Chapter Ten
“Albert Disliked Heaven Intently”
Cecil lay back in bed and closed eyes that had not quite been open anyway.
"Could you repeat that please," he asked politely.
"There's been another murder. Albert Feinstein this time."
"Great," Cecil replied. After a moment, he realized this had not come out as the sarcastic remark he had intended; his tired voice was just too flat to manage irony. Better try again. "Wonderful." Nope, that didn't work either. Sleep. He needed sleep. If he could sleep, the haze over the world would go away, and then he could deal. Satisfied with this conclusion, he snuggled deeper into his pillow. Neck hurts. Sleep.
"Cecil, you must get up."
Dammit, he had forgotten Dave was here. Think. Must say something that will make Dave go away. "Lemme shleep. Deal in th' mornin'."
Dave sighed. This was no good at all. He rubbed his hands over his pot belly, momentarily contemplating the benefits of non-smear make-up. Cecil's aura showed him slipping deeper and deeper into sleep.
Dave reached under the thick coverlet and, grasping Cecil's balls, squeezed hard, which produced a noticeable change in Cecil's aura, but not quite enough of a change. Dave twisted his hand, and saw with great satisfaction the quick-shifting, purple-and-grey aura of a person not only awake, but with adrenaline pumping. There were also some curious red flashes he had never seen in an aura before, which were fading before he could really focus on them, so he twisted his wrist a half-turn further. Ah, there they were. Dave grinned, pleased with this new discovery, and watched happily for the next thirty seconds (increasing pressure whenever the flashes faded) before he realized that Cecil was saying something. He turned and watched Cecil's face, which had an undeniably frantic expression on it. The words, however, made no sense. Dave shook his head and listened intently. No, Cecil was just speaking too quickly, and without enunciating properly; Dave had not been in America very long, and could not follow English with such messy pronunciation.
Just then, somewhere in the background of Dave's brain, some hard-working subconscious laborer put two and two together and sent the sum to Dave's conscious mind, which had the effect of Dave releasing his vice-grip on his partner's balls. Cecil made an incredulous sound, somewhere between a whine and a gasp, and pulled into a fetal position.
"Cecil," Dave called gently. "Ceeehhcil! Now is not the time to curl up and whimper, my friend. The FBI will any minute now be coming here to find you, and you must be elsewhere when they do." Then frowned. That sentence had not quite worked out. Cecil, heedless of what Dave had said, continued to produce small kitten noises; Dave considered squeezing his balls some more but decided, as interesting as it might be to study the red flashes further, that more pain was not the answer.
"Cecil," he tried, in a deep authoritative voice a man on paid- television programming at three a.m. two weeks earlier had advised him to use, "we must go right now, before they get here."
"I'm afraid not, Sergeant Harrison. Please stand up and back away from the bed slowly."
Dave looked up, right into the gun of the woman Riggs, and did as he was told.
•
Albert disliked Heaven intently. It was far too bright, for one thing, not only totally but individually. The clouds he walked on were far too bright; the other souls on line were far too bright; the sky, for lack of a more suitable word, was far too bright; the white pearly (probably textured plastic) gates were far too bright; the old man the line led to was far too bright; the area behind the pearly/plastic gates was, most decidedly, far too bright. It was if some wretched designer, told to work up a place with neither natural or electric light, decided that everything of its own accord should have a damn milky white glow that made everything and everyone look placid. It was if all the edges had been carefully filed off the universe.
The soul in front of him turned around and grinned at him. "Isn't it wonderful?" she asked. The grin showed at least an inch and a half of gum above her teeth, always a disgusting effect. Albert wondered why people with revolting grins couldn't be considerate enough to be born genetically depressed. Still, he was glad to see that ugly people were still ugly in heaven. The grin still faced him, glowing like radioactive milkweed. Albert realized that it was not going to go away until he replied to it.
"Walking on clouds is really very unpleasant. I find that the constant squishing under my feet feels as if I'm walking on a field of dead rats."
Mercifully, the grin flickered enough to cover most of the gum; even better, the gum-woman turned around. Everyone in line took a step forward. Albert was only two spaces away from his turn with the odd man now.
He looked up and immediately regretted it (as, in fact, Albert immediately regretted most directions he looked in). There was nothing up but air, which glowed the same sick dairy glow everything else did, but without an object for Albert's brown eyes to focus on, the glow seemed to move, to pulsate like the skin of a worm too huge to see the sides of. He looked down, and was disturbed once again by the sight of his legs disappearing into the mist. His penis, which in Paradise unaccountably reminded Albert of a small angry man, glared pathetically at his missing extremities.
Albert wished very much he could remember dying, and took a step forward with the line. A man with skin like a damp paper bag stepped away from the old bearded man towards the pearly/ plastic gates, grinning exactly like he had just won a game show. Albert suddenly realized the line was arranged boy, girl, boy, girl, which he supposed did not bode well for dead homosexuals.
A raised voice drew his attention to the woman in front of him, who was arguing with the old man. She waved her arms about— no wings, no one here had wings, thank god—causing a zit on the back of her left shoulder to move up and down. The zit, like everything else here, was glowing with an inner light; no doubt popping the zit would produce a miniature simulation of a fireworks display. The gum-woman had quieted down, and for the first time Albert thought to wonder that he hadn't been able to understand a single word of the exchange between her and the old man. Then, suddenly, she slid forward into a black, writhing pit with walls made of snakes that screamed like men in pain, and was soon gone from sight—grin no more, ye whore!, Albert inanely thought—but left a typically terrified and resounding scream trailing behind her. Albert wondered how he had missed seeing the not exactly inconspicuous pit before, but was glad that the gum- woman was consigned to the presumable flames.
"Albert Arnold Feinstein."
Even as he was disgusted by how easily he could be intimidated by a face with the apparent texture of granite surrounded by bright white hair that rolled from his face like waves from the ocean, and by a voice that carried in it the comfortable authority of centuries of judgement, Albert heard his own voice meekly saying: "Yes?"
"Gaze into my eyes, Albert. Gaze deep."
Albert tried to obey, but something prevented him from meeting the man's eyes, no matter how he tried to force his head and eyeballs to face the right direction. It was like trying to make similar poles of magnetic sticks meet; each time Albert got his eyes within six inches of the old man's steely (of course, steely) gaze, some force caused them to slip away, and Albert would be staring instead at a broad shoulder that so rippled with power that Albert couldn't help but shift uncomfortably. Looking away, Albert for the first time looked directly into the light coming from somewhere beyond the pearly/plastic gates….
...and love flowed into Albert in a river of affection and caring, love so immense and glorious that he would never have believed it could be personal, had it not been so uniquely and personally tailored for Albert Arnold Feinstein. Love in quantities that filled Albert, filled his heart, filled his feet, filled the cracks under his fingernails. Love that... love that...
Love, love, love, love, love.
Love love lovely love love love lovity lovity love.
Love love lo—
"PAY ATTENTION!!!"
Albert woozily yanked his eyes back to the old man's mouth. The wine-red lips moved, forming words, how beautiful. Love, love. Like many violent deaths, unfinished business before afterlife, murderer, love, love, love, lovely lovely lovitty love. Love, love, eternal love, ever—
"Excuse me," Albert said, brought up with a shock. "What was that last bit?"
"I said, when you have accomplished your task, or when it can no longer be accomplished, you will sink to hell and burn for all eternity.
"Begone, ye foul spirit!"
Albert fell through the clouds, which were night chills made solid. He had a lot of time on the way down to think about what shit love is.
•
Cecil shivered in his bathrobe which, aside from his black neck brace, was his only item of clothing. Oh, and the handcuffs which kept his hands behind his back and kept him bound to a vertical bar of the balcony railing. As if the cuffs were not enough to hold him, the FBI had also set a guard on him, the white Johnson, who seemed to find a new level of stupidity each time Cecil saw him. On this particular occasion, Johnson had seen fit to sneak back inside for a ringside seat of the questioning of Dave, who Johnson had a grudge against.
Cecil whistled tunelessly, waiting for the yelling to begin, since no way in hell would Johnson be smart enough to stay hidden.
With a grunt of effort, Cecil hoisted himself up so he was sitting on the balcony railing, glad that his hands were chained on the outer side, so that he didn't have to sit on them. He heard Riggs yell: "What the fuck are you doing back in here?!" and let loose a single mean, anticipatory laugh.
Cecil might be forgiven for bearing such ill-will towards a fellow human being. He had, after all, just been dragged out of bed after considerable agony, accused of a murder he didn't commit, and handcuffed to a chilly balcony in his bathrobe.
Besides which, tonight the universe was exacting immediate and harsh punishment from Cecil, for his laugh had overbalanced him and without his hands free, he was unable to keep himself from toppling over backwards. The handcuff chain slid freely down the vertical rail as Cecil fell; freely, that is, until the chain reached the point where the rail intersected with the balcony floor, at which point it stopped dead. Cecil, on the other hand, did not stop just yet; he continued rapidly downward, his arms snapped backwards over his head at an angle that his arms, and particularly his shoulder blades, were not prepared for. Strangely, the pain of broken shoulder blades was not as intense as the pain in his neck, which in spite of the neck brace had been jerked sharply forward, and even that pain was dwarfed by the pain in his nose, which had somehow hit the balcony during the fall.
Clearly, this was a night for learning brand new things about pain. Cecil noticed that his bathrobe had flapped open, wondered about the viability of arresting himself for indecent exposure, giggled, took a breath to scream, and fainted.
•
Norbert sank back into his seat and sighed. The feel of a really deep, plush airplane seat was a pleasure that continued no matter what turn his life took. Poverty was for sucks.
Beside him, the other person in the private, windowless compartment moaned.
"Norbert..." he murmured.
"Jack," Norbert replied unhesitatingly. It was good that they knew each other's names.
"It's all so fuzzy, Norbert.... Why do I want to go to Alaska?"
"Relax, Jack." Norbert took hold of Jack's chin and turned Jack's head until their eyes met. "Remember, you're in love with me."
"I'm in love with you..." Jack repeated hazily.
"You want to go to Alaska."
"I want to go to 'laska."
"The Force has a strong effect on the weak-minded, young Luke."
"Hummm?"
Satisfied, Norbert relaxed into his seat. Where they were going there would be months before sunrise, and that was just as it should be. He grinned, and although no one was there to see it, his fangs glinted wonderfully in the florescent light.
•
Jill lay back on the wooden floor which, like everything else that was part of the real world, was comfortably soft, even though Albert said it made the world into a giant padded cell—he always made such a show of seeming negative.
Beside her, Albert was glaring at the blanket he had been trying to wipe himself with. Jill's genital area was even messier, but she knew the futility of trying to touch real things.
"You can sort of wash in moving rivers…"
Albert glared at her. He had so much anger, so much emotion bottled up inside of him. Jill had heard Sam and Bobbi talk about how cold Albert was, how Jill's death didn't bother him at all, but Jill knew better. Jill had eyes that could see the real Albert, and she knew that somewhere deep inside, that real Albert was screaming in pain.
She just knew it.
"Jill," he said. His eyes were lovely, two beautiful beady circles. The soft mustache hairs that you had to look hard to see, and then only in the right light, were shiny with moisture left over from their lovemaking. Jill, I love you. Jill, if I must be dead, I'm glad I'm dead with you.
"...how can I possibly finish this wretched paper if I can't touch anything?" Those were the literal words he spoke, but Jill could hear what he was really saying. Jill had always been very sensitive to others' feelings.
She had no idea what to tell him, or even why he would want to finish his silly paper, so she bent low to the ground and tried once again to read the tag on the cute stuffed bunny-rabbit. It was no good; the tag was facing the mattress, and the only word Jill could make out was "love" (the police had removed the corpse, but left everything else untouched pending the arrival of specialists).
Albert grunted, stood up, and left the room, walking through the closed, soft metal door. Jill found it touching that he had such total faith in her; without saying a word, he knew she would follow. Which she did. Why, she hadn't even told him about the phones yet.
•
Moments after Cecil fell, the Caucasian Johnson returned, flushing, to the balcony. Then stared. The suspect was gone. The asshole fucking goddamn suspect was gone! Okay. Okay. This did not necessarily mean Johnson's job.
Just probably.
Had Johnson been of a more observant frame of mind, he might have noticed the bit of handcuff chain wrapped tightly around the bottom of a vertical rail. But he didn't, and neither did Smithfield or Riggs when they briefly glanced at the balcony to assess the situation (Hispanic Johnson stayed behind to watch Dave, who was under arrest for trying to assist Cecil's escape). In fact, it wouldn't be until 6:28 a.m. that Cecil's dangling, unconscious form would be discovered by the newspaper boy, while three FBI agents frantically searched under every rock, behind every tree, and in every other building in a three mile radius.
Dave, of course, could see that Cecil's aura, and therefore Cecil himself, was right outside the door leading to the balcony—and from the look of his aura not doing too well—but the Hispanic Johnson didn't believe such superstitious poppycock. Dave thought of attacking him, but Johnson looked very big and hard beneath the ugly stripes, quite unlike Dave's own pleasingly soft, padded form. Dave knew, of course, that soft water could destroy the hardest stone, but that could take thousands of years, and in the short term Johnson would almost certainly beat the crap out of him if he tried anything.
Dave had the strong impression that Johnson, like Johnson, didn't like him.
•
Dangling beneath the balcony, Cecil was having one of his "special" dreams. He could tell it was special, because it was a rerun, the same two film clips shown over and over again. One showed grizzled old Doc Shriever, his jowls jiggling in that way of this, announcing that the body was pregnant. Cecil didn't understand it at all; they were missing the body, so how could he know? They wouldn't have even been able to get the blood type were it not for the stains on the blanket.
Doc Shriever turned to Cecil then—oh, this was a genuine memory, wasn't it, yeah, about 9:20 in the morning—turned from Dave and the FBI agents to face Cecil. "Wrong body, sonny. Knifed girl's pregnant."
Ah, Cecil thought. Very good, Dec. You can go on with the rerun now. Shriever nodded, and turned back to the waiting FBI agents and police detectives. He started talking about the pregnancy more, but then the scene faded and changed and Cecil was watching himself leave Feinstein's room at about 3:30 the same day. There's the girl in the hallway, looking so snootily at him, and there he is, patting her fanny. Heh. Shouldn't have done that, really, but the child was just so stuck-up. And there's the girl breaking his nose. Ouch.
The memories swam through Cecil's brain, over and over again. It came to him clearly that if he could only find the connection between the two memories, he'd know.
Know what? he wondered.
•
Six hours after Cecil was finally found, the killer had cleaned himself up. The shirt was now garbage, but the pants could be saved; in the meantime, he had changed to a clean pair.
How could I be so stupid? he thought.
What a terrible, terrible mistake I've made, he thought.
He checked his mailbox. Hadn't emptied it in a few days, from the crowd of junk mail in there. Junk, junk, junk, bills, junk. Postcard from Bob at Yale, wants more money sent, love.
I'm going to burn in Hell for what I've done, he thought.
Dammit, he had been so sure! Four months ago, he had followed the werewolf around the corner of the building just as the moon went down; when he snuck around the corner, there was Feinstein, walking the other way. Twice since then, he had seen the ungodly thing go in the definite direction of O'Henry, where he knew Feinstein lived.
Finally, this full moon, he had staked out the dorm. How many people living there could have been here in the summer, anyway? He had been sure of Feinstein, dammit, sure! He had felt sure God was with him when Feinstein walked in alone. It wasn't until an hour and a half later that it had occurred to him that Albert had been human.
Human, at midnight, on a night of the full moon.
And o God, the monster is still alive, he thought.
Where on Earth would he get more silver bullets? He had only had two, inherited from his grandfather.
He would have felt even worse had he known that he had carried with him, and placed on the scene, a stuffed rabbit (not a toy, mind you. A dead, stuffed bunny-rabbit), but he had no memory of that at all. In fact, when he heard about it later, he would be totally perplexed.
Ahh, fuck it, he thought. He got up and walked towards the Dunkin Donuts, although it definitely wasn't that he wanted company or anything like that. No one he could expect to find there, anyway.
Just maybe it would make him feel better to work on his car a while, that's all.
•