Part 1 (2/2)

”I don't have any money,” said the man. Cher closed her eyes and opened her mouth.

”Where's my s.e.x on the Beach?” asked the boy.

”You're disturbing my customers,” Schilling told the man at the door. ”You're stinking up my bar.” He reached under the counter for a bottle of gin.

”He gave me my first drink,” the man at the door said to the boy at the bar. ”I used to be just like you.” He took two steps into the room, leaving two gritty footprints on the black onyx. ”Finish what you started,” he told Schilling.

”Get out,” Schilling said.

The boy rolled a quarter down his nose and let it drop, catching it loudly in his empty b.l.o.o.d.y Mary gla.s.s. ”Can I get another drink?” he asked. ”Am I going to get another drink?”

A second shaft of sunlight appeared in the room, collided with the mirrored wall. Inside the sunlight, barely visible, Cher danced.

She turned her back. Schilling heard a woman scream, and then the Cher in the mirror broke into five pieces and fell behind the counter. The sunlight disappeared. ”Madam,” said Schilling, hardly breathing, in shock. A nightmare dressed in black stood at the door of his bar, a nightmare in the shape of an enormous postmenopausal woman. In one hand she held a hatchet. She reached into the bodice of her dress with the other and pulled out a large stone. She wore a bonnet with black ribbons.

”Glory be to G.o.d!” shouted the woman. ”Peace on Earth! Goodwill to men!” She hit the big screen dead center with the rock. The screen cracked and smoked, made spitting noises, blackened. She took a step, swept the cigarette from the shabby man's mouth with one hand. ”Don't poison the air with your filthy gases!” she said. Then she held her hatchet at the vertical. She charged into the bar, clearing the counter. Maraschino cherries and stuffed olives flew. ”Madam!” said Schilling. He ducked.

”You purveyor and protector of obscenity!” the woman shouted. ”Has your mother ever been in this place?” The boy at the bar slipped from his stool and ran for the rear door. In three steps the woman caught him. She picked him up by the neck of his sweater as if he were a kitten, throwing him to his knees. She knelt over him, singing. ”Touch not, taste not, handle not. Drink will make the dark, dark blot.” He struggled, and she let him go, calling after him, ”Your mother did not raise you for this!” The back door slammed.

The businessmen had taken cover under their table. Schilling remained out of sight. The shabby man was gone. The woman began, methodically, with her hatchet to destroy the bar. She punctured the decorative keg behind the counter and then, apparently disappointed to find it empty, she brought her hatchet down on the counter, severing a spigot from one of the hoses. A fountain of soda exploded into the air. She broke the decanters. Pools of liquor flowed over the marble and onyx floor. The woman's bonnet slipped to the side of her head.

”That brandy costs seventy-five dollars,” Schilling said.

”Broth of h.e.l.l,” she answered. ”Costs your soul.” She gashed the cherry wood, smashed the mirrored wall. She climbed onto a stool and brought the chandelier down with a single stroke. Schilling peered over the bar. She threw a rock at him, hitting a bottle of bright green creme de menthe behind him.

He ducked out of sight again. ”You'll pay for this,” Schilling told her. ”You'll account for every penny.”

”You are Satan's bedfellow,” she said. ”You maker of drunkards and widows. You donkey-faced rum-soaked Republican rummy.” She lifted the hundred-and-fifty-pound cash register from the counter and held it over her head. She began to sing again. ”A dreadful foe is in our land, drive him out, oh, drive him out. Oh, end the monster's awful reign, drive him out, oh, drive him out.” She threw the register at what remained of the big screen. It barely missed the tabletop that hid the businessmen and crashed onto the marble and onyx floor.

She worked for twenty minutes and stopped when there was nothing left to break. The woman stood at the door, straightening her bonnet, tightening the ribbons. ”Until the joints close,” she said, ”the streets will run red with blood.” She opened the door. Schilling crouched lower behind the bar. The businessmen cowered beneath the table. n.o.body saw her leave.

”The sun was in my eyes,” Schilling explained to the police. ”When she opened the door, the sunlight was so bright I lost sight of her.”

”She came in screaming?” A man from the press was taking notes.

”Shrieking.” The first businessman tried to read the reporter's notes, which were upside down from his point of view and cursory. He didn't enjoy talking to newsmen. When you dealt with the fourth estate, accuracy was your social responsibility. You could still be misquoted, of course. You wouldn't be the first.

”Kind of a screek,” the second businessman offered.

”She's paying for everything,” said Schilling. ”Don't even ask me to be chivalrous.”

”She was big,” said the first businessman. ”For a woman.”

”She was enormous,” said Schilling.

”She was as big as a football player,” said the first businessman carefully.

”She was as big as a truck,” said Schilling. He pointed with a shaky finger to the register. ”She lifted it over her head like it was a feather duster or a pillow or something. You can write this down,” he said. ”You can quote me on this. We're talking about a very troubled, very big woman.”

”I don't think it's such a good idea,” the second businessman said.

”What's not a good idea?” asked the reporter.

”Women that size,” said the second businessman.

”Just look what she did,” said Schilling. Rage made his voice squeak. ”Just look at my bar!”

PATRICK HARRIS HAD BEEN a DEA agent for eight years now. During those eight years, he had seen some action. He had been in Mexico and he had been in Panama and he had been in LA. He had been in one or two tight spots, but that didn't mean he couldn't help out with the dishes at home.

Harris knew he asked a lot of his wife. It couldn't be the easiest thing in the world, being married to a man who disappeared into Latin America for days at a time and might not even be able to get a message out that he was still alive. Harris could run a vacuum cleaner over a rug without feeling that he was doing his wife any favors. Harris could cook a meal from the very beginning, meaning the planning and the shopping and everything, without feeling that anyone needed to make a fuss about it.

He stood with the French bread and the Gruyere cheese and the imported Emmentaler Swiss in the nine-items-only-no-checks checkout line, wondering how he could use the tomatoes, which he hadn't planned to buy but were cheaper and redder than usual and had tempted him. The woman in front had twelve items. It didn't really irritate Harris. He was only sorry that it was so hard for some people to play by the rules.

While he waited for the three extra items to be tallied and worried in an ineffective, pleasant way over the tomatoes, he read through the headlines. Evidence of prehistoric alien cannibals had been found in Peruvian cave paintings, and a statue of Elvis had been found on Mars. A husband with bad breath had killed his wife merely by kissing her. A Miami bar had been destroyed by a sort of half woman/half gorilla. Harris saw the ill.u.s.tration before he read the story, an artist's rendering of Queen Kong in a black dress and bonnet. He looked at the picture again. He read the headline. One of his tomatoes spun from the counter to the floor. Harris stepped on it, squished it, and didn't even notice. He bought the paper.

He had never been in so much trouble in his life.

THE DOORS WERE HEAVY and padlocked. A hummingbird dipped through the entryway twice, held for a moment over an out-of-season fuchsia, and disappeared. The largest of the MPs tried to shoulder the doors open. He tried three times, but the wood did not give. One of the women smashed through a window instead. Harris was the fifth person inside.

The soldiers searched for fugitives. They spun into the hallways, kicked in the doors. Harris found the dining room on the other side of some broken gla.s.s. The table was set with china and the flatware was gold. An interrupted meal consisted of rack of lamb, braised carrots, curried peach halves served on lettuce leaves. The food had been sitting on the china plates for at least twenty-four hours.

He started into the library, but one of the MPs called to him from farther back in the house. The MP's voice sounded self-consciously nervous. I'm still scared, the tone said. Aren't I silly?

Harris followed the voice down a hallway and through an open door.

The MP had her rifle slung over her back. In her hands she held a large statue of St. George, spear frozen over the neck of the dragon. The dragon was considerably smaller than St. George's horse.

Behind the MP, three stairs rose to an altar with red candles and white flowers and chicken feathers. The stairs were carpeted, and a supplicant could kneel or lie supine if the supplicant weren't too tall. The room itself was not carpeted. A black circle had been painted on the stone floor, with a red triangle inside. The four cardinal points of the compa.s.s were marked.

Harris looked east. The east wall was a wall of toads. Toad-shaped stones covered every inch of seven shelves, and the larger ones sat on the floor. The toads were all different: different colors, different sizes. Harris guessed there were four hundred, five hundred toads. ”Why toads?” Harris asked. He stepped inside.

The MP shook her head and put the statue back on the altar. ”s.h.i.+t,” she said, meaning nothing by it, merely making conversation. ”Is this s.h.i.+t for real?”

One of the smallest toads was carved of obsidian. Its eyes were a polished, gla.s.sy black; it was no bigger than Harris's thumbnail. It attracted him. Harris reached out. He hesitated briefly, then touched it. At that moment, somewhere in the room, an engine cycled on. Harris started at the sound, closed his hand convulsively over the toad. He looked at the MP, who gestured behind him.

The noise came from a freezer back by the door. It was a small freezer, not big enough to hold the body of an adult. A goat, maybe. A child. A head. Harris looked at the MP. ”Groceries,” he said.

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