”

Thinking:
Do
not.

Synaptic finger-pop. Bone echo.

Anything else but that.

Electroshock crackle to the limbic region. My dick jerking up like Hitler's arm, meat-puppet on a string.

Blurting, unable to stop myself:

“Because I
love
you.”

“So you keep saying,” he replied, and hung up.

* * *

Four years. It was a milk run, pure career P.R.: Do your superior a solid, and move on up. Eugene Silas, career Narco snitch, twenty years departmentally connected—gave up the straight line, time after time, on anybody dumb enough to try for a crossover market in weed, pills, H. Main hobbies included whores and wife-beating, up until Mrs. Silas went suddenly missing. Instant recipe for dinner party disaster, right there; shaky host, no hostess.

So: Silas called the Cap, Beck and me caught the squeal.

We met at the Silas house, traded coffee for a wedding photo two-shot—Mrs. S., dark-haired and delicate in off-white with pearls, pancake makeup layered on over what looked like fresh welts.

“I ran the initial interview already,” Beck told me. “No prior skips, no relatives in town. No friends—or boyfriends—he knows of, though I suspect that doesn't mean much.”

“Gumshoe shitwork,” I said. “Better wipe your day-planner for the next week or so.”

Beck shrugged. “Maybe not.”

Easy call—some meter-reader made Silas' car an hour later, parked outside the Temple. Cyprian for Cyprus, birthplace of the Greek love Goddess Aphrodite, lez poet Sappho's favorite patron. This according to Beck, who did enough degrees (Eng. Lit, Crim. Psych, Anthro) to quote me in detail more books than I ever had time to read. Like so:

Nothing is left of me each time I see you . . . tongue numbed, arms, legs melting, on fire . . .

I took a pull off my paper-bag bourbon breakfast, absorbed this. “And the moral is, thinking with your dick rots your brain.”

Beck's crooked smile, the sardonic version: Oh, you big lug! “Sappho didn't have a dick
per se
, David.”

“Yeah, well—whatever.”

Another pull. I offered Beck the next; he passed, like I knew he would. Never saw him drink once, on the job or off.

Not even . . . later on. When I—

But anyways.

The Cyprians worshiped Love with a capital L, that catch-all cheat of a concept. Intimacy, affection, loyalty. Lust. Ideal into intent: The generative and the destructive. The spiritual lighter-flick at the heart of every secret thing.

Or, as Georgia puts it:

I touch your lips, and all at once the sparks go flying . . . .

“So they shack and fuck, and call it a religion,” I said, slugging the bottle dry. “So Mrs. Silas likes a little ceremony with her extracurricular cock. She's over eighteen.”

“Silas wants her back—what happens after we drop her off is their business. Besides, laissez-faire only goes so far, when some cult leader's busy making bucks from whipping his followers into an erotic frenzy. Love's a pretty volatile emotion at the best of times.”

“And you're brown-nosing for a rank raise. Get it straight, Beck—not everything's a favor or photo op.”

Coolly: “No. Just the things that matter.”

Two days before Valentine's; I Luv Eazy-Rock from every passing car window, rising candy-apple stink. Scarlet sans-serif magazine covers, blaring bad advice. TEN SEX SECRETS MEN FLIP FOR! WHAT WOMEN REALLY WANT! LONELY HEARTS ASK: “HOW WILL I KNOW?”

“Love,” I said, “ain't nothing but sex misspelled. To lift a well-worn phrase.”

“Why, David, I never knew; you're a genuine romantic.”

“Just a realist, college boy. Strip away the fancy rhymes, it all comes down to this—nobody ever said ‘I love you' for free.”

. . . for though it burns me and it turns me into ashes, my whole world crashes without your kiss of fire.

* * *

I can still remember not loving Beck—not liking him even, all that much. Me, Big Dave Proulx, slow-track shithouse uniform loser. Bruiser, cunt-hound, borderline crank-junkie: Bad attitude personified. A string of formative moral clusterfucks had left me disappointed with the world, so I made up for it by toiletizing my own last chances, one by one by one. Spent my shifts getting high and wasting time, cruising for trouble in bad neighborhoods, waiting to get insulted and go ape on some (mainly) undeserving repeat offender.

Officer Beckwith Lookinland was the only one who ever trusted me to do more than lose my temper and botch my collars. A prodigy, Cap's pet pick for surrogate son: He'd done his research, heard about a couple of righteous busts I'd done Year One, wanted to know more. He chatted me up, drew me out—sat quiet with me whenever I showed up to work with the cold sweats, three days no sleep, all bed-stink and bad breath. Covered my procedural blank spots. Wouldn't leave me alone.

And after the brass implied he could basically name his own partner, he asked for me.

He rewrote me, that pretty, prissy rookie. Got me sober. Made sure I stayed sober, those times it really mattered. There was a puzzle called human evil that needed solving, and he wanted me in on it. He made detective, made sergeant, took me along for the ride. My fitness reports went up for the first time in ten years.

He was a living rebuke: An effortlessly good cop. Not that he ever saw it that way. Or ever conceived that I could have.

It poisoned me, poisoned us—what happened at the Temple, with Mrs. Silas, just its most overt expression. This whispered curse from a beaten bride, this unlooked-for gift from a long-dead Goddess. This friendship I never wanted. This partnership I never prized. This . . .

. . . love, Detective.

Back in the here and now, I close my eyes, pound booze. Lee Earle at my elbow—somebody else wants the phone.

Beck's wry/cold voice in my head, looping back on itself. Two versions, overlapped: Past and present; pre- vs. post-; before and after.

All my muscles knotting and humming just to hear it—my heart, my groin. This unkillable love still alive in every part of me, like cancer.

“I love you, Beck,” I told him for the first and worst time, that Valentine's Day night, on the steps of his suburban house. “I'm yours, you're mine. I could never hurt you. Never.”

Not ‘til a few minutes later, at least.

* * *

Last call. Out onto the street, booze-burned and fever-bright, glass in my lungs again. Down to check out the Jenner lot: Blurred chalk outline, yellow tape just left lying—homicide haiku.

Some of my sources still talk to me. I used them to dummy up my own case-jacket, following Beck's semi-warm evidence trail.

The dead girl's name: McLay, Monica Ellen. 26. Good tits, bad buck teeth. Good record down at the Quentin Street Safeway—two years, night-shift floor manager. Her boss said he'd seen this guy from the Temple checking her out.

Illiterate mash notes slipped under the back door. “Afrodytee sez yr da 1 fr me.” Met the guy on a bank run, told him to take a hike. Laughed hard about it later—as if.

Forensics: Cracked skull, blunt instrument; swelling and haematoma at the base of the brain—she was unconscious before it started, dead ten minutes in. Rape kit positive, post-mortem. Trauma to the outer genitalia, cauterization to the inner.

Hypothesis: Same stalker mofo from the bank approached her from behind, slugged her, dragged her to where they wouldn't be disturbed. Got busy. Then stuck an iron up inside her (soldering or curling, battery-operated) and turned it on. An open letter to the general public, corpse-written.

Not enough, just to drop her and do her the once. This skell had ambitions—total ownership. Possession, inside and out.