The Best New Horror 2 (61 page)

That shook him up for a little while, but he recovered quickly enough. Once he got things organized, he personally supervised every step: the cleaning and softening, the removal of the guard hairs, the letting-out process in which he actually took a knife in hand and crosscut a few pelts himself, just as he’d done when he started in the business; he oversaw the sewing of the let-out strips and the placement of the thousands of nails used in tacking out the fur according to the pattern.

With the final stitching of the silk lining nearing completion, Jake allowed himself to relax. Even unfinished, the coat—
That Coat
, as he’d come to call it—was stunning, unutterably beautiful. In less than an hour he was going to be the owner of the world’s most extraordinary raccoon coat. Extraordinary not simply because of its unique sheen and texture, but because you couldn’t tell it was raccoon. Even the cutters
and tackers in his factory had been fooled; they’d agreed that the length of the hair and size of the pelts were similar to raccoon, but none of them had ever seen raccoon like this, or
any
fur like this.

Jake wished to hell he knew where Jameson had trapped them. He’d be willing to pay almost anything for a regular supply of those pelts. What he could sell those coats for!

But he had only one coat now, and he wasn’t going to sell it. No way. This baby was going to be an exhibition piece. It was going to put Fell Furs on the map. He’s bring it to the next international show and blow the crowd away. The whole industry would be buzzing about That Coat. And Fell Furs would be known at the company with That Coat.

And God knew the company needed a boost. Business was down all over the industry. Jake couldn’t remember furs ever being discounted as deeply as they were now. The animal lovers were having a definite impact. Well, hell, he was an animal lover too. Didn’t he have a black lab at home?

But animal love stopped at the bottom line, bubby.

If he played it right, That Coat would turn things around for Fell Furs. But he needed the right model to strut it.

And he knew just who to call.

He sat in his office and dialed Shanna’s home number. Even though she’d just moved, he didn’t have to look it up. He knew it by heart already. He should have. He’d dialed it enough times.

Shanna . . . a middle-level model he’d seen at a fur show two years ago. The shoulder length black hair with the long bangs, the white skin and knockout cheekbones, onyx eyes that promised everything. And her body—Shanna had a figure that set her far apart from the other bean-poles in the field. Jake hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind since. He wanted her but it seemed like a lost cause. He always felt like some sort of warty frog next to her, and that was just how she treated him. He’d approached her countless times and each of those times he’d been rebuffed. He didn’t want to own her, he just wanted to be near her, to touch her once in a while. And who knew? Maybe he’d grow on her.

At least now he had a chance. That Coat would open the door. This time would be different. He could feel it.

Her voice, soft and inviting, came on the line after the third ring.

“Yes?”

“Shanna, it’s me. Jake Feldman.”

“Oh.” The drop in temperature within that single syllable spoke volumes. “What do you want, Jake?”

“I have a business proposition for you, Shanna.”

Her voice grew even cooler. “I’ve heard your propositions before. I’m not the least—”

“This is straight down the line business,” he said quickly. “I’ve got a coat for you. I want you to wear it at the international show next week.”

“I don’t know.” She seemed the tiniest bit hesitant now. “It’s been a while since I’ve done a fur show.”

“You’ll want to do them again when you see this coat. Believe me.”

Maybe some of his enthusiasm for the coat was coming over the phone. Jake sensed a barely detectable thaw in her voice.

“Well . . . call the agency.”

“I will. But I want you to see this coat first. You’ve got to see it.”

“Really Jake—”

“You’ve got to see it. I’ll bring it right down.”

He hung up before she could tell him no and hurried out to the work room. As soon as the last knot was tied in the last stitch he boxed That Coat and headed for the door.

“What kind of coat you buy, Mister?” someone said as soon as he stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Oh, shit. Animal lovers. A bunch of them holding signs, milling around outside his showroom.

Somebody shoved a placard in his face:

“How many harmless animals were trapped and beaten to death to make it?” said a guy with a beard.

“Fuck off!” Jake said. “You’re wearing leather shoes, aren’t you?”

The guy smiled, “Actually, I’m wearing sneakers, but even if they were leather it wouldn’t be for pure vanity. Cows are in the human food chain. Beavers, minks, and baby seals are not.”

“So what?”

“It’s one thing for animals to die to provide food—that’s the law of nature. It’s something entirely different to kill animals so you can steal their beauty by draping yourself with their skins. Animals shouldn’t suffer and die to feed human vanity.”

A chant began.

“Vanity! Vanity! Vanity . . .”

Jake flipped them all the bird and grabbed a cab downtown.

Such a beautiful girl living in a place like this
, Jake thought as he entered the lobby of the converted TriBeCa warehouse where Shanna had just
bought a condo. Probably paid a small fortune for it too. Just because it was considered a chic area of town.

At the “Elevator” sign he found himself facing a steel panel studded with rivets. Not sure of what to do, he tried a pull on the lever under the sign. With a clank the steel panel split horizontally, dividing into a pair of huge metal doors that opened vertically, the top one sliding upward, the bottom sinking. An old freight elevator. Inside he figured out how to get the contraption to work and rode the noisy open car up to the third level.

Stepping out on the third floor he found a door marked 3B straight ahead of him. That was Shanna’s. He knocked, heard footsteps approaching.

“Who’s there?” said a muffled voice from the other side. Shanna’s voice.

“It’s me. Jake. I brought the coat.”

“I told you to call the agency.”

Even through the door he could sense her annoyance. This wasn’t going well. He spotted the glass lens in the door and that gave him an idea.

“Look through your peephole, Shanna.”

He pulled That Coat from the box. The fur seemed to ripple against his hands as he lifted it. A few unused letting-out strips fell from the sleeve, landing in the box. The looked like furry caterpillars; a couple of them even seemed to move on their own. Strange. They shouldn’t have been in the coat. He shrugged it off. It didn’t matter. That Coat was all that mattered. And getting past Shanna’s door.

“Just take a gander at this coat. Try one peek at this beauty and then tell me you don’t want to take a closer look.”

He heard the peephole cover move on the other side. Ten seconds later, the door opened. Shanna stood there staring. He caught his breath at the sight of her. Even without make-up, wearing an old terry cloth robe, she was beautiful. But her wide eyes were oblivious to him. They were fixed on That Coat. She seemed to be in a trance.

“Jake, it’s . . . it’s beautiful. Can I . . .?”

As she reached for it, Jake dropped the fur back into its box and slid by her into the apartment.

“Try it on in here. The light’s better.”

She followed him into the huge, open, loft-like space that made up the great room of her condo. Too open for Jake’s tastes. Ceilings too high, not enough walls. And still not finished yet. The paper hangers were halfway through a bizarre mural on one wall; their ladders and tools were stacked by the door.

He turned and held That Coat open for her.

“Here, Shanna. I had it made in your size.”

She turned and slipped her arms into the sleeves. As Jake settled it over her shoulders he noticed a few of those leftover fur strips clinging to the coat. He plucked them off and bunched them into his palm to discard later. Then he stepped back to look at her. The fur had been breathtaking before, but Shanna enhanced its beauty. And vice versa. The two of them seemed made for each other. The effect brought tears to Jake’s eyes.

She glided over to a mirrored wall and did slow turns, again and again. Rapture glowed in her face. Finally she turned to him, eyes bright.

“You don’t have to call the agency,” she said. “I’ll call. I want to show this coat.”

Jake suddenly realized that he was in a much better bargaining position than he had ever imagined. Shanna no longer had the upper hand. He did. He decided to raise the stakes.

“Of course you do,” he said offhandedly. “And there’s a good chance you’ll be the model we finally settle on.”

Her face showed concern for the first time since she’d laid eyes on the coat.

“ ‘A good chance’? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, there are other models who’re very interested. We have to give them a chance to audition.”

She wrapped the fur more tightly around her.

“I don’t want anyone else wearing this coat!”

“Well . . .”

Slowly Shanna pulled open the coat, untied the terry cloth robe beneath it, and pulled that open too. She wore nothing under the robe. Jake barely noticed her smile.

“Believe me,” she said in that honey voice, “this is the only audition you’ll need.”

Jake’s mouth was suddenly too dry to speak. He could not take his eyes off her breasts. He reached for the buttons on his own coat and found the fur strips in his right hand. As he went to throw them away, he felt them move, wiggling like furry worms. When he looked, they had wrapped themselves around his fingers.

Tranquility seeped through him like fine red wine. It didn’t seem odd that the strips should move. Perfectly natural. Funny even.

Look. I’ve got fur rings
.

He pulled at his coat and shirt until he was bare from the waist up. Then he realized he needed to be alone for a minute.

“Where’s your bathroom?”

“That door behind you.”

He needed something sharp. Why?

“Do you have a knife? A sharp one?” The words seemed to form on their own.

Her expression was quizzical. “I think so. The paperhangers were using razor blades—”

“That’ll be fine.” He went to the work bench and found the utility knife, then headed for the bathroom. “I’ll only be a minute. Wait for me in the bedroom.”

What am I doing?

In the bathroom he stood before the mirror with the utility knife gripped in the fur-wrapped fingers of his right hand. A sudden wave of cold shuddered through him. He felt half-frozen, trapped, afraid. Then he saw old Jameson’s whiskered face, huge in the mirror, saw his monstrous foot ram toward him. Jake gagged with the crushing pain in his throat, he was suffocating, God, he couldn’t breathe—!

And then just as suddenly he was fine again. Everything was all right. He pushed the upper corner of the utility blade through the skin at the top of his breast bone, just deep enough to pierce its full thickness through to the fatty layer beneath. Then he drew the blade straight down the length of his sternum. When he reached the top of his abdomen he angled the cut to the right, following the line of the bottom rib across his flank. He heard the tendons and ligaments in his shoulder joint creak and pop in protest as his hand extended the cut all the way around his waist to his back, but he felt no pain, not from the shoulder, not even from the gash that had begun to bleed so freely. Something within him was screaming in horror but it was far away. Everything was all right here. Everything was fine.

When he had extended the first cut all the way back to his spine he switched the blade to his left hand and made a similar cut from the front toward the left, meeting the first cut at the rear near the base of his spine. Then he made a circular cut around each shoulder—over the top and through the armpit. Then another all the way around his neck. When that was done, he gripped the edges on each side of the incision he had made over the breast bone and yanked. Amid sprays of red, the skin began to pull free of the underlying tissues.

Everything was all right . . . all right . . .

Jake kept tugging.

Where the hell is he?

Wrapped in the coat, Shanna stood before her bedroom mirror and waited for Jake.

She wasn’t looking forward to this. No way. The thought of that flabby white body flopping around on top of her made her a little ill,
but she was going through with it: Nothing was going to keep her from wearing this fur.

She snuggled the coat closer about her but it kept falling away, almost as if it didn’t want to touch her. Silly thought.

She did a slow turn before the mirror.

Looking good, Shanna!

This was it. This was one of those moments you hear about when your whole future hinges on a single decision. Shanna knew what that decision had to be. Her career was stalled short of the top. She was making good money but she wanted more—she wanted her face recognized everywhere. And this coat was going to get her that recognition. A couple of international shows and she’d be known the world over as the girl in the fabulous fur. From then on she could write her own ticket.

In spite of her queasy stomach, Shanna allowed herself a sour smile. This wouldn’t be the first time she’d spread to get something she wanted. Jake Feldman had been leching after her for years; if letting him get his jollies on her a couple of times assured her of exclusive rights to model his coat, tonight might be the
last
time she ever had to spread for anyone like Jake Feldman.

What was he doing in the bathroom—papering it? She wished he’d get out of there and get this over with. Then she could—

She heard the bathroom door open, heard his footsteps in the great room. He was shuffling.