Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee Page 3

  That had been enough for Willis.

  And here he was now, on his way to see more, simply because he needed the money.

  What a whore I am, he thought to the window.

  California long behind him now; the states were blurring by. He hoped the bus would arrive before sundown.

  The intercom crackled, the cheery driver's voice announcing, "You can start packin' your gear, folks. Ninth Street North, St. Petersburg, Florida is just down the pike. We'll be Pullin' into the station in about fifteen."

  Thank God, he thought.

  `°Cuse me, sir," a huge, destitute woman said by surprise. "We're almost to St. Pete and I'se broke. Could'ja spare a dollar'n a quarter for bus fare, please? Got my daughter to see," and then she touched his hand.

  Willis flinched back, almost shouted. That single touch, that single taction, shot a bolt of utter, silent blackness into his spirit, the feeling in a mother's heart when the police tell her that her son, as he was walking home from high school, had just been shot in the head in a drive-by shooting. And it was more than the feeling, it was a glimpse too: a head erupting, vaulting brains into the air-

  "Don't touch me, don't touch me!" he exclaimed and jerked back as far away from her as he could.

  "Good Lord, all I'se asked was-"

  Willis slammed it out of him; he'd learned to recover quickly. "It's okay, it's okay, I'm sorry," he blurted and feigned a smile. "It's-it's just that you startled me. Here," and then he gave her a twenty-dollar bill.

  Her broad face looked astonished in its confusion. "Why, thank you much, sir. God bless ya."

  Willis sighed and closed his eyes. "God bless you too."

  III

  "We're rich," Straker said with no enthusiasm.

  "Rich? Are you kiddin' me?" Walton said back in a light North Carolina drawl. "Sure this was a great chunk of change-"

  "A hundred grand for three weeks' work, split two ways? Yeah, I'd call that a chunk of change."

  "Still can't believe the nutty bitch paid us that much. We'll have to pay taxes on it, though, 'cos I'm sure she reported it."

  "Yeah. Shit."

  For two men who just earned $100,000 in a few weeks, Walton and Straker didn't seem to have much enthusiasm. They both sat on the front step of the great house, exhausted, dejected, and ... something else.

  "It almost wasn't worth it," Straker said next. "If I had it to do over again, I just might say fuck fifty grand and go to the bar."

  "I know"

  Early morning seemed entirely inappropriate for the scenario; they should've finished the job at midnight-a proper regard for effect. Dragging their tools back out to the truck under the full moon, then driving away into the humid night.

  Their appearances couldn't have been more inappropriate, either: two decidedly grim-faced men wearing goatees, Walton in a black cowboy hat, Straker in a ball cap with an upside-down Buccaneers insignia. Straker smoked, Walton pinched himself a dip of Skoal. And there they sat on the front step of this grand house. So what might seem inappropriate about their appearances? Two guys just getting off a job, one in a ball cap, one in a cowboy hat?

  Because they were still wearing their shiny yellow hazmat suits, hoods pulled down, gas-masks and Scot Air-Paks resting at their polypropylene boots.

  "I guess the stink was the worst part," Straker mused, smoking. "That first day?"

  Walton spat some juice. "Naw, it was just the feel of the place that bugged me. Or maybe it was just psychological, knowin' what happened there."

  "I mean... who'd have thought, something like that? All those people..."

  "Guys takin' the carpets out said it was close to twenty. Didn't know exactly how but ... shit, there were ax-marks all over that room."

  "And then there's all that porn shit," Straker added. He wanted to get out of there but he was simply too tired to get up just then.

  "I guess that's what ya do when you're that rich-buy a porn company and move it into your house. Fill the place with hot chicks-"

  "And then kill them," Straker finished the perplexity. "And you wanna know something? There were times when I was inside, I'd walk into a room, and all of a sudden I'd feel-"

  "Like you're in a graveyard and someone's watchin' ya ... "

  "Yeah, that happened all the time, but that's not what I mean. There was a bunch of times when all of a sudden I'd feel horny."

  Walton chuckled. "Shit, you're always horny."

  "I'm serious, man. I'd be standing there scraping dried blood and guts off the floor in a room where a bunch of people were murdered, and I'd pop a woody."

  "Yeah, well I guess you must be sick in the head."

  "I was disgusted, nauseated, I got maggots squirming on the floor and all I wanna do is stick my head out the window and hurl ... but I've also got a fuckin' boner and a half."

  Walton shook his head, adjusting the brim of his black cowboy hat. "Let's go to the bar, you need a drink."

  They both groaned as they stood, grabbed their gear, and trudged to the van full of wet-vacs and chemicals. The side of the van read:

  WALTON'S CRITICAL CLEAN-UP (CRIME SCENES, FIRES, DELAYED DISCOVERY) WE'RE BONDED!

  Another big van pulled into the front courtyard, and out tromped several men dressed in similar protective gear.

  "Who're these guys?" Straker asked.

  "Fumigators... " Walton turned to the lead man. "Have fun, boys.

  "Is it bad?" the guy asked, gas-mask in hand. "The lady sure as shit paid enough."

  "It's bad," Walton answered, "and it's all yours."

  Neither Walton nor Straker said anything when they got into the truck. Walton turned on some twangy Country & Western tune, put the truck into gear, and pulled away.

  The only thing Straker was happy about was that the bodies had been removed before they'd been hired. But part of his mind tried to sort through the possibilities. What really happened in there?

  In his rear-view he could see the immense mansion shrink and then disappear around the first bend. It would never fully disappear-he would discover in the years to come-it would never ever be gone from his memories.

  "Wait a minute," he said. "What happened to the guy?"

  Walton spat again. "What guy?"

  "The rich guy, Hildreth?"

  "Shit, I ... I don't know"

  IV

  Adrianne Saundlund looked blearily at the faces filing by. Please, DON'T sit here, she thought. She always flew with carriers that offered first-available seating, for her luck was generally bad; she'd always get that stinker sitting next to her, or the mother with the squalling baby. At least this way she had a chance, always arriving early to get a seat with the first boarding group. Then she'd plunk down at the first window and would try to look as unpleasant as possible so as to urge potential seat-takers to sit somewhere else. Adrianne didn't want to be near anybody. She didn't really like people.

  She preferred window seats because looking into the sky reminded her of her own style of flying-out of her body.

  The whine of the backup turbine calmed her along with the barbiturates she'd become addicted to. Adrianne just wanted to be calm...

  She flipped idly through this month's copy of Paranormal News, and stopped at a picture of a pleasant, librarianish- looking woman with autumn-leaf eyes and a faltering smile, a choppy bob of ink-black hair. A distant, knowing yet distrustful expression. The article read "Remote Controlling by Adrianne Saundlund: Techniques and Philosophies of Remote-Viewing." Adrianne was forty but she thought, Shit, IT have to get them to use a new picture. That one makes me look like I'm fifty. She wrote the bi-monthly column plus a small amount of freelancing for other magazines in the field for side money and to keep her abreast of the business. Her Army disability pension paid her bills.

  And look at this floozy. She's forty and looks thirty. A twinge of jealousy then, when she turned a few pages and saw another column by someone a bit more famous than her. She should've gotten smaller implants, she criticized this oth
er woman's flawless bosom. Shining hair the color of beach sand seemed to sweep around, arctic-blue eyes peering intensely back at her, as if enjoying a secret delight. This column read: "Para-Erotic by Cathleen Godwin: Sexual Desire & The World of Psi." Adrianne looked at the photo of the woman's face for another second, then suddenly put the magazine down and shot a glance upward. The same face was looking right at her from the aisle.

  "Hello, Adrianne. Do you mind if I- Oh, I'm sure you don't mind," the voluptuous woman said and plopped down in the next seat, a cased laptop on her knees.

  "Hi, Cathleen." Damn! "I guess this is a coincidence, if there is such a thing with people like us."

  Cathleen Godwin appeared fatigued but not unhappy to see Adrianne. They weren't enemies really, or rivals, just dis tant; paranormalists rarely trusted each other. When she sat down a gentle waft of herby soap scents hovered over to Adrianne.

  More trace resentment itched. She turn looks elegant when she dresses like shit, Adrianne thought. Cathleen wore a t-blouse with flowers and stars that was so faded it must've been ten years old, and just-as-faded jeans.

  "I don't have to be psychic to know where you're going," the blonde woman bid. "Let me see... Tampa International, then a cab to downtown St. Petersburg. You got an investigation offer from a woman named-"

  "Vivica Hildreth," Adrianne verified. She was genuinely surprised, and now even more jealous. Not that Adrianne cared, but she knew that other psi-investigators would be there, some of them men, which meant that Cathleen would be slutting around as always, displaying herself. Adrianne wished she could condemn the woman as a tease but she knew Cathleen Godwin was much, much more than that. "Or maybe I'm just going for a suntan," she said as an afterthought.

  "We're two of the top-ten psychics in the country, Adrianne, both on a plane to the same place on the same day, to a house that's verifiably charged."

  "How do you know it's charged? You've been there?"

  "No, but come on. How many people was it, sixteen, seventeen, all butchered in the same room by a satanist?"

  "She didn't say he was a satanist. She just said he was eccentric."

  "Oh, sure, I'd say that qualifies as eccentrics ritual murder, almost like a transposition rite."

  Adrianne smiled very thinly. "I don't believe in transposition rites."

  "No, but you believe in God." Cathleen sighed, lazing back in the seat. "I guess we all do in one way or another. People in our business."

  Guilt, Adrianne thought. It brought a secret satisfaction. Shame. She knows her life is a festival of Christian sin...

  "And then the guy disappears, almost as if the rite succeeded. Almost like he opened an egress and went in."

  There was some fire in Adrianne's objection. "He didn't disappear," she said, flipping through the front pocket of her own carry-on. "He committed suicide after the fact. The body was recovered from the house and autopsied. He hanged himself."

  Cathleen just kept looking straight ahead, eyes closed. "There was only one obituary in the very back of the local paper. You found that?"

  She flapped her a photocopy. "I have this, and I have the police report and the preliminary of the post."

  Cathleen took the sheet, looked at it with little interest, and passed it back. "Don't be naive."

  "How do you know?" Adrianne exclaimed, this time almost to the point that her voice could be overheard.

  Cathleen sighed wearily, still with her eyes closed. "Adrianne... "

  "What? You've had a contact?"

  "Relax. You're always so hyper... "

  Adrianne fumed in silence. Damn her. She probably didn't have a contact but just wants me to think she did. It infuriated her, but the only thing that infuriated her more was how this stunning, beautiful woman could bring out all her inadequacies at once.

  "Let's just wait till we get there. Maybe you're right. Maybe the whole thing's a sham, and if that's true ... so what? We're just doing a job. People pay us to do a job because they believe in us. If we knew in advance that this was just some kooky woman with a ton of money and that this Hildreth house was uncharged, totally cold, and totally ordinary, what would we do?"

  Adrianne admitted it. "We'd go anyway, for the money."

  "Yes. Of course we would. Because we're mercenaries just like anybody else with a skill. If somebody hires a roofer to put on a new roof, but the roofer can see that the old roof is fine, then he puts on a new roof anyway ... because that's what the customer wants."

  Is that really what we are? Adrianne wondered. She didn't dwell much on the answer.

  "I read on a website that all your PK is dead," Adrianne said next, to change the unpleasant subject. "That's not true, is it?"

  Suddenly Adrianne's plastic meal tray flapped down in her lap. She pushed it back and slid the clip back over. "Funny."

  "I just don't do it anymore, I just tell people I can't," Cathleen admitted. "It's too much of a headache. Especially since the accident. I'm sure you heard about that."

  Of course Adrianne had-everyone in the field had. A TV documentary on psychic power. Several strong men lifted a two-by-four wall frame off the ground to waist level. Another man-the show's producer crawled under it, and then the others let go of the frame's edge. It hovered in mid-air for several seconds, then fell. The producer got several cracked ribs and a broken nose.

  "I guess this sounds terrible, but I don't feel that bad about it," Cathleen went on. "About the guy who got hurt, I mean. I was just dating him-well, I mean I was cheating on my husband with him-and the son of a bitch actually threatened me. Said he'd tell my husband about our affair if I didn't do a spot on his dumb TV show."

  "Some people get what's coming to them," Adrianne agreed. "They treat us like we're animals in a petting zoo."

  "Mm-hmm. Sometimes it's hard not to resent just about everybody." Cathleen turned suddenly, touched Adrianne's arm. "Oh, but here's a story you haven't heard-at least I hope not. A couple of years ago I was dating this guy who was a professional bowler. He'd just barely made the cut to get on the PBA tour. So all of a sudden he starts throwing these really great games, beating everybody-"

  "Was it really you?" Adrianne asked.

  Cathleen nodded, grinning. "I was sitting in the audience. Any time he needed a strike, I'd push the ball or knock the pins that didn't fall. For about six weeks, this guy was the best bowler in the world!"

  "Did you tell him?" Adrianne leaned over and asked.

  "Oh, of course not. He thought it was him. He made hundreds of thousands of dollars because of me and set a world record for strikes. Then he started to get big-money endorsement offers. So you know what he does? The son of a bitch was sleeping with some trashy bowling groupie behind my back."

  "I hate to ask but ... what did you do?"

  "Nothing. I left him and the next year he got kicked off the tour because he couldn't qualify. No more perfect games for him, the prick."

  Adrianne laughed.

  "What about you? Still working for the Army?"

  I'm ... retired," Adrianne mulled over the answer. "They still call me up sometimes when something hot's happening, but usually I'm not up to it. I can still RV without much problem-it hurts sometimes."

  "But you don't OBE at all anymore?"

  "I can but I don't, haven't in a long time." She knew that Cathleen knew about the accelerant drugs, and the barbiturates she was addicted to as a result. "It hurts too much afterwards. I knew one man who got a brain tumor because of it. And there are always the strokes. Occupational hazard."

  "The Army hounded me for a long time. I can't imagine what they wanted me to do."

  "Oh, I can. You'd be surprised. Them, and Navy Intelligence. There're these other weird people out there too, IGA. Stands for Inter-agency Group Activity. They even scared me. I know a few people who worked for themnever saw them again."

  "Creep me out." Cathleen checked her fingernail polish, then groaned. "I remember reading an editorial in one of the malts during the Iraq war. The e
ditor said that the government should recruit experients like you and Peggy Falco to go out-of-body and look for Hussein, and the whole time I'm thinking I know damn well they've been doing that since before the war began."

  The details of the comment gave Adrianne can to pause, and in the pause she may have fractured her response into a giveaway. Cathleen was probably playing her.

  "Then I saw in a chat-room one night some 'anonymous' source saying that three times when we almost got him, it was you who saw him while you were RV-ing Baghdad from some Army base in Maryland." Cathleen blinked at her. "Is that true?"

  Damn it... She was playing her, all right. And it was all quite true but more than three times. The closest she'd come to finding him was the empty apartment building on al-Mu'azzam Square, near Sa'dn Street, downtown. Adrianne had seen Hussein being rushed inside. Then she RV'd back out, got a description of the building and the street, and gave the information to her case officer at Fort Meade. Twenty minutes later, several thousand-pound, satellite-guided bombs brought the building down. But Hussein had left in a jeep five minutes previous. "Cathleen, you know I can't talk about anything I may have done or may not have done for the Army. There're a few little things called the National Classified Secrets Act and the Federal Secrecy Oath."

  Cathleen grinned. "I know. I was just toying with you. Actually, I'm envious."

  The remark shocked Adrianne. "What on earth for?"

  "I don't really contribute anything. You do. All I do is bend spoons and scry crystals. By the way, how is Peggy Falco? Haven't heard from her in years."