Traxx: 7

© 2011 asotir.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

7

AMBER stared up at the club, baffled but determined. She turned and walked around the side.

The side of the club was on the alley. The song of the little girl was louder here.

Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?

Amber walked slowly into the alley.

There were crates and bags of garbage. Down the way was a rusty yellow lamp over a doorway. The sign over the door was in thick black letters:

ELYSIUM – DELIVERIES ONLY

Amber approached it. She tried the knob. It was locked.

She turned and walked away. And stopped. She looked back at the door.

She went back to it. She pulled a cord off her neck over her head. At the end of the cord was a key. She held the key in her hand and guided it to the lock. The key slid into the lock and she turned it and it turned and the lock went click.

Amber opened the door and stepped inside. The door closed behind her.

§

THE STRIPS of theater lighting glowed a bit brighter in the Chamber of Mirrors. The gentlemen and ladies began to file out. The buyer remained seated at his table. He was now the only one left in the room. He dabbed at his neck and brow with a linen handkerchief and waited.

After some time, the hostess returned to the buyer’s table.

‘Did you not enjoy the performance, sir?’ she asked, but the leer on her lips said she was certain that he had.

‘She was – she was—’

‘Yes, sir.’

The buyer said, ‘I want her. I want to see her. Alone.’

‘She’s quite … busy, sir.’

‘How much?’

The hostess smiled.

‘The usual gratuity, sir, is $3,000. For the half hour.’

The buyer pulled out his billfold. He removed the bills and spread them on the table. He pulled out another bundle of money from his jacket pocket and dropped it on the table. He dropped another bundle alongside it. And a fourth. He pushed all of it toward the hostess.

The buyer said, ‘There’s $50,000. It’s all I could wring out of the shop for now. It’s for the night. All night. All mine, alone – you understand?’

The hostess’ hands stacked and counted the money.

‘Yes, sir. It’s very handsome. I’m just not sure – there are all the other gentlemen and ladies—’

The buyer said, ‘Do I take it back?’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

She placed a card on the table beside the money. There was a number on the card: 13.

‘Someone will come for you, sir. The lady will accept your offer … personally.’

The hostess left. The buyer neatened the piles of money and dabbed the handkerchief over his upper lip. A voice spoke up behind him.

‘Keep it.’

The buyer turned. At the table behind him a man sat in the darkness. He must have just entered, but the buyer hadn’t heard it. The light from the floor strips only touched his trousers from the knees down to his shoes. The trousers were coarse cloth, worn and stained. The shoes were heavy, brutal work-shoes, scuffed and muddied.

The buyer said, ‘Are you addressing me, sir?’ The way he said sir expressed his contempt.

‘Keep your money for yourself.’

‘What for? If I might inquire?’

‘You’re going to need a casket, aren’t you?’

The man’s hand appeared beside his leg and something glinted in it.

It was an awl, heavy and crude and deadly.

The buyer paled. He scooped up his money and left.

The man got up and stood over the buyer’s table. His hand picked up the card. Number 13. Someone entered from behind and stepped up to the table.

It was the morgue attendant. The man showed him the card. The morgue attendant nodded.

‘This way, sir.’ He gestured toward the outer door.

The man held the card up beside his face and scratched his cheek with the edge of it.

Garrety said, ‘No, not that way. We’ll go the way the suckers don’t. Shall we?’

The morgue attendant nodded, unsure. Garrety led the way onto the stage. He paused a moment and looked back at the Chamber of Mirrors from the stagefront. He looked down on the small tables and the starry glow from the theater strips on the floor and reflected oddly off the mirrors on the walls and ceiling.

The morgue attendant coughed. Garrety nodded and passed through the curtains.

§

AMBER closed the back door behind her. The latch clicked in the wall.

She started down the hall.

The hall was narrow. There were lights in the ceiling at intervals. The walls were bare and broken only by small closed doorways.

She looked straight ahead and she held the key in her fingers. It was as though she knew where to go.

The hall ended at a door. She stepped up to the door. It was locked, but the key at her throat unlocked it. She entered.

The room was small. There was a desk, a cabinet, a closet. The desk was bare except for three objects: two books and a gift box for a bottle of brandy.

She opened one of the books.

It was heavy and old. Its pages held two columns. In one column were rows of Egyptian hieroglyphs. In the other column were dense paragraphs in German.

The second book was heavy and black and its pages were dyed scarlet around the edges. It looked like a bible. It too was in German.

She flipped the pages. She picked up and opened the cylinder gift box. She slid up its sleeve.

Inside the box was a jar. The jar was clear glass. Inside the jar was a black liquid. It wasn’t brandy. It was thick and shiny and something stirred within it.

She held the jar up to the light before her face and stared into it. There was a tapping sound. Amber put down the jar and looked back.

The door was closed. The tapping was repeated. The doorknob started to turn.

She slunk back inside the closet.

§

GARRETY and the morgue attendant went through the curtains into the stage area.

The tank stood to one side, bristling with the video cameras, empty. Behind it a switchboard lined the wall. The floor was littered with rags and discarded props. The backdrop was only a brick wall painted black.

Garrety considered. Then he went to the side away from the tank where a narrow door stood like the entrance to a maintenance closet. Garrety opened it and went through. The morgue attendant followed.

They went down a narrow back hall. Behind them a door stood under a red EXIT sign, which was the only source of light. The right hand wall was of old bricks with crumbling mortar. The left hand wall was new wallboard. They came on a long narrow window set in the wallboard.

Through the window Garrety could see into a small room lined with chairs. The room was lighted by a green desk lamp on a small table at the far end, next to a red painted door. The chairs were occupied by club members, men and women. Some sat like they were alone, others in couples or groups of three, usually two women and a man. They all held small cards in their hands or laps with numbers on them, like the card in Garrety’s hand.

The back hall came to a blank brick wall a little past the window. Right at the end an opening had been cut in the wallboard and filled in with hangings of heavy black-purple velvet, tied off with a thick gold rope.

Garrety stopped. He looked back at the morgue attendant with a quizzical look in his eyes. The morgue attendant waited. In the red gloom of the hall his face was too dark to read.

‘That’s all,’ Garrety said. ‘I don’t think I’ll be needing you anymore.’

The morgue attendant didn’t seem to understand. Garrety took hold of the morgue attendant’s shoulder and turned him around and gave him a shove. The morgue attendant walked back up the hall, turned at the small door and went back to the backstage area.

Garrety took hold of the awl in his right fist. With his left hand he pulled on the gold rope and drew the velvet hangings a little to one side. He leaned forward and peered through the gap.

The room beyond was about the same size as the waiting room, to which it connected by the red door. Recessed lights in the ceiling cast a greenish pall over the gilt walls. In the center of the room stood a large bed with posts at the corners like an old fashioned bed. The posts were made of steel and connected to a grid of beams over the bed; the effect was of a cage, though the sides were open between the four steel posts.

On the bed was a mattress. The mattress was purplish and had a shallow trough or depression running down the middle. Clear plastic sheeting covered the mattress.

Along the sides of the bed were two antique sofas from the Gilded Age of the Old West, like something you might find in old San Francisco. A couple sat on each of the sofas in elegant evening dress. They leaned forward with outstretched arms hovering over the thing on the bed.

On the bed, lying in the trough in the plastic sheeting, was the Lady of 1,001 Marks.

She lay passively, accepting the caresses of the patrons on the sofas. Her nude body gleamed with the greenish oily liquid that filled the trough in which she lay. Her eyes looked blankly up at the hands that ran over her form. All up and down the length of her body, the bright tattoos crawled and writhed and quivered beneath the caresses of the wandering hands. The tattoos crawled up onto the fingers of the patrons, at which the gentleman or lady would utter a slight moan of horror or pleasure or pain, maybe; the tattoos crept under the gentlemen’s cuffs or up the long bare arms of the ladies, then turned and scuttled back down onto their home over the naked body of the dead woman.

One of the gentlemen stooped forward and kissed the dead woman’s breast. He let his lips linger and immediately a dozen or so marks congregated around his mouth and swarmed across his cheeks and back down.

The gentleman sat back with an odd expression in his face.

‘What was it like,’ murmured his lady partner.

‘Vile,’ he said with a faraway look in his eyes. ‘Wonderfully vicious and vile…’

‘Oh I simply must try it,’ she said but then Garrety pushed through the velvet hangings and struck the awl against one of the steel posts.

It rang out like a church bell.

‘Sorry folks,’ he said, ‘show’s over.’

They looked at him with outraged fury. But again he struck the post with the awl and they got the message and rose. They strode to the red door. ‘The management shall hear of this intrusion,’ one of the men said.

Garrety said, ‘Fine, now get out.’ They left him alone with the bed and the dead woman and her obscene marks.

The smell in the room was oppressive. It stank of disinfectants, formaldehyde, ammonia and embalming chemicals.

Garrety sighed and sank down on one of the sofas.

The Woman lay passively in the oily trough in the plastic sheeting on the mattress in the steel cage of a bed.

Garrety stared at her.

She looked back at him. Her sea-green eyes displayed nothing. No fear. No desire. No recognition. Only the blankness of beauty that is dead, but desirable beyond all price.

‘Isn’t she lovely?’

Garrety looked up. At the red door the hostess stood beside the bald man. Both still wore the hospital latex gloves. The hostess smiled and entered. She said, ‘We strongly urge our patrons to use protection.’ She indicated a box of the latex gloves on a small table at the foot of the bed.

Garrety said, ‘They didn’t.’

‘Not all our patrons are cautious enough to obey instructions. And it does lessen some of the … sensations involved. And, after all, they pay so much for the privilege, so strict compliance is not enforced.’

She walked to the bed and turned up the Woman’s chin with her fingers.

‘I wish I could be like her. She has over one thousand marks. One for every man, every woman, who has touched her. The darlings find in her skin a fertile breeding ground. That’s why we call her Our Lady of 1,001 Marks. And how many of them she has shared!’

Garrety said, ‘It’s monstrous.’

‘Oh, and I thought you would approve! After all, you played a large part in creating her. Herr Doktor called her our finest work. The prototype of the future. I like to call her Herr Doktor’s Daughter.’

Garrety started forward but the arm of the bald man twisted round his neck and pinioned him. The awl fell from his nerveless grip.

The tattooed arm squeezed Garrety’s throat. Something moved across it – the scarab mark. It slipped off the bald man’s arm onto Garrety’s cheek. It showed a red dot.

The hostess gestured.

The morgue attendant entered and softly closed the red door behind him. He put his hand on Garrety’s temple. A beetle slid down from under his sleeve and crawled on Garrety’s forehead. It also had the red dot.

The hostess set her foot on one of the sofas. She pulled her skirt up.

The bald man forced Garrety to his knees. He pressed Garrety’s face between the hostess’ legs. The red and black spider crawled from under her skirt. It crawled onto Garrety’s lips.

The hostess signaled and the bald man let Garrety loose. Garrety staggered back against the bed’s steel post.

The Woman looked on blankly.

Garrety closed his eyes. The sweat burned on his forehead. The marks crawled over his eyes, his mouth… they scuttled down his chin. They disappeared underneath his collar.

He opened his eyes.

Garrety said, ‘That was a mistake.’

The hostess said, ‘You are a strong man, Brother Garrety. Very strong and very stubborn. All right. Resist if you must. You’ll only die more slowly.’

She gestured. The morgue attendant and the bald man moved away to the red door. The hostess joined them there.

‘She ought to appreciate watching it happen. Very well. Enjoy yourselves, my darlings.’

They left.

The hostess closed the door in the waiting room. She made a slight gesture of apology to the patrons. ‘The private sessions have been unfortunately suspended for the time being. We apologize for the delay. All your cards will be honored in the proper order.’

One gentleman, white haired with a precisely-clipped white mustache, said, ‘It’s rather late. Will there be time again another evening?’

‘Whatever you wish, sir. The management will make all arrangements at the door on your way out. I will personally attend to it.’

The hostess ushered the patrons out. When they were alone again, he turned to the bald man.

‘Go to the office. Make sure it’s safe.’

The bald man nodded. He passed out into another hall. He went to the door at the end. He tapped on the door. There was no answer. He tapped again. Then he opened and went in.

§

ACROSS THE ROOM the outer door opened and Amber sank deeper into the closet and closed the door to a crack. Through the crack she could see the bald man come in.

The bald man crossed to the desk. He closed the two books. He picked up the sleeve to the brandy gift box. The jar of ink was gone.

He said, ‘Who’s here? What have you done with it? Where are you hiding?’

Inside the closet, Amber pulled down a wire hanger. She bent it and looped one end over the door knob and the other on a hook on the wall.

The bald man approached the closet. He placed his hand on the knob.

Inside the closet, Amber pressed her back to the wall.

The bald man pulled on the door. It opened a little farther. Then it stopped.

Inside the closet the coat hanger strained and kept the door from opening farther.

The bald man pulled harder. The door wouldn’t give.

Inside the closet, Amber stared down.

A pale hand entered through the crack in the door. It was followed by an arm. The arm looked like a snake. The hand groped deeper into the closet.

Amber’s hands opened Aunt Amber’s purse.

She pulled out the razor and opened it. The new blade gleamed. She brought it down.

The blade slashed the arm and cut the flesh and there was a shout and the arm slipped out.

Outside the closet, the bald man lifted his arm. There was a long, ugly gash dripping blood.

Rage filled his face. He stabbed the arm in as far as he could reach.

Inside the closet, the arm groped. It grabbed hold of Amber’s thigh.

She swung the razor, slashing at the arm. It let go. It struck against the wire of the hanger and it followed the wire to the hook and fumbled there and tried to slip the wire off the hook.

Amber’s eyes filled with desperation.

The razor flashed against the arm. Blood spurted from the many deep cuts. The blood stained her legs, her dress, her arms and face, as well as the floor and walls of the small closet. From outside the bald man’s groans rose to a growl, then a scream.

He snatched back his arm.

The bald man said, ‘All right then—’

He hurled his body against the door and it slammed shut and he twisted the knob and jammed the desk chair under it.

He stepped back to the outer door. He was holding up his arm and laughing, bleeding all over the floor.

‘We’ll be back. We’ll all be back!’

He left. He left the door open behind him.

Inside the closet, Amber tried the door. She pushed.

The door pushed against the chair but the chair wouldn’t give.

She gave up and sank to the floor.

§

GARRETY sat on one of the sofas. The Woman watched impassively. Garrety’s face showed something of his struggle and his pain. He leaned on the steel post.

‘Hello, Miss Wertham,’ he said in a choked whisper.

Something flickered in the sea-green eyes.

Garrety said, ‘You do remember me, I see.’

He removed his seaman’s coat. He stripped his shirt and his undershirt.

Across his chest the beetle marks with the red dots, and the red and black spider, grappled with the large beetle mark that had no dot.

He sat beside her on the bed. His hands caressed her body. She lay naked under him, but with the marks, the things, crawling and swarming over her, she hardly seemed nude. She flinched a little but he bent down all the way and took her in his arms and held her tight.

Garrety said, ‘How much do you remember?’

He kissed her.

Her arms rose up from the trough of oil and curled around his back.

He held the kiss.

The marks on her arms crawled onto his back.

He held on, kissing her, and leaned her back into the trough in the plastic sheeting. The small room was quiet. The plastic sheeting squeaked a little under them. He held her and her tattoos moved and swarmed all over his naked back.

Her sea-green eyes flickered and her brow arched and something glimmered in her eyes. His shoulder was covered with tattoos but her arms were pale and bare and her nails dug into his back and spasmed and he broke the kiss and drew away.

He stood away from the bed.

She looked down. She lay in the trough quite naked. Her body no longer had any tattoos. She seemed to realize that she was naked and covered herself with her arms.

Garrety said, ‘Wait.’

He went through the velvet hangings. He went back up the narrow back hallway, across the stage, through the Chamber of Mirrors. He took the nightdress from the mannequin and brought it back. He staggered when he reached the velvet hangings and almost fell but somehow he managed to lurch into the room and hang onto the steel post of the bed.

The tattoos, hundreds of them, were swarming across his face. They ran up and down his arms. They swarmed over his chest. His arms were rigid. He raised his face and it was a mask of agony and the thought crossed his mind, maybe, the minor question, were there really a thousand of the marks that had crawled off her body onto him?

Stretched out on the bed below him was Aunt Amber’s corpse.

The eyes flickered with yet a little life. They looked up at Garrety. The eyes told of rest, of peace, of serenity, of gratitude. Then they closed and she was gone, finally and forever.

Garrety said, ‘Rest in peace, Miss Wertham. Here. I’ll dress you.’

He managed to stand. He stooped down over the bed and put the nightdress on the body. He gathered her up in the nightdress in his arms and he carried her back through the velvet hangings, up the back hallway and through the maintenance door. The greenish oily liquid dripped off the corpse and left a trail that shone like the trail of a slug.

Garrety brushed through the curtains into the Chamber of Mirrors and the corpse of Aunt Amber was in his arms in the nightdress. He staggered off the stage and moved through the tables and passed the naked mannequin and went out of the room.

§

ELYSIUM. The Last Gasp. The sign outside the club went dark. Below, the last customers straggled down the steps.

The hostess locked the main door. She came back into the barroom. It was dark and still and empty.

The bald man appeared at one door. He leaned against it oddly. His face was pale. One arm hung down; the other groped.

‘I didn’t – I couldn’t – help me—’

The arm hanging down was streaming with blood. The bald man slid to the floor in a pool of blood.

The hostess stooped over him. In the background the morgue attendant looked on stupidly.

The hostess said, ‘Go find out what happened to him.’

‘But, how?’

‘Idiot! Follow the trail!’

The morgue attendant tracked the trail of blood down the hall. The hostess regarded the bald man.

‘It couldn’t protect you anymore. Where is it? Where’s your mark? Where’s mine?’

The morgue attendant followed the bloodstains through a doorway and down another hall to the end.

The office was empty. But there was a desk and a chair jammed against the closet door and the closet door was splashed with blood.

The morgue attendant approached the closet door and pulled away the chair.

The door burst open and Amber appeared. She whipped the morgue attendant in the face with the strop, and he backed away and raised his arms and fell.

‘Lady – stop!’

She stood over him, strop ready.

The morgue attendant said, ‘I tried to help you, don’t you remember?’

She lowered the strop.

‘Don’t you? What happened to your tattoo?’

‘I don’t know. Where is this place?’

She held out her hand.

‘Come on.’

She helped him to his feet and they left the room.

Behind them in the closet the jar holding the ink sat on the floor.

§

THE BARROOM was empty. Garrety entered from the back. He held the beautiful corpse in his arms and as he moved through the tables the long hem of the nightdress trailed across the floor, leaving a greenish line.

Garrety reached the bar. He laid the body on top of the bar, curled on one side, the head facing away, the wheat-colored hair spilling down.

Garrety stooped and fetched up the bottle of brandy and set it on the bar. He fumbled with it.

Amber appeared in the doorway to the hall. The morgue attendant was behind her. She started into the room.

‘Is she – is she Aunt Amber?’

Garrety turned and looked at her. He shook his head.

‘You know what Dimes said. Your aunt died a long time ago. They cremated her by mistake and her ashes are at the County Office Building.’

Amber stared at the hundreds of marks writhing and crawling over his face and arms and torso. ‘What happened to you?’

‘Almost complete. Pretty, aren’t they?’

Amber said, ‘No. Horrible.’

She reached out to him.

Garrety said, ‘Stand off! You don’t want to get – too close.’

He sagged against the bar, but recovered.

‘You’re hurt.’

Garrety said, ‘Only one more.’

He held up one hand and the marks on it moved back up away from his wrist and he gripped the arm there and clamped it. He held the unmarked hand out to her.

Garrety said, ‘Take it. Don’t be afraid.’

She took his hand. She could feel something move down her arm. It was her mark. It felt like pins and needles, like an itch just about to turn painful. The mark crawled onto his hand and he let her go and she staggered back.

Garrety said, ‘That’s right. All done now.’

‘How touching.’

The hostess stood at the end of the bar. She lit a cigarette and sucked on it and approached. Amber gave way.

‘You’ve got something that belongs to me. My darling. My mark.’

‘So?’

‘So I want it back.’

Garrety took a cigarette from the pack she left on the bar. He could only use one hand because the other held onto the bar and kept him standing. He put the cigarette in his lips.

Garrety said, ‘Got a light?’

The hostess smiled her insolent smile. She flicked her lighter up to him. He swung the brandy bottle in the way and there was a bit of handkerchief stuck in its mouth and he lit it off her lighter and held the Molotov up for just a moment, to let her see it and to let her know.

Then he dropped it.

The flames leapt up the bar around them.

The hostess said, ‘Oh, you fool! You fool! You fool!’

Amber said, ‘Garrety!’

Garrety said, ‘No use, kid. These things… only one way to handle them … burning.’

Amber said, ‘But you’ll die!’

‘That’s all right… I did something once … now I paid for it… Besides, I never was much of a dancer. Can you get out?’

The hostess screamed, ‘Give me back my mark!’

Amber said, ‘The door’s locked!’

The hostess said, ‘You want the keys? Here!’

The hostess flung the keys behind the burning bar. More bottles blew and the flames spread fast.

The blank eyes of the dead bald man looked on.

Amber said, ‘Garrety! It’s all right – Aunt Amber left me the key.’

She unlocked the door and opened it.

The barroom behind the cloakroom hall was filling with flames.

Amber said, ‘Garrety?’

Through veils of flames, the figure of the man at the center of it all slouched against the bar. He laid his head on the side of the corpse and the tattoos swarmed feverishly, avidly, hungrily over him. And as the flames engulfed him, he smiled a little.

Garrety said, ‘So long, kid.’

Then there was only flame.

The flames reached the cloakroom hall and forced Amber out.

 

Traxx: 6

© 2011 asotir.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

6

AMBER’S HAND scrubbed a sponge over the black mark on her shoulder. The streams of water from the shower rained across it, dissolving the suds. The tattoo wasn’t going away. She had had a wild hope that it was only the temporary tattoo, the one she had washed off before. The hope was dead now. She scratched at the mark, hard. Her nails left bloody marks in her skin around the mark, but the skin under the mark stayed unbroken.

She got out of the shower and slapped the wrapper over her still-wet skin.

The kitchen was a mess: cans and broken bottles littered the counters and the floor. She managed to shove the door partway open. She reached in past the door and opened a cabinet above the floor and fished out a bottle.

She turned the bottle over in her hand. The label was that of an expensive brandy and the bottle was unopened.

She crossed the living room and collapsed onto the floor in front of the television. She propped herself against a cushion and opened the bottle. The living room also was a mess. She stretched her leg and turned the television on with her toes. The screen filled with blue-white snow. She poured brandy into a plastic juice cup and drank it. She poured some more. The television screen grew huge, its white and blue and black bits dancing…

A sound came from the outer hall. Locks unlocking. A door opening. Light streamed into the apartment from the hall. A shadow crossed the light. Heavy, worn work shoes walked into the living room, between the television and the sofa. The legs and body cast a shadow on Amber where she lay curled up drunk and passed out on the sofa.

The shadow stood still for a long time as the ants crawled in the ant farm and the snow chased itself over the television screen. Then it turned and left. The outer door swung to and shut off the light from the outer hall. The locks clicked shut again.

The brandy bottle lay on its side on the floor. The juice cup, still with a bit of brandy, was clutched in her hand. She was draped across the cushion, sleeping. Her hair was dry now.

The ants crawled in the tracks of the ant farm. Below them the television screen danced with snow. In front of the television she stirred and sat up. She staggered to her feet.

It was night again. She opened the balcony door and stepped out.

She leaned on the rail and looked down. The wind moved through her hair and blew open the wrapper, exposing her to the squalid city but she didn’t care.

Far below, the lights of cars crawled through the tracks of the streets.

She stared down at them. Tears dropped out of her eyes.

Back in the bedroom, she stepped squarely before the long mirror. She held the wrapper tight around her throat. She turned her back to the mirror.

She could see her shoulder and her face in the mirror and her back down almost to her knees. She dropped the wrapper to the floor. Her naked back and buttocks and thighs were pale and unmarked.

She stared over her shoulder.

Her shoulder was unmarked. The tattoo was gone.

Hope and confusion filled her eyes. Was it only a bad dream? She began to smile—

—and she turned to the mirror and she was smiling and the smile went away and a look of horror replaced it: there was a mark on her chest. Her hand pulled away the key on the cord. Between her breasts was the beetle tattoo.

She stared down at it. She couldn’t believe it.

The beetle moved its legs a little and adjusted its position. It itched when it did that – she could feel in in her flesh. An itch is like the smallest tickle of pain. She wondered if the thing wanted to move fast and hard how much it would hurt. And yet it had crawled from her shoulder to her front and she hadn’t noticed. Now it settled and grew still again, as if falling asleep. It looked like a tattoo again.

She slapped at it and raked her fingernails across it and the beetle woke up and scuttled over her chest, clambered across her collarbones, dug into her throat…

She gasped. She couldn’t breathe. She clutched at her throat and collapsed at the foot of the bed.

The beetle moved down from her throat. It moved down her arm and settled on the inside of her wrist. It was the same place the mark had been on Aunt Amber’s dead body.

She gasped and coughed and sat up.

In the bathroom she switched on the light. She pulled down a box from the shelf. She set it on the sink.

Her hands opened the box. Inside were the strop and the straight razor. She took out the razor and held it in front of her face in front of the mirror. She opened the razor. She had wiped the broken blade clean but it was useless. She snapped the razor shut again.

§

INSIDE TRAXX, a hand dragged a pen across a card, leaving a bright, black trail.

Herr Doktor bent over the card in the tattooing chair as he drew the design.

Only the light over the chair was on; Herr Doktor was bright; the shop beyond was dark. There was the sound of the door opening and closing.

Herr Doktor said, ‘Ja, ja, ja … are you back so soon?’

The newcomer approached the chair. The light fell on his dark, worn trousers and heavy work shoes.

Herr Doktor looked up. He smiled.

‘Ah! Is it Brother Garrety? I have been wondering where you were hiding. Please to be seated. Please.’

The newcomer sat at the table across from Herr Doktor. His hands were thick and hard and they lay across the tabletop like marble slabs.

Herr Doktor said, ‘I have been toying with possibilities for future designs. What do you think?’

He turned the drawing around. It showed an ant. It was just like the ants in Aunt Amber’s final drawings.

Garrety said, ‘It’s not the same.’

‘Not the same as our own little friends, you mean? Oh, I agree. I quite agree. But after all, variety is next to godliness. Yes?’

Herr Doktor stroked his hand on the table.

‘I knew, when that woman came around prying, learning our secrets but refusing to make the mark upon herself, that we must make use of her,’ he said, ‘in every way we could. Is that not right, my pet? Come out, come out, see what your future playmate might be!’

The beetle tattoo emerged from under his sleeve, crawled over his wrist and settled on the back of his hand. Herr Doktor stroked it with one finger.

‘Ja, ja, sehr gut… Don’t tell me, Brother Garrety, that you are among those ignorant brothers who believe the design is everything?’

Garrety pulled an instrument form his belt and tapped the table with it. The instrument had a wooden handle and a steel round shaft like an ice pick.

Garrety said, ‘Why repeat it, then?’

‘As a sign of identity, perhaps, and comradeship. To inculcate a sense of belonging among the less sophisticated brothers. What is this toy you play with, please?’

‘It’s just an awl. We use it on voyages to repair rope – moorings, hawsers, cables, towlines, lifelines…’

Garrety jabbed the point of the awl between his fingers in the dance. His own beetle flashed on his wrist.

Herr Doktor said, ‘Ah. – Of course, I do not say the shape of the particular design is entirely without importance. On the contrary. In Jakarta, brothers have found some shapes that proved next to useless in controlling. Far too savage… Wayward elements of the flesh. The mark that you and I share is the most ancient. The most powerful. The monarch of marks, if you will. The Egyptians knew it as the divine scarabeus.’

‘And this one?’

‘Ah, this will be only a pawn, a foot-soldier among marks. Quite good enough for the herd, mind you. Not enough, perhaps, for a strong-willed fellow such as yourself. This reminds me. Brother Garrety, I am still waiting to hear of your sojourn in the desert.’

Garrety said, ‘You still haven’t told me. If it isn’t the mark – what is it?’

‘Ah, but you know it as well as I! It is the ink, Brother Garrety! The ink!’

His hand tapped the jar beside the drawing.

‘This is only common drawing ink, of course. But even here, what a miracle is captured in this bottle! A liquid that, when arranged properly, forever alters the identity of the surface it touches. There is in this bottle the basis of all civilization. For after all, what is property without the marks of ownership?’

Garrety said, ‘You mark men.’

‘We do. Men mark things and the beasts of the field. Gods mark men. But consider the ink. What is it? What is ink?’

‘You tell me.’

‘Ink is a liquid in which are suspended particles of dye. When the ink is spread upon a surface the particles of dye attach themselves to that surface. A mark is left. We all see the mark and what has become of the particles. But what has happened to the liquid? The dye particles are only flakes; the molecules of the liquid move – they breathe – they have life. They enter into the underlying fabric of the surface. Where the surface has its own liquid – as, for example, the skin of humans – the molecules of the liquid of the ink may enter into the currents within. They move – they dance – they flow. Like a colony. A colony of insects, if you will.’

‘Inside a man.’

Herr Doktor shrugged. ‘Or woman. What is a human, after all, Brother Garrety? We are only colonies of cells ourselves! The marks are colonies of ink. The shape may benefit or hinder, it depends on your purpose, but the ink is the life. The ink can join with us, if we welcome it. It can protect us. It can enable and empower and extend our lives.’

‘At a cost.’

‘What is the cost, Brother Garrety? One’s will? One’s soul? We merely exchange that shopworn article for a higher Will, a greater Soul. A Corporate identity in which we all belong. You must have felt its loss when you ran away. How lonely, how isolated, how lost you must have been, away out there in the desert!’

Garrety said, ‘It was the desert… I wandered the tracks. One train after another. The next station, and the next. I had to keep moving…’

‘And all the while,’ Herr Doktor said, ‘your little friend – it was calling out for its brothers, its kinfolk. It was longing for its home. Did it torment you very much? And how did you endure it for so long?’

Garrety repeated, ‘It was the desert… It lasted a long time … I couldn’t kill it and it couldn’t kill me. In the end, we came to an arrangement.’

He stabbed the awl down through Herr Doktor’s hand, pinning it to the table.

Herr Doktor screamed and Garrety seized his wrist in both hands and stood over the table and pulled the awl away.

Herr Doktor staggered back. He backed into the lamp and it swung up and spread its light across their faces.

Herr Doktor’s face was pale and filled with rage.

Garrety’s face was calm and determined.

Herr Doktor said, ‘What have you done? Are you insane?’

‘Yes. I think maybe I am. I’ve got a lot to make up for.’

Garrety held up his hand. On it now were two scarab marks. One had a red dot on it.

Herr Doktor cried out and lifted his hand into the light. The blood dripped from it – there was no mark.

‘Fool! It will destroy you!’

‘Maybe. But it can’t protect you now.’

He stepped forward. Herr Doktor was backed against the tattooing chair.

Garrety’s arm flashed up and down against the light.

The awl struck Herr Doktor in the chest, drew back and struck again. Herr Doktor crumpled to the floor.

Garrety stood over the tattooing chair. He took the tattooing cloth and wiped the blood off the awl.

On his wrist, Herr Doktor’s scarab was going mad, pinching and biting.

Garrety endured the pain. He pulled a piece of paper out of Herr Doktor’s pocket and lurched for the door.

§

IN THE BACK of the closet, she found the garment bag that the buyer had delivered on the first day she came here. It bore the dallio’s label. The sales slip was still attached to the bag:

For Miss Amber Wertham

For a moment she stared at the slip, confused; had Aunt Amber bought this for her? Then she remembered that her aunt shared the same last name, and yet the sense of dislocation lingered, and slowly, as if in a trance, and very gently, she took the garment bag down off the rod and laid it on the bed and unwrapped it.

The dress she found inside the garment bag was the worst and wickedest dress in her aunt’s collection ever. It made her blush just to look at it.

And yet, with the same sense of not being quite there, or quite connected to what she was doing, she took off all her clothes, even her underthings – because a dress like this wasn’t made for anything to go on under it – and wormed her way into that dress.

Amber stood in front of the mirror in the bedroom. She gawked at herself. Maybe it would be better to say that she gawked at what she saw in the mirror, because it didn’t look like herself at all. She was a beautiful, worldly, even wild, woman. She continued to prepare herself for the night. She did up her hair the way Aunt Amber did hers. She put on her aunt’s earrings and touched up her makeup. The makeup wasn’t the way she remembered her aunt, but it seemed to her as though there was only one way to make herself up when she looked like that, in that dress. And still she went on about everything as if half asleep and dreamy-eyed. She tried on the antique spectacles, but they made everything blurry so she took them off. Other than that, she looked exactly like Aunt Amber.

She dropped the lipstick into Aunt Amber’s purse on the dresser. She added the keys. She added the strop and the straight razor. She snapped the purse shut and moved toward the door, when the telephone rang.

She turned and looked at it.

§

GARRETY paced in the gateway to the platform at the station. It seemed he’d been waiting for awhile. He looked up.

The station clock said: 12:00 am. Below it, there were only a few people on the concourse. One of them, a woman, was walking straight for the gateway.

Garrety stared at her. For a moment, he looked startled, puzzled.

‘Miss Wertham?’ he said.

The woman came closer. It was the woman he murdered. She walked right up and confronted him.

Then his eyes widened. ‘You’re – the niece. Not the aunt?’

‘That’s right.’

He shook his head. ‘If you’d been wearing the glasses, instead…’

She cut him short.

‘You wanted to see me.’

Still shaking his head, Garrety pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and handed it to her. She looked at it.

‘My ticket. Where did you get it?’

‘From somebody it didn’t belong to. You can go home now. You’re free.’

She stared at the ticket.

‘Thanks.’

Garrety said, ‘There’s a train heading east in ten minutes. That’s it there. Forget about all this. It’s finished now. Soon it’ll all be dead.’

He walked away. He left her in the middle of the gateway and walked back across the concourse.

She looked at the ticket.

The hand that held the ticket was steady. Below the wrist on the inside of the arm was a small mark, round in black lines, like a beetle.

She said in a little voice, ‘Too late…’

She stuffed the ticket in the purse and looked back down the concourse.

At the foot of the stairs Garrety staggered and leaned against the rail.

There was a mark on his neck, a beetle with a red dot. Even at the distance she could see it clearly. Her own mark twitched on her wrist in recognition. Garrety clutched his throat and tried to breathe.

Another mark emerged from under his collar, and attached itself to the beetle with the red dot.

Garrety began to breathe again. He stood up, still in great pain but he managed it and he took hold of the rail and started up the stairs.

She made up her mind. There really wasn’t any other choice.

She crossed the concourse to the foot of the stairs. She looked up.

Garrety reached the top of the stairs and turned right.

Amber started up after him.

§

THE SIGN on the lamppost said: Sandspray Road. Garrety walked beneath it. He continued into darkness. Amber appeared. She lingered in the light. Then she went on.

Garrety walked down the street through the pools of light. Behind him Amber followed. She paused at the edge of a pool of light and she watched him.

Garrety continued down the street and climbed the steps to the club Elysium. He went inside.

Amber watched him. She stepped forward in front of the window to dallio’s. Everything was the same there in the window and the mannequin was still missing.

Amber went to the door of the shop and she opened the door and went in. The door shut behind her.

§

IN ELYSIUM, Garrety moved through the darkness and splashes of multicolored lights, up to the bar.

The bartender was fixing a drink and his back was to Garrety. Garrety tapped on the bar.

Behind him was the club – pulsing with recorded music, many tables, very full, some couples dancing on the dance floor almost naked. The hostess noticed Garrety. She smiled and approached him.

‘The return of the Prodigal Son! – Or are you the Fatted Calf?’

Garrety said, ‘I’m tired.’

She said, ‘Got a light?’

He lit her cigarette and she sucked it in. She flipped the pack of cigarettes onto the bar.

Garrety said, ‘Are you thirsty too, or is it only me?’

‘Forgive him, he’s new at the job. And very dense. You there! Get the gentleman a drink!’

The bartender turned round. He was the morgue attendant. He stood and moved stiffly.

‘Yes, sir?’

Garrety said, ‘Brandy. That’s what Amber drinks. Alone in her apartment.’

The hostess said, ‘Are you watching over her now? We were wondering where you’d got to. Always disappearing, Brother Garrety. The shame of it. The great abiding pity of you, you sorry excuse for a man.’

Garrety said, ‘Leave the bottle.’

He drank. The morgue attendant refilled it.

The hostess said, ‘Did you know there is a new design for a mark?’

‘Tell me.’

‘It’s a very clever, very long-lived, very vicious design.’

She pulled the card out and placed it on the bar.

‘We found it in the tattoo parlor. Isn’t it beautiful? I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. I want it. I want to feel it under my skin, inside me. There is a problem, though.’

Garrety said, ‘What’s that?’

‘You can see for yourself. It isn’t finished. It’s incomplete. It’s crippled, poor darling.’

‘So finish it.’

‘That’s the problem, you see. The artist is missing.’

Garrety said, ‘Can’t you finish it?’

‘Oh, no, not me. This requires a skillful hand. You wouldn’t know what happened to the artist, would you?’

‘Who was it?’

‘I thought you knew. It was Herr Doktor. Herr Doktor himself.’

‘I didn’t know he was so talented.’

‘Didn’t you? First the woman, then Brother Sammo, now… It’s becoming so difficult to find the right designer. You wouldn’t know what happened to Herr Doktor, would you, Brother Garrety?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure? Are you sure you haven’t even a tiny idea?’

Garrety said, ‘The place is full tonight.’

‘Yes, isn’t it? We are becoming more and more chic. I take the credit for that, of course – after all, I was the one who thought of the entertainment in the back room. But as to Herr Doktor, Brother Garrety—’

Garrety said, ‘I want to see her.’

The hostess shook her head. ‘She’s not for you.’

Garrety drank another glass of brandy and took the hostess’ hand and twisted it at the wrist, very hard, and held it there. She gasped.

Garrety said, ‘I’m going to see her.’

‘You’re an idiot, didn’t you see enough of her before?’

Garrety said, ‘You’re going to take me.’

The morgue attendant watched from behind the bar. His eyes were dead. But there was a hint of a smile at his lips.

The hostess shook her head. She smoked and her eyes narrowed into a particularly vicious and unpleasant look at the seaman. ‘Yes,’ she said at last, and smiled brightly. ‘All right. If you really want her so much.’

Garrety released her. She rubbed her wrist. She looked off to one side.

Half in the shadows behind a pillar, the man in the fedora stood watching.

The hostess nodded. She looked back to Garrety.

‘This way.’

He put the bottle of brandy at the floor by the bar and followed her.

§

AMBER passed through dallio’s women’s department. The buyer was there. He was dressing one of the mannequins.

The buyer said, ‘We’re closed.’

She said, ‘This won’t take long.’

She moved on into the men’s department.

The buyer looked annoyed. He dropped what he was doing and followed her. He was another type she knew pretty well, the snooty store clerk who acted like he was boss and took sides with the owner, when all along he was just another hired hand, just a slave like any clerk.

She reached the counter. The glass case was filled with expensive toiletry items. The buyer moved into position behind the counter.

‘How may I help you?’

‘You have quite a collection. Is this everything?’

The buyer said, ‘More rarely requested items are in the cabinets. If you’re in the mood to browse, might I suggest returning during business hours—’

She unsnapped her purse and took something out and placed it on the counter with a click.

It was the straight razor.

The buyer stared at it.

Amber said, ‘Is this one of yours?’

He held it up and opened it.

‘It’s broken.’

‘I see that.’

‘If you’re here to return the razor, may I ask to see the sales receipt—’

‘I don’t want to return it,’ she said. ‘I just want it repaired.’

The buyer said, ‘Oh. It needs a new blade.’

‘Do you have any?’

The buyer glared at her, stooped and retrieved several boxes from the cabinets. He opened them. They contained blades for straight razors. They glittered in the light.

The buyer said, ‘Yes, I think this will do.’

‘Can you replace it now?’

‘Certainly.’

He unfastened the peg and removed the broken blade and replaced it.

‘Charge it,’ she told him, ‘to the usual account.’ At his look she added, ‘Miss Amber Wertham’s account.’ He went back to the work.

She said, ‘Are you Mr Dallio?’

He gave her a look that made her blush. ‘No, I’m not Mr Dallio,’ he said with a kind of a sneer.

‘I’ve been by the shop several times,’ she said, ‘since that night. I’m sorry if I was rude.’

The buyer said, ‘Of course.’

‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

‘I’m sorry, but I’ve never seen you before in my life.’

‘Didn’t this dress come from here?’ she asked. ‘It bears your label, after all. All the dresses in my closet bear your label.’

‘This is done now. If there’s nothing further—?’

He ushered her to the door.

‘Good night, Miss.’

He closed the door and locked it. The sign in the window stated: CLOSED.

She walked to a bench. She looked back at the shop. She put the razor in her purse and she sat at a bus stop and waited. She looked back at the shop.

The lights inside the shop went off, all but the lights in the display window. The door opened and the buyer emerged. He locked the door behind him and looked right and left and proceeded down the street.

She rose from the bench and followed.

The buyer crossed the street to Elysium. The hostess greeted him at the door and he went in.

Amber paused on the sidewalk. She looked up at the club. She mounted the steps.

Someone stepped into her way.

It was the bald man.

‘Are you a member?’

She said, ‘I just want a drink.’

He looked her up and down in a way that brought the heat to her cheeks and made her intensely aware she wasn’t wearing a stitch underneath the wicked dress.

‘This is a private club,’ he said at last. ‘Members and their guests only.’

He went back in and shut the door.

She tried the knob. It was locked.

She walked down the steps and stood on the pavement. Distantly she could hear the little girl.

Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?

She looked back up at the club. The sign glowed: Elysium. The Last Gasp.

§

INSIDE THE CLUB the music was pulsing as the buyer followed the hostess. People were dancing together almost naked, others sat at tables and watched and drank and talked. And on arms, on shoulders, on thighs, on ankles, the buyer saw the marks, the tattoos as he moved through them and the hostess led him on.

The hostess indicated a table near the back. The buyer sat.

‘Your server will be with you in a moment.’

The buyer said, ‘Excuse me, this isn’t – exactly—’

‘Yes, sir?’

The buyer said, ‘I had heard – that is to say, there have been rumors … I did provide her costumes, after all … and I heard…’

He pulled out a wallet and laid it on the table. It was fat with bills.

The hostess removed her cigarette from her lips. She smiled.

‘This way, sir.’

Across the crowded room the hostess led the buyer to a small, curtained door to one side. The passed through it.

The hallway was dark. The music faded behind them as the hostess and the buyer proceeded down the hall.

At the far end was a small door. The man in the fedora was waiting there. He opened the door.

The hostess led the buyer into the back room. The room was dark. But there was a little light beside the door and in the light stood the Mannequin in the Nightdress. There was something different about her.

On her cheek was a small design, round in black lines. It looked like a beetle.

The buyer seemed pleased to see her.

‘Oh, yes… my offering… You liked it, then?’

‘We appreciated it. We call her our newest member.’

The buyer said, ‘How amusing.’

‘This way.’

They passed through a fringed curtain. The room beyond was dark, lit only by strips of theater lighting in the floor. Starry spots of light shone off the walls and ceiling, but it was difficult to say where the lights came from. There were other patrons at the dozen or so small tables, but all that could be seen of them were their shoes, so outrageously expensive they looked almost commonplace. The buyer knew the other patrons were all ladies and gentlemen, by the elegance and luxury of the shoes. They were ladies and gentlemen of exquisite taste and the most refined courtesy. He could tell these things; dallio’s had a most civilized clientèle and the prices kept the riffraff out.

Along the way he stumbled on another patron’s foot. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he murmured.

‘Of course,’ the unseen man’s voice replied, equably.

The hostess led him to a table.

‘I trust this will be satisfactory.’

The buyer said, ‘Yes, an excellent table. But it’s rather hot in here, isn’t it?’

He handed her a generous bill. She took it.

‘Thank you, sir. Yes, there’s a reason for the heat… You’re just in time. I know you won’t regret the experience.’

She left.

Another strip of theater lighting rimmed the stage. After a moment, the curtains parted and the hostess emerged. She was dressed the same, still smoking the cigarette that hung from her whorish red lips. But she now wore a pair of hospital latex gloves on her hands. It struck the buyer as both puzzling and dangerous.

The hostess gave a slight, sardonic bow.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, Damen und Herren,’ she said in her husky voice. ‘Welcome to the Chamber of Mirrors. Some of you have come before, and are eagerly awaiting a repetition of your previous experience. Others have come for the first time, lured by the whispers of a novel and compelling, even extraordinary spectacle. To you I say, you will not be disappointed! For tonight you will witness a sight unlike any other you have witnessed in your lives. It may shock you, it may appall you; indeed I hope and pray it does, for these are among the rarest of emotions reserved for connoisseurs such as yourselves, the privileged few who are admitted into membership to the Elysium.’ She smiled, evidently relishing her little performance, enjoying the petty cruelty of making them wait. She sucked in a lungful of smoke and exhaled it.

The buyer thought he heard in her exhalation a little moan of pleasure. He leaned forward and drummed his fingers on the table. Would the woman never get on with it?

The hostess dropped her cigarette on the stage and ground it under her stiletto heels.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Damen und Herren, it is my pleasure to give you … our Lady of 1,001 Marks!’

The curtains parted, and the bald man and the morgue attendant pushed a large, cylindrical glass tank to the front of the stage. Both men wore hospital latex gloves. They pushed the tank up to the front edge of the stage and withdrew behind the curtains.

Affixed to the glass tank were a dozen or so video cameras. Cables and power lines emerged from the back of the cameras and slithered to the floor behind the tank like so many parasitical snakes. The cylindrical tank was lighted from the inside of the blue steel containment lip at the bottom. The light filtered up through the sluggish, oily liquid, which had a faint tinge of a sickly greenish hue. The small room became suffused with an odor somewhat antiseptic, somewhat nauseating – an odor as of nursing home corridors or the back rooms of funeral parlors where the embalming takes place.

Within the liquid hung a nude human body.

A few gasps came from the audience, accompanied by hushed, excited murmurs.

The body suspended in the liquid was that of a woman. From the angle of the limbs and the lack of any bubbles in the liquid, or provision of any visible breathing apparatus, it was certain the woman was dead. Only her long hair, which was fair rather than dark, waved and floated up from her neck and skull in the liquid.

Lights flickered on about the cylinder. They were small focused lamps attached to the barrels of the cameras. The shafts of light pierced the greenish liquid, illuminating small spots on the dead woman’s flesh. At the same time, red activity lights shone on the camera controls.

A hiss sounded, of a rapid intake of breath, from a nearby table. The buyer wiped at his brow. The tension in the crowded chamber was unbearable.

Along both sides of the stage, double rows of monitors buzzed and glowed. The monitors were stacked from floor to ceiling. The monitors were apparently connected to the cameras through the cable snakes, for they all showed, in invasive detail, small areas of the dead woman’s body.

The glow of the monitors was picked up and reflected in hundreds of mirrors set in the ceiling and the walls of the oval chamber. Around, behind, and above the patrons, the mirrors shone with the close pictures of the skin as seen through the sluggish, greenish liquid.

The monitors and mirrors betrayed that the skin was neither pure nor unmarked.

Small shapes appeared upon the skin. The shapes were varied in size, shape, and color. The buyer had seen several of those shapes before, on the cards on white linen in the display window of the tattoo parlor, Traxx.

They were tattoos.

And before the eyes of the hushed, straining crowd, the tattoos in the monitors and mirrors began to twitch, and move, and dance.

A woman at a table across the room moaned; her body slumped in her chair and had to be supported by her companions. A man at one of the front tables swore a foul expletive in a rough, loud, rasping voice. A woman tittered; the sound was bitten off abruptly with a hiccup of fear or pleasure.

The buyer looked from the stage to the monitors to the mirrors nearest to his table, to the ceiling mirrors overhead. The entire Chamber of Mirrors had the look of a grotesque kaleidescope, that held them all captive in the gap between the lenticular views of the tattoos crawling and scuttling across the dead woman’s corpse within the greenish, sickly-smelling liquid.

The couple at the table directly in front of the buyer took hold of each other’s hands, leaned forward and kissed. Within moments they were caressing each other passionately, hands shamelessly groping beneath elegant gown and tuxedo trousers. No one paid attention to them for more than a moment, any more than the buyer, whose eyes quickly returned to the mirrors, the monitors, and the nude form in the cylindrical tank on stage.

Something had happened in the tank. Something was different. The buyer leaned forward; he glanced upwards to the mirrors in the ceiling but saw no difference in the mirrors or the monitors. Only in the tank … yes, that was it. And realizing what it was brought a shudder of fear and loathing up and down the buyer’s spine.

The corpse in the tank was moving now.

Her arms were waving, slightly … her legs kicked like gentle butterflies … her torso undulated, softly, smoothly, languorously.

She swayed and danced, and gradually twirled about in the greenish liquid. Her left flank now faced the audience, and a few minutes later her backside was to them. Then her right flank came to the fore, and finally her front again, breasts and belly and smooth tattooed sex.

With a sickening wrench, the buyer realized that in fact the dead woman wasn’t moving at all. Gasps sounded from the tables around him, and from the back, the sounds of a slight, insistent retching. No, the dead woman wasn’t moving … it was the tattoos, the brilliant, multicolored, exotic, bizarre tattoos that twitched and writhed in the dead woman’s flesh, and tugged and pulled and animated the dead nerves and tissues in the lovely corpse.

And then, even as she undulated and swayed back around to face them all, the corpse opened her eyes, and looked at them.

The effect was instant, and extreme.

Two women on the far left of the room fainted dead away. Their companions, utterly engrossed in the spectacle in the tank, hardly noticed; the two women’s bodies slid unattended onto the floor. The couple directly in front of the buyer’s table engaged in the climax of their feverish caresses, stiffened, moaned, gasped, and achieved a compulsive, spasmodic orgasm.

The buyer scarcely saw. His gaze was locked on the dead woman’s face.

The light from the bottom of the tank was faintest above her breasts and shoulders. Her face and head were in shadow, a silhouette against the greenish, glowing liquid in which she drowned. From out of the depths of this shadowy silhouette, the eyes seemed to shine with their own inner light.

The eyes were the color of sea-green glass. They were clear and soft and held no expression of fear or yearning or loathing. They held no expression whatsoever. They were like the painted eyes of a doll, like the eyes of a fish, like the eyes of a mannequin. They were the most lifeless and deadly thing about her. Did they judge? Did they condemn? Did they despair? Did they detest? The flat, level, unblinking gaze continued, even as the tattoos scuttled and pinched about the dead embalmed flesh, and the limbs and naked torso swayed and danced, and the sluggish currents in the oily liquid swirled about, drawing the seaweed-like hair up and about the darkened face in which the two sea-green eyes glowed with no life whatsoever.

The buyer found them deliriously and deliciously desirable.

He glanced about him, suddenly ashamed of himself for the stabs of lust that wracked him. But he found no cause for worry. He was not alone in feeling what he did. From the eyes of every patron about his table, from gentlemen and ladies alike, an equal lust was shining.

It was her death they lusted for. It was her flesh, animated by the living tattoos. It was the tattoos themselves. It was her eyes and what lay behind them, in the dreadful, unnameable meaning that lay behind those dead, dead eyes.

It was all these things, and other things even uglier to contemplate.

And one thing more, one secret for himself alone; he knew with certainty not one of the other patrons could know it. For he knew who the nude dead woman was. He had dressed her many times, had measured her body with detailed exactitude, had designed special outfits for her, had … he had no doubt whatsoever that the nude corpse in the tank crawling with hundreds of obscene tattoos was or had once been Miss Amber Wertham, noted children’s book illustrator and author, recently raped and murdered in a dirty back alley in the butt end of the city, not far from the Elysium.

‘I must have her,’ the buyer whispered, licking his dry lips. ‘I must have that creature!’

The monitors faded out. The activity lights on the camera controls died. The spotlights on the lens mounts went out. The dead woman danced on, slowly, languorously, in the tank, but she was only a shadow now, except for the still-glowing, deadly eyes. Then the bald man and the morgue attendant emerged from the curtains and pulled the tank backstage again.

A sigh issued from the collective throat of the crowd. ‘No, please … not yet,’ one woman whimpered.

The buyer looked down, and noticed that he had been holding his fists so tightly that his fingernails had dug deep into his palms, drawing blood.

The hostess appeared.

‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, Damen und Herren,’ she said. She gave them another slight bow, her lips curling around the cigarette shaft with pleasurable disgust. ‘This concludes tonight’s exhibition.’

 

Traxx: 5

© 2011 asotir.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

5

THE WHEELS of an incoming train screamed to a halt.

The public loudspeakers announced the arrival in the concourse. Amber sat in one of the chairs. She wore one of her Aunt Amber’s dresses. She watched the few travelers come straggling in. They were nondescript and impoverished: immigrants, elderly, poor students. Only the men glanced her way; they gave her looks that made her face burn.

She leaned forward and rested her head on her knees. She scratched her shoulder.

The wheels of the train screamed out again. Tired, she got up to go back to her aunt’s apartment.

§

THE LAST red wound bled out of the sky. Through the open balcony door came the sounds of the ships’ horns from the harbor, the tugboats and steamers, along with the cries of seagulls. The sound of traffic from the street below never made it through the balcony door.

She stripped off the dress, hung it up, took off the underwear. It was all Aunt Amber’s things now, she never wore her own clothes anymore. She left the bedroom tying the wrapper around her. She turned on a lamp and glanced out the curtains over the balcony.

Next to the telephone was Sammo’s card. Her fingers touched it. They picked up the handset and dialed. Over the line she could hear the phone ring: once, twice – on the third ring she hung up and turned away.

The shower head streamed out water.

She lowered her face into the stream, letting it wash over her face and shoulders. She lathered soap and washed her face.

She stood in the shower and washed her arms, her shoulders, and below. The suds clotted on her skin, then the stream of water washed them away, and the last of the ink of the temporary transfer washed off.

But the drop of the ink on her shoulder, which she did not see, did not wash off. It seemed larger now under the thick streams of water; it looked like it had branched out in lines and started to follow the tracks of the design.

Idly, without a thought, she scratched at it, as though it itched.

§

SHE COULDN’T sleep so she went back to the station. She didn’t really know why she was doing what Sammo had told her to do. What he’d said made no sense anyway. But nothing made any sense now, did it?

She went to the station candy vending machine. The price of a candy bar was a dollar. She dug in her pocket. She had less than 40 cents.

‘And what a dinner it would have been,’ she said. She noticed she was even starting to sound like Aunt Amber now.

She walked away from the vending machine.

The squeal of wheels on tracks announced a new arrival. She sat in a chair. She watched the passengers entering as the loudspeakers blared the announcement. A few passengers were greeted. They filed up escalators.

She paced below the board announcing arrivals and departures.

She watched a pregnant woman leading a toddler buy tickets at the window.

She looked up at the station clock.

The clock read: 2:57 am.

She looked back down.

The clerk in the ticket window was watching her.

She turned away.

Wheels screamed on the tracks.

She glanced at the schedule board.

It listed Arrivals: TUCSON, 1:35; SAN DIEGO, 2:00; SALT LAKE CITY, 4:15.

The station clock read: 3:28 am.

The train wheels screeched in.

She started to walk toward the gate. She didn’t know why she got up for this one. There wasn’t any reason, really. Maybe she was just bored. That was what she told herself anyway.

The train, dark, slid into the berth.

She neared the gate.

The train stopped. It issued a last rumble and quieted.

She reached the gate and stood to one side. She scratched at her shoulder and looked around.

The loudspeakers were still. The train sat quiet. Desolate. Down its length were a few freight cars.

The door to one of the freight cars opened. A man was standing in the door. He had no bag. He was a big man, rough, battered by elements. His eyes were shadows.

He wore a seaman’s coat.

The man stepped down out of the car and crossed the platform, heading toward the gate.

She stepped out into the gate.

The man walked forward and looked ahead. He saw a woman stepping into the middle of the gate. She stood straight and looked straight at him.

The light from the exit sign fell on her face revealing Amber’s features.

The man stopped. It was as if he’d seen a ghost.

She said, ‘Hello.’

She was standing three feet in front of him.

The man in the seaman’s coat said, ‘You’re back.’

‘Do you know me?’

The man in the seaman’s coat said, ‘Don’t you remember?’

‘The tattoo artist said you’d help me.’

The man in the seaman’s coat shook his head. He started forward.

‘Tell me,’ she said.

He brushed past her.

‘Who are you?’

He went on walking.

‘At least tell me your name!’

He stopped. Looked back at her.

‘Garrety. Brother Garrety.’

‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘That was the name. Tell me what to do.’

The man in the seaman’s coat said, ‘Stay out of it.’

He walked on.

She stood in the gate watching him leave. The sound of his steps echoed in the empty concourse.

She was trying as hard as she could to figure him out but he was like Sammo, she couldn’t get a handle on him. At first, from the look on his face, she thought he might be like a lot of folks she’d known back home, the kind that come to Jesus after they’ve committed some horrible crime or other. But there was something else in this man, something doomed and vicious, and she was pretty sure that whatever it was that had brought him back here, it wasn’t Jesus.

§

HE WALKED the streets a long way and she followed him, cursing the wobbly high heels and feeling shoots of pain spark up from her ankles. But after a long time she forgot about all that because she started to recognize where they were.

The sign on the lamp post said: Sandspray Road. Garrety walked under the lamp and went on into darkness without stopping.

After a moment, she walked under the lamp.

She stood in the light watching.

Down the street, Garrety’s figure moved past a storefront and on into dark.

Amber left the lamp post.

Garrety was walking in front of the stores. He didn’t look at them. He looked straight ahead. His step was slow and measured. It was the kind of step she thought you’d see on death row.

She followed. Her pace varied. She slowed down to increase the distance so he wouldn’t hear her – then she thought she might lose him and she sped up. Every now and then she scratched at her shoulder. She didn’t think twice about it.

Garrety’s heavy, worn work shoes pounded the pavement.

His face displayed no emotion, only necessity.

He stopped.

She darted into a shop entranceway. She peeked out.

Garrety was standing in front of a store looking into the window. From her angle she couldn’t see what store it was.

Garrety’s face crumpled into an enormous bitterness. He bowed his head.

Then he walked on. His walk was slower now.

She stepped out of the doorway and moved down the street.

The shop fronts passed before her … the store came into view.

She stopped, staring at it.

It was the buyer’s shop, dallio’s. The mannequin in the window posed in the nightdress.

She glanced down the street.

At the corner the sign said, Elysium. The man’s bulky shape emerged into the light at the bottom of the steps, beyond the line of limousines.

She moved on into shadow, keeping him in view.

Garrety was standing at the pavement below the steps. He was looking up.

The sign over the door still said, Elysium. The Last Gasp. Someone stepped out of the doorway: it was the hostess.

She stopped short at the sight of Garrety, then pulled out a cigarette and leaned back and lit it.

Garrety walked up the steps.

He stood in front of the door. He looked at the hostess.

Amber was close enough to see her clearly and even hear what they said, although she was sure they couldn’t see her.

The hostess smoked and smiled her insolent smile. ‘Welcome back,’ she said.

Garrety said, ‘Is he in?’

‘Maybe. He’s not so easy to find… But I’m sure he’d see you.’

Garrety looked at her. He went in. The hostess smoked. All at once she looked down at her half-naked breasts, whose skin was smooth and showed no mark, as though she suddenly remembered something. And she laughed.

Amber stood half-hidden behind a lamp post with a broken dark bulb. The sound of the laugh made her blood run cold.

§

INSIDE THE CLUB, the music pulsed louder. Garrety ignored the waitresses, the dancers, the entertainers. He moved along the booths in a dark corner.

The last booth came up. There was a man sitting in it. He turned and looked over his shoulder and smiled.

It was Herr Doktor.

Herr Doktor gestured. Garrety squeezed onto the opposite banquette. There were a few shot glasses and a half empty bottle of schnapps.

Herr Doktor said, ‘It is a long time you have kept us in anticipation, Brother Garrety. Please now, have a drink to welcome you home.’

Garrety unbuttoned his coat. He didn’t touch the drink. Herr Doktor shrugged and drank his own.

‘I have been drinking myself. This fine old schnapps reminds me of home. I enjoy it. I have been acquainting my little friend with its pleasures. I find that he also enjoys it.’

Garrety took the glass and swallowed his drink.

Herr Doktor said, ‘You should not have stayed away so long. We all missed you. They missed you also.’

‘I was counting railroad ties.’

‘Oh? And what was the total, if I might ask?’

‘I’m not done yet.’

‘Oh yes, Brother Garrety. I think your days of counting railroad ties are over and done. I think you have reached your grand total.’

Herr Doktor poured him another drink and Garrety belted it back.

Garrety said, ‘I must have seen a hundred stations, big and little and abandoned. All across the high plains. I walked the tracks in all of them.’

‘And in the end you found that these tracks, all of them lead you back to here.’

Garrety stared at him. He unbuttoned his shirt. He pulled it open. On his chest, square over his heart, was a swollen tattoo. A round design in black lines. It looked like a beetle.

§

OUTSIDE THE CLUB, Amber hid in the shadow behind the lamp post. The hostess dropped her stub and ground it out next to all the other stubs. She looked around and went back inside.

The neon sign went out. Another one, smaller, buzzed on: closed. The music stopped.

Amber came out from behind the pole.

She walked along the front of the club. It was closed like a fortress. Either the people inside were staying put, or they were leaving through some back way. She looked aside.

Across the street was the tattoo parlor, Traxx. It was closed and dark.

She looked back behind her.

The street was empty of people, but the curbside was lined with the long black limousines standing waiting, as though the Presidents of thirty of the big corporations had come for a visit.

Down the street the shops appeared in their pools of light. It was all quiet except for a strange sound: the sound of a little girl singing. Amber couldn’t make out the words, only the voice.

Amber walked away from the club in the direction of the voice.

Behind her, the door to the club opened and a figure appeared in it, dark and heavy. It was a man but his face was dark in the shadow.

Slowly, heavily, he walked down the steps.

Steam poured out of the sewer grates.

Beyond the steam of one grate some light fell across the bottom of a brick wall. Drawn on the bricks was a round design in black lines; it looked like a beetle.

A woman’s feet in heels stopped by the grate.

She was tall and slim in her early 20’s. She had wheat-colored hair and sea-green eyes. She showed no sign of fear.

Amber looked ahead.

The mouth of the alley gaped before her, very dark. The girl’s voice was nearer now and Amber could make out the words she was singing:

Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?

Amber descended into the alley. She moved slowly, as if in a dream, along the line of sleek black limousines whose smoked glass windows and windshields made it so she couldn’t tell if anybody was in them or not.

A man’s heavy work shoes stepped up by the grate. Stopped.

Amber disappeared deeper into the alley.

The shoes moved on.

The dark shape of a man sank into the alley.

The alley was littered with stacked crates, plastic bags full of rotting garbage, broken whiskey bottles. Her shoes cracked on the concrete pavement. A large rat scuttled out of the way.

Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?

At the far end the alley opened onto another street. There were lights there. Some cars prowled across the far-off alley exit, moving right and left.

Amber moved on.

The man followed. His shoes crunched on the concrete. Crunch, crunch.

Amber stopped, looking around. She heard the sounds and froze. Crunch, crunch. She looked back.

The shape kept coming.

She turned and ran on. The little girl sang faster:

Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?

At the far end the alley a car passed.

Amber ran faster.

She knocked on the windows of one of the parked limousines as she passed it. She pounded her fists on the windshield of the next limousine. There was no response. Maybe nobody was inside the limousines, or maybe the chauffeurs sat behind the wheel and stonily watched her being tracked and hunted down, but there was no way for her to tell: the windows of the limousines were all smoked and she couldn’t see what went on within them.

The man’s shoes moved faster. Crunch-crunch-crunch.

Amber ran awkwardly in heels. She staggered out of the alley—

—and she didn’t stop but she kept going straight ahead, right out into the street, into the traffic, and a bus was bearing down on her—

The bus hissed and screamed out its brakes—

—she staggered and fell, past the bus on the other side.

The bus stopped. The bus driver was screaming at her through the glass windshield but his words were lost behind the glass.

She moved around and hammered on the door. It opened. She grabbed the rail and climbed up.

The bus driver, whose name tag read, Lewton, glared at her.

‘Lady, what in hell you doing running in front of my bus like that for?’

She collapsed on the steps.

‘Just drive, drive, just shut the door, just drive…’

The bus door closed. The bus rumbled down the street.

A shape emerged from the alley, far behind. The man stepped forward. Light fell across his features. It was Brother Garrety. He watched the bus drive away.

§

THE BUS stopped at a corner and vomited her out.

She made it to her aunt’s apartment building. She marched across the street to the door and entered. It must have been almost dawn but the sky was blacker than ever.

She entered the apartment and left the door wide open behind her and went straight to the phone and picked it up and dialed. She heard the sound of the line ringing, then it beeped and a recoding said in a mechanical voice,

‘You have reached a voice box. Please leave your message and number and wait for a return call.’

‘Dimes, Dimes… It’s Amber. I’m at my aunt’s place. Call me back, Dimes … and hurry, please.’

She paced around the phone, waiting. She rubbed her temples. She flopped onto the old sofa and stripped off the high heeled shoes and rubbed her ankles and soles.

The phone rang and she pounced on it. As she talked she kicked the outer door shut and paced the room.

‘Dimes! Listen to me, Dimes. I’ve got it figured out. I know who murdered Aunt Amber – I know how it happened – one of them tried to do the same thing to me! Tonight!’

Dimes said, ‘What was his name?’

Even over the phone, Amber could tell the difference in his voice. It was Dimes, but he sounded worn out and hollowed out. She said, ‘I don’t know his name! I didn’t see his face! If I had I wouldn’t be talking to you now!’

Dimes said, ‘Where does he live?’

‘You think I know that either?’

Dimes said, ‘What did he do? Did he threaten you?’

‘No.’

Dimes said, ‘Did he have a gun? A knife?’

‘No! He chased me down the alley – the alley Aunt Amber was chased down—’

Dimes said, ‘Did anyone else see him?’

‘No, it was too late – wait, there was a little girl. She was in a nearby apartment. She was singing. Or maybe the drivers in the limousines, if they were in them.’

Dimes said, ‘They witnessed it?’

‘I don’t know, they may have, I didn’t actually see anybody. Why are you asking me all this? Why is your voice so strange? Why aren’t you listening?’

Dimes didn’t answer for a while. She listened on the line but only heard a hollow buzzing sound.

At last Dimes said, ‘Look, Miss. I’ll tell you what we’ve got. Here it is. Your aunt’s autopsy was approved. She died in an auto accident. Now, maybe she killed herself, maybe it was just an accident; but I talked to some of the guys in the coroner’s office and, officially – it was an accident, and nobody put anything about suicide on the report. It’s better for you that way. It’s better for the scandal. It’s better for the insurance.’

She shook her head. She looked out the balcony door at the night. ‘Why are you talking about suicide? Don’t you realize Aunt Amber was murdered?’

Dimes said, as though he hadn’t even heard her, ‘So that part of the case is closed. As to her body, we found it. That’s right. It got misplaced. Clerical error, no more, no less. Her body was sent by mistake to the funeral parlor instead of someone else. Number was misread. Anyway, it’s fixed now, except that the other woman’s family had ordered cremation. Sorry about that. We have your Aunt Amber’s ashes here at the Department. You can come pick them up during the day.’

She started to cry.

‘No…’ she whimpered.

Dimes said, ‘Everything is set, now. Everything is fixed, now. It’s over.’

‘Why won’t you listen to me? Why won’t you do anything?’

Dimes said, ‘Good-bye, Miss.’

The line clicked and went to dial tone. Amber stared at it. She sank onto the floor.

Amber said, ‘Why won’t you help me…?’

She huddled over. On her shoulder the spot of ink had grown and filled in more lines of the design.

§

A FEW LIGHTS were on in the Sheriff’s Department. Not many. The county had cut back on the salaries and laid a lot of people off and the graveyard duty was especially hard hit in San Pedro, where all the decent people locked themselves in after dark, and the authorities let the rich players and their bodyguards do whatever they wanted with those who dared go out.

The detective’s room was bleak. There were fluorescents in the ceiling but they were off; three of the many desk had lamps on, the rest of the room was dark. Dimes sat at his desk. A portable fan blurred on an empty desk nearby. Dimes mopped at his head with a linen handkerchief, and his hair stuck out because of it. He had a funny look on his face that went beyond his usual cynical weariness. It looked like he had a bad toothache or something else that gave him a constant pain.

Dimes sat and looked at the phone. The sweat gathered on his brow but he didn’t wipe it off. He watched the blades of the fan spinning around and around.

Behind a glass partition two detectives were at a desk, one sitting, the other leaning over it, arguing over a case folder spread on the desk. One called: ‘Hey, Blow Job, what do you think of this? Did this creep sell him the stuff or what?’

Dimes was staring down at his feet.

Across the floor by his shoes a cockroach scuttled.

Dimes said, ‘Bugs…’

The cockroach scuttled on. Dimes’ shoes didn’t budge.

‘Hey, Blow Job, are you going weird on us or something?’

One detective smacked the other with the folder, they laughed and walked into the lunch room.

Dimes’ right hand fell onto his knee and turned over. Across the back stretched a big black and red tattoo of a spider.

The spider’s legs reached down his knuckles. They flexed and Dimes’ fingers twitched in response, the way your leg will kick when the knee is tapped.

Dimes leaned back and with his left hand pulled a cigarette out of an ashtray and smoked.

The right hand pulled his gun from the holster on his belt.

Dimes said, ‘No…’ He shook his head. But his right hand did it anyway.

The right hand opened a drawer and pulled a bullet out. It placed the bullet on the desk beside the gun and opened the wheel of the gun.

Dimes turned his head.

Dimes said, ‘No, please…’

Far away he could see the other detectives through the door of the lunch room. They were drinking coffee and eating stale donuts.

On the desk the right hand slipped the bullet in a chamber and snapped the wheel shut. Dimes turned and looked at it.

The right hand took hold of the gun and raised it into Dimes’ face. The red and black spider flexed and the trigger finger twitched—

—and the hammer rose and fell and the wheel turned through the empty chambers: click-click-click-click—

Dimes screamed, ‘No!’

Bang! The detectives stared through the glass partition. They came round through the door and moved through the desks and lights and stopped at Dimes’ desk. They sat down.

One said, ‘Jesus Christ, Blow Job…’

The other took half a stale donut out of his mouth and placed it on the desk. A stream of blood ran past it.

§

MORE LIGHTS flickered on in the windows of the Sheriff’s Department. On the sidewalk below, a woman stood looking up at it. She had blonde hair. She turned and took a couple of steps closer to the building and lit a cigarette.

It was the hostess.

She sucked in a lungful and exhaled. She leaned back against the brick wall and waited and smoked.

A little thing, dark and red, slipped down the dingy cracks between the bricks. It reached to her shoulder and crawled onto her neck. She gave a little shiver of nasty delight and exhaled smoke in a long plume. The dark thing traced its way under the collar of her blouse down to the slope of her breast that showed cleavage. It was the shape of a red and black spider. When it settled onto her breast, the shape looked more like a tattoo.

The hostess stepped away from the building. She walked down the sidewalk a ways. She glanced back toward the County Building and she smiled her insolent smile.

‘Bye bye, lover.’

She walked off in the night.

§

ON TOP of the broken television, the ants crawled in the ant farm.

Amber stood over the drafting table. She was naked now. She had pulled off the tight damp sticky dress and underthings but she was too tired to bother with the wrapper and it was too hot anyway. She pulled the sheets of the drawings off the table, one by one. They fell to the floor.

She locked the outer door. There were three locks and a chain. She locked them all.

She detached the phone line from the phone.

She turned off the last lamp. She stood against the balcony door, looking back.

‘I’m sorry, Aunt Amber, I’m sorry. But there’s nothing more I can do for you now…’

She went into the bedroom. She fell onto the bed and was asleep at once…

She lay in bed sleeping, naked still. Sometime in the night she had twisted the sheet over her.

Something palely luminous shifted across the foot of the bed.

Amber turned her head, still sleeping.

The Woman in the Nightdress passed by the window. Behind her as she passed, a bottle fell off the windowsill and broke on the floor.

Amber slept on.

In the living room, the Woman in the Nightdress passed the balcony door. Two of the louvers tore to the floor. She passed the drafting table and sheets of paper scattered down. Behind her a lamp on the floor kicked over; the bulb popped.

In the bedroom Amber woke. She looked around. From the other room came sounds of things falling. She got up and put on the wrapper.

Amber entered the living room. It was a worse mess than the cops left it. A sharp smashing sound made her look up.

Beyond the kitchen door one sound followed another. Cabinets and drawers opening, cans spilling out.

Amber approached the kitchen door. The noises from behind come louder, faster, closer. She pushed against the door. She pushed harder. It gave.

The kitchen was opening its guts. The cabinets all hung open, the drawers half out. Amber stepped in. Cans fell at her, pans and pots and boxes and dishes and flatware. She crouched, sheltering her face, half buried in the stuff.

It stopped. A shriek sounded from beyond. Amber freed herself. She waded to the far door.

She stepped out into the front hallway. A light was burning. It was the harsh donut fluorescent in the bathroom.

Amber stood in the bathroom door.

Something was draped across the sink. It was a strop like those that men used to hang from the wall to sharpen straight razors on.

Amber’s eyes widened.

The other bad memory came back to her. She remembered her father’s strop and his straight razor. The straight razor stroking up and down the strop.

Her father stopped stropping the blade and clicked it shut.

His hand unhooked the strop from the wall and snapped it.

His mouth worked and his voice said:

‘Didn’t I tell you now, Missy? Didn’t I just? You knowed it was coming. Now turn down and over and take your medicine like a good little girl…’

He raised the strop and started to whip it down.

Whack! The sound of the strop striking made Amber jump, even eight years later in Aunt Amber’s bathroom. Whack! Whack! She crawled into the bathtub, staring at the strop on the sink. She drew the shower curtain and huddled under the faucets, and she didn’t realize it, but the shoulder of the wrapper had pulled down. And the ink on her shoulder had filled in more of the beetle design, and it was almost filled in now, almost complete, almost ready.

§

THE SIGN on the lamppost read: Sandspray Road. Amber walked into the light and paused there. She wore another one of her aunt’s wicked dresses, short and low cut in front and back. It was thin like a slip and cool against the heat but in it she felt almost like she was walking the streets naked.

She lingered by the lamppost. She wasn’t sure what to do.

A man’s voice called her. ‘Hey, there.’

She said, ‘Who is it?’

‘Don’t be afraid. I don’t mean you anything.’

He stepped out from the darkness. His red hair shone in the light. He bounced a small rubber ball.

It was the morgue attendant.

She said, ‘What do you want?’

The morgue attendant said, ‘I want to help you. I’ve been watching them. I know what’s been going on.’

‘What do you know?’

‘Shhhh. Can’t tell you that here. This place isn’t safe. But I’ll tell you later, ’cause you’re cute.’

Amber didn’t believe him for a second. ‘Why don’t you tell it to Detective Dimes?’

‘Oh, him.’

‘One of the other detectives, then.’

The morgue attendant said, ‘Listen, they’re all just a bunch of – They don’t know what I know. The didn’t see what I saw. Your boyfriend, for example. Your boyfriend what gives tattoos.’

She said, ‘He’s not my boyfriend.’

‘No, no. Of course not.’

‘What do you know about him?’

‘Well, I guess if he’s not your boyfriend you don’t want to hear much about him, do you? I guess not. No, sir.’

A sound out of the dark startled him.

The morgue attendant said, ‘This place isn’t safe. I’ll tell you later. Damn, you’re cute!’

He snuck off into the dark.

Amber said, ‘Wait – come back—’

He was gone. Amber looked around – there was another sound – it was like the scrape of a shoe on pavement. She went out of the light.

She walked down past the shops. Every now and then she looked back and stopped but there was no one and no sound.

She reached dallio’s dress shop. She glanced at the window display. She stopped.

The window display hadn’t changed. Everything was the same. But the mannequin was gone.

§

OUTSIDE the Elysium, the hostess stepped out and went to light a cigarette when she noticed someone was there.

The morgue attendant looked up at her. Then he bounced his ball.

The hostess lit her cigarette.

She said, ‘Get lost.’

‘I know what you’re about.’

‘What am I about?’

‘I know all about it. Don’t think I don’t. I saw you. I saw those others. In the morgue. I saw all of it.’

‘Did you now?’

‘All of it. You people think you’re pretty smart, don’t you? You’re not. I’m just as good as you! You think you can just do things like that in my morgue? Uh-uh.’

He was so worked-up he forgot to bounce his ball.

The hostess leaned back by the door. She smoked and watched him. She smiled her insolent smile.

‘What’s your name?’

‘My name? My name is Bob.’

‘Come inside, Bob.’

‘Inside? With you?’

‘You want to see her, don’t you? You want to see what we did with her, don’t you?’

The morgue attendant leaned forward, definitely intrigued. ‘You got her? Inside there?’

‘She’s waiting for you.’

The morgue attendant bounced his ball.

The hostess smiled. She went to the doorway. She looked back over her nude shoulder.

The morgue attendant started up the steps. He followed the hostess into the club.

§

AMBER stood half hidden in the entrance to the alley. She peeped out around the corner.

Down the street she saw the morgue attendant follow the hostess into the Elysium. Both were swallowed up into the dark mouth of the club.

She stepped out from the alley. From somewhere high up and far away came the voice of the little girl:

Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?

Amber walked down the street.

She crossed to the sidewalk below the club. The little girl’s voice was faint. Amber watched the club. She looked down and away.

Across the street all was dark except for the lighted front of the tattoo parlor.

Amber started across the street. Her heels stepped resolutely across the cement. Her eyes were narrowed and her lips pursed.

The shop grew larger, and the sign: Traxx. She stepped in front of the shop window.

She stared into the shop. Her reflection palely looked back from the glass. Inside there was only the light in the window, lighting the sample designs, and the small lamp over the tattooing chair. She couldn’t see anyone in there.

She tried the door. It was locked.

Her thumb pressed the button.

The buzzer sounded in the empty shop. Through the window Amber peered in. Her palms pressed on the glass.

Amber turned away. Her back was to the window and she looked back across the street. Then she glanced back one last time over her shoulder into the shop and something caught her eye in her reflection in the glass, and it was her shoulder, and on her shoulder next to the thin strap of her dress was a mark, a tattoo, and it was round, and drawn in black lines, and it looked like a beetle, and all the lines were there.

It was the tattoo she had wanted and Sammo refused to give her. Only there it was on her shoulder.

Amber’s eyes were piercing and wide and stared at it in shock.

Something else clicked in her head. Aunt Amber would never get a tattoo… She hadn’t, either. She herself had wanted one, asked for one, begged for one – but she hadn’t gotten one.

But now she had one, just like Aunt Amber had.

And it was the same one.

Down the street across from the club all was dark except for the lighted front of the tattoo parlor. The figure of a woman ran away from it, and her heels echoed distantly in the street.

She ran and ran, heedless of danger.

Far behind her, the lighted front of the tattoo parlor gaped, empty except for the designs displayed in the window and the lighted sign, Traxx.

Inside, a hand now gripped the arm of the tattooing chair. The wrist was strapped down. The arm above the wrist was rigid. Every vein stood out. The sleeve was folded back and the arm was held rigidly in place and beads of sweat shone on it and above it, somewhat out of the light, stared down the stricken face of the morgue attendant.

The bald man swung the needle into place.

He attached the container of special ink.

The morgue attendant stared at it. He knew.

The bald man checked the needle.

The hostess circled the bald man and the tattooing chair. She was smoking, and lightly caressing her breast, where the red and black spider tattoo twitched in delighted response. Her voice was bright.

‘Give him a big one. Give him a beautiful one. Give him one that will live for a long, long time.’

The bald man started the needle. It began to purr.

The morgue attendant stared at it. His head shook.

The hostess walked over to the outer door. She paused with her hand on the knob and looked back.

The bald man was bending over the shining stiff outstretched arm.

The morgue attendant said, ‘No… Please…’

The hostess said, ‘And make it hurt.’

She opened the door.

The bald man took hold of the arm.

The hostess stepped out onto the sidewalk. A sound came out of the shop behind her, like a groan grinding into a scream.

The hostess shut the door on the sound. She stood on the sidewalk looking back in through the window. She lit another cigarette. She smiled.

She walked across the street, back into Elysium.