Penny Dreadful (28 page)

Theseus turned and walked into the dark and through a doorway and into a sparse, box-shaped room with office furniture. He sat down at the desk, picked up the telephone and looked at it with distaste. Hello, he said. Hello.

Silence on the line. Theseus lit a cigarette and put one white shoe on the desk with dull thud of rubber against wood.

I can hear you breathing, he said. You fool. You sound like a dying bloody horse. Come on, then. Who am I speaking to?

He blew smoke and waited.

Theseus flared his nostrils and was about to hang up when a man cleared his voice on the line and said, this is Jimmy Sky.

Jimmy, he said. It’s good to hear your voice.

Did you hear about Moon? said Jimmy.

Yes, yes. Such a shame. How kind of you to hold onto his cell phone, though. In case he needs it on a rainy day.

Fuck you, said Jimmy.

No, don’t hang up. Long pause. I’m sorry, said Theseus.

Oh, yeah. I bet you are, said Jimmy. Please make a donation to the Negro College Fund in lieu of flowers.

Ha. That’s very funny. What do you want, Jimmy?

Pause.

I want self-awareness.

Theseus smiled. Is that all?

The dead cops, said Jimmy. Are they Freds?

Of course.

Who’s killing them?

You are, Jimmy. You are.

Motherfucker.

I’m joking of course. But then you did kill Moon.

Who is it?

A talented young Mariner, said Theseus. He’s known as Chrome but his given name is Christian Wells.

Where can I find him? said Jimmy.

He’s a houseguest of Dizzy Bloom.

The address, you fucker.

Look in the telephone book. It’s her real name.

If I kill him, will Moon be self-aware?

It’s possible, said Theseus. But not likely.

I hate you, said Jimmy.

Oh, by the way. It might interest you to know that Captain Honey suspects someone else entirely. I think you know him.

Who?

Theseus shrugged. An unstable person by the name of Ray Fine.

One face bleeding into the next and Tom had what he might best describe as an ice-cream headache. The slow rush of dirty skin. Twisting hair and scar tissue and pockmarks. Terrible eyes sleepless and drugged, bright and searching. A handful of men and women before him on a ratty Oriental rug in various postures of despair, some of them nodding in junk stupors while others twitched and vibrated and muttered about the intricacies of the rug’s design. One girl of about seventeen lay with her cheek pressed hard to the floor as if she were listening to the earth. A single strand of oily brown hair fell over her visible eye and every five seconds or so she laboriously moved her bruised right hand to brush it away and not more than two feet from her, Kink was violently kissing a barefoot peasant girl with blond hair who could have been the first girl’s twin. And at the center of the rug, where the design came to an angry climax of flowers and geometry, Major Tom soon found exactly what he was looking for. A beautiful man with black dreadlocks and dark chocolate eyes. The unspoiled face of a new Fred. Tom sighed. He contemplated the tongue.

Dizzy was loath to admit it, but she was happy. Mingus sat beside her on a slick black sofa, holding her hand. Their faces were pushed together, not kissing but close enough to share the same air.

Tell me about your parents, said Mingus.

I don’t remember them.

What do you remember?

I grew up with my grandmother, Millicent Bloom Devine.

Tell me about her, said Mingus.

Why, though?

Because I have no memories of my own. None that I can trust. I see a man in the suburbs cutting grass. A thin man in bad clothes. A father. I see a sister, a little girl in a red bathing suit. But they aren’t mine.

What else?

I remember walking through a silent green jungle armed with two 9-millimeter pistols and a box of flares. Terrible and beautiful at once. The foliage is so thick it’s as if the sky is green. A tiger jumps at me and I shoot it five, six times. The chatter of unseen monkeys. I climb over a stone wall and jump across a pit filled with cobras. Then avoid the quicksand and enter a catacomb of ruins. And I’m a woman. I have tremendous breasts and a British accent.

That’s not real, then.

I think it’s a computer game called Tomb Raider.

Okay, said Dizzy. It’s okay.

Tell me about your grandmother, said Mingus.

Dizzy smiled. I called her Grandma Milly. She was the firstborn daughter of Molly and Leopold Bloom.

And who were they?

They lived in Dublin, long ago. Leopold was a pervert, a Christ figure. And he was a kind of grifter, a complicated man. But very well-educated. Molly was crazy, I think. And she was a little slutty, or so they say. A prolific adulteress. I prefer to think that she was looking for true love.

What happened to her?

Chrome entered, bloody.

One arm cradled and useless. The other held out sideways for balance. His face white as death. Whispers from the slippery crowd. Oohs and aahhs. One kid with the furry hands and feet of a hobbit floated by on a skateboard and insolently patted Chrome on the back and murmured very real, brother. Very real. Chrome took one step. Then another. He was going to fall over any minute and there was nothing he could do about it. Mingus appeared, seemingly from nowhere.

Run away, said Mingus. You aren’t safe here.

Mingus, Mingus. I’m hurt.

I can see that. What happened?

Shot, apparently.

Chrome fell forward and Mingus caught him.

You haven’t heard me.

What? What…so tired.

Theseus knows. He knows about the kill.

You, said Chrome. You betrayed me?

Helpless. Mingus shook his head.

Not possible.

Yes. I told Goo, and Dizzy.

Why?

You have to get out of here.

But I should be safe here, I live here.

No. They want to remove you, to cut you off.

Help me. Je suis malade, s’il vous plait.

Mingus smiled as if he might weep. Chrome was leaking blood like a hatful of water and he wanted to tell the Breather not to worry but his strength was gone.

Je suis malade.

Dizzy came out of the throng and took Chrome’s good arm. She threw it over her small shoulders like a wrap. Mingus held the bloody arm and together they led him away, his feet dragging between them.

Chrome relaxed. He would not die alone, at least.

Eyes dry and staring. Too much sugar in his system. Phineas watched as a very young girl sat down at the piano and began to hit random, discordant keys. Electric lights came up and a low hum and cry ran like a current through the crowd. Crumb nudged him and pointed to the main stage. The small spotlight was abruptly killed and now the only lights came up from the floor.

White fingers.

Eve walked onto the stage and Phineas opened his mouth, then closed it.

I should have warned you, said Crumb.

Another woman took the stage. Motorcycle boots, hot green pants and leather straps across her torso. Eyes hidden behind black mask. In one careless hand she held a long slender metal rod that most resembled a car’s radio antenna.

Who is that? said Phineas.

Lady Adore, said Crumb. The Exquisitor.

Eve wore only white underpants and a black sweater with the sleeves hacked off. Her pale arms extending yellow and thin from ragged, gaping holes and now she pulled the sweater over her head in an abrupt, nonsexual motion. She walked to center stage and crouched to pick up the joined metal hoops, which she examined briefly before handing over to Adore without comment.

The hoops were approximately fourteen inches in diameter and held together by a steel clasp. Phineas didn’t feel well, looking at them. Lady Adore separated them and dropped one to the floor, where it spun briefly like a coin.

Eve fell to her knees, as if to pray. Expressionless, staring. She sat with back straight and buttocks resting on heels. Thighs pressed together. Arms loose, palms upright. Lady Adore circled her with the single detached hoop in one fist. Now she whipped at the air with the antenna and Phineas looked away, to the crowd.

They were hushed, gathered close.

Phineas stood up, stricken. One hand touching his mouth.

What is this? he said. What is this?

Performance torture, said Crumb.

Phineas watched as Lady Adore crouched beside Eve and pulled the first hoop over her bended knees, then worked it slowly and with much effort up over Eve’s thighs so that the metal rim circled her hips at one edge and the tops of her feet at the other.

Eve’s face was sickening. Colorless, beaded with sweat.

Adore now placed one hand on Eve’s head and forced her to bow until her nose was nearly touching the floor. Eve’s arms remained at her sides as the second hoop was pushed down over her head, then forced over her shoulders and down to the small of her back. Now the two hoops were touching and Adore clasped them together.

Eve was fetal. Dark red streaks, a web of blood extending beneath her skin.

The hoops formed a terrible figure eight around her body.

Adore took a step back and turned a slow circle, slicing at the air with the antenna and grinding her hips suggestively. Then turned and uncocked her long left leg, touched the toe of her boot to Eve’s trembling shoulder and gave just a tiny push. Eve flopped onto her side, she was a fish and she was bleeding from the mouth and nose. Adore raised the antenna above her head and when the crowd groaned, she hesitated, smiled. Adore dropped to one knee and kissed Eve on the mouth, then rolled away and bouncing to her feet lashed her twice across the back with the antenna.

Phineas pushed through the crowd. Sick and feverish.

He threw his elbows against unseen flesh and vaulted onto the stage. It was four or five feet off the ground and he shrugged, as if surprised at his own agility.

Adore turned to face him, visibly disgusted.

You, she said. You are the victim.

He was speechless, dreaming. And she whipped him across the face with the antenna, opening a long cut that extended from the corner of his mouth to just below the ear.

Fuck, he said.

Adore swung at him again and he tried stupidly to catch or block the flashing antenna with his left hand. Now his fingers were bleeding and he took two quick steps forward, striking Adore in the nose with the heel of his right hand and she went down, the nose likely broken. Phineas kicked her in the stomach, not terribly hard but hard enough to be sure that she stayed down, then turned to Eve and hesitated to touch her, for she was so white and her face was stretched like a drum and running with sweat.

Eve, he said. Oh, fuck.

Theseus leaned on one elbow, sipping a pale yellow drink from a martini glass. He was relatively serene, gazing at the stage with gross indifference until Ray Fine chose to interrupt the program. Theseus shrugged and looked away, scanning the crowd. He left his unfinished drink at the bar and sauntered into a throng of bodies. Angry. He was fucking angry and soon came to the rug of triangles and flowers and crouched to mutter furiously in Major Tom’s ear.

Do you know that man? he said.

Major Tom turned, wary. Then smiled the smile of a lotus eater.

Phineas slipped one hand between Eve’s thighs and belly, fumbled for one agonizing moment then managed to release the clasp and slip the first hoop from around her legs.

The metal surprised him, slipping so easily over her wet flesh.