Disconnection (2 page)

Dee could see it all. Her company’s colors—red, white, and yellow (“We’re the McDonald’s of the fuckin’ mortgage loan industry,” Dee remembered Stuart had noted earlier in the week.)—were draped on and around everything in the mahogany room. A banner reading
WELCOME TO THE FIFTH ANNUAL BANKPARTNERS CONFERENCE!
hung over the entrance.

Dee studied the man beside her own image. Stuart Reed. He wasn’t the type of guy she normally went for, so why was she with him?

Because he was the only decent-looking broker at the convention, and you had decided to break your six month stint of abstinence
, a voice replied from the back of her mind.

Yes, Dee remembered. Stuart had been an all-too-willing partner in her plans. He was a strapping country boy from the dry heat of the Mississippi delta. Conservative and scarily militant in his right-wing ideas, but who no less could carry a conversation that exceeded mortgage telemarketing scripts and who could hang on to an erection longer than any man she had ever known.

Dee had found him captivating. She had refused to be thwarted by his loyalty to the Bush administration, dismissing it as a regional defect given that he came from a red state, and instead latched on to his wicked sense of humor and hell-bent-on-having-fun ways. In one week she would return to her all-work, no-play existence inside a brick home with a small dog slowly growing deaf from old age and a series of business calls and lunch meetings. But for now she would enjoy herself.

Yes, Dee remembered thinking all of this, justifying her behavior with an it-will-all-be-over-soon attitude.

Keep listening, sweetheart. Keep watching
, the voice said.

Dee listened. The exchange between her and her short-term lover stayed at an even and pleasant pace for a little while, until Stuart brought up his DUI charge and the consequences of his arrest. “I’ve had my cousin pick me up for work for the last three months. And that shithead don’t even know how to drive,” he said, rolling his eyes heavenward.

Dee shrugged. “You shouldn’t have been driving drunk.”

Stuart slammed his glass on the counter. “I’m damn tired of that kind of MADD mentality! I registered 0.16, which was just 0.06 more than what it used to be. Bunch of whinin’ crybaby mommies, whose kids were super drugged out and killed themselves, fucked everything up for the rest of us. Now you can’t go drink a beer without the fear of gettin’ a plunger in your ass from some crooked cop trying to make his quota so he can buy a new trollin’ motor for his Cajun bass boat, son of a bitch.”

Dee shook her head and replied, “I think you’re being too harsh. I grew up with a lot of kids who have either died while driving drunk or been a victim of a drunk driver. It’s a serious matter.”

Stuart grimaced as if he were a frustrated teacher dealing with an insolent child. “I’m just sayin’, the blood/alcohol ratio test is a faulty way to judge sobriety, and cops prey on the publicity of gettin’ all the arrests.” A moment of silence went by before he changed the subject, asking, “So anyway, Miss California, you stayin’ until Saturday?”

“No. Until tomorrow. I have a closing to get back to. I’m going to miss the weather here. It’s November and it’s still boiling. Even California isn’t this hot right now.”

“It’s called humidity,” he said. “They have a pool on the roof. Feel like takin’ a swim, sugar?”

“You’re joking, right? It’s
November.”

“So? You said yourself that it was boilin’ hot.”

“But wouldn’t it be closed?”

“We could reopen it.” He winked.

Dee replied, “I don’t have a swim suit.”

“Neither do I.”

“Isn’t it too late to swim?”

“Night swimmin’ is the best swimmin’ of all.”

“Is it dangerous?”

Stuart opened his coat just wide enough so that Dee could see the pistol inside the inner pocket. He smirked. “No one’s goin’ to bother us.”

Dee’s eyes widened. “You have a gun?”

He nodded proudly. “Dee, baby, I am a rationalist. Law abidin’ citizens need guns. Gun control just assumes that criminals are the only people with guns. Another no brainer for a thinkin’ person.”

She shook her head. “I’m too liberal to own a gun.”

He laughed. “Bein’ liberal is a great thing as long as you don’t vote. So how about that swim?”

No, say no!
Dee wanted to scream. She remembered, oh boy, did she remember. If only she could go back in time …

It’s a little late for that
, the voice said, hearing her thoughts.

Dee watched with growing dread as the scene faded from the Monteleone bar to the top of the hotel. The darkness of the night sky camouflaged the roof, only the surrounding skyscrapers and the light from the inside hallways gave shape to the concrete surface where the pool’s oval orifice waited with its liquid turquoise inner core.

Dee and Stuart entered from two glass doors. Dee stepped close to the pool and peered over the edge. “It’s not covered,” she acknowledged. She took off one Ann Taylor black stiletto and placed her stocking-clad foot in the water. “It’s warm, too.”

Stuart shrugged. “They must have known we were comin’.” He took off his shirt.

Dee began taking off her clothes one at a time—the other shoe, the gray skirt she had bought a week ago at Macy’s during their Great Autumn Sale, the silk blouse her best friend had given her last Christmas, the cheap stockings she had picked up at Walgreen’s that morning—until everything was off but her bra and panties. She jumped into the water.

When she resurfaced, Stuart was sitting naked at the edge of the pool. “How was it, baby?” he asked.

Dee rubbed her eyes. “A lot of chlorine,” she said. “But otherwise, fine.”

He dropped into the water and wrapped his arms around her waist. “You’re fine, sugar,” he said before leaning down to kiss her.

He relieved Dee of the rest of her clothes. She caught her breath as Stuart drew the skin of her breasts between his teeth. He moved his palm down, over her belly and then lower and lower until his fingers trailed in the soft curls between her thighs. He slid into her body with one hard, long thrust, and together the twosome enjoyed a frantic path into ecstasy.

Dee closed her eyes. She couldn’t watch her and Stuart anymore; she felt as if she were watching a porn video of herself.
At least it beats what happens next
, she thought.
Dear God, please, please, please, don’t let me see what happens next
.

I doubt God is listening
, the voice said mockingly.

Minutes later Dee opened her eyes just in time to see herself arise from the pavement where she and her lover had been resting. “I’m going to the ladies’ room,” she said. “Be back.” Stuart did not answer; his shallow breath suggested that he had fallen asleep.

“No!” Dee screamed as she watched her image walk inside the glass doors. “Don’t go inside! You’ll never come back!”

You can’t hear you
, the voice laughed.
You can’t hear a thing. Remember, sweet Dee, this is all in the past. Let’s change the scenery, shall we?

And the pool distorted as frames shifted, and suddenly there was a hallway, and a bathroom door, and a hurriedly dressed Dee walking through the swinging doors. “I know!” the captive Dee screamed in the darkness. “I know why I’m here, how I got here. Please, please.”

She looked away from the image.

Listen, listen
, the voice said.

She could shield her sight, but not her hearing. She could not stop the sound of her footsteps entering the bathroom stall, or the creaking of the outside bathroom door opening. And the silence that followed. Dee remembered. Boy, did she remember. Feeling strange all of a sudden. Wondering who else could be in the roof’s bathroom this time of night. Thinking it was Stuart. Calling his name—yes, she could hear herself, calling his name…

“Stuart? Is that you?”

Receiving no answer. The fear heightening.

Yes, oh yes, it was all clear. Crystal clear. Like a pool of water.

All that silence. Nothing but silence. Dee remembered. She could hear herself, the heavy breathing, the wheels in her brain turning, wondering what was happening, knowing, feeling that something was not right. She could hear herself flush the toilet. She knew the Dee inside the stall was scared to leave, scared of what was waiting for her. As she should be. She knew because she was her, because twelve hours ago, the Dee staring into the image had been the same Dee that now stood behind the door, knowing that someone was waiting for her on the other side, waiting to kill her.

Oh boy, did it make sense now. Crystal fucking clear.

Here we go
, Dee thought, shutting her eyes even tighter.
I can’t watch, I can’t listen
.

You have no choice
, the voice said, laughing.
No choice in the matter
.

She heard herself finally open the stall. She heard herself take a few steps. She heard herself ask, “Stuart? Are you trying to frighten the sh…” and then there was a gasp, which Dee realized was probably the moment when she had seen the Fishhook sign for the first time.

The Fishhook sign. His calling card. People in California warned her to be careful in New Orleans, there was a serial killer on the loose. Dee had laughed because she, like most other people, secretly believed that she was immortal in her youth, and that her death would come from the slow decay of time, from cancer or heart failure, something natural, murder being only what happened to everyone else.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Everything that she had thought before—wrong.

The Fishhook sign had been drawn in red blood on the mirror over the sink. What it was—what it looked like—was the standard Christian fish symbol with an upside down cross stuck through it. Dee had seen an illustration of it in one of the local newspapers, and mimics of the design that were scattered all over the city’s walls in white chalk or spray paint, jokish scribbles from kids who found the serial killings titillating.

Dee had never thought she would see the real thing up close. Too close.

And then Dee heard the voice.

“Oh Lord, thine hand shall find out all enemies; thy right hand shall find those that hate thee.”

Hearing those words again made Dee’s blood freeze. She knew what would happen next. Oh God, did she know.

“Oh Lord, thine hand shall find out all enemies.”

Dee did not have to open her eyes. She could hear the man attack her. She remembered what he had done—he’d placed one hand over her mouth and whispered in her ear. His breath had smelled like a grave. She was glad she did not have to smell him again. Hearing it again was enough. Hearing it again was more than enough.

“Thy right hand shall find those that hate thee.”

The struggle was loud. Dee almost smiled to herself. She had put up a good fight. She had thrown herself backward, squeezing the black cloaked man between herself and the wall. She heard him groan. Dee heard herself scream, at first scared, and then a loud roar of courage, and finally, when she knew she was defeated, her cry dwindling to a soft moan.

Dee heard the crucifix come down on her head, the crunch of the impact.
Yes
, she thought, placing her hand once more to her forehead. That was where the gash came from. He had knocked her unconscious. And then had taken her here, to this nightmare. And here was where she was.

Dee opened her eyes and stared at the puddle. The puddle was just a puddle, as seemingly harmless as any puddle before it. And the voice was gone.

Dee looked around her and realized that the air had dissolved from gray clouds to thin layers of black on black, and that the light from the crevices above were no longer shining as they were before. Day had passed. Night was coming.

Dee slid her back along the wall until she was lying flat on the ground, facing the muddy ceiling above her. She clenched her eyes tight and willed herself to remain calm, no matter what happened next. Some might say that she was waiting to die, but Dee knew that she was as sure as dead the moment she had stepped off the plane in New Orleans.

D
etective Lewis Kline was in a foul mood when he arrived at the crime scene. His fattest hemorrhoid had flared to the size of a ripe grape that morning. The damn thing hurt so bad he was surprised it hadn’t crawled up his ass and taken over his entire digestive system.

“You’re not getting enough fiber,” his wife, Tabitha, had said as she crawled sleepily out of bed to wipe Preparation H on his rectum while he hiked one leg up over the bathroom counter, his hands spread his ass cheeks apart.

Tabitha, God bless her
, Lewis thought. She was always there when he needed her, rain or shine, never complaining. And Lord knows, being a cop’s wife, she had dealt with her share of rainy days.

She had been a true champ, making the very awkward situation more endurable, using humor the way a doctor used anesthetics. While applying the greasy film onto Lewis’s nether regions, she had said, “You know something, Lew? I think I’ll call this hemorrhoid Fred.”

“Fred?” Lewis had asked, watching her in the mirror’s reflection. “Why Fred?”

“Because it’s a man’s name.”

“So?”

“All men are pains in the ass.”

Lewis laughed as he stepped out of his Tahoe, his bad mood temporarily forgotten.
The world needs more women like Tabitha
, he thought.

Lewis worked hard to walk normally, trying his best not expose the condition of his colon. He made his way to the Riverfront, past the railroad tracks and the candy shops emitting the smell of fudge and vanilla ice cream. As he expected, the moment the Mississippi River came into view, so did twenty or so reporters waiting near the riverbed, all of them, armed and ready with their cameras and microphones. Lewis let out a disgruntled sigh.
Nothing like having a crime scene in a public place, in full view of every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a camera and a curiosity
, he thought.

Lewis muttered a curse as he ducked under the yellow police tape. A familiar blonde reporter with large rabbit teeth held her microphone out for Lewis. “Detective Kline, is this latest body connected to the Fishhook murders?”