The story was about some maniac pulling out a woman’s teeth. And letting her bleed to death.
“I told you he had a prodigious memory,” O’Bannon said. “Eidetic. Not only can he recite back word for word something he read years ago, he can tell you what page it was on.”
I’d heard of such things in school, but never actually encountered it. “And he reads a lot?”
“Constantly.”
“That’s… an amazing gift.”
“Yeah. With virtually no practical application. Or so I thought.” O’Bannon frowned.
I held the book up. “I read a little Poe in college. Kind of liked it, as I recall. But I didn’t see the pattern.”
“And now you do?”
“I’m beginning to. Thanks to your son.” I patted Darcy on the shoulder. He immediately reacted to the touch of my hand. It was sort of like he was wriggling away and sort of like he was snuggling against it. “I hope you’re not one of those collector types who won’t lend reading materials.”
O’Bannon shook his head. “It’s just a book.”
I hope he agreed that this interview was over. Because I had some real work to do now and I wanted to get to it. The book was more than a thousand pages long, for God’s sake. It would take me hours to get through it, to see what other clues might be in there. I needed to reexamine everything in light of this new lead. And then…
And then I got an idea. “Is the first crime scene still restricted?”
“Sure. We’ve got men posted.”
“Good. I want to go back out there tomorrow morning.”
“Okay.”
“Would it be all right if I bring Darcy?”
Darcy’s eyes lit.
O’Bannon’s didn’t. “Are you out of your mind? What for?”
“He might be useful. He sure as hell was tonight. There might be more Poe clues lying about. Stuff only he would spot.”
“Susan.” He sidled closer to me and lowered his voice. “Darcy may look like a man, but inside, he’s a little boy. You saw him with that spider. What’s he going to do at a crime scene?”
“The body has been removed.”
“But still-”
I hated this business of talking about Darcy as if he weren’t present, when he was standing barely two feet away. But I had a strong feeling that I was right about this. I couldn’t even explain why, not coherently. But when you’re Empathy Girl, you learn to trust your instincts. “You said you wished he could learn to do something productive. Hold a real job. So humor me here. Maybe you’ve got a budding detective on your hands.”
“Susan…”
“As I recall, Sherlock Holmes was pretty odd himself.”
“Susan!” I was not prepared for his anger. “You’ve known Darcy for what? Ten minutes? I’ve been living with him for twenty-six years.” His voice dropped. “There’s no way in hell he could cut it as a cop.”
“I’m not asking you to give him a badge. Just let him tag along. Humor me.”
Darcy jumped in. “C-C-C-Can I go, Dad? I would like, would you, I could, I could be good. Can I go with that one?”
He gave me a long look. “Don’t make me regret bringing you in on this case, Pulaski.”
“I won’t. Darcy-pick you up at nine in the morning.” I winked. “Don’t be late.”
See I knew I could help I knew I could help if only he would let me but he wouldn’t but the girl did and the girl’s name is Susan I heard that was her name and she was nice to me just like she was before. There was a girl at the clinic who was nice to me like that and she was pretty too but not as pretty as Susan and she told me to read one of her music books so whenever she forgot the words I could tell her and she was nice but I think maybe Susan is nicer and smells better. She has something funny about the way she smells but it’s not so bad I remember people’s smells and everyone has a smell if you smell hard enough. I’m glad I could remember those stories like I did and my dad didn’t he read the stories too but he forgot and I remembered. You shouldn’t be reading those horrible stories. You should be reading a nice book like The Hardy Boys or Two Years Before the Mast. Susan says I could go see where they found this lady’s body and I don’t like killing I think it’s mean to hurt things but if I go with her it would almost be like I’m a policeman and I know that would make my dad happy even though he pretends like he doesn’t care whether I’m a policeman but he does. I hope it’s not too gross. I don’t like gross. I would never hurt anyone, no matter what.
Mostly I want to go because I’ll go with Susan. I like Susan. Susan is pretty even though she has a cigarette burn on the back of her right pant leg and she bites her fingernails so much two of them have been bleeding. Susan is babies and sugary and I like the way she flips her hair back when she’s being funny even though I don’t understand the joke I can tell she’s being funny and she smiles at me and lets me sit next to her and I think she must like me and that’s good because I know I like her.
9
He felt such intense revulsion that it became difficult for him to breathe. He was physically ill. He knew his face was ashen, and he feared he might soon relinquish custody over his lunch. It was so disturbing, so depraved.
Certainly he had expected to be offended. But he had no idea how bad it could be. Sexual relations were a gift given us for the perpetuation of the species, not, he thought, a commodity to be bought and sold. But here, in this Haunted Palace of a sort Poe never imagined in his most fevered dream, it was all garishly on display, everywhere he turned. He had never seen so much unclothed flesh in his entire life-and it sickened him. Everything here sickened him.
From the start he had understood that his visit to Nighthawks was one of duty, not pleasure. Vegas sex clubs were notorious, and this one had a reputation worse than most. Its dark ambience, the decorative whips and chains, bespoke a debased sensibility with a strong sadomasochistic bent, inimical to all standards of decency. Not a place for the avatar of the prophet. To begin with, there was the music-which was not at all musical. How could this electronic rap dissonance be music, which by definition is a melody played in rhythm and in counterpoint to a harmony? Where was the melody in this hip-hop mishmash? It was just sound, mindless decibels, played blaringly, unbearably loudly. And the light was blinding-silver shards glittering all about him, reflecting off the mirrored walls and the discothèque balls on the ceiling. It was a grotesque de Sade bacchanalia, all justified by suggestions that indulgence and degenerate fantasy fulfillment were salubrious for the psyche. Well, he did gainsay it, as would any decent soul with an eye on Dream-Land.