Strange Flesh (11 page)

For reward look to me,
Your divine Louis Markey,
And so yoke your breath
To the Narration Of Death.
Let my word be your bond,
Et voilà: my beau monde.

Underneath the last line are the two holes from the pendant’s pin.

The guy sees my quizzical expression and says, “People here think it’s from a new game someone’s starting. But I bet it’s just some corporate hipster anti-fashion irony thing.”

New York is rife with dernier cri marketing agencies that promote brands through in-crowd secrets rather than the traditional media blare. Some of these PR judo techniques were actually developed as launch strategies for various bleeding-edge games like
The Beast
and
I Love Bees
. The “inscrutable mailed item” being a favorite device.

The guy refuses my offer to buy the pendant, saying I can just keep it.

I go outside for a cigarette and contemplate my good fortune.

My fortune gets even better a few minutes later when Olya emerges from GAME heading toward me. She glides smoothly down the steps despite her rapier heels. The giant martini glass she’s carrying contains enough alcohol to sicken a hippo.

“Ah, my new friend. Maybe you have a cigarette for a poor babushka?”

I offer her one, and she demonstrates her contempt for my choice of Camel Lights by removing the filter with a flick of her thumbnail. She deftly tends the ragged end with her tongue and leans into me for a light. Then a long French inhale.

“Xan tells me you are making a film about Billy. I very much wonder why you want to glorify this person with documentary.”

“I take it you’re not a fan? Do you mind telling me why?”

Olya makes a staccato teeth-sucking sound. “I don’t think so. I know him for long while now. From graduate school. And he is not a good topic for conversation, I think.” She finishes her drink and tosses the glass into a nearby tree planter. With a sleepy smile, she slaps me lightly on the cheek, saying, “Maybe I see you tomorrow.”

This woman’s every departure must be closely observed by frustrated men. My lizard brain is certainly screaming furiously as she recedes down the block. She turns right at the corner, and I notice that a fellow admirer, smoking on the opposite side of the street, is taking in her progress as well. As he steps off the curb in her direction, I think,
moths to the flame,
and wish that the cloak of anonymity permitted me a few more minutes witnessing the glorious pendulum of her hips.

But what sets me in motion isn’t the natural jealousy of a rival. It’s when our casual peeper affects tossing away a half-smoked butt and glances up the street. The hours of surveillance I’ve clocked at Red Rook have imparted a keen appreciation of body language, and this subtle action was clearly taken
to check if anyone is watching
. Suddenly the guy flashes from just another devotee of the female form to a potentially dangerous creep. And now I’ve found a reason to follow Olya after all.

I hustle after them down Delancey and check myself as I turn left onto Allen. The street is crowded with late-night revelers. Olya crosses an intersection about a block ahead of me. She ignores some appreciative whoops from a pack of men coming the other way. I start thinking that maybe my mind’s reptile regions are making me overreact. Then I see the guy speed up to make the light and slide in behind a group heading in the same direction. He’s definitely following her, and trying not to be seen.

A lucky gap in traffic allows me to keep her in sight. She turns right at Grand, and the guy stops to light another cigarette before pacing her down the block. I merge into a line formed at the ropes in front of an unmarked bar. From here I can see that he’s a short but thick man, with stringy hair and a mean, acne-scarred face. He’s wearing a bulky black jacket and baggy jeans. Thick glasses disrupt his otherwise thuggish look.

He waits a beat and then proceeds after her, and I hurry to the corner. I start to cross the street, thinking I’ll watch from the opposite side, but Olya extracts her keys at the door of an old tenement building, no doubt converted into resplendent lofts. The guy has picked up speed. He’s turning into the doorway. I go into a dead run.

Fifty yards ahead of me, Olya startles as she notices someone behind her. Too late. He’s already on her. He grabs her shoulder with one hand, his other reaching toward her chest. His face is close to her ear, and he
seems to be giving her some kind of order. Her gaze drops down to his hand for a split second.

Then Olya fights. She twists in his grasp and aims her keys at his eyes. He takes the blow on the side of his head, but it knocks off his glasses. When he grabs her hair, something small and shiny drops to the ground.

That’s when I hit him full tilt. My shoulder nails him at the base of his neck, rocketing his face into the glass door and leaving an impressive splatter of blood from a long gash that opens over his eye. He slumps, dragging Olya down. I take his wrist, twisting it backward to break his grip. Olya jerks upright, strands of her hair tearing free. I grab the guy under his jaw and hurl him out of the entryway. He collapses on the sidewalk stunned, blood running down his face.

I start dialing 911, but Olya puts her hand over my cell.

“No! . . . James. I—I’m sorry. Thank you, but—”

“Are you out of your mind? This guy just attacked you. We need to call the police.”

Olya takes a long trembling breath. “No, please. Do not call police.” She looks away, and I see a sad expression steal across her face. She lowers her voice. “James, I don’t want to say this . . . But my papers. My, ah, immigration status. Maybe it is not quite current. I’m fixing, but you see . . .”

So that’s it. She’s overstaying a student visa. And GAME is probably quite lax about its payroll. I let the phone fall to my side. “Olya—”

But she can tell she’s prevailed and follows up with a deep embrace. She kisses my neck and ear, whispering, “Thank you so much. My guarding angel.”

“Well, are you okay?” I can’t help adding, “Do you need some company?”

Her eyes slide away from mine. “Oh . . . James, I appreciate—”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

Olya’s smile blooms at my discomfort. “Of course not, you silly man. But no, I am fine. I have a hot bath and some tea. Everything’s okay.” She brushes my cheek with her hand. “Again, thank you.” She reaches down for her keys.

Not quite ready to let it go, I ask, “What about him?”

Offhandedly, she grabs the neck of a wine bottle poking out of the adjacent recycling bin and hurls it at him, shouting, “
Poshol ty na khuy!
”

It shatters next to his head, which seems to revive him somewhat, and he slowly crawls to his knees. When he sees me advance, it prompts him to lurch to his feet and hasten away, cradling his injured wrist. Olya and I watch him limp down the street, but he turns and, pointing at her with his good hand, yells something that sounds like “Don’t pretend you didn’t want it, you fucking bitch.”

I glance back at Olya, but she’s sliding through her door. She turns at the stairs and blows me a kiss.

As I stand there in the entryway trying to understand what just happened, a sparkle catches my eye. In a clump of dirty snow next to the trash cans, there’s a necklace. I pick it up.

A simple platinum chain suspends a large deep-purple stone carved into an icosahedron. Tiny integers are engraved into each of its faces. The necklace isn’t Olya’s. I would have noticed her wearing it, and I have trouble believing that she’d adorn herself with a universal emblem of the über game-geek: the twenty-sided die from Dungeons and Dragons.

But if it’s not Olya’s, where did it come from?

I know I saw it hit the ground earlier, which brings me to a strange conclusion. Rather than trying to steal from her (or worse), could the guy have been attempting to give her a present? If so, he received poor thanks for it.

But that doesn’t feel right. There was something off about that encounter and Olya’s reaction to it. Something else is going on.

That brilliant insight’s confirmed when I suddenly realize that I’m not alone on the street. Almost obscured between two parked SUVs, there’s a short guy with a shaggy beard pointing a small black object at me. I flinch, thinking,
Gun
. He sees this and smirks before he backs into the shadows. I hear him jogging up the street.

What was that? Not a gun. He was looking at it, not me. So . . . a camera, I guess.

I start running, but he’s got too much of a lead for me to catch him. I pull up at the corner and check in every direction. Nothing.

My familiar cityscape now vibes weird and hostile. A cold fog is sweeping in, giving the street a disquieting, dreamlike feel.

Who were those guys? Why would they record themselves giving Olya a necklace?

It can’t be a coincidence that in one night I’ve come across two mysterious pieces of jewelry that seem like cryptic symbols. Separately they’d rate as minor oddities. But together they feel like, what?

Game pieces.

I think about Billy and his “Bleed” and suspect that maybe I’ve been cut.

A
t breakfast I reexamine the ornaments I acquired last night, puzzling over their significance. I figure I’ll just ask Olya about the die. But the crocodile pendants trouble me since their prevalence means others far more familiar with Billy’s games must be working on the riddle. I can’t see McClaren’s team of spooks being much help, so I settle in and resolve to crack it myself.

For reward look to me,
Your divine Louis Markey,
And so yoke your breath
To the Narration Of Death.
Let my word be your bond,
Et voilà: my beau monde.

At first, the verse reads like nonsensical doggerel, though I catch another reference to NOD in the capitalization of “Narration Of Death.”

What is this project Billy’s asking people to undertake for some reward? Who is Louis Markey? Where is this
beau monde
he wants us to find?

I suspect the GAMErs will have a much easier time with these questions. I hold one advantage over them, however: I’ve seen the video he sent his siblings, which gives me a set of clues no one else has. So maybe I should begin with that speech.
He starts with:

As a final farewell, Blake, I thought to indulge your greatest fantasy. I know you’ve often wished that I’d just jack out like she did.

I assume “she” is his mother. Billy’s implying here that Blake celebrated the loss of the au pair home wrecker and hoped her unloved spawn would follow her example, thus cleansing the Randall family history of that unfortunate chapter.

Then Billy threatens this occult revenge:

But be careful what you wish for. My ghost may come back to haunt you. And lead you down your own path of torment.

After which he invokes the Old Testament story of Sodom and Gomorrah, promising some end-times punishment for Blake’s sins against him.

For I will rain down brimstone and fire upon your festering Sodom. And when you look, lo, the smoke from your life will rise up like the smoke from a furnace.

My biblical knowledge is weak, so I have to review an online summary of the story from Genesis.

God sends two angels to ascertain the level of evil shit going on in Sodom. They meet Abraham’s nephew Lot at the city gate, and he offers them hospitality for the night. Lamentably, the other Sodomites notice the strangers and gather outside Lot’s house, demanding access to his guests. My summary quotes the King James version:

And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them.