They sat me in the middle of the worn wooden table as if I were the guest of honor. Above, they had strung dozens of LEDs that glowed like tiny red planets. The speaker-girl handed me a tall stemmed glass filled with a clear, yellowish drink.
“Corn wine,” she said, her eyes filled with happy tears.
I put it to my lips but just pretended to drink as I watched them talk, laugh, and make a dozen hopeful toasts. “What do you mean pieces?”
“To fix what was wrong. You were deformed, like the rest.”
“From now on,” announced Mason, who had climbed atop his chair, “we’ll be allowed inside the families’ cities. We’ll put on shows for them.” He spun his cane in his hand and laughed as though he were drunk. “We can raise our ticket prices a hundred times. We’ll get new tents. Better trucks. And new costumes for everyone.”
After she poured for the others, the speaker-girl sat across from me. While they drank and celebrated, she stared at me as if she couldn’t believe I existed. The man with the enormous genitals pointed at her.
“Sing, Maricell! Sing for our brother!”
She stood and did so. For the longest time, I couldn’t place the song, and then I knew. It was her version of Adjoining Tissue. Only her odd, beautiful, and sad voice made the song poignant and serene in a way it never was before.
“You got your mouth from her,” said Mother.
“My mouth?” I asked, afraid what this meant.
“Yours was too disfigured,” she whispered. “You didn’t have a working jawbone so, the doctors used Maricell’s. It was just the right size.”
I stared at the scar just below her nose and wondered if Mother could be right. Touching my face, I traced my lower jaw though my flesh as though I could tell if it were mine or not.
The young man without arms, only fingers, suggested that he and I dance together in their show. “I have ideas for us!” he said, his eyes wild and joyful.
“We’ll have plenty of time to talk about that, Rex,” said Mother. Whispering, she told me, I had gotten my arms from him.
“No,” I said.
“Yes, tour father wanted you to have good, strong arms. Yours were thin, your bones, brittle.”
As others made toasts and praised my arrival, I reached inside my jacket, under my shirt, and touched my shoulder as if searching for a seam or scar. I wasn’t sure if I believed Mother or not, but as I scanned the faces around me, I began to see similarities to Father and me. One had a mouth the shape of his. Another had his nose. The speaker-girl’s eyes resembled mine.
At the far end of the table, the boy with the mechanical heart stood and made a toast. Before Mother leaned toward me, I knew.
“After my heart attack,” I guessed.
She nodded.
I didn’t want any of it to be true, but I couldn’t disbelieve it away either. It explained the way I felt sometimes. When I woke from the coma after my aneurysm I sensed that I was different, that I shouldn’t be alive. Maybe I should have died. And maybe that was why I quit dancing, because I knew something was wrong. And was this what I had wanted to know all along? “Why?” I asked her. “Why them and why me?”
“Your father, Hiro Bruce Rivers.” She gazed into my eyes with a wisdom and tenor I had never seen from her before. “He wanted to have a beautiful son. He did everything he could to make you perfect.” Scanning their faces, she concluded, “Your brothers and sisters and your half brothers and half sisters were your spare parts.”
“Spare parts?”
After a deep breath she said, “For years I’ve debated whether or not to tell you… whether it was fair or you were ready.” She combed hair from my cheek and said, “I think you’re ready now.”
“What do you mean? What happened?”
Spinning her empty glass, she stared forward and said, “You should ask your father.”
“You won’t tell me?”
“It’s really between you two.” Frowning, she added, “I think that’s best.”
“Mother!” Her quiet resolve was more frustrating than her usual hysteria, but she was right. It was between Father and I. As I glanced around, I felt like I should thank them, or apologize, or better yet, somehow give all of their flesh and bones back. “What should I do?”
“Dance with us.” Tilting her head to the left, she smiled and added, “Dance with Tanoshi No Wah.”
I wished I hadn’t asked. As responsible as I felt, I didn’t want to dance—I had vowed not to ever again. Besides, I didn’t fit in here. Not that I wasn’t obviously a freak in my own right, but I was a city boy. A family boy. I should be with Nora, drinking cream coffees, appreciating silences and colorless interiors.
Of course, I wasn’t going to be that either. I was going to destroy Father and myself. Then again, maybe that would be my brothers and sisters’ salvation: once RiverGroup, Father, and I were gone, none of them would be used again.
Looking Mother in the eye, I said, “I can’t.”
“You don’t have to dance,” she replied. “There are other possibilities. We’re just glad that you found us and that you’re here.”
“I can’t stay. I’m sorry, but I can’t help. I have to destroy Father. I’m going to kill him, end RiverGroup, and save Nora.” Now I expected Mother to have one of her fits. Instead, she gazed at me solemnly. “Because he is going to kill her,” I explained. “There’s no other way to stop him.”
Her expression darkened. She bit her bottom lip and fixed her eyes on her empty glass. She said, “Not good,” so quietly, it made me feel terrible.
“I know, but Tanoshi No Wah will be free,” I said. “When Father and RiverGroup are gone, they won’t be used anymore. That will be good, won’t it?”
She touched her muddy hair, but still didn’t look at me. “I don’t think I told you, but I thought you would be a poet someday. I always hoped for a gentle and quiet life for you. Maybe because I knew it never would be.” Smiling sadly, she shook her head once. “I didn’t expect you to even visit me out here.”
“Mother,” I said, annoyed that she was now trying to guilt me. “I have to protect Nora. I love her. It’s the only way.”
She gazed at the others, the way a mother does, admiring not just the faces, but the spirits and souls.
I shouldn’t have stopped, I told myself. Now, I felt hopeless and culpable. But what could I do? Staying was impossible, and I couldn’t fathom anything else.
A voice in the distance screamed, “Satins!” Everyone at the table stood and started running as if for their lives. Several bumped into each other. The genitals-man fell to the ground.
“We must hide you,” said Mother. “Wait here!” With that she dashed toward one of the metal trailers.
“Mother!” I cried. “What’s wrong?” In the confusion and noise, she didn’t hear. Maricell stopped before me. Her eyes were big and fearful. “You should go,” she said in that buzzing voice of hers. Turning, she sprinted toward the tent as quickly as a fawn.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Walter. “We had better go,” he said.
“What’s happening?”
“I don’t know, but you shouldn’t be here in the slubs.” Turning, he started toward my car half-skipping, half-running. “Come on!” he said.
I didn’t know where Mother had gone. Everyone else was in a mad dash back and forth, as if they didn’t know what to do.
Maybe Walter was right. I had the ARU and I needed to get it to Joelene as soon as I could. Besides, my nitrocellulose suit would be arriving soon and I had my plans. I started after him. As we neared my car, the side door slid open. Walter tried to leap up into the opening, but only managed to get his torso into the car. His legs dangled over the edge. Once I shoved him in, I grabbed the side and swung myself up.
“RiverGroup compound,” I said to the driver on the intercom.
Walter got himself seated. The side door slid closed. “What’s going on?” she asked, as we began to taxi back to the road.
“I don’t know,” I said, as I fumbled with the safety belt.
The car slipped in the mud, for a moment, then we made a sharp turn onto the road.
“Look it!” said Walter.
Three very tall men, with crooked faces and beady eyes, were wearing shiny gold, military-cut uniforms. They stood beside the table where we had just sat. One of them, with heavy boots, knocked over the table with one tremendous kick. Trays of roasted rat and bottles of corn wine flew into the air and landed in the mud.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
“They’re terrible,” was all Walter said.
One of the golden satins chased after the genitals-man. The satin produced a black stick, pointed it at him, and a bolt of lightening shot from the end. The genitals-man flopped forward into the mud as if dead. The speaker-girl dashed toward the satin and pounded him on his lower back with her little fists. The giant turned around, and using the electronic stick as a club, whacked her across the head. She fell sideways and lay still.
“No!” I screamed as I tore off my seat belt. We were just taxiing past the tent, with the motors still revving, when I pressed the intercom. “Stop the car! Open the door!”
“No!” said Walter. “We have to go. They’ll kill us! They don’t care.”
The car stopped and the side door slid open. When I started for it, Walter grasped my jacket. “Don’t!” he said. “They’re giants. They have killer sticks. They don’t care who you are.”
I tore myself from his grip.
“No!” he screamed, as I jumped.
I landed in a slick spot and fell onto my face. Pushing myself up, I began running toward the satin who had killed the speaker-girl. “Son of a bitch!” I yelled.
The seven-foot-tall satin turned to me. Its skin was pallid, its eyes, light green. The long pointed nose hooked over the lips like a beak. He bared his yellow teeth, as if he relished an attack.
As I ran, I knew this was suicide. I wasn’t going to help Joelene, kill Father, destroy RiverGroup, and protect Nora. I was going to be killed in the slubs for the death of my half sister. It was all wrong, but I couldn’t and didn’t want to stop. “You’re dead!” I said, although I couldn’t imagine how I could even hurt the thing.
As I landed a punch on its stomach, he grasped my head, as one might an orange, and lifted me off the ground. My face and ears were crushed under his thick, ironlike fingers. My neck felt like it might break and let my body fall.
“Let go!” I swung my fists as hard as I could at the arm that held me, but my blows slipped off the slick fabric like drops of rain.
Pointing the electric rod at my chest, he said, “You die.” A loud crack and a white explosion came from the end of the stick.
The ground came up, crashed into my legs. I fell forward. The last thing I knew was the stench of burnt hair, and then I disappeared.
A fleshy gurgle, like wet flatulence, came from nearby. I heard breathing that was going a hundred miles a minute. My skull felt like it was being crushed. My ears felt like they’d been sheared off. I was alive, but couldn’t move. And although I decided the fast breathing was mine, I didn’t think any air was getting into my lungs. I tried to move my arms or legs but couldn’t. Something was on top of me.
This was my death. I hadn’t died when the electric rod had gone off. It must have knocked me out. Mother and the others thought I was dead and they buried me. Now, I woke buried underground only to die again. I made one last effort to move or make a sound, but I couldn’t. The earth was too heavy.
“Pull!” I heard from a hundred miles away.
An instant later everything was quiet and I decided I was dreaming.
“Pull!” I heard again as the earth above me moved. “Pull harder!”
I knew the voice. It was Mason, the master of ceremonies.
“Again!” he said. “Pull!”
The earth slid from me. Light and air touched my face like divine hands. I could see. I could breathe. When I inhaled, I felt a searing pain in my lungs.
Now it was my mother’s voice. “Michael, can you hear me? Speak to me.”
“I’m alive,” I said, choking.
Hands grasped my arms and I was turned face up, but it took several moments for a terrible dizziness to leave. My mother’s face floated before me. Bright lipstick was smeared across her chin and nose. Some of it dripped onto my face as she came closer.
“Michael, you’re so brave!”
The air tasted cool in my lungs. I asked, “What happened?”
“We all saw it. When the satin touched you with the rod, the spark jumped off of you, back to him. You killed that satin!” She wiped her face. It wasn’t lipstick. Blood was flowing from her nose. Someone, Mason, I think, handed her a cloth.
“They killed Fenn,” she said, as she mopped her nose, eyes, and forehead. I didn’t know who Fenn was, but imagined it was the man with the genitals. “Becka is bleeding badly. They took her to a doctor. We don’t know about her. Mason’s hand was broken. But you scared the rest of those ghastly satins off before they did any more damage.”
I lifted my right arm and inspected the fabric of my jacket. It was just like before. Clean, smooth, subtle, and perfect. I thought of the electricity impedance test—the display where I had pressed the button just yesterday before the doors to Mr. Cedar’s workshop. My suit’s subsystem channeled the electricity right back to the satin.
“But what about Maricell?” I asked as I began to cry. “She okay?”
Mother nodded. “She’s hurt, but we think she’s going to live.”
Seventeen
As we raced back through Europa and across the Atlanticum bridge to America-1, and Walter sat slumped and silent, I tried to understand what had happened. That I had risked my life to try to revenge my half brothers and sisters, whom I had never met before—or even knew existed—perplexed and frightened me. But more troubling than my suicide run at the satin, was the depth of my feelings for them.
Did that mean that Mother was right all along? Was it where I belonged? Should I join Tanoshi No Wah and be in their shows? If I did, certainly my fame would change their lives. As Mason had said, they could tour the cities and charge a hundred times more. They wouldn’t have to eat roasted rat, live in the mud, and be attacked by pillaging satins.
Or maybe it wasn’t that simple. Maybe I wasn’t what they needed at all. Maybe my fame would only do to them what it had done to me. The way they celebrated, toasted, and cheered me, I had been a deity and a promise I doubted I could ever fulfill. And what would it be like for me, traveling around the world, holding Mother’s clothes as she stripped or even dancing with her? I couldn’t fathom it. Worse, I could imagine tens of thousands of channel reporters chasing after us, trampling the grounds and ripping the tents to get the story and images of my new peculiar career.
What if what I really felt was guilt? What if that was why I had run at the satin? But the truth was I hadn’t caused their misery. I hadn’t taken Maricell’s jaw, one brother’s arms, another’s heart, and whatever else. No, I decided, the best I could do for Tanoshi No Wah was stay with my plan and destroy the man who had made them suffer.
After exiting the Loop, we sped past the lights of Ros Begas, and up ahead, on the mountain, searchlights and lasers wove a fabric of light into the night sky. Halfway up the access road we had to stop, as the rest of the way was jammed with thousands of cars. A moment later, though, officials recognized us, and we were directed straight to the steps of the PartyHaus.
The area was flooded with people, smoke, bright screens, and sequined dancers. I saw LardLik men in big wooden necklaces; Ball Description girls dressed as mice and cats. Hundreds of Petunia Tune women wore elaborate gowns covered with spots and dots. But most were Ültra in super-saturated stripes, plaids, and florals, with feathers, metals, leathers, cardboards, necklaces, ruffs, lace, hats, ribbons, and lights. From the top step of the PartyHaus all the way down to the oxygen gardens, they formed a writhing mass of colors, textures, and shapes like the grotesque and oily guts of an enormous sausage made of every possible fashion catastrophe.
Even before the door slid back, I could hear an ominous Ültra beat in the distance. And when the door did open, a cascade of blue and orange fireworks exploded along the road sending sparks sizzling through the air. The gunpowder and smoke combined with an odd rubbery odor, and while it wasn’t as bad as some of the smells in the slubs, the stench sat in the back of my mouth and burned like a splash of stomach acid. The sea of partiers before the car cheered, clapped, and screamed at us.
– They thought you were dead!
– I wanna see inside Elle!
– Michael, Nora was attacked!
– Fist my heart muscle!
– I love you, but I hate you!
I tried to locate the person who had mentioned Nora, but it was impossible in the mass of movement and sounds coming from every direction. Fighting their way through the crowd, two hospitality girls, like those of old—covered with food, soap, oils, paint, wax, vomit, and other bodily fluids—came to greet us.
“Welcome to the RiverGroup product show,” said one, who had a big splat of what I assumed was pudding across her face and chest. “It promises to be the most fun show of all time, throughout the universe and perpetuity!”
“Was Nora attacked?” I asked her, as I stepped from the car.
Before she could answer, a man in a striped vest, checked pants, with blood-red eyes bellowed, “Should be! Hate that whore!” He began choking and then threw up black coagulated carrot juice onto his pink neon platforms.
Shoving him backward, toppling him and several others like bowling pins, Pudding snarled, “Back up, fuckers! Make room.”
“Excuse me,” I said to her, with instant respect, “could you please keep an eye on my friend.” I thumbed toward Walter, who still stood in the car, his eyes wide and apprehensive. She said she would and then cleared a narrow path up the stairs.
Halfway up, I heard a familiar voice.
“Were you assaulted by MKG’s satins?” The question came from the heavy woman from Intellectuals and Soup—the one I’d dubbed Pink Hat. She wore a simple, tasteful, long orange and red gown that looked like a TUNE-21, and her trademark feathered chapeau.
I stopped. I was surprised to see her here and asked, “MKG’s satins?”
Her brown eyes grew wide as if she hadn’t expected me to recognize her or respond. “Michael,” she said, the same way she might have savored lobster bisque, “I saw a report.” In person, her face reminded me of a young girl because she only wore cherry eye shadow, but otherwise her skin looked clean. “The report was about a dead satin in Asia-12… an MGK satin.”
Of course! The satins had been gold—one of the MKG colors, and Nora told me her father had sent them. The news was crushing because it meant that I had brought those satins to my brothers and sisters. I asked her, “Is Nora okay?”
Pink Hat’s mouth tightened and her eyes—which looked larger, and a deeper shade of milk chocolate in person—watered. “It hasn’t been confirmed,” she said, in a voice that didn’t seem to want to believe, “but I think she was injured.”
“Who did it?” I asked, as if I couldn’t fathom the answer.
“Crush my ass in my head!” screamed some Ültra goon behind her.
After she grimaced at the shouter, all she seemed able to say was, “I’m sorry.”
“She’s not dead, is she?”
“No!” She shook her head, and a tear skittered down her cheek and disappeared into the folds of her chin. “I just love you two,” she added, as she pulled pink tissues from her tiny beaded handbag.
“RiverGroup,” said Goatee in that slow, reflective way he had, “is barely viable.” He stood beside Pink Hat, like her escort, but I hadn’t even noticed him in his plain if handsome brown suit and a matching beret. His eyes focused on me with both intensity and feeling. “Despite tonight’s histrionics,” he continued, “my investigations suggest that RiverGroup is bankrupt. Monetarily and morally. There is one possibility now.”
“Rip it!” screamed a woman with a green face. “Break it blue!”
After I nodded to the intellectuals, I continued up the stairs. Goatee was right; there was only one possibility, and I needed to find my nitrocellulose suit. At the top, the Ültra was loud and each drumbeat knocked a half-breath from my lungs.
“VIP area,” shouted Pudding, “is level fifteen.” She motioned at an elevator bank.
“I had a suit delivered. Know where it is?”
She shook her head and shrugged. I thanked her, and then headed through the doors. The foyer had been turned into a lounge. Bars lined the walls. Behind it stood hulky men in see-through tuxedos. Partiers lined up in front of blinking carrot, beet, and radish lights. “Sir,” said one of the bartenders, who was coming toward me with a long orange tube, “tap root enema?”
I continued right past him. Inside, every inch of the PartyHaus was clogged with Ültra addicts. Two men in white were bound like the three-legged race but with barbed wire. Their white clothes were soaked with blood. A brunette dressed in red rags that stunk of gasoline had several squirming, wet amphibians in her mouth.
Most recognized me. Danced at me. Shouted and sang at me.
– You’re our only chance, Michael!
– Crush my hope!
“Excuse me,” I said. “Pardon me.” They wouldn’t get out of my way, so I adopted the hospitality girl’s strategy and pushed them back as best I could.
I touched the back of a man’s lime suit, but found it coated with some sticky goo. Going around him, a woman covered in what looked like broken shards of glass tried to bite my face. I ducked and slipped by.
– Golden boy must die!
– Murder Elle! Murder her love!
“Get out of the way!” I told them again and again, as I continued across the floor.
When I finally got to the stairwell, I felt exhausted and sickened, but began down. Below, in the glare of the orange lights, I saw a couple in matching lavender outfits thrust needles into each other’s throats. I assumed the black stuff in their hypodermics was carrot liquor, but the woman’s face quickly turned so red, she looked like a hemorrhaging tomato. I turned afraid she would split open.
Another group in untanned hides and broken feathers were smashing each other in their faces with tremendous kicks and elbow punches. A man on his back was knocked in his face several times by a larger man’s knee. As the victim smeared his blood over his face, like a child might finger-paint, he giggled as though pain had become pleasure.
Many sang to the blasting Ültra, which ricocheted against the hard walls. Others, dressed in tight sequined outfits, did flips and tumbles in all directions. Farther along, I saw a man sitting on the floor gagging on a huge carrot that was stuffed halfway down his throat. A vaguely amused group stood watching.
The second stairwell led into the same inky darkness as before, but now among the giant sex sculptures were dozens of mostly naked people rolling, groping, and taking each other. A woman mounted a man and then slammed her fists into his face like a crazed jockey beating a horse. Soon he was unconscious, but still she rode him hard.
When I found my advisor, three people were dripping vegetable alcohols on her and laughing. “Get away!” I told them, as I shoved a man in a pink frock.
“Fuck shit idiot!” he bellowed. He could barely stand. “I’ll kill you,” he said, his eyes fierce but unfocused. “Eat your fuck brain!” he blathered, as he swung a wild fist. He missed by five feet, stumbled backward, and fell onto the hard floor. His laughing friends began to drip alcohol on him.
“Joelene!” I said, as I got down beside her. With my handkerchief, I wiped the black gunk from her chapped lips and swollen face. “You all right?” She didn’t respond. “I have the ARU.” Her forehead felt broiling hot. “It’s me, Michael.”
Barely opening her eyes, she murmured, “MKG.”
That she mentioned Nora’s company surprised me. “They sent satins to try to kill me,” I told her. Her eyelids hovered halfway, like indicators of her consciousness. I gave up explaining and got out the roach-looking pill my mother gave me. “I have it.”
I think she said, “Yes,” so I touched the pill to her dry lips. She opened them and took it between her teeth. A second later, I heard a crunch.
As I took off my jacket to drape over her, I inspected her left hand in the heavy metal cuff. I wasn’t sure, but thought it might be infected. After I tucked my jacket around her for warmth, I said, “I’ll be back. I promise.”
When I stood, I saw Father’s silver-haired director before me. “I thought it was you!” he said. He wore a blue suit with an orange shirt and shoes. “We had rehearsals earlier. Except you weren’t there. We used a stand-in, but you were supposed to rehearse! Then I see you running down here. So, I chase after you. And here you are!”
“Can you unlock this?” I asked of the cuff on Joelene’s wrist.
“No,” he said with a frown. “The show’s beginning! We have to go.”
“I have to help her!”
Shrugging, he said, “The show! You must get ready.”
“I had a suit made,” I told him. “Is it here?”
“There’s no time! You’ll have to wear what you have on.” As he spoke, he looked me up and down, then at my jacket on Joelene and grimaced. “God, you’re not even dressed! I know your dad got some clothes for you. Let’s go look.”
“I had a suit made!” I said again. “Like the orange ones from Adjoining Tissue.”
“HammørHêds? One of my favorites! Love them.” Getting out a small screen, he checked with someone. “Michael’s got a suit on the way. Did it get here?… Oh! Great! Level fifteen!” he said to me. “It’s waiting on fifteen. Hurry. We have to hurry!”
We dashed past the sculptures and the people everywhere, up the stairs and past the violence in the orange lights, and back to the dance floor. Now the director was in charge of pushing the Ültras back and shouting, “Coming through!” We made a right and headed to the stage. Across the huge orange curtain a swarm of lights circled as though it were about to open.
“He’s here!” he said, once we had gone through a black door to the backstage. Hulking boxes of equipment sat everywhere. The floor was covered with lines of taped-down power cords. The workers were all dressed in blue leotards with words on their chests—pyrotechnics, lighting, fluffer, sound, security, continuity, costume, makeup, and so on. Several stopped before the director and me and cheered.
A woman with the word food on her chest said, “They’re just serving slut cakes now. You’ve got a minute.”
“Good!” he said. “Good, we’ll be right back!”
He led me to a decrepit elevator—obviously the PartyHaus was just refurbished for the public—and we headed up to the fifteenth floor. When the door slid open, the director held the doors for me. “Here we go,” he said, pointing to a sign. “This way.”
Soon we came to a door with the number 15-T. He opened it and we entered.
At first I thought it was a huge bathroom. It was fifty feet wide and all surfaces were covered with some sort of cobalt tiles. Around the perimeter were thirty or so black metal toilets. The far wall was glass that looked out at the distant lights of Ros Begas, and in the middle sat several boxy pastel couches and chairs. On the center cushion of a lacy gold and pink sofa sat Mr. Cedar. He had one leg folded over the other, his hands in his lap. Even in the light, I could see how supple, smooth, and soft was the material of his jacket. After all the Ültra nonsense, it was like the beautiful and calm eye of a hurricane. Under his jacket, he wore a pure white cotton shirt that I suspected had been ironed by Isé–B, as it had that distinctive combination of formality and insouciance. As for neckwear, his tie was a deep shade of magnesium. On his feet, his thin-soled shoes were a midnight brown.
Standing, he bowed and said, “Greetings.”
To his right, partially hidden in the darkness, stood his assistant Pheff, and behind him was a six-foot-tall black case covered with latches and several glowing dials. They had brought it!
“Thank you,” I said.
“We have to hurry!” said the director. “Big hurry. Show’s about to start.”
Pheff began unlocking the box with both speed and care. Clearly, they had guarded the suit to make sure it didn’t fall into the wrong hands. Once he had opened all the locks, he pulled a lever, broke a seal, which released a slow hiss of gas, then he swung open the door.
“Love it!” gushed the director, his eyes wide. “Incredible! I just love it!”
“Thank you,” said my tailor, coolly.
Inside the box, on a top-of-the-line Silver-Dream Chanel-Royce hanger was a wide-shouldered, orange suit. Even as I could see Mr. Cedar’s impeccable tailoring, the supple lines, and the gentle roll of the lapel, it was a fierce-looking thing. It shimmered as if with heat or some catastrophic potential energy.
For a long beat, I stood staring at it, mesmerized and afraid.
“Finally, color!” said a familiar voice. Turning, I saw Xavid. He wore a huge blue and orange color-blocked suit with bloody seal pelts hung here and there like hunting trophies. His face was covered with operatic-styled makeup and his hair was braided and looped into a complicated mess like the collapsed skeleton of a crashed blimp. “Your father,” he said, stepping closer, “will be exceedingly proud.” Then he spoke to everyone. “I need a minute with Michael. If you could all excuse us.”
“He has to dress for the show!” said the director. “We’re about to start.”
“I have an extremely important message from his father.” He waved his hands as if to urge them out. “Thank you so much! Just one minute. There you go.”
As Mr. Cedar, Pheff, and the director headed out, I stood facing the box, and worried that Father had found out about the suit. What could I do? Could I grab it, run, and then just throw it at him? Or was this about Xavid and what I now knew about him and his identity thievery?
“I’m so glad you’re back,” said Xavid, stepping before me and smiling. “We have a big show after all.” Now he narrowed his eyes. “I’m not sure what happened to you out there. Contradictory rumors are going around.” He paused, as if I was going to explain anything to him. “In any case,” he began again, “like I said, your father will be most pleased with your suit. We’re all glad you’re giving up that tedious grey shit.”
“What do you want?” I asked, impatient.
“Listen to me,” he said, his voice turning hard and angry, “from now on and for the rest of your life, you are forbidden from leaving the compound. You are forbidden from speaking to the press. You must ask me before you do anything! And you will do exactly as I say.” He began to dig into a pocket. “If not, he’ll go get the rest.” He then tossed a small glass vial at me.
I caught the thing and held it up. Inside, floating in a clear fluid was a small human toe. The nail had been painted a metallic charcoal.
All the blood cells in my body seized. My muscles froze. Then a single synapse jumped from one nerve to another and eked out a single message: Nora.
The toe was hers. The freeboot beast had cut it off.
“I can’t tell you what happened in the past,” continued Xavid, his voice light and dreamy. “I don’t even know, nor do I care to know all the mistakes your father made. That’s the past and Xavid doesn’t worry about the past. Now, what’s expedient is to gain control of this enterprise. It’s like a massive colony of algae that has choked itself and I know that I will do an extremely good—”
“Shut the hell up.” I didn’t say it loud, but he heard the boiling anger in me. His eyes, like two small, frightened fish in the aquariums of his lenses, darted toward me and held. Stepping past him, I stopped before the nitrocellulose suit. “Get out,” I told him. “I have to dress.”