Rare is the expert who combines an informed opinion with a healthy respect for his own intuition and curiosity.
An evening on the town with Kim Desinor proved precisely what the doctor ordered; Jessica completely forgot about James Parry and her confrontation with him, forgot about her worries over the case, taking time off- even in her head-to finally relax. She felt a great weight lifted from her mind as a result.
As she and Kim drank another Philly margarita, a specialty of the house, in a place aptly or inepdy called Recycled Cowboys, they talked about their impressions of the city. They sat at a table in a darkened corner, the western decor betraying signs of the place having been an Irish pub not too long ago. Jessica imagined it the hardest thing in the world to make a go of a new bar or restaurant. The atmosphere notwithstanding, the place remained a brick-walled bar with a karaoke machine and an open mike, and after a few old western balladeers finished replacing the old Irish lullabies, and a few more drinks, the ladies felt no pain.
From here, they located another, more trendy coffeehouse-style bar and grill called Hobgoblins amp; Gnomes PA, and here the motif was a weird and wonderful fantasyland, a “Middle Earth” kind of place where gnomes and hobgoblins of all sizes and shapes and misshapes, wart-covered or otherwise, resided. The tables were toadstools and tree stumps, decorated lavishly with the carved faces of gnomes and other strange creatures, as were the walls. The ceiling was plastered with the stars and the planets, and vines hung everywhere from this mini-firmament. The place was dark and the music loud. Jessica and Kim found themselves surrounded by the faces of the youth of present-day Second Street. Many of them called to mind the victims the FBI women had spent so much time with at the morgue. All around them the laughing, smiling, whooping faces of teens, male and female, many of the same sex making public their absolute affection for one another.
Jessica said over the pounding of the music meant to warm up the crowd, “Do you realize that you and I are the only two people in here who have any idea what an LP record album looks like?”
“Only albums they know about are photo albums. Face it, they're too young to have a notion about the meaning of the term broken record,” Kim agreed.
“They've never played Pac-Man, and have never heard of Pong.”
“They're too young to remember the space shuttle explosion or Tienemen Square.”
“The Day After is a pill to them, not a movie, and if you asked the average teen today what polio is, he'd say a designer shirt for old farts. As for Cold War fears, forget it.”
“On the other hand, they've grown up with the specter of AIDS,” countered Kim.
“Most of the people here were likely born in 1980 or '81.”
Their mood had significantly soured; they continued to drink. But everything changed after midnight when suddenly the stage mike was taken over by a series of “living poems” who showed off their bodies and the poetry that had been written on them. Jessica watched in awe and sadness as the poems' authors just offstage read the lyrical lines from the gyrating bodies. One of the dangers had style-possibly a moonlighting stripper, Jessica thought. While some patrons appeared genuinely interested in this peculiar brand of art, the art-for-art's-sake crowd, others jeered. Still, applause and laughter won out at the end of each performance, but for Jessica and Kim, the event only dampened their spirits.
As they watched the show, eyes wide, Jessica told Kim, “This is so bizarre, so unusual. I'd never heard of this weird fad, or the urban legend that spawned it before arriving here.”
Another round of walking, undulating “poems” took the stage. While some in the audience howled and commented on the body parts of the naked men and women parading by, others tapped with spoons and forks against glasses to show their appreciation. Still others took photographs.
Jessica took note of one poem in particular, whispering into Kim's ear how it reminded her of their killer's handiwork. She listened to the lines with fascination, knowing she must collar the kid with these words on her back before she disappeared, to learn who had created them, and fearing the young woman might well be next in line for the Poet Killer.
She relayed her fears to Kim, who said, “I agree, although her body size and appearance are at odds with the androgynousness of the other victims, and with as many drinks as we've had-”
“No, this is close, real close,” Jessica disagreed.
They had listened intently as the poem was read, and the performer continued to dance long after, giving Jessica the opportunity to study the lines further. The poem read:
Your feathered wings enclose me by day, just as the velvet leather of my embracing finds you at midnight- where the divine heels disturb waves of fallen leaves.
Look at me…
I am the helpless lover, drowned in the sanguine lotion of your touch, directly before, a moment during, and even after my death. Now I am the crystal air, still, perpetual- melting into wind so that I may touch you forever.
Jessica stood and approached the young woman, who stood putting her top back on at the foot of the stage. Jessica didn't flash her badge or announce herself, but rather simply asked, “May I know the poet's name?”
“It's Dontella Leare. She's a great poet. I took a class with her. She's simply inspiring.” The young ash-blond woman beamed. “You liked the performance?”
“It was the best of the evening.”
“So far, you mean,” she replied. “There's more.”
Another young person, a male this time, had already claimed the stage. “This poet Leare, she teaches at the University of Philadelphia?”
“That's right. If you can't afford to take her class or don't have the time, the bookstore's got all her work. She's a successful poet, an amazing feat in a society that devalues poetry.”
“Aren't you afraid of, you know, becoming one of the victims of the Poet Killer, the poisoner?”
“No, not so long as I stick with Donatella; it's kind of like sticking with one lover if you're afraid of AIDS… kinda.”
“Yeah, I get it.” Jessica asked the young woman her name and where she might contact her.
“Is this a pickup?” the girl asked.
“No, no… sorry, I failed to introduce myself fully. I'm Dr. Jessica Coran, FBI medical examiner, and I'm part of the task force looking into the Second Street poisonings.”
“You're a cop?” the girl almost shouted.
“A doctor, actually.”
“Well, you're looking in the wrong place. No one here could do such a thing as what happened to those kids, certainly not Donatella Leare.”
“I'll keep that in mind. Thank you, and do be careful.”
“Like I told you, one poet only touches my backside.” The sexual innuendo in the remark was clearly meant to leave Jessica in no doubt as to the relationship between poet and “poem.”
Kim had watched the conversation with mounting interest, doing her best to read their lips. When Jessica returned to the table, she told Kim all the details.
“Hard to believe, isn't it?”
“What?”
“This whole scene, this whole new thing kids have come up with, and now some maniac using it as a weapon to kill them.”
“Body art, piercings, now writing on the body. In a way, it's like a natural next step, an evolution of the tattoo, going from image to language, whole communications, even artistic ones. Unfortunately, there's a lot of chaff in the wheat.”
“Like trying to find a truly good horror novel amid the crap?” Jessica asked.
“Yeah, like that.”
“It still boggles my mind that anyone would endure so much pain for some idea about art.”
“People who can't create great art have always opted to be the doormat for those who can,” replied Kim, slurring her words a bit. “Look at Picasso's women.”
“So why does all this body stuff come as such a surprise to me?”
“You can't be expected to keep up with all the fads,” Kim said. “I saw a feature on it on MTV not too long ago.”
Jessica blinked. “You watch MTV?”
“On occasion, sure.”
“You're full of surprises.”
“The big surprise is that someone would take a fad and turn it into serial murders,” Kim countered.
“Let's get out of here,” Jessica suggested. “The noise is getting to me.”
“Headache?”
“Getting there, yes.”
Walking back to the hotel, Jessica thought of how proud she should feel, having faced James Parry and made her position clear. Neither she nor Kim had spoken a word about the dismal state of the case. Tonight, the subject had almost been taboo, but in the face of the performances they'd witnessed at Hobgoblins amp; Gnomes PA, discussion was inevitable. Still, they had managed to stay off die subject of men, despite having to fend off advances, some from young men half their age, all evening long. When men approached them, they declined each offer of a drink, causing more than one of the barroom Casanovas to believe that the two beautiful women were gay. Jessica and Kim could have cared less. This was a girls' night out
Now, walking back toward the hotel, they spoke of when they had last had fun, real fun, and both agreed that they had to go back to childhood and innocence to remember a time when either enjoyed an outburst of pure joyous laughter.
'Tonight, we will attempt the miraculous, Jessica,” Kim announced. “And what would that be?”
'To recapture some of those feelings of childhood, and while not absolutely successful, we might come pretty damned close for a pair of adults with fixed patterns of thinking and behavior.”
“You think so?” asked Jessica. “And how do we do that?”
“Follow me!” Kim suddenly leaped into a water fountain and was immediately drenched and laughing, calling for Jessica to join her.
“What're you doing?”
“Having fun! Making it rain! I'm a rainmaker now!”
Kim's childish abandon infected Jessica, who, checking for any signs of onlookers, suddenly leaped into the fountain alongside her friend. Together they hugged and laughed beneath the shower.
A police patrol car's whining complaint brought them around, and in a moment, they were explaining their behavior to a uniformed officer who gave them a warning and asked if they needed a lift to their destination.
“It's only a half block to our hotel.”
“Better do any additional showering in the privacy of your room, then,” offered the policeman, a wide grin on his face.
The women waved the police cruiser off, their sodden clothes and shoes and purses dripping as they went.
“This is so unlike me,” said Jessica.
“Good!”
“You are a bad influence.”
“Bad or good?”
Jessica sighed. “Good, I'm sure.”
“Are you quite sure of that?”
“Quite.”
As the hotel came into view, Jessica blurted out, “I'm so afraid of screwing things up with Richard.”
He's got to be quite a man to accept your being here, getting the closure you need on your relationship with Parry.”
“I have no relationship with Parry.”
“Then working out your anger with Parry. Either way, your Richard's a rare chap, I'd say.”
“But all he knows is that I'm on a case in Philadelphia. He doesn't know Jim's working the case with me.”
“Ah, I see.”
They fell silent, each preoccupied with her own thoughts as they entered the hotel, bellhops, security guards, and other guests staring at them, one asking, “Oh, my, do I need an umbrella? When did it start raining?”
They rushed to the elevator and rode up to the twenty-ninth floor, making the cab a puddle and laughing at their foolishness. Jessica still felt a pleasant buzz from her drinking, and the release of all her pent-up feelings tonight had made her feel much better.
The elevator door opened on Jessica's floor.
“You haven't told him?” asked Kim. “All this time has gone by and you haven't told Richard?”
“I've been too… too busy.”
Kim held the door. “Bullshit. You must be a fool. He hears about it through any other source, and what's he going to think?”
“I'll call him tonight, tomorrow.” Jessica wiped at her eyes as water flowed from her still-wet head.
“You do that! Don't put it off another moment. By the way, you look like a drowned rat.”
“And you look like a drowned Chihuahua!” The elevator doors closed on Kim, who rode up the two floors to her room. Jessica turned to walk down the corridor, thinking she ought to have made the call to Richard Sharpe days before. Fatigue and booze clouding her thoughts, she fumbled at her door with the electronic key card. Finally, she found herself alone in her room when someone knocked. Through the peephole, she saw that it was Kim. For a moment, she feared her friend had had too much to drink and had somehow come to the conclusion that they were roommates.
“How did you get back here so fast?” she asked as she opened the door.
'Took the stairs. Listen, Jessica, whatever you do, tell Richard and tell him soon, and believe me, it will be a defining moment in your relationship, so watch closely- or rather listen closely-for his reaction. If you get an immediate reaction that is favorable, you know he's worth your time and effort; if you get the opposite, you know he's not. That's all I will say on the subject, so again, g'night.”
Kim marched off for the stairwell, leaving Jessica to ponder her words.
Jessica had gotten back to her room after one in the morning, and fairly fell into bed. She set her clock to awake at 3 a.m., and until then she slept soundly; in fact, for the first time in days, she had no thought of the case, either consciously or subconsciously. When the alarm clock roused her, she stared at it, estimated the time in London, dialed, and caught Richard Sharpe before he had left for work at Scotland Yard.
“Jess! It's you!”
He sounded so exuberantly happy to hear from her. “I just wanted to hear your voice, Richard.”
“It's so wonderful of you to call. It will make my day go by so pleasantly.”
“How soon before you come to me, Richard?”
“Soon, I promise.”
“I… I can hardly wait.”
He laughed. “That's my line, love.”
“Richard, tell me…”
“Yes? What is it, dear?” He immediately heard the sadness in her voice, had somehow honed in on it.
“You don't think… Do you think that I like it this way?”
“Like it? This way? What way, Jess-what do you mean?”
“Our relationship. Long-distance.”
“Oh, I see… Well, honestly, Jessica, I could swear the last time we were together, you very much preferred the real thing to telephoning it in.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I did, didn't I?”
“I certainly thought so. I wasn't kidding myself, now, was I?” he teased.
“You know you're constantly on my mind, Richard.”
“Good show.”
“Yes, it is.” She managed a laugh.
“What's this all about, sweetness? What's brought on this… melancholy?”
She steeled herself to tell him what she'd been going through, that she was here in Philadelphia, working a case in close proximity to her former lover, James Parry; at the same time, she thought how wonderfully perceptive Richard was to intuit her distress from such a distance. James would never have been so sensitive.
“You haven't been having second thoughts about us, have you?” he asked.
“No, no!” she assured him. “Just that… well, I had it brought to my attention recently that I seem to… seem to enjoy a good distance between myself and anyone who… anyone who gets too close.”
“Ah, I see, and that would be me. Talking to that shrink of yours again?”
She wanted to tell him the truth, but she worried he would not understand. “I don't know. Maybe I do only allow myself to get involved with men who, in one way or another, remain inaccessible. I have a long history of doing exactly that.” She could hear Kim's voice in her ear, shouting, 'Tell him. Out with it.”
“Sounds like you're just second-guessing yourself, darling. We all do that. Don't let the nebbishes of the world, or those inside your head, sweetness, get you down.”
“There's something I have to tell you, something… important.”
“Go right ahead, love.”
Jessica had called him earlier, but missing him, she'd left a message saying she was presently working a case in Philadelphia. She hadn't wanted to tell him about Parry's involvement in the case via an answering machine, so she had given no more details. She outlined the case and left it at that. She repeated herself somewhat now but ended with the news that she'd been teamed with James Parry.
The night before, Kim had pretty much said, “How your Richard handles the news will be a defining moment in your relationship.” Jessica believed her friend's words and she held her breath while she waited for Richard's reaction.
“I see…”
He didn't see, she told herself.
“But I thought this fellow Parry was Bureau Chief in Honolulu?”
She explained the situation and circumstances leading to the teaming.
“I see…”
He didn't see, not a thing did he see, she silently muttered to herself.
Richard then added, “Are you saying you had no say-so in whether or not you two were to work together? I'm not quite clear on that.”
Two questions, level and calm. His reaction was to pose a question, perhaps to give him time to mull over his feelings. It had to come as a shock to him, but he characteristically absorbed the shock.
“I was given the choice. I did not decline.”
“I see.”
“You see?” She was beginning to hate those two words. What did I see mean to him?
“Really, Jessica. You don't have to be… so tentative with me. Remember, we, you and me together, we made a formidable team against the Crucifier, and I should think we can overcome this.”
“I've been afraid to tell you.”
“Afraid? Never be afraid to speak to me about anything, dear.”
He was handling the news, and the fact that she'd withheld it from him this long, “swimmingly”-as he might say-well.
“I trust you implicitly, Jessie, I do. I know you, perhaps better than you realize. I really must run, however. Are you all right?”
“Much more than before I spoke to you, yes.”
“I know the pain of closing out an old relationship; it's not something done overnight. All my love, dear.”
“And mine to you,” she replied before hearing the connection go dead.
Richard was right, she now told herself. Silly of her to be so filled with self-recriminations. Still, she had failed to completely inform him of the situation, that Parry still had strong feelings for her. However, she had informed him of the overall picture. She felt a sense of relief come over her, followed by a flood of happiness. Kim had been right. It was a defining moment in their relationship, and he had handled it so well.
Jessica returned to sleep, trying to ease her concerns, replaying Richard's strong, melodious voice in her head. As slumber came, she heard his voice change into that of a stranger without face or body. A stranger who kept repeating the refrain of the poems left by the killer in the melodic voice of a Richard Burton or a Sir Laurence Olivier. She played his deadly words over in her mind again just before consciousness waned.
Chance… whose desire
Is to have a meeting
With stunned innocence…
Subconsciously, she asked, What does it mean? What does the killer poet intend? So peculiar, she felt that someone capable of combining words so beautifully… someone so creative, could destroy lives. We need a cryptologist to decode this so-called poetry, she decided. How can he be both artist and destroyer? What kind of man am I dealing with? her unconscious asked, and again played over the killer's words:
Chance… whose desire Is to have a meeting With stunned innocence…
Is he Chance? Seeking meetings with victims who may, in the end, be stunned by their own innocent acceptance of him and what he plans for them?
Stunned innocence… stunned because they suddenly discover they are his victims? Or stunned to discover something else, something about themselves, something he teaches them? Something to do with flickering life?
These questions played in her head, over and over again, as she slept.
The Poet Lord sleeps the sleep of the innocent, in a spartanly furnished apartment; some say the poet lives the life of a recluse, like a monk, a person with little interest in material possessions or things of this earth. But such as these know him only from this apartment; it's hardly the whole person. The Poet Lord's interests are always in the spiritual possessions of the next life, and the condition of the spirit in this life, but at times material possessions have surrounded him. Perhaps in another life he'd been a priest, but not so in this one. He maintains three separate but equal habitats; this is but one of them. It overlooks the teeming life of Second Street.
In dreams, power is turned over to him in the form of a torch. Dreams are like overflowing cups, and lately the poet's dreams run rampant with reward. Few will ever understand-this he knows-and fewer still will have glimpsed the other side, but he knows that he will be embraced by the light, the love, and the ultimate compassion and wisdom of the angels and their Maker. He has had a recent reading of the tarot cards of his choice, the Enochian tarot cards created by the gnostic and occultist Aleister Crowley, a man who saw the images of the cards in a series of visions brought him by the angels who spoke to Enoch, the only man known to have walked in conversation with God.
As always, his reading was done by Madame Lesia Tahach, the Hungarian woman who knows how to read the cards, the stars, the tea leaves-whatever a client wants- and Tahach had told him that he'd soon be on the journey of his life. He trusts this journey will in fact be the journey toward final reward, final closure, and the new life of the Four Quarters-the angelic forces of Air, Water, Earth, and Fire.
The original message of the angels had concerned knowledge of the known universe in order to overthrow existing governments, to usher in the Apocalypse, but now, like their Creator, the angels had no more use for humankind or Earth the planet; instead, they simply wished to recall their kindred spirits. These spirits, at one time numbering ninety-one, now roamed the land, a mere nineteen remaining.
“Can the wings of the winds understand the voices of wonder?” he had once asked Madame Tahach. She only gave him a grim look, as if he were co-opting one of her lines.
While the Poet has a vague sense that his identity might one day be revealed, at present this concerns him little. He has been assured a seat in the ranks of the angels in another place, another time, far more important than this reality, this era.
His last Chosen One, Maurice, despite the outward happiness he displayed to the world, despite his constant smile and immature wittiness, lived in constant pain and sadness. Maurice had opened himself up, revealed the raw edges, the seething melancholy of his existence, the worm at the center of his being. Maurice had been born a woman in a man's body; his entire being screamed this fact to the world he had inhabited before his departure to a place that embraced his soul, not his body. Because he'd been born a man, he had spent a lifetime-several lifetimes, in a sense-fending off this world. How awful the invisible scars that poor Maurice suffered. In a world where many influential religious leaders called Maurice's lifestyle a growing malignancy, the poor boy had few authority figures to turn to.
Maurice was in fact an angel-in-waiting. A Christ-like child of innocence, who knew enough to believe he was special after all.
It was the same as asking Christ to live in a world filled with ugliness and an ingrained ignorance that only bred falsities, contempt, hatred, and prejudice.
The Lord Poet's answer came in his actions. He convinced Maurice to allow him to write a poem in his honor, to pen it across his back, to be displayed in the clubs and pubs and wherever he wished, to declare himself a living, breathing piece of art, a truly special being created by the touch of angels-inspired, as it were, to combat hate crimes and hate thinking.
“I'll create of your living, breathing, moving skin the most beautiful, enigmatic poem the world has ever seen,” he had promised Maurice.
“Sounds fantastic!” Maurice had been excited, his hands waving, his eyes suddenly the size of saucers. He had not shown such exuberance all evening long. He loved the idea, and he loved his new friend for suggesting it to him. “When? When do we get started? How long will it take? When can I show it off?”
“Now, immediately.”
“You can do that? Don't you need to, you know, do a rough draft, process it for days and nights, talk to ravens and shit, invoke the muse, all that?”
“I already have. I've been giving thought to your poem for years, long before we ever met-on this plane. I know what to write, word for word. It's all in here.” He pointed to his heart.
As the Poet Lord had written across Maurice's back, the troubled youth talked about his childhood, his upbringing, school, the sister he loved, and how much pain and harassment he'd endured over being different.
Well, no more… No more pain and anguish, no more tauntings, no more regrets, no more harassment. Never again a thought of pain, never again to feel a moment's remorse for what God had wrought of flesh and bone and soul. Maurice was meant to be here, both to learn and to teach, but it had been revealed that he had suffered long enough and deeply enough, and that it was time for his eternal release. When and if the authorities came for the Poet Lord, this is what he would tell them. This is his mission. Daily, it comes clear that part of his purpose has always been to enlighten and inform. He thinks of all the Chosen Ones he has sent over. They constitute his spirit family now; he is never alone. He can never be alone as he has been in his own biological family, in this life.
He knows next with whom he must converse; he has found his next Chosen One. She does not live too far from his apartment. She will come to him, as the others have done; she will make the first overtures. Subconsciously, she wants to be among his pantheon of devotees. One never knows. He recalls how surprised he had been when young Maurice approached him at the Capuchin Coffeehouse the night he'd sent Maurice over. It had taken special eyes to see that Maurice was angelic, that a wand had been waved over him at birth. The Poet had seen it clearly enough.
Now his eye is set on another angel, barely Maurice's age but just as lovely and genuine in her own way. Her name plays over in his mind like the sound of marbles pleasantly knocking together: Selena Sonjata. Lovely name, lovely creature in need of setting free.
He has exactly the words for her. He has them memorized and with a blink summons them to his ear. Words like angels have a life of their own for him, and the words speak to him now.
Chance… whose desire is to have a meeting with stunned innocence… is eminent like wind, earth, fire, water, or the cool fall breath when it comes even, unrushed, surrendered like an ink mark to a page; one dot is all that is said.
Flickering light haunts a chamber formed of delirium left to feel out the evening, while an operaof soft words etch across a mile of skin