SEE THAT WOMAN WALK THE STREET

A Novel by Edward McInnis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to

Lynda Connolly for her invaluable assistance in preparing this book.

Website, book conversion & publication by Kendrick

* * *

"You see that woman who walks the street. You see that police on his beat. But when the Lord gets ready, You gotta move."

"You Gotta Move" by Mississippi Fred McDowell as sung by The Rolling Stones

CHAPTER 1

"I'm dead," the white guy said, walking into my office. The guitar I had been strumming I propped against the wall. "Who put out the contract on you?" I asked. "Mafia?" "No contract. I'm already dead." "Practical joke, right? Who put you up to it? Phoenix Chan? Had to be." "No joke," the guy frowned. "I'm dead. Simple." "My condolences," I said. "Sorry I missed the funeral." "I'm serious. I'm dead. And I want to hire you to find out who killed me."

CHAPTER 2

The guy already looked half-dead. Tall, pale, stick-thin, haggard, hollow-eyed, unshaven, disheveled hair, voice a hoarse croak, deep sorrow stamped into his features. Thirty-five or forty. Wearing only torn blue t-shirt and shabby blue jeans and sneakers. "Why do you believe someone killed you?" I asked. "I'm dead, aren't I?" the guy said, indignantly. He was serious. "What's your name?" I asked. "Not sure." "You must be hungry. Let's get a bite. Like Chinese food?" "I never eat," he said. "What's the point? I'm dead." "Have to ask. What makes you think you're dead? You're walking and talking. Generally speaking, activities not normally associated with the deceased." "That's what baffles me," the guy frowned. "I can't understand it either." "You're not a zombie?" "Good God, no," he said, horrified. "They're the living dead." "So what are you?" "The dead dead." "Not living dead?" I asked. "No. Plain and simple dead." "How do you know someone killed you? Maybe you died from natural causes." "I've considered that possibility," he said. "But it doesn't seem right. No. I'm sure someone killed me. And, believe me, it's not easy being dead." "How does it feel?" "Everything and everyone seems unreal. For example, right now, I'm talking to you. But I'm not completely sure that you're real. And sometimes, other people seem real but I feel unreal." The poor shnook was farther out than Saturn Sammy. I'd seen delusions before, but never one so extreme. Way outside my area of expertise. Fortunately, I knew just the person to consult. She was always as busy as a one-winged honey bee doing the waggle dance. But a delusion of this magnitude might motivate her to quickly free up time in her warp-speed schedule. "I want you to see someone," I said. "Psychiatrist," he said. "Yes." "No." "Why not?" I asked. "They've already taken me to see psychiatrists. Didn't help." "Who are they?" "You know," he said. "They." Paranoia on top of believing himself dead. "Do you have a spittoon?" he asked, glancing around. "Left it behind when I moved from Dodge City," I said. "But make you a deal." "What?" "You talk with Shree. Doctor Srivayana Anandan." "What kind of name is that?" he asked. "Indian," I said. "Dot. Not feather." "And if I talk to him?" "Her." "If I talk to her?" he asked. Then I'll take your case." "Find out who killed me?" he asked, eagerly. "Yes." "Deal."

CHAPTER 3

Into my office swaggered a young black man. Head held high and haughty. Smiling face angled with arrogance. A raven of ill omen. "Castille," he said. "My man. My main man." "And to what do I owe this dubious pleasure, Laughing Death?" I asked. "Laughing Death. Sounds like a Native American name. Like Sitting Bull. Or Standing Bear. Or Pees While Squatting." "Ain't no Native American," he replied indignantly. "I a proud African-American. So don't be doin' no drag with my name. What is this, anyway?" He nodded at the wooden statuette on a pedestal of a crouching dog - an animal that 'hunts down the truth' - given to me by a client. "Carved by a member of the Kuba tribe of the Congo," I said. "Not up on your own African heritage? Tsk tsk." "I knew that." "What do you want?" I asked. "Not me. Cleo. Midnight meeting at The Hot Spot." "Oh no," I groaned. "I beg of you. No more Combat Zone wars." "Not no war zackly." "Then what? Exactly?" "Some kinda hairy-ass booshit goin' on in the Zone," he said. "Strange-like." "Anything to do with...this?" I dramatically pointed to the flurry of newspaper articles from the previous several days on a corner of my desk. About a hooded, robed freakshot stalking women after dark in the Combat Zone. "Cleo wanna tell you her own self. So. You comin'?" "I'll be there," I sighed. "If for no other reason than curiosity." "Y'all be careful now, y'hear?" "Why?" "Cause curiosity kill the cat," said Laughing Death. "Then I laugh and laugh and laugh."

CHAPTER 4

"Chinatown Service Center, mah wai?" answered Pinky Tran on a record-breaking third ring. "How goes the battle, Soldier Pinky?" "Castille," she answered in a crying-the-blues voice. "Don't feel good." "Me or you?" "Me." "What is it?" I asked. "It is...oh, cannot say. I speak few English." "Seen a doctor?" "Spirit-doctors," she said. "In Chinatown." "Good luck with...spirit doctors. Keep me informed." "You want talk to Margie?" "If I may be so bold," I said. She connected us. "Speak," said Margie. "Margie, apple of my visual orb," I said. "I have an opening in my schedule. I thought I might pop over for a conjugal visit." "Here? Are you crazy?" "Yes. But what does that have to do with it?" "Do I really have to explain?" she asked, exasperated. "Dear Margie, my lifeline of love," I said. "You inflame my blood to heights of heat. And you cast my imagination to the depths of depravity." "Oh really?" I pictured her arching one eyebrow, archly. Though, in fact, unlike myself, she couldn't actually raise one eyebrow at a time. But I chose to overlook this character defect. "We'll just lock the door to your office. Tell Pinky 'No calls or visitors for a while.'" "Is that all you think about?" she asked. "Sex?" "Is that all you think about?" I asked. "Money?" "I told you how poor we were when I was growing up. Besides, I have a meeting soon with Alan Chang, The Great Wall Of China." "Nunzio." "You never told me why you call him Nunzio," she said. "Al Chang," I said. "He thinks he runs the whole show in Chinatown." "And steals half the money coming in from the government." "Like Al Capone ran Chicago during Prohibition. Capone's family nickname was Nunzio." "Chang laughs like a banshee when you call him that," she laughed. "Only known method of stopping him from talking." "No jobs?" she asked. "Trifling odds and ends," I said. "Mere bagatelles." I didn't tell her about the Combat Zone midnight meeting. Margie feared for my body and soul in that sinkhole of physical violence and moral turpitude. Hence: liberally apply oil of the little white lie, so necessary for social lubrication. "Face it," said Margie. "You've got a savior complex." "Like you don't," I said. "But I was born with mine. Yours was acquired. By trauma. Big difference." "Which is?" "I'm free," she said. "You're not." "Meaning?" "Meaning I do it as part of my nature. You do it because you're in the grip of a repetition compulsion." "Which is?" I asked. "The compulsion to repeat and complete a traumatic experience over and over, in varying ways under different circumstances. You're compelled to rescue people because you could and can never rescue the people around you who died." "Monsters!" I said. "Monsters From The Id!" "What?" "Captain of the team to rescue Dr. Morbius. Forbidden Planet. 1956. Surely you've seen such a classic." "As a kid, maybe, on TV. I can hear Al - Nunzio - bellowing his way in," she said. "Gotta go." "Wait," I said. "Lunch?" "Can't." "Tomorrow," I stated. "Can't." "The following day. Thursday." "Can't." "Can," I said. "Will." "All right," she sighed. You'd think I was dragging her off to be interrogated by an All-Star Team made up of members of the FBI, CIA, KGB, Iranian secret police SAVAK, Haitian voodoo vampire secret police Tonton Macoute and SMERSH from Bond James Bond movies. "Thai food," I said. Her favorite to clinch the deal. "Where?" she asked, meaning 'which restaurant?' "Chez moi." "Your place?" "No distractions," I elucidated. "So?" "So, in case you feel frisky." She giggled. "Pick me up at noon," she said. "High noon." "Do not forsake me, oh my darling," I sang. "What?" "Theme song from the classic Gary Cooper western High Noon." "Oh brother."

CHAPTER 5

I diddy-bopped up Harrison Avenue toward the bazaar of Chinatown Crossing to get lunch. April! Best month for sports in Boston. Celtics begin basketball playoffs. ('Could go all the way!') Bruins start hockey playoffs. ('Anything's possible!') Red Sox begin their baseball season in fabulous Fenway Park. (Opening day fans' rallying cry: 'Wait till next year!') Boston Marathon - oldest in the world - takes place on the third Monday of April. The year before, New Englanders had won the Marathon. Women's winner from Cape Elizabeth, Maine; men's winner from Boston itself. The winter had been Boston-brutal. Wild wicked record- breaking snowfalls that took days to dig out from. Live power lines down on the streets. Twitching and seething like electronic serpents starving for prey. Human prey. Then the temperature falls to near zero. Subway trains don't dare stop at outdoor stations. For fear the wheels will be stuck, unable to move on the iced-up tracks. Then the temperature rises. Sun melts snow on rooftops which drip down and become gigantical stalactites of ice. Which gave me my moment in the cold winter sun. Besides some routine missing persons cases, I actually solved a murder case. I wasn't even in the court room! Just following the case in the papers and on TV. Crazy Benny charged with killing Crazy Lenny. Bosom buddies. So much so that the prosecution charged Benny with stabbing Lenny to death with a sharp object to the bosom. Lenny's chest, punctured, over and over. But said sharp object was nowhere to be found. The nature of the wounds definitely indicated a stabbing. But the cuts had been inflicted by no sharp object the baffled coroner had ever seen. This would be enough to raise reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors. Crazy Benny would skate. Knowing Crazy Benny - as I unfortunately did - the acquittal would fill his already highly inflated balloon of grandiosity with even more hot air. Perhaps embolden him to kill again. One day, in my living room, idly strumming the guitar, I watched through a window the sun-stunned snow drip-drip and then freeze into hanging ice. It came to me in a flash. Benny had stabbed Lenny with an icicle stalactite. That was why no murder weapon. It had melted into a puddle. That was why the nature of the wound befuddled the coroner. Never seen a case of death by icicle before. After fighting my way through cordons of savage minions, I informed Shirley Albright, the District Attorney, of my theory. She had Forensics run tests. Looked right. She and her team met with the accused and his mouthpiece. She told them outright what she had discovered. Benny melted like a snowman in the Sahara. He plea bargained from life to twenty years in prison. Walpole. Gladiator School. I had saved the state - or, as the politicians always annoyingly called it - the Commonwealth of Massachusetts - a lot of time, energy and money. The D.A. took me to lunch at Locke-Ober's and said: "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts thanks you for stepping forward to do the right thing in a case of this magnitude and, uh, risk." "I seen my duty and I done it," I said in my Three Stooges Curly Howard voice. "But this is it? A hearty handshake and a free lunch? No calendar? No plaque for good citizenship? No portrait of your crime-conquering self in the noble three-quarters right frontal profile?" She put her right thumb under her chin and her forefinger against the furrow under her nose and regarded me. "What do you want?" she finally asked. "'Someday, and that day may never come,'" I said in my Marlon Brando Don Corleone voice. "'Someday, I may call upon you to do a service for me.'" She pursed her lips sardonically, then said: "Should I kiss the back of your hand, Godfather?"

CHAPTER 6

But soft! Who should my wondering eyes see walking down Harrison toward me but my partner-in-crime-fighting, Phoenix Chan. She ambled with head down, eyes inspecting the sidewalk. Not like Phoenix. She looked face-on-milk-carton lost in thought, mulling, pondering. In public. Not like Phoenix. Usually her hungry-hawk hunter's eyes constantly scanned the environment for predator or prey. Like our early ancestors must have done on the ancient African savannah. We liked to play a childish game. On the street: one of us tried to sneak up on the other. Cutting left through Oxford Place, an alley of loose cobblestones off Harrison - where people like my pal Pancho Chang actually lived - turning right, then left into an even smaller nameless alley, I came out on narrow Oxford Street. Up Oxford, right on Beach, right on Harrison and presto! I was now behind Phoenix. I caught up, tapped her shoulder and said: "Excuge me." Rather, I tried to say. Before the second syllable, she had gripped my tapping hand, whirled and thrown me to the sidewalk. Luckily, after many painful hours with the Old Legionnaire, I hit the cement with my biggest muscles. A cushion of sorts. I turned my body to keep my skull and spine from being smashed against the cement. She wound up for a spear thrust to my throat. "It's me!" I yelled. "The hell's wrong with you?" "Castille," she said as if coming out of a trance. "It's you." "I just said that," I said, as she gripped my hand to help me stand up. Passersby glanced covertly but didn't want to get involved. So they quickly looked away. "You haven't been drinking cough syrup mixed with motor oil again, have you?" I asked. "I took the pledge," she said, more like her usual self. "So?" "I have a little problem." "You don't have 'little' problems," I said. "What is it?" "I'll handle it," she said, again assuming an inward expression. "Give," I commanded. "Can't," she said solemnly. "I pledged a lifetime of silence behind the black door." "Phoenix, I'll tickle the bottom of your feet until one of us dies of laughter." She sighed. "Someone's stalking me." "Dashed unnerving," I said in my posh Norman Conquest voice. "Why?" "To kill me," she said. "I figured. I meant, why does someone want to kill you?" She looked at me. "I was on a job." "I thought you went to Hong Kong to see your brother Danny," I said. "You said he just got his first starring role in a martial arts film." "He did," she said. "But I wasn't in H.K. I was elsewhere. On a job." "With your loyal band of merrymakers? The Ladies Of Liqueur?" "Solo." "Proceed," I said. "A certain rogue element of the federal government contracted me to assassinate the leader of one of the worst Mexican drug cartels." "Drug cartel? Rogue element?" I said. "The DEA." "Can't slip anything by you, huh?" "Won't the DEA help protect you?" "The DEA," Phoenix laughed bitterly. "They begged me to do the job. Now they don't know me. My contact? Won't take my calls. Won't return my calls." "Beastly folly!" I said. "So you need my help." "No," she said. "Yes," I said. "Why not?" She sighed again. "The phoenix and dragon. Together again." "Name of heretofore mentioned assassin?" "Blackbird." "Blackbird?" I said. "'Singing in the dead of night.' Don't worry. We'll get him." "Her.

CHAPTER 7

"Her, huh?" I asked. "What are you doing slip-sliding the streets? You're not a phoenix. You're a sitting duck. Let's go to my office." "My source says she's not in Boston yet," she said. "But she's on her way." "Still. I'd feel better if you got off the street. She may arrive early." In my office, we ate take-out. I itched to read the latest issue of "Ai-Mor, the Invincible Futurian" comic book, lodged in my bottom desk drawer. When last I left them, Ai-Mor and Cherry Bhel - Ai-Mor's female fighting partner - were battling through Drazkil's army of drooling goons. Their mission: capture and deliver Drazkil - the Napoleon of Crime in the 30th century - to stand in judgment before the Cosmic Council of the Scales of Justice a.k.a. the Lords and Ladies of Libra. But - sigh - duty called. "Where are the fabulous Ladies of Liqueur?" "Scattered. All over the world." "Reckon it's just you and me, pilgrim," I said in my John Wayne voice. "The phoenix and the dragon," she half-smiled. "Tragic dragon." "So tell me already." She sighed yet again. "Blackbird is one of the top marksmen..." "Markspeople," I interrupted. "Or maybe markspersons. Markshumans?" "She's one of the best shooters in the world." "I meant tell me. All the particulars. Start to finish." "DEA told me it's strictly confidential," she said. "Black ops. Solely on a need-to-know basis." "I need to know." "Castille, you can be a royal pain in the ass." "How gluteally sovereign of you to say so," I said. "Now. From the beginning." "I went to Mexico to kill the leader of the worst, most violent drug cartel." "Name?" "You're better off," said Phoenix, "not knowing." "Will you cut the 'black ops' crap?" "El Syndicato de las Prisas." "I can guess the Syndicate part," I said. "What's the rest?" "The Syndicate of Speed." "They traffic in speed? Amphetamines?" "Speed?" she frowned at me. "From Mexico? Are you high?" "Sadly, no. Just clarifying. So not meth or bennies or dexies. But rapidity and swiftness and velocity." "That's their boast. Drugs. As much as you want. As soon as you want. Heroin, cocaine, marijuana. The usual. But with ruthlessness and sadism even old-time DEA agents say they've never seen." "Who's 'you'?" I asked. "You?" "You said 'as much as you want.'" "You are Americans," said Phoenix. "Mexico wouldn't have the gang violence, or corruption at the highest levels of law enforcement and the government, if the United States wasn't a nation of dope addicts." "Don't look at me," I said. "I gave up drugs and drink." "Americanos? Dragaddictos et briagos. El diablo anda svelto." "Didn't know you spoke Spanish." "Crash course," she said. "Just enough to get by." "Just enough so a tall English-speaking Chinese woman wouldn't attract undue attention. In Mexico." "Just enough to get the job done." "How exactly does the DEA contract someone," I asked, "for an illegal black ops mission?" "That's classified," Phoenix said. "Ai yi yi! Senorita Phoenix! So who's Blackbird? 'Take these sunken eyes and learn to see.'" "No problem with Blackbird's vision. Twenty over fifteen. Trained since childhood. Over one hundred kills. Never failed." "When will she get here?" I asked. "High noon?" "Don't know. But she is coming. With the cartels, it's an eye for a tooth. A kill for an eye. A whole family for a kill." "What's her m.o.?" "Long-distance sniper," Phoenix said. "Favors the Swiss SIG-Sauer SSG 2000. She's expert at adjusting for distance, weather, sunlight and shadows, wind strength, wind direction, temperature..." "Temperature?" "Bullets move slower in cold air." "Long-distance sniper, eh?" I said. "So we know at least one aspect of her personality. She's a loner." "And she has patience," Phoenix said. "I knew an Albanian sniper capable of lying down in the hot sun. Hardly move a muscle. Continually look through the sight of his rifle balanced on a bipod. Wait for a glimpse of his target." "So?" "For ten straight hours," she said.

CHAPTER 8

Spring! The time when, according to the Bible, kings go to war. And, apparently, queens. Round about midnight, I ankled up Harrison toward the Zone and Cleo's hastily summoned meeting. The late April day had been warm. And the night was positively balmy. From Oxford Place - the alley off Harrison I had cut through earlier to sneak up on Phoenix - outflashed a freakish figure. In his hand glinted a semi-auto pistol. "Skim," I said. "You mug." "I ain't no mug," he protested. "Don't call me a mug!" "Don't tell me," I said. "I know this one." "This one what?" "Movie. Got it! James Cagney to the warden in Each Dawn I Die." "Castille," he said, "you're nuttier every time I see you." Skim: body a refrigerator equal parts muscle and hard-packed fat; head hewn from stone with too-close-together eyes, equal parts shrewd and bewildered. Despite my calm demeanor, my heart flew around my chest like a caged bird desperate to escape. Skim - heavier, longer-bearded, balder, since last we met - still had the same dangling emerald earring and the same hot hateful homicidal look. April is the cruelest month. "Not going to jam the muzzle against my forehead?" I asked. "Or any other melodramatic flourishes?" "Now I know your tricks," Skim said. "The closer you get to the gun, the better chance you have to take it away from me." "Skim, I'm astonished and gratified." "Why?" he asked, voice dense with distrust. "I thought you were incapable of learning new things. But I guess, after all, you are a member of the higher primates." "Step into the alley with me," he said. "Said the spider to the fly," I said. "Less light. No witnesses." Not much choice. He backed up to keep his gun out of my reach. But. Less light. More darkness. How to use it to survive? I saw in his undressed eyes the unhinged, unflinching, ungodly lust to kill me. "'Member last time we met?" he asked. "You tried to kill me and I stopped you." "You broke my arm! Then you kept my gun! One of my favorites!" "I broke your arm," I said, "to prevent you from killing me. Self-defense. I threw your gun down a sewer, you amazing amusing moron, to prevent you from killing someone else." "Down a sewer?" Skim said, aggravated. "One of my favorite guns? Castille, I'm gonna wet you up red with a dome shot." "I didn't want your gun," I said, stalling for time. What to do? As long as the gun was out of my reach, what could I do? Every time I small-stepped toward him on the loose cobblestones, he small-stepped back. But the deeper into the alley we went, the less light. The semi-streetlights for the denizens of the alley were mostly broken. I could almost taste my heart, so thumping-thick was it in my throat. Old Legionnaire, where is your voice of wisdom? No response. Not only was the night balmy, but so was Skim. My whole body sauna-sweated. Foolishly, I had ventured forth without my trusty Beretta. "Any last words?" Skim asked, taking direct aim at my chugging chest with his gun. "Rosebud."

CHAPTER 9

Wait! Pancho Chang lived in this alley upon which the sun never shone. And my feet felt the looseness of the cobblestones. "Skim, remember that show you probably watched when you were but a wee one?" I smiled nostalgically. "The Cisco Kid?" "What about it?" he asked impatiently. "Remember what they always said to each other? 'Hey, Cisco!' 'Hey Pancho!'" "So what?" "Did they say that at the start of the show?" I asked innocently. "Or at the end? Or twice? Once at the start and once at the end?" "Where you're going, you won't need to know." "But you remember them saying that, right?" I asked, then bellowed: "Hey Cisco! Hey Pancho!" "Keep it down!" Skim stage-whispered. Just as I hoped, a light popped on. A window opened. Pancho Chang's voice yelled: "What's going on out there?" Skim automatically turned his head toward Pancho's voice. But he kept his gun aimed at my chest. My guardian demon doled out the chess pieces for the endgame. To me: king, pawns and bishop. To Skim: king, pawns and queen. He checkmates me: I die. I checkmate him: I live. Not such bad odds, when you think about it. I dove into a forward roll, grabbing a loose cobblestone in my left hand. Skim fired the gun, but the bullet whistled over me. I came up standing and smashed the cobblestone on the wrist of his gun hand. "Oww!!" His gun dropped to the cobblestones. His face dropped as he stood gunless, shaking his aching wrist. I smiled, cobblestone in hand. "Who's out there?" Pancho yelled again. "Castille!" I yelled back. "The hell you doing in the alley so late?" "Disposing of garbage. Civic duty. Go back to sleep." "Sure you're all right?" his voice asked. "I am now." The window closed, the light went out and Skim and I faced each other. "How many times have you tried to kill me, Skim? Three? Four?" "And I always fail," he said, eyes doleful and downcast. Unwisely, he bent over to retrieve his gun. No choice. I smashed the cobblestone on the back of his head. He collapsed, a heavy heap, unconscious. Should I kill him? It would be easy. And I wouldn't have to always keep an eye open for him. Sigh. I couldn't do it. Phoenix would dispatch him without a second's hesitation. But I couldn't. I picked up his gun, went back to the mouth of the alley, peeked left and right. Only one shot fired. Nobody heard nuttin'. I emerged onto Harrison and walked toward the Zone. The first sewer I came to, I dropped Skim's gun into it. Some day, he'd thank me. Or shank me.

CHAPTER 10

Pushing through the crowded Hot Spot bar was like arriving late to a battlefield. Like fuming fog from exploded bombs, cigarette smoke choked the throat. Like sickly-sweet ointments, unguents and unctions smeared on wounds by medics, the sticky stench of alcohol clogged the nostrils. Like soldiers dazed and deafened by the roar and din of the big guns, the patrons sat and stood stupefied by drink and stunned by the absurdly clamorous pop music blatting from the jukebox. Finally, arriving unscathed on the other side of the soundproof door to the Hot Spot's back room - the Throne Room, if you please - I was confronted with the high command responsible for the battle, one of a thousand daily skirmishes in the aptly named Combat Zone. At the bottom of the steps leading up to the throne platform, grinning like the devil's hallucinating godson: Laughing Death. And up on the platform, flanked by grim, unsmiling bodyguards armed with Uzi machine pistols, Queen Cleo. Cleo still reclined on the divan like royalty. She still dressed like Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra in the movie. But her clothes looked raggy and close to threadbare. Surprised she hadn't given up all this nonsense yet. "You rang?" I asked. "Castille," Cleo admonished. "Where you been at? Hardly see you all winter." "Is that any way for a queen," I said, "to treat her consigliere and tutor?" "You ain't done no tootin'. So you best be consiggin'." "Pray tell. What's the problem?" "Prollem be as follows," she said. "Criminal element type be stalkin' workin' girls inna Zone." "I beg for clarification." "Jump outa dark alleys. Trip the girls. Fall flat on they faces. Then he disappear. Hear about this?" "I read the papers," I said. "Castille be amateur night in Dixie," barked Laughing Death. "I TCB! I a fighting fool!" "Hush!" commanded Cleo. "You a fool all right." Then to me: "Mostly harmless be what I think. Until..." "Until what?" "Painted Cat!" she yelled. A black woman I'd seen around emerged from the shadows, right arm in sling. "What happened?" I asked her. "Last night this stalker trip me," said Painted Cat, angry. "I fall on the concrete floor. He fall on me. Feel pain in my right shoulder. He leap up and run away. I think another night-time nutjob. Leastways I ain't hurt. Stand up. Realize blood come out my shoulder. Stalker stab me!" "What did he look like?" I asked. "How I know?" she shouted, eyes ablaze with indignation. "Tole ya. Trip me. Fall on me. Stab me. Run away. All inna dark!" "Nothing?" I asked. "Race? Height? Weight? Build? Clothes?" "He just blend with the darkness," she said. "So you want my advice?" I asked Cleo. "As your trusted consigliere?" "Wellll," Cleo's tongue dawdled against her teeth. "Put L.D. and these muscleheads onna case. No luck." I realized there was something...different. On the small table next to her divan usually rested lines of coke on a mirror or a bottle of expensive liquor. Gone. Replaced by...a basket? Oval-shaped, lidded, woven with staves of wood and strips of rattan. A classic Nantucket Lightship Basket. What was inside it? If anything. "Guy a ghost!" protested Laughing Death. "How you speck us to get him?" "Yes, of course," said Cleo diplomatically. Since I saw her last, before the winter, she must have got her diploma in diplomacy. But let's see. "So I ask again," I said. "What do you want from me as your consigliere. Your advisor. Advice?" "Castille, you good at findin' people. Want you to find this stalker. And stop 'im." "How?" I asked Cleo. "You know the Zone. Look around. Axe around. See you can find him." "And if I do?" "Neutralize him," said Cleo. "I know you got your ways. So, one way or the other. Feel me?" "I feel you loud and clear." I said. "I better'n Castille, the Friendly Ghost," piped up Laughing Death. "I eat bullets for breakfast. Tole ya. I find the stalker." "You tole me four days ago," said Cleo. "And you ain't find him. Now Painted Cat stabbed up. Castille's chance." "Awww," Laughing Death's voice trailed away in disappointment. "You alluz think Castille better'n me." "He is," said Cleo curtly. Laughing Death glared at me. Like Cleo's opinion was my fault. "Some day, Castille," Laughing Death said grimly. "Some day I show you. I be knocking down doors and smacking up whores!" "Don't worry," I said. "I'm sure when that day comes, the statute of limitations on imbecility will have run out." "I ain't no statue of imbecility!" shouted Laughing Death. "I kill you for that!" He started toward me, metal-eating mouth twisted as if to spit nails, sizzling eyes torqued out of shape, face frenzied and furious. I stood relaxed in the ready posture. "Stop!" commanded Cleo. Laughing Death reluctantly halted. "L.D.," said Cleo softly. "No offense. Give Castille a chance. If he cain't deliver, you try again. Okay?" "Okay," was dragged through Laughing Death's tight throat and out his mouth. "But if he fail, they be trouble!" "You heard the man," said Cleo to me. "Yes," I said. "Fortunately, my audiologist tells me that I retain sensitivity in the highest range of sonic frequency." "Whatev," said Cleo. "Just go and get this stalker."

CHAPTER 11

"Your, uh, client suffers from an extremely rare neuropsychiatric disorder," said Dr. Srivayana Anandan as we sat the next day in her office in the Downtown Medical District. She wore shapeless white medical coat and pants. Her dark brown hair was pulled back and set off by white pearl earrings. Circular red dot between her eyebrows. No rings on her fingers. I wasn't sure about her toes. Born an upper-caste Brahmin in India, she had come to get her M.D. and do post-doc work at Grove University. Now, not yet thirty, she practiced at Boston Hospital. She spoke upper-class British English, with an Indian accent in the well-known sing-song lilt. Peppered, of course, with Latin and Greek medical terms. "Which is?" I asked. "A fascinating case," she said. "I interviewed him, examined him and ran the requisite tests. As far as I can tell, his statement that he thinks himself dead is not delirium, hallucination, result of drug or alcohol abuse, psychosis, trance, a waking dream, hypnotic suggestion, epilepsy, head injury, brain tumor or any other type of brain damage. "This is an almost unheard of condition in the literature of medicine." In her posh British-English accent, the last phrase was pronounced as 'lit'rachure of med'sin.' "Which is?" I reiterated. "Cotard's Delusion. A.k.a. Walking Corpse Syndrome. A.k.a. Nihilistic Delusion. A.k.a. Negation Delirium. A.k.a. La Delire De Negation." And the odd French phrase. "Which is?" I asked for the third time. But, hey, who's counting? "First diagnosed by French neurologist Jules Cotard," she lectured. "A psychotic mental disorder characterized by extreme self-hatred, severe depression, sometimes full-blown despair and denial that the sufferer exists at all." "Like this guy?" I asked. The good doctor exhibited symptoms of her own: Oh boy! smile. Gleaming eyes. Flushed cheeks. Even rubbing her hands as if warming up to hit the game winning home run. My diagnosis: Doctor's Delight. Characterized by great satisfaction from getting her hands on someone with an extremely unusual condition. Which could make her career. "You have no idea how rare Cotard's is," she said, her body language still shouting extreme eagerness. She was having a non-sexual orgasm. "Before we continue, I have to ask," I said. "In the outer office stands a skeleton in Red Sox uniform. Cap, shirt, pants. But you can see the feet bones, the hand bones and the skull's face. What?" "That's Chloe," Shree laughed. "Someone changes her attire every month. Last month, Chloe was dressed like a leprechaun all in green for St. Patrick's Day. Complete with top hat with a gold buckle. Even a leprechaun pipe clamped between the skull's teeth." "Gallows humor?" "Macabre, I grant you," said Shree. "But the nurses and techs get a kick out of it. Speaking of macabre, you'll never guess what Mr. X asked me for." "A spittoon," I said. "How did you know? Oh. He asked you too." "I didn't ask him why." "I did," she said. "And?" "His answer was vague and rambling. But the gist was that everything that comes from him is hateful and hated. So, when he can, he doesn't want to swallow his own evil saliva." "But expel it from his body," I said. "Spit it out." "Which supports the theory that part of his problem is extreme self-hatred. Even his saliva is hateful." "What causes this Walking Corpse Syndrome?" "Nobody knows for sure," she said. "Neurologically, it seems to be a short-circuit of the wires between the part of the brain that recognizes fusiform facial areas and another part of the brain - in the limbic structure - that generates the appropriate emotions that accompany that recognition." "English," I said. "American English." "Example. I asked your client... By the way, what's his name? He wouldn't tell me." "Wouldn't tell me, either." "Call him Mr. X," said Shree. "I had Mr. X look at himself in the looking-glass. What do you see in the looking-glass?" "Mirror? Me." "Me, too. But Mr. X either couldn't or wouldn't recognize himself." "What did he say he saw?" I asked. "Vague shifting forms. I asked if it could be a face. He said 'maybe.' I asked if it could be his own face. He became extremely agitated. Asked how could it possibly be his face, since he was dead." "Logical." "Strangely, it is," she said. "If you accept the initial premise." "That he's dead." "Yes." "But he's not dead," I said. "No." "What then?" I asked. "Psychosis," she said. "Like schizophrenia." "Caused by nature or nurture?" "Could be either," she said. "Or both. Probably both. As I said, I examined him, ran tests on him, observed him, conversed with him. He seems to have that genuinely rare condition." "Any chance he's faking it?" I asked. "Why would he fake something so bizarre and repulsive?" "Why do people do anything out of the ordinary? So I have to ask." "Always that possibility," she said. "But I doubt that's the case here. You saw how emaciated he was." "Yes." "And how sincere and automatic his reactions were." "Yes," I said. "So, no, I don't think he's faking. Or lying. But I had the distinct feeling that he was leaving something unsaid." "Like what?" "No way I could tell," she said. "Treatment?" I asked. "None." "Prognosis?" "Not good," she said. "But you still want to work with him." She again rubbed her hands together. Expression: almost gleeful. "I can make a case out of him," she enthused. "Above all," I said, "do no harm. Where is he now?" "No idea. I told him to go back to your office." "When?" I asked. "Yesterday," she said. "Ten minute walk. Didn't see him." "Oh dear," she said. "Maybe he really doesn't exist," I said. "And you and I are deluded." "Folie a deux. Great. Two people who share the same delusion." "Oh dear," I said. "But I don't think so. Even more uncommon than Cotard's." "How's the caseload, Shree?" "Half a dozen garden variety Tourette's Syndromes, a Williams Syndrome, Korsakoff's Psychosis, Dostoevsky Syndrome, Pickwick Syndrome. Also an idiot savant," she said. "He can add a dozen ten-figured numbers in one second. But he can't carry on a simple conversation about the weather. "And a court-mandated exam of a woman who may have Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy." "What's that?" "Munchausen's Syndrome is when a person deliberately makes themselves ill so that they become the center of attention." "And by proxy?" I asked. "Usually see it with mothers of young children. The mother make the child sick. The child is getting the most attention but the mother's getting some of the limelight." "And this woman?" "A mother who constantly brought her three-year-old daughter to the hospital," she said. "One undiagnosable illness after another. The doctors always baffled. Now she's accused of sickening her daughter so much that she died. "The state alleges manslaughter." "And let me guess. The defense contends she's not guilty by reason of insanity. To wit, Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy." "Exactly," she said. "Up to me to determine if she really has it or not." "And it's up to me to find Mr. X's killer." "You're not really going to look for who murdered him, are you?" she asked. "Yes." "It's futile." "I know," I said. "Then, why?" she asked. "Because a deal's a deal."

CHAPTER 12

An hour later, I walked into Shoshana's nightclub, The Open Gate. Conceptually, in the Theatre District. But physically? In the Combat Zone. What was the effect of the Zone Stalker on her business? "Hello, Mr. Big Shot Smarty Pants Detective," said Shirley Ujest. "Shoshana hasn't fired you yet?" I asked. "Why should she? I pack 'em in every night." "How nice for you." "Except the last four or five nights," she said. "The stalker." "Now everybody's afraid to come here." Another young white woman walked up to me. "Castille!" she said. "I thought that was you on the street. So I followed you in here. Have you saved your immortal soul?" "Oi vey," said Shirley, rolling her eyes. "Trixie," I said. "Did you backslide into religion again?" "I was lost. Again. But I was found. Again." "You were blind. Again," I said. "But now you see. Again." "Amen, brother!" said Trixie. Being born again, again, hadn't changed Trixie's appearance: same loopy look, same goofball grin, same indented eyes, same congenital adenoidal voice. Still seemed halfway between a cretin and a basket case. "You haven't been working here?" I asked. "Quit last autumn to do the Lord's work," she said. "So. Have you saved your immortal soul?" "Wish I'd saved my coin collection as a kid," I said. "Today, it'd be worth a pretty penny. I haven't saved anything." "Still not too late," she bubbled. "I'm selling a line of Christian clothing. It will help you get right with the Lord. Look! I'm wearing my Jesus jeans!" She bowed her head when she said 'Jesus.' As I had to do as a kid in church. No matter who said it. "They don't look especially Jesus-y to me," I said. "They were blessed by...somebody," said Trix. "Archbishop of Canterbury?" I offered. "Who?" she frowned. "No." "Patriarch of Constantinople?" "Who? No. Now I remember! The Virgin Mary herself when she appeared at...at..." Shirley couldn't resist: "The Voigin miraculously appeared in Brooklyn at the corner of Toidy-toid and Toid Streets. Vas youse dere?" "Who's she?" asked Trixie, grin changing to a grimace. "Shirley. Meet Trixie." They eyed each other like a hooded, hissing cobra and a mongoose. "How about you, Shirley?" Trixie asked. "Accepted Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior?" "Honey," said Shirley. "See this schnozz in the middle of my face? I'm Jewish!" "Join Jews for Jesus," Trixie continued. "Still not too late. Jesus saves." "Moses invests," said Shirley. "And Buddha passes bad checks," I said. "So nobody's perfect." "Who is this fershluginer nut?" Shirley asked me. "What did this Christ-killer just call me?" Trixie asked me. "A vunderful human beink," I said in my Hungarian accent. "Dollink." "A skank," said Shirley. "Dollink." "I fight for the Lord!" Trixie announced. She grabbed at Shirley who grabbed back. Of course, neither had art, science or philosophy. An offense to my aesthetic sensibilities. Religion. The great peacemaker. "Ladies!" I said. "Stop! For God's sake! Whichever God you believe in!" "Only one God," said Trixie, now wildly swinging fists the size of sparrows' kneecaps. "And we had him first!" Shirley said, ducking and dodging, angling to get a fistful of Trixie's hair. "But he's ours now!" taunted Trixie. Against fundamental principles, I stepped between them. Caught a few tiny blows. "Enough!" I said, separating them. "Trix, Shirley works for Shoshana. So she stays. You go." "Kicking me out?" "Of course not," I said. "Just go about your business before you saw me walk in here." "'A prophet is without honor in his own home,'" Trixie solemnly quoted. "Go, Trix. Heal the sick. Cast out demons. Handle poisonous serpents," I said. "We'll catch up another time." "May not be another time," she said solemnly. "Why not?" I asked. "'Cause, like the Bible says, 'A hard rain's a-gonna fall.'" "That's Bob Dylan," Shirley and I said simultaneously. "Whoever said it is right," Trix declaimed. A darkness covered her features like storm clouds concealing the sun. "The End Times will soon be upon us. The Time of Tribulation. Hail and fire and torment. Thunders and lightnings and earthquakes. Blood and bitter waters and woe. Locusts that sting like scorpions. Plague and desolation and God's fierce wrath. "And people will seek death but they won't find it. They shall desire to die but death shall flee from them." "Now that's in the Bible," I said. Trix, sweating and breathing hard, fixed - like an Old Testament prophet - her now piercing, accusing eyes on us. What a transformation. Abruptly, she turned and walked out to the street. "Jesus H. Christ!" said Shirley. "Amen," I said. "I always wondered what the 'H' stands for." "Hebrew." "Of course," I said. "Where's Shoshana?" "Office."

CHAPTER 13

"Sholem aleichem!" I greeted Shoshana. "Aleichem sholem!" she responded, looking up from her paper-strewn desk. "That exhausts my knowledge of Hebrew," I said. "How goes the battle?" "Usual trials and tribs. Where have you been all winter?" "Hibernating." "Like a bear?" she asked. "You know I quit drinking," I said. "Bear. Not beer. You're still as funny as a bent penny." "You know me," I said. "Stable as a starfish. Still no tax levied by Queen Cleo?" "No. And I owe that to you." "How's biz?" "Great," she said. "Till five nights ago. Seen the papers the last few days?" She picked up and threw down the daily rags with their lurid headlines. "Combat Zone Stalker," I affirmed. "My business being ruined!" she said. "By a lurking, slinking creep!" "Sounds a most unsavory sort," I said. "Because of his rep and all the rumors, this place has been a ghost town. I mean, not one single customer! Even though I'm not, conceptually, in the Zone." "You're in the Theatre District. But physically in the Zone. Hence..." "Hence bupkis!" she said. "A most expressive language, Yiddish." "This stalker business aside, I lose a lot of potential money on drinks." "Because 1:45 a.m. is last call for alcohol in Boston," I said. "I mean, where can you go for a drink after two a.m.?" "Chinatown. Alcohol in a teapot. After-hours joints in Back Bay and South End. If you know the password or secret handshake." "For that matter," said Shoshana, warming to the subject, "where can you even get a bite to eat after two in the morning?" "24/7 places like Buzzy's Roast Beef in Charles Circle. Or Victoria Diner on Mass. Ave. in Roxbury. If you don't mind eating with a lot of cops. But I get your point. What do you propose for this bit of rust on your hinges?" "I joined the Theatre District Association." "Break a leg!" I said. "We're going to petition the City Council to move alcohol cut-off from two a.m. to four." "Splendid!" "Boston's a world-class city?" she asked. "This little shittle town rolls up the sidewalks when others cities are just starting to jump and jive. Joints in New York, L.A. and Miami serve alcohol until five a.m." "I have it on good authority," I said, "that alcohol is served until six a.m. in Vienna. I'm sure an early breakfast of oysters, shaved goose liver and eggs truffled with salmon goes down better with a glass of apricot brandy." Shoshana stared at me. "You're a regular fount of useless information," she said. "Aren't you?" "Why, yes I am, thank you," I said modestly. "As you may know, my acquaintanceship is numerous and eclectic. Question: does the trap door remain under this rug?" "Answer: yes," she said. "Question: why?" "Do you ever use it?" I asked. "Never." "Anyone ever come up?" "No. Scare the wits out of me if someone did," she said. "Why? Are you going down...there?" "Not at the moment. Just wanted to make sure I could still use it." "Do me a favor." "For you? Anything," I said, then upon rapid reconsideration: "Almost anything." "If or when you go down...there, don't allow any bats banished from hell by Satan himself to come up here into my office. Got it?" "Got it. No bats," I said. "But you don't mind demons, ghosts, ghouls, wraiths, souls of the dead or banshees." "Get!" "I've often thought," I said in my Sherlock Holmes voice, "of writing a monograph on metropolitaneous demonology." "Out!"

CHAPTER 14

Midnight in the back room of the Hot Spot. Same faux-ancient Egyptian furnishing, but run-down and rapidly approaching wrack and ruin. The Throne Room was crowded with Zonies. Working girls from all races except Asian: From dishy drooly dreamboats to hard-on-the-eyes hagged-out hookers; from saucy smoke-eyed soul sisters to high-hatted high yellows to chocolate chungo bunnies; from lovely Chiquita Lolita's to Latina crackhead crockadillapigs with flock-of-seagull hair-do's; from almost-albino Brady Bunch Caucazoids one generation removed from cornfed cowpokers to tricked-out tanorexics whose skins were day-glo orange. "What?" I asked Cleo. "Last night, the stalker excalate!" she said. "How?" "One of the girls don't show up with her trap. I send out searchers. Find her stabbed-up corpse inna alley about six a.m." "Anyone I know?" I asked. "Prolly. Used to work at The Tunnel when Rat still alive." My innards trembled like soldiers breaking unison march when crossing a bridge. "Name?" "What she call herself?" Cleo said. "Oh yeah. Heather Divine." The blood wildly fled from my hands and feet until they felt retreat-from-Moscow cold. My heart like a hammer pounded an icy nail into my throat. "I know Heather," I said, frowning. "Nice person. What happened?" "Stalker grab her up, drag her in alley, stab her." "Any idea who's doing this?" I asked, angrified. "The Combat Zone Stalker!" Laughing Death piped up, with a loose lunatic laugh. "How charmingly moronic," I turned on him angrily. "Think it's funny, barbarian dog?" "Laughing Death one sick out-his-mind pup," said Cleo. "Don't pay no attention." "Tole ya," said Laughing Death. "I laugh at death." "Not at the death of a friend of mine," I said, wanting to twist his head off his shoulders. "Laughing Death got bowl a chili for a brain, I swear," said Cleo. "Anyway, why all these working girls huddled up here. Afraid to go out. Onliest one onna Stroll is Ya Ya." "And?" "And step it up and go. Top priority. Neutralize the Combat Zone Stalker." "With a commensurate reward, I presume," I said. "50K," she said. "100K," I countered. She snorted a laugh. "75K," she said. I probably would have done it for nothing to avenge Heather. But, as someone once said, there's no greater feeling of spirituality than money in the bank. Amen. "Where does he operate?" I asked. "Right onna Stroll," Cleo said, indignant. "Even LaGrange Street!" "The pumped-up pimped-out heart of darkness itself," I said. "The horror." "Jess find and stop 'im. Kill 'im if you hafta. Otherwise, bring 'im to me."

CHAPTER 15

Under a streetlight on LaGrange Street, I saw Ya Ya. She stood all hipshot like a hip high-fashion model. She wore a waist-length jacket of distressed leather and blue jeans ripped at the knees. Also six-inch black high-heeled shoes. The epitome of street finery. Her hair - mutilated last autumn by skinheads - had grown back into its usual glorious Afro. I approached in semi-darkness. "Hey, mister!" she said, smiling like a steel hook at the end of a fishing line, hoping to reel in a live one. "Wanna li'l somethin' somethin'?" "Not tonight, Ya Ya," I said. "It be you, Castille," she said, disappointed, but then excited. "Wanna talky whichoo." "What are you doing on the street?" "I knows," she sighed. "Stalker be lookin' to snatch workin' girls. But I gots to eat. Ya knah?" "What's moving?" "I thank my sister be in a predictament." "Didn't know you had a sister," I said. "Do." "What kind of predicament?" "Dunno," she said. "Feel she attackted. Maybe kidnap." "Why?" "Dunno." "You don't know why you think she's been kidnapped?" I asked. "Or you don't know why she would be kidnapped?" "Yih." "Yeah what?" "What you jiss say," she said. "I...never mind. What does she look like?" "Like me, I guess." "Hairstyle?" I asked. "Afro?" "Dunno." "Distinguishing marks?" "Like?" she asked. "Scars, tattoos, gold stars on her forehead?" "Dunno." "Don't you even know what she looks like?" I asked, my mind's eye filming over with frustration. "No." "Ya Ya, I don't have the pleasure of understanding you. So help a fellow out. You want me to find your sister and you don't even know what she looks like?" "Yih," she said. "Why don't you know what she looks like?" "Cuz I ain't never see her." "Ya Ya," I said. "You're exploding the mass of nerve tissue embedded in my cranium." "Say whichwhat?" "Say, let's go somewhere we can sit down and discuss this like the reasonable adults we are." "We be reasonable adults? News to me," she said. "But not no never Zone joint." "Certainly not. It would cause undue comment," I said. "Theatre District." We walked to No Regrets, got a back booth, the waitress appeared. "Whuddle it be?" she asked Ya Ya. "Boston Tea Party in a twelve-ounce Zombie Frosted Collins Glass." I looked at Ya Ya in wonderment. "Do you know what's in that drink?" I asked. "'Course I know," she snapped. "Okay. For me: a Virgin Mary." I was sick of drinking ginger ale. "Know what's in that drink?" Ya Ya mimicked my tone. "Tomato juice, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce and a little horseradish." "You be okay to drive?" "What's in your drink?" I asked. "Gin, rum, vodka, triple sec, Amaretto liqueur, Grand Marnier orange liqueur." "And?" "And Coca-Cola. With a lemon wedge," she said. "Think I don't know how to order food and drink cuz I walk the streets? You does, don't ya?" "Let's just say that you constantly amaze." "That cuz I be amazing," she said, sitting back, satisfied with my answer. "So. Your sister," I said. "Start from the beginning." "Which beginnin'?" Was she doing this on purpose? "Any beginning you want. By the way, what's your sister's name?" "La La," she said. "'Sitting here la la waitin' for my ya ya,'" I sang the relevant lyrics from Lee Dorsey's old hit song. "How do you know her name is La La?" "Don't. Just calls her that cuzza that song." "So. Start. From the beginning." "Beginnin'?" Ya Ya said. "Me and La La born in St. Margaret's Hospital in Dot." "Me too," I said. "At an early age." "We be twins," she said. "Fraternal?" "Identical." "What happened?" I asked. "My moms up and die." "Giving birth?" "Yih," she said. "So some kinda agency takes us. We gets adopted by different parents. Course, at birth, don't know 'bout I gots a sister. Let alone a twinnie." "How did you find out?" "Like I cursed under a bad-mouth spell, I alluz have strange feelin's." "Like what?" I asked. "Feel cutdown bad on no account. But I ain't done done do dat," she frowned. "Feel day-clean good on no account. Like they someone else I can feel they feelings. Like a ghosty, a shadow, sumpin I jiss cain't explain." "But you found out about La La." "Yih. When I ten, I tell my new moms 'bout these strange feelin's. She say, time to tell me. Tell me what? I axe. She crack her teeth she ain't my real moms. And I gots a sister somewhere. Twin sister." "How did that make you feel?" I asked. "I says, 'I knowed it!' Not that I gots a twinny. But someone's feelin's. Why I feel sad or glad or vexed-up mad on no account." "Did your adoptive mother - the one you have now - know anything about what happened to your twin?" "Say she know nothin' 'bout it," Ya Ya said. "So I lets it drop. But still gets these feelin's belong to someone else. And now I feel she in bad trouble. Like she capture and cain't get away. Like maybe she be ruint." We looked into each other's eyes. She was telling the truth. As far as she knew the truth. "You feel she's in trouble?" I asked. "And you want me to find her and help her?" "Yih."

CHAPTER 16

We finished our drinks and walked back to eerily empty Zone streets. "Where to start?" I asked. "Dunno," said Ya Ya. "But gots feelin' she neary." "In the Zone?" "Ain't a mind reader," she shrugged. "Just gets these feelin's is all." "Strong feelings?" I asked. I'd seen too many people, especially under stress, manifest heightened intuition. It wasn't something I automatically dismissed. "Strong as King Kong," she said. "Cleo wants me to find this character..." "Stalker?" "Yes, the Combat Zone Stalker," I said. "So if your twin looks like you, as she should if you two are identical, I'll keep an eye out for her too." "Calls her La La." "La La it is, then. Ya Ya, none of the other girls is out. Why don't you get off the street until I throw a net over this stalker?" "Gots to work, dude. Other girlsies do what they want," she said. "I'm broke as a bad joke. Peddle this here azz of life." She patted her butt. The admirable Combat Zone work ethic. "Don't be foolish," I said. "My car's in the 24/7 garage. I'll give you a ride home." "Wheels beats heels evva time," she said. "But tole ya. I a workin' girl. You know what a workin' girl do? Work. No bucks b'dout work. So don't be all lamey. You best move 'fore benty beasties show up." "Who?" "Them drunk polices. They act stank. I act up? Get smacked up. 'Sides, gots to collar the dollars to pay you for findy my sister." "I haven't found her yet," I said. "Ain't started yet. I be aw'ight, stalker or not." She pulled open her jacket to reveal a duct-taped screwdriver. "Any crookety dopefiendy try anything, I push this through his left ear into his brainy." "But Ya Ya..."I started. "Tole ya before, yo!" she blazed. "Don't be playin' Sergeant Save-A-Hoe wi' me! Takes care a myseff!" "How late do you work normally?" I asked. "Normal? Ain't no normal inna Zone." "What time do you usually knock off?" "Four," she said. "Hour of the Psycho." "You tellin' me? Don't get home till crackuhday." "You can't be out here all alone that late," I said. "Can." "But not now. With nobody else on the street. Too much of a risk." "Tole ya before," she flared up. "Don't play..." "...Sergent Save-A-Hoe. Got it. How about this? If I find La La, you don't have to pay me anything." "What the catchy?" "I have a proposal." "You axe me to marry you?" "Not quite," I said. "What then?" she asked. I felt disappointed that she wasn't disappointed. "I want to get this stalker scoundrel," I said. "By the way, aren't you afraid of him?" She shrugged. Must be contagious in the shoulders of The Combat Zone. "Seen worse," she said. "Still, if he's looking to jump working girls," I said. "And you're the only one out." "Come after me." "Yes. So my pro...uh, idea is as follows: you stay on the streets. I shadow you. The stalker comes after you. I let him have it." "The old one-two?" she asked, assuming a boxer's stance. "The old one-two-three-four," I said. "What I gets outa it?" "You mean besides saving your life?" "Yih," she said. "You don't have to pay me to find your sister." "You look for La La fo' free?" "In exchange for me getting my hands on the stalker," I said. She looked into my eyes. "Sound goody," she said. "We shakes on it." We shook hands. "And don't forget," I said. "Wha'?" "I don't look for people," I said. "I find them. I shadow you until the stalker jumps you. Then I take him down." "Yih," she agreed. "Good. But I'm beat down to the ankles. You must be out of gas." "I dog-tired and cooked like a rat," she said. "Then let's start tomorrow night," I said. "You stay off the streets tonight." "You win. Still gimme a ride?" "Do wheels still beat heels?" I drove her to the house she and two other working girls owned in Roslindale. "Neighbors know your job?" I asked. "Kidding? They drum us outa the civic 'sociation. Or whatev it be called." From Rozzie, I drove up Walk Hill Street. Where it crossed the American Legion Highway, I was surrounded by five cemeteries. Not an omen, I hoped. Soon I drove down Dot Ave. Vietnamese businesses, especially restaurants. The Ho Chi Minh Trail. I saw the ancient reliable moon, not yet exhausted from its eons of ascent, once more climbing to the mountaintop of night. The moon may not have been exhausted. But I was. I parked half-up on the sidewalk on Savin Hill Ave. Entering my hall of habitation, I addressed my attack- philodendron. "At ease, Phil," I said. "The lord and master is home." For now, try to forget death and dementia, decline and doom of western civilization. Soon I nestled in the cupped-hands generosity of sleep.

CHAPTER 17

Next morning, the newspapers, radio and television - the mass meteor that daily crash-landed on us - word-feasted on The Combat Zone Stalker. Almost gleefully. Mystery Murderer At Large Downtown! Called - with the usual originality - Jack the Ripper. Gives the perfect vicarious flutter. I sometimes thought the papers, radio and television hired murderers to, you know, murder. Just to have a juicy story. It sells. In The Daily Planet - the broadsheet - it was the lead article in the City section. Fairly circumspect description. But The Tab - the tabloid subway newspaper - blazoned the whole thing on the front page.

COMBAT ZONE STALKER KILLS THRILL-GIRL! Sends Divine Prostitute To Kingdom Come

Verrry clever, these headline writers. I sat in my office, threw the papers down on my desk and tried to control my anger. I wasn't even sure who or what I was angry at. The stalker, his murder of Heather Divine, the jackals of the press, the zooed-out psycho-circus of zip-zap Zonies, Mr. X, Margie, myself. Calm down, I told myself, nothing I can do until tonight when I shadow Ya Ya to lure out the so-called Combat Zone Stalker.

CHAPTER 18

The Walking Corpse strode into my office. I almost whistled in appreciation. He looked - not like the actor from Central Casting who appears in and only in every Great Depression movie - but like an updated Beau Brummel in bespoke threads. Brooks Brothers navy blue suit. Pant cuffs breaking just right over his polished black dress shoes. White cotton long-sleeved pointed-collar dress shirt with cuffs perfectly shot. Silk blue and green regimental tie - with exquisite dimple - the tip ending exactly at his black leather belt with brass buckle. Unless it was gold. What, one wondered, did this radical change presage? "Nice tie," I said. "Let me guess the regiment. British Ninth Foot. Known as the Holy Boys for selling their Bibles for demon rum." "I'm sure I don't know," he said tonelessly, as he paced. "Have a seat, Mr. X." "Why call me that?" he asked, sitting. "Because we don't know your name." "We?" he asked. "Oh. The psycho-ologist." "Shree," I said. "Have you found my killer?" "How could I? You refuse to provide me with the merest scintilla of information to go on. Literally nothing I can do. By the way, are you still dead?" "Of course, I'm still dead!" he snapped. "Just asking." "You're a grave disappointment," he said, taking out a gold cigarette lighter, flicking it on and off. "Maybe I should fire you." "And I'll give you back a complete refund. Zero. But I perish from curiosity. What's with the change of clothes? You no longer look extinguished but, rather, distinguished." He laughed heartily. It was a virtual Hyde-to-Jekyll transformation. He no longer looked malnourished. Maybe it was the suit. His voice was no longer a harsh rasp but a pleasant baritone. Even his unkempt hair was clean and combed. He actually looked presentable. Maybe, like Ya Ya, Mr. X had an identical twin. "You called me Mr. X," he said. "Now call me Mr. Z." "No Y? Why no Y?" "Truthfully, though few know it yet, I'm actually Zargrave, Emperor of the Earth." "Quite a promotion," I said. "Self-promotion, I presume. Or did the heavens open up and God personally appoint and anoint you?" "Doesn't matter," he bristled, continuing to produce the blue-yellow flame of his lighter. "What matters is that I control the destiny of this world." "Who's going to win the Super Bowl next year? I can lay down a bet, clean up and retire from this racket." "I'm afraid," he said stiffly, flicking the lighter on and off, "my powers can only be used for the good of others. Not for one's own selfish personal gain." "Do you smoke?" I asked. "Nasty habit. Never." "Then why carry a cigarette lighter?" "Never know," he said with a sly smile, "when it might come in handy." "It fits the rest of your ensemble," I said. "You look - in tune with spring - resurrected. From your fleamarket rags to your boulevardier garb." "My clothes? They're nothing special." "Au contraire, mon ami," I said. "Clothes make the man. You sultan of sartorial splendor." "Am I a sultan then?" he asked, excited. "Figure of speech," I said. He displayed what looked like a five thousand dollar watch on his left wrist. Meant he was either a shoplifter extraordinaire or something I hadn't even considered: rich. "Nice watch," I gestured with my chin. "Rolex?" "Hardly," he sniffed. "Schietenhower. Swiss." "Never heard of it." "Don't doubt that. It's not a watch." "Umbrella?" I asked. "A chronograph." "Are you still dead?" I asked quickly, hoping to catch him off guard. "Yes." "Even though you're Zarex, Emperor of the Earth?" "Zargrave," he said. "And yes." "Lot of responsibility," I said. "It is," he sighed wearily, like Atlas holding the whole earth on his shoulders. "That's why I'll start with Boston. Before going on to the rest of the world." "Wise," I said. "And what do you have planned for Boston, O Lordly Imperator?" "Do you know what Genghis Khan and his Golden Horde would do when he came to a city?" "Tell me."

CHAPTER 19

"He gave them a choice," he said. "Either unconditional surrender and he'd let the inhabitants live. If not, he would burn the city to the ground. Kill every last man, woman, child, beast." "Seems fair." His flicking the flame on and off suddenly assumed new significance. I got a bad feeling. A trickle of sweat broke out at my hairline. Shree had said to not even try to make sense of what he said. Yet a consistent theme had emerged. But was there method in his madness? Or method acting? "Nero burned Rome to the ground. 64 A.D.!" he declaimed, hand raised, eyes gleaming, looking skyward. "His own city! Capital of his empire! Thrilling and spectacular, isn't it?" "Gives me goosebumps," I said. "The Persians destroyed Athens by fire! 480 B.C. In revenge, Alexander the Great burned the Persian capital Persepolis to the ground. 330 B.C." "The Persians didn't actually burn or otherwise destroy Athens. They wanted to incorporate it into their empire." "You contradict me?" he sneered. "What school did you go to?" "UHN. University of Hard Knocks," I said. "You?" "Harvard. Oxford. The Sorbonne. Three Ph.D.'s." "Only three?" "After all," he said. "I'm only human." "Not what you said last time." "And what did I say last time?" "Something to the opposite effect," I said. "That was a fool speaking." "Do you still want me to find your killer?" "Yes," he said, leaning forward eagerly. "Then take me to your home." "No." He sat back and put the lighter into his pocket. "My hands are tied," I said. "No way to find your killer without knowing something about you." He pondered. "Can't do it." "Won't do it," I said. "Don't bandy words with me, mere earthling." "I enjoy the odd bit of bandying," I said. "Tones the blood. But if you aren't going to help me, then I can't help you." He became agitated and again pulled out his gold lighter. He stood and paced back and forth. He violently clicked the lighter, stared at the blue-yellow flame and clicked it off. He repeated this over and over. "What's with the lighter?" I asked blandly. He stopped and faced me across my desk. He clicked the mechanism, stared into the flame and then at me. "Do you know how many more great cities throughout history were burned to the ground?" "I have some idea." "The ancient Greeks," he said as if he hadn't heard me, "using the ruse of the Trojan horse, burned Troy to the ground." "So I heard," I said, casually. I didn't want to get this guy riled up. No telling what he might do. Plus the more he talked, the greater the chance of him accidentally revealing information about himself. "Joshua's troops knocked down the walls of Jericho. Which they then burned to the ground." "The Hebrews and the Hellenes," I said. "Can't beat them." He clicked his flame off and on. "Sodom and Gomorrah. With fire and sulfur, burnt to the ground," he continued. "General Sherman burned Atlanta to the ground. The Nazis firebombed the city center of Rotterdam, forcing the Dutch to surrender. Burned to the ground." "The Great Fire Of London. 1666," I said. "The Chicago Fire. 1871. Started when Mrs. O'Leary's cow knocked over a lantern in a barn. The Great Fire of Boston. 1872." "A big difference," he said. "Those fires were started by accident. I speak of cities deliberately burned to the ground." "I see." "No. You don't see," he insisted. "Look!" He pulled up the sleeve of his suitcoat and shirt, exposing an arm red with ugly burn marks. He put the flame under his forearm, near the elbow. I watched, fascinated. The sudden sick smell of burning flesh yanked me out of my reverie. "Stop it!" I said, rising from my seat. "All right," he said calmly, clicking the lighter shut. Instead of an expression of pain on his face, he seemed completely relaxed and at ease. "Have you told Shree about this?" I asked. "Your psycho psychoanalyst?" "Have you told her?" "No. Why should I?" he asked. "She can help you." He laughed. "Help me what?" "Help stop hurting yourself," I said. "What makes you think I want to stop?" "What do you want?" "I want to know who killed me!" he shouted. "I proclaim an oracle. Boston will be taken away from being a city. And it shall be a ruinous heap." So saying, he ran out of my office. I ran after him. He wasn't just a threat to himself. He had just threatened everybody in Boston. I caught up with him at the elevator. He had pressed the button but the elevator hadn't arrived. "Stay away from me!" he yelled. "I just want to..." I started. He clicked the lighter's flame to life and held it close to his ear. "Watch out!" I said. "You'll set your hair on fire!" "Yes, I will. If you attempt to follow me." This was most frustrating. Why did I care if he set his hair on fire? But, for some reason, I did. The elevator arrived; the door opened. "I'm getting in. Alone. Next time, you better have some answers for me or..." "Or what, you peculiar person?" I asked, not daring to follow him onto the elevator. "Boston's an old city," he grinned. "A lot of wood." The door closed and he descended. I waited a long ten seconds for the other elevator and descended to the ground floor. Wall-Eyed Mike - inside his nest of cigarettes, candy and coffee - crooned: "Casteeeeele! Candy bar! Numbah one candy bar!" Damn the man! He knew me too well! "Give me one," I said. "One dollah," he said. We exchanged money for chocolate and, one hoped, info. "A guy just got out of the elevator. All dressed up. Suit and tie. Which way did he go?" "All dressed up?" "Couldn't miss him," I said. "No more than thirty seconds ago. Did he go out to Harrison Ave. Extension? Chauncey Street? Or into the Post Office?" "Suit and tie?" "Forget it," I said, running to the thick transparent glass door. Pushed it open, walked outside to Chauncey Street. Looked left. Looked right. No Mr. X or Emperor Zingo-Bingo or whatever he called himself. Did the same on the Harrison Ave. Extension door on the opposite side of the building. Then looked at the long lines in the Chinatown Post Office lodged inside the Textile Building. Damn his eyes. I should have thrown a net over him. When - if - he ever came back, I should have a plan to follow him. Maybe bribe Wall-Eyed Mike. The megalomania, the talk of burning down cities and - more ominous - his playing with the cigarette lighter meant trouble for Boston. Big trouble.

CHAPTER 20

A goblin of anxiety wailed in the synapses of my nerves. Jesus Christ, could he? No, he couldn't. But what if he did? No, he wouldn't. Would he? I called Shree. "I'll put off my next appointment," she said somberly. "Come right over." I skizzled out of the Textile Building - 'Casteeeeele!' Mike crooned. 'Candy bar! Dee-liss-eus!' - to Harrison Ave. Extension which quickly became Harrison Ave. proper. Through C'town Crossing to the Downtown Medical District. Shortcut through connected buildings to Emmett Building and Shree's office. "Tell me exactly what happened and exactly what he said," Shree's eyes - lasers of interrogation - like the Grand Inquisitor's. She wore her usual pristine white shapeless medical coat and pants. It struck me that I'd never seen her without them. "He showed up looking the opposite of the time you and I saw him." "How so?" she asked sharply. "First time, he looked like a tomato can vagrant, a hard road freak, a bindlestiff beggar." "I saw him," she said, the imprint of impatience stamped on her voice. "Please to get on with it." "Just setting the scene," I said. "Good heavens, man, don't be daft!" she actually stood and shook my shoulders as I sat, like a parent does to an incorrigible child. "Tell me!" "Take it easy," I said. She stood glowering down at me. She was shore a purty Indian when she was a-riled up. "He was dressed to kill." "How?" she demanded. "Rich. Bespoke suit, silk tie, expensive polished shoes. With, not a wristwatch, mind you, but a chronograph." "Good Lord. What did he say?" "That he was no longer Mr. X, as we called him," I said, "but Mr. Z." "What does that mean?" "That he's Zargrave, Emperor of the Earth." "Exact words?" she questioned. "Exact words." "Anything else?" "He played with a gold cigarette lighter," I said. "Flicking the flame on and off. And talked about famous cities burned to the ground." "What else?" "That he was starting in Boston." "Starting what?" she demanded. "He didn't say, but..." "Yes. But," she said. "How untidy." Still standing, she put her right thumb under her chin. Like D.A. Shirley Albright. Except, instead of resting her index finger in the furrow beneath her nose, she clicked the nail of her index finger against her teeth. Deep-down thought bit into her brow. She picked up the pastel blue phone on her desk. "Who are you calling?" I asked. "The police," she said. "Whoa! Is it that bad?" "Worse." "At least take ten seconds to tell me," I said. "He's my client." "He's my patient," she said, putting the phone receiver against her chest. "And by law I have to report any patient who's a danger to himself or others." "That bad?" I repeated. "Worse," she repeated. "This sudden change indicates an extremely rare version of this already extremely rare condition. In fact, most psychiatrists don't believe there is such a thing." "Which is?" "Manic-depression superimposed on Cotard's Delusion. Only a few anecdotal cases ever reported. Wild mood swings between hyperbolic self-hatred and self-exalting megalomania. But still thinking he's dead." In my gut and nerves, I knew it was bad. But this bad? "So he really might try to burn down the whole city?" "No," she said. "He will try to burn down the whole city. Go. Find him. I hope I can get the highest-ranking official with the most intelligence. Maybe they'll take me seriously. If so, they'll want to talk to you, too. "This new persona shows Mr. X..." "Emperor Z something," I said. "This new persona he's developed doesn't bode well." "What does it bode?" I asked. "A rare species of a rare disease." "Amaze me." "The exaggerated self-hatred he exhibited to both of us was the product of a violently despised false self," she said. "Now he's swung to the opposite extreme. To compensate for the despised false self, his mind has created a grandiose false self." "To give a sort of balance?" "A shaky balance. A fake equilibrium. Most people, ordinary people, do this. On a much smaller scale. But when someone suddenly does something completely out of character or suffers a mental breakdown, it's often the result of the high wire act of the two false selves losing their balance." "Is he a danger to himself?" I asked. "Yes." "Others?" "Yes!" she said. "The city?" "Bloody hell! Yes!" she shouted. "He should be committed to a lunatic asylum. Failing that, he should be served with an ASBO!" "Azz-bo?" I questioned. "ASBO. Anti-Social Behaviour Order," she said. "Or whatever the American equivalent is. Restraining order served to miscreants, blighters and other poxy nutters. Barring them from committing a heinous act." "Like burning down a city." "Quite," she said. "So your police must find him!" "If not?" I asked. "If not, we're on our own. Get going! Look for him!" She dialed the phone. Three numbers. 911. Emergency. I, all charged-up, charged out of her office.

CHAPTER 21

Look for him? How? He was nowhere to be seen. And I didn't have clue one where to look. My charge-up charged down. Let the cops find him. Quasi-discouraged, I trudged the several blocks to Phoenix-ville. Phoenix, dressed all in black, stood outside the entrance to her building. "Get your mother out of town?" I asked. "She put up quite a fight," said Phoenix. "Did you put the Peruvian Necktie Chokehold on her?" "Thankfully, it didn't come to that. Even at her age, I wouldn't want to try conclusions with her." "So?" I asked. "So, at first, she didn't want to disappear into New York Chinatown. Would mean cancelling her public classes and private lessons. But..." "But you can be most persuasiff," I said in my German accent. "Eh, fraulein Chan?" "Jarhol, mein fuhrer!" "Your brother in Hong Kong?" "I doubt the cartel even knows who Danny is," she said. "Let alone that he's my brother." "So that leaves little ole you in a rather indelicate situation. Square in the cross-hairs of the world-class sniper known as...Blackbird!" "Yes," she said softly. "Why do they call her Blackbird?" "Because, when she's on a mission, she dresses all in black." "Like you," I said. "Twins," she said grimly. "How to neutralize her? Thoughts?" "A tough one," she said. "Blackbird can put a bullet in her target's heart from a range of ten football fields." "A thousand yards?" I said, astounded. "Maybe we should drop back ten and punt." "Wherever I go, she'll track me down. Best to deal with her now. On my home turf." "So she could be a city block away," I said, still amazed, "invisible to us and hit...her target." "Me," said Phoenix. "Why you shouldn't be near me. She'll take you out on general principles." "Will she have a spotter?" I asked, ignoring her warning. "I doubt it," she said. "Just slow her down. Plus, she doesn't need someone next to her. Her customized telescopic lens can pick out the target as easily as someone next to her with binoculars." "This gets difficulter and difficulter." "Her bullet travels so fast that she can see the target drop dead before she hears the sound of her own rifle." "How does that work?" I asked. "The bullet travels faster than the speed of sound. It may take a quarter of a second to hit the target. The retort of her rifle might be one-half to three-quarters of a second." "This is a surpremely unsettling plight," I said. "All is not well within my soul." "I'd better go and get my weapons ready." "And then come to my place." "Your place?" she frowned. "Blackbird will quickly find out where you live..." "I'm sure she already knows," Phoenix interrupted. "All the more reason," I said. "She'll set up shop with her assassin's rifle somewhere around here. We know not where. Wait for you to step outside. One shot and your heart is a baloney sandwich." "She won't get me." "Don't you want to live long enough to have children?" "Children?" Phoenix said. "I don't see the point of them." "Regardless. You'll stay at my place." "I can't," she said. "Oh, but you must." "I won't." "Oh, but you will," I said. "Margie will have a conniption fit." "No doubt. But when your mortal life is in imminent danger, heed these words of wisdom. If the conniption fits, wear it." "You win, Flash Gordon," she laughed. "And I'll handle Margie the Merciless, Queen of the Planet Mongo."

CHAPTER 22

Later, I parked half up on the sidewalk in front of my digs at 221-B Savin Hill Ave. Across the street, on his parents' front steps, sat Denny the Dinosaur. Next to him, a half dozen empty bottles of beer stood as silent sentries. Margie and I got out of the car. "Hey, Denny," I greeted him. "Hey, Castille!" he yelled. "You really like Chinese women, huh?" "I like women," I answered. "Period." Margie dead-eyed him. "Why aren't you in school, buster?" "Got kicked out," Denny said proudly, holding up a half-full bottle as a salute. "Kicked out for the day?" Margie asked. "Or for good?" "For good," he smiled broadly. "Finally." "Listen to me, Denny the Dunce," Margie started. Oh no. Too late to warn her to cease and desist baiting a berserker. "I've seen a hundred numbskulls like you. Leave school before graduation. Work at a job that pays good money." "I already got one," said Denny, beaming. "Loading planes at Logan. Midnight shift." "Pays good money," Margie continued. "For a teenager. But guess what? They're working the same job ten, twenty, even thirty years later. And they're still making what they made when they started. Cool for a teenager. But a guy who's thirty, forty or fifty years old? Know what they call him? "L-O-S-E-R. In case you're too fucking stupid to spell, that's loser." Denny slammed down his bottle. Stood up, hands balled into furious fists, rigid body quivering, anger boa-constricting his face. If he charged down at us - at Margie - I didn't relish hurting him. Arrested and convicted of assaulting a minor. Imprisonment. Lose my P.I. license. When I get out, as a felon, can't find work. Wander the streets. An unfragant vagrant. Fall off the water wagon. Margie, disgusted, rejects me. I'm under-eaten by remorse, shame and self-contempt. I end my days whirling in the guilty gutter, begging for a dram of rot-gut booze. Margie put her hands on her hips and challenged Denny with a look. "Margie," I cautioned. "Shut up," she said, out of the side of her mouth, not releasing her eye-lock on Denny. Like a house of rice-paper playing cards, he collapsed. Margie the Merciless had stared him down. "You're right," he said, then sat, head hanging. "Not too late," Margie said gently. "Go back to school." She left him to ponder his future as we walked to my front door. "You're unrivaled," I said, half ironic, half admiring. "He might or might not come to his senses," she said. "Let me know." We walked down the hallway guarded by Phil, my attack-philodendron. "Hi, Phil," said Margie. "Don't bother the help," I said. In the kitchen, she sat and kicked off her heels. I put paper plates and plastic forks on the table and opened the steaming Thai food containers. "Heppa you'self," I said, in my Italian accent. Since I couldn't do a Thai accent. While eating, I asked: "Whatever happened to those two humanoid mini-velociraptors you tried to help?" "They ran away from home." "Home, as I recall, was their grandmother and wheelchair'd aunt. Who couldn't control their blindingly outrageous antics." "I'm so worried about them," she said. "God knows what they're doing out there on the streets." "Or, more likely, what's being done to them." "Don't say that. I feel bad enough as it is." "It's not your fault," I said. "What were their aliases?" "Emerald and Wellington Tsang," she said. "I should have adopted them." "And what could you have done for them?" "Take care of them." "You work night and day, as it is," I said. "When would you have time to even see them?" "I'd make time. Plus, I could take them to the restaurant with me. Put them to work where I could keep an eye on them." "The restaurant? I thought, after your father died, it was for sale." "It is," she said. "But we have to keep it busy. Thriving. So buyers see how well it does. You're selling not just the building but the business." "You think you could control those wilding childlings at your restaurant? By their working as what? Dishwasher? Busboy? Host or hostess? They're still minors." "I'd find something for them to do." "They'd climb like monkeys over people's booths and tables," I said. "They'd destroy your 'business' in a day." "Shut up," she elucidated. "Margie the Merciful. Sainted Protector of Orphans." "Don't forget you're an orphan. I protect you, too." "Sexually, you mean," I said. "Emotionally, I mean," she said. "By the by, have you visited Betty Boop since she got sent up?" Betty had stabbed her blind legless father to death via knitting needle to the face in his hospital bed. She was a wonderful person and a great friend of ours. "Betty Lum? I've only had time to visit her at Framingham once." "How was she faring?" "Not well," said Margie. "Being tiny and Chinese makes her a double minority in prison. Which is over-crowded and run by the black prisoners. Did you know that Framingham is not only the sole women's prison but also the most overcrowded prison in Massachusetts?" "No," I said. "So is Betty some big mama's sex slave?" "Not yet," she said. "The fact that she's a convicted murderer and that she killed her own father gives her a certain status. Plus, despite her petiteness, she's the only East Asian in her wing. The others think she's a kung-fu expert." "God bless Hong Kong action films." "I put two hundred dollars in her canteen fund," Margie said. "It can now be revealed," I announced. "As the world's foremost scholar of Margie-ology, I say, here and now, that your true identity is Margie Wong, International Sweetheart of Rhythm." "Don't call me that. You know I don't like it," she said. "Besides, I'm Catholic. I use the rhythm method." "You're about as Catholic as I am," I said. "When was the last time you were even in a Catholic church?" "Two weeks ago," she trumped me with a triumphant smile. "Allow me to rephrase," I said, all Perry Mason-ish. "The last time you were in a Catholic church - not for a social reason - but for a religious purpose?" "Uh..." "I thought so," I said. "Probably the last time I was. Age 15 or 16. Or did your parents make you go to Mass till you were 21?" "Kidding? My parents were overjoyed when I quit the Church. They were Confucian-Buddist-Taoist- ancestor-worshippists. Don't you remember anything I ever told you? My aunt, who had converted to Catholicism, became my...what?" "Fairy godmother." "Spiritual mentor," she said. "So you broke her heart?" "She didn't know. Then she died when I was 19." I cleared the table. She hoisted her satchel of a pocketbook onto the table and rummaged frantically through it. "This damned pocketbook!" she said. "I can never find anything! Actually, I should have switched to my spring pocketbook by now." "You have a different pocketbook for - what? - each season?" "Yes. Don't you notice anything?" "Apprently not," I said. "What are you looking for?" "My library card." "You read?" I asked. "Books?" "Everything's mixed in together." "Like Hungarian goulash," I said, ever helpful. "It's in here somewhere!" she said, rifling the bulging contents with ever greater frenzy. "I want to get a specific book to show to one of my counselors." "Painters are the only people," I said, "who are surrounded by clutter which helps them work instead of hinders." "I wasn't cut out to be an artist of any kind. Although..." "Although what?" "Nothing," she said, still savagely rifling through her pocketbook. "What?" "Forget about it." "Forget about what?" I insisted.

CHAPTER 23

She stopped molesting her pocketbook, looked at me and sighed. Deeply. "I never told you about the Two Little Toys?" she asked. "No. What are they?" "Not what. Who." "All right," I said. "Who?" "My sister and me." "Meaning?" "You know about paper sons, don't you?" she asked. "The U.S. accepted Chinese immigrants," I said, "when they were needed for menial, low-paying, even dangerous jobs." "After the Chinese were no longer needed or wanted," she said, "the U.S. government tried to keep out all Chinese. Racist assholes. The only catch was the U.S. Constitution. Some immigrants had become citizens. A son of a citizen - even Chinese - had American citizenship and had to be allowed entry to the U.S. "Chinese citizens returned to China, then later returned to the U.S. They claimed to have fathered X number of boys. Except they hadn't. They sold their 'son's' papers to Chinese young men itching to make their fortunes in the U.S." "The Golden Mountain," I said. "Hah! Anyway, these young guys had to adopt the surnames of their 'fathers.' Once they had new last names, they had to stick with them. For legal purposes. Dealing with the government. Etcetera." "Hence, paper sons. So?" "My grandfather - my father's father - was a paper son," she said. "You never told me," I said, indignant. "I thought I did." "Like hell. So your grandfather had to accept the surname, Wong. What was his real last name?" "Toy," she said. "Toy?" "Not one of the more well-known Chinese surnames. But that's what it was. Our real family name has been passed down verbally, secretly, through the generations." "Margaret Toy," I said. "I like it. Has a certain panache." "Don't get used to it. And don't tell anyone! As far as anybody knows, I'm Margie Wong." "Miss Margie," I said in my Charlie Chan voice. "Best place for skeleton is in family closet." "Let's keep it there." "And...the Two Little Toys?" "My mother put me and my sister on the stage," she said, "when we were really young." "Weddings and bar-mitzvahs?" "Neighborhood talent shows. Once we were even on Community Auditions on local TV." "So that was your stage name?" I asked. "The Two Little Toys!?" "Cute, huh?" "What did you two do? The old soft-shoe? Vaudeville routines? Magic act?" "Sing," she said. "Frank Sinatra. Elvis Presley. Paul McCartney. Margie Wong? You couldn't carry a tune if it was tied down in a suitcase." "Then, I could. I actually thought about being a singer when I grew up." "So what happened?" "My parents frowned on it. Severely. Art of any kind was a beautiful ornament. An embellishment of life. "But not to be confused with real life, real jobs. Either marry an ACE - Another Chinese Engineer - or become one yourself. Engineer. Medical doctor. Scientist. Mathematician." "So you buckled under the pressure," I said. "I compromised. Got my Master's in Social Work. And I sing in the shower." "I often wondered what that caterwauling was," I said. "But it goes to your true identity I alluded to earlier. International Sweetheart of Rhythm." "I told you not to call me that," she said angrily. "You know damn well I don't like it!" "What? International Sweetheart of Rhythm? Your true identity?" "Then let me tell you your true identity," she said, pushing her pocketbook aside. Oh oh. Her eyes glittered in sooth-saying, truth-telling, manic mantis mode. "The seeker who always finds but it's never what he sought; the joker who hides his real feelings behind humor; the castaway who yearns to go home but doesn't know where home is; the fighter who can defeat any opponent except himself; the man who lost his whole family in childhood and so is emotionally still a child..." "Enough!" I said, upset. "More than enough," Margie said, also upset. "Sometimes you go too far." "Sometimes you don't go far enough." "I'll drive you back to Chinatown," I said, curtly. On the ride intown, we barely spoke. I seethed with swarming heart-hurts. Like sightless quiescent creatures lying long on the deep ocean floor who are suddenly stirred up. Then they blindly strike out, fighting the other deep ocean creatures. Would I ever be free of this infestation of intense emotions inside-eating me?

CHAPTER 24

That night, the Zone - even its after-dark epicenter at Harrison and Beach - was bare, barren, bereft of living creatures. The papers, radio and TV had done what generations of social workers, city planners and cops couldn't do. With their stories of the Combat Zone Stalker and his strangling of one Heather Divine. Strangely, that was her real name. Emerged from the shadows a figure. Good old Jimmy the Hat, wearing his trademark yellow t-shirt and black blazer. The one fixed point, I thought to myself in my Sherlock Holmes voice, in an ever-changing age. "Castille, yo!" "Jimmy, faithful companion." "Who you think I is? Tonto?" I laughed. "An unfortunate choice of words." "Hain't see you in this jittery jumpy jungle all y'know nipply winter," he said. "Where you be at?" "Sabbatical," I said. "To study epiphenomenalism. Most enlightening. I recommend it to your attention." "I bet. So whatchoo y'know want? Know it ain't any my usual goodies." He opened his tradmark black sports jacket. The sewn-in pockets contained everything a creature of the night needed. "Got packs of smokes. Loosies," he said. "Bags o' weed. No seeds, no stems, no sticks. Half-pint bottles o' Purple Drank. Butterscotch crack. Eight balls." "Jimmy, you crazy? Get popped with dope like that, you're looking at a long stretch in the crowbar hotel." "Whatchoo sayin', man? You say Jimmy the Hat crazy? That whatchoo say?" "No, I'm not saying you're crazy," I said. "I'm asking if you're crazy. Last time I saw you, you were selling condoms, packs of playing cards, needle and thread, bottles of mercurochrome. What happened?" "Somethin' happen, all right." "What?" I asked. "Maybe Jimmy the Hat don't wanna talk about it," he said, stiffly. "I understand," I said. "Strictly hush-hush. But, Jimmy, where is everyone?" "That stalker dude - since he y'know kill Heather and it be in the papers and on TV - scare everybody y'know away." "What are you doing out?" Jimmy the Hat, purveyor of nocturnal necessaries, shrugged. "Stalker dude only go after y'know wimminfolk," he said. "So you have no female customers. They probably cop for their boyfriends. Who don't want to get caught. So hardly any customers." He shrugged again. "I Jimmy the Hat. Jimmy the Hat do y'know what Jimmy the Hat do." "Nobody out?" I asked. "Ya Ya out." "Ya Ya is out? She's supposed to wait for me." "She say she not gone be clutched up by no stalker freak," said Jimmy. "You know Ya Ya. A shot-out-the-cannon girl." "Where is she?" "Somewhere on the Stroll," he shrugged. If shrugs were bugs, he'd need immediate fumigation. "Seen anyone suspicious?" "Reg'lar suspicious or vicious suspicious?" "Vicious," I said. "Nope. Just earlier y'know menfolk dopefiends. Make they connections and get outta the Zone." So I walked the spooky silent streets. Yoo hoo, Ya Ya, where are you? I caught up with her on the first block of Boylston Street. Across from the Chapel soup kitchen. Closed for the night. "Ya Ya, we agreed you'd wait for me before you went out," I said. "You could be dead by now." "But I ain't." "The point is you could be." "But I ain't!" she blazed. "Fine," I said. "You ain't. But for the rest of the night, till..." "You be doing what?" she cut me off. "What I do best," I said. "Castille-ing. You won't see me..." "Ha!" "...but I'll see you. And so, lovely rose, go!"

CHAPTER 25

Ya Ya sashayed under the streetlights. I stayed in the shadows of doorways and alleys. A few cars - with white male middle-aged suburban types - stopped. Ya Ya leaned on their open windows. I couldn't hear what they said. But they all sped away. We were out there for hours. But I would stay as long as Ya Ya did. And then... Leaning against a wall, I must have dozed off. Awakened by Ya Ya's shrill screams. "Castille! He'p me!" She wrangled with a creature in black robe and hood. And - to my dismay - a blood-grooved knife glinting under the glum streetlights. In two long steps, I was on him. From behind, I put the Sicilian Death Lock on him. The stranglehold and the element of surprise stunned him. At first. Then he drove the hefty knife back toward me. Missed my right thigh by an inch. The next thrust might rip into my femoral artery. I applied more pressure to his carotid artery. But he didn't lose consciousness. I pushed my knees into the back of his knees, forcing him to a kneeling position. More difficult to thrust his knife backward. Though not impossible. But he wouldn't pass out. Beyond him Ya Ya, breathing hard, stared. He thrust back. But I was ready for him. I lifted my right foot. The knife hit the bottom of my shoe. Its point stuck into the reinforced rubber sole. I pulled my right foot away, then took the knife out of my shoe. I jammed my left knee into his spine and super-pressed his artery. He passed out. Collapsed into a heap of black garments. "Jeezy, Castille," said Ya Ya. "This muvfucker like to cut off my head." I gently kicked him awake. He started to fly up like a startled bird. Stopped when he saw his knife in my hand pointed at his pale-as-porridge face. "Get on your knees," I ordered. He rose from the concrete to the kneeling position. "God will punish you," he said. "I'm sure God will," I said. "But not for this. Who are you?" "I'm an angel," he said softly, bowing his head. "Then this is your unlucky day," I said. "This woman you just assaulted? I'm her guardian angel." "I'm an angel," he repeated. "No harp or halo?" I asked. "You're a coke-head." "No," he said in that soft voice. "Whacked out on angel dust?" "No." "All lickered up on angel's tit?" I asked. "Fine whiskey?" "No." "I give up. Show me ID." "I have none," he said. "Why not?" "Because I'm an angel." "Like getting captured by the enemy? You only have to give name, rank and serial number? Except you're exempted by the Geneva Convention on Celestial Warfare?" "We don't acknowledge earthly laws," he said. "He a whacky-job," Ya Ya said. "Angel means 'messenger' in Hebrew," I said, trying another tack. He looked up at me. "That's right," he said. "So what's the message?" I asked. "God sent me to scour clean the streets of the Combat Zone." "On good terms with God, are you?" "My pleasure and privilege," he said, "is to serve God." "Talk to him every day?" "I seldom see him." "Then how do you know what message to deliver?" I asked. "I take my orders from the Archangels." "Intermediaries between God and mere angels." "Yes," he said. "You killed Heather Divine," I said. "Isn't murder against the code as outlined in the Manual of Angels, fifth edition?" "I know of no such manual," he said in that maddeningly soft, humble tone. Ya Ya was also fed up. "This be redickless!" she said. "Jess killy this angel asshole!" "You don't want to do that," he said. "You try wipe me offa map, you bughouse Bible-thumper. Castille. Gimme the knife. I slits his throat myseff." "No," I said to Ya Ya, then to the angel: "One last chance to explain yourself." "I'm not capable of that," he said. "God will explain all." "When?" "In due time." "That's enough," I said. "Stand up. Start walking. The knife is one inch from your back. Any false move? I'll rip you open from kidney to clavicle. Move!" Ya Ya came along as I directed the angel to the Hot Spot. Four a.m.: closed. Technically. I told Ya Ya to rap on the door. Loud. Then she said: "I gone'way like a skinny-ass ghosty." "Stick around," I said. "You deserve some of the credit." "Don't wanna talky wit Cleo. She axe? Tells her I gots a teethache." She disappeared. The head bouncer - president of the Cymantics Fan Club - opened the door. "Castille. What are you doing here so late?" he asked, surprised. "I might ask you the same. Cleo here?" "Cleo in the back room but she doesn't want to be disturbed." "She'll want to see this," I said. "You say so," he shrugged aside to let us enter. "But hafta tell you. She in an important meeting." "With whom?" I asked. "Hm?" "Believe it or not," he said. "Three black guys dressed in the same get-up as this character you have." "Who are they?" I asked. "Never believe it." "Try me." "Call themselves Michael, Raphael and Gabriel," he said. According to Christianity: the names of the major archangels. The angel and I looked at each other. He smiled angelically. "Your archangels?" I asked. "Yes," said the angel. We went into the back room. "Castille, glad you here," said Cleo. "Who this?" "The Combat Zone Stalker. Ya Ya helped me grab him. He belongs with these three." Again, my eye was drawn to the basket next to Cleo. Did it just move? The angel knelt on one knee facing the three. All dressed in the same loose black robes and hoods. "Up!" said one, apparently the leader. "What do they want?" I asked. "They wants what everyone want," said Cleo. "Take over the Zone. I 'splain to 'em how Zone be mine to rule. They say God want it. Sheet. Stopped believin' in God 'fore I stopped believin' in Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Santy Claus." "God will come soon," said the leader of the three. "You must be Michael," I said. "I am." "It's like this, Mike," I said. "This angel, one of many under your command, I assume." "You assume correctly," he said with an eerie aura of calm. "This nameless celestial being killed a friend of mine, of ours, most brutally. I'm taking him to the nearest police station. He'll be charged with first-degree murder and stand trial." "I'm afraid we can't allow that," said Michael. "Whatchoo gone do 'bout it?" piped up Laughing Death with a mouthful of menace and a handful of heat. "This," said Michael. From the depths of his robes, like a magic trick, he produced a pistol and shot the kneeling angel in the chest. Who fell backward, his head smacking the floor. I knelt and felt for a pulse. Dead. "You think about our offer," Michael said to Cleo. They turned to leave. "Hey!" I shouted. "Take your garbage with you!" Michael looked briefly at Raphael and Gabriel. "Do you have a rug we can roll him up in?" he asked me.

CHAPTER 26

"Got anything to drink?" asked Phoenix, at my place. "I don't drink," I said. "I didn't ask if you drank," she said. "I asked if you had anything to drink." "Of the alcoholic persuasion? No." "You should keep something for guests," she muttered. The death sentence had made her peevish. In the old days, first thing I would have done, too. Have a drink. Or two. Or twenty. "Want to watch TV?" I asked. "Nothing to drink?" she said. "Might as well get a good night's sleep. Where am I sleeping?" "My bed." "Where are you sleeping?" she asked. "My bed." "Castille," she said through gritted teeth. "Only kidding," I said. "You take my bed. I'll sleep on the sofa." "I'll sleep on the sofa," insisted Phoenix. "You're my guest," I said. "I'll take the sofa." "I'm practically your prisoner," she said. "I'll take the sofa." "No, no, a million times no. I'll sleep on the sofa." "I give up," she said. "Have it your way." The sofa lumped: sleep disturbed. I dreamed of Margie trapped in a burning building. I tried to go in and help her. But I was held back. Not by the fire. Not by firefighters. But by... Phoenix shook my shoulder. "What is it?" I leaped up, hyper-alert. "Take it easy, Doc Savage," Phoenix laughed. "Phone call." "Uh," I vocalized, falling back on the bumpy sofa toward the sweet stupor of sleep. But then I sighed and forced my groaning self up. Sometimes, the hardest task of the day was getting out of bed in the morning. You not only fought physical gravity but mental inertia. Two against one. Unfair. "Who is it?" I asked. "She Who Must Be Obeyed," Phoenix said. Wearing my new spring line of sleepwear - t-shirt and gym shorts - I took the call. I was surprised to see Phoenix already dressed for the day. All in black. Maybe she had planned to sneak out before I got up. But the phone rang and she couldn't resist answering. "Castille!" Margie shouted into the phone. "Was that a woman who just answered?" "Wow! You should be a detective." "Who is she?" Margie demanded. "Do I detect the green-eyed monster, jealousy?" "Shut up! Who is she? Don't lie to me." "Would I lie to you?" I asked. "Yes. Who?" "Phoenix." "I thought so!" she said. "What's she doing at your place at 8:30 in the morning?" "She slept over," I said. "You mean slept over?" "Don't worry," I said. "Like Siegfried and Brunhilda, between us all night lay a razor sharp sword." "What the...?" "It's not what you think," I laughed. "What do I think?" "Given your lewd, lurid and lascivious imagination," I said, "you think we slept together." "Did you?" she asked. "Have you been sniffing shoe polish again? Of course not. She slept in my bed; I slept on the sofa." "You are so whipped," Phoenix, amused, stage-whispered. "Then what's she doing there?" asked Margie. "Hiding out," I said. "You always say she doesn't hide. "She doesn't," I said. "Until now." "Why now?" "A world-class assassin is coming to kill her." "Don't get mixed up in it!" she commanded. "Too late, O epitome of excellence, exemplar of your race, embellishment of your gender, Empress of my existence..." "Cut the shit," she said. "I don't have the time." "O, how the busy little bee improves the world for you and me." "Frost?" "Castille," I said. "The Great White Warrior Poet." "Assassin's probably already in Boston." "Who is he?" Margie asked. "She." "He's a she?" Phoenix inched toward the hallway that led to the door. "Fascinating as always, but afraid I must break off," I said. "By the way, why did you call?" "Pinky tried to kill herself." "Pinky?" I asked, shocked. "Why?" "Her husband's long gone. Her boyfriend is black. Which apparently entitles every Chinese person in Boston to insult her. Her kids run wild. The trigger was that she lost over $1,000 gambling at Atlantic City." "Where is she?" I asked. "Boston Hospital." "ICU?" "Was," she said. "Now she's in a regular room." "Which?" "Rogers building. Room 837." "I'll drop in today," I said. "I'm sure that would brighten her up," said Margie, hanging up. Castille, Brightener of the Lives of the Aggrieved. "Where do you think you're going?" I asked Phoenix, as she moved closer to the hallway. "Out." "No!" I said. "Bad girl!" I blocked the entry to the hallway which was guarded by my attack-philodendron. "I'm not going to be cooped up just because someone's trying to kill me," she said. "You said Blackbird is a world class sniper. She could kill you from a distance. You'd never see it coming. Use your head." "I'll use it to butt your pasty Irish face. If you don't get out of my way." "Second opinion," I said. "Phil? Should Phoenix leave?" I threw my voice - a useful skill from my brief career as a ventriloquist in a traveling carnival - so that Phil answered. "No." "Two to one," I said. "You don't leave." "Out of my way," she said, advancing. "Phoenix, don't force me to immobilize you." "You?" she laughed. "Immobilize me?" "If I have to," I said. "You couldn't take me on my worst day and your best day." "If you get maimed or murdered, it will be your worst day. And one of mine." "Castille. I appreciate your...guardianship," she said. "But I can't hide here. So I'm going. Out." "No." "Yes." "How are we going to settle this?" I asked. "Pistols at dawn? Knives at midnight? Two wrestling falls out of three?" "If someone were gunning for you, would you hide in somebody else's home?" "Yes." "Sure you would," she smiled. "You'd be out hunting for the hunter." "Though I hate to admit it," I sighed, "you're right." "Right as the rich. Now let me by." "Wait. If you're going out, I'm going with you. Just let me take a quick shower." "Get on with it," she said. "I'm looking forward to breaking all of Blackbird's fingers."

CHAPTER 27

When I came out of the shower, Phoenix was gone. Vanished. Disappeared. She's in C'town, I thought, studying the best places for Blackbird to take up her position. I should have known she'd leave without me. Walking down the hallway to my front door, I admonished my attack-philodendron. "Phil, what's the matter with you? You know I didn't want her to go without me." Phil seemed to shrug, as if to say: "How could I stop her?" "I know," I sighed. "While I'm gone, hold down the fort." At least, Phoenix didn't steal my car. She must have hoofed it to the Savin Hill subway stop. Across the street, Denny the Dinosaur was already drinking beer. "Jesus, Castille," he said. "You must really like Chinese women. They're shuttling in and outa your house like trains at a railway crossing. One snuck out a little while ago. Doin' the walk of shame." "Not what it looks like," I said. "Sure it isn't," he leered. "She had to get home before her husband wakes up." "Little early to start tippling, isn't it?" I asked. "Never too early," he said cheerily, hoisting another bottle to his no-doubt parched lips. Margie's words had not sunk in. Yet. I found Phoenix just where I thought she'd be. Standing near the entrance of her building, like her usual self: tall, athletic, poised, alert. "I thought you were going to wait for me," I said. "Is that what you thought?" she asked innocently. "Never mind. What have you figured out?" "The odds are, like most snipers, she'll want to take the high ground." "Rooftops," I said. "You are smarter than you look." "Tell me about this cartel." "It's highly unusual," she said. "Mexico is such a macho country. So the men run everything, including the drug business." "I assumed." "The top echelon are filthy, stinking, obscenely rich. So naturally their girlfriends and wives are actual supermodels." "I assumed," I said. "But you didn't assume this." "All ears." "The Mexican government actually went after this cartel," she said. "With American assistance." "Of course. They succeeded in killing or imprisoning most of the top echelon." "Bravo!" I said. "Bravissimo!" "And instead of merging with another cartel, or lower echelon men moving up, the unthinkable happened." "Will you please just tell me?" "The girlfriends and wives - supermodels - took over the cartel," she said. "Unheard of." "But they're making it stick. Like the men, they're unbelievably violent. They either were or became sadistic, bloodthirsty murderers. They don't care if innocent civilians are killed in their crossfire." "Who was the dastardly leader you dispatched?" "Mona Lisa Rodriguez." "Did she have an enigmatic smile?" I asked. "She had three sons. She named them Scarface, Castro and - ready? - Hitler. She's personally killed hundreds of people. And ordered the deaths of thousands more." "All this, and she looks like a supermodel?" "That's when she became psychotically out of control," Phoenix said. "She started to eat. And eat. And eat. Until she was a fat fuck. What did she care about her appearance? She had money, power, prestige. "But most of them still look great." "Blackbird?" I asked. "Could be in a Calvin Klein catalogue." "But she gave it all up to become a world-class assassin." "She was Mona Lisa's main hitwoman," she said. "Mona Lisa used her to take out targets surrounded by security." "So you had no moral qualms about killing Mona Lisa?" "None." "And now you're going to snipe the sniper," I said. "Namely, kill Blackbird." "On a tree," Phoenix said, "there's only enough room for one bird." "You are wise beyond your years."

CHAPTER 28

"How did you kill Mona Lisa?" I asked. "Or should I say 'assassinate'?" "Call it whatever you want," she said. "I flew to Texas and crossed the border as a tourist. The cartel compound was forty miles away. I rented a jeep and drove there. "I hid the jeep in undergrowth and proceeded on foot." "A most exciting prologue," I said. "Then what?" "Then I infiltrated the outer perimeter of security." "How?" "Ancient Chinese martial wisdom," she said. "Think ninja." "Ninja are Japanese." "Who do you think they learned their skills from?" "And then?" I asked. "The next perimeter was an electrified barbed wire fence. Which I got through." "Think ninja?" "You catch on quick, praying mantis," she said. "Grasshopper," I said. "Then?" "The last perimeter was thick, tangled, almost impenetrable vegetation. Tropical trees and bushes. Which I penetrated." "Was the use of a machete involved?" "Partly," she said. "I knew it," I said. "I found a good hiding spot in the lush vegetation where I could see the compound. Had to be careful. Constant patrols with no fixed schedule. For two whole days, I hardly moved. Just watched." "Did you live off the land? Cut open a cactus and drink its water?" "You watch too many Westerns," said Phoenix. "The liquid inside a cactus isn't water. It's a highly alkaline, noxious fluid." "You went two days in a tropical climate without drinking any water?" I asked. "I'm impressed." "Old jungle custom, O Phantom," said Phoenix. "I drank water from a canteen I brought." "Oh," I said, disappointed. "I watched for two days. Until I believed I knew Mona Lisa's habits. At least, outside the buildings. Once a day she did come out for a special purpose." "What?" "A guy with wrists tied by rope and suspended from a branch of a huge tree," she said. "Unclothed. Local peon or captured enemy. The poor bastard was tied so that his toes barely touched the ground. They left him like that all day in the hot sun. "Around dusk, she came out to whip him. His skin was almost completely flayed. Her security guys had to back away to give her enough room to wind up her whip and lash the guy." "And that's when you struck." "I had a .300 Winchester Magnum rifle with telescopic lens. When I saw her sadistic smile, I knew killing her would be a pleasure." "And so you did," I said. "A bullet in her fat head. She just crumpled, dead. Everyone froze. Didn't comprehend what had happened. I took another shot, piercing the rope so the prisoner fell to the ground. "They probably just killed him. If he was a rival, they would think it was someone from his gang. But at least he had the pleasure of seeing Mona Lisa killed. And at least he had some relief, if only for a moment." "Then what?" "I dropped the rifle and ran like a motherfucker to the jeep," she said, "took off for the border and jumped on a plane to Boston." "And to prove it, here you are. So you're a sniper like Blackbird." "No," said Phoenix. "I was fifty yards away. Blackbird can hit a target at twenty times that distance." "But, pray tell, how did you get the rifle across the border in the first place?" "DEA arranged it." "Canny," I said. "But how did the cartel know you killed Mona Lisa?" "Informer," she said. "Probably someone in the DEA itself. Could even be my contact person. DEA's as bad as the CIA for playing off one side against the other. "But I'll find out. If it takes me years. And then I'll kill him." "Or her." "Or them." "The DEA gives," I said. "And the DEA takes away."

CHAPTER 29

"Phoenix, fellow campaigner," I said. "I need to visit someone in Boston Hospital." "Who?" "Pinky Tran," I said. "Who?" she asked. "The receptionist at the Chinatown Service Center. Margie's operation." "Who?" she asked, with an exaggerated look of bewilderment. "You disappoint, old friend. This childish antagonism between you and Margie." "What antagonism? So go." I skizzled down Harrison to the Rogers Building of Boston Hospital, only a block away from Tai Tung Village and across the street. I found Pinky's room. By the sacred bedsores of the patron saint of sickishness, Camillus de Lellis, what the hell was this? Two guys - from either side of the bed - held down a pillow over someone's - presumably Pinky's - face. I gripped the collar of the jamoke nearest me and pulled him loose from the pillow. At the same time, I reached across the bed with my freakishly long arm. I gripped the other jamoke's collar. Pinky threw the pillow off her face, gasping and crying. I backed up, pulling the jamokes beyond the end of the bed and clunked their heads together, like Moe with Larry and Curly. I took a good look at the jamokes. "Gotta be kidding!" I said. "You idiots?" The two ethnic Chinese Vietnamese who had been with young master Hung. Who had harassed Pinky at the Service Center. "The hell's wrong with you two?" I asked, still holding them by their collars. "She make Hung put in prison," one protested. "Your Walpole prison," said the other. "Very very bad." "First of all, she didn't put your fearless leader in prison. Hung put himself there." Of course, Pinky, Margie and I had testified against him. "Second, do you want to join Hung in prison? Hm? Wot?" Their faces dropped like ripe fruit from a tree. "You right. You let us go now, okay?" "No, not okay. You two are going to jail, if not prison." "Castille!" shouted Pinky. "No can breathe!" I rushed to her bedside. "Relax," I said, "putting my hand on her shoulder. "You're hyperventilating. Breathe. Slowly. That's it." She calmed down. I turned. Naturally, the jamokes had disappeared. Looking back, I saw the white bandages on Pinky's wrists. I sat on her bed and asked: "What happened? Or don't you feel like talking about it?" She started crying again. Poor Pinky. A born victim, no matter what her boyfriend Calvin, Margie and I might do to protect her. Pinky, her always-wet eyes eager to understand Life In America but never quite succeeding. Like so many immigrants and refugees, she was vice-clamped between her parents' refusal to learn English, to venture beyond Chinatown, to get their citizenship; and her children's rejection of Confucian values as they headlong rushed down the planks of peer pressure and dived into the ocean of American must-have toys and gadgets, clothes and attitudes. "It...it..." she started, but then accelerated into wild banshee wails. "Forget about it," I said. "I have the basic idea. Where's the nurse?" On cue, the nurse came in. "What's going on here?" she demanded. I realized what it must look like to her. A female patient crying wildly. An unidentified male looming over her. "Hey! Whatta ya think you're doing, mister?" the nurse yelled. "Get away from her!" "I..." I started. "He..." Pinky started. Two burly male orderlies burst into the room. "Restrain him," the nurse commanded.

CHAPTER 30

Jeez. A simple hospital visit turns into Gunfight at O.K. Corral. They came toward me. "Wait," I said to the nurse. "Let Pinky explain." The nurse squinted at me, then held her hand up to stop the advancing orderlies. She went over and quietly asked Pinky: "What happened, dear?" "Two guys try smother. Castille" - she pointed at me - "save me." The nurse looked at me, still not sure. "And you are?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "I'm a licensed private investigator." "ID." I produced my P.I. and driver's licenses. "And license to carry?" "Observant," I observed. I produced a small, laminated copy of my license to carry a gun. She handed the three licenses back to me, apparently convinced. "She needs a 24-hour-a-day guard," I said. The nurse snorted sardonically. "I'll do it myself," she said. "I could use the overtime." "Won't?" "Can't." "Will," I said. "How?" "Just stay with Pinky," I said. "Be right back." "Castille!" pleaded Pinky. "Don't go!" "Hang in there," I yelled to her, exiting the room. From a wall phone, I dialed. "D.A.'s office. Quinn speaking." "Quinn. Castille. Let me speak to Albright." "Castille?" he asked, as if he'd never heard of me. Which, come to think of it, he probably hadn't. "Move," I said. "Haven't got all day." "I'll...uh...see if she's...uh...in," Quinn stuttered. Which meant she'd tell him to say she wasn't in. Quinn came back on the line. "The D.A.'s...uh...not in." "Not going too far in the D.A.'s office, Quinn," I told him. "You're a terrible liar." "No, I...I mean...uh...she..." "Tell her murder has been committed," I said. "Murder most foul!" "Jesus, why didn't you say so in the first place?" "Just get her. Now!" Shirley Albright came on the line. "Castille? Who's been murdered?" "Is that what Quinn said? He's not going too far in the D.A.'s office if he can't convey a simple message." "Which is?" she demanded. "A murder was almost committed," I said. "Fortunately, I arrived in time and foiled the dastardly deed." "Castille, if this is a trick..." "No trick. Intended victim: Pinky Tran. Room 837, Rogers Building, Boston Hospital. She testified against Hung? Ethnic Chinese Vietnamese guy you prosecuted a few months ago? Sent him to Walpole?" "Doesn't ring a bell," she said. "What about it?" "Oh, that's right. One of your flunkies, I mean, A.D.A.'s handled it. Just now, two of Hung's pals tried to kill Pinky. In revenge." "Do you have the perps?" "Perps?" I asked. "Going to audition for a TV cops show? No. But luckily, the vic is alive. For now." "So what do you want from me?" she asked. "An around-the-clock guard for Pinky. Cops." "Cops? Call the police. They'll be glad to oblige." "But all that red tape," I said. "Take hours, days, hell, weeks. But a word from the D.A....?" "Oh no, Castille," she protested. "Oh yes, Shirley," I said. "You owe me one. Gave me your solemn word of honor." "Starting when?" she asked, wearily. "Now." "Within the half-hour." She hung up. I went back to Pinky's room and explained that she'd be safe with a for-real cop standing guard. I didn't want to ask her about her attempted suicide. Yet. After twenty minutes, a big uniformed beefeater with an unnaturally red Irish mug showed up. No flies on Shirley. When properly motivated. To the large officer, I explained the situation. He planted himself at the door. "Nobody's getting by him," I said to Pinky. "I make many thank you's to you, Castille." "Later. Get better." And now, before I returned to Phoenix, I'd nip over to the Hot Spot for my bounty for delivering the infamous Combat Zone Stalker to Queen Cleo.

CHAPTER 31

The Hot Spot by night - lights glowing, alcohol flowing, people coming and going - by day looked dingy, deprived, dispossessed. By night, playful. By day, pathetic. Three guys languidly mopped the floor, listlessly wiped down horizontal surfaces, lethargically swept up trash. In the back room - the Throne Room - Cleo reclined on her divan on the platform, flanked by her very own Praetorian Guard. The two Uzi-toting, never-smiling, ever-alert bodyguards. Only courtier in attendance was Laughing Death who looked half-blind, haggard, seriously hungover. Cleo, squinting at me through bleary eyes, said: "Castille? Whatchoo doin' here so early?" "Eager to be of service. And keen to be paid." "For?" "For delivering the Combat Zone Stalker," I said, "as stipulated in our verbal contract." "Oh yeah. 50K." "75." "Sure?" she hoarsely asked. "Sure." "Aw'ight. You get what you axe for. But not right now. Low on funds. Cuzza the stalker." "Who I have duly eliminated at your request," I said. "So. When will your majesty's coffers be again overflowing with ill-gotten loot?" "Come back tonight," she said. "Midnight." "I'll be here. Meanwhile. Any requests? Your wish. My command." "For a price." "Know anyone who works for free?" I asked. "Do you know God?" "Question of the ages. Since time immemorial, humans have striven to know God. Though Nietzsche declared that God is dead, still we puny mortals long to believe in a Creator. A Supreme Being whose grand promises allow us to live out our wretched days with a kernel of hope." "Not that God," piped up Laughing Death, hardly opening his crusty eyes. "There are others?" I asked in wide-eyed amazement. "One other," said Cleo. "He take over whole Hillside Haven Projects." "Do tell." "Those angel dudes? God they lord and master. Stalker angel jump working girls and kill Heather to show what God can do. How easy it be for him to ruin my bidness." "A shot across the bow," I said. "But let me guess. This God guy wants to take over the Zone." "Now you consiggin' kee-rect," said Cleo. "He run the whole Hillside Haven. Street call it Heaven. From dusk to dawn, one giant drugstore. Long line of cars waitin' to get dope. Heroin, cocaine, reefer, pills. Whatev." "Also," said Laughing Death, slowly coming to life, "evvathing else. Prostitutes. Shakedowns. Kidnap for ransom." "Spitting in the subway," I said. "Walking on the grass. Not returning library books." "Think you funny," Cleo said. "But I want some serious 411 on God." "How?" "He seldom leave the Projects," said Cleo. "When he do, he driven in gold Cadillac. License plate? I-AM-GOD." "Humble," I said. "Onliest way," said Laughing Death. "After dark, drive to Projects and get in line." "I'll ponder your suggestion," I said. "But, in any case, I'll be back at midnight. Please to have my cash in hand.”

CHAPTER 32

When I returned to Tai Tung Village, Phoenix stood in the same spot as I had left her. "Two questions," I said. "Where is Blackbird most likely to set up shop?" "And how do we exterminate her?" she added. "I believe the correct term is 'terminate.'" "That's for humans," she said. "And because she's a bird..." "No. Because she is vermin." "I'll start carrying a can of Raid," I said. "Real snipers are no dummies," said Phoenix. "Besides being naturally good shots with specialized training and high-precision rifles, they have a working knowledge of a dozen sciences. Optics. Math. Ballistics. For openers." "Polymaths," I said. "And Blackbird has the instincts of a Black Mamba snake," she said. "Africans call the Black Mamba 'death incarnate.'" "A most off-putting monicker." "She can hit a target from ten football fields away. But the buildings here in and around Chinatown - especially the hospital and Grove U. - are too tall." "Which means she has to set up pretty close," I said. "I'm sure she's knows where I live," Phoenix said. "She might set up with a clear shot at the building entrance." "Except you won't be coming in or going out. You'll be staying with me." "Problem." "Share," I said. "When she realizes I'm not here, she'll shoot innocent civilians." "Meaning?" "A message," she said. "To me. She'll kill civilians until I show myself." "And then she'll kill you. What about the cops?" "For all I know, the cartel has already bribed the cops. It would hardly be a stretch." "So back to the original question," I said. "Where is she likely to set up?" Phoenix looked up. "The best spot would be Tai Tung Building One directly across from the entrance here." I looked up. Five story building. Flat roof. Parapet on the edge. Easy killshot of someone entering or leaving Phoenix's building. "Except she would know I'd figure that," Phoenix continued. "So she might set up someplace else." "Where's the second most likely spot?" Phoenix frowned. "Any of these other four rooftops. Probably Building Two." "Quandary," I said. "Dilemma." "Pick your rooftop," I said. "I'll take the other one." "I've been thinking. Blackbird would set up on Building One. But she'll realize I'll think that too. So she'll go to another rooftop. Not as good. But not as obvious." "So you said." "But then she'll realize that's also what I'd think," said Phoenix. "So instead of setting up on Building Two, she'll actually set up on Building One." "I'm nominating you for a Genius Grant." "So I'll take Building One. You take Building Two." "As you wish," I said. "When?" "Meet me here a little before dusk. I'll show you how to get to the roof. And where to hide." "Yes, memsahib," I said in my native manservant voice. "For you are Sheena, Queen of the Urban Jungle. Part legend. Part animal. All woman." "Knock it off, Castille. This is serious. She'll probably set up while it's dark," Phoenix said. "Wait for morning. Shoot me in the daylight."

CHAPTER 33

Phoenix said "Unh!!" and fell heavily backward onto the concrete. Blood poured out of her torso, upper left. What the...? I looked up and saw a glint of metal on the rooftop of Building Two. Jesus H. Blackbird had flown in early. I gripped Phoenix by her belt with my right hand, pulling her to the entrance. With my left, I shot continually at the glinting metal. Keep Blackbird from getting off another shot. Phoenix bled profusely. A bullet to the heart? If Phoenix died, I'd devote my life to killing Blackbird. Even if she hid in Sark Island in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, the Desolation Islands in the Indian Ocean or the Antarctic Pole of Inaccessibility. Safe inside, I yelled at the receptionist: "Call 911! Now!" Boston Hospital was only a long block away. Shouldn't take EMT's long to get here. Maybe save Phoenix's life. I knelt down. Was she passed out or...dead? I slapped her face. Gently. Her eyes opened. Thank God. "Phoenix, you'll be all right. Ambulance on the way." "No!" said Phoenix, wincing. "No hospital!" "What do you mean? No hospital?" "Not as bad as it looks. She got me in the shoulder. Not the heart." "You still need medical attention," I said. "Hospital has to report every GSW to the cops." "Gunshot wound?" "Yeah," she said. "Then, what?" She angled her head, spoke in Cantonese to the receptionist. Who nodded, dialed the phone, spoke in Cantonese. "What?" I asked again. "The spirit doctor will come." "Spirit doctor? Are you nuts? You need a real doctor." "He'll help me," said Phoenix. "And not tell the cops." "What can I do?" I asked. ""Kill Blackbird." "How?" "She may still be on the rooftop," Phoenix said. "If not, she's moving down the back stairs. Probably take a minute to disassemble her rifle and put into something like a briefcase." "How can I be sure it's her?" I asked. "Latina. All in black. Briefcase. Go." A wizened Chinese guy materialized, holding a black satchel. Bent down to Phoenix. "The Abominable Doctor Phibes, I presume," I said. Go!" ordered Phoenix. Wail of sirens louder and louder. "EMTs here soon," I said, reluctant to leave her. "How to explain?" She said something to them in Cantonese. "They'll take me into a closed-off room. They'll say, don't know who called. Now, for Christ's sake. Kill Blackbird!" At the doorway, I looked up. No metal glint. Blackbird probably thought she killed Phoenix. Now she was escaping. I had shot all my bullets, covering Phoenix when I pulled her inside. I took out a fresh clip of fifteen rounds and shoved it into the stock of my Beretta. I ran across to Building Two, half-expecting to be shot. Safely inside, I asked the woman at the lobby desk: "See a woman all in black?" "No," she said, frowning as if I had just escaped from a third-rate cops-and-robbers movie. "Backstairs? Where?" She pointed and I ran that way. What kind of weapon would Blackbird have besides the sniper rifle? Had she already, like Elvis, left the building? Was she speeding to Logan for a flight home? I didn't know. I found the bottom of the stairs. Stopped dead. Listened: a stealthy footstep on the stairs just above me. On the landing before the bottom flight, she stepped. Latina. All in black. Long black hair pulled back in a ponytail. Looked like a model. Clutching a briefcase. Had to be her. Blackbird had taken a precious moment to disassemble her rifle and hide the parts in the briefcase. Not the best idea: openly carrying a rifle with a telescopic lens in broad daylight on the streets of our fair city. She saw me a split second after I saw her. Our eyes met. She knew, not who I was, but what I was. Phoenix's avenger.

CHAPTER 34

Blackbird did have another weapon in her other hand. A semi-auto pistol. Similar to my Beretta. We shot at each other simultaneously, both dancing backward, both missing. She disappeared up the stairs. I stepped back, out of view, should she take a peek. I stood sweating hard. Breathing hard. Thinking hard. No doubt she was doing the same. How about that? A genuine Mexican standoff. Did she even speak English? No doubt off-key, I sang: "'All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.'" "Your great Beatles, puta," she did speak English. In a heavy Mexican Spanish accent, but still. "Beatles. Insects. I crush them with my foot." A Beatlephobe? What manner of human was this? "Put your case and gun on the landing," I said. "Walk down with your hands up. I won't shoot." "You think I trust you, Yanqui? This is what I think of you!" She spat a sizeable loogey onto the landing. "I'm sure your saliva is worth bottling, Blackbird. But we don't have the time. Hear those sirens? The first sirens were the ambulance. These sirens? La Policia. Surrender now." "Surrender?" she laughed wildly. "I cut out your still beating heart and eat it!" "Highly cardio-gastronomical, I'm sure, but not to the point. Your only escape route is cut off. Give up." "I die first!" "Okay by me," I said. Like shooting pool, I calculated the angles of the walls as well as her position based on her voice. I shot at the wall. The bullet ricocheted. She cried out in pain. Real? Or faking it? I shot again. This time she collapsed onto the landing. The case and gun fell out of her hands. I rushed up the stairs. She bled in two places. Had I killed her? I went to feel for a pulse. Her eyes jerked open and she grabbed my wrist. Her other hand grabbed at my gun. She roared and rose up, grappling with me. I should have shot her a third time before coming up the stairs. A definitive killshot. Though double-bleeding, she summoned every ounce of her strength for this life-and-death struggle. She was strong and ferocious. I lifted my left foot to stomp on one of her feet. She took advantage of my slight off-balancing and tripped me. I fell down the stairs. Most ignominious. She reached down for her gun. As she picked it up, I shot her in the belly. She crumpled. I lay on the concrete, breathing hard, watching her for a solid minute. Her body didn't move an inch. No sign of breathing. She had to be dead. Breathing a long sigh of relief, I wondered what to do with the body. I could hardly carry it outside in broad daylight. Leave her there. A tenant would find her and call the cops. I hoped the receptionist couldn't describe me accurately. To some Chinese, all Caucasian males looked alike. Tall, white skin, dark hair. I rose and slowly stepped up the stairs, my gun aimed at the middle of her chest. Out of her abdomen poured a scarlet rivulet. I knelt and felt her throat for a pulse. She lived. Her eyelids snapped up. She stared at me with a mixture of disbelief, revulsion, regret, sorrow. A hoarse croak rattled deep in her throat. One final fugitive breath escaped her open mouth. Like a ghost leaving a house, never again to haunt it. Her body relaxed, her head lolled onto her right shoulder and her blinkless eyes stared unseeing at the wall. With the index and middle fingers of my right hand, I gently closed her eyes. Her soul - if she had one - was at that moment crossing the river Styx to the dreary, cheerless Underworld. But, ultimately, what difference between a heartless killer fatally shot and an innocent family slaughtered in a car crash? All were dead. In repose, Blackbird's face looked peaceful. Grim, grievous flowers of guilt - not leaf-green and real gold but gangrene and fool's gold - took root in my forest-fire heart and sprung up full-grown, flourishing and fireproof. I was weary unto perdition of killing, even of those who richly deserved it. One reason for my hibernation this past winter was to take a break from sullen stone-eyed death. I felt like I stank of the rank, repulsive, malignant malodor of the violent dealing of death. Could I quit this racket? How else could I earn a living? What else did I know? Nothing. Since the age of seven, I had only known dying, fighting, killing. Could I quit? I didn't know.

CHAPTER 35

I doubled back to check on Phoenix in her apartment. One of her apartments. She watched a tape on TV of one of her brother's Hong Kong action films. She lay on the sofa. She wore a black tank top, black gym pants and no shoes or socks. "You appear to be resting comfortably," I said. "As you can see," she said, flashing an I-told-you-so look. Her left shoulder was heavily bandaged and her arm was slung in a sling. The spirit-doctor had done a good job. "So, in your weakened state, you weren't abducted to Dr. Terror's House of Horrors?" I asked. "Or Dr. Horror's House of Terrors?" "No. And thanks for exterminating Blackbird. I assume it was you." "'Twas I. How'd you know so soon?" "C'town grapevine," she said. "Instant newspaper." "How long are you laid up?" "Dr. Yee said a week," she said. "But you know me. I'll be okay in a few days." I left her shouting Cantonese swears at the bad guy her brother's good guy in the movie was trying to bring down. I walked a couple of blocks to see Shree. "Did you tell the cops?" I asked. "About Mr. X?" "Yes. I even rode two stops on the Green Line..." - It must be serious; coming from India, Shree hated crowds: the Green Line was always packed. - "...to police headquarters." "Did they believe you?" I asked. "No." "What? A neuropsychiatrist like you?" "I suspect they didn't believe a short foreign-born woman of color," she said. "Like me." "Absurd!" I said. "Preposterous! Unprecedented!" "Your first two adjectives are correct. But, sadly, not the third." "I know," I said. "Many Chinese women receive the same treatment. So what now?" "You mean you didn't find Mr. X?" she exclaimed. "No. Where am I going to look?" "Go to the bridge!" she demanded. "What bridge?" I asked. "The bridge you said he was sleeping under!" "I said he was sleeping under a bridge?" "That's what you said. He's sleeping under some bridge," she said. "So go and get him." "That was just an expression." "You don't know what bridge he's sleeping under? Then why did you say it?" "You Indians with your British English," I sighed. "Always misunderstanding American idioms." "Meaning what?" "That someone looks so poor that he couldn't possibly afford a roof over his head. So he - you know - has to sleep under some bridge. Somewhere." "American idiom?" she said. "I never heard it." "It's an old idiom," I said. "I guess nobody uses it any more. Probably heard it when I was a kid. You were still in India." "Great," she said. "Now what?" "Can't you talk to one of the higher-ups here in the hospital?" I asked. "The cops will believe him." "I did tell the head of the department. He doesn't believe me." "Why not?" "Because this condition is impossible," she said. "Nobody believes it actually exists." "Then we have to hope Mr. X will come back to see me," I said. "Then what?" "Then I'll throw a net over him."

CHAPTER 36

Cops wouldn't listen. Hospital higher-ups wouldn't listen. Who then? Wait! Once upon a time, a certain District Attorney had owed a certain private detective a favor. True, she had repaid it and said we were even. But I had done the first favor. For her. Could she find it in her prosecutorial heart to do another one for me? Then I'd owe her a favor. In my office, I called. "D.A.'s office," a male voice brayed. This stooge had the sense not to give his name. I pictured a middle-aged balding white man, his rumpled suit jacket hanging from an old-fashioned wooden coat rack, with rolled-up shirtsleeves and patches of underarm sweat, and unlit half-chewed stogie in his mouth. Ah, the movie and TV stereotypes. "Need to speak with Ms. Albright." "Who's calling?" he barked. "Castille." "What the hell do you want?" he growled. "To speak to the D.A." "About what?" he snarled. "Just tell her it's Castille," I said. "She'll know what it's about." "Sure," he snorted, as I pictured him rolling the cigar around from one side of his mouth to the other. "Gimme your number. I'll give her the message." "And she'll call me back?" "Sure," he repeated in a tone that didn't inspire confidence. Would she call back? Would she do me this favor? I picked up the ringing phone. "Castille!" she snapped. "Now what do you want?" "Ms. Albright," I said. "You remember my helping you solve the Icicle Killer case, of course." "What I remember, of course," she said, icicles forming on her voice, "is me owing you a favor. Which you called in just this morning." "Technically, you're correct," I said. "However, a new situation has arisen. A most extraordinary and dire situation of which I'm sure the office of the District Attorney of Suffolk County would wish to be apprised." "I'm waiting," she said. I explained the Case of the Living Dead Man to her. When I finished: silence. Then: "And what do you want me to do about it?" "This guy is a menace to the whole city," I said. "His psychiatrist and I believe he's a threat to set buildings on fire." "What's his name?" "I don't know." "What's he look like?" she asked. "He kinda sorta changes his appearance." "You want me to order out a hundred police officers to find a guy without a name or description?" "Yes," I said. She sighed. "We have three high-profile murder cases coming up. Plus, a number of A.D.A.'s are out on pregnancy leave." "Meaning?" I asked, hoping against hope. "Meaning we can't spare the people power. Especially when nobody will know who we're looking for. No can do." "But, Shirley, surely..." "And don't say I owe you a favor. We're even," she said and hung up. There was no joy in Mudville. Mighty Castille had struck out. Appropriate. Because the Red Sox lost their Opening Day game to the Chicago White Sox. Wait till next year. But I'd only have to wait till sundown.

CHAPTER 37

Just after dark. The South End. Hillside Haven. Typical nomenclature for public housing projects. Riverview Apartments? No river. No view. Glendale Towers? No glen. No dale. Greenforest Homes? No forest. No green. Not even a single leaf. A concrete tundra. Hillside Haven. Hill? The ground flat as a pounded-down pancake. Side? No hill, thus no hillside. Haven? No haven as in anchorage, port or harbor. Boston Harbor five miles away. As the one-eyed, pollution-ravaged crow flies. Nor was it a haven in the sense of a sanctuary, a refuge or a shelter. Then what was it? Heaven for desperate deviates, kill-crazy cutthroat criminals and, it had to be said, 'holy' terrors. But a horror-show for regular residents. Crime rate in Heaven four times the average of the rest of the city. And, in our upside-down world, law enforcement didn't enforce the law. Yet unlike every other housing project in Boston, Heaven was clean and well-maintained. To get here, I had to drive past the Wasteland, once a big, grassy park where nearby residents had played sports, walked, picnicked. Now it was a shanty town. So shantied, so slummy and scummy, so nasty and crasty, so blighted and blasted, so ravaged and irremediable, and so doomed past all hope that it had been erased from official City of Boston maps. The mayor and his flunkies never talked about it. If any reporter was so brazen as to bring the subject up at a press conference, the mayor or his press flack double-talked and moved on. Next day, the intrepid reporter was writing obituaries for a small-town weekly in Western Massachusetts. Hovels thrown together from sheets of plastic, carboard, scrap metal, drywall, slabs of concrete, broken bricks. No need for streets because nobody could afford cars. Between and among pestholes ran passageways where denizens walked and where flowed fetid rivulets of rankest filth. Because the city didn't recognize the Wasteland as even existing, they sent no garbage trucks. The garbage accumulated in the passageways and, unbelievably, on the roofs. And then, instead of expected continued contamination, Heaven appeared as an oasis in this desert of vile smutch. God's henchmen wore gray hooded waist-length sweatshirts with hoodies. A more practical version of the angels' and archangels' full formal monks' robes. These henchmen, shouting and pointing, had suspicious bulges under their hoodies. Would they actually shoot someone with so many witnesses? Or did they just brandish guns as threats? To keep cars - and people - in line. The line. About a hundred cars inching forward along a route marked by orange safety cones and defined by floodlights. Two dozen angels - wearing fluorescent-green vests over their hoodies - brandishing industrial-size flashlights and yelling at drivers. To stay in line. To go. To stop. To go. And what was at the end of the line? The end of the yellow brick road? The end of the rainbow? Pot of gold? A wizard? A genie? Only one way to find out. I slowly pulled up behind the last car.

CHAPTER 38

An hour later, I was first in line, pulled up next to a window - no doubt bullet-proof glass - behind which sat on a stool a sullen young black man. He was surrounded by stacks of packs of - one surmised - dope. "Whatchoo want, Chuck?" he asked. "Quarter-pounder, vanilla frappe and a side of fries," I said. Put the stick in, poke around, see what happens. "Say what, muh'fuckah?" he shouted, leaping to his feet. "Isn't this a hamburg joint?" I asked. "Hamburg? This a..." he stopped short. "This a what?" I invited him to finish his sentence. "You a cop?" he demanded. "Merely a consumer," I said. "An open mouth attached to a hungry stomach." Someday, if Big Business had its way, that's what we'd be literally reduced to. Wouldn't even need a hand to pay with. They'd have mechanical hands to pick our pockets. Horns behind me honked. "Last chance, white boy. You holding up the line. We doin' bidness here. So. Whatchoo want?" "Know what I really want?" "Why I axe," he said. "I want to know why the world is so screwed up," I said. "I mean, just look at the news." "World ain't screwed up," he said. "You screwed up. Maybe you need to see Mother Superior." "Mother...?" I started to say. Huge hands reached in my open window, fastened onto my throat and pulled me - my whole body - out through the window. The hands dropped me hard to the concrete. I looked up. Dick Tracy vs. Mister Gruesome. A monstrolonian black guy with obsidian eyes like the glass marbles we played with as boys. Mean mad mouth with steel-covered teeth like a threshing machine. And a muscles-on-muscles form like Superman. Naturally, I had left my chunk of Kryptonite at home. But this was...Mother Superior? He reached down to grab me. And no doubt bounce my head off the vicious concrete several dozen times. Rendering me toothless, speechless and mindless. One is taught by society when one is growing up that it's considered rude to dentally detach a piece of one's fellow consumer. However, one is also taught: there is an exception to every rule. In short, I gripped his left hand with both of mine and bit off his little finger. "Oooowwww!!!" he bellowed like an earthquake. I leaped to my feet. He moved on me, left hand bleeding. I spit his little finger at him. Like a football receiver, he bobbled the tiny appendage but finally held it tight. I kicked his left kneecap which caused his head to lean forward and down. I flung open my car door which smacked him in the head. I leaped in, pulled the door shut and - as I roared off into the night leaving a hundred cars in line behind me - yelled to the left-little-finger-less fellow: "Tell everyone you're a black Yakuza! "A Blackuza!"

CHAPTER 39

Where? Where else? Back room of the Hot Spot. When? When else? Midnight. Who? The Throne Room had been cleared of Cleo's camp followers. Besides Cleo, there was Laughing Death, myself and the two never-speaking ever-ready bodyguards with Uzi machine pistols. And - it had to be him - God in all his divine glory had deigned to grace Cleo's throne room with his celestial presence. Backed by his three chief archangels in black robes. Behind them, half a dozen angels similarly dressed. They all had suspicious bulges on their hips underneath their robes. And God? I used to think King Pimp's royal apparel - a garish psychotronic Halloween nightmare costume - was a treat for psychedelic hallucinogenic LSD-injected kaleidoscope eyeballs. But God? Truly a sight to behold. He inhabited ceremonial vestments of several layers of spun gold thread; sumptuous, elegant raiment that almost hurt the eyes, like looking at the sun; rich, precious finery with golden skirts that billowed out when he walked; splendid golden leggings; the whole ensemble topped by an intricately designed gold crown of superb craftsmanship. The God Squad must have driven him here in the Godmobile. No way he could walk the streets in that get-up without attracting large crowds, truculent drunks and men in white coats with butterfly nets. His extravagant appearance made Queen Cleo's Elizabeth Taylor Cleopatra costume look more like Taylor's Maggie the Cat in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. Tawdry. Tacky. Trashy. It didn't hurt his divine delusion that he presented a larger-than-life figure in his own person: imposing stature, at least 6'4"; the upright posture of a potentate; fine chiseled facial features; penetrating eyes that seemed to weigh your worth and find you wanting. I was impressed. God was trying to persuade Cleo to resign as CEO of Combat Zone Inc. - with a generous severance package - and allow God to take her place. Seems God was a business genius, a philanthropist, a master strategist and an incarnated deity all in one. I must admit he had a certain gravitas, a charisma that captured eyes and ears. "You stand in the way of progress," he forcefully stated his case. "You don't have one-fifth, one-tenth, the resources I have at my command. I will build up the Zone to its full potential. This is the will of heaven. You don't wish to block the will of heaven, do you?" "Will a heaven, huh?" asked Cleo. "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout?" "Just imagine," said God, moving his hands like a magician about to pull a rabbit out of a hat. "Not the dirty, disorganized Combat Zone you now preside over. But a clean, well-organized district of adult entertainment. Able to expand beyond its raggedy, paltry borders." "Borders?" said Cleo. "Whatchoo think Zone is? A reg'lar country? Maybe we join the You-nited Nations." Everyone lightly laughed. Even God - Guardian of Morality, Giver of Faith, Glorious Source of All Goodness - permitted himself a celestial smile. Was this guy truly delusional? Or play-acting? Despite Cleo's gentle gibe, she seemed transfixed by his presence. Even Laughing Death, for once, shut his yap. "Ah, Cleo," God said magnanimously. "You are obviously a true queen." Cleo wriggled with pleasure at this compliment. "I perceive with my inner vision," said God, "that you have the temperance of Ruth. Though a member of a hated people, she followed her mother-in-law Naomi back to her home in Israel, and through her self-restraint and innate courtesy, Ruth endeared herself to the Jews. "See The Book of Ruth. "You have the courage of Jael. She enticed the fleeing battle-weary enemy king to lie down in her tent and then with a hammer she drove a sharp tent peg into the king's temple, killing him. "See The Book of Judges, chapter four. "You have the wisdom of Abigail. Her quick thinking saved her household from the wrath of King David and she later became David's wife, her seasoned understanding helping to guide David. "First Book of Samuel, chapter twenty-five. "You have the justice of Deborah. The only female Judge of Israel, who ruled the people so wisely that, as the Bible says, the land had rest for forty years. "The Book of Judges, chapter five." Cleo didn't speak. She wallowed in this ocean of compliments: God's comparison of her to four of the greatest women of the Old Testament. Nobody dared speak in this rarefied aura of silence. God had cast his spell. Somebody had to break it. "You're so full of shit," I said. The tension in the room ratcheted up. God glared at me. Cleo glared at me. Then God smiled slyly and said: "Holy shit." Everyone laughed and the tension dissipated. "Your sense of humor is simply divine," I said. "Of course," he said. "But I notice that, while Christian, you quote virtually only from the Old Testament," I said. "With its God of vengeance, torture and genocide. Rather than the New Testament, where Christ preaches love, repentance and forgiveness. "Like most of your ilk." "Ilk!" exploded God. His underlings cringed and cowered. "What is my ilk?" "Bible-thumpers. They cherry-pick Bible quotations, almost always from the Old Testament, that support their warped point of view. And seldom, if ever, quotations that represent the opposite view." "I'm not a Christian, you heathen dog!" God spit his sacred venom at me. His version of holy water. "Christ wasn't a Christian! And neither am I! I'm God!" Wow. This guy wasn't faking. He was sincerely delusional. Shree would love to get him alone in a room. But only in a straitjacket. "A one-man religion?" I said. "How convenient. You're not a Christian. Yet, you quote the Bible ad nauseam." "I wrote the Bible!" he detonated. "Through my servants, the prophets! Divinely inspired by me!" "So what's your religion?" I shot back. "Godism? Godness? Gaudiness? Cleanliness? Ever hear of a guy named Shakespeare? He wrote, 'Even the devil can quote scripture for his purpose.'" "Kill the infidel!" shouted God, infuriated. "Shakespeare's already dead," I informed him. Although, it seemed God wasn't talking about the playwright. He was referring to me. Gulp. His holy hench-angels pulled guns out of their robes. So didn't Laughing Death and I. The bodyguards directly aimed their Uzi's at God. I wondered which would prevail. God's omnipotence? Or a steady stream of 9mm parabellum bullets penetrating his chest? "Take it easy," I said softly. "We don't want anyone getting hurt." "You think bullets hurt God?" God demanded. "Maybe not," I said. "But your lackeys will get hurt. Or killed." He glowered at me, sinner in the hands of an angry God.

CHAPTER 40

"May God have mercy on us poor mortals," I said quietly. "Since you put it that way," God relented. "Guns away!" His entourage holstered their pistols. Laughing Death and I did the same. I motioned to the bodyguards to lower their weapons. Still lower, I motioned. Until their Uzi's pointed at the floor. Suddenly, God fixed his baleful eye on me. "I ask out of the whirlwind. Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" "That Castille," said Queen Cleo. "He captured Brother Desmond," said Archangel Michael. "And caused his death!" "I didn't cause your clown angel's death," I said. "Your man Mikey shot and killed him." "He's also the guy who bit Mother Superior's finger off," said Michael. God smiled broadly. "I foresee an encounter between you and Mother Superior in the near future." "Something to look forward to," I said. "Man is of few days, and full of trouble," said God. "He comes forth like a flower and is cut down. He flees as a shadow and continues not." "First, your Mother Superior attacked me. I reacted in self-defense," I said. "Second, if you think you're passing off that last exalted question as your own, you're not. It's from the Book of Job. Old Testament, of course." "We have ourselves a Bible scholar," he said. His troops laughed. "Why do you only quote from the Old Testament? That is, The Hebrew Bible," I persisted. "You're not a Christian?" "Was Christ a Christian?" he asked. "Answer me that, Bible boy." "I suppose not," I said. "You suppose!" God snapped. "Answer me this! Do you think God is a Christian? A Jew? A Muslim? A Hindu? A Buddist?" "I don't know. I never talked with God." "You are talking with him now." "Who?" I asked. "You?" "That's right," he said. "So what religion do you follow?" I asked. "You fool! The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. God doesn't follow any religion!" "Then why do you quote from the sacred book of only one particular religion? The Bible." "Because," said God, like a parent trying to control his impatience while he explains some simple matter to his child, "that's the only sacred book American fools like you are familiar with." "Americans are overwhelmingly Christian," I said. "That very popular religion from a West Asian desert. So why no quotes from the New Testament?" "We can discuss theology some other time," said God, "but now we're conducting business." He turned from me to Cleo. I couldn't resist: "You've lost the argument. So you change the subject. How adroit." God turned back to me, his face a mask of barely controlled fury. "To everything there is a season. And a time to every purpose under heaven." "The Book of Ecclesiastes," I said. "Again, the Old Testament. Starring the god of war, torture, genocide, massacre and horrific, unimaginable punishments. Is that you?" "I'm not here to bandy words with you, infidel." "Why not?" I asked. "I occasionally dabble in bandying. It can be quite refreshing." God turned back to Cleo: "Get him out of here. He interferes with our negotiations." The spell God had cast over Cleo was broken. My work there was almost done. "He stay," said Cleo. "He my consigliere." "Meaning what?" asked God, voice sauced with sarcasm. "Her spiritual advisor," I cheerfully clarified. "Then advise Cleo to do the sane thing," God said to me. "Look, God, old chap," I said. "What in the name of holy hell do you want?" "The Combat Zone." "You can't have it," I said. "Anything else? Peace on earth? Good will toward all?" "Just the Combat Zone." "If you're really God," I said, "why not just speak with the voice of many thunders and make it happen?" "I could, of course. But because I incarnated in the flesh on earth, I want to experience the way of the human." "Damned decent of you," I said. "Or should I say 'blessed decent?'" "Get thee behind me, Satan," he said to me and turned to Cleo: "We've wasted enough time. I want the Combat Zone. I will have it. The easy way or the hard way. Up to you." "I kinda like being Queen of the Zone," said Cleo. "Then know this!" God bellowed. "I'm taking over the Zone. If you stand in the way, your life will be forfeit. "Someday, all of Boston will be mine. I'll change the city's name to New Jerusalem. Twelve city gates made of pearl. Streets of pure gold, like transparent glass. "The Charles will become a pure river of the waters of life, clear as crystal. And the Tree of Life will sprout on Boston Common and bear twelve manner of fruit, one for each month. "And then all will recognize God's glory. My glory!" The height and depth and breadth of his delusion was breathtaking. "Now that's from the New Testament," I said. "The nutty Book of Revelation, true, but..." "And as for you!" he said, turning on me the ferocious blast of his divine wrath. "I will make you eat your own flesh! I will make you drunk from drinking your own blood! "You are not a man but a worm. The bulls of Bashan will gape upon you with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion. You will be poured out like water. All your bones will be out of joint! Your heart will be like wax! It will melt in the midst of your bowels!" "Sounds rough," I said. "But I see you're back to the Old Testament." "Enough!" he said to Cleo. "You have seventy-two hours to accept my offer!" "Just to be clear," I said. "What exactly is the offer?" "Get out of Boston! All of you! Cleo gets a nice severance, enough money to set her up anywhere. Except Boston." "And if we don't leave Boston?" I asked. "If you don't, God help you! All of you! Except I won't!" With that, he turned and stalked out of the room, his archangels and angels following according to their places in the divine hierarchy. I followed them out. Just to see the Godmobile. Sure enough. A gold Cadillac stretch limousine, into which they all piled. God, of course, sat in the back. License plate: "I-AM-GOD." The car accelerated off the sidewalk into the street, causing the throngs on LaGrange to quickly open a path. Like the waters of the Red Sea, standing up to make a dry path for Moses and the Hebrews to pass safely through. God moves in mysterious ways.

CHAPTER 41

Next morning, Saturday - yes, I went to the office six mornings a week - Mr. X came in. The first time, he had shambled; the second time, he had gamboled; today, he ambled. He wore a short-sleeved sports shirt, khakis and sneakers. Quick-change artist. But his eyes were like bruises on an apple. And he walked stiffly, as if he had just got up after a month of being bed-ridden. "Who are you today?" I asked. "Mr. X? Zontar, Emperor of Venus? Hobo Joe?" "I don't know what you're talking about," he responded, looking genuinely mystified. "What's your name again?" I asked quickly. "I forget." "So don't I," he said. Instead of the grammatically correct 'So do I,' he used the classic Boston phrasing of 'So don't I.' That narrowed down his place of growing up. But where in Boston? He continued: "You agreed you'd find out who killed me. Not my name. Or anything else. Any progress?" "As I told you," I said. "I can't find out who killed you if I know absolutely nothing about you." "But we had an agreement!" he said, petulantly. I half-expected him to stamp his foot. A 'privileged' background? "If I saw your dreadful psychiatrist, you'd find my murderer. I kept my part of the agreement. Are you going to keep your part?" "A gentleman's agreement," I said. "I'm a gentleman," he said. "And I'm not?" I asked. "Is that your insinuation? Is this a game you invented? And you're the only one who knows the rules?" "Certainly not!" he said. "I want to know who killed me!" If Shree hadn't diagnosed Mr. X and assured me it was a rare but real condition, I'd think it was a practical joke. But a joke I was getting tired of. "Then what about going back to see Doctor Anandan? You remember her, don't you?" "Of course!" he snapped. "The old memory goes in and out, eh?" "I remember because I saw her recently. I told you. I can't remember anything up until a few weeks before I first saw you." "What do you remember?" I asked. He shook his head. "Nothing, really." "Just tell me what you do remember." "Vague grayish drifting shapes," he said, brow furrowed. "Humanoid?" I asked. "I guess." "Like ghosts?" "I don't know," he said pointedly. "I've never seen a ghost." "Pity," I said. "Ghosts are ever so much fun to play with." "I'll bet," he laughed lightly. "What about your family?" I asked quickly. His face tightened. "I don't know," he said. "What do you know?" "Uh!!!" he shouted in surprise, knocking over his chair as he jumped to his feet. He backed away - sweat pouring down his face - staring at something only he could see. "What is it?" I asked. "Don't you see him?" he asked frantically. "See who?" I asked. "Him!" said Mr. X, face full of anguish. "Standing right there!" "I don't see anybody." "Hear him?" Mr. X shrieked. I half-expected his hair to stand straight up from his head in horror like in the cartoons. "No, I don't hear anything," I said. "What's it - he - saying?" "Not saying," said Mr. X, obviously terrified. "He's laughing!" "Laughing at you?" I asked. Suddenly, his body untensed and he let out a long sigh of relief. "He's gone," said Mr. X. "Who was it?" I asked. "Nobody," he said. "Sometimes I see things. And hear things. I guess that just happens to people who are dead." He righted the chair and sat down. Later, I'd ask Shree for her opinion of this outburst. "Now where were we?" I said. "Oh yes. Your family. What about them?" "I don't know." "Any trace memories?" I asked. He trembled. "Father? Mother? Sister? Brother? Wife? Children?" I pressed. He sort of reared up like a startled horse. Touched a nerve. "You have a family," I said. "Don't you?" "I don't remember," he said, trembling more violently. "Tell me!" I demanded, standing up. "I don't know!" he said, running out of my office. I ran after him. This time, he wasn't getting away. As luck would have it, he jumped into an elevator whose door was just closing.

CHAPTER 42

I ran down the back stairs. My wind was good. For the thousandth time, I silently thanked Margie for helping me to stop drinking. And smoking. I hit the bottom floor. His elevator was empty. "Castille," crooned Wall-Eyed Mike. "Candy bar! So dee-liss-ee-us!" "Guy running! Which way?" "So dee..." he started. "Shut up!" I said, throwing a ten-dollar bill on his counter. "Which exit?" He pointed to the door to Harrison Avenue Extension. I ran down the hallway. People pressed themselves up against the wall, either fearfully or jokingly. I pushed open the heavy glass door, went out, looked left, center, right. Left led into Chinatown. Center was a parking lot, where Raymond's Department Store had once stood. Where U Bot the Hat. To the right was the Hotel de Lafayette. There! Casually walking toward Washington Street on the narrow Avenue de Lafayette was Mr. X. Caught up with him in front of the grand entrance to the Hotel. Two scarlet liveried doormen stood at attention, ready to pounce on the door handle lest some rich prick or prickette should have to actually open the door themselves of their taxi or limousine. I tapped Mr. X on the right shoulder. Startled, he turned to the right. I walked to the left around him. When he turned back, my nose was six inches from his. He stammered something incomprehensible, then bolted. I gripped his collar from behind. For a long second, his legs seemed to be running but he wasn't moving. Like a kids' cartoon. "Lafayette, we are here!" I said, quoting the words of General Pershing when he landed the American Expeditionary Force in France in World War One. The doormen laughed. "Let me go!" Mr. X yelled. "In a minute," I said, turning him to face me. "Empty your pockets!" "What? You can't force me to do that!" "Oh, but I can," I said. "Help!" he yelled. "Help!" I stomped on his left foot with my left heel. "Ow!" he yelped. "That hurt." "Hey!" shouted one of the doormen in a pseudo-quasi-European accent. "What are you doing?" "Official business," I said. Then to Mr. X: "Your pockets! Empty them!" "Never!" he replied melodramatically. The two doormen walked toward us. This had 'international incident' written all over it. "You can't do that!" one of the doormen said. "Oh, but I can," I replied. "I told you. Official business." "He's lying!" shouted Mr. X. "Please help me!" "Shut!" I punched him in the belly. "Up!" He groaned and held his abdomen with both hands. "No problem, fellows!" I said to the confused doormen. A long, white limo pulled up and they scurried to open the doors. My left foot on Mr. X's left foot prevented him from moving. His hands soothed his stomach. I quickly frisked him. Aha! A promising object in his back right pants pocket. I reached in, grasped the object and pulled it out. "You can't do that!" Mr. X protested. "And yet I'm doing it," I said. "A wallet. Its contents may answer certain questions." "Gimme that!" Mr. X screamed. "That's my private property!" I opened the wallet. Money. And...jackpot! Driver's license. I stepped away from him. The doormen returned. "You are stealing!" said one of them. "We will call the police if you do not give his wallet back." "Sure," I said, tossing the wallet ten feet beyond Mr. X. I walked rapidly back to the Textile Building. He ran, retrieved his wallet, realized the license was missing and ran after me. "Now I know your name," I said, all Rumplestiltskin-ish. "You have no right!" he yelled. "Gimme it!" "244 Adams Street. Milton," I said, reading from his license. "Took long enough. But at least now I know your name, Clarence Clayton." "That's not my name!" he yelled, grabbing for the license which I held away from him. "No?" I asked. "And yet the picture is of you." "You don't understand," he said, anguished. "But I'm getting a glimmer." Suddenly, he turned and ran to Washington Street and turned right, disappearing around the corner of the hotel. Let him go. At my leisure, I would drop in on Mr. X a.k.a. Clarence Clayton. And, if such existed, the fine upstanding Clayton family. But first a consult with Shree, psychiatrist most cogent, ardent and eminent.

CHAPTER 43

"Shree, you should have seen him," I said in her office in Boston Medical Hospital. Apparently, she worked on Saturday too. "He leaped up and backed away, terrified. Like MacBeth seeing the ghost of Duncan. What does it mean?" "First," she said. "Don't you know your Shakespeare? MacBeth doesn't see the ghost of Duncan. He sees the ghost of Banquo." "Of course," I said. "How foolish of me." "Second, Mr. X was hallucinating. You say he both saw and heard the hallucination. Visual and auditory. And he didn't hear speech but laughter. So he almost certainly believed he saw and heard a human being." "My thoughts exactly," I said. "A being of the human variety." "MacBeth saw the ghost of Banquo, whom nobody else saw. Right after he killed Banquo." "He also killed Duncan." "But MacBeth doesn't hallucinate the image of Duncan," she said. "Only Banquo. I wonder if Mr. X killed somebody. Just one person." "On purpose?" I asked. "Or accidentally. It might make no difference. He could still be overwhelmed with guilt and self-hatred." "Great," I said. "We have ourselves an hallucinatory pyromaniac manic-depressive with Walking Corpse Delusion." "And we don't even know his name," Shree added, downcast. "On that front," I said, "I've made a bit of a breakthrough." "You have?" asked Shree, her face lighting up. "What?" I produced Mr. X's driver's license and handed it to Shree. When she looked at it, she looked like she would faint. "You all right?" I asked. "Just feel glassy." "Glassy?" "Hinglish. Means 'I feel like I need a drink.' I'm fine. But I can't believe it! How did you procure this?" "I may not know Shakespeare," I said. "But I know my job." "So Mr. X has a driver's license that identifies him as Clarence Clayton?" she said in her charming British-Indian accent. "And the photo on the license is him. I can understand - based on your diagnosis and explanation - how he might believe he's really dead. But how can he profess not to know his own name when it's right there on his license? In his pocket?" "Did he have an answer?" "He said it wasn't him," I said. "Actually, he got quite exercised about it. But, as you can see, the photo is his spitting image." "Spit and image," she said. "Which?" "You Americans," she sighed. "Always butchering the Queen's English. Not spitting image. Spit and image." "I don't have time now to explain the finer points of the English language to you." "Nor I you," she said. "A temporary draw. Now what?" She put her right thumb under her chin and clicked the nail of her index finger against her teeth. Her posture for pondering. Her eyes stared into some imaginary space far beyond the confines of her office. Her countenance for contemplation. She wore her usual shapeless white pants and coat. Red dot between her eyebrows. Her dark brown hair, as always, severely pulled back. I wondered what she would look like if she let her hair down. Literally. I wondered what she would be like if she let her hair down. Figuratively. "What was his reaction to your discovery of his real name?" she asked, coming out of her trance. "He was almost hysterical. Demanded his license back. When I wouldn't give it to him, he ran off." "Hm." "One other thing," I said. "When I mentioned 'family,' he became quite agitated." "This case gets stranger and stranger. Obviously, he didn't want you to know his real name." "And he doesn't want me to know anything about his family." "For now," she said, "I've reached the limit of psychiatry." "I'm disappointed." "You? Imagine how I feel. I'm the psychiatrist." "Then the next step goes beyond the village limits and into the wild woods of private eye-ology," I said. "To wit, a visit to the address on his license." "Airdash!" "Hinglish again?" "Yes! Hurry!" she commanded. "With all due celerity and dispatch, my liege lady." "Be careful," she said. "If he feels cornered, no telling what he might do." "Often have I worked," I said solemnly, "in the corners of time and space." "We have to find him!" Shree said. "We?" I asked. So many times in my work, 'we' somehow became 'me.' "Before he..." Shree almost shrieked. "Just go!" "Before he burns down Boston," I said. "Yes," she frowned. "Now go!" "I'm going to this address," I said. "And get him." "If he's still there," Shree frowned. "Yes," I said. "If."

CHAPTER 44

I parked the Castille-mobile on Adams Street on Milton Hill. Next to a small mailbox marked 'The Claytons.' Milton nestled between Boston and Quincy; specifically, between the Neponset River and the Blue Hills. Once the exclusive nest of vicious stinging WASPs, Milton now had one of the highest percentages of Irish-Americans in the United States. Lace-curtain Irish. Not shanty Irish. Like me. Milton Hill commanded a view of Boston Harbor and the ocean beyond. On the Hill were the Crown Jewels of Milton. Real mansions built by Yankee sea captains in the old China Trade. Still owned by a small colony of old-time WASPs, cousins of the Boston Brahmins. Call them Milton Mandarins. The Clayton home must have been hidden among the shrubbery, high hedges and lofty evergreen trees. High above the greenery, I saw a wrought-iron railed-in platform, undoubtedly built on top of the Clayton home. The Widow's Walk. Wives of captains at sea would walk the platform, straining to see their husbands' ships entering Boston Harbor. Some vessels were claimed by the ocean, making the captain's wife a widow. A long, paved driveway - like a privately-owned street - opened between two walls of high, perfectly trimmed hedges. I got out of my car. Beyond the hedges, on either side of the driveway, lay two huge recently cut lawns. But for no holes and no flags, they could have been golf fairways. I smelled the new mown grass. A soothing scent that spoke of caterpillar spring unknowingly preparing to transmute into butterfly summer. I still couldn't see a house but it must have been hidden in all the greenery. Who would have thought our bedraggled Mr. X was in fact Clarence Clayton of the old Milton Claytons, obviously tycoon-wealthy? Two overweight white guys charged down the long driveway toward me. They wore identical clothes: short-sleeved white dress shirts, diagonally striped ties, navy blue pants and shiny black shoes. Reception committee. How nice. "Private property!" yelled one as they neared me. "You can't be here!" And yet," I said, "here I am." They were almost on me. "Turn around and leave! Now! Before it's too late!" "Too late?" I asked, puzzled, looking at my watch. "But I have three hours till my Cajun Twist class." When they reached me, they stopped; bent over with hands on knees, huffing and puffing, trying to catch their breath. "What seems to be the problem?" I asked in my professional voice. "The problem," said one, becoming upright by pushing off his knees with his hands, "is that you're trespassing on private property." "So?" I asked blandly. "So either leave by your own volition," he threatened, "or me and Tom will make you leave." Tom was still bent over with hands on knees. I bent down and said to him: "Looks like you have a prob, Tom. Not eating your Wheaties? Not doing your Royal Canadian Air Force exercises? Guzzling volumes of vodka on your off-time instead of sipping a beer?" Tom forced himself to stand upright, like a proper homo sapiens, but still puffed in and out like a blacksmith's bellows. His face flushed a lurid flame-red. "Are you going?" asked the first guy. I realized they were 'security.' At least, the outer perimeter thereof. "Yes," I said. "Good," the first guy said. "Go." I smiled politely at him the way, you know, you do. "What are you waiting for?" he demanded. "You said you were going." "I am," I said. "Just not yet." Tom finally got his breath back and spoke: "Guy's a wise-acre, Jerry. Let's give 'im the old heave-ho." "Tom? Jerry? Tom and Jerry!" I said. "Growing up, I watched you guys all the time! Can I get your autographs?" By their scowls and embarrassed-red as opposed to out-of-breath-red faces, I assumed they'd heard 'Tom and Jerry' cartoon references hundreds of times. They advanced on me. Slowly. "Ah, the civility of high society," I said. "The niceties of noblesse oblige. The unparalleled courtesy of the upper crust. Or, at least, its flunkies. "Namely, you two churls. Tom the house cat. Jerry the house mouse. Shouldn't you be somewhere dropping iron anvils on each other's heads?" "Last chance to leave without getting hurt," Tom growled. "I'd sure hate to see someone get hurt," I said, relaxed, on balance and, frankly, enjoying myself. "However, if that's what you want." They attacked. Jerry threw a long, looping right punch at my face while Tom came at me from my right. I gripped Jerry's right wrist with my left hand and re-directed the punch into Tom's face. Tom fell backward, sitting on the pavement, blood streaming from his nostrils. Jerry looked at Tom, aghast; then at me, surprised. "Been a long time since you guys actually threw someone out, eh, Jer?" I asked. His expression turned wary. Like a boxer, he put up his dukes. I stood still, hands dangling in front of my belt buckle. He came in bobbing his head up and down, weaving his shoulders back and forth. A regular Muhammad Ali. Then I put up my dukes. When he got within range, he threw a left jab, a right cross and a left hook. The old boxing one-two-three. The first two punches I dodged; the left hook to my ribs I countered with a right elbow block/strike to his fist. Then my left leg shot out, my foot twisted inward ninety degrees. An unnatural angle but a motion the Old Legionnaire had made me practice a thousand times. When the knife-edge side of my shoe struck just above his kneecap and scraped downward an inch or two - I didn't want to shear off his 'floating' kneecap, only bone in the body not directly connected to another bone - his leg hyperextended. My left foot retracted and then shot out again, kicking him straight in the belly - "Oof!!" - knocking the wind out of him and causing his head to come forward and down. I pivoted 180 degrees on my right foot so that my back was toward him and swung my left leg up. My left heel smacked into his face. The old savate one-two-three. When I turned around, Jerry sat on the pavement, blood streaming from his nostrils. Just like Tom. Suitable for ornamental bookends. "We'll chat on my way out," I said. "Think of a suitable subject for discussion. Perhaps 'imperialism and political theology.' Compare and contrast."

CHAPTER 45

I trotted down the driveway, passed under overhanging branches and saw...the mansion. A wide stately three-story white building with four chimneys on the roof. Upheld by four white marble columns, a two-story-high roof protected the building's long front porch of varnished maple planks. An intricately-designed banister of inlaid teak ran the length of the porch. I walked up several steps to the porch and to the ornate doorway, complete with mullioned stained glass windows arched around and above the door itself. The doorbell was a solid silver solar system with the button, like the sun, in the center. Did I dare? Did I dare disturb Masters of the Universe? Did I dare to ring the doorbell? I dared. When I pressed the button, instead of the usual ding-dong, the chimes sounded a twelve-note melody. The same tune for the British anthem 'God Save The Queen' and the American 'My Country, 'Tis of Thee.' I wondered which song the Claytons intended. An aged chap wearing impeccable black suit, white shirt and black bow tie opened the door. If this joint were an old funeral home, this guy would be the old funeral director. Or an exhumed and re-animated customer. "Yes?" he asked, one eyebrow elevated. "Do you sit inside by the door all day waiting for the doorbell to ring?" Now both his eyebrows rose. "Can I help you?" he asked. "Are you the butler? Valet? Manservant? I know. Gentleman's gentleman." "If you must know, sir, I am the household manager. Now. What do you want?" "I'm here to see Mr. and/or Mrs. Clayton," I said. "Do you have an appointment?" "Yeah," I said. "Very good, sir," he said. "Please come in." "Thanks, Jeeves." "Wipe your feet," he said, just like Gloria Swanson's man Max commanded William Holden in Sunset Boulevard. Like Holden, I did. Jeeves led me through a fancy outer foyer to an even fancier inner foyer. Then he disappeared. The inner foyer was two stories high with a stairway of white steps and black curved handrail leading to the second floor. On the wall above the second floor landing, hung a huge compass marked with eight directions. The hardwood floor in the foyer was dominated by a colorful circular stone medallion, at least ten feet in diameter, of a three-masted schooner at sea. On a round mahogany table stood a big vase filled with a lavish bouquet of lilies. I inhaled the rich scent of old blood-stained money. I had entered the Anglo-sphere. The doorbell melody was definitely for 'God Save the Queen.' Personally, I preferred the Sex Pistols' version. But to each his own. I felt like Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar, first time he goes to the big boss's swank house in a tuxedo. Tugging at his too-tight collar, he says: 'I hate these monkey suits! Say, nice place ya got here, Big Boy!' Jeeves reappeared. "This way, sir," he intoned. I followed him into a huge room, redolent of wealth, all leather and mahogany. On one wall, high windows through which the sunlight streamed. On another wall, a gilt-framed mirror above a mantel above black-marble fireplace. On the mantel stood family photos including, strangely, two identical head-and-shoulders shots of Mr. X a.k.a. Clarence Clayton. A woman, sitting, with open book in her lap, looked at me. She had straight blond hair, cut short. She wore a sleeveless knee-length rose print dress and simple sandals. A man, just standing up from an easy chair, newspaper in hand, looked at me. He wore a long-sleeved button-down light blue Oxford shirt open at the throat, tan khaki pants and brown leather moccasins with no socks. They looked middle-aged but trim, fit. Preppy but not pretentious. Chic but not showy. When Mr. Clayton realized he had no idea who I was, he burst out: "Who the hell are you?" The doorman, turning crimson with the realization of his egregious faux-pas, sputtered: "He said he had an appointment." "I do," I said. "Next week. With the dentist."

CHAPTER 46

"Explain yourself," Mr. Clayton said. "Castille," I said. "Private detective." "Do you have a card?" I handed him one of my, like, really cool business cards. With the embossed black chess piece, the rook, a.k.a. the castle. "What's this all about?" he asked. "Is this familiar?" I held up Clarence Clayton's driver's license. His whole demeanor changed. "That's my son's!" he said, grabbing for the license. I pulled it back out of reach. "Give me that!" he insisted. "Now!" "No," I said. "Where did you get that license?" asked Mr. Clayton. "First things first," I said. "Whose is it?" "My son's! Damn your impertinence! Give it to me!" "Where did you get it?" asked Mrs. Clayton. "From your son," I said. They looked at each other. "Impossible!" said Mrs. C. "Why?" I asked. "Because our son has been dead for two years." They looked sincerely shocked. Strange that he insisted that Mr. X - Clarence Clayton - was dead. "I talked to him this morning," I said. "He refused to identify himself." "So you took his license?" "How else was I going to know who he was?" "Why was he talking with you?" asked Mr. C. "He came into my office..." Mr. C. interrupted me to inform Mrs. C: "He's a private eye." "As I was saying, he wanted me to find out who killed him. He said he was dead. Murdered." "He what? Oh my God!" Mr. C. dropped his newspaper, sat and put his head in his hands. Mrs. C. closed her book and started crying or - at her socio-economic level - weeping. "Somebody better tell me what's going on," I said. "Mr. Castille, the license you're holding belongs to my son, Clarence." "I know," I said. "He...died two years ago." "For the last two years, he thought he's been dead?" "He has been dead," said Mr. C. "You suffer from the same delusion?" I asked, confused. "No," he said sadly. "Although sometimes I wish I did suffer from a delusion." "In the name of Rene Goupil, patron saint of anesthetists, before I nod off, please - I beg of you - just tell me what's going on." "The license does belong to my son Clarence," said Mr. C. "But the person you took it from is not Clarence." "Photo sure looks like him," I said. "Because the person you took it from is not Clarence," Mr. C. said, "but his brother Richard." Bing! "His twin brother," I said. "Identical twin." "Yes," Mrs. C. said. "But we haven't seen him in months." "And he thinks he's Clarence?" I asked. "No," Mr. C. said. I sighed. "Just tell me the story, the whole story and nothing but the story. Or, so help me God, I walk out and you'll probably never see Richard again." "No. No. Please," said Mr. C. "Stay. Sit. Can I get you a drink?" I sat on a brown leather sofa. "Story," I said. He looked at his wife. She nodded. "All right, Mr. Castille," he said. "I presume your, uh, profession has some sort of code of ethics. Confidentiality and so forth?" "Your secret's safe with me," I said. "Now. Story." "Three, three and a half years ago, the boys - Clarence and Richard - decided they wanted to do something with their lives," said Mr. C. "The two of them." "They were always so close!" interrupted Mrs. C., proudly. "They finished each other's sentences. Sometimes, I knew that they were thinking the exact same thing. They had a strong bond, a special connection. It always thrilled me. What a wonderful mystery about my boys!" "Yes, well..." said Mr. C., face turning vermilion in, one presumed, embarrassment at his wife's untoward outburst. "So," I resumed, "they weren't doing anything with their lives?" "No. Not really. My wife and I...well, I'm afraid we coddled the boys their whole lives. Our only children. They wanted for nothing. Didn't have to work. We gave them sizeable allowances which they frittered away. "But suddenly they decided they wanted to work. Naturally, being Claytons, they could hardly apply for an entry-level job." "Naturally," I said. "So they decided to go into business for themselves. They wanted to start a brokerage house. But they needed start-up funds. Which Mrs. Clayton and I provided in the form of a loan to be paid back when they could afford it." "How much?" "Half a million dollars," he said. "How philanthropical," I said. "What happened?" "In plain and simple terms, they bungled it. They knew nothing about business. They made poor investments and bad loans. They purchased nose-diving stocks. They could barely keep a simple ledger." "You didn't help them?" I asked. "Or hire someone to help them?" "They refused all offers of assistance. They wanted to prove they could do it themselves. Without help from their rich parents." "Except for the half-million," I said. "Except for that," he acknowledged. "So they're tied to the railroad tracks and the train's coming," I said. "You didn't help them then?" "In terms of your vivid metaphor, we didn't know the train was coming. They never told us. They lost every last penny." "And?" I asked. "And...they decided to..." faltered Mrs. C. "Kill themselves," finished Mr. C.

CHAPTER 47

"A double suicide," I said. "Yes." "How?" I asked. "They acquired pistols. Each would point the pistol at the other's head. They would pull the triggers at the count of three. Clarence fired." "And Richard didn't," I said. "Richard said he just couldn't do it. Afterwards, he was distraught," said Mrs. C. "We were overwhelmed. And had... mixed emotions toward Richard. He himself became extremely agitated, filled with guilt and self-hatred. He got worse and worse. Not coming home for weeks at a time." "We took him to the best psychiatrists money could..." said Mr. C. "Buy," I finished. "They couldn't help him," said Mrs. C. "He began saying he was dead. Literally dead. Finally, one doctor said he had..." "Cotard's Delusion," I again finished the sentence for them. "How did you know?" asked Mrs. C. "I had him see a psychiatrist of my acquaintance," I said. "But why did he go to see you?" asked Mr. C. "He said he was dead. Murdered," I said. "And he wanted me to find his killer. Who, I now find out, is himself." "The last psychiatrist said he hated himself for killing Clarence," said Mr. C. "At the same time, he wished he could take Clarence's place. Among the dead." "The result being he believes himself dead," I said. "So much so that he actually asked me to find his murderer. What would your shrinks say if they knew he was looking for his own murderer? Who is in fact himself." "I don't know," said Mr. C. "I can't imagine it's a good thing. In fact, if he were forced to accept the truth, he might..." "Yes. He might," I said. "But as a point of professional curiosity. How did you keep this out of the papers?" "When you're a man of my standing in the community," said Mr. C., "you have many friends." "Interlocking boards of directors," I said. "Friend of the Chief of Police. Who perhaps owes you a little favor?" "Yes, yes, all of that," said Mr. C. "How was Clarence's body disposed of?" I asked. "Damn your impudence!" said Mr. C. "What difference does it make now?" "You don't want to tell me," I said. "No, I don't," he said. "But what about Richard?" "What about him?" "As I said, we haven't seen him in months. Although we know he comes in when we're not here," said Mrs. C. "Naturally, he has his own key." "Naturally," I said. "But you saw him, you said, this morning?" Mr. C. asked. "I've talked with him three times in the last five days," I said. "What can be done?" asked Mr. C. "We don't want him arrested for murder." "Even though," I said, "that's what he committed." "But what purpose would it serve?" asked Mrs. C. "Justice?" I asked. Rhetorically, as it turned out. "But surely you now realize he's mentally ill," said Mrs. C. "He is now," I said. "But was he when he killed Clarence?" "I'm sure he was," said Mrs. C. "I'm not so sure," I said. "Nobody can be sure," Mr. C. said. "These questions are meant to be answered by twelve ordinary citizens," I said. "A trial by jury?" Mr. C. said, aghast. "Ordinary people couldn't possible understand my boy," said Mrs. C. "What do you want to see happen?" I asked. "If we can find him and persuade him," said Mr. C., "I'm sure a stay at McLean's would help him." "McLean's Hospital," I said. "Legendary mental institution for celebrities. And the wealthy." "As you can see," said Mr. C. "We're not without means." Imposing," I said, glancing around. "Was he paying you?" asked Mr. C. "No," I said. "I was doing it more or less pro bono." "Why?" asked Mr. C., genuinely puzzled. "Pro bono publico," I shrugged. "For the public good." "Commendable," said Mr. C. "But I have a proposition." "Which is?" I asked. "If you discover Richard's hiding place so that I can...retrieve him and...talk to him, I'll pay you $100,000." I sighed. Parents of runaways always thought that if they could just talk to their children, then all would be well. I knew from experience that that approach seldom worked. Because they usually didn't talk to their kids, but talked at them. Which was part of the reason they ran away in the first place. Additionally, rich parents thought they could somehow buy their children's love and trust. "One hundred grand?" I said in my The Good, the Bad and the Ugly voice. "A tidy sum." "It's all yours if you can find Richard and bring him to us," said Mr. C. "Hell, the half-million we gave to the boys was originally earmarked for an in-home theatre. Twelve custom-made armchairs. With individual controls for massage and warmth. A Runco projector. Huge screen." "A private screening room," I said. "Everything money can buy." "The latest and greatest," boasted Mr. C. "What about justice?" I asked. "I don't follow," said Mr. C. "Richard killed Clarence," I stated. "Yes?" he said. "You didn't inform the authorities." "No." "Why not?" "The damage was done," said Mr. C. "Clarence was dead. The police couldn't bring him back to life." "But what about justice?" I asked. "For poor Clarence?" asked Mrs. C. "What good would it do to have Richard imprisoned?" "For one thing," I said, "he wouldn't be able to murder anyone else." "Murder?" said Mrs. C., shocked. "You call this impetuous act...murder?" "Surely that's too harsh a word," added Mr. C. "I think not," I said, "and, in prison, he wouldn't be able to murder anyone else." "Except in prison," said Mr. C., "he'd be more likely to be murdered." "So that's all?" I asked. "You've talked to him," pleaded Mrs. C. "Wouldn't you say he's highly unlikely to kill anyone?" "No." "Really, Mr. Castille," said Mr. C., exasperated. "This was one of those tragic incidents that occur on occasion in families." "Even in the best-regulated families, eh?" I said. "Yes. And you've seen how severely he punishes himself for the...incident." "The murder," I said. "Yes." "More of an accident," said Mrs. C. "I'll write a check for a retainer fee right now," said Mr. C. "Ten thousand? Twenty?" "Close your checkbook," I said. "If I see him again and if I can find out where he hides or if I can persuade him to turn himself in to the authorities, then you can pay me what you think it's worth." "Authorities?" said Mr. C., rising from his chair in righteous anger. "As an officer of the court, I have an obligation to report crimes..." Just then, Tom and Jerry - Guardians of the Outer Perimeter, Watchers on the Wall, Sentries on the Street - burst into the room. "Sorry, Mr. Clayton," said Jerry. "But he somehow got past us." "So I see," said Mr. C. drily. "Want us to throw him out?" Mr. C. looked at me: "Do we have an agreement?" "My agreement," I said. "Not yours." "Castille," he ostentatiously read from my business card. "Office in the Textile Building, 99 Chauncey Street, Boston. If you do anything to hurt Richard, I promise you that your life won't be worth living." "Sounds unpleasant," I said, mildly. "Yes, I know the Chief of Police," he said angrily. "And I'm on plenty of boards of directors. And I'm a member of The Country Club. From which, both the governor and Norman Martin, the billionaire, were denied membership." "Upstart parvenues?" I asked blandly. "Nouveaux riches?" "So, yes," he said, ignoring my question. "I know the people who know the people who can cause you great harm." "Wow," I said. "That's the most genteel threat I've ever heard." "Take my advice, Castille," menaced Mr. C. "Don't do anything that causes my boy to be incarcerated." "Take my advice," I said. "When in public places, don't carry your umbrella or cane horizontally. This trick in a crowd is a most annoying one to the victims." "How dare you?" he demanded, with a red-faced scowl. "By all means, throw him out!" "I'll leave under my own power," I said. Tom and Jerry looked at Mr. Clayton who nodded. They approached me. "Remember the little tussle we had, boys?" I said. "I'm sure you don't want to be humiliated in front of your employers." They hesitated and Jerry said to Mr. C.: "I think it'll be all right, sir, if he leaves on his own." "Just as long as he gets out of my sight," said Mr. C. with disgust. "And don't forget what I said, Castille." I walked past Tom and Jerry as well as the hovering doorman. "Carry on, Jeeves," I said to him in my Norman Conquest voice. "Stiff upper lip. And all that rot."

CHAPTER 48

Later, after dark, I went to the Hot Spot. Word that The Combat Zone Stalker no longer prowled the Zone must have spread. Fast. Chinatown Crossing had returned to its usual surreality sandwich of a meaty bazaar between slices of Saturnalia and Bacchanalia. Into the Hot Spot which was jumping, filled with fresh faces. Into the backroom which was sullen. Cleo was subdued as she reclined her royal self on the royal divan. Her entourage, hangers-on and supplicants were not making merry, high on life, as usual. Cleo was no longer decked out like her idea of a Hollywood Queen Cleopatra, but back to her silver sequined gown. The Nantucket Lightship Basket was beside her. Her head fell listlessly and her arms languidly. "What ails the queen?" I asked. "I tired," she said. "Of?" "Everything." "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown," I said. "Sho nuff true. My head uneasy, my stomach upset, my brain feel drained." "Because of God?" "Look like my life be a series of wars for the Zone. All I kin see when I look into the future," she said. "I feel so tired." "You need a vacation," I offered. "Ain't it the truth?" she said. "But I ain't here? Which of these monkeys run the show?" "You gotta know I can," volunteered Laughing Death with face-stretching grin. "See what I mean?" Cleo said directly to me. "Think I can't?" asked Laughing Death, offended. Jesus! The mysterious basket moved! At least, I think it moved. Happened in the blink of an eye. What's in there? "Sure you can..." soothed Cleo, looking weak as water, worn to a shadow, weary unto death. "Cleo," I said, "do you feel all right? ER's a chess knight move of two plus one block away." "I got a announcement to make," she said, straightening up to a full sitting position. Everyone stirred. Some muttered to each other. Laughing Death frowned, caught uninformed and off-guard. "What is it," I asked, "your royal high-and-mightyness?" "Castille, prepare yo' mind," she said. "Mentally." "For what?" "For what I'ma gonna say." "Say," I said. She pulled herself still more upright. The crowd quieted. She spoke: "I, Queen Cleo, sovereign ruler of this here Combat Zone, which I inherits fair and square from my pappy, King Pimp, hereby do abdicate." Shock rippled through the courtiers. "That's...what?" I said. "You abdicate?" "Knew that gets you," Cleo said, smiling. "Right inna labonza," I acknowledged. "Reason?" "Reason? Sick and tired of it all be reason." "Reason enough, I'm sure," I said. "But why now? Anything happen?" "Jess the usual booshit. And I so tired." "Any heir apparent?" I asked. "Air which?" "Designated successor. Who do you pick to take your place?" "You want it?" she asked. "Not in a million Brazilian years." "Wondered whud you say." "I'd just as soon burn down the whole Zone," I said. "That an idea." "Just fantasizing," I said, thinking of Mr. X. "We don't want to be up on arson charges. And probably manslaughter. So who's going to take over? Wait. Don't tell me this diabolical God character got to you." "He one persuasive motherfucker, grant him that. But no. Jess so tired. Alluz looking over my shoulder. Alluz some gunslinger tryna take my place. No fun." "What will you do?" I asked. "Get out from away from Zone," she said. "Pull a ghost." "Just like that?" "Jess like that," she said, snapping her fingers. "As Queen Cleo or Sister Flukie?" "As Keisha Randolph." "Don't tell me," I said. "Your square handle?" "Fo' a whiteboy, you catch on quick." "That the family name? Including King Pimp, Crazy F and Maria the Prophet?" "Uh huh," she said. "Speaking of whom, have you talked this over with Maria?" "My mammy. Spit me outa her hole. Raise me in hell. Then change herself into a new person. Maybe I kin do the same." "Gee, that's swell," I said. "But answer the question." "What question?" "Have you talked this over with her?" "I talks with her," Cleo said. "What did she say?" "Say, 'mysteries of the city are many.'" "She always says that," I said. "What did she say about your abdication?" "She say I a free woman. Do what I think best." "Words of wisdom," I said. "So. You're really serious?" "Serious as double-barrelled high cotton," she said. "Tomorrow I ain't be here." "Don't forget to write." "You a funny white dude. And you try to help me. Alluz 'member you for that. I miss you." "And I you," I said. "'Member first time we meet?" "King Pimp using you for a foot stool." "And King - my own pappy - he make me offer you my, uh, services," she said. "And I said that wasn't necessary." "Alluz 'preciate you don't take 'vantage of me. Most mens would. I wonder. He a for-real nice guy? Or he got a evil scheme up his sleeve?" "Nothing up my sleeve," I said. "I abdicate my throne. And so..." she said, lifting the lid of the basket and plunging her hand and forearm inside "...I die." She winced and fell back on the divan, eyes closed.

CHAPTER 49

The place popped chaotic. What was inside the basket? Then I saw: a small black snake. My God, she had decided to die in the same way as her legendary namesake, Cleopatra, last of the Egyptian pharaohs. Poisonous snakebite. In that long elastic second, I thought in my Sherlock Holmes voice: 'Poison. A woman's weapon.' Everyone stood frozen with disbelief and horror as the snake revealed itself, slithering out of the basket and down Cleo's body. I rushed up the steps and kicked the snake away. "Kill it," I ordered nobody in particular. Her two bodyguards fired at it with their Uzi's, cutting the serpent into ribbons. Should I? Yes. I put my lips on the two small punctures on her forearm and sucked. Vile-tasting liquid entered my mouth. I quickly spat it out. "Glass of water!" I shouted. Again I sucked; again I spat. After several such sucks, Cleo opened her eyes and looked around as if dazed. "What y'all doin' here?" she asked, confused. I gripped her hand and rubbed it with both of mine. "Ain't I in heaven?" she asked. "Or hell?" "Neither," I said. "Where's that water?" A glass of clear liquid was handed to me. I drank a mouthful, swirled it around and spat it out. One hoped one had sucked all the poison out of Cleo and spat all the poison out of onself. "Castille," she said, starting to focus. "Whatchoo doin'?" "Nothing much," I said. "Just saving your life." "Didn't axe you save my life!" she said, exasperated. She was her old self. "Why you do that?" "Reflex," I shrugged. "Was that actually an Egyptian cobra?" "Damn right. Cost a pretty penny. Snuck it into the country from Egyptalonia." "You're going to the hospital." "Nuh uh. No hospitals, no doctors, no medicines," she said. "I wanna die like a queen." "It is entirely right..." I said, quoting the legendary words supposedly said by the original Cleopatra as she died. "...and fitting for a queen descended from a king." "Damn right," she fumed. "If you hadna interfered. You, Budge and Snudge, shoot me." Her mute muscled bodyguards frowned, looked at each other and then shook their heads 'no.' "Laughing Death!" she commanded. "I know you kin do it! Kill me!" "Sure," he laughed, pulling out his handgun. I had my Berreta out facing him. "You heard Queen Cleo," said Laughing Death. "Jess following orders." "Like the Nazis," I said. "Stand down." "Kill me!" ordered Cleo. "Bloods!" I looked at the two bodyguards. They both pointed their Uzi's at Laughing Death. Compared to the Uzi's, L.D.'s gun was a peashooter. He slowly holstered it. "Didn't someone call for an ambulance?" I asked. Apparently not. "No!" said Cleo. "You have to go to the ER," I said. "Never in no ambulamce." "You seem stronger." "I is stronger," she said. "Then let's go. I'll walk over with you." "Gotsta get outa here. The smoke and drank and dope. Gotsta clear my head." "Let's go," I said, gripping her hand. "You and me." "You is a gennulman," she responded, standing up. To the astonished looks of the hangers-on, we walked into the bar, in full savage swing. Then out the door into the cool clear night. LaGrange Street full of raucous revelers. The Zone version of Lent: no Ash Wednesday, no penitence, no fasting; instead, forty Fat Tuesdays. Growing up, we Catholics were suppose to give up 'small pleasures' during Lent. I 'tried to' give up sweets. We crossed the street and walked through the parking lot of Jacob Wirth's to Kneeland Street. "How do you feel?" I asked. "Fine," she said. "But I still abdicating. Cain't take no more. Ain't like my pappy. Or mammy." "What will you do?" I asked, steering her toward Boston Hospital's ER. "Gots some money. Go way somewheres they don't know me. Start a new life. Sorry, Castille." "You don't have to be sorry to me." "But you alluz help us," said Cleo. "Why's that, anyway?" "You and King always seemed the least of two or three evils." She laughed. "I touched. So now you try and take over Zone?" "I'm as sick of it as you are," I said. "Once you're safely out of the city, I hope I never step foot in the Zone again." "Let all the knuckleheads fight over it. Kill each other." Waiting to cross Kneeland. Cars didn't stop for red lights. So no sense in going to a faded crosswalk and pushing a big round metal button to change the lights. Out of a gold Cadillac, a light sparkled, a muzzle blasted. Cleopatra said "Uh," and dropped to the concrete. The car was already a block away. I dropped to one knee. A red splotch on her gown. Blood poured from her heart. A perfect killshot. We both knew who did it. Cleo, agonized, looked in my eyes, gripped my hand and said: "God kill me. You kill God." Her grip loosened and her hand fell lifeless onto the unpitying concrete. Her eyes stared rigid and uncomprehending toward the stars. At least at those not made invisible by the city's light-pollution. People stopped to ogle the spectacle. A woman gunned down on the sidewalk of a major street in a big city. Just across the street, one of the biggest agglomerations of medical knowledge, equipment and personnel in the whole world. And yet she couldn't get across the street. I gently shut Cleo's eyes and murmured: "I wish you blessing on your final journey." Sirens approached. In my ears, I heard: 'You kill God.'

CHAPTER 50

I waited with Cleo's bleeding body; a cop car and an ambulance screamed toward us and screeched to a stop. Two cops slowly got out. Two EMT's leaped out and examined Cleo. She was daughter to the late unlamented psycho King Pimp. She had grown up in the weird, violent, sexified King Pimp crazyland. She knew nothing else. Taking that into consideration, she wasn't as hard-core sadistic lunatical as her father. In fact, her abdication of the Combat Zone throne showed that she still had part of a good heart left. Plus, I had, despite myself, come to like her. A woman in a violent man's world, she had done her best. The two EMTs looked up. "Dead at the scene," said one. "GSW." "Against the law to transport a corpse in an ambulance," said the other, looking at the two cops. One black, one white. "Awright," the black cop said. "We'll call the meat wagon. Take her to the police morgue." One EMT produced a white sheet with which he covered Cleo's - Keisha Randolph's - body from head to toe. They packed up, got back in the ambulance and pulled away. Just me. And the two cops. Who didn't look too happy about catching a murder case. "What happened?" the white cop asked me. "I was helping her to Boston Hospital ER," I said. "Car drove by, opened fire, hit her." "Who is she?" How to answer? "Her adopted name was Queen Cleopatra," I said. "Or Cleo, for short." "Sure. And I'm Alexander the Great," said the black cop. "What's her real name?" "I only knew her as Sister Flukie," I said. "Sure. But who was she?" "Daughter of King Pimp," I said. "After he was killed, she became ruler of the Combat Zone." They looked startled. "You remember King Pimp, don't you?" I asked. "Never heard of him," the black cop said. "No? Pity," I said. "He made generous contributions to the Police Benevolent Association. You know. The Widows and Orphans Fund." They looked confused. Of course, they knew King Pimp. Every cop who worked downtown knew him. And profited from him. They almost certainly knew Sister Flukie, too, as she had continued her father's philanthropic altruism. "How did you know her?" the white cop asked me. "Just a friend," I said. "And admirer of her generous donations to the brotherhood of humanity and the motherhood of the great goddess." He squinted at me. Like I was a worm on his dinner plate. "And I don't suppose you know who might have killed her," he asked. "Oh, but I do," I said. "Who?" he asked. "God," I said. "God? You mean like in insurance contracts?" asked the black cop. "They don't pay out if it's an act of God?" "Not that God," I said. "How many others are there?" "One more," I said. "The character who runs an all-night dope mill in the Hillside Haven project. Heaven. I suppose you never heard of him, either." "Can't say as I have," he said. "Funny, I said. "Because he, like King Pimp and Queen Cleo, is noted for his high-hearted bestowal of largesse upon police charities." "Look, Castille," the white cop said, like a Dutch uncle. "Yeah, I know who you are. You got a P.I. license. Got a gun permit. Why not forget the whole thing?" "Why not arrest God?" I asked angrily. "He's not only the city's biggest dope peddler, terrorizing the whole community, but he's trying to take over the Combat Zone to expand his territory. And, last but certainly not least, he or henchmen under his orders just murdered the poor woman at our feet." "All right, Castille. Off come the gloves," said the black cop. "Now we talk straight." "How refreshing," I said. "Please do." "Of course we know all this," he said. "And if one maggot kills another? Fine by us." "Except the loss of alms," I said. "LVKV," said the white cop. "What?" I asked. "Let the Vermin Kill the Vermin." "But they break every law of God and man," I said. "The real God." "The word from the mayor's office is to leave the vermin to their own devices. That includes Heaven, the Combat Zone, Little Hell, the City of the Dead and other infestations." "And LVKV," I said. "Exactly," continued the white cop. "Don't waste taxpayer money on them. If the lice, the cockroaches, the pests and parasites want to put themselves in a bucket and fight, we say 'Let the worst maggot win!'" "You want the worst to win?" "They don't really win," he said. "Their life span is brief. Once they're King of the Hill, other creepy-crawlies attack them." "I'm learning a lot about law enforcement or lack thereof in this brief conversation." "A teachable moment," the black cop said. "And, as for loss of alms, the next maggot in line will continue paying us." "We should take you in for questioning," the white cop said. "Accessory to murder." "Good one." "But you've got a big mouth," he said. "Certain things don't have to be heard by certain people." "You mean some cops aren't on the take?" I asked innocently. He quick-punched me in the mouth. "Don't think you wanna be knockin' knuckles with me, boy," he said. "Hit a raw nerve, did I?" I asked, wiping away blood with the back of my hand. Occupational hazard. "Or," the white cop said, ignoring my question, "we could take you into an alley and give you a good beating." "With liberty and justice for all," I said. "Two cops with batons against defenseless little ole me." He continued ignoring my words. "But we're gonna let you go," he said. "Just walk away and forget everything you said. Everything you think you know. Then maybe you won't die, you know, young." "Your beneficense knows no bounds," I said. "May peace be upon you." "Go. Now," the black cop said. "We'll stay with the body." A tactical retreat was advisable. "Farewell, centurions," I said. I turned and walked away. Fast. Before these two pieces of lard changed their puny brains. But as a good Catholic lad, it was my Christian duty to know God. Heaven, here I come.

CHAPTER 51

Next day was Palm Sunday. But the four-chambered heart of downtown pumped seven days a week. Chinatown restaurants and other businesses. Theater District shows, clubs and bars. Medical District doctors, nurses and patients. Combat Zone joints. As I sat in my office, a young black man strutted in. Shaved head. Both ears - lobes and edges - pierced with a dozen metal rings. Black wife-beater revealing multi-color sleeve tattoos on both muscular arms. "You Castille?" he asked. "Who wants to know?" Good one, I told myself. "Laughing Death say fly a kite to Castille. Big-time white P.I. Guess you him, huh?" "You got me. And what, pray tell, is your name?" "Rock Candy," he said. "Because you're hard but sweet," I hazarded a guess. "You know it. I a ghetto fabu-legend. Fight go down? I there. I a rock. Got diesel ninja moves. Ain't running no reels on ya." "And sweet?" "You got to know I'm candy to all the wimmins," he said. "From scoopin' up superdope models on the catwalk to meetin' hard-heart hoochies out on the skreet." "I predict you will go far." "Here," he pulled a small plastic bag - garish yellow and red - out of his pocket. "Have some sugar babies." He poured a half-dozen of the brown-bean looking candies on my desk. "Give 'em out wherev I go. So evvabody 'member me and sweets go together." "What does Laughing Death want?" "He new King of the Zone," he said. "Wanna have a sit-down whichoo tonight at..." "...at the stroke of midnight in the back room in the Hot Spot." "How you know?" he asked. "Lucky guess. Did L.D. buy himself a stage-prop crown from Boston Costume yet?" "Don't be dissing the new king. He don't take kindly to bein' dissed, Ah speck." "I expect you're right," I said.

CHAPTER 52

"Oh no, Castille!" said Shoshana. We sat in the back office of her cabaret, The Open Gate. Which used to be The Tunnel stripjoint, owner and sole proprietor having been one Theophilus Q. Rat. May God roast his soul. "Sho, it's no big deal," I said. "So you have a trapdoor in your office here that leads down to the underworld." "No big deal to you," she said. "I'm the one who has to live with it every day and night. Gives me the creeps. Someday a ghostie or ghoulie or long-legged beastie will emerge and tear me limb from limb. I'll be the last one in the club so nobody will hear my anguished cries for help. The next morning, all that's left of me is a puddle of precious bodily fluids." "How charmingly cinematic," I said. "'Precious bodily fluids.' General Jack D. Ripper in Doctor Strangelove." "You're not the only one who knows their movies," she said. "But I've been tempted to board up that trapdoor so many times. Or have it filled with concrete." "Please. I beg of you. No. It's my only reliable entrance to the world beneath our feet. The subterranean deeps of which few have knowledge. The City Of The Dead." "Full of rapists, murderers, lunatics, cannibals, monsters, savage freakish mutants..." "I fear you've overstimulated your imagination." "Then who or what is down there?" "Exactly who you said." "What?" she stood up. "That tears it! I'm cementing the whole opening shut and impenetrable. Now get out!" "Shoshana, I exaggerate," I said soothingly. "Has anyone ever come up through the trapdoor under this rug?" "No." "Has anyone ever knocked?" I asked. "No." "Have you ever heard any strange noises from underneath?" "No." "So. No problem. But I do need to go down." "Why?" she asked. "A case." "What?" "Find a missing twin separated at birth," I said. "Sisters." "Twin sisters? Never seen each other? Oh, that's so sad." "Ain't it though? That's why I want to find the missing twin and re-unite the sisters." "And she's down there?" she asked. "I have reason to think so." "Let me mull a bit." "By all means," I said. "Mull to your heart's content." "Before I mull, let me ask you a question. Can you do something about Trixie?" "A spot of rust on the hinges of the swinging Open Gate?" "I had to let her go," she said. "A meshuggnitzkeh, that one. Should see a crazy-doctor." "I take it that she continued to backslide into religion." "Instead of waiting on the patrons during an act, she'd stand on a chair - sometimes a table - and start preaching!" "A more unseemly spectacle, I can't imagine," I said. "Even her parents can't imagine. They call me. Beg me to hire Trixie back. When I say no, they plead with me to get her a striptease job somewhere in the Zone!" I laughed. "It's not funny!" Shoshana protested. "Nobody - and I mean nobody - in a nightclub, watching the show, gulping down drinks, wants to hear a scatter-brain sermon from a feather-brain floozie about repenting because the world will end soon!" "What time will it end?" I asked, looking at my watch. "You're a riot, Castille," she said. "If you see her, talk some sense into her." "Might be too late. She's a true believer." "Just try. All I ask. Even after I fired her, she shows up at all hours and starts her harangue." "Have the bouncer remove her," I said. She said nothing. "You do have a bouncer," I said. "No," she reluctantly admitted. "Shoshana, dear sweet innocent one. What about getting Tappy back for security?" "As I told you, I let him go," she said. "Besides, Theo's back now behind the bar. He can handle any little disagreements with the patrons." "Can he handle Trixie?" "Nobody can," she said. "Except maybe you." "And what about big disagreements between you and, say, robbers at the end of the night? Who want the evening's take?" "I'll be all right," she said. "I'm in the Theatre District. Not in the Zone." "Based on my vast experience in such matters," I said, "Some night, when you least expect it, someone will put a gun in your face." She said nothing. Hopeless case. Switch the subject. I presumed her subconscious still mulled. "So. Who took Trixie's place? And who's still here?" "This you're not going to believe, bubuleh," she said, enthused and eager to change the subject. "Try me," I said. "Regular Monique and Monique Called Sleek are still here. And," she laughed, "Trixie's replacement is also named Monique. They call her Monique the Unique Freak." "You're right," I laughed. "I don't believe it. Who else?" "As I said, Theo. And your protege, Shirley Ujest." "Still hilarious?" "Eh," she shrugged. "To you, she's a comedian. To me, she a comedian. But tell me. To comedians, is she a comedian?" "You have to cultivate her talent," I said. "You're an impresario now. Nurture her. Bring her along." "Oi Vey!" "So. Have you mulled enough?" "I suppose I owe you one," she said. "You make the Combat Zone overlords leave me alone. And not pay so-called Zone Tax." "I reasoned with Laughing Death, the new Zone czar," I explained. "Using algebraic geometrical logic with just a pinch of Newtonian calculus." "My mathematical hero." "I convinced him that - though physically in the Zone - you're conceptually in the Theatre District." "Just as I've said all along," said Shoshana, satisfied. "Actually," I said. "He owed me a favor." "You jerk! I don't want it as a favor! I want it because..." "Because it's truth and justice and the American way. Just be thankful you've got an exemption at all. Laughing Death's idea of math is trigger-nometry." "Whatev," she sighed. "Just as long as no creeps waltz in for the purpose of extortion." "And now," I said. "The grand unveiling." I got out of my chair and rolled up the rug, opening the trapdoor using its circular steel ring as a handle. An ill wind blew from below. The smell of the underground, the underworld, the abysmal depths underneath the urgent spectacle of the urban sprawl. "You nudnik, Castille," she wrinkled her nose. "You're going down there?" "A job's a job." "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do," she said, sarcastically. "Ya don't get lard less'n ya boil a hog," I said in my John Wayne voice. I peered down into the darkness, around the cylinder of light from the office. No Match Cut or Power of Ten, my usual guides. Did I think they hung around there, just waiting for me to drop in? At least, the ladder remained. "Just one question, Orpheus," Shoshana said. "Are you coming up this way? Or some other way? Assuming you return at all." "I don't know," I said, a chill of realization crawling up my spine like a centipede. "I'm going down." "So go already," said Shoshana. "Am I stopping you?" I slowly climbed down the rusty ladder into the clammy darkness. I hadn't yet turned on my industrial-strength flashlight. "Be careful, Castille!" Shoshana shouted down as if we were separated by a city block rather than ten feet. "I have a bad feeling about this!" So didn't I. But I said: "I'll be all right. If I find my way back, I'll knock on the trapdoor." "And scare me out of my wits!" she said. "I'll knock shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits," I said. "The Bo Diddley beat." She slammed the trapdoor. I was alive - for the moment - in the City Of The Dead.

CHAPTER 53

Before I turned on the flashlight, I stood stock still to sense what I could in the dark. My skin felt the sweaty, sticky, slabby air. My ears heard strange, distant, daunting sounds. Muffled roaring, eerie metallic banging, weird whispered hissing. My nose smelled an odd concoction of piercing pungency and smirking scent of decay. Like after-shave lotion for a cave-dwelling Cyclops. I even tasted this taint on my tongue. My eyes squinted at the solid wall of somber dark. Kaleidoscopic shadowy forms seemed to appear and disappear. Like rubbing your closed eyes and seeing spectral back-of-the-eyelid images. My shoulders suddenly convulsed as if a ghost had breathed on me. I turned on my flashlight. The beam peered into the gloom, revealing a blizzard of dust-motes. Bleeding creepy, make no mistake. I reminded myself I was down in this hell looking for La La, Ya Ya's twin sister. I repeated in my mind, 'It's just a job.' Good thing I had a photo of Ya Ya. As identical twins, they should look alike. But time's fell chisel can cut curious lines into one's face. I walked forward. Slowly. After ten paces, I turned and shone the light behind me. No matter which angle, I saw no ladder. It had been swallowed whole by the somber gloom. I started having second thoughts about the mission. Castille Milquetoast, Timid Soul. Suddenly, a voice spoke and I nearly jumped out of my brain. "Seen any good movies lately?" I swung the light in the direction of the voice. "Match Cut!" I said, with relief beyond belief. Even seeing his ruined face that he dared not show aboveground. Red raw corrugated skin from sulfuric acid thrown by Blackie Driscoll, leader of the Irish Mafia in South Boston. Blackie, as far as I knew, still hiding from the FBI in his beloved Ireland. "On set," Match Cut said. "Where's your A.D.?" I asked. "Assistant Director Power of Ten is scouting locations," he said. "How are the Bruins doing upstairs?" "Last night, knocked out of the first round of the playofffs." "Bums!" he said. "Celtics?" "Up three oh," I said. "If they win today, they'll advance to the Conference Finals." "I always say: put your faith in the Celts," he said. "Anyway, what brings you to this back lot?" "Looking for a missing girl..." I started. He interrupted me in his movie trailer voice: "Then you've come to the right place! The Subterranean City Of Lost Women!! But beware!!! They turned a forbidden paradise into a raging hell!!!" "Yes, of course," I said mildly, showing Match Cut a photo of Ya Ya. "Her identical twin sister. Seen her?" He studied the photo. "No," he said. "but that doesn't mean she's not down here." "Can you give me the tour of the different studios?" "Maybe. Maybe not. Riddle me true. And then I'll help you. Name three movie stars who directed one - and only one - movie. And their titles." I was about to tell him to knock it off, that this was serious. Then I remembered that Match Cut and Power of Ten took movies seriously. Very seriously. My correct answers to their questions about films were passwords that allowed me to continue. So far, I'd always answered correctly. What would happen if I answered incorrectly? I concentrated. "Three?" I asked, stalling. "You heard me," Match Cut said, a ghastly glare on his devastated face. I realized he really might not help me if I didn't answer his riddle. Without his guidance, I'd be lost, doomed, destroyed. I gulped. Wetter sweat poured from my forehead. Anxiety lightninged through my body. "Well?" demanded Match Cut. "Charles Laughton," I said. "Night of the Hunter. With Robert Mitchum." "Easy one," he sneered. He was right. It was an easy one. If you only knew one film directed by a movie star, this was it. Now what others? Think. No. Don't think. Let it come. I thought of the black 8-balls we played with as kids. You let it alone and an answer floated to the top. The subconscious was like that. I knew a yoga teacher who addressed her subconscious as Subby. I felt Match Cut's ambivalent presence. Malovelent? Benevolent? Depended on me. My answer. What? Another example well-known to cinephiles like myself floated up. "Marlon Brando," I said. "One-Eyed Jacks. A western starring himself." "The fool took over after Stanley Kubrick was fired," he snarled. "Everybody knows those two movies. Now, the hard one. What else?" There were more than three answers. But only my first two answers were known by every movie-lover. I did believe this bastard - a resident of The City of the Dead - wasn't going to help me if I didn't get a third movie. "Didn't one of those gangster movie stars direct a movie?" I asked. "You tell me." "Edward G. No! Jimmy Cagney!" "What movie?" he asked. "Give me a hint," I said. "No." Movie molecules bounced around my brain. What the hell was the name of that movie? What the hell was the name? What the hell...? "Shortcut To Hell!" I said. "Yes," he said, sounding disappointed. He seemed changed since the last time I saw him. Less friendly. But living underground, never seeing the sun, never breathing fresh air no doubt altered one. For the worse. Still, a wave of easement billowed through my body. "So." he said. "Where do you want to look for this girl first?" "Good question," I said.

CHAPTER 54

"Watch thy head," cautioned Match Cut as he turned off the tunnel we'd been traversing into a much lower tunnel. "Thy?" I asked, following his lead. I had to crouch-step to walk. "Power of Ten and I picked up the phrase from the tunnels under the North End," he laughed, leading the way. "The ones that go back to Colonial times actually have signs like that." "The North End has tunnels?" "Joking? I don't know what keeps the buildings in the North End from collapsing into the welter of underground tunnels. For example, under the Old North Church..." "'One if by land; two if by sea,'" I interrupted, my thighs tiring from the Chuck Berry duck-walking. "Boston's oldest church," said Match Cut, who seemed to have no problem moving. "Built in 1720's. Two lanterns in the bell-tower signaled Paul Revere that the British were going to attack Lexington and Concord by water. Start of the Revolution." "In school, we had to memorize the whole poem 'The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.' I think I can still recite it by heart." "Don't," said Match Cut. "Watch thy head. Roof getting lower." "I'll say," I said, squatting even lower while still walking. My thighs ached. "What kind of tunnel is this?" "Not exactly a tunnel," he said. "A cross-passage between tunnels. Short cut, if you will." "Short cut to Hell?" "Be all right. Just keep moving. Follow me." The first faint flutters of claustrophobia brushed my psyche. "Anyway," said Match Cut, probably to distract me from thoughts of subterranean suffocation. "The first tunnels in the North End were dug in the 1600's to smuggle liquor to pirates off-shore to avoid British taxation." "You should conduct tours. Underground Boston. Make a fortune." My thighs were on fire; my back ached; my breathing came hard and heavy. If this cross-passage got any smaller, I might get stuck. What a way to die. Match Cut was about 5'8" but I was 6 feet. I felt more and more closed in. Match Cut suddenly stood up straight. I couldn't see above his belt-line. Finally. "Watch thy step," he laughed. I stood up. Slowly. And I thought I was in shape. My thighs and back hurt like hell. "Short cut, huh?" I asked, hobbling around. "Saved forty minutes." We were back in a human-sized tunnel. "Shh!" he suddenly cautioned. "Hear that?" I strained to hear anything beyond the odd, weird noises I'd heard since descending down the rabbit hole. Nothing. But Match Cut's senses were more finely tuned to these infernal deeps. He faced in one direction of the tunnel, the beam from his miner's hat lighting about fifteen feet of the damp, packed earth of the tunnel's walls and ceiling. "Footsteps," he said. I sensed his tightening up. I aimed my flashlight in the same direction as his light beam. I already stood in the ready posture. But I didn't bring my gun. Didn't think I'd need it. Mistake. Around the bend came a young couple, each holding a lantern. They wore t-shirts and blue jeans and thick, high, rubber boots covered with mud. They held hands, spoke, chuckled. Match Cut relaxed. "Cataphiles," he said. "Like caterpillars?" I asked. "Like cata from catacombs. Meaning 'down.'" "And phile meaning 'lover of?'" "You catch on quick." When they got close, smiling, they hailed us: "Watch thy head." "What are you doing down here?" I asked. "Anything we want," the guy said. "Rules and laws upstairs; freedom downstairs. Hell, we even met and married down here." "Met and married?" I asked, astonished. "We ran into each other, you know, exploring. Exchanged phone numbers by lantern light. After six months of exploring together down here, we exchanged vows in a chapel set up in one of the galleries." "Galleries?" I asked. "Room-sized openings off of tunnels," Match Cut explained. "Where did you honeymoon?" I asked. "Center of the earth?" "Would've if we could've," the woman laughed. "No. We went to the Caribbean." "Spent most of our time underwater," the guy laughed. "But we couldn't wait to get back underground. Watch thy heads!" "Watch thy heads!" said Match Cut, as they moved along.

CHAPTER 55

"Hear that?" Match Cut asked. I listened. In the distance: a pounding, piledriver rhythm. "They digging a new subway tunnel?" "Hardly," he laughed. "That's the Hive-Whacker." "Which is?" "Our next destination." "But what is it?" I insisted. "You'll see," he answered, cryptically. We followed the tunnel. The pounding sound swelled. Match Cut turned left into a suddenly revealed opening. I followed. The piledriver was the deep, insistent beat of electronic music. This huge gallery must have held two hundred people in their twenties dancing to the music. They were packed in so tight that they could only gyrate and shimmy in place. The whole gallery was imbued with eerie blue light. I was amazed. "A nightclub?" I yelled into Match Cut's ear. "Except it's not night!" he yelled back. I looked at my watch. 12:40 p.m. "Sunday afternoon?" I asked. "Twenty-four seven!" he said. "Think La La's in here?" I shouted. "Could be!" he yelled back. "But if not, there's someone who might know where she is!" "Who?" "She's one of those people who knows everybody!" "What's her name?" I yelled. "Don't know her square handle!" he said. "But down here she's known as Molly Cule!" "Cool?" "Cule! Short for 'molecule!' Hey! Think I see her!" He waved his hand high over his head. Above the sweating seethe of bodies, another hand rose in response. "Here she comes!" Match Cut assured me. "Wicked hot and hummid in he-ah," I said in my Down East Maine accent. "They don't even feel it! On the latest dance partying drug! Don't go in for it myself!" "Where do they get the electricity?" "Jack into underground Edison utility lines!" he said. "Good way to get electrocuted!" "Some have!" A young woman heaved up from the crowd, like a swimmer body-surfing ashore on a strongly-breaking wave. "Match Cut!" she screamed and hugged him. "This is Castille!" he introduced me. "Castille!" she shouted and threw her arms around me. She was high as a free-floating kite. From what new laboratory-created dangerous illegal drug, I didn't want to know. "Let's go outside!" Match Cut yelled. "Can't hear myself think!" "So who wants to hear themselves think?" said Molly, laughing raucously. With her short hair and short skirt, she reminded me of the 1920's flappers. Maybe, in the space of the tunnel, she'd break into the Charleston. We left the gallery and walked ten paces away. Mercifully, the volume dropped about thirty decibels. Molly was the proverbial bundle of energy, twitching and twisting. Face red with exertion and rouge and the drug du jour, her overly-wide mouth open whether she spoke or laughed or said nothing. "What's moving?" she asked, eyes wide and expectant. "Castille's looking for a missing girl," said Match Cut. "Here," I said, producing Ya Ya's photo. She furrowed her brow and pursed her wide, crimson lips. "This is actually her twin sister," I said. "Identical twin. I don't know what the missing sister looks exactly like now. But, being identical, she should have the same features." "Ain't seen her in the Hive-Whacker," said Molly. "Unh," I vocalized, disappointed. "But I've seen her," she said. My interest revived. "Where?" I asked. "Where?" she repeated. "Somewhere." "Take your time," I said. Though straining to be unleashed for the chase, I didn't want to rush her. "Yeah," she nodded in recognition. "Oh yeah. Definitely." "Where?" I asked. She handed the photo back to me and looked at Match Cut. "That fucking creep," she said. "You know." "Him?" Match Cut responded. "Who?" I asked. "Castille, perhaps a small gratuity is in order." "Yes, of course," I said, pulling from my pocket a twenty. "Satisfactory?" "Good enough," she shrugged. "Okay?" Match Cut nodded. She strode back to the gallery, shouting over her shoulder, "Watch thy head!" "For God's sake!" I said. "Who?" "Your old friend," said Match Cut. "The world-renowned rapist, sadist, peddler of flesh. Late of Bedlam, London. Doctor McGhoul."

CHAPTER 56

We spied on Dr. McGhoul's operation from fifty feet away. Half-hidden by a huge concrete pillar. He wheeled and dealed with words, spieling out strings of enticing sentences, from his stage to twenty-odd mole-men standing, staring. Spotlights with hijacked electricity still covered the stage in a sickish light. Same black curtain behind him with two openings. Same two exploitation posters on the stage as last time. "I see the Mad Doctor of Bedlam still plies his trade in blood dripping color!" I said in my deep movie-trailer voice. "One difference," said Match Cut. "Since his run-in with you, he's beefed up security on the set." "Beyond the Unholy Trinity?" "Two more thuggish cretins like enforcers in a 1950's black and white film noir." "Dare I ask their names?" I questioned. "Maul the Sledge and MacBrayer the Black." "Yeezus!" "Know them?" he asked. "Had a wee set-to with them." "Then they all know you. You can't get in. I take it the outcome of your set-to with Maul and MacBrayer was in your favor." "Decidedly," I said. "The whole fraternity of fiends will howl for my hide. Most distressing. So how do I get in?" "A dilemma," Match Cut acknowledged. "A veritable quandary," I said. "Of course, if somebody approached who they had no reason to suspect..." "Oh no." "I don't ask you to rescue La La. If indeed it's her. Just identify her. Using this photo. You don't even have to speak to her. Just ascertain if it's her. Then leave after the allotted time." "I try to stay away from the crazies," said Match Cut. "Especially the violent crazies. Like this bunch. Bad for the health." "You won't be doing anything suspicious. Just check her out and leave. McGhoul will be none the wiser." "I don't know." "I can't do it," I said. "And there's only the two of us. Good Lord, man! For the sake of all that's decent in this world, I beg you. I implore you. I beseech you." "I'd expect an additional gratuity," he said. "Goes without saying." "Then I'll do it," he said. The appeal to man's highest instincts works every time. "Good show!" I clapped him on the shoulder. "What was the price of admission? Twenty bucks?" "The good doctor has raised his rates," he said. "Medicaid doesn't reimburse like it used to. Thirty." "Shine your light down here. On my wallet," I said, pulling out two twenties and two tenspots; handed them to him. "Tonight we eat like kings!" he said, his ruined face cracking into a smile. "Does McGhoul know you?" "If he doesn't know me, he knows of me." "Why?" "My lovely face," he said. "But, still, you're from downstairs. So he won't suspect you." "Unless it is La La and you come in with guns blazing. Right after me." "I'll wait a day or two," I said. "In fact, looks like I'll need reinforcements." "Who?" "From upstairs. You don't know her." "Her?" he asked. "Yeah. Her." "Sure a woman can deal with these villains?" "You don't know her," I laughed. "What's her name?" he asked, intrigued. "Phoenix." "What's she like?" "A mix of Pam Grier and..." I started. "Which Pam Grier role?" he interrupted. "Coffy? Foxy? Sheba? Friday? Blossom? Mamawi?" "All of them," I said. "All of them? So. Mix of Pam Grier and...?" "Angela Mao." One of the Hong Kong martial arts films' greatest female fighters. "Wow!" Match said. "And, for good measure, a pinch of Artemis." "Who?" "The Romans called her Diana," I said. "Goddess of the Hunt." "She's a hunter?" "Not of animals. Men. Then she's pitiless. Woe betide the man who offends her." "I won't offend her," he said, as if I had accused him. "Introduce us?" "Sure. Now get in there," I said. "Tread softly. Let McGhoul talk you into it." "Against my better judgment." Despite lucrative recompense, he remained reluctant. "Today you do a good deed," I said, gently shoving him toward the McGhoul Medicine Show. "Go." "Rolling!" Match Cut announced. And so he slouched toward Bedlam. I watched as he walked the fifty feet, mingle with the mole-men, raise his hand to be singled out by McGhoul, step up on stage, hand over bills to the Mad Doctor and disappear behind the black curtain. The hairs on the back of my neck came to attention. Someone - or something - was near. "Who's that?" I asked in my whistling-past-the-graveyard voice. No answer. Was that the sound of breathing? "I know you're there," I said. "The mysteries of the city are many." "Maria the Prophet!" I said. "You should wear a bell." "Like a leper of old?" "No, of course not," I said, suddenly eager to please. "Only kidding. But someday you'll scare someone to death. Literally." "What do you want?" she asked. "Vanilla frappe would be good," I said. "You have no conception of how ill-timed and ill-placed your attempts at humor are." "Everyone tells me that," I said. "Why should you be an exception? You heard what happened? Upstairs?" "I've lost my family," she said. "Like you." "So, ah, what's new?" "Listen," she intoned. "And try to understand." "I'll try," I said. Now what? "I am Maria the Prophet. My lineage extends back through Maria Prophetess, Queen of Alchemy; through Miriam the Prophet, sister of Moses and Aaron; to Moira, the goddess of Fate, older than time itself, who spins the threads of human destiny. "I possess the mother-wit, the mad wisdom, the cunning cunt-magic. I cast the Mama's Curse. I am the witch-bitch who bites the little bird and the honey of money pours out. I am the spirit of night who stalks the darkness. I am a woe-woman whose words, wyrms of Wyrd, must be welcomed. "So heed!" My whole body trembled at the vault of her voice and the spire of her speech. "The world as we know it will cease to exist. Humanity will enter the unwanted age. Men will be beasts letting rivers of blood." "When?" I burst out. "Soon." "What can be done?" "Take care of your family," she said. "I have no family." "The mysteries of the city are many," she said. "Maria? Maria!" She was gone, dissolved in darkness. I pondered her terrible words. Match Cut emerged from behind the curtain. McGhoul slapped him on the back, propelling him off the stage. Soon I was talking with Match Cut. "It's her, all right," he said, handing back to me Ya Ya's photo. "What was the set-up?" I asked. I put Maria's prophecy out of my mind. For now. "Naked, spread-eagled on a bed, wrists and ankles tied to the four bedposts." "Did she have a muzzle over her face?" "Muzzle?" he puzzled. "No. Why?" "Nothing. What did she say when you showed her Ya Ya's picture?" "She didn't seem to believe what you told me about them being twins. But she didn't care much about that. She only cared about one thing." "Getting free," I said. "I told her to hang on. That rescuers were on their way. She's like Natalie Wood in The Searchers." "What did she say?" "She'd believe it when she saw it," he said. "Can't blame her," I said. "How long has she been a captive?" "Didn't ask. That jackass McGhoul yelled in that my ten minutes were up. Between you and me, I think he shaves off a couple of minutes." "Later, we'll take up the matter with the Better Business Bureau," I said. "Now. Show me the way to go home." "You're planning a real set-piece, aren't you?" "And I have a plum role for you." As we walked, the blood of vengeance coursed through my veins like 190-proof Polish vodka. Made me drunk with determination to rescue La La and re-unite her for the first time since birth with her twin. Drunk with desire to destroy the whole sick sadistic operation. And drunk with dedication to hollow out McGhoul's head. With lead.

CHAPTER 57

At midnight, I went to the Hot Spot. Surprised to see the president of the Cymantics Fan Club still working the front door. Turnover was high in the table-turning Zone; especially for those bottom-of-the-totem-pole low. "Hey, I got the Cymantics Greatest Hits Album! You get it yet?" "No," I said. "Ya gotta get it." I nodded toward the back room. "They're waiting for me," I said. "Oh. Yeah. Go ahead." The Hot Spot's back room - throne room for the titular ruler of the Combat Zone - had been completely redecorated. With Queen Cleopatra gone, so was the faux-ancient Egyptian decor. Now the place was a combination of the fantasy palace of any two-bit pimp and a twelve-year-old boy's game room. Black-and-white zebra-print sink-up-to-your-ankles broadloom rug covering the floors; walls alternating floor-length mirrors with heavy maroon drapery; gold lam`e fabric covering the ceiling; chandeliers spray-painted red, blue, green; red satin sofas; pub bar stools huddled around small circular tables with gold-flecked black marble tops; big, black velvet, gold-trimmed pillows scattered on the floor on which hangers-on lay and lounged. Plus, incongruously, a divey pool table as well as pinball machine and other arcade games. Youngbloods shot pool and tilted machines. Also dart board. And jukebox. But, strangely, no choo-choo miniature train set chugging around. Nor, for that matter, no bowling alley, basketball court or Olympic-size swimming pool. In the clump of hangers-on, I made eye contact with Rock Candy. He lifted up a bag of sugar babies in salute, then poured half the bag into his mouth. Two thrones on the platform reached by a flight of stairs. On which sat Laughing Death and a woman, flanked by the late Queen Cleo's Uzi-clutching bodyguards. On the side table by Laughing Death, gone was the basket containing the death-dealing venomous viper. In its place was a distinctive flat-bottomed, gold-labeled, clear-glass bottle of Cristal Champagne along with two flute glasses. Laughing Death wore a hand-tailored black suit with white buttons and a white-on-white shirt. Wide snap-brim black hat with white trimming. Gold medallions hung on gold cables around his neck. His fingernails were painted purple. Royal purple. And, of course, alligator shoes. Gotta have the gators. The woman on the throne to the left of Laughing Death sported a big Afro - a wig? - streaked with every color of the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. She wore a tight gold lam`e miniskirt with legs crossed. Six-inch heeled platform shoes - like her hair - brightly colored. "Love what you've done to the place," I said. "Castille, bro!" Laughing Death greeted me. "You kill Combat Zone Stalker so Zone open for bidness again. And you get Cleo deaded so I can ascend this here throne. You a brainiac!" "Beg pardon, your royal whatsit," I said. "I didn't get Cleo killed. I was bringing her to the hospital. God's flunkies killed her." "Whatev," enthused Laughing Death. "I'm the King of the Zone now. So it's all good." "And, one wonders, how does one address the new king?" I asked. "Been ponderin'. Not sure yet. For now? King do." I looked at the woman. "And who is your regal companion?" I asked. "This here? She my number one accessory." She gave him an elbow to the ribs. "Nah. She a hood rat back in the day. We grows up together. In the 'ville. But she clean up her act. Now she my queen. Rainbow. Look hella fine, ain't she?" "Quite so," I said. "Nice to meetcha," Rainbow said to me. "Enchant`e," I said, noting the sparkle of intelligence in her eyes. "She got the wisdom," said Laughing Death. "And I got the charisma. And we got the muscle. We take Zone by storm. "But right now, we chillin' and coolin' out, we maxin' and relaxin'. But you know Zone. Things get real hot real quick." "And?" I asked. "And I want you back in da family. Be my consigliere. Just like you done for King Pimp and Queen Cleo. Same terms. What say?" "You honor me, sire." "Whud I tell ya?" he said to Rainbow. "Castille good people." "Soon as I'm paid for services rendered," I said. "What 'services' that be?" L.D. frowned.

CHAPTER 58

"How soon they forget," I said. "I got rid of the stalker who terrorized the Zone. Almost all commerce in your kingdom had come to a complete halt. Now, thanks to me, everything is humming." "That true," said L.D. "So?" "So Queen Cleo said she'd pay me 75K if I neutralized the stalker." "Cain't be no dispute on that," said L.D. "I even there when she say it." "So?" "So?" "So where's the 75K she promised me?" I asked. "She promise you. Not me. I start with clean slate. Feel me?" "Listen closely, my fine feeble-minded friend," I said. "You are the heir to Queen Cleo. Right?" "Right," he agreed. "Therefore you inherit her kingdom, including all her assets..." "Right," he interrupted. "...and debts," I finished. "Not too sure 'bout debts. Seems to me that between you and Cleo." "Cleo's dead," I reminded him. "Make it a tough one then. To communicate and all." "You've got Grand Canyon pockets with alligator arms." "You sayin' I'm cheap?" he asked, insulted. "No," I said. "You're saying it." His face clouded over. Peripherally, I saw Rock Candy edging closer to me. He must have been Laughing Death's armtwister. This was bad and getting worse. Nobody spoke as the tension thickened up. I wanted, no, I needed that money. But L.D. had put himself on the line in front of his people. If he gave in now, he'd look slum-soft and punk-weak. But as the Old Legionnaire said, 'Never corner a rat. Always leave it an escape-hole.' What to do? Of all people, Rainbow came to the rescue. "Laughing Death," she said softly. "Everybody know you a man of honor." "Damn straight," L.D. quickly agreed. "So we know you been popping shit and perpin' with Castille. Just playing him for fun," she continued. "Course, you always gonna give him his money. You told me Castille is old school with us'n going back to King Pimp days." "That true," said L.D., glueing a smile onto his face. "You know I only riffin' and rankin' on you, right?" Always leave an escape-hole. "Never doubted it for a minute," I said, glueing on my own smile. L.D. even managed a laugh. All the flunkies laughed, the tension untightened and Rock Candy stepped back. Rainbow smiled majestically, almost beatifically, looking into my eyes. I nodded to indicate my thanks. She was definitely an ingredient to include in the mix.

CHAPTER 59

Walking along a tunnel illuminated by a string of light bulbs, we heard groaning and moaning and laughing and jeering. "What's that?" I asked. "Probably some jag-off teenagers from upstairs kicking to death some defenseless homeless guy," casually said Match Cut. "You joke," I said. "No," he shoulder-shrugged. "Let's go," I said. Phoenix and I took off at a trot, rounded a corner and saw three white late-teen males kicking some poor old guy. Like that scene in A Clockwork Orange. The three bullyboy sidewinders cackled and, each time they put the boot in, snarled insults: "Fucking cockroach!" "Fucking scum!" "Fucking nigger!" I realized the poor old fellow was black. Dirty, disheveled, emaciated, bleeding, raggedy, he endured a humiliating beatdown at the hands, or should I say feet, of these paragons of benevolence. "'Ere! 'Ere!" I said in my London bobby voice. "What's all this then, yer bleedin' wankers?" They stopped. They stared. They sneered. "Get lost, pal. World Wide White Pride! Or we'll fuck you up like this spook!" one said. No doubt the jolly scummy leader of this pack of bloody eejits. "And take your Chink girlfriend with you!" "Retract your vile epithet, you infernal scoundrel..." I started in my Norman Conquest voice. "Let me," said Phoenix, walking toward them. She had made a rapid recovery from being shot by Blackbird. She said phoenixes have miraculous abilities of recuperation. "Did you just call me a Chink, you Nazi fuck?" she asked the leader, whose bravado drained the closer she got to him. "Cha gonna do about it?" he asked, though not quite so surly as the first time. The other two became alert, forgetting the downed homeless guy who lay and watched, head bleeding and chest heaving. "This," she said calmly, walking right up to him. She faked a punch to his belly. When he moved his hands to block it, she rocketed a kick to his now exposed head. Against my principles to kick high. But not Phoenix. The guy went down, like an imploded building. The second guy came at her from her side. With her long leg still high, she reverse-kicked. Caught the guy in the face with the back of her shod foot. He stumbled away, both hands cradling his bleeding face. The third guy came up behind Phoenix with a metal pipe raised high to smash down on her head. In a flash, I was behind him, wrenched the pipe out of his unsuspecting hand and whacked him - hard - in the left kidney and then against the back of his knees. He crumpled. Match Cut watched, as if he had a ringside seat to a boxing match. "You guys are good!" he marveled. While the three jamokes moaned and groaned, Phoenix and I went to the beaten man. "Come on," I said. "We'll take you to the ER!" "Watch out!" the guy shouted, waving his arms to ward us off. "It's all right," said Phoenix. "We won't hurt you." "Get away!" he shouted. "I'm warnin' ya!" Puzzled, we looked at Match Cut. "He doesn't want to go upstairs," he shrugged. "So we leave him?" I asked. "Yup," said Match Cut. "But..." started Phoenix. "Get away from me!" the old guy yelled. "A lot of 'em won't go upstairs for any reason," Match Cut said. "They take their chances down here." "You don't want to go to the hospital?" I asked the guy. "Get the hell away from me," he yelled. "If ya know what's good for ya!" I turned and looked for the assailants. "Where are those three unutterable swine?" I asked in my Norman Conquest voice. "Gone, gone, gone," said Match Cut. "A fearsome pity," I said. "I rather looked forward to giving them forty lashes with my rhinoceros-hide whip." "So we leave this poor guy here?" Phoenix asked. "Get away!" the guy piped up. "Last warnin'!" "Happens alla time," said Match Cut. "Leave him. That's what he wants." We moved off, leaving the old guy alternately groaning and cursing. "At least now," I said, "we're all warmed up."

CHAPTER 60

Phoenix, Match Cut and I stood behind my favorite concrete pillar, watching Dr. McGhoul work his manic magic on the usual crowd of mole-men. Couldn't hear what the Demon Doctor of Fleet Street said. But his gesticulating revealed him for the puppet he was. Like Pinocchio. Away from the mesmerizing wash of words that oozed out of him like pus, I saw just how limited was his repertoire of movements, postures, gestures and expressions. He shuffled them around like a deck of playing cards, but he was limited to few. Like Punch. Without Judy. From this distance, his stage looked like a miniature playbooth for an actual puppet show. McGhoul was the marionette, jerking about as if manipulated from above on invisible strings pulled by unseen hands. Like the muppet Oscar the Grouch. McGhoul was a demented abomination, an approximation of a being, not quite human. He was a small figure with artificial articulated joints and artificial articulated words. Like Rudy Kazootie. Without his girlfriend Polka Dottie. That hateful hawk-nosed hunchback top-hatted McGhoul had hurt many innocents captured when they sought refuge from the world up above or, worse, when they accidentally wandered into this weird underworld wonderland. Yet he was nothing, a wooden invention seemingly brought to life. Like Howdy Doody. Maybe he was the first of the coming diabolical race of subterranean humanoid creatures, fashioned in the depths of infernal darkness, who would eventually emerge onto the city streets to take over, who couldn't be hurt by bullets because they were not made of flesh and blood, a race of demons like in that movie... "Castille!" Phoenix shouted at me. "Wake up!" I snapped out of my reverie. "What were you thinking about?" asked Match Cut. "Merely ruminating on the destiny of humanity," I said. "No big deal." Earlier, when I had intro'd Phoenix to Match Cut, she had blurted out: "What the hell happened to your face?" "Phoenix," I had cautioned. "'S all right," said Match Cut. "Rather have people ask me straight out than stare sideways." "So?" Phoenix pressed. "Remember Blackie Driscoll?" Match Cut asked. "Leader of Boston's Irish Mafia?" "He did this to you? How?" "Threw sulfuric acid in my face." "Why?" Phoenix asked. "Because he thought I was snitching on him." "Were you?" Phoenix asked. "Neither here nor there," Match Cut had said, the same answer he'd given when I asked him. His tone precluded further questions on the matter. Then, I had changed the subject. Now, I asked Phoenix: "What are you carrying?" "Behold!" she said. She showed us her closed right fist with attached metal rings around the knuckles. "Brass knucks?" I said. "I told you to bring a piece. May be some death-dealing today." "This is it," she said. "A piece, you flake," I said. "A gun." Match Cut's eyes ping-ponged from Phoenix to me and back again. "It is a gun," she said. "And more. Observe!" She quickly unfolded a double-bladed knife from within her fist. "Mini-bayonet!" she announced. "Impressive," I said. "But still not a gun." "Regardez!" commanded Phoenix. She opened her hand. On her palm rested the guts of a gun. No barrel, no handle, no front or rear sights, no trigger guard or safety latch. Just a revolving cylinder with six chambers filled with bullets. And a trigger. "What about a handle?" I asked. She rotated the cylinder so that the brass knuckles became the grip, or handle. The index finger was then positioned to pull the trigger. I'd never seen anything like it. Phoenix - easily bored - acquired and used unusual weapons. In fact, since I'd started working with her, she'd used a different weapon for each job. A point of pride. "What the hell is it?" asked Match Cut. "Apache gun," beamed Phoenix. "Apache Indians invented this...this gun?" asked Match Cut, still amazed. As was I. "A gang of cutthroats in Paris in the early 1900's called Apaches invented it." "Why were they called Apaches?" asked Match Cut. "Based on reports given by European travelers of the ferocity of Apache tribes in the U.S." said Phoenix. "The Swiss Army knife of weapons. Neat, huh?" "But not gaudy," I said. Like the preserved bones of a prehistoric mini-dinosaur, the 'gun' looked - fully unfolded - like the metal bones of a prehistoric revolver. "Weight?" I asked. "Less than a pound," Phoenix said. "No barrel?" I said. "Poor ability to aim at a distance." "Not for distance," explained Phoenix. "Only for use up close and personal. Belt a bad guy with the brass knucks, stab him, shoot him." I intoned in my Sherlock Holmes voice: "'I heard Le Brun was beaten by some Apache in the Montmartre district and was crippled for life.'" "Basil Rathbone as Holmes," said Match Cut, snapping his fingers. "Quite so, my dear fellow," I said. "Now. Let's go over the plan one more time." Phoenix groaned and said: "Let's just do it." "How poor are they," I said, "that have no patience." "Then I'm a pauper," she said. I rehearsed the plan once again for them. "Sounds like a free-for-all," said Match Cut. "Yup," I said. "And no charge."

CHAPTER 61

"Give Match Cut the divine distraction device," I said solemnly, like a priest at High Mass. Phoenix materialized a flash-bomb. She handed it to Match Cut. "I don't know about this," he said, accepting the flash-bomb with reluctance. "Match," I said, "if I may address you familiarly..." "Please do," he said, the very coconut of courtesy, perhaps to impress Phoenix. He had been thieving glances at her. "All you have to do," I resumed, "is light the fuse and throw it to the right of the stage. But not too close. Or Phoenix and I will light up like Roman candles. The sudden noise and light should drive the mole-men into their natural habitat of darkness. That's it." "And wait here for you two to return," added Match Cut. "So I can lead you out of here." "Phoenix and I will take the risks. Do all the heavy lifting." "You wouldn't find your way out of here without me," he bragged, looking at Phoenix. "That's right," I said, helping his chest-puffing. "Without you, we're lost. So you're an integral part of this escapade." "And of our group," said Phoenix, catching on, throwing a spear of seductive allure into his eyes. She could turn her sex appeal off and on like a switch. One of her many weapons. "Give us five minutes," I said to Match Cut. "Then light and throw the bomb." Phoenix and I moved through the darkness until we crouched at the right side of the stage. Close. But unnoticed. Now, as long as Match Cut didn't throw the flash-bomb too close to the stage, we'd survive phase one and launch phase two. I looked at my watch. "Any second now," I said. "Ready?" "I'll die ready," she said. "Just not today, okay?" "You ready?" "Steel true and blade straight," I said. A small hissing ball of red light launched into the darkness. It hit the ground in front of - but not too close to - the right side of the stage and exploded with noise and flame. On stage, McGhoul - in a spotlight, so we could see him but he couldn't see us - peered and frowned at the flash. The mole-men in front of the stage went mentalistic: howling, yowling, growling, moaning, groaning, weeping, wailing, running into each other. Then, as if on a signal, they ran off to the left into the darkness. Like a swarm of bees migrating to a new hive. The first part of the plan had worked. Still hidden in the darkness to the right beyond the illumination of the flash-bomb, I said: "Now!" Phoenix and I ran and leaped up onto the stage. I stepped into the spotlight so McGhoul could see who was going to ruin his lucrative gang-rape-and-torture business. "You!" he shouted in amazement. "'Tis I," I responded, slapping him on both sides of his face. He stumbled back, gingerly touching his cheeks; eyes and mouth wide open in amazement. As I stepped forward to finish the job, he screeched: "Trinity!!!" But no need to summon the Unholy Trinity - Father, Son and Unholy Ghost - because they had already erupted onto the stage like volcanic vomit. They rampaged straight at Phoenix and me. Son in the lead. He had no nose. Tawney the Gypsy had bitten it off, when I had rescued her down here. The middle of his face was covered by black metal mesh. As he ran up to her, Phoenix put her whole body behind a mighty brass-knuckled punch into his chops. Crack! went his mandibular and maxillary bones. Down he went with a severely broken jaw. Phoenix glanced at me with raised eyebrows. "Not bad," I acknowledged. McGhoul's shoes were stapled to the floor. Seeing Phoenix destroy The Son with one punch, McGhoul's eyes and mouth gaped wider. "She just goes a little mad sometimes," I said in my Norman Bates Psycho voice. "We all go a little mad sometimes!"

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McGhoul disappeared through an unseen opening in the black curtain at the back of the stage. Before I could follow, the Father was on me. Peripherally, I saw the Unholy Ghost - long, lean, pale - engage with Phoenix. The Father was like many brawlers - club fighters, street-sluggers, boozified pub pugilists - who had somehow continued their youthful proclivity for drunken violence into middle age. Like the Father, they were tanks with muscle and hard-packed fat, scarred faces, broken noses, cauliflower ears, a facial tic or two and unnaturally crimson skin from the tremendous intake of demon alcohol that unleashed their savagery. Plug-ugly mugs, pugs and lugs. They were drawn to fist-fighting like iron filings to a magnet. They passed from juvenility to senility - if they lived that long - without an intervening period of maturity. These fighters seldom used strategy. They just came straight at you like a runaway locomotive. Which the Father did. He shot a straight clenched fist at the middle of my face. If it connected, my fragile facial bones would fracture; my nose and mouth would geyser blood like projectile vomit. But I had purposely allowed my face to appear unprotected. Strategy. Whose essence, the Old Legionnaire had never stopped reminding me, was deception. I suddenly lowered my head so that his fist hit my forehead. Hard bone. I staggered back from the blow. But I knew his no doubt arthritic knuckles were shattered. I looked up. The Father grimaced with bitter hurt. He shook his broken hand, trying to propel the plaguey pain out of it. Not going to happen. Advantage: me. I went straight at him, putting my left hand on top of my right hand. I aimed this double palm strike up under his chin, nearly taking his head off. He fell hard onto his back, writhing and wretched. I turned to see how Phoenix fared. She and the Unholy Ghost duked it out. The Ghost must have realized she wore brass knuckles because he angled away from her right fist. Like a boxer in the ring dancing away from an opponent who had but one punch. A knock-out punch. The Ghost - long, lean, lanky - suddenly aimed a right-legged spinning kick at Phoenix's head. The fool. Phoenix ducked under his shod foot. On one knee, she punched the pressure point on the thigh of his planted left leg with her brass-knuckled fist. He yowled. When his right foot returned to the earth, Phoenix was again standing. She gripped the lapels of his shirt and pulled him toward her. But she sat down, pulling him down over her. She shot her right foot up into his belly, so that he catapulted over her head. But she held on to his lapels and rolled over backward with him. Now she sat on his chest. He raised his hand to strike. Too late. Phoenix smashed him in the face three times with her brass knuckles. His mind took up residence in another dimension. Phoenix jumped up and came across the stage to me. "Now what?" she asked. But before I could answer, a barnacle-encrusted voice boomed: "Castille!"

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I turned. Two cantankerous sunburnt sea-going cusses I'd tangled with before. "Maul the Sledge," I said. "And MacBrayer the Black. Am I glad to see you two." "And why is that?" "Comic relief. Things were getting a little too serious here." "Things will get more seriouser," said MacBrayer, the taller of the two. "I see you still have your black eyepatch," I said. "But, sadly, no parrot on your shoulder. Mere words cannot convey my disappointment." "We're back from sailorizing. And eager to have a word with ye." "And Maul," I said. "With a limp, I see." "Aye," Maul said. "From when you ruined my knee with a sneaky kick, ya shifty bastard." "I say let bygones be bygones," I said. "Pull up a piece of floor. Do you take your tea with milk?" "With blood," said MacBrayer. "Do ye not remember my parting words to ye that night?" "As I vaguely recall," I said, screwing up my face into an expression suggestive of deep thought. "It was words to the effect of 'I'll kill you, Castille! If it's the last thing I do!'" "And now the time has come," he snarled, spitting on his calloused hands and rubbing them together. "You mean this is the last thing you'll ever do?" I asked. "I mean, I'm going to kill you." With that, they charged across the stage at us, Maul moving slower due to his injured knee. So satisfying to see the outcome of one's work at a later date. As MacBrayer closed on me, I saw the gleaming blade in his right hand. A double-sided serrated commando dagger. Just the item for gutting and cleaning fish. Or humans. He underhand-thrust the dagger at me. I dodged. He thrust again and again. I dodged and backstepped, awaiting my chance to grip and control the wrist of his knife hand. "Arrgh!" he yelled in frustration. "Stand and fight, ya landlubber!" "Is today National 'Talk Like A Pirate' Day?" I asked. Rhetorically, as it turned out. He changed his grip on his knife to raise his hand and strike down at me. Again, I dodged and danced out of reach. Peripherally, I saw Phoenix fighting Maul. MacBrayer, with surprising speed and adroitness, threw the knife back and forth from one hand to another. I was impressed. "You've been practicing," I said, "you have." "Aye. For this day." He lunged with his left hand, the blade greedy for my guts. I gripped his left wrist. He automatically pulled back. I went with him, twisting his wrist so that he was off-balance. Then, without thought or emotion, just instinct, I, holding his twisted wrist, leaped up in the air, turning my body upside-down. My left heel smashed up under his chin. My right steel-toed shoe kicked him in the back of the neck. The effect was to snap his head back and cause him to fall backwards. My feet maintained control of his head, my hand maintained control of his wrist and we both fell to the floor of the stage. I made sure to land on my shoulder muscles and feet, with head and body lifted up off the floor. My feet made sure MacBrayer's head crashed hard. "Owwww!!" he yowled. Lying supine, I pulled his still twisted wrist straight toward me, across my left leg. Arm bar: hyperextending and breaking his left elbow against my thigh. His useless hand dropped the knife. I stood up over this writhing-in-pain specimen with broken arm and, worse, broken neck. He wouldn't last long. I turned to see Phoenix finish off Maul the Sledge. The blade from her Apache gun stuck him in the gut. Bleeding, he charged and knocked her down. Falling on her, his thumbs shoved into her sockets to gouge out her eyes. I heard a 'pop'. Maul sprawled unmoving on Phoenix. She heaved him off and stood. The little Apache gun in her palm smoked. Maul bled from the belly. "You shot him," I said. "Do or die. But listen to what I did to that other guy." "No time to compare notes," I said. "I want McGhoul. Which way did he go?" "I saw him," she said. "Follow me."

CHAPTER 64

Suddenly, two dozen mole-men glared at us from the opposite side of the stage. Like cannibalistic zombies. The odds now overwhelmingly against us, I was seized by a fierce, fearless frenzy. In a kind of ecstasy, I felt impervious to harm. This state had overtaken me only a few times. And then only when the situation seemed hopeless. Like now. Someone could drop a sofa on my head but I would feel no pain. Until the next day. Then I would wish I were dead. But today, now, I hungered to hurt, I ached to maim, mutilate and, yes, kill. So much for all my noble sentiments of non-violence. Now my body was magic and steel, mist and stone, vapor and diamond. The primeval ferocity rose in me like an ancient submerged continent. Rising and breaking the ocean's surface. Its earth hit the air and burst into fire. A whirlpool of water. A quake of earth. A screeching wind. A scorching fire. Now I had the war-wanting wolf's hurt-hungry eye to inflict woe. My heart was a blood-blessed altar, consecrated to the holy craving for the kill. The barrelhouse black dog bloodlust made my mind mad to murder. Was this what my Celtic tribal ancestors felt in the fateful hour of kill-or-be-killed? A voracious rapacious desire - no, bodily need, like extreme thirst or great hunger - to break the heads, to rip open the bodies, to shock the flesh of hereditary enemies. I glanced at Phoenix, my sworn blood-sister, something that Margie and I could never share, and I saw in Phoenix's glittering green eyes the same emotions I felt: the joy of going berserk, the exhilarating freedom of running amok, the thrill of the kill. Inherited from her ancestors, the great Chinese warriors who created and perfected martial arts. My body felt slithery as a slandered serpent, strong as an offended ox, quick as a maligned mongoose. My heart-song hissed like an uprisen king cobra - venomous, vehement, vicious - eager to strike with lightning speed. I was a flame. I glared at the two dozen mole-men and said: "Come to me, moths!"

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Across the stage, the mole-men charged. I dervish-whirled through their throng, aiming point-of-elbow strikes to solar plexus and throat. Hard slaps to face and floating ribs. Steel-toed kicks to ankles, shins and knees. Knock-downs by sweeping my foot behind Achilles' tendons. One hard-featured hatchet-face grabbed my shirt and held on, slowing my movement and threatening my balance. I gripped and jammed his thumb joint, sending lightning pain up his hand and arm, forcing him to let go and jump away. As they fell one by one, they opened more room on the stage. I saw Phoenix twist a mole-man's hand so that his fingers were bent severely back. To try to escape the pain, he involuntarily stood on tip-toes. Instead of easing her hold on his hand - as we would in practice - she added more pressure, breaking all four of his fingers. One jamoke aimed a high roundhouse kick at my head. I ducked low and in, under his kicking right leg. He was wide open, down below, with his entire weight on his left leg. My right hand gripped his left heel from behind; my left hand gripped his left knee from behind. I pulled and lifted. The effect was to up-end him - not head over heels but heels over head - and he crash-collapsed onto the stage floor. He had the sense to clench his neck muscles to keep his skull from hitting the surface. He raised his head to get up. I sank my knee into his face, making sure the back of his brain-box banged against the floor. He wouldn't get up any time soon. One scurvy scabby scrofulous leprous-looking screaming specimen succeeded in raking his long sharp fingernails down my face. My cheek stung. Then he spit in my eyes. Not saliva. Blood. Ick. Far worse than the pain of the deep scratches, far worse than the humiliation of being spat at, was the thought of a dozen dread blood-borne diseases he may have infected me with. He screeched and roared and cursed in a frenzy of rage, windmilling punches and kicks. His blood obscuring my vision, I backed away. True crazies were harder to fight than self-disciplined fighters. You never knew what they would do next. For the simple reason that they themselves didn't know what they were going to do next. In my own rage, I wanted to wade into him, throwing wild punches and kicks like he did. But the years of training with the Old Legionnaire had made self-discipline in extreme situations my second nature. I stayed out of his range, looking for an opening. He looked like an ancient infant, with huge eyes wide open to take in as much light as possible in the City of the Dead's sullen murky somber midnight blackness. He also looked like a raccoon with rabies. Maybe he'd been bitten by a rabid bat or feral cat down here. My body shook with chills. I just wanted to get Ya Ya's sister and get out of this hell-hole. Came the opening I awaited. He was tiring. Probably from not exercising - how far could you run in inky dark? - and not eating enough protein - just scraps he had scrounged. His punches - which he no doubt thought were head-high - had fallen to waist-high. In his mind, he probably thought his fists were up high. But they weren't. Fatigue works fast. Why boxers touch their faces with their gloves. To physically prove to themselves their hands are held high to protect their faces. Many a boxer who thought his gloves shielded his face was shocked when nailed with a jaw-breaking punch. Because, though his tired hands were at waist level, his brain was certain they were still at face level. My left steel-toed shod foot kicked him in the shin, the knee and the belly. He collapsed on one knee, stunned, leaving his head wide open. I kicked up under his chin and he flipped backward onto the floor, unconscious. I glimpsed McGhoul emerge from the black curtain and slip across the stage toward the darkness of the City of the Dead. That hellhound had the keys to unlock the chains of Ya Ya's sister. As well as the male torture victim. If McGhoul disappeared, it would make freeing his victims difficult. He was almost off the stage and into the blackness. I ran at top speed. Just as he was about to jump off the stage, I dove. Parallel to the floor, I flew with outstretched arms. Another tick of the clock and he was gone. My arms hit him low and encircled his knees. He fell forward, half hanging over the left side of the lighted stage. I gripped his protesting legs and pulled him back onto the stage. "Where do you think you're going?" I asked, as I pulled him upright and turned him around to face me. "Why - save my soul - if it isn't Mister Sebastian Squalm. Of the old Threadneedle Street Squalms. Now I recall your name, sir. And a fine old London name it is." "You vicious freak of nature!" I berated him. "My name isn't Squalm. It's Castille. Private detective of fine old Boston." "Castille!" he said. "An even more propitious name! One thinks of cast steel. Something like cast iron, one imagines. One conjures visions of strength and tenacity and..." "Shut it!" I ordered. "Move!" "Where?" "To free the victims of your greed and sadism!" "Greed and sadism?" he puzzled. "Words which can in no way be associated with Dr. McGhoul, M.D., C.M., D.C.L., F.R.S., F.R.C.S. and Honourable Consulting Serjeant-Surgeon to Her Majesty, the Queen, who..." "I said, shut it!" I bellowed into his face. "Or I'll make you eat your own teeth!" "A most dispiriting notion," he said. "Shutting. As of now." I propelled him by the scruff of his neck toward the "Woman in Chains" poster. Phoenix had finished mopping up the few mole-men who hadn't fled or been downed. She came over, stepping across bodies, prone and supine, dead or barely alive. "So this is the Freakenstein monster," she said. "I present to you Dr. McGhoul," I said. "Apothecary- General and Warden of the Western March. Princeling of the Faceless Order of the Perverse Offspring of Blind Baboons. And, last but not least, London's foremost salesman of tapeworm medicine for three years hand-running." "His armpit-ugly head will look great," said Phoenix, "mounted in your billiards parlor." "Behold the fiendish devil," I said, "in all its tawdry glory!" "Ah, I see," piped up McGhoul. "You obviously have me confused with a certain Doctor McOwl. Nasty bloke. Apparently, we bear a superficial resemblance. But perfectly natural error. Could have happened to anyone. Now if you'll just let me go, I'll..." "Shut it!" I hurricaned into his face, forcing him to close his eyes. "Shutting," he said. "As of now." Phoenix riffled the black curtain, baffled. "Where's the opening?" I asked McGhoul. "Just there to your right, sir," he said. As I turned to the right, he jerked loose from my grip and disappeared to the left into the curtain.

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"See where that hell-spawn went?" I asked Phoenix. "I think...here," she said. I followed Phoenix through a slit in the black curtain. We stepped into surprisingly large living quarters. McGhoul stood on the other side. "He's mine," I said. "Be my guest," said Phoenix. "By the way, you're bleeding from four long cuts down your cheek. You all right?" "Yes. Maybe. I don't know," I said, going after McGhoul. The fool who needed to be schooled. With the strength of desperation, McGhoul picked up a table and threw it at me. No time to dodge. I raised my left knee and lowered my left forearm, so that knee and elbow touched. The table hit my forearm and the big muscles of my leg. It crashed to pieces against my outer defense, without reaching any vital organs. In quick succession, he flung plates, bowls, drinking glasses, even a steel toaster at my head. I ducked and dodged each one, slowly inching toward him. He ripped open the silverware drawer and chucked knives and forks at me. I bobbed and weaved out of their path. Except for a butter knife that caught me in the shoulder. As least, it wasn't a steak knife. I inched closer. Desperate, he grabbed a large frying pan and brought it down hard and fast toward my head. I parried his arm, wrist to wrist. I ripped the pan out of his hand and brandished it at him. Really desperate now, he looked around for any weapon. He opened the refrigerator door and grabbed a glass bottle of orange juice. He thought orange juice would beat a frying pan? By then I was on him. I slammed the refigerator door on his hand. "Owwwww!" he yowled. I bounced the frying pan off his head which fell forward into the refrigerator. He, dazed, started to bring his head out of the refrigerator. I slammed the door against his head. He swayed. I slammed his head again. Down he went in a heap to the floor. "Castille!" yelled Phoenix. I turned just as MacBrayer - back from the dead! - thrust his dagger at my belly. I torqued my torso at the last second so the knife just missed me. Before he could pull the knife back and thrust again, I reached into the open silverware drawer and pulled out a fork. MacBrayer forced me back against a wall. I glanced at Phoenix who seemed to be cleaning her fingernails. Thanks. But the good thing about having your back against the wall was you didn't have to worry about attack from behind. Why mob bosses and gang leaders always sat backs to wall in restaurants. Suddenly, two fists punched through the wall behind me! The fists unclenched into hands that gripped my throat, choking me. MacBrayer smiled like the villain he was and moved in for the kill. He reached back to propel the dagger into me with maximum power. Meanwhile, the two disembodied hands crushed my windpipe. "Phoenix!" I attempted to yell. But the word came out like I had extreme laryngitis. But - thank the higher power - Phoenix had arrived like the cavalry, in the nickest nick of time. She whipped her right hand out, opening it up and her Apache gun fell into place. The brass knuckles rotated to become the handle of the gun. She pulled the little trigger and - boom - the gun popped with a small cloud of smoke. MacBrayer cried out, incredulous. He looked down at his side. The blood ran out. He looked at Phoenix with questioning eyes. "Apache gun," she said casually, crinkling her nose at him like a bunny rabbit or a little kid. "But..." MacBrayer tried to speak. "I know," said Phoenix. "I know." MacBrayer dropped to the floor. Meanwhile, I ineffectually grabbed at the hands choking me. They were crushing my windpipe like an iron vise. On the street, the worst response to being choked from behind was to grab at the choking hands. Instead, jerk your thumb back over your shoulder, hoping to strike an eye. Or slam your knife hand back into his gonads. Or your elbow back into his solar plexus. Or...you get the idea. But I couldn't do any of these things through the wall. "Tsk. Tsk," said Phoenix, shaking her head from side to side at my dilemma. As if it were my fault I was being choked to death by hands that came through the frigging wall. When she hesitated - as if weighing her options - I wanted to steel-toe kick her in the shin. Then she decided on the most efficient response. With the knife of her Apache gun, she stabbed one hand. Deep. We were instantly gratified by a male scream on the other side of the wall. Then, a quick withdrawal of the hands back through the wall. I gasped for breath. Who said instant gratification was a bad thing?

CHAPTER 67

I went to McGhoul's prone body to retrieve the keys to free Ya Ya's sister and the unidentified male torture victim. The last time - when I freed Tawney the Gypsy from hand- and ankle-cuffs - the keys were in McGhoul's vest pocket. Was this full-spectrum fucking freak-and-a-half dead? I reached down and felt in his vest pocket. Ah! The jingle-jangle of keys on a thin steel hoop. As I pulled them out, he groaned. Damn! Still alive! His eyes suddenly opened like Boris Karloff coming to life as the monster in Frankenstein. He feebly clutched my arm. "Mr. Squalm, sir..." "Castille," I said. "Mr. Castille, sir," he said. "I..." "Shut it," I said. "I'm freeing your victims. And, in due course, the police will arrive to interrogate you." "Oh no, Mr. Castille, sir, begging your pardon. But the police and yours truly do not get along. The police and yours truly do not mix well. Perhaps you can show me your celebrated American kindness and help me get away from the scene..." "Scene of your crime?" I said. "I don't think so." "But..." "The police would love to get their hands on you," I said. "Public Enema Number One. You'll also have to answer to the Lunacy Commissioner." "No, no," he whimpered. "I plead with you. I can't spend more time in prison. I can't!" "So you've already been inside. In England, I presume." "Yes, yes, yes. A terrible misunderstanding, of course. Could have happened to anyone. But please. I couldn't bear it again." "There's another alternative." "What is it?" he asked in a grasping-at-straws voice. "I'll do anything." "I can put you out of your misery." "No, I meant..." "I can strangle you. Choke you. Crush your skull," I said. "See? You have many choices, you malignant malicious monster." "Monster, sir?" he said, offended. "Me, sir? I'm only supporting my family in London. My wonderful wife and dear little children. I send them every penny I earn." "You earn through torture and rape." "No, no, I..." "Shut up!" I said. "Crawl off into the murk with the other troglobite cave wolf spiders." "But my leg," he pleaded. "I fear it's broken!" "Then deal with the cops," I said, walking away. "Or the hungry zombies looking for a snack." "Zombies? You've seen them? There were always rumors!" he screamed. "No, no, no! Don't leave me!" I returned to Phoenix. Match Cut had also arrived. He stared at all the dead and injured on the stage, then at Phoenix. "You and Castille are, like, awesome." "We're not like awesome," she said. "We are awesome." "Phoenix, you go in and unshackle La La," I said, handing her the keys. "Cover her with something. If no clothes, then a blanket. Bring her out here. Be gentle. She's probably pretty ill." "Right, chief." Soon Phoenix emerged with a young woman wrapped in a blanket. Weak, weary, wounded, wasted. Phoenix helped her walk. I felt like going back and kicking McGhoul's face in. Phoenix eased La La to slump on the floor of the stage. I took the keys from her and gave them to Match Cut. "Go in and free the torture victim." "Me?" "You're part of the team," I dead-eyed him. "Aren't you?" "Sure I am," he said, flicking a glance at Phoenix. He'd developed a crush on her even before he met her, based on my description. Sadly, for him, a disfigured penniless underground dweller was not exactly her type. I sat on the floor. "How do you feel?" I asked La La. Despite her ordeal, she was undeniably Ya Ya's identical twin. "Water," she feebly requested. "I should have thought of that!" I accused myself. From her black clothes, Phoenix produced a canteen. She opened it and poured some into La La's mouth. "More," La La said hoarsely. "No," said Phoenix firmly. "Not yet. You'll just get sick." "You thought to bring a canteen?" I asked Phoenix. "Because I thought the whole thing through," she said. "Which you obviously didn't." "What's your name?" I asked La La. "Kayla Washington." "Family?" "None," she said. "Actually, one. Your identical twin separated at birth." "He told me before," nodding in the direction Match Cut had gone. Whether she believed it or not was hard to tell. At this moment, she probably didn't care. Match Cut emerged, supporting a young white guy by pulling his arm across Match's shoulder and holding his hand. Match's other arm held him around the waist, keeping him upright. The guy wore only underpants; his whole body was covered with welts and bruises, infected cuts and sores. His cheekbone looked broken and his left eye closed up. Suddenly, the four long wounds down my cheek didn't hurt so much. "Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you." "Let him sit down," I said. Then: "What's your name?" "Dan Collins." "Family?" "Wife," he said. "Kids." "Do you remember your home telephone number?" I asked. He nodded yes. "Tell me." I wrote it on the inside of my forearm. At least, I had the foresight to bring a pen. But no paper. I'd have to re-evaluate my whole modus operandi. "You'll see her soon," I promised. We had two victims of systematic torture and rape. And a stage full of dead and disabled mole-men. Who had perpetrated said torture and rape. Not to mention attacking Phoenix and me. Now what? I asked myself. "Now what?" Phoenix asked me. "Good question."

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"They obviously need medical attention," I said. "So they have to be taken to the hospital." Phoenix, Match Cut and I looked at each other and we thought the same thing. Hospital, torture victims, police, unwelcome questions. Or we could bring them up into Shoshana's office, leave and let her call an ambulance. But then she'd have to answer to the cops. Couldn't do that to her. "Match," I said, "I take it there's a number of exits to the world upstairs." "Of course." "One that puts us closest to Boston Hospital ER?" "Closer than closest," he said. "Close." "But then what?" asked Phoenix, articulating what we thought. "If we're grilled by the cops and they come down here, we could be up on charges." "Felony assault," I said. "Felony homicide," she said. "Smoke-burn," Match Cut said. Phoenix and I looked at him. "Vagrancy. Okay. So it's only a misdemeanor. Not a felony. But I've been inside before and nearly went stir-buggy. Can't do another stretch. Won't." "Show us the way upstairs close to the hospital," I said. "Help us with these two." "I'm not gonna give the cops another shot at me." "You won't," I said. Then to the two injured, slumped down: "Kayla. Dan. Can you make it to the hospital? With our help?" "Fuck, yes," said Kayla, feebly. "Ditto," said Dan, weakly. "Fuck Yes Kayla and Ditto Dan," I said in a TV game show host's voice. "How about a big round of applause for our two contestants?" They smiled. A little. I helped Dan; Phoenix helped Kayla; Match Cut led the way. We walked a ways and then through a huge pipe and then up an incline and finally out into the night. We emerged onto Harrison Avenue near the bridge near the Mass. Turnpike Extension. Two blocks from the ER. "Thank God," said Dan, who cried with relief. Kayla kept mumbling, "Thank you, thank you." "Here's where I leave you," said Match Cut, with a last lingering look at Phoenix. "Go down again to the depths, my friend," I saluted him as he disappeared. "Perhaps some day we'll meet again." We managed the two blocks, drawing flights of stares. At the entrance to the ER of Boston Hospital, I propped up Dan against the brick wall. Phoenix propped up Kayla the same way. Phoenix stood between them, arms around their waists, keeping them upright. I went into the ER, busy as blood spurting from a fresh wound, and commandeered two wheelchairs. Outside, Phoenix and I sat the two invalids down in the chairs. "Dan," I said. "I'll call your wife to come here to the hospital." "Thank you," he said, weak as a baby born prematurely. "What's your name?" "No names," Phoenix quickly said. "Kayla," I said. "I'll personally tell your long lost sister Ya Ya to come here." She simply nodded. Phoenix and I wheeled Kayla and Dan into the ER. The admissions woman frowned. "Take care of them," I said to her. "They've been through a lot." "Wait!" she said, as Phoenix and I about-faced and quickstepped. "Your face is wounded!" We kept moving. "Who are you?" the woman called after us. Phoenix and I vanished behind night's black velvet veil.

CHAPTER 69

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were not yet striking thirteen. "I need coffee," said Phoenix next day, as we walked up Kneeland Street. The night before, after depositing McGhoul's victims at the ER, I had called Dan Collins' wife and told her he was safe and recovering in Boston Hospital. She burst into loud sobbing tears, asked my name - 'Who was that masked man?' - but I wouldn't give it. She left that moment to rush to the hospital. Then I tracked down Ya Ya on the stroll. I told her that her long lost twin sister Kayla Washington - a.k.a. La La - was safe in Boston Hospital and awaiting Ya Ya's visit. She clapped her hands joyfully, jumped onto me, wrapping arms and legs around me and kissed me smack on the lips. "Aw shucks, ma'am. 'Tweren't nothin,'" I said. "Just followin' Gene Autrey's Cowboy Code. Point six. 'When anyone's in trouble, a cowboy lends a hand.'" She then marched off to the hospital like the Grand Marshal of the Rose Bowl Parade, loudly singing 'God Bless America.' And, if there were any justice in this world, McGhoul was being eaten alive by rats. Or zombies. Now Phoenix and I discussed strategy against another assassin from the drug cartel coming to kill her. I had insisted she stay inside for safety's sake. But she refused to be cooped up. Now she seemed perfectly at ease. I was gunning glances in every direction for the glint of light bouncing off a sniper's scope. "Let's go to Dunkin Donuts," she said. "You don't need coffee," I said. "You want it. Appreciate the distinction." "Donuts, Castille. Jelly. Lemon-filled. Chocolate Frosted. And your favorite: honey-dipped." "Damn you, Phoenix, for your intimate knowledge of my taste buds. You know I can't resist honey-dipped." "You don't need a honey-dipped donut," she said. "You want it. Appreciate the distinction." We went into the donut shop. No other customers. Just a tough old bird behind the counter, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her roughed-up mouth. Squinting through the rising cigarette smoke, she sized us up. "What can I get you two bandits?" she asked. "That obvious, huh?" I asked. "I know the look. For one thing, that bandage on your cheek. Whattaya want?" "Extra-large coffee," said Phoenix. "And a dozen honey-dipped donuts for my partner in crime." "Just one honey-dipped," I said to the woman. Suddenly, the walls of street-facing glass shattered. Sound of automatic gunfire. Phoenix and I instinctively scrambled over the counter. We ducked down with the woman. The sound of glass breaking and the bark of submachine guns continued. Phoenix and I had our pistols in hand. Peashooters compared to submachine guns. "I knew youse two were trouble the minute you come in," she said. "The hell's going on? Price on your heads?" "Something like that," I said. "How much?" she asked, aiming a suddenly-produced Magnum .44 at us. "Whoa, Ma Barker," I said. "There's no price. Just these jokers want us dead. What are you doing with a gun that size?" "I may look like Grandma Moses now. But in my day I ran with a fast crowd. Zexie Fallon's gang. I was the only jane who could keep up with 'em," she said proudly. "What's your name?" I asked, as we remained crouched behind the counter. "Zexie called me Carny Cathy," she said. "On account of I run away from home when I was twelve and joined a traveling carnival." I peeked over the counter. Police sirens whoop whooped louder and louder. Glass from the windows lay in shards on the floor. "Your boss isn't going to like this," I said. "Fuck 'im, the cheap prick," said Carny Cathy. "Gettin' ready to quit anyway. This minimum wage shit is strictly from hunger." "Back way out?" asked Phoenix. "Ever see a joint ain't got a back way out?" asked Cathy. Sirens really loud. Close. Too close. "We gotta go," said Phoenix. "So go," said Cathy. "Who's stoppin' ya?" "Through this door to the back exit?" Phoenix asked. "Careful out there," said Cathy. "Maybe these trigger-happy torpedoes got the back covered." "Doubt it. With the cops almost here," I said. "What are you going to tell John Law?" "I ain't turnin' copper-hearted, if that's what's givin' ya the jumps. I'll tell Johnny Law that a buncha long-chain Charley's opened up with chatterboxes." "Why?" "How should I know?" she shrugged. "Any customers in here?" I asked. "Not that I noticed." "Good girl," I said. "Course, to cinch it," she said, "a chunk a chips wouldn't hurt none." I pulled out a fifty and gave it to her. "Now get gone!" Cathy admonished. "And don't worry. No matter how much the bulls act the lion-tamer, I won't spill the works." "Three cop cars pulling in," Phoenix said. "Amscray!" said Cathy. We ducked through the door, but not before I grabbed a honey-dipped donut. We ran through the back room and out. "What?" demanded Phoenix, as we disappeared into an alley. "You got a donut?" "I don't need it," I said, biting into the sweetness. "I want it. Appreciate the distinction."

CHAPTER 70

We skulked through alleys, one-way streets and buildings with entrance/exits at either end. Soon we were safely ensconced in my office. Fourth floor of the old Textile Building. Phoenix plopped into the arm chair; I sat behind my desk. "First question," Phoenix said. "Who were these nameless, faceless blood-clots trying to kill. You or me?" "Or Carny Cathy," I said. "I think we can safely eliminate her as the target," said Phoenix. "Whose kill list are you currently on?" "Several. But none that would shoot submachine guns in a crowded area in broad daylight. That leaves you." "Yes," she brooded. "Can we make an educated guess that it's the Mexican syndicate come to assassinate you?" I asked. "Because you assassinated their fearless leader. Then you assassinated the assassin they sent to assassinate you." "You like saying 'assassinate,' don't you?" "I think it's the number of 'asses' in the word," I said. "Just like life." "I thought they'd change tactics," Phoenix said. "Instead of a machine gun like last time, an up-close-and-personal weapon. Like a knife." "Fooled you, huh?" I said. "No flies on psychotic drug cartels." "We don't even know how many of them there are." "But at least they don't know where you now live and sleep and have your being," I said. "My modest digs." "Just cruising around C'town," said Phoenix, "she must have seen me go into Dunkin Donuts." "How do you know it's a she?" "Told you," Phoenix said. "They're all she's." "But how does she know what you look like?" "Good question," Phoenix said, then snapped her fingers. "My DEA contact must have told the cartel. He has my info and picture." "Why would he do that?" I asked. "You don't know these secretive government agencies. They like to cut any loose ends in their hush-hush eyes-only covert operations. After I kill these clots, I'll kill him too." "Quiet, please," I said in my Charlie Chan voice. "Another attempt upon life of your exalted self. Humble detective need time to think." "Let's call for take-out," she said suddenly. "I'm famished." "You're always hungry. Wait a while. Let's get down to cases. Your esteemed and honorable father has passed out of this vale of tears." "Like my fiance," Phoenix said softly. "You really miss him," I said gently. "Love of my life," she said. For the first time since I'd known her, her eyes filled with tears. But she would never cry in front of me. Or anyone. I could only imagine how she might keen and wail in private. When I first knew her, Phoenix was extroverted, exuberant, extravagant; adventurous, spontaneous, generous. Full of joie de vivre, she liked to joke, laugh, play. In fact, life seemed like a game that amused her and she was eager to join in. Her life changed when her fiance Tony Lee accidentally killed himself three weeks before their wedding day. Phoenix became more somber, sometimes sullen. Not that all her playfulness had vanished; just that it was more tempered. She still competed in the deadly, fascinating games of our profession: bodyguard, bouncer, manhunter, even assassin. But killing guys - bad guys, to be sure - didn't seem to bother her as much as before Tony died. "Your mother," I resumed, "has vanished into New York City Chinatown. Your brother Danny is in far-away Hong Kong. So we can assume your family is safe. Still don't want to take a vacation?" "No." "I hear Jamaica nice dis time of de year, mon," I said in my Jamaican accent. "Smoke de spliff fill wit de ganja wit dem Rastafaris. Eat de acker and saltfish. You feel langa-langa all de time. "Lie in de sun. Swim in de watta. You don't blabba mout, you okay. Everyting is everyting. Then when all fruits ripe, I send de word. And you walk good to dis Boston." "Dis bad girl no flee," she said, in a passable accent. Though not as good as mine. "Afraid you'd say that," I said. "If you won't go to Jamaica, take the subway back to my place. They won't know where you are. When I come home, we'll strategize." "I don't like hiding out at your place," she said. "You're not hiding," I said. "It's a brilliant tactical maneuver to gain the advantage over the enemy." "How?" "If outnumbered, withdraw. Later, you can strike at a soft spot. Go, brave warrior, and meditate upon this ancient wisdom." "White men so smart," she said drily. "We have our moments."

CHAPTER 71

At dusk, I motored to Hillside Haven a.k.a. Heaven. Already, at least fifty cars in line ready to fork over cold cash for hot drugs. I said aloud in my Charlie Chan voice: "A fool and his money never become old friends." I U-turned and parked in a spot safely beyond both Heaven and the Wasteland. I saw the fluorescent-vested angels set up the safety cones and jab their flashlights at motorists to get them in line. As I watched, I thought about the previous day's one-two punch that had almost knocked me out of the ring. My conscience suffered from a case of twinge-itis at the number of mole-men - not to mention Dr. McGhoul's honor guard - Phoenix and I had dispatched to the next world. True, they attacked us. True, a mole-man had raked his jagged fingernails down my cheek, which wounds I had cleaned and dressed myself. And then got a blood test which - thank the gods and goddesses - was clean. True, we acted in self-defense. True, they had conspired to perpetrate torture and rape, acts most heinous and reprehensible. Still. If I had to write on a job application how many and in what manner all the people I had taken out of commission, rubbed out or put away, the only occupation I'd be suited for would be...the one I already had. Now, like a drive-by shooting victim, night fell hard. Best not to try and enter where the cars with their headlights and the angels with their flashlights completely lit up the scene. I only wanted to get into Heaven, kill God and escape from Heaven. That's all. So to the opposite side of the project I sneaked from shadow to shadow. Until I was entombed in complete darkness. Except for the stars in the moonless night. An eerie calm unlike the shouting and the swearing on the other, dope-buying side. Still. Be careful. God's in his Heaven but all's not right with the world. Some windows were dark. Others were alight. Some had shades down; others, up. Of those with shades up, I saw people within. Smash a darkened window and crawl in? Maybe. Find an unlocked door and walk in? Possibly. My main problem, other than getting in, was that I didn't know where in the building God reigned. On the top, 14th floor? First floor? Somewhere in between? I tried the three doors I found; all were locked. No choice. With my jacketed elbow, I smashed the window of a dark room. The shattering glass sounded like a discordant symphony, volume turned way up. I stood stock still; heard nothing but my own heart beating hard. After a full minute, I elbowed out the remaining jagged window glass. Still no sound. I carefully climbed in the window. Again I stood stock still. Again I heard only my unquiet heart. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw a bureau, a desk, a chair and a bed. Someone's bedroom. But where was he or she? Working for God on the Heavenly Dope Assembly Line? Probably. I walked slowly and carefully - my extra thick rubber soles emitting no squeaks - into a small foyer. Dimly, I saw a kitchen, a living room, a door. Nobody. I put my ear against the door and listened. Loud silence. Slowly, I opened the door. A lighted hallway. Quietly, I closed the door and walked down the hallway. My shoulders convulsed. I stopped. Listened. Someone behind me? I took out my gun. I started to turn around. Like a vice, pain squeezed my brain. I disappeared into dreamland. Except no dreams.

CHAPTER 72

Angels had dragged me into God's throne room - Sanctum Sanctorum, Holy of Holies, Heaven of Heavens - and dumped me on the floor. God allowed himself a blessed belly laugh from on high at the sight of my no doubt pathetic-looking self. His eagerly predatory face was like the sleep-soddened blur of a nightmare felt after just waking up. Except - instead of the horrific dream's fumes dissipating in the rational light of day - the fog of unnatural fear unreasonably lingered. I stood up, surrounded by God's heavenly host, including the monstrous creep known as Mother Superior. With a bandage on his left hand where his little finger used to be. Big deal. I had a bigger bandage where the skin of my cheek used to be. He snarled and stalked toward me. "Back, Mother, back!" commanded God. "Time for that later!" "Mother Superior, don't jump the gun," I said in my John Lennon Liverpudlian accent, a skill I was often handsomely compensated for at Beatles' conventions. "What happened to your cheek?" God asked, laughing, aiming his chin at my bandage. "Bitch try to scratch out your eye? But aimed too low?" The angels murmured laughter. "Nothing of the sort," I said in my Norman Conquest voice. "Result of a recent duel which will leave a scar. Badge of honor among the elite. The cherished mark. The honorable wound. Surely you are aware of such matters. Hm? Wot?" "Uh, sure," said God, unsure, no longer laughing. The angels also abruptly ceased laughing. The glass on the only window was blacked out. What floor were we on? "So, naturally," I said, glancing around, "your headquarters here are in the highest level of Heaven. The top floor." "You don't need to know that," God said. Damn his diabolical eyes! "Check this out, sir," said an angel, handing my shoulder-holster up to God. He examined the holster. "A silver chess rook against a sable background," he announced. "Ah, I see. A rook is also sometimes called a castle. Because it resembles a castle turret. Castle is close enough to Castille." "One doesn't wish to be too 'on the money,'" I said. Next to his throne, on another throne sat a slender, imperious black woman. Razor-sharp jawline, wide mouth with grimly compressed lips, dangerous cheekbones and eyes as black and hard as onyx gemstones. All surrounded by a meticulously cut Afro. A black halo, as it were. The Virgin Mary, God's celestial concubine? Although the Virgin was actually God's mother. Maybe she was Mary Magdalene, said by some to be girlfriend or even wife of Jesus. But Jesus was the son of God. So...never mind. Religion was impossibly confusing. Or confused. "Castille, you imp of the perverse, this is my lady, Sophia." "Chommed, I'm sure," I said to her in my Norman Conquest voice. She dismissively squinched her features and didn't deign to respond. To God, I said: "You pimp of the perverse, why..." Sophia rose from her throne, nostrils flaring, blood-red fingernailed digits spread for attack, staring switch-blades at me. "Easy, Sophia," God said. She sat back down but still stared sourly at me. "Sophia," I said to God. "Greek for Wisdom. As she is, one imagines, your paramour, that makes you a philosopher. Literally translated: a lover of Wisdom." "You intrigue me, Castille," said God, chin in hand. "Probably because I'm intriguing." "So, instead of just giving you to Mother Superior to tear you limb from limb - in accordance with divine judgment - I'll give you a chance." "Thou all-merciful deity," I said. "From the embellishment on your holster, I assume you play chess." "The Royal Game?" I said. "I've been known to knock the pieces around the old checkerboard." "Then I propose a match," he said, descending from his throne. "Stakes?" I asked. "Your life." "Maybe we can start small and work our way up. First game for, say, my little finger." "One game match," he said. "Lose the game? Lose your life." "And if I win?" I asked. Laughter rumbled around the room. Not a good sign. Sophia gave forth a mighty 'Tch!' as if to demonstrate my obvious imbecility. "If you win?" he said. "The possibility hadn't crossed my mind. But, to be sporting, let's just say if you somehow win, you live." "And you let me leave?" "Yes." The chessboard sat regally on a circular mahogany table. And what a chess set! Held upright by four gold ornamental legs at the corners, the board's surface was composed of sixty-four alternating squares of gold-inflected white and black marble. The pieces, at least eight inches high, were intricate white and black ivory. "Hand-carved from the tusks of African elephants by master artisans," God informed me, countenance aglow. "What do you think of it?" "Tres rococo," I said. "Unnecessarily embellished a tad." He laughed. "I'll even let you have white," he said. "I prefer black." "Pawn to king four," I announced, moving my piece. "Not the Ruy Lopez opening," he groaned. "Frankly, Castille, I expected more from you." "Only the first move." "Pawn to king four," he sighed, making his move. After several moves, he exulted: "Ah! Not Ruy Lopez. But Guico Piano. Maybe it will be an interesting game after all." Everybody intently watched. We played in somber silence. Except for a harsh, grating sound. "Mother!" God shouted, without removing his eyes from the chessboard. "You'll have Castille to chew up soon enough. For now, stop grinding your teeth. Or I'll make you wear your retainer." The gnashing of teeth ceased. It became so quiet you could have heard two cows copulating in the Congo. By the middlegame, it was obvious that I would lose. I was a fair player. But if he really was a member of Mensa and practiced the game regularly, I didn't stand a chance. Even if, by some unGodly miracle, I made a comeback and won, could I believe God's promise that I could leave freely? No. Now I could feel as much as see him moving in for shah mat - 'the King is dead' in Persian - or checkmate. Then I end my days with my brain and heart chewed out by Monster Superior. What to do? "How many moves do you think you have left before I checkmate you?" God gloated. "One," I said, overturning and lifting the table at God. I bolted for the window. 14th floor? I'd die, spread over the concrete like spilled oil. 5th floor? Break both legs. Maybe I could pull myself to safety with my arms. Doubtful. Only certainty: if I didn't get out of this room, this building, I would be deleted from the roll call of this world. I leaped, turned my body in mid-air and covered my face with my forearms. As I crashed through, shivery slivers of black glass punctuated my skin. "Bring 'im back!" God yelled. "Dead or alive!"

CHAPTER 73

I quickly landed in an alley. Thank the gods and goddesses, we had been on the 2nd floor. But which way? I ran left and emerged at the opposite side of the building from the lights and long line of dope-buying drivers. And angels with guns. I ran toward my car, parked beyond the Wasteland. To which I planned to give a wide berth. "There he is!" someone shouted, followed by a burst of gunfire. In my direction. And these lunatics had my gun. And holster. Insult to injury. Suddenly appeared in front of me an angel with a gun. "Stop right there!" he commanded. "Sure," I said, and instinctively disappeared down a passage into...the Wasteland. I ran down the narrow muddy path between jerry-built shacks. Many had windows with cellophane covering; others had no covering at all. In every one, the sickly glow of televisions radiated. The path twisted and then forked. Which way? I stood stock still and listened. Had the God Gang followed me into the Wasteland? Over my heart's adrenaline- amplified thump thump, I heard the tinny roar of dozens, hundreds of cheap televisions. I turned left; walked carefully. Now, moving more slowly, my olfactory receptors fully registered the...stench. I almost vomited. I heard squeaking at my feet and looked down. You-be-damned rats rummaged in an appalling pool of waste and garbage. Then I did vomit. When I looked up, a male of indeterminate age, color and clothing confronted me. "Whatchoo do here?" he demanded. Tight-gripped in his hands like a baseball bat was a wooden plank with a nail pounded through. Its long sharp point aimed at me. "Taking a stroll," I said. He sneered, then wheezed. "Gimme money." "Sure," I smiled. By the light of the TV's in the jammed-up shacks, I saw the marks around his mouth and nose: 'glue sniffer's rash.' The poor bastards in this sub-slurb of Boston ate three solid meals a day: frustration, bitterness and despair. For dessert, they sniffed glue or paint thinner or rubber cement. A demented diet of desperation. But as bad as I felt for them, I wasn't going to allow myself to be nailed. "How much?" I asked. "All ya got," he said. He sniffed and coughed. Poor devil. Devils in front of me, fallen angels behind, into the valley of death I had walked. Denizens - in whose eyes hope had been snuffed out like a candle's guttering flame - watched from their crowded windows. Enemies? Allies? Apathetic non-combatants? The guy viciously swung the plank at my head, nail aimed at my eyes. I ducked. The guy angrily growled low in his throat like a temporarily thwarted beast of prey. He pulled the plank back into position and swung at my head again. God help me. The real God. If there was one. I stepped forward into the swinging plank and, avoiding the nail, blocked the plank with my two forearms. Hurt like hell. But now I had him. Unless fellow residents swarmed me from the windows. I slid my right hand down the plank. With the rigid outside knife edge of my palm, I slashed into the right side of his neck. He still stood, dazed. But he still stood. I had not connected squarely with his carotid artery. Now I struck the carotid again with the rigid outside knife edge of my left palm. Bingo! I had squarely hit his right carotid, cutting off blood flow to his poisoned brain. He swayed woozily, his eyes fluttered, he dropped the nailed plank. Yet still he stood, blocking my way in this narrow alley. I pulled my hands back and to the outside, rigidified my palms and simultaneously struck both his left and right carotid arteries. The sudden complete loss of blood to his brain caused him to drop to the ground. Unconscious. The window'd inhabitants of these hellish abodes murmured loudly. I stepped over my assailant's body, now being sniffed at and no doubt soon to be snacked on by the rats. I continued down the muddy lane. I was lost in the Wasteland: fear in a handful of mud. With God's hench-angels closing in on me. And maybe the Wasteland's wretched wastrels. How to escape this helter-skelter hodge-podge of hovels?

CHAPTER 74

Voices. All around me. Soft and sneaky as hissing serpents. Loud and clamorous as lowing cattle. Didn't dare go backward or forward. Couldn't go down without a shovel. Only one way. Up. I stood on the sill of a glassless window and reached high. I grasped the metal roof and pulled myself up and over. Felt like corrugated iron, as I lay supine, breathing hard. Right below, where I had stood five seconds before, a voice shouted: "He's got to be somewhere around here! Find him!" I crouched and peered down from the rim of the roof. A hooded angel with a gun. He faced away from me. I leaped. Dropping like a shotgunned duck, I tucked my heels under me. He sensed something. Turned and looked up. Just as my bent knees crashed down onto his shoulders. He grunted and fell backward. Now he lay on his back on the muddy ground. I sat on his chest, only his dazed countenance visible. My knees pinned his shoulders; the steel-pointed toes of my shoes pinned his wrists to his side behind me. Where was the gun? "Get off me!" he shouted, his features torqued and twisted in rage most demonic. "Call yourself an angel, you hellspawn?" I shouted down into his face in a furious suddenly-unleashed rage of my own. He writhed, trying to throw me off. The Old Legionnaire would advise piston-punching his jaw until I hit his knock-out button. But alas! I had vowed a solemn oath to never propel my fists against a foe's hard bone. For fear of hurting my hands so badly that I couldn't play guitar. Which was true. But actually it was more than that. I had always had a primeval horror-fear of ruining my hands. My whole life, I had had nightmares of my hands being cut off, crushed into useless pulp, falling off frozen. I didn't know why. But I didn't want to squash his eyeballs with my thumbpads. Or rip out his cheeks with thumbnail. Or choke him. "Hey!" I heard other angels nearby. "Over here!" My pulse - already sky-high - shot into the stratosphere. My body-brain snatched decision-making away from my too-slow head-brain. I lifted my clenched left fist toward my shoulder, raising my arm. Look out below. I rammed the point of my elbow down into the middle of his face. Hard. The front of his head exploded in blood. When I got off him, his hands automatically went to his face. Moaning and groaning, he rocked from side to side. In a bath of sweat, I looked and felt around the ground for his gun. My fingertips touched metal. A 9 millimeter Beretta. But without the rook-embellished holster, I couldn't be sure if it was mine or not. But it would do. Around me, ghostly voices murmured. I looked up to see eyes staring at me from the windows of the slovenly huts. Would they come at me? Would they turn me over to God? Suddenly, a boy slid fluidly out of a window, looked me up and down, and vaulted into a window of a different hut. I wasn't sure I'd actually seen him. My mind played tricks on me. Lost in this labyrinth, mixed-up in this maze, confused in this quagmire, what else could I do but keep moving? Hope I didn't run into a band of armed angels. Hope I could find my way out. I entered a clearing. Written on a wall in foot-high blood-red letters: CITY OF TOMORROW. A bare metal pipe protruded from the wall, out of which poured a stream of water. Three guys took turns soaping up and bathing under the water. Two women washed clothes in basins; rinsed them under the water when the men weren't using it. They all looked at me. "How do I get out of here?" I asked. "What are you doing in here?" One of the hard-eyed men asked. "A mistake," I said. "A wrong turn." All five laughed hysterically. Apparently, the notion that anyone would wander into the Wasteland by taking a wrong turn was hilarious. Abruptly, they stopped laughing. "You get out if you know what's good for you!" he threatened. I felt the security of the weight of the Beretta in my pocket. No need to reveal it. Yet. "That's all I want," I said. "To get out. Just tell me how." All five again laughed hysterically. Words seemed meaningless. A farrago of verbal vertigo. I looked straight up to see a small slice of sky, just to re-orient myself. I moved on. At every turn of the narrow passage, hemmed in by hovels and hutches, the sordid squalor increased. Drunken men - who knew they were damned - cursed the gods, the government, the very air they breathed. Wild women screamed, squealed, screeched, shrieked from another day of bang-your-head-against-the-wall poverty. The teenagers and pre-teens sniffed, coughed, wheezed from their incessant chroming. The brain-haunting huffing of inhalants. Abandoned babies banshee-wailed. And always the omnipresent televisions' blue blasting blare. The constant din was unbearable. I recalled reading Dostoevsky's House of the Dead about his incarceration in a Siberian prison camp. He said, of all the horrors, for him the worst was the ceaseless noise. A sick thought sliced into my mind like a rusty scalpel. What if I wasn't following the right passage to escape the Wasteland and, from there, escape God's gang of goons? What if I were moving in circles well within the Wasteland? To sooner or later be overwhelmed by armed angels? Or maybe doped-up desperate denizens? What if?

CHAPTER 75

I kept walking, having no idea where I was going. Some hovels had walls that looked made of baked mud and petrified garbage. Some houses of the homeless were literally lean-to's, supported by the fragile walls of their neighbors. If one collapsed, a whole row of flimsy structures would fall like a row of dominoes. The inhabitants somehow survived. The wretched of the world; perpetual paupers, puppets of forces they would never comprehend, let alone control; subsisting in pre-caskets; subject to numerous nameless diseases from slurried sludge-worms; their only solace, amid the deafening din, the blare and boom of the TV Cyclops, powered by pirated electricity, as evidenced by the extension cords overhead. The inhabitants somehow survived. The Wasteland was midway between a hobo jungle and a prison camp. No wonder city officials pretended it didn't exist. No wonder the cops never went within. No wonder I was desperate to find my way out. But how? I passed a pile of burning garbage. The noxious reek made me nauseous. I stumbled on. A large piece of tin lay on the ground. It lifted away, as by a wind, and a creature emerged from a hole and lunged at my belly with a rusty iron shovel. If I hadn't danced aside, the shovel might have cut me in half. He thrust out the shovel at me twice, not speaking, just staring strangely. The third time, I slipped by the shovel and I was on him. I speared him in the throat with the straightened rigid fingertips of my left hand. I smelled on his rag-clothes, even his breath, even his sweat, the sickly sweet scent of paint thinner or some kind of solvent. With my spear-hand, I forced him to backpedal till he tripped over a rock and went down hard. He groaned. I moved. And moved. And moved. Would I ever get out of this megalopolitan mad-house? And then I saw it up ahead: street lights. Street lights meant streets. Streets meant escape. I ran. I fell on my face. Hard. A trip-wire! I jumped to my feet. In front of me - sporting death's-head smirk, death row eyes and bandaged stump of little finger, the acknowledged master, from sea to shining sea, of Jailhouse Rock - the monster known only as Mother Superior.

CHAPTER 76

"Do you have the time?" I asked, ever so politely. "Time for you to die," he grunted. "Now." Gulp. "God said to bring me back alive," I said. "I care what God says?" "God proposes; Mother Superior disposes. Eh?" "Dispose like garbage," he said. Trapped. By a time-tested prison-hardened master of close infighting. He'd try to get me down on the ground to grapple. Then he would have the decided advantage. I had to stay on my feet. He lunged, grabbing for me. I stepped back, careful not to tumble backward over the trip-wire. Now if I could get him to trip. Had he or an angel set up the wire? Or a Wastelandian? Certainly Mother Superior had stationed himself at this egress point, hoping I came this way. Lucky him. But maybe neither God's gang nor the Wastelandians had set the trap to alert them to somebody leaving. What if the Wastelandians had set the trap to alert them to somebody entering? If that were the case, Mother Superior probably thought I tripped due to my own clumsiness. Of course, anybody who knew me, knew that due to my innate nimbleness, I could never be so clumsy. But Mother didn't know me. So, maybe, if I could step backward over the trip wire and incite Mother to come toward me, he might... Howls of bloodlust I heard behind me. I was definitely trapped. I had to get by this hulking specimen, expert at Jailhouse Rock, to have any chance of escaping. "I kill you now, okay?" he smirked fiendishly, stepping toward me. My mind was misty, murky, muzzy but the diamond-stylus words of the Old Legionnaire cut through the fog. 'When walking backward, keep the weight on the balls of the feet and lift the heels. That way, if you back into something, you'll keep your balance. Walking backward with heels on ground, you'll trip.' I slowly slid my left foot back, heel raised. No contact. The psychotic miscreant took a step toward me. I slid my right foot back, heel raised. No contact. He stepped toward me. Behind me, I heard the ever-louder, ever-closer howls. My hair was a jungle of sweat. My head jingled like loose change. My heart jangled like a tuneless tambourine. I resisted the fear-fueled idea of moving back quickly. I slowly slid my left foot back. Contact! Midway on my heel, I felt the virtually invisible wire. Taut, strong, low to the ground. The next step was tricky. I'd have to lift my left leg to step back over the wire. And the same with my right leg. Would this freak of human nature notice? I carefully raised my left foot and then my right foot as I stepped back and over the wire. The freakshot seemed not to notice. His death-ray eyes aimed their lasers of lunacy at my eyes. I followed the Old Legionnaire's advice. 'Don't look at an opponent's eyes. They can deceive. Don't look at an opponent's hands or feet. They can deceive. Look at the center of his chest and, peripherally, at his elbows and knees.' I watched his chest as he moved toward me. He obviously wasn't aware of the trip wire. But maybe he wouldn't trip because he moved so slowly. I had been sent sprawling because I was running. How to speed him up? "So you're the hotshot of Jailhouse Rock? I heard Jailhouse Rock meant having sex with the other inmates. Is that true, Mother? Did all the prison fathers have their way with you?" As I had hoped, the taunting enraged him. He took a fast, loping step toward me, hit the wire and fell flailing on his face. He roared with rage and frustration. I quickly stepped on his back and then on to blessed freedom. But he reached his right hand around and grasped my left ankle. He started to roll to his right. Then he'd be on his back, ready to rise, with my left ankle in his bear-trap clutch. Perspiration poured out of my every pore. Maybe I could drown him in sweat. The semi-human bloodhounds bayed. Closer and closer. Now what, Old Legionnaire? 'Be creative,' his voice sternly commanded in my mind. He called one of his teaching methods Creative Play. Like shadow boxing, you defend against a visualized assailant. That was the time to create your own new motions. As Mother rolled onto his back, he reached out with his bandaged left hand to double-clutch my ankle. He'd pull me down; I wouldn't stand a chance. Create. Create! I had forgotten all about my gun! But then I remembered. What could be more creative? I pulled out my Baretta and shot him through his left palm. He yowled. His right hand let go of my ankle as it went automatically to his bleeding, wounded left hand. I turned and bounded off him and - yes! - out of the Wasteland to a normal street. Freedom! I ran at top speed to my car and drove home. I realized I couldn't take God by storming Heaven. Did he live there? Or somewhere else? If elsewhere, I might have a better chance. But how to find out? Figure it out tomorrow. Right then, my think-machine was thumbsucking thirsty for sleep. I hit the living room sofa to drown in the deeps of dreamland.

CHAPTER 77

In the middle of the night, I was blasted awake by my front door being blown off its hinges. Phoenix and I had agreed to swap bed-downs every night. Tonight, she slept in my bedroom in the back. On the sofa in the living room, I had dreamed of Margie with the long black hair. Heavy footsteps clattered down the hall. Unless Phil - my attack-philodendron - hindered their progress, they would charge into my living room in two seconds. My heart rapped a rapid rhythm. Rat-a-tat-tat. Like a machine gun inside my chest. How many? At least two. Maybe more. Who? Could be anyone dropping by for a friendly 2 a.m. chat. But probably the Mexican drug cartel's assassins who had figured out Phoenix's whereabouts and had come to kill her. What to do? My gun! In my daze, I'd left it in the car under the seat. Good one. Quick! I sat up and grabbed my walking cane. Around the corner hurtled two stone fox Latina supermodels in leather jackets and blue jeans. Each hefted a submachine gun. Against I. I who had nothing. I stared straight ahead. "Who is it?" I demanded. "Whattaya?" asked one. "Blind?" "Yes," I said. She approached and waved her hand in front of my eyes. I stared resolutely ahead. She turned to look at model #2 and shrugged. I prepared myself. She turned and arrow-aimed a vicious fist that stopped one inch from my nose. I silently thanked the Old Legionnaire for all the times he made me practice this. He had me practice the oddest actions, reactions and, as in this case, non-actions. He'd seen it all: every type of attack and response in Southeast Asia, North Africa, Europe and the Combat Zone. Where he had regularly conducted field trips to try conclusions. He'd merged what he'd seen and done in the heat of battle on four continents into his own unique style recognized by the Japanese Grandmaster of Hakko-Ryu Jiu-Jitsu. And in that momentous moment, I was glad he did. Because when this jamoke's concrete fist rocketed at my face, I - unbelievably - didn't flinch or even blink. Model #1 looked at #2 and again shrugged. "I guess he's really blind," she said in a definite Mexican accent. "Who are you?" I asked angrily. "What do you want?" I sat at the edge of the sofa, two hands resting on the crook of the cane which stood upright on the rug. "You must be the one called Castille," #1 said, lifting her machine gun. "They didn't tell me you were blind." "Because he's not," I said. "I'm his cousin. Staying over." "Where's Castille, super blanco?" "Out of town," I said. "Who else is here?" "Nobody." "Where is la puta?" she asked. "Who?" "The woman called Phoenix." "No idea," I said. "Check the other rooms," she said to #2 who left the room. I prayed Phoenix had also been awakened by the blast. #1 saw my guitar leaning against the wall. "The blind one plays the guitar?" she asked, amused. "Want me to play your theme song, La Cucaracha?" Was Phoenix awake? Had she heard the explosion? What would she do when model #2 confronted her? "Si, Senor Invidente," she said. "Play La Cucaracha for me." "Sure," I said. Before I could mime reaching blindly for the guitar, a burst of automatic gunfire was silenced by a single pistol shot. Way to go, Phoenix. I hoped. "Chorro de mierda!" swore #1, turning away from me to go to the back of the apartment. As she took a forward step, I hooked her shin just above her ankle with the crook of the cane. She fell forward but, in falling, twisted around to aim her machine gun at me. I had quickly unscrewed the top of the cane to reveal a six-inch steel stiletto attached to the crook. I leaped on her and stabbed her deep in her right arm. She screamed in pain and let go of the gun. Which fell onto the floor next to her. She struggled with me, grabbing for the cane handle to get control of the blade. I didn't like stabbing people, even those who eminently deserved it. Unlike hand-to-hand or shooting, I had a visceral revulsion against it. But it looked like I'd have to puncture a major artery. We rolled around on the rug. Then a voice shouted: "Alta!" Phoenix stood in the doorway, pointing at us #2's submachine gun. #1 looked up and saw her. She went limp; no doubt she knew Phoenix's reputation of 'shoot first; forget about asking questions.' I rolled off #1, taking her machine gun with me and stood up. She looked up at me. "So," she said sadly. "You are not blind, after all." "I still play guitar though," I said. "Stand up, la puta!" Phoenix ordered. The woman got to her feet, blood trickling out of her stab wound. "My partner?" she asked. "Dead," said Phoenix in a rock-hard voice. "Me?" she asked. "Dead," Phoenix said, blasting her in the chest. She fell heavily, bleeding all over my rug. "Did you have to kill them?" I asked Phoenix. "They came to kill me," she said, her eyes as black, hard and gleaming as obsidian. "What should I have done? Slap their wrists, tell them 'it's not nice to play with guns' and send them home?" "But now what?" I asked. "Wait till more assassins come calling?" "More may come," she said. "Or not. They've already lost three of their best. They may decide to cut their losses. Or not." "So you'll have to go through life waiting for another world-class assassin to whack you?" "Yes," she said simply. "The Violent Life and Dangerous Times of Phoenix Chan," I said. "Make a great movie or TV series." "I'm shopping it around."

CHAPTER 78

I trembled. Another victory like this and I was done for. Phoenix appeared unperturbed. But how did she feel inside? "What about these two bodies?" I asked. "I'll make a phone call," she said. "A phone call?" I asked. "For a clean-up squad." "A clean-up squad?" "You repeat everything I say," she said. "Are you deaf?" "I once was blind, but now I see," I said. "Miraculously cured by Santa Cucaracha, matron saint of cockroaches. And of miracle cures." "Let's check the front door," she said. We walked down the narrow hallway. I looked sternly at Phil. "We'll talk about your shocking lapse of duty later, young man." The door hung helplessly on one hinge. "C-4," said Phoenix. "Plastic explosive." "Probably why no sirens screaming our way. Why my devoted neighbors didn't hear it and rush to my rescue. We only heard it inside the house." "The beauty of C-4," Phoenix said. "Right up there with the Mona Lisa, Starry Starry Night and Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup cans." We went back to the living room; she dialed the phone and said: "Phoenix Chan. Clean-up squad requested. Yes. ASAP. 221-B Savin Hill Ave., Dorchester, Boston. Okay." She hung up. "They'll be here in a while," she said. "I had no idea how deeply you were involved in real cloak-and-dagger stuff." "Like what?" "DEA. Cartels. Clean-up squads on call," I said. "Next you'll tell me you're a close, personal friend of M, James Bond's boss." "I seldom work in Europe," she said, seriously. "Back to business," I said. "Clean-up squad? How? Where? Who?" "Better that you don't know. You should stay in your study with the door closed. Better that they don't see you. Or you see them." "Why?" I asked. "Trust me," she said. "It's better this way." "How much do they charge?" "I'll pay. They came here to kill me." "Will they clean the blood out of my rug?" I asked. "I'll buy you a new one." "What about the front door?" "Buy you a new one," she said. "What about the submachine guns?" I asked. "Unless you want to keep one..." "No." "Then I'll add them to my arsenal," she said. "Maybe you should go into your study now. Read a book." "Doesn't this ever bother you?" I asked, ignoring her request. "What?" "This. Killing people." "It was kill or be killed," she said. "I don't mean just tonight. All the other nights. All the other corpses. Doesn't bother you?" "No," she said. "You?" "Yes." "Even if they deserved it?" "I wouldn't kill them," I said, "if they didn't deserve it." "So then?" "So then it still bothers me." "How?" she asked. "By the way, we should do this another time. The squad will be here any minute." "I don't care," I said. "You asked how does it bother me. Regret. Remorse. Guilt for tearing a hole in the universe." "I learned martial arts at my mother's knee," Phoenix said. "Starting at age three. You didn't start with the Old Legionnaire until you were - what? - fourteen or fifteen. Maybe that's the difference." "Your mother taught you how to kill when you were three?" I asked. "She showed me the motions. Of course I didn't actually kill anyone when I was three. Didn't the Old Legionnaire teach you how to kill from the beginning?" "Yes. But one of the principles of Jiu-Jitsu is not to kill if you don't have to." "Yet you have killed people," she said. "Go. Your study." "Wait," I said. "Yes, I've killed people. But it still feels unnatural. You seem to be a natural born killer." "Suddenly grow a conscience?" she asked. "I have a conscience," I said. "Do you?" "No." "You admit you have no conscience? Are you a sociopath?" "Tell me this," she said, ignoring my question. "Did you ever kill someone who didn't deserve it?" "No," I said. "Did you ever kill except in self-defense? Your life or theirs?" "No," I said. "Did you ever kill except to protect the weak?" "No," I said. "Did it bother you to kill your best friend?" she asked. "Rat? I didn't kill him. He killed himself." "But if he hadn't killed himself, you would have killed him. Right?" "Right," I reluctantly admitted. I seemed to be losing this argument. If argument it was. Something had surfaced in me. Like an island suddenly rising from the depths of the ocean to the surface. "But Rat deserved it. He killed my beloved wife." "That's what I'm saying," she triumphed. "You only kill people who deserve to be killed." I wasn't sure what I was trying to get at. Out of my mouth popped: "Do you believe in God?" "No," she said, without hesitation. "Do you?" "I don't believe in belief. Only facts, information, knowledge and - dare I say it? - wisdom." "So..." she started but stopped when two doors of a car outside opened and closed. "That's them. Please stay in your study. We'll take care of everything." "All right," I said. "But discussion to be continued another time."

CHAPTER 79

"Seen our favorite pseudo-patient Mr. X. a.k.a Richard Clayton lately?" I asked Shree next morning in her office. She wore her usual shapeless white lab coat and shapeless white hospital pants. Her lobes were adorned with the usual white pearl earrings. The office walls were also white. What wasn't white was brown. Shree's hair, her skin, her eyes, folders on her desk, her telephone. White and brown. This was one painter who wasn't playing with a full palette. "Haven't seen him since last Tuesday. Eight days ago," she said. "You?" "Not since Saturday. I called his parents. They haven't seen him for a long time." "Given what you said to them, do you really think they would tell you if they had seen him?" "Probably not," I allowed. "They simply couldn't bear to see their sonny boy murderer in court charged with, you know, murder." "Perhaps you came on too strong," said Shree, diplomatically. "Perhaps," I said. "Nevertheless, Young Sparkie - our friendly neighborhood pyromaniac - is on the loose in Ye Olde Boston with his classic Zippo Windproof Lighter. And what can we do about it?" Shree shrugged her shoulders, turned up her palms and produced a facial expression that meant 'I don't know.' Her shrug, palms-up and face weren't the usual 'I don't know' of the average person. Rather it was the rare, reluctant 'I don't know' of the person who knows what she wants and how to get it. "He's so screwy," I said. "He'll tip his hand sooner or later." Shree winced when I said 'screwy.' Shrinks didn't like words like 'screwy,' 'wacky,' 'batty,' 'daffy,' 'dippy,' 'flaky' or 'loony.' Probably called up childhood traumas involving issues related to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves or Santa Claus' reindeer. They preferred words, no, phrases, like 'psychopathic functional nervous disorder.' However, such phrases didn't roll trippingly off the tongue like 'drooling nutso.' "And when he tips his hand?" asked Shree. "We pounce," I said. "And how do we know when his hand has been tipped?" "Boston will be in flames."

CHAPTER 80

"Castille, you save my life in hospital," said Pinky, back at her post as receptionist at Margie's Chinatown Service Center. "How'd you end up in the hospital?" "Aye-yeah! I have nervous breakdown." "What happened?" I asked. This sort of thing had happened before with Pinky. Which she had told me. So I didn't think it rude to ask her for details. "I take pills," Pinky continued. "Many pills. In all my body, my heart was beating. They take me to emergency room. Boston Hospital. Put tube down my throat and pump out. Then they transfer me to Fink." Fink Institute: prime dumping spot for not-financially-well-off dopefiends. They actually had a sign in the foyer: 'Abandon all dope ye who enter here.' "How was that?" I asked. "Oh my God! "Lock me up. Treat me like crazy woman. I no crazy. Most people there on drugs. But I not like that. I tell but nobody listen. I am not that worse. If I stay, I get worse. Will drive me crazy." "Then what?" I asked. "Margie come. Talk to doctors. So they send me back to Boston Hospital." "Why did you take the pills?" I asked. "I put everything in my heart and it get locked up. I so depressed. I go to Atlantic City." "How did you do?" "No good," she said. "I have no luck." "What were you playing?" "Blackjack." "Blackjack requires skill as well as luck," I said. "I like luck more than skill. If I could only have one, I take luck. I believe everyone in world have a certain 'luck' or 'faith.'" "Fate?" "Oh! Yes! Fate," she said. "I have bad fate." "What else?" "I experience some thinkings and strugglings with my job." "Like what?" I asked. "Been here a long time," she said. "Should get better job. Make more money. But I afraid." "Maybe Margie can make you a counselor. More money." "I no think I am that type of persons," she said. "Anything else happened?" "I no like to talk about." "You don't have to tell me," I said, "if you don't want to." "I want to. I trust you. My son and daughter oftenly don't go to school. The school call me up here so many times. Then my son get stabbed. My money is tight. All problems come at same time. So I try kill myself." "How is your son?" I asked. "He back at school. When he go," she said. "But he belong to gang." "What kind of gang?" "Vietnamese. Many Vietnamese gangs fight each other. Unless black gang or white gang or Chinese gang attack Vietnamese. Then all Vietnamese gangs fight back together." "And your daughter?" I asked. "She very quiet. No like to go to school. I think she like me. Afraid." The poor woman. A foreigner in a foreign land. Her children felt the same way. Probably from the violence directed at them. So, like Pinky's daughter, they withdraw. Or, like her son, they join gangs. He would end up in prison or the morgue. I didn't know what I could say to make her feel better. The usual cliches like 'It'll be all right' would turn to ashes in my mouth. "Still see Calvin?" I asked. "He help me so much," she brightened. "He listen to me. Like you. I don't know what I do without Calvin." Calvin was her boyfriend. Six-three, bespectacled, studying wu shu with Phoenix's mother. Ironically, sadly, he was the source of some of Pinky's troubles. Because his skin was black, midnight-black, blue-black. Many Vietnamese looked at blacks with contempt. Everybody needs someone to look down on in our status-crazed society. "I am borned under a bad star," Pinky summed up, sorrowfully. "Hang in, Pinky," I said. "Margie in?" "Just go back her office."

CHAPTER 81

I opened Margie's office door to see her maniacally sweep - from her desk to the floor - stacks of papers, files, folders, reports, requests for proposals and proposals for funding not yet completed. "Dysfunction at the Chinatown junction," I said. She looked up at me with wild eyes. "Space Aliens' Mind Control Rays Transform Margie The Merciful Into A Crazed She-Demon," I said in my horror-movie- trailer voice. I couldn't resist adding: "Who Must Fight Berserk Nazi Snake-Worshipping Albino Motorcycle Gang!" "You! What's-your-name!" she shouted. "If you know what's good for you, you'll get out now!" "I prefer not to," I said drily, observing the normally nicely-stacked papers scattered all over the floor. "What in the freak are you doing?" "This...this thing!" she said, holding up a huge pocketbook. "New pocketbook? Oh, that's right. You couldn't find anything in your old pocketbook. Because it was one open vault with everything mish-mashed together." "So I bought this thing with compartments. So I could compartmentalize stuff, making it easier to find, you know, stuff." "What are you looking for?" I asked. "A pen!" "And?" I asked. "And the compartments make it harder!" she said as she turned the pocketbook upside down and dumped all the contents out on the newly empty desktop. Like Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight looking for her lost brooch. Margie's desk was now covered with a cornucopia of crapola. "This is fantastical! A veritable archaeological find of the highest order!" I said. "Professor Wong, would you say this ancient midden-heap is from the Mesolithic or Neolithic Period?" "Shut up," she clarified. "No pens?" I asked. "Look. Look!" Pens everywhere in the dumped contents of her pocketbook. "They must have all been at the bottom," Margie muttered. I started counting the writing utensils: "One, two, three..." "No need to count them," Margie said. "Seven, eight, nine..." "I get the picture," Margie said. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen," I said. "Fourteen pens in your pocketbook! And you couldn't find one. Because you have so much junk in there." "Go away," she said, intently pawing through her personal junkpile. "Now what are you doing?" I asked. "Trying to make sense of this pocketbook." "Margie. I beg of you. Either carry just a wallet and keys. Or get a suitcase and throw in every imaginable possession." "Darling," she said, "you don't understand the deep emotional bond between women and their pocketbooks. You'd notice things like that if you were a good detective." "I am a good detective. But women's pocketbooks are a blind spot. Complete mystery. Terra incognito." I picked up a black leather-bound item. "What's this?" I asked. "Book for phone numbers," she said. "What? No Boston Yellow Pages?" I picked up another item. "Do you need this card?" I asked. "Of course. Look. One dollar off hair care products." "Except it expired a year ago." "Never mind," she said. "See this card? Membership for my gym." "Except you never go to the gym." "I went," she said. "Once." "Twice." She busily rummaged through her trove of treasure/trash. "Why so many receipts?" I asked. "In case I have to return something." "Like what? What's this receipt for?" "Outside lights," she said. "Or is it the badminton set?" "And this?" "New blue jeans. I want to make sure they fit." "Do they?" I asked. "Haven't tried them on yet." "What are these?" "Discount coupons," she said. "'$2 Off Submarine Sandwich,'" I read one. Then another: "'Free Pizza.' You can afford to buy a pizza." "You don't know what it's like to grow up poor." "Here's another," I said, "'Buy One Burger and Get Another One Free.' What if you just want one?" "I'll ask the person in line behind me if they want a free burger." "Even if the person is a perfect stranger?" I asked. "Yes." "But how can you tell if he or she is perfect?" "It's a gift. I also know a perfect idiot when I see one," she said, raising her eyebrows and looking at me. "'Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!'" I said. "What's in your wallet besides money?" "Driver's license, library card, your photo..." "So I come in third after your car and books?" "You're lucky," she said. "I moved you up in the rotation." "Above what?" "Bank card." "I'm more important to you than money?" I said. "Aw, that's so sweet." "You're a credit to your species," she said, dead-eyeing me with a patented Margie power-look. "Homo Dipshitto." "Take a break," I said. "Relax for a minute." "What are you?" she asked. "My life-coach?" "You'll get my bill in the morning." She scrutinized her pocketbook. "Look!" she said. "I didn't even notice! A special pocket at either end." "Special for what?" "I don't know," she said. "Yet." "In other news," I said, "Pinky's barely holding it together."

CHAPTER 82

"Don't you think I know that?" she asked. "So what are we going to do?" I asked. "I do what I can with her," Margie shrugged. "She said she should have moved on to a better job by now than receptionist. Can you give her a job as a counselor?" "I'd like to," Margie said. "But I don't think she's capable of it." "She doesn't think so, either." "Pinky's not overly stable." "So I gathered," I said. "But I don't want her to try and commit suicide again." "No," I said. "But I can understand it. Sometimes, I feel like wrapping my lips around the muzzle of my gun and pulling the trigger." "I know you do," she said. "How do you know?" "Because I know you," she said, simply. "Don't worry," I said. "I'm not going to do it." "I know," she said. "Because you know me." "That's right," she said. "What cases are you working on now?" Before I could answer, she added another question: "Phoenix still sleeping at your place?" "Staying at my place," I said. "I told you." "Tell me again. Why?" "An assassin is trying to kill her. Said assassin knows where she lives. Said dread assassin can drill her the minute she walks out. "But said assassin doesn't know me. Hence, doesn't know where I live. Therefore, Phoenix operates out of my place for the time being." "So she's still sleeping at your place," she said. I sighed. "Yes, if you insist upon phrasing it like that." I didn't see any point in recalling the spot of unpleasantness that transpired at my humble digs on the previous night. "Until when?" she asked. "Until Phoenix kills this assassin?" "No other way," I said. "The assassin won't stop until she or Phoenix is dead." "She?" "Figure of speech. We don't know whether it's a he or a she or a they." "And, of course," said Margie, "you're going to help Phoenix kill the he/she/they assassin. No. Don't tell me. I don't want to know. Just don't get yourself killed. Promise." "Promise," I said. "Cross my heart and hope to die; stick a needle in my eye." "Don't tempt me," she said. "Here's one dollar. Go away. I have work to do." "One dollar?" I said. "Make it ten and you've got yourself a deal." What could I say? One assassin on her way was now three assassins already arrived and dispatched by Phoenix and me. And who knew how many more to follow? My little white lie had ballooned into a little larger little white lie. Although, a little that's larger is approaching...big. Or, at least, bigger. Not only bigger, which is to say worse; but also, white was approaching polychromatic. My tactical terminological inexactitude, my petty prevarication, my well-intentioned untruth employed to spare Margie from worry now strayed close to a flagrant falsehood. I felt bad. Lying to bad guys was acceptable; lying to one's beloved was...not. Yet my line of work required it. But did I require my line of work? I didn't know. But even though it might be my last job, it was the first item on my agenda. For the sake of all that's holy: Kill God.

CHAPTER 83

So where in hell did God live? In Heaven? Like the nuns always told me? Or a hidey-hole outside Heaven? I needed more info. But from whom? Hm? My usual source was Rat. He had been in contact - figuratively and literally - with the Boston underworld. But he had self-destructed. Blind lawyer Cecelia Coquette SooHoo? No. She only knew Chinatown. Phoenix Chan? She had her hands full. Jimmy Liu? A cop, true. But confined to Chinatown. I didn't realize how dependent I'd become on Rat for info on bad guys outside of Chinatown. Laughing Death? He probably didn't remember his real name. Jimmy the Hat? Possibly. Around 10 p.m., I found the nocturnal entrepreneur at his post: Harrison and Beach. By fool's gold light of day: Chinatown Crossing. By black cat dark of night: Combat Zone Central. The Zone was in full swing. Seemed to be more activity than usual, even for a warmish spring evening. But maybe it was just spring and spring alone. When I woke that morning, two birds chirped outside my window. One repeated the same two notes over and over again. High-low. High-low. The other trilled a long melody line. Tuneful as a Paul McCartney song. Maybe when I retired to Sussex, after a long and illustrious career, instead of keeping bees, I would watch birds. Jimmy wore his trademark black over-sized suit jacket over canary yellow t-shirt. "Whatchoo want now?" Jimmy asked, warily. "Info," I said. "Jimmy's stock-in-trade," he said, brightening. "Who?" "Character calls himself God. I want the 411." "Jesus on the main line," sang Jimmy. "Call'm up, tell'm whatchoo want." "Not that God." "Then which whatever God?" "One who peddles dope out of the Hillside Haven Projects," I said. "A.k.a. Heaven." "Peddle dope? Outa Heaven? Oh, that God." "Tell me everything you know," I said. "Me?" he asked. "Don't know, y'know, nuttin'." "Jimmy." "Honest to dog," he said. "Don't know nuttin' 'bout God. Don't wanna know nuttin'. But got some real fine sticky-icky, you want. A'ready rolled into jaybirds. What say?" "No," I said. "Thinkin' a opening some kinda y'know extra bidness. Step my game up." "Like what?" I asked, playing along. He knew. Jimmy always knew something. "Stand. Sell y'know street meat. Sausage, dogs, sangwiches, burgers. What think?" "Put Dirty Gerty out of business?" "Hail, no," he said, offended. "Got nuttin' but y'know love for Gerty. But plenty room for y'know healthy competition. Stoner's Graceland close y'know at midnight." "Wanda's Burgers? Cheap food. Late hours compared to other burger joints. Just the thing for the whole family when they get the midnight marijuana munchies. Won't Grandma and Grandpa be proud?" "Damn straight," confirmed Jimmy. "I even sell shit to Granpaw and Granmaw. I ain't discriminating." "That's for sure," I said. "So. Tell me about God." "Tole ya," he said, giving me the sideways squinch-eye. "Don't know nuttin'." I sighed. "Who does know something?" I asked. "I ping-pong you to Tarzacula." "Who?" "He a whitefolks. Like you," said Jimmy. "But he talk like a y'know b-boy from Roxbury. Got a mouth fulla grills, cables, the whole nine. A whitefolks bruvva from cornrows down to fly-ass kicks. He cool. He beyond cool. He y'know polar." "Where does one find this so-called Tarzacula?" "He be y'know homing at King of Pizza." "Pimp?" I asked. "Li'l bitta everythin'," he said. "But watch yo'self. He real the deal." "Thanks, Jimmy. Put it on the tab." "Onna tab," he muttered. "Alluz onna tab."

CHAPTER 84

On the corner of Washington and Boylston, with huge windows on the two street sides: King of Pizza. What a shot high into the status-phere. Hobnobbing with queens, kings and - who knows? - soon, even God. Inside, to the right: a long counter with stools. Alkies, dopeheads, even regular citizens ingesting slices. Behind the counter, two dirty-aproned young men sliding pizzas into and out of two big ovens. To the left, against the Washington St. window, a row of hideous booths with blue plastic one-piece seats and gray plastic tables. Nightfolk sat and chewed and chomped. The very last booth hid beyond the window. Sitting, with his back to the wall, with four young black guys in attendance, sat a white guy. Had to be him. As I approached, his rusty iron eyes nailed me. The black guys turned to follow his gaze. Now they all gun-stared at me. Tarzacula had a face like a cut deck. Cornrow braids: closely shaved head except for lines of blonde hair, like furrows for planting. Eyes: black holes in exploding stars. Mouthful of gold-plated teeth. Diamond studs in lobes. Wearing regulation gear: hoodie, low rider pants, top-of-the-line fresh-out-the-box Nikes. Thick gold chains dripping from his neck. He quizzed me with a look and his entourage went on high alert. "Jimmy the Hat sent me," I said. "Castille. You Tarzacula?" "Tell ya, brah, what I am," this almost-albino spoke pure black street. "I'm a ball-breaking, dick-smacking, joint-wised-up, street-schooled, petro-popping, souped-up schemin' smooth operator. "What you, brah? 5-0 gone cuff me, send me back to da house a pain?" he asked. "Cuz I ain't be studying that." "No." "Crackhead fiendin' to get stupid inna cloud?" "No," I said. He put his elbow on the table and his chin on his fist and studied me. I looked at him with a neutral expression - not pansy, not hard-ass - the way, you know, you do. Then he said to one of his posse: "Get up, 40-Hands. Let this dude siddown." "Aw, Tarzacula." He silenced 40-Hands with a look. 40-Hands sighed, stood, leaving a space in the blue plastic seat. I sat. "Want some go-juice, brah?" asked Tarzacula. "Coffee?" I said. "Never touch the stuff." "Say you know Jimmy the Hat." "He referred me." "What his gear, brah?" he asked. "Black jacket over yellow t-shirt." "How he get his street name?" "He started out," I said, "selling condoms on the streets. Little hats to cover the head of the old jimbrowski." Tarzacula snorted a laugh. Signal for his posse to lighten up. I felt the alleviation of tension. "So," he said, leaning back expansively. The sour lemon fluorescent light eerily illuminated his sickly-white sin-ugly face. I was getting tired of fraternizing with sociopaths. But, for now, once more into the blue loco breach. "Whatchoo want?" "Information on God," I said. "What I look like? A preacher-man? A teacher-man?" His posse passed a laugh around the table. "God," I said. "Slangs dope out of the Hillside Haven Project." "That God?" he wrinkled his forehead. "Whatchoo wanna know?" "What's his act?" I asked. "He one heavy-duty mofo." "Do tell," I said. "He a genius." "Aren't we all?" "No, he a for-real genius," he said. "Been brain-tested and all. Belong to that genius group. Forget the name." "Mensa?" I asked. "Mensa!" he snapped his fingers. "That it!" "What else?" I asked. "He a genius," Tarzacula shrugged. "Can do anything. Just about." "Like?" "He front a band. Back in the day, open for James Brown. That some funky shit, right there. He know all about art, books, chess and shit. Expert on antique guns, Oriental rugs, deadly snakes. Man, you name it, he know it. He got a Einstein skull." "He's planning to take over the Zone," I said. "So that it!" Tarzcula said. "What?"

CHAPTER 85

"So many new working girls 'round here sudden-like," he said. "You think God sent them to infiltrate the Zone?" I asked. "Infiltrate?" he said. "These hoes gone inundate reg'lar hoes in a freak flood." "How'd he take over the projects?" I asked. "Nobody know," Tarzacula said. "One day, wasn't there. Next day, was. Day after, he turn Hillside Haven Projects into a third shift pharmacy. Slangs dope. Dope. And more dope. God run the whole show. Even when he not there." "The cops know?" "Whatchoo think, brah?" he frowned, like I was a high schooler who didn't know two plus two equals four. "God make sure po-po get they cut." "So he does what he wants?" I asked. "He God," Tarzacula shrugged. "Just think," I said. "It took the real God six days to create the universe." "And he didn't have to mule in no dope from Mexico," said Tarzacula. "Maybe I should make a little visit to Hillside Haven," I said, to hear his response. "Street call it Heaven," He said. "Because," I said, "God is in charge." "So be careful," said Tarzacula. "Very careful." "Though few know it, Very is my first name." "No joke," he said. "God be a charisneumatic psychiatric. His posse - archangels, angels, whatev - be dangerous as dynamite." "I know," I said. "I had the pleasure of subduing an angel. An archangel flew in and shot the angel. Dead. So he couldn't say anything about the inner workings of this cult." "See what'm sane? But they one dude you wanna avoid at all costs. Get you in his hardcore hands? Then you inna noose." "What's his celestial monicker?" I asked, already knowing who he meant. "Mother Superior," said Tarzacula. "What about him?" I asked, neglecting to mention my encounter with the monster with the hulked-out hands. "He spend most his adult life behind the wall. One supermax crowbar college or another. Kill or cripple least ten guys fool enough to go at him. He the world greatest fighter in Jailhouse Rock." "Jaihouse Rock," I mused. "The legendary, almost mythical, fighting system developed by black prisoners in America's worst hell-holes. I always wondered if it really existed." "It do exist. Come from secret West African fighting art. Brung to America by slaves. Developed in secret. Refined to gold by bruvva's in state prisons. Especially Cali. Soledad. Folsom. San Quentin. And New York. Riker's Island. Attica. Sing Sing. "It be the real shit." "Close infighting, I presume," I said. "Because of small spaces in prison." "And no escape," said Tarzacula. "Like a locked-down jail cell? Yo cellie go homie-cidal? Attack you? Ain't much room to move around." "So - instead of fists and feet - use elbows and knees," I said. "Anything go. Bite. Gouge. Rip. Tear." "Make a good name for a law firm," I said. "Bite, Gouge, Rip and Tear. Attorneys at law." "They ain't no law behind the wall," Tarzacula said grimly. "So I'd better not try conclusions with Mother Superior in, say, an elevator." "Thass right. Fight Mother Superior? Try make it a big space. Better yet, run." "God a fighter?" I asked. "Big-time," said Tarzacula. "They is all trained in Jailhouse. Plus God got black belt in Kill Karate. I you? Think twice before a visit to Heaven." "I might even think three times," I said. "And now the Granddaddy question. God live in the project?" "No." Now I knew for sure. If Tarzacula could be believed. "Where?" "Ain't nobody know," he said. "How much I owe you?" I asked. "How much you think the info worth, brah?" He studied my brow, my eyes, my mouth. "You're a student of human nature," I said. "Not unlike myself." "How much?" "A Benjamin?" "'At what you think this info worth?" he asked quietly. "Two C-notes," I said. "That its worth?" he asked. I looked at him; felt the tension that suddenly enveloped the booth. They all stared at me like stargazers awaiting a comet. Sweat heated my hairline. "Yes," I said, firmly. "Aw'ight then." I gave him two hundred-dollar bills. "My skin may be white!" he exulted. "But my pockets green!" He allowed himself a smile and the tension dissipated. "Customer alluz right," Tarzacula said. I got up from the booth and walked away. Then I stopped and turned around. "One more thing," I said. "What, brah?" asked Tarzacula. "What's God's real name?" Tarzacula studied me for a long second. "I tell you, brah. And you meet him? Don't never ever tell'm I tole ya." "Cross my heart." "God's real name be Darius Barron." Another item of info that could prove valuable.

CHAPTER 86

So now what? Tiresomely trudge every tedious inch of the Zone asking working girls if they knew where God - the Compassionate, the Merciful - resided? No alternative. Somebody must know. If I went back to Heaven, God's choirs of angels would kill me. Or worse. In accordance with that fine old Biblical punishment, God himself would hack off my thumbs and big toes. I'd end up crawling the cold concrete on my elbows and knees. With a beggar's pouch held between my teeth. Or waste away in the back ward of a skid-row nursing home with the other wrecks ruined by life-ravage. Of course, Margie would take me in. But I couldn't bear for her to see me mangled and mutilated. I couldn't take her pity. She'd say it was love. But who could truly love a monstro mutilatee? And so I plunged into the Heartlessness of Darkness of the Combat Zone. A zoo of Zonies. Prom night at the High School for Degenerates. Commencement at the College of Criminal Knowledge. Disneyland of the depraved. The blind drunk leading the blind drunk. Working girls on the job. A well-undressed black woman with wealth-wanting eyes stopped me. "What's your handle?" she asked, with a broadly beaming money-manufacturing smile. "Castille," I said. "Yours?" "Lucy in the Sky." "With Diamonds?" "That's where you come in, big spender," she said. "Buy me a magnum of champagne. Then maybe I'll let you buy me a diamond brooch." The lay-all-your-cards-on-the-table approach. How refreshing. "Quick question," I said. "Do you work for God?" She frowned. "I work for myself. And my man. Whattaya mean? Do I donate money to the Church?" "No. To a character who calls himself God. Works out of Hillside Haven Projects. Ring a bell?" "No," she said, seemingly genuinely unaware of the divinity who dwelt in our midst. "But how about that champagne? And then, if you're a good boy, diamonds?" "You have champagne and diamond tastes, Lucy," I said. "But, sadly, I have but a beer and rhinestone budget." "Another time," she smiled. A real pro. A white girl with cornered eyes and tight tentative I'm-new-in-town smile said to me: "Hi, honey! My name is Crystal!" "What's your last name?" I asked. "Chandelier?" "Shipp." "Crystal Shipp," I marveled. "Your parents must have been big fans of..." "The Doors," she sighed. "That's right. Happy now?" "Limitless and free." "Good. Now what can little ole me do to make big ole you even happier?" "Light my fire," I couldn't resist. "Ugh. I'm legally changing my last name to Jones or Wong or Gupta! Anything but Shipp!" She stalked off. A rank amateur. Who obviously knew nothing about God. "Good evening, sir," at the intersection of Harrison and Essex, a pleasant female voice spoke. "And how are you tonight?" A young black woman dressed like an office worker smiled at me. Quite a sight. And sound. From her eloquent tongue down to her painted pedicured toenails in strappy high heels. Was she a tourist? "Just ducky," I answered her question. "And you?" "Ducky, indeed. Would you like to go on a date with me?" Man, they come at you in every possible way. "I'd like to ask you a question." "No thank you," she said, turning away. "Have a pleasant evening." "A minute of your time," I said, taking out my wallet and rustling some bills. Like a bat equipped with sonar, the sound of bills made her turn back. I started to give her two twenties. A parked, unlighted car roared to life and screeched up to us. Two plainclothes cop types - in rumpled, unbuttoned jackets and loosened ties - leaped out, quickly flipping badges open and closed. One was tall and thin with a brown caterpillar mustache and balding head with seven or eight single strands of hair combed from ear to ear. The comb-over hairs must have been plastered to his pate with axle grease, given the steady downtown wind. The other was short with a full head of hair gone prematurely gray. The roll of belly fat forcing his shirt to bulge over his belt was matched in miniature by the roll of neck fat that bulged over his shirt collar. Starsky and Hutch they weren't. "You're both under arrest!" squawked the thin one. "Prostitution! And solicitation!" "I can explain..." I started, fishing for my P.I. license. "Allow me," the woman said, cheerful as a professional greeter. She smiled at the detectives, if that's what they were. "I work second shift at the Telephone Company, officer," she said. She gestured at a building. "Six Harrison?" asked the fattish guy. "I work second shift," she said. "This is my boyfriend. I'm on break. He's giving me money to buy take-out. Isn't that sweet of him to drive downtown just to eat supper with me on my break?" "Telco?" asked the thinnish guy, suspicious. "Let's see your badge." "Gladly," she said. To my surprise, she whipped out an official Telephone Company ID badge, complete with photo. The guy scrutinized the photo, then her smiling face. He reluctantly handed the badge back. "Okay," the thin man said gruffly. "But be careful when you leave the building after dark. Streets aren't safe." "I'll keep that in mind, officer," she smiled, all charm and calm without a qualm. She held onto my arm with both her hands. The very picture of young love. They got in their car and zoomed off, away from the Zone. The woman quickly let go of me. "Good dodge," I laughed. "The Telephone Company!" "Not a dodge," she said. "I do work for Telco." "What? Second shift? And you pick up a trick or two on your break?" "No, you ninny. I work first shift. This is my night job." "Brilliant!" I said. "How's it working out?" "Kidding? I make twice as much in one night of tricking as a week's salary operating a switchboard." "Then why don't you quit Telco?" "Because my Telco badge is what enables me to trick safely," she said, as if explaining the rules of baseball to a child. "Get it?" "Got it," I said. "But what are cops doing in the Combat Zone? If they even are cops. Didn't get their bribe this month?" "Who knows?" she shrugged. "Every once in a while, they set up here. That's the third pair I've hoodwinkled in two years. They must be cops; they're so easily manipulated." "Or, in your case, womanipulated." "So good-bye. Unless you've changed your mind. My car's in that little parking lot across the street. I pay the gentleman who operates the lot to look the other way." "I just want to ask," I said, "if you've seen a tall black man who calls himself God." "No-o-o-o," she frowned. "But feel free to be a religious nut on your own time." She turned and walked away. "I'm not a religious nut!" I said to her retreating form. Then what kind of a nut was I?

CHAPTER 87

I continued to thrust my way through the Zone's thousand-thumbed throng. Dismal as it was, it could also be exhilarating. If you were heedful to detail, your reward was hold-onto-your-hair hallucinations more fantazmo than Owsley (King of LSD) Acid. Like this sparkly-eyed specimen sashaying toward me. Had to weigh 400 pounds. The Waltz of the White Baby Elephant. She had long ago deserted to the other side in the battle of the bulge. "Hi honey! Wanna go out?" "No offense," I said, "but aren't you a trifle...portly for this line of work?" She laughed heartily. "Portly? I passed 'portly' years ago. No. I'm a roly-poly jelly-belly horse-heavy two-ton Tessie." "One wonders how..." I started. "One night, I got out of work at Jordan Marsh," she said. "Cutting through the Zone to South Station..." "Why not get on at Downtown Crossing?" I interrupted. "Because I live in Cambridge. Never a seat at Downtown. So I walked extra to the subway station before Downtown. To get a seat." "Winningly clever," I said. "A man fell in step with me. Said didn't know what I did for work, but he could triple my income. "When he told me, I was shocked. Then thought he was crazy. But he insisted he had a lot of call for big-bottomed women. I tried it. He was right. Now he's my man and I make triple my saleswoman salary. "So. How about a heavy date? When you go fat, you never go back." "Other time maybe," I said. "Your man a tall black guy? Calls himself God?" "Not hardly," she said. "Short white man calls himself Devil Dan." I trudged into a bar called Act of Congress. Took a stool and got a Safe Sex on the Beach. No vodka. No brandy. No liquor. All for the love of a good woman. Oh no. With counterfeit coins for eyes and mendicant mouth for smile, Gooch the Mooch skulked toward me. "Hullo, old chap!" I said in my posh Norman Conquest accent. "Topping evening, what?" "Castille!" he greeted me grandly. His mind was as malleable as Cape Cod salt water taffy. Except for one subject. Money. "The hell you been all winter?" "Greater Wollongong," I said. "Where?" he asked, sitting on the next stool. "City in southeast New South Wales, Australia. Absolutely exquisite metropolis. You should visit sometime." "Uh...yeah, sure," he frowned. "What were you doing there?" "Gooch," I said, giving him the look. "Oh yeah. Of course. Top secret. Hush hush." "Pray tell. How is the good Mrs. Gooch and the numerous wee Goochettes?" "Couldn't be better," he said. "How satisfactory," I said. "So how much do you want?" "Nuttin'. Whattaya think? I only talk to you to hit you up for dough?" "Yes." "You hurt my feelings," he said. "Can't I just say 'hi' to an old buddy?" "So now I'm an 'old buddy'?" "Course. But I hate to tell ya. I'm a little short." "You're my height," I said. "Six feet." He laughed nervously at my paltry joke. "The thing is...I'm carrying some serious cross. I tore a pretty big hole in my paycheck this week." "You don't work," I pointed out. "Not in the usual way," he said. "But the old lady's got a thyroid condition. Eyes are popping out of her head. They bulge out so much that she can't completely close her eyes. She sleeps with her eyes partly open!" "Most unnerving." "And my kids! They grow outa their clothes like they're shot outa a cannon!" He looked as forlorn as a dying dog in a downpour. "So tell me already!" I said. "Did he marry poor Blind Nell or not?" "Oh...he did." "He did, like fucking hell." "Okay, he didn't," he said, eager to please. "But I'm down and out. Some rare disease. The doc said I was...I forget...I wrote it down." He pulled out and opened a crumpled piece of paper. "Listen to this," he said. "Doc said I was pneumo-cephalic plumbum oscillans." "Sounds tough," I sympathized. My best guess from two years of high school Latin was that this diagnosis meant, in plain English, that Gooch was a moronic malingerer. "Tough? I'm tellin' ya, Castille! I'm circling the drain!" "If you go down the drain, at least you'll never have money worries again." "Castille, please," he said. "This is straight-up business. On my skin. Cut me some rhythm. I'm well and truly tapped out." "Sounds dire." "I'm running on rims. Out on the ragged edge." "Yes, yes, yes. All quite alliterative," I said. "How much?" "Fifty?" he asked tentatively with guilt-gilded face. "Fifty? Glad you haven't lost your sense of humor. I commend you for your pluck." "Forty?" "By Gad, sir," I said in my Sydney Greenstreet Maltese Falcon voice. "You are a character." "Thirty. Low as I can go." "You drive a hard bargain, Gooch. But no can do." "Double sawsky," he pleaded. "No." "Ten-spot?" "No," I said. "Come on, man. At least, slip me five to keep me alive," he said, unaccountably holding up three fingers. "For the luvva God!" "The magic word!" "What?" he asked. "God," I said. "God? What about him? Her? Whatev." "God. Black male, 6'4", runs the Hillside Haven Projects - street calls it Heaven - as a pharmacy." "That God," said Gooch. "What about him?" "He wants to take control of the Zone away from Laughing Death, newly anointed kinglet." "So that's why so many new pavement princesses are strutting their stuff on the Stroll." "Where does God live?" I asked. "About that twenty you mentioned." "You last mentioned a five spot. Tell me what you know. I'll decide its worth." "I only know he doesn't live in the projects," he said. "I already know that." "At least now, you have corroboration." "And from an unimpeachable source," I said. "Here's a sawbuck." "Ten?" he said. "How about twenty?" "Here." Softy that I was, I gave him another ten-dollar bill. "How about...?" "Twenty is plenty," I said. "Remember what Elvis said?" "No. What?" "Let's get real real gone." "Getting gone," said Gooch. He exited. Followed after a while by me. Fairly certain that God lived outside the projects. But where?

CHAPTER 88

A provocation of prostitutes - black, white, Latina - paraded and promenaded up and down LaGrange Street. Men - mostly white - in cars hogged like salted swine the narrow one-way street between Tremont and Washington. They honked like gone-crazy geese and hooted like out-of-whack owls. Menfolk on foot slurked along the skinny needle-hitting sidewalk. LaGrange Street was a packed sex-money bazaar. The Combat Zone Stalker had been forgotten. Working girls had returned in full force. They brought the men back. But new women everywhere. "Castille!" Keiko - half Japanese, half American - hailed me. "What inna name a God is going on?" "You said it." "Said what?" "God," I said. "God? You mean that screwball slangs dope out of Heaven?" "He's putting on the full court press," I said, "To take over the Zone." "Shoulda known," she said. "These all project hoes. Teenagers made up to look older. Why they still skinny and all rapey-looking. Usual project hoes fat fucks." "So I've been given to understand." "I don't stand a chance against this flash flood of flesh," she said. "God makes so much money with drugs. Why he expanding?" "Manifest Destiny," I said. "God must lay out money for nice clothes," she said. "Wear down Zone's working girls." A white man in suit and tie came by. Keiko amped up her smile to 'killer,' shimmied her hips, dead-eyed him. "Hi, sweetie," she crooned. "Wanna date?" "Just browsing," he said. "Browsing?" she snarled. "Think this a department store? Get the fuck outa here!" "Just saying," the guy said sheepishly, disappearing into the throng. "See?" Keiko demanded. "Supply drive demand down!" "You don't happen to know where this God character lives, do you?" "Me?" she said, indignantly. "How would I know?" How, indeed? In which case, who, indeed? Keep on trudging.

CHAPTER 89

"Hey, mister, I'm Maggie," a white girl said. Young as she was, her face was already stamped with that ravaged, savaged look. Even if she gave up dope, drink and cigarettes tomorrow, that look would still be permanently engraved in her features. For life. "Wanna go out?" she asked. "Maggie the Cat," I said. "Make fun a my name?" she screeched. "I'll rip your eyeballs like soft-boiled eggs!" She fired at me her filed-to-a-point fingernails. I gripped her wrists, stopping her. In case she entertained any fanciful notions of kneeing me up the middle, I pinned her left foot with my left foot. Blocking both knees from finding their vulnerable target. "Leggo a me!" she screamed. "You make fun a my name? Now you grab me?" "I'm sorry. Quiet down. I'll explain myself." "You will?" she asked, genuinely amazed. "Yes," I said. "So if I let go of you, do you promise to at least listen to me?" The novelty was apparently so appealing, she nodded yes. I let go of her wrists and took my foot off her foot. She looked at me as if I were about to perform an astonishing magic trick. Poor kid. This was probably the first time anybody had ever apologized to her. "Let me explain my allusions to your name." "Go ahead," she said. "Maggie, A Girl of the Streets." "Hey!" she warned. "A highly esteemed classic novella by Stephen Crane," I said. "Oh. Sure," she said. "He invented the crane." "In his spare time," I said. "Maggie the Cat is the star - played by Elizabeth Taylor - in the movie Cat On A Hot Tin Roof." "I love Elizabeth Taylor." "Who doesn't? Movie's based on a play by Tennessee Williams." "Oh. Sure," she said. "He invented Tennessee, didn't he?" "One imagines," I said. "So, you see, I wasn't making fun of your name. Just the opposite. I was mentioning great works of literature your name has been in. Maggie is an artistic name." "Oh. Sure," she said. "My mistake, I guess." "Come here often?" I asked casually. "Here?" she frowned. "Zone?" "Never seen you around." "I'm new," she said. "So?" "You and the other women I've never seen." "Bunch of us. So?" "Being new," I said, "do you have protection?" "Angels," she giggled. "Guardian angels." Good enough reference for me to spend my money. And time. And attention. "So whattaya want?" she asked. "A good time?" "What else?" I said. She smiled sweetly, took my hand and started to lead me away. "Not that what else," I said. She stopped. "Then what what else?" "Info." "Sure you ain't a cop?" she let go of my hand and squinted at me. "Sure I'm sure," I said. "Cause you know if you a cop and I ask you, you gotta tell me. That's the law." "I know. For the third time: I'm not a cop." "Ain't a cop," she said. "Ain't a john. What are you?" "A seeker." "Of what?" "The meaning of life," I said. "Come to the wrong person," she said, losing interest, head-swiveling for potential customers. "You get paid for the pleasure of your company by the length of time. Yes?" "Gee, I like the way you put that," she brightened. "Pleasure of my company. Sounds high-class." "You strike me as a high-class woman," I said. "Like a senator's mistress." "Me?" she said. "Thanks!" "So I propose that you and I go somewhere private - I'm sure you have a place in mind - and I pay your usual rate." "For what?" she suspicioned. "For the pleasure of your company," I said, completing the loop of circular logic. "But, I mean, for what exactly? I get paid not only for length of time. But also for certain, uh, services rendered. Whattaya, you know, want?" "The felicity of your conversation." "Gee, you talk real good," she said. "Let's go." She again took my hand and led me to who-knows-where. "Ad inexplorata!" I said. "What language is that?" she asked. "Latin." "What's it mean?" "Into the unknown!" I said. "What's your name?" she asked. "I am known by many names in many cities of the world," I said in my mysterioso voice. "But you can call me...Castille." "You're kinda strange, Castille," she said, gripping my hand more tightly, smiling more brightly, stepping more lightly. "But I kinda like you."

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We cabbed to her crib. Not a bad little trick pad. Functional bed, of course, but a sofa, bureau, coffee table. To the side, a small bathroom. I sat on the sofa. She giggled. "What's so funny?" I asked. "I always tell the, uh, client to get comfortable. Meaning...you know." "Take off his clothes," I said mildly. "Yeah, but I'm asking you if you mind I get comfortable." "Not taking off your clothes, I presume." "No," she said. "I'm gone skin up a fat one. Mind?" "Certainly not." She took her paraphernalia out of a drawer of the bureau. A baggie of weed. E-Z Wider rolling paper. Cigarette lighter. Ashtray. Roach clip. She expertly rolled a thick joint. "Sure you don't mind?" she asked. "Not at all," I said, hoping the left-handed cigarette would loosen her tongue. "I'm gone actually get comfortable," she said. When she returned from the bathroom, her tight short skirt, tight tank top and tight high heels were replaced by a loose bathrobe. She lit up her joint and in-puffed a mighty inhalation. She must have held it for a full minute. She exhaled a little smoke. A champion viper. She held out the jaybird to me, raised her eyebrows and asked: "Hit?" "Quit," I said. "So I asked you here today to..." Now she was doing her chunky-cheek Louis Armstrong imitation. Must have held the smoke in her lungs for two full minutes this time. When she blew it out, she breathed in deeply, then breathed hard and heavy. It might loosen her tongue so much that she wouldn't be able to formulate syllables, let alone string actual words into a coherent sentence. "You still here?" I asked. "Man, this is heavy hemp. I'm freakin'." "What is it?" "S'poze be just reefer," she said, still comprehensible. But for how long if she kept kicking the gong around? "But feels like Maui-Wowee. The one time I had it? I was pinned to my chair for hours. Couldn't speak. Couldn't move." "A red-letter day in your life, but I..." She burst into giggles. Great. "Man, I'm foxy and floating high. You catching a buzz?" "Contact high?" I said. "Not yet." "Then let's really get whipped well and wasted!" "Maggie, maybe..." "Maggie the Cat!" she burst into guffaws. "Gee, you're freakin' hilarious! Know that?" "My comedic skills have often been commented on but..." I started. She materialized a big bottle of booze with no label. She offered it to me. "What is it?" I asked. "Brake fluid," she laughed. "Take a swig! Go on!" "Quit," I said. "Quit smokin'? Quit drinkin'? What the hell kinda man are you?" "A sober man. So let's..." She tilted the bottle and chug-a-lugged the liquor. Whatever it was. I just hoped it wasn't gasoline. Because when she lit a match for another toke, she'd be a human torch. "Oh, man!" she said, slumping back against the chair. "My head's a balloon in the sky. Ain't felt this well in a long time." "I rejoice at your salubriousness but..." "You here?" she said, sitting up straight, her bathrobe falling open. Then she gave me the look. "Castille the Conqueror! You got my honey drippin'! Ready to rumble?" She somehow stood up and stumbled over and sat on my lap. She wiggled against me. I must admit I felt a stirring in the nether region. She went to kiss me but I pulled my head away. "What's a matter whichoo?" she asked, insulted. "I'm a one-woman man," I said. "And I already got my woman." She stood up, swaying, upset, pointed her finger at me. "Don't smoke? Don't drink? Don't fuck? Then whatchoo doin' up here in my pad?" "Sit down," I ordered. "Yessir, cap'm!" she mock-saluted and fell back into her chair. "What do you charge?" I asked. "For what?" "For your time," I said. A comically crafty look took over her features. I felt like laughing. Maybe I was catching her buzz. "A million bucks!" she said exuberantly, then laughed like hell. I opened my wallet, took out a hundred dollar bill and laid it on the table. "A Ben Franklin for your time," I said. "A penny for your thoughts," she laughed, snatching up the hundred. She laughed with her face, her chest, her belly. Despite myself, I smile-laughed. "My time," she giggled. "What about it?" "God," I said. She sat up straight, eyes wide, suddenly sober and somber. Her shoulders convulsed and she pulled the bathrobe close against her throat. Finally. Right church. Right pew.

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"You're...religious?" she tried, with a sickly smile, realizing she was - linguistically speaking - cornered. "Like Santayana, I'm an aesthetic Catholic," I said. "Tell me about God." Her eyes narrowed. "Whattaya wanna know?" she asked. "Who is he?" She visibly relaxed. Everybody knew who God was. She wouldn't be giving away anything. "He the shot-caller. He hold the keys to the gold Cadillac. He the cock of the walk. Chief of the tribe. He God." "From what I hear," I said, "he's a fine fellow. Upstanding gentleman." "Where you hear that jive? He ain't no gennulman. He a snaky bastard. Say he treat us good. But he..." "He what?" "Nothing," she said. "Why you ask me about God, anyway?" "I'd like to meet him. Get to know him better." "Know 'im better? Onliest ones know him better get a Christmas Tree shank in the belly. Try pull it out? Get more tore up inside. God got a lot of shit like that." "Fascinating," I said. "Can I meet him?" "Go to the 'jects; get in line." "No, I don't want to bother him at work. Like to talk to him at home." "His home?" she said. "I smoke the reefer but you the one's high. Nobody knows where God lives." "Somebody must." "Just his lieutenants," she sneered. "Calls 'em arch- angels." "How about some of his workers?" I asked. "Sure. Some." "How about you?" "Yeah, sure. I know... Hey!" she said. "Whatchoo tryna do? Get us both killed?" "So you do know where he lives." "I know," she said bitterly. "He invites me over his place. Get all dolled up. Fantastic house. Classy. But then he..." "He what?" "Can't say." "Can't or won't?" I asked. "Can't and won't." "I won't tell." "Sure you ain't a cop?" she asked again. "Sure." "Then why you wanna walk into the lion's den?" "Because he killed a friend of mine," I said. "And you wanna kill him? Listen up, chump. Fuhgeddaboudit. You be tortured and taught." "That what he did to you?" She sniffled, like she was going to cry. "Stay away from that motherfucker," she said. "You get hurt. Bad." "How did he torture you?" I asked quietly. "Nothing. Never mind." "Tell me. He won't know." "He'll torture it outa you," she said. "Then torture me again." "What kind of torture?" "Crazy shit. Leave no visible marks." "Beat you on the bottom of your feet?" I asked. "That kindergarten stuff. That pre-K. Pre-pre-K." "What then?" "He calls it the white room. Sounds like fun," she said. "But all alone. No lights. Can't see. No sound. Can't hear. Drives you outa your everlovin' mind. Then bright lights on alla time. And loud, really loud, noise. Play alla time. No human contact." "Sensory deprivation alternating with sensory overload," I said. "Must be truly awful." "It is!" she burst into tears, fell to the floor and curled into the fetal position. "No! No more!" she screamed. "I won't do it again! Promise! Honest to God! God! Help me! Won't do it again!" "So he tortured you," I said. "No! No! No!" she screamed. "I'll square up! Honest! You can trust me!" "You're alone in the white room," I said. "Yes!" "In God's house." "Yes!" she said. "Where God lives." "Yes! Please stop! Tell him to stop!" "Stop!" I shouted. Then to her: "He'll never hurt you again." "He won't?" she asked like a child, looking up at me. "You really won't let him hurt me anymore?" "I promise. Just tell me where he lives. I'll make sure he never hurts you or anyone again." She got up and sat on my lap again. But different this time. Snuggled up like a child with a parent. "Where?" I asked softly. "Not in Boston," she said in a sing-song voice. "Where?" She trembled violently. I could hardly keep her from falling on the floor. "Where?" "You'll kill him?" she asked, looking up at me with feral rage. "You'll really kill him?" "Yes." "Promise?" "Yes," I said. "Say it." "I'll kill God." "Praise Jesus," she said. "Cohasset. Jerusalem Road. Big green house." "I will embark on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem Road," I said with solemn religious fervor. "For the virtuous purpose of destroying God."

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"Saddle up, pilgrim," I said to myself in my John Wayne voice. "We're riding rough to Jerusalem Road." Maybe I should have asked Phoenix to accompany me. Without her help, I wouldn't have been able to rescue the torture and rape victims from that mad maggot McGhoul. But I needed to do this job solo. If I died, I didn't want Phoenix to go down with me. And if I succeeded, I wanted all the glory. That was how I felt. Good Friday. According to the Church, the day God dies. I pray that happens. Kingdom Come, here I come. I drove south in the pre-dawn dark from Boston along Route 3-A, the old coastal road. Called the Cape Way because for a long time it was the only major road from Boston to Cape Cod. Ever south I drove. From Dorchester to Quincy to Weymouth to Hingham. As I motored, I recalled Shree once telling me about Jerusalem Syndrome. Some Christian visitors to Jerusalem, she said, suddenly have an acute psychotic break with reality. The men think they are John the Baptist, the Apostle Peter or even Jesus Christ. The women think they are, typically, the Virgin Mary. Jewish men with this psychosis suddenly believe they are Samson, King David or the promised Messiah. Female sufferers believe themselves to be Sarah or Deborah or another prominent woman in the Old Testament. Did Darius Barron a.k.a. God take a trip to Jerusalem and go the others one better by hallucinating that he was God? Or could he have moved to Jerusalem Road, which name triggered Jerusalem Syndrome, ten thousand miles from the Holy Land? Or, already convinced that he was God, did he decide he must reside on Jerusalem Road? I'd ask Shree her opinion. If I returned alive.

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I turned left off Route 3A, which would bring me into the peninsular town of Hull. Windows down, the sudden salty moist breeze nipped into my nostrils. Looming ahead rose the wooden Giant Coaster, one of the world's greatest roller coasters. It dominated the skyline like the reconstructed skeleton of a prehistoric gigantosaurus. I drove along Hingham Harbor - with its big red buoy bobbing up and down - and turned right onto Nantasket Avenue. Now, to my left, was a three-mile stretch of the beautiful, fine, light-gray sand and the pounding surf of Nantasket Beach. To my right: fabulous Paragon Park. As a kid - first with my parents and sisters; after they were killed, with my aunt, uncle and cousins - I came to play in the sand and swim in the ocean. Then, after washing off sand and salt in the municipal bath house, we went into Paragon, amusement park extraordinaire. Bumper cars, Ferris wheel, Tilt-A-Whirl, Rotor, Wild Mouse, Jungle Ride and, of course, the roller coaster. On the highest, steepest, almost sheer vertical descent - with the wind rushing into your face and everyone screaming their lungs out - did you dare hold your arms straight up in the air or would you chicken out and white-knuckle grip the metal bar in front of you? Now - driving down Nantasket Ave. - to my right were the penny arcades with games of skeeball, pinball and Fascination. And the vendors who sold fried clams, onion rings, French fries, snow cones, tonic, cotton candy and, my favorite, salt water taffy. The tang and tingle of the ocean air combined with the fragrance of fried food and the scent of sweets triggered an olfactory memory of my own personal prehistory. The sudden, incomprehensible, inconsolable loss of my family tempered by the love and care of my new family who took me in and brought me up. Margie was right. Though papered over with test booklets, diplomas, driver's licenses, passports, private investigator's licenses and other documents of a lifetime, the gaping hole in my heart remained. A child's fist could punch through this flimsy paper wall to reveal the vast unfillable black hole at the center of my own individual universe. At the beginning of Nantasket Ave., a bar with about forty motorcycles parked in front marked the end of Paragon Park and Nantasket Beach. After a couple of rundown houses surrounded by piles of dull yellow lobster traps, Nantasket Ave. abruptly transformed into Jerusalem Road. I had entered the rarefied atmosphere of Cohasset. Bedroom suburb of Boston. Formerly, almost entirely WASP. But now many well-to-do Irish lived there. The median income in Cohasset was more then double that in Hull. Jerusalem Road. God, I'm coming for you. And I'm almost there.

CHAPTER 94

I motivated along Jerusalem Road, just as the sun was rising out of the ocean. God should be home now, sleeping, after being up all night at the projects. Or he should be coming home soon. Either way, if I could get into his house undetected, I'd have the advantage of surprise. As Sun Tzu said, 'Attack the enemy where he does not expect you.' Unless Maggie the Cat, my informant, had gone to God and told him of my coming to his home - And why would she do that? She wanted revenge as much as I did. - then God certainly wasn't expecting me. The big houses on Jerusalem Road weren't simple Capes and Colonials. No, each house - in some cases, definite mansions - was built individually. The terrain was rocky. The houses were erected, leaving big rocks and stony ledges in place. Most houses were set well back from the street, high up on sloping grass embedded with boulders. The outer perimeter of defense for many houses was a fence of iron posts with sharply pointed tops. Like javelins or spears planted in the ground. Some houses had stone walls only three feet high. But the walls had been constructed with jagged stone points on top. The jagged top discouraged kids or gawkers from sitting, standing, or walking along the tops of the walls. An intruder could climb over easily enough, but I assumed other defensive measures weren't far behind. One mansion had two life-size cast bronze sculptures of mermaids facing each other. They held wide, deep, bronze sea shells in their four hands. When it rained, the shells would fill with water and become bird baths. There! A big green house. Unlike any other on Jerusalem Road. It was on the ocean side of the street. I turned right on a side street, drove back to Hull and parked my car. Walking, I realized the sun had completely risen. A bright blue sky with a few small wispy clouds. I had planned to arrive earlier. Before sun-up. If anyone were watching from the big green house, they could easily spot me. If anyone were watching. Should I back off and come back tomorrow well before dawn? Yes, I should. But would I? No, I wouldn't. I was here now. My blood boiled. My head had an invisible metal band around it, becoming tighter and tighter. But my heart was an arrow with poison tip already released from the bow, winging toward the vicious charlatan who dared call himself God. I would never be more ready. I picked my way carefully behind the big houses. The shoreline was rough with rock formations just offshore. No beach. The surf pounded into the rugged rocks, breaking into foaming whitecaps leaping high. I had expected to see yachts moored, but the incoming waves and the huge craggy rocks made that impossible. The owners must have moored their boats elsewhere. The big green house - God's hide-away, I hoped - was three floors high with many windows. Behind the house, the land sloped down to some grassy ground but mostly irregularly shaped, randomly situated rocky outcrops. Above the immovable rocks and the irrestible crashing swells flew flocks of fish-eating seagulls, shrieking and screaking. I didn't see any pearly gates. So I walked up to the back of the green house - I always figured I'd have to enter Heaven through the back door - and took from the pocket of my windbreaker, a small leather foldover kit of tools. From screwdrivers to snap guns. Tools with one purpose. Breaking and entering.

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The door was steel. The doorknob was locked. To the right of the door was a simple key pad with numbers 1 through 9. The right combination of numbers would unlock the door. If I had a hundred years to try every combination from 1 to 9, from 11 to 99 and from 111 to 999, I'd still have to spend another hundred years trying the numbers from 1111 to 9999. Clearly inefficient. Plan B. I unscrewed the front of the key pad. Then I stood and listened. No sounds of alarm - electronic, mechanical or human - from within. The correct combination on the key pad would not only have opened the door but probably disengaged any further alarm systems inside. Like motion detectors. But I'd burn that bridge when I got to it. First, get inside the house. Two wires - red and green - snaked out of the innards of the key pad and through a tiny hole in the wall. What did they attach to? I didn't know. Now what? The sun was higher and I felt the increased heat on the back of my head and neck. Sweat dripped and dropped from my hair down my neck. The seagulls' ceaseless cries seemed to be scolding me for unlawful entry. The waves smashing against the rocks seemed to be loud shouts of warning to the house's occupants of impending invasion. My mind whirled like the Rotor in Paragon Park. Get a grip! With my handy dandy wirecutters, I snipped both wires. I listened. No beepers, buzzers or bells sounded an alarm. All I heard was my heart's beat and bang, thud and thump. Adrenaline armies of fear and anger fought back and forth across the battlefield of my blood. Still. So far, so good. Now for the doorknob. I studied it for two full minutes. Then I laughed, took from my wallet my laminated reduced-sized private eye's license, and slid it into the small opening between the side of the door and the jamb. A little finagling and the doorknob's lock popped open. Piece of cake. It never ceased to amaze me how people wired the fronts of their homes and businesses with the latest, most sophisticated alarm installations. But guarded the back doors with the most rudimentary, out-of-date equipment. I slowly opened the door into darkness. No sounds of any kind. So far, so good. Suddenly, light flooded the basement room. Standing, grinning, were God's archangels Michael, Rafael and Gabriel. Aiming their AK-47 submachine guns. At me.

CHAPTER 96

The archangels prodded me up some stairs and into a room. God and his celestial squeeze Sophia sat on adjacent leather chairs. Off to the side, hunched the holy terror Mother Superior. God, gold chains dripping off his neck, looked at me with mock pity and real condescension. The ceiling of the room was high and vaulted, sloping up to the highest point in the center. "Cathedral ceiling," I said. "How appropriate for the home of...God." "Castille, you appreciate the nuances of my divine status," said God. "Except," I said, "you're not divine. You're Darius Barron." God's face flinched and his body stiffened. Sophia cast a quick, covert glance at her lord and master. By a visible effort of will, God relaxed his features and form. "So," he said. "You know my government name. My slave name. Forced upon my ancestors by your people." "Not my people, pal," I said. "My people were being decimated and starved to death in Ireland by the British. It was your neighbors' forefathers. The rich old-time pedigreed WASPs. But I'm sure that doesn't stop you from inviting them here for soirees. Good thing they don't know how you make your piles of money." "Castille, you grow tiresome," he said, affecting boredom. "The villain says that to James Bond in...in...darn, I forget which movie." "Point of curiosity," God said. "How'd you find out where I lived?" "One of your worshippers told me." "Who?" "Don't recall," I said. "Male or female?" "Don't recall." "Rest assured," said God. "You will recall." "A prophecy from Your Omniscience?" "The simple truth." "Point of curiosity," I said. "Where'd you go to college?" "The Rock." "Riker's Island Prison. New York City," I said. "Gladiator School." "Be bad or be had. I be bad." "You learned Jailhouse Rock." "You a hot-nosed psychic," said God, leaning forward toward me. "But your face the color of dead white roses. Wanna write your last will and testament? Got a napkin round here somewhere." "Tell me, God. What are your Ten Commandments? And how many have you violated?" "None," he said smugly, sitting back. "First Commandment? Take what you want. Second Commandment? Kill anyone who gets in your way." "And the other eight?" I asked. "Other eight all the same," he said. "Refer to First and Second Commandments." "And how did you end up in Boston?" I asked. "The Bloody Bean?" he said, chuckling. "God got his ways." "And how did you take over Hillside Haven Projects?" I asked. "Heaven." "Enough questions, infidel," God said, standing and glowering down at me. I had forgotten he was six feet four. Usually, I was the tallest person in the room. "Afraid your time is come," God thundered from on high. "Time for what?" I asked. "To get mourned." "How about a game of chess?" I stalled. "Ain't busting no pawns," he said. "Afraid Judgment Day has come for Castille. No more smoke and drama. Sometimes you the windshield. Sometimes you the bug. Today? You the bug." "Must you phrase it in such an unsavory way?" I said. Rubbing his hate-heavy hands together, Mother Superior informed me: "I'll peel yo' onion back, layer by layer, till you don't even got a head." "The time has come," said God. "Castille, millions sleep in their black-edged sins. You want to confess yours?" "To a delusional psychotic megalomaniac like you?" I asked. "No." "Sinner, don't let this chance pass!" "Go to hell, where you belong!" "Then you outa the hustle and into the hole!" said God. "Mother! Take him!"

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"Which room?" Mother Superior asked God. "White room," said God. "'Where the shadows run from themselves,'" I quoted. "Shut up!" bellowed Mother, clocking me on the side of the head. The blow rang my bell but I still managed to say: "Little impulse control problem, eh?" God laughed. "Let me take him to the black room," pleaded Mother. "He can take a beating," said God. "But I have a hunch his psyche isn't as tough as his physique. White room." "Come, let us reason together," I said piously. "Isaiah one, verse eighteen," said God. "Nice try, infidel. But do you remember verse twenty? 'If you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.'" They forced me down a hallway, threw me into a room and closed the door. Instantly, I jumped up and went to the door to see if it was locked. Not only was the door locked. But it had no knob or handle of any kind. Only way to open the door was on the other side. For form's sake, I pounded on the door and yelled: "I demand to see the warden!" No reply. I sat, my back to a wall and visually inspected the whole enclosure. It was, indeed, a white room. A cube about twenty by twenty by twenty feet. Floors, walls, ceiling all pure white. The ceiling had recessed fluorescent bulbs that radiated pure white light. But, high up in the opposite corner, a small beige camera aimed at me. Was it fixed? Or mobile? I got up and walked around. The camera followed me. Like an insect from outer space tracking the movement of its prey before pouncing with stinger full of deadly poison. What had God said? My psyche wasn't as strong as my body. Popped into my mind another conversation with Shree, about torture. She had said there were two types. Black torture was extreme physical abuse. Asphyxia: cutting off air to the lungs. Waterboarding: simulated drowning. Severe burns from electric cattle prods or boiling water. But, she said, white torture wasn't so crude. Nor, often more importantly, visible. Meaning it left no physical marks on the victim. Examples she gave included mock execution, electro-shock and...

CHAPTER 98

NOISE! Pouring out of unseen speakers and invading my ears. White noise. Like seeing real objects in an abstract painting, I thought I heard sounds within the staccato clatter. Vacuum cleaner. Highway traffic. TV turned up. They were like threads in a tapestry of the all-encompassing sonic blast. I estimated a volume of one-hundred decibels. Nasty yet endurable. But for how long? Not long. BLAST! Someone turned up the dial. Factory machines, incessant garbage disposal, God alone knew what else. Not only irritatingly loud. But also loudly irritating. Estimate: one-hundred and ten decibels. I couldn't stay still. Walked around the room. Movement was the only thing that gave slight relief from the brutal assault on my ears. And brain. BOOM! Another increase in volume. Estimate: one-hundred and twenty decibels. Motorcycle revving up. Power lawn mower working. Sandblasting inside the hull of a ship. All worked into the continuing detonation of noise noise noise! BANG! Level of accursed noise increases. Garbage truck compacting trash. Farm tractor at full tilt. Jackhammer driving through concrete. Outboard motor strapped to my head. Estimate: one-hundred thirty decibels. How much noise could a person take before his eardrums exploded? More to the point, how much noise could a person take before his mind imploded? How much longer would God keep up this torture? This white torture? BAM! Volume higher. My body involuntarily turned and twisted in a vain attempt to escape the ear-assault, the mind-rape. Heavy metal rock music turned to eleven on a scale of one to ten. A pile driver. Steel mill operating at top capacity. Estimate: one hundred and forty decibels. I alternated between covering my ears with my palms and sticking my forefingers in my ears. Eardrums hurt. Soon they would burst. I could live as a deaf person. But I felt my mind coming apart at the seams. I couldn't live as a mindless person. Except as a vegetable in the back ward of a third-class state-run nursing home. As an experiment - while I stumbled dizzyingly around the room - I spoke aloud. "Stop the torture!" I couldn't hear myself speak! I yelled: "Stop the torture!!!" I couldn't hear myself yell!!! BOMB! Volume increases impossibly! My ears ache. My nerves ache. My mind aches. Inside my head: a continuous thunderclap. Inside my head: a chain saw. Inside my head: an oxygen torch burning out my synapses. No alternation of silence and noise, as with Maggie. God was in a hurry to unhinge my head. The surging swelling sound. The insanely intense uproar. The clanging clamoring din. I hung on to my mind by the hair of my heart, the skin of my soul, the last gasp of my love for Margie. My heart raced and my lungs bellowsed like I was running on empty down the final stretch of Boylston Street to the finish line of the Boston Marathon. I could do it! Just another yard. Just another few seconds. Just another... Long, thick needles of red-hot pain pierced through my ears and into what was left of my mind. I could no longer hear my own thoughts. NOW! Now was when I would break. I would tell the hypothetical enemy everything they wanted to know. I would tell every secret code, password, identity I knew. I would name the names of those yet unborn. I would do anything - anything! - to escape this pandemonium, this bombardment, this roaring brawl between my ears. I rolled around the floor wildly. I forgot everything and everyone I knew. Still, the infernal cacophony raged. Baaaa-LAM!!! More volume. one-hundred and fifty decibels. My mind filled with a jet plane taking off. My head was cemented to the engine. I lay on the floor and instinctively curled into the fetal position. The noise - like the knocking of doom at the end of time - conquered me. I no longer remembered where I was, why I was there or even who I was. I no longer knew anything.

CHAPTER 99

Face down, I woke up. The ferocious noise had stopped. Another of God's miracles. Hallelujiah! The sonic assault lingered in my head. Like a hangover. Outside my head, the silence was deafening. Speaking of which, was I now deaf? Had my eardrums burst? My ears hurt but I couldn't tell. Before I could speak aloud and see if I heard myself, the door opened. In shuffled Mother Superior in blue gym shirt and white pants with blue piping, bobbing and weaving, fists up in front of his face. White bandage on the site of his late left little finger. White tape around his left palm where I'd shot him. Didn't seem to bother him. I felt for my cheek-bandage. Still there. "Good heavens, a hooligan!" I said, standing to face him. How nice. I heard myself speak. With his right forefinger, Mother Superior quickly touched his forehead, chest, left shoulder, right shoulder. He had just blessed himself with the Sign of the Cross. "So you're a Christian," I said. "Not really a member of this lunatic God's cult." "Old habit," he dismissed his action. But he must have once been a practicing Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Methodist or Lutheran. Maybe an opening between his past and present I could drive a wedge into. "But a habit," I insisted. "Don't worry 'bout it," he said. "This fight be over soon. You be over soon. Fifteen seconds, max." "But what if the fight lasts twenty seconds?" I asked, putting up my fists loosely. "You won't know what to do." "I know what to do," he growled. "You be the human sacrifice. And I the sacrificer." So saying, he attacked. He moved toward me. Extraordinarily compact. Feet less than shoulder width apart, elbows close to his body, head low. I put my weight forward on the balls of my feet. He rocketed a straight right at my face. Fast! At the last millisecond, I moved my head to the left. I danced away from him, close to the wall. I felt like I was fighting in a freaking phone booth. Jesus. How big was a boxing ring? Professional: twenty by twenty feet. This room was about that size. Too small! Which was what Jailhouse Rock was created for. Fighting in a tight space with no exit and almost no room to maneuver. I continued to move clockwise around the room, staying close to the walls. Mother stayed in the center, constantly pivoting to face me. Peripherally, I saw the small beige camera moving to follow us. The eyes of God were watching. Then, in a corner, he came straight at me. Leaving me no room to escape. He moved his forearms in a strange pattern which I couldn't figure out. Forearms swung out and in and up and down. Not from his shoulders. But from his elbows. Were these actual fighting motions? Or just random movements to distract me? I couldn't tell. He threw a left that glanced off my jaw. I countered with a left at his nose. No hard bone there. Just cartilage. To my amazement, he instantly parried, not with his hand, but with his right elbow. This Jailhouse Rock was some tricky shit, I thought, as I found an opening and danced through and away from him. Now what? Again, I moved around the room's periphery, this time counter-clockwise. Again, from the room's center, he followed me. Again, he succeeded in trapping me in a corner. Strangely, as he moved in on me, he moved not his forearms in weird patterns. But his hands. Moved them as if punching an invisible boxing speed bag. Then in an up-and-down circle like a pinwheel in the wind. Then, seemingly erratic movements. I had never seen anything like this. So I fell back on savate. I thanked the deities that the Old Legionnaire had learned real no-holds-barred streetfighting savate in its birthplace, the tough port city of Marseilles. As opposed to faux savate, taught to sons of the French ruling class. A sport with rules and regs for the safety of upper class fops. I shot my leading left foot at the sweet spot on the shin of his leading left leg. To my astonishment, his left foot parried and swept my left foot to the side. Leaving me wide open up the middle. He hip-switched - turning his body around - and sent the bottom of his left shod foot up at my gonads. My motion! Without thinking, I caught and stopped his foot with my thighs clamping like a vise. With his back to me, I released the thigh-hold on his left foot. As he brought it back to earth, my right foot kicked him in the right kidney. "Uhh!" he groaned. He pivoted to face me. "Savate?" I asked, sweat streaming down my face, heart pounding at my ribs pleading for relief. "Jailhouse," he grunted. In my best Elvis Presley voice, I sang: "Everybody in the whole cell block was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock." "Elvis?" Mother said. "Punk." What manner of creature was this? Who thought Elvis was...a punk? "You have offended the memory of one of my idols," I said. "The sentence is nothing less than death." He barked a laugh and came at me. Now he used his open hands to lightly slap himself on his head, his chest, his thighs. He even slapped a shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits Bo Diddley rhythm. The movements amazed me. I was almost mesmerized by his hands. In my mind, the stern voice of the Old Legionnaire commanded: 'Don't look at an opponent's hands or feet. And never at his eyes. Look at the center of his chest.' Thank you, O.L. I stopped trying to follow Mother's eccentric never-before-seen hand movements. I looked at his chest. His hands, his feet, his head, his eyes could deceive, could fake me out, could make me believe he was zigging when he was zagging. But his chest? Deceive? No. "Fight's gone more than fifteen seconds," I huffed. "Now I end it," he snorted, advancing on me, with the weird, tricky hand and arm movements. Which I ignored. When he came within range, I unleashed a series of low kicks with both feet aimed at his ankles, shins and knees. He blocked or parried them all, and unleashed his own combination of low kicks. I blocked and parried. We kept fighting with our feet, fast and furious, neither gaining the upper hand. Or foot, as the case might be. I was exhausted. In-breaths were knives piercing my lungs. My hair was a tropical jungle. My heart heaved and hammered. Now he came straight, launching strikes with fists and elbows so fast, so hard, so tricky, that it was imposible to grip his wrist to twist and so control his whole body. All the jiu-jitsu subsets - aiki-jitsu, goshin-jitsu, tai-jitsu et al - were useless if I couldn't get a grip on the bastard. He relentlessly followed me around the small room. Always trying to corner me. I kept escaping. Barely. But how long before he hit me with a combination of weird punches and down I went? He didn't seem unduly out of breath. I was, though. My ears still hurt; my head was still filled with noise, reverberating like an echo in a canyon. My heart and lungs begged for relief. But if I stopped moving, he'd destroy me. Then he cornered me for real. He advanced, all tricky movement, a sadistic smirk riding his lips like a cruel rider needlessly and brutally whipping his horse. I was trapped in a tiny space with no exit. He would annihilate me.

CHAPTER 100

The Old Legionnaire's voice surfaced through the noise in my mind: 'Where there seems no opening, make an opening. Or find one.' I found one. Before he could clobber me, I dove under his arms, rolled, came up standing and turned to face him. For once, I stood in the white room's center and Mother was in a corner. But grimly, savagely, inexorably, he advanced. I was exhausted, mind-logged and shaky. Beat down to the ankles. Legs wobbling. Scowling, he moved on me. I sank to my knees, too tired to stand. His scowl became a smile. The savage feral wolfish grin of a predator seeing its prey collapse. From kneeling, I sat back on my heels, breathing hard, sweating cannon balls. "What the hell you doing?" Mother asked, stopping, surprised. "Taking a break," I said, looking up at him. "You can't take a break in the white room!" he said, offended by my transgression of torture protocol. He standing, I sitting, my lungs began to catch their breath. Mother flicked a glance at the camera, as if to ask God what to do. "I'll give you a break," he snarled, coming at me. "I'll break your head wide open." If he had attacked me Jailhouse Rock style, he probably would have done what he said he'd do. But my abandonment of the battle seemed to prompt him to abandon his Jailhouse motions. Instead, he raised his right fist above his head and swung it down like a hammer at my precious cranium. I realized I had unthinkingly assumed the formal Japanese sitting posture known as seiza. The Old Legionnaire had had me practice defense in seiza against a standing opponent thousands of times. In ancient Japan, a person sitting - by himself or with others - was still expected to defend himself from one or more standing attackers. I only had one attacker. As his massive right fist descended toward my head, I parried it by extending my right hand. Now his momentum caused his right hand to slide down the outside of my right hand. I quickly gripped and twisted his wrist with my right hand. And then my left. I now controlled and twisted his wrist with both my hands and used the pain element to turn him - on his tiptoes trying to get away from the pain - in a circle all the way around and behind me. He emerged on my left side and - his right wrist painfully locked - I forced him to the floor, face down. The only way to escape a wrist lock was to go against it. Which was extremely painful. And would only break your own wrist. If someone could summon the will power to do this, it would be too late anyway. The body instantly reacted by trying to get away from the pain. Which put the attacker into a submission hold. Like this freako. He lay on his belly, his face away from me. His whole right arm was extended straight on the floor. I had locked his wrist, elbow and shoulder. "Lemme go!" he bellowed. "You deserve a break today," I said. Applying additional pressure, I broke his shoulder, his elbow, his wrist. "Ow! Oww!! Owww!!!" "My mistake," I said. "You deserve three breaks today!" I stood up. He remained on the floor face down, right arm broken in three places, yowling like a scalded cat, howling like a whipped dog. I looked up at the camera. "Are you there, God?" I asked quietly. "It's me. Castille."

CHAPTER 101

The door burst open and in stomped Darius Barron a.k.a. God, his face fierce and demonic. Barefoot, he wore a gi, or martial arts uniform, consisting of black silk pants and black silk jacket. The jacket was held closed by a wide red silk obi, or sash, tied around his waist. The sash held in place against his hip a scabbard, from which protuded the handle of a sword. Coming straight at me, he pulled free a samurai sword. In the same motion, gripping the handle with two hands about six inches apart, he swung - in a sweeping semi-circular motion - the sharp tip of the sword at me. He shouted "KI-AIIIIIII!" I quickly back-stepped. If I hadn't, the blade would have sliced deep into and across my chest. I tripped! Over something on the floor behind me. Mother! Concentrating completely on God's attack, I had forgotten him. I tumbled backward to the floor but ready to roll over my shoulder and come up standing. Mother's right arm was useless. But he iron-gripped my left ankle with his left hand. Just like in the Wasteland. I couldn't get up! I lay on my back, weaponless, a monster's hand clutching my ankle, and a violent demented lunatic fuck coming toward me with a samurai sword. I suppose things could be worse. Although, at the moment, I couldn't see how. God hesitated, seemingly unsure of stepping over Mother or going around him. In that long second of hesitation, I stomped Mother's wrist with my free foot. "Owwww!!!!" he screamed, letting go of my ankle. I quickly rolled over backward and stood. My heart pounded. Rivers of sweat ran out of my hair and armpits. God slowly and ceremoniously aimed his sword at me. It was a beauty. Slender, aesthetically curved, single-edged gleaming steel two feet long. Combined with his four inches of height on me, it would be all but impossible to get beyond the sharp tip to get my hands on him. Or stomp his bare feet. "Once unsheathed, Castille," solemnly said God, "this blood-hungering blade can't be returned to its scabbard until its craving for blood is satisfied. Your blood." "I take it you have 'loosed the fateful lightning of your terrible swift sword,'" I said. "No, that's fair. First, you soften me up with sonic assault. Then, I have to fight Mother Superior practically to the death. And now, you charge in with a sword out of The Seven Samurai. And I have no weapon at all. Yes, that's fair." No answer. He closed in on me, whirling his sword in figure eight motions. I kept moving back and around the room, a step ahead of the sword. If he connected, the blade would diagonally slice my face or sever my neck vein or artery. Frustrated, God screamed: "You can run! But you can't hide!!" "First said by heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis in 1946," I said. "Can't come up with original material, huh? You being God and all." He swung the blade low in a semi-circle at my knees. I jumped. High enough that the blade passed under my feet. Suddenly, for the first time instead of swinging the sword in an arc, he lunged and stabbed straight at my abdomen. I dodged to the side. His thrust was such that if he had stabbed me, the blade would have pierced my front and come out my back. But I saw something in that straight-in thrust. Would he do it again? Could I do what I thought of? Mother loudly moaned and groaned. "Shut up, Mother!" God yelled. "You're breaking my concentration." "But, Darius..." "God!" "I mean, God. God, I'm in agony! Help me!" "I will," said God, keeping his eyes on me. "Soon as I send this heretic to hell." "But I'm..." "I told you," said God. "Shut! Up!" So saying, he removed his eyes from me, took a long step to Mother and raised his sword so the blade pointed straight down at Mother. "No! No! No!" pleaded Mother. "Don't!" With two hands six inches apart on the grip, God stabbed straight down into Mother's back. Blood poured out. "You..killed...me," Mother said. God pulled the sword free and wiped off the blood from the blade on his red silk sash. Once again, the sword gleamed, pristine. "Maybe next time," God said, returning to me, "he'll obey God's command." "I don't think they'll be a next time for him," I said to God as the life visibly ebbed from Mother. In a matter of seconds, he lay still. "Serves him right," God muttered. "Now I serve you right." "But now you can put the sword away," I said. "Its hunger for blood has been satisfied." "That was an hors d'oeuvre," God said. "You're the main course." My guardian demon doled out the chess pieces for the endgame. To me: king, pawns and bishop. To God: king, pawns and queen. He checkmates me: I die. I checkmate him: he dies. Not such good odds, when you think about it.

CHAPTER 102

Again, suddenly, he stabbed straight at my abdomen. He held the grip samurai-style, hands apart, a fist's length between his gripping hands. I shrugged to the outside of the blade. Expecting to strike me but missing, he stumbled forward off-balance. With my left hand, I gripped the handle between his hands and ripped the sword entirely out of his grasp. Immediately, I swung back at him in a semi-circle. Having stumbled, he took a second to regain his balance. Too slow. I cut his black silk jacket and continued the semi-circle, slicing across his belly. Blood trickled, then flowed out of the cut. He looked at the red, coloring his black jacket. The same color as his show-off red silk sash. Then he looked at me, unbelieving. I had already completed the semi-circle. Now I gripped the handle of the sword with both my hands. Like a left-hander with his bat at the plate. Some part of me resisted my next motion. But I had promised Queen Cleo. I had promised Maggie the Cat. I had promised myself. And, without doubt, the world would be better off without this mega-lunatic Darius Barron a.k.a. God. I swung the sword back at him like a batter swinging at a pitch. He stared in hopeless horror as the gleaming blade swept toward him. In a passion of rage, I struck the gleaming blood-lusting sword against the right side of his neck and cut all the way through. The silver blade once again glistened red. Blood-red. As if in slow motion, his head toppled from his body to the floor. The life's-blood gushed out of the hole in his neck where his head had been. Slowly, slowly, the blood-spurting headless body collapsed to the floor. From his severed head, the eyes of God - wide open and red-veined with horror - stared at me. Accused me of the guilt of taking his life. But I felt no guilt. Only exhaustion and relief, duty done and promises kept. To Maggie the Cat, tortured and terrified. To Queen Cleo, formerly Sister Flukie, born Keisha Washington. To myself, earth-born and earthbound. To humanity, serpent-seduced and Eden-ejected.

CHAPTER 103

I wiped the blood off the blade onto God's red silk sash. "Today you have eaten well," I said quietly. "Henceforth, rest in peace." I returned the sword to its scabbard. Now what? The only sound I heard was my heart thumping through my whole body. Would God's hench-angels open the door and attack a fatigued me? Or would they leave me here - door locked, no exit - to slowly perish as the two corpses rotted? I sat down against the wall farthest from the camera. I looked up at it. Was anyone looking at me? Maybe with God - like the Wicked Witch - dead, they had snapped out of their hypnotized stupor and danced for joy. Or maybe they had seen their leader, their master, their God fall like Lucifer to the depths of hell; and they had run away. Or maybe they thought I was the Anti-Christ who they must slay to begin Armageddon and the End of Days. Or maybe... The door slowly opened. I held my breath.

CHAPTER 104

In walked the three archangels, Michael, Rafael and Gabriel. With Uzi machine pistols. They all looked stunned. Did they actually believe this Darius Barron was God? Certainly, he believed. But he was delusional, demented and deranged. I had assumed the rest of them just went along with God. The gang had its own rules, regulations, insignia, designations. Like the Hell's Angels or the Aryan Brotherhood. Now they stared somberly at the dead body of the late God. Then they looked at me. "I guess Nietzsche was right," I said. "God is dead." "This in no time for levity," said Michael, the leader. "I'm sure you watched the whole thing with your camera up there," I said. "You saw it was a fair fight. Or, rather, an unfair fight. That I acted in self-defense against an armed opponent." "But he was God!" Michael burst out. Maybe he was as delusional as Darius Barron. "So how was it that God died?" I asked. "Because you killed him!" "But if he was truly God," I said, "how could I - a mere mortal - kill him?" "It must have been God's desire," said Michael. "To die?" I asked. "He sure didn't act like it." "Yes, that's it!" he said, ignoring my comment. His eyes lit up with an unholy light. "God became human and sacrificed his life for the atonement of our sins! For the sins of all mankind!" "I think I've heard this story before," I said. "But believe what you want. Me? I'm leaving. You have any problem with that?" "No," said Michael. "You were the chosen instrument of God's death. Judas." "This Sunday is Easter," I joked. "Maybe God will rise from the dead." "Yes!" exclaimed Michael, dead serious. The others' eyes also lit up. "That must be it! He will rise from the dead and return to us!" "And you will start new lives," I said. "Like stop selling drugs out of the project." No reply. Maybe that was pushing resurrection a little too far. "On that note," I said, "I'll take my leave." They let me pass; I walked downstairs and out the back door. To feel the flinty ground beneath my feet. To smell the salty scent of ocean surf. To hear the squeak and squawk of gliding gulls. To taste the bracing tang of brine. To see the holy sea.

CHAPTER 105

"Ah suggest we take our cigars and brandy in the library, Miz Margie," I said in my Southern Colonel voice, in my kitchen, on Marathon Monday. "You? Smoking? Drinking?" Margie turned her head to squint sideways at me. "Over my dead body." "As you wish, ma'am. Down here on the plantation, we can be most accommodating." "I know you think you're funny," Margie said. "Then shall we meander to the verandah?" "If only you had one." "Then Ah reckon we'll have to settle for the drawing room," I said. "I take it you mean the living room," she said. "I'm right behind you, Colonel Sanders." I sat on the sofa. Margie sat against the armrest, wearing a most fetching short skirt. She kicked her shoes off and put her lovely legs on my lap. Long lovely legs. Though she was rather un-tall. I could never understand why her legs seemed so long. A trick of Renaissance perspective. Or an M.C. Escher optical delusion. On the sound-turned-off TV, Boston Marathon runners ran. We'd already witnessed the winners cross the finish line in front of the Boston Public Library in Copley Square. Americans no longer dominated. A Japanese man set a new course record. A New Zealand woman set a new course record. O America, whither art thou racing? Today was the state holiday of Patriots Day. This day commemorated the Battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775, the beginning of the American Revolution. The day before had been the Christian feast of Easter, as well as the Jewish festival of Passover. This year, it had also been the day of the April full moon. The coastal Native Americans had called it Full Fish Moon because it was around this time every year that the herring began their swim up many streams in Massachusetts to spawn. I vaguely remembered my father taking me - my sisters were too young - to a herring run. I recalled hordes of herring. Schools of fish graduating from the ocean to swim against the current to return to the lake or stream where they had been born. In order to now give birth. Commencement, of sorts. Coincidentally, the fish was a Christian symbol because the Greek word for fish, ichthys, formed an acronym for words which, in English, spelled 'Jesus Christ God's Son is Savior." Appropriate for the day after Easter. Although, the fish as a symbol of life had been ancient before the advent of Christianity. "So you, uh, dispatched those two wretches," Margie said, breaking into my reverie. "Mother Superior," I said. "And God." "Mother Superior and God," she shook her head. "Only in America." "Only in Boston," I said. After my little adventures, I would tell Margie the redacted versions. No need to regale her at length about such things as the bothersome number of corpses Phoenix and I had left on Dr. McGhoul's stage. "And you re-united twins separated at birth." "Yup." "Your repetition compulsion, darling," she smiled. She was probably right in her analysis of my childhood- driven vocation, but I didn't like to hear it. "And you never found that guy with Walking Corpse Syndrome?" she asked. "Mr X?" "No." "Such a rare mental illness," she said. "I never even heard of it till you told me." "Stick with me, kid," I said. "You'll learn things." "So where might he be?" "No idea. After talking to Dr. Anandan, the psychiatrist, and Mr. and Mrs. Clayton, the parents, I've given up looking for him. Everyone accepts that he's gone. Except his mother. She still thinks he'll turn up." "Mothers are like that," Margie murmured. "I've noticed." "First failure," she said. "In your glorious career of finding missing family members." "I prefer to think of it as a still-open case. His mother thinks he has amnesia. He got a job on a Russian trawler and he's learning Russian in St. Petersburg, even as we speak." "And he'll recover his memory some day," Margie said. "And her baby boy will return to her." "Mothers are like that," I said. We watched the silent runners. The elite had long since crossed the finish line. These stragglers wouldn't win any prizes. But just to finish the Marathon made them winners. Suddenly, the words popped out of my mouth: "Ever think of moving to the countryside?"

CHAPTER 106

"Me?" Margie asked. "You and me." "Leave the city?" Margie asked, as if the notion was so strange that she couldn't grasp it. "Why not?" She moved her legs off my lap and sat up straight, turned and looked into my eyes. Her whole face strained with sincerity. Like a heliotropic flower seeking the sun, her earnest eyes sought my soul. "Darling," she said, "you could no more leave the city than I could. It's in our blood. But why do you ask?" "No reason," I said, deflated. "House with a white picket fence?" Margie rubbed it in. "Three kids? Four? P.T.A. meetings?" "Up to you. As long as we're together." "Now you're scaring me," she said. "What's wrong?" "I'm just sick of it all." "Like what?" she asked, concerned, all eyes and ears in her Margie-like way. "The noise. The dirt. Everything." "Everything, meaning?" she gently probed. "All right," I capitulated. "The senselessness. The uselessness." "You re-united twin sisters. That's something." "And tomorrow, another missing family member. And the next day. And the next. Nothing ever changes. Except for us. We just get older." "Like to help you out, chum," she said. "But I'm committed to my job. My vocation." "Jobs," I said. "All right. Jobs. In the city. But remember two years ago? When my car was stolen right out of the agency parking lot?" "Yes." "Did I complain?" she asked. "Did I bitch and moan? Did I cry?" "No," I said. "Do you remember why?" "Of course," I sighed, the battle lost except for the mopping up. "Why?" she asked, forcing me to say it out loud. "Because you had already thought long and hard, and decided how you could help the most. So you live and work in the city. Even work in a poor area of Boston." "The poorest," she clarified. "Chinatown." "And you reconciled yourself to the fact that bad things would befall." "Like my car being stolen," she said. "So. Tell me. What's bothering you? Specifically." "Nothing," I said. "You haven't accepted all the holes in your life," said Margie. "All the deaths." "Yes, I have!" I snapped. "No," she said gently. "You haven't." "How do you know?" I demanded. "And don't say 'because I know you.'" "Because when I bring up the subject, you get so touchy. So upset. So angry. Like you are now." "I'm not touchy. I'm not upset. I'm not angry!" I said, touchy, upset, angry. "Remember when we took turns reading Moby Dick to each other at bedtime?" she asked, seemingly wildly changing the subject. But I knew better. "When we lived together," I said, smiling. "And we read The Hunchback of Notre Dame, To Kill A Mockingbird and Middlemarch to each other. Fun. Why did we stop?" "Because we stopped living together," she said. "Maybe we should start again," I said. "Except this time, we'll read The Adventures of Ai-Mor, the Futurian." "Maybe," she laughed. "Point is that you're like Ahab." "I don't have a peg leg." "Nor are you the captain of a whaling ship." "Then what's the resemblance?" I asked, a deep-sea diving sensation in my stomach. "Like Ahab, you're obsessed with finding and killing Moby Dick. The great white whale who bit off Ahab's leg." "And who's my Moby Dick?" I asked, dreading the answer. "All the deaths in your life." "So what if it is?" "Death is part of life," she said. "The great white whale in the big blue ocean in this wide wide world represents life. Life with a capital L." "One of the standard interpretations," I pointed out. "In your case, the standard. Ahab refuses to accept the loss of his leg. And, I might add, the loss of his pride. "So he becomes a monomaniac, obsessed with finding Moby Dick, putting his whole crew in jeopardy for his own selfish desire. He so badly wants to kill what hurt him." "And, in the end," I said, "he couldn't hurt, let alone kill, Moby Dick. Moby Dick killed him." "Because," Margie went on, "nobody can hurt, let alone kill, Life. Not Ahab. Not you." Deep down, like a shipwreck sunk at the bottom of my own psychic ocean, I knew what Margie said was true. But every time the ship tried to surface into the bright sunshine of consciousness, I scuttled it. I forced it back under the waves to the ocean floor. "I know it," I said. "But I don't know it. Or maybe I don't want to know." "I know," she said, her eyes searchlighting mine. "So. Then what?" "You won't be free until you let your own awesome and demonic white whale swim in the light." "How?" I asked. "Accept what happened." "But how?" I asked, anguished. "I don't know how," she admitted. "Everybody is different. Unique." "I have to change from Ahab to Ishmael." "From Ahab's self-centered refusal to accept life to Ishmael's humility and acceptance." "Again," I said. "How?" "Again, I don't know." We sat silent. The runners on the TV screen ran. In a hundred streams, the herring ran. I'd long known what she made plain - by saying it out loud - in my brain, in my heart, in my gut. I didn't know how to change. But I would change. Somehow. I leaned over, picked up her legs and put them back on my lap. She looked at me expectantly. I said: "Call me Ishmael."

CHAPTER 107

Next morning, I sat in my office on the fourth floor of the Textile Building with nothing on the desk top but the phone and desk lamp. Clean slate. Tabula rasa. A brand new day. What other cliches could I think of? At last, I had a chance to catch up on The Adventures of Ai-Mor, the Futurian. Oh goody. I bent down to the bottom drawer of the desk to retrieve the latest issue of the comic book. When last I left Ai-Mor and his female fighting partner Cherry Bhel, they were in desperate danger, terrible trouble, Pauline-like peril. With the latest issue in hand, I sat up straight. A man stood on the other side of my desk holding a six-shot revolver. My feet turned ice-cold; my head felt like it had been shoved inside an oven; my heart tried to explode out of my chest. "Maul the Sledge," I addressed him. "Castille, prepare to meet your maker." "My mother died a long time ago." "Then say your prayers," he said. "I pray you disappear in a puff of smoke." "Pray on, fool," he said. "You have a few seconds to live." "I take it this is your idea of revenge. For me taking down your blood-brother and comrade-in-arms MacBrayer the Black." "He was a good 'un." "And as his shipmate," I said, "you believe it's your duty to perpetuate the cycle of violence by avenging his death." "Not his death." "No? Revenge for what then?" "Your crippling of me!" he said. Another Ahab. "You no doubt refer," I said, "to the occasion before our last encounter when - strictly in self-defense, of course - I was forced to kick your kneecap out of joint. Leaving you with a permanent limp." "And it hurts like hell! All the time!" he burst out. "Especially when rain is coming." "How's your knee feel this minute? Rain coming?" "No." "Goodie," I said. Then sang: "'Nothing but blue skies from now on!'" "Wrong weather forecast. For you, it's cloudy. With a high chance of showers of lead." "Damn. I planned to row scull on the Charles." I realized I had smelled an unusual odor for the last minute or so. What was that? "And then I kill the Chinese broad," he said. "Why her?" "She stabbed and shot me somehow with her hand!" "You, unmanly little chap, no doubt refer to the spot of unpleasantness at Dr. McGhoul's in the City Of the Dead," I said. "She didn't stab and shoot you with her hand." "What then?" "An Apache gun. The guts of a revolver along with a knife small enough to conceal in her hand." "I don't care what it was!" he said. "You crippled me. You die. She stabbed and shot me. Leaving me for dead. She dies." "Apparently you didn't die. So tell me one thing. It was your hands which punched through the wall behind me. And tried to choke me to death. Wasn't it?" "I wisht to God I'd finished you off then." "But you didn't," I said. "Because somebody stabbed my hand!" he said. "Couldn't have been you. Who...? Oh. Must have been the Chinese woman. Wasn't it?" "My lips are sealed. With Chemlink Surebond sealant." "Tell me. Or I'll kill you." "You're going to kill me anyway, you fucking moronic termite," I laughed. "Don't laugh at me!" he shouted, putting both his hands on the gun, aiming squarely at my chest. Gulp. "I wasn't laughing," I said. "I was...sneezing." "Funny way to sneeze," he frowned. "Rare," I said. "But I've read the relevant medical literature. And it's..." "Shut up!" yelled Maul. The smell was stronger. Maul didn't notice. So single- mindedly focused was he on me. What was that odor? "So who stabbed me?" he asked. "Her, right?" I folded my arms and sat pouty-faced like a seven-year-old not allowed to stay up past his bedtime to see a show he really, really wants to see. "I'm not telling," I said, a petulant child. "So there." "Then this is it." Wait! I recognized that smell! "Any last words?" he asked, sardonically. "'After all, tomorrow is another day,'" I said in my Scarlet O'Hara voice. "Not for you." The smell? Gasoline. Maul thumbed back the hammer on the revolver. I heard a whoosh! Outside my office. Maul realized something was strange. He turned his head to look. A maniacal creature - on blazing fire from head to toe - rushed in, screaming, at Maul. Who tried to turn his gun. But it was too late. The charging fiery figure wrapped his flaming arms around Maul and pushed him to the window. In a shower of shards, they both crashed through the glass. I was stunned. I actually heard them hit the street. A sickening thud. I went to the broken window and looked down. A two-backed creature burned. Cars swerved. Pedestrians stopped. Some stared with mouths agape. Both figures were still alive. Barely. One, presumably Maul, struggled weakly to get free of the other. But it was too late. His entire body was on fire. Plus an unknown number of broken bones. He screamed hideously. It was over in thirty seconds. No sound. No movement. Just a charred-black creature with two heads and two bodies welded together in death. One watching woman violently vomited. People in the building on the other side of the street stared through their windows, horrified. Sirens sounded. Fire engines. Police cars. Ambulances. I felt dizzy. I managed to stumble outside my office. A tin can of gasoline. Open. Empty. I staggered back behind my desk and sat, heart still thumping and bumping. Who was my savior? Gasoline. Fire. Could it be? Mr. X?

"You may be high, you may be low. You may be rich, I don't really know. But when the Lord gets ready, you gotta move."

- "You Gotta Move" by Mississippi Fred McDowell as sung by the Rolling Stones