Radu-Chapter XXXIII (A Novel by Patrick Kelley)

Previous Installments-
Part One
Prologue and Chapters I-X
Part Two
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
PartThree
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Radu-Chapter XXXIII (A Novel by Patrick Kelley)
23 pages approximate
No one thought the Crypt would reopen following the shootout that occurred not that many months before, but then Marnie Moloku purchased the building and the business. It seemed fitting to her, and though she could care less about the business, it would make a suitable front, with a clientele conducive to her long-range plans.

Unfortunately, her plans ended up blown all to hell, quite literally-or so it seemed when the vials of “magic blood”, as her confederates referred to them, were destroyed in the course of an explosion that took the life of her major client. The upswing to all that was, she still had the money-all two billion dollars worth. She had not now, nor would she ever, transfer those funds to the pharmaceutical company that purchased the vials, which in fact they never received. Since Uncle Phillip arranged the sell, and more or less embezzled the funds to do so, arranging for payment to a shell company from which he planned to transfer the funds to a Panamanian account-well, what could he or they say?

It served Uncle Phillip right, she reasoned. He should have known better than to trust someone of her expertise, knowledge, and more importantly, her drive. Now, Uncle Phillip had other, far more important problems. Aside from the embezzlement charges, he was the prime and in fact the only suspect in the murders of his entire family. Marnie figured she was, as of now, the least of his worries.

Phillip Khoska was broke. Marnie doubted he could even pay his light bill. She smiled at the thought of him applying for Legal Aid. Poor Uncle Phillip, she thought. As more days went past, she worried less about her mother as well. She was obviously in hiding somewhere, and was probably better off than Phillip. She would do well, Marnie considered, to count her blessings.

Marnie had her own life to live, and she would live it. She had no stomach for far-reaching conspiracies geared toward power. She was a billionaire, in fact if not law-that was all the power she needed. She had one of the best law firms at her disposal that would protect her. All she had to do was talk. All she had to do was stay put until they needed her to tell all she knew about the criminal, international cartel that Uncle Phillip had taken over and expanded, the remaining members of which were now under a legal microscope.

With one word from her, their drug smuggling cartel, their sex-slave ring, their child pornography, all of it, was history, and that suited Marnie fine. She had nothing to do with any of that. She merely found out about all of it, and provided the necessary account records that could prove it. If anything happened to her, they would face additional charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and most importantly, murder of a federal witness.

In the meantime, in return for her cooperation, she had a blanket guarantee of pardon for any and all crimes or any potential legal or civil liability due to her past activities and associations. She tried to get a blanket pardon to extend into perpetuity, but the feds just looked at her and laughed. Then, they cursed. Then, they told her to go to hell. When she heard that, she realized she may have gone too far, and so backed down from that demand. What in the hell, she had two billion dollars-no need in pushing her luck.

She had Toby to thank for all of this-or, more specifically, his partner Hacksaw. It was he who hacked into Phillips accounts, and did it all for the sheer joy, the art of the game. Well, that and for twenty million dollars. That was a mere one percent of the two billion total-pocket change. She looked in the mirror and smiled, well pleased with herself. Now she could afford a nose job, a boob job, and even a minor tummy tuck. Soon, when all of this was over, she would disappear to the Riviera, or Monaco, possibly Dubai, and live the way she always knew she should live. There would be no more college, no drudgery working towards a master’s degree in business. She had given everybody a crash course in business economics-a real crash course.

She could afford, for now, to remain in Baltimore, and she would have fun while she did. She had previously arranged through her father for the transfer of The Crypt to her name, and now that old man Voroslav was dead, she no longer had a partner, silent or otherwise. It would no longer be a front for a criminal enterprise, but actually a legitimate business, one that she would use as a means of passing the time until the feds called her to testify. Then, she would be on her way.

Once that happened, she would be a heroine. She would have single-handedly brought down one of the most ruthless crime cartels in recent history, arguably of all time. She would be on the cover of Newsweek and Time, invited on all the morning network interview shows, and all the cable news channels.

Just wait until Ricky Peterson saw her then, she thought. She would make sure she looked her best, and straight into the camera, so he would know he was looking at that “little fat-ass Marnie” that used to have such a crush on him. She would wait a while, buy his law-firm, and fire him. On second thought, maybe she would keep him on just for grins.

For now, The Crypt provided her with the protection she would need without having to spend months in the relative solitude of witness protection. It would also provide her with some fun and excitement. She missed the adventure of the con game. She even missed the danger. It gave her a rush that was better than any drug. Her father tried to protect her all her life. He made sure she had armed escorts wherever she went. At first, it was stifling and suffocating. She came to realize that the only way she could function in such an environment was to throw herself into it.

Voroslave told her many times she could have anything she wanted, and she took him at his word. She sniffed cocaine and smoked cigarettes to the tune of two packs a day, and drunk like the proverbial fish. She lost weight over a seven-month period, going down from a hefty one hundred seventy eight pounds, to a mere one hundred thirty four. That was her first and perhaps her most remarkable lesson in life. She would study her form in the mirror, and realized she still looked as fat as she ever did. Therefore, she lost another twenty pounds. Then she lost another ten. Now, she could finally tell a difference, but only in the mirror. In her day-to-day life and activities, she realized she did not feel any different.

She became nervous and more irritable by the day, and made everybody’s life miserable. She all but made this a goal, thinking that nobody liked her anyway, so why in the hell shouldn’t she make them all suffer? Finally, she collapsed, and though her family assumed it was a nervous breakdown, no one realized at first that it was, in fact, drug induced. When her father realized she had been a habitual cocaine user, he practically went through the roof. He got out of his hermetically sealed room, which he did only on rare occasions-a sure sign that he was not merely upset, but murderously enraged.

When he discovered the names of the drug dealers responsible for his daughter’s predicament, they quickly vanished. Marnie vanished as well, into the confines of a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility. This is where Marnie learned her next important lesson in life. This facility had a reputation for being one of the toughest yet most elite addiction treatment and recovery centers in the United States, and at first it lived up to it’s reputation. Most of the people sent there did not make it through the first month, which meant they would never return.

Marnie was determined to make it through the duration of the six-month commitment. By the time she was halfway through the program, however, she noticed a marked change in the attitudes of the attendants and therapists, all the way from the management on down through the lower staff. In time, she realized she could have everything she wanted. She was every bit as free while in this facility as she had been in her daily life. In fact, most people here catered to her every whim during her last two months. She had gamed the system and won.

When her treatment was over and she returned home, the first thing she did was snort a line of cocaine. Then, she seduced her bodyguard. She began a series of affairs with a number of mainly married men, and became a frequent partygoer. Then, one day, her father picked her up from one of her seldom school attendances, and she knew something was badly wrong.

“So where are we going?” she asked.

“I have something I want to show you,” he answered. “I think you are going to find this very interesting.”

They soon found themselves in a remote area of northern Illinois. Marnie followed her father’s instructions to get out of the car and to follow him down a path through a thickly wooded area until they got where the path led down an embankment. When they reached the bottom, they found themselves in a clearing, where waited two men who stood by a third one who was bound. It was Adrian, the forty-something bodyguard she had earlier seduced, and in fact had fucked on a number of occasions.

Oh, shit, she thought, and she knew from the look on Voroslav’s face that she had better not dare deny anything. That, however, turned out not to be the point.

“Adrian has something he wants to tell you,” Voroslav said. “Go on, Adrian, tell Marnie what you’ve been telling all your friends about her.”

The man was beaten, and barely conscious. He was in fear for his life, actually, and Marnie knew his fears were well founded. Eventually, though, he choked out the words.

“You’re-a little slut, Marnie. You would fuck anything-you-would suck a-dogs dick-if it was big enough-for you to see it. If a horse-fucked you, Marnie-it wouldn’t feel-a thing.”

He stopped and caught his breath, gasping and crying as he avoided her gaze.

“Look my daughter in the eyes when you talk to her,” Voroslav demanded, as Marnie just stood there, stunned, hurt, and furious.

“Go on, Adrian, tell Marnie the bit about the cave-Mammoth Cave, I think it is. Tell her how if you were to crawl inside her ‘cavernous cunt’, as I believe you referred to it, one might be likely to encounter a team of lost explorers, and perhaps if they are not careful, a hibernating bear or two. Go on and tell my daughter all your little hilarious jokes about her. I am sure she will find them almost as amusing as I did when I heard them.

“On the other hand, why bother? You sit there and catch your breath, and I’ll just let her hear one of your previously recorded stand-up routines.”

Voroslave turned on a tape recorder that set nearby, and Marnie heard for the first time the voice of her security guard inspiring rounds of laughter at her expense.

“Well, I certainly cannot add anything to that,” Voroslav concluded as he shut off the tape. “So, Adrian, do you have any new jokes you wish to share with us? After all, this is going to be your farewell appearance. Why not come up with something new, and truly memorable?”

Adrian, however, said nothing, as Voroslav handed Marnie a gun. The irony of this was not lost on Marnie. Adrian taught her how to shoot this very gun.

“As a man of experience in such matters, I can tell you the satisfaction you achieve will be greater if you shoot him right between the eyes, while he looks you straight in yours. You can decide to let him live, however, if you want. That is up to you. We will go up here and give you time to make up your mind.”

Voroslav and the men had taken not six steps, however, before they heard the gunshot ring out. They turned to see Marnie standing there, over the now dead body of the man, his blood spattered on her blouse, his brains blown out the back of his head, while Marnie had the gun’s barrel stuck completely in the man’s mouth.

Voroslav was shocked, not thinking she would do this at all, let alone so quickly and easily. He reached out for his daughter, but Marnie was cold, and unresponsive.

“I’ll be up in a minute,” she said. “Go on back up to the car and wait for me.”

Voroslav and the other men turned and walked up the path toward the car, but then they heard another shot ring out. They turned, Voroslav horrified at the thought that Marnie had likely taken her own life. Instead, he saw the other bodyguard down on the ground, slumped over on his knees, as the second one looked in horror toward Marnie who, with a cold glare, had the gun pointed right towards his chest. She fired, sending the bullet flying straight through his heart.

She then pointed the gun at her father, but lowered it.

“I want to drive home,” she said.

“Of course, Marnie,” he replied.

Things retuned to normal afterwards. Marnie returned to school, and threw herself seriously into her work. She was sixteen years old by now, and entertained notions of entering the business profession. She still struggled with her weight, but otherwise her life was under control. Then, she became pregnant. She considered an abortion, but feared the long-term medical consequences of this as much as she did the use of birth control, as well as the irreversible as well as potential side-affects of any type of surgery. She carried the birth to term, all the while keeping the fact of her pregnancy a secret from her parents and everyone else. She hid it quite well, most people assuming she was going through yet another weight gain phase.

When she gave birth, it was unexpectedly, a little more than a month before the child was due. She was on her way back from a party in Wisconsin when her car broke down in a remote area on the far side of Racine. She was high, and distraught, and then the baby came, after a period of more than three hours. Now, what would she do? She could not give the baby up for adoption without risking public knowledge of her pregnancy. Yet, she could not just abandon it. If they discovered the infant, they might also discover that it was hers. Then, she would really be in trouble-especially if it were dead by the time they found it.

In desperation, she tried once more to start the car, and it started with no problem. It was like some kind of sign. She looked out over the great expanse of Lake Michigan. Then she looked down on the infant girl to which she had just given birth.

She cut the cord. She kissed the child, and named it Leticia. She found an old board, to which she tied the child with a piece of rope, and pushed it out into the lake. She watched as it sunk beneath the waves. She stood there, for over an hour, and felt remarkably calm. She was hungry, though-very hungry.

Marnie went on another crash diet after about seven moths of bingeing, and started to feel her life was under control once more, until she met Lieutenant James Berry of the Baltimore Police Department. It turned out someone had stolen her identity, and the perpetrator turned out to have been a woman by the name of Grace Rodescu, whom Berry had been investigating for various activities of fraud and theft, and even suspicion of murder. She supposedly was involved with certain members of an organized crime ring by the name of the Seventeenth Pulse. Why, Marnie wondered, would this woman even know who she was, and why would anyone in Baltimore steal her identity? It made no sense, and she assumed it had something to do with her grandfather, the kooky old man who was, like her father, a Priest of the Romanian Orthodox Church.

Marnie fed Berry a lot of information, and he in turn told Marnie things she had previously only suspected, and a good many others she would never have imagined. Then, of course, she fucked Berry. It was just her nature. If she were alone with any man for so much as an hour, something inside of her had to have him. If she could not get him alone for any length of time, she would determine at some point to do so. She had a very voracious appetite.

Now, seven years and four abandoned babies later, here she was, the owner and manager of a trendy Goth club, and billionaire. She and Berry had their ups-and-downs, their splits and reconciliations, and their alliances. When she needed him, she usually managed to prevail. Lately, however, Berry seemed changed in some profound way. He was not the same person. Yet, he still did as she asked. It was almost unfathomable, but it was as though Berry was under someone’s control. He was the same, yet was different. He was aware, and yet oddly detached. She wondered perhaps if her mother had Berry under control, but decided this was not the case. Something else had happened, something she could not quite put her finger on. Of course, she knew her mother and Berry had been involved for years. In fact, they almost shared the man in what was akin to a polyandrous relationship.

What was even stranger was Voroslav’s tacit approval. He no longer cared. He became progressively worse in his neurotic illness, and as a corresponding symptom, he trusted almost no one. Loyalty of course was for sale, and he had obviously purchased Berry’s, and allowed things to take their course as he became more and more withdrawn. Of course, even Berry could not protect him from the wrath of the Orthodox Church, but Voroslav almost seemed relieved when they defrocked him. Now, he had less reason to step outside his private germ-free environment. That was of course until the Feds arrested him and played off his unreasonable fear of germs to the extent he quickly told them all he knew about Phillip Khoska and his criminal enterprise.

Someone had betrayed them all, and at first, she thought it was Berry-but that made no sense. Nor did it seem likely that the original source and cause of the Fed’s investigation, Greg Morrison, knew that much. She briefly wondered whether Phillip’s new wife might have turned him and the organization, but decided she was too much of an airhead and was a typical gold-digger, whom Phillip Khoska kept as a trophy wife. He would share nothing with the likes of her, any more than he would his first wife.

That left only one other person-her mother, Doris. She had to be the culprit, and Marnie was determined to bring her down before she brought down all of them. The more she considered her options, though, the more she knew that she herself was safe. She had no part in the organization, outside of indirect knowledge of certain activities. Doris was a different story. Her mother knew almost everything there was to know. She was probably in some witness protection deal, and none would see her until the day of her testimony before a grand jury. Therefore, she knew she had to work fast if she was going to salvage anything like a legacy. She found her father’s papers and other personal effects, and had herself named his executor in the light of her mother’s disappearance. She was amazed at how relatively easy this was to accomplish, and how easily she fooled the pharmaceutical company into thinking she was a legitimate representative. Well, after all, on paper she was.

She arranged for the funds transferal into an account from which they quickly vanished into the ether, all in the name of Phillip Khoska. Now, with him fighting for his freedom, she was free to live openly. It was time for a new life, which in a sense she would ring in this New Year’s Eve.

She dressed the part, too. In a long flowing sequined black lace gown and jet-black hair with a silver lock, she looked every bit the Goth Queen of The Damned. As the customers filed in for the advertised “Grand New Year’s Eve Re-Opening”, she greeted them all with a free drink of their choice, as the band made ready to take the stage. She would have nothing but the best for her business debut, and so hired a band called The Butchers, an up-and-coming regional band that she had to pay triple the usual considerable rate in order to get them on such short notice. Yet, here they were now, setting up their equipment, as the handful of employees she hired for the night started preparing for the night’s festivities.

She even arranged a buffet featuring crab cakes and lobster tails-but the best was yet to come. While the crowd was gearing up for the coming celebration, and checking out the Tarot reader’s booth, and the curtain enclosed chair of tattoo artist and piercer Jim “The Needle” Houser, she beckoned her bouncer for the night, a muscle bound and oft-pierced specimen by the name of Grater, to follow her down in the basement. They were not there, however, to inspect the inventory of booze, but what waited within three specific metal kegs.

“You are kidding me, right?” the bouncer asked. “This shit ain’t really blood, is it?”

“Of course it is,” she replied. “Do you think I’m stupid enough to engage in something that could get me a charge of false advertising?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot,” he replied with a laugh. “‘Magic Blood’-yeah, the Better Business Bureau would ream your ass if they got word you tried to palm off a cheap substitute.”

“Just make sure the temperature stays at this level,” she said, indicating the temperature gauge pointing to 36 degrees. “If it fluctuates more than two degrees either way, reset it. By the way, this shit is anything but cheap. It cost two billion dollars for the patent. You remember how much there was when I brought it here two weeks ago, right?”

“Yeah, each keg was about a third of the way full,” he replied as she lifted the top. He looked inside each one, and his shock quickly turned to skeptical amusement.

“Okay, what did you do, add tomato juice?” he asked.

“No, it replicates,” she replied. “That’s why it’s magic blood. Do you want to fuck?”

“Huh?” he asked. “Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t believe in engaging in personal relationships with my employers or my fellow employees.”

“If you don’t I’ll fire you,” she said.

“Well, since you put it that way-sure,” he replied.

She started undoing his pants as he grasped her breast, but before they could get further along, they stopped at the sound of footsteps coming down the steps. She turned to see Toby, but the person behind him engendered the biggest surprise.

“You’ll never change, will you, Marnie?” she heard the voice of her mother say.

“Mom?” she replied with undisguised anxiety.

“Beat it!” Toby commanded the bouncer, who looked at him as he would a chimpanzee.

“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” the man asked.

“A man that probably wouldn’t like his studs coming out as much as he liked them going in,” the Pulse leader answered. “Now get the fuck back upstairs until we sends for you.”

He looked around at Marnie, but his new boss looked downcast, unsure of herself, and at a total loss for words. For the first time since he met her, her eyes did not meet his. He turned reluctantly and walked toward the steps.

“What is this?” Marnie asked. “Toby, what are you doing here with her?”

“Don’t you know by now, Marnie, I can take any man away from you?” Doris replied. “I can even get them to tell me things you’ve said and done. For example, if you planned to kill me-just for an example-I bet you old Toby here would tell me about it the first chance he got.”

Marnie could say no more, and started to cry. Then, she became angry.

“You’re responsible for Dad killing himself,” she said. “You’re the one who’s been blabbing to the feds. I know it, so don’t try to deny it.”

Doris just looked at her in an attitude of disgust.

“Yeah, so what!” she replied. “I can understand why you would be upset, though. He spoiled you from the time you were a baby, and turned you into a worthless piece of shit. Now he’s gone, and yes, I’m happy to have been the one mainly responsible for it.”

“You’re a coward,” Marnie then raged. “We would lose everything because of you. The Feds will take all we have, all because you caved in when Morrison talked. You’re a traitor.”

“Is that what you think? Morrison is a pawn, Marnie-sorry to tell you, but you are wrong. The Feds did not come to me-I went to them. Luckily, you tried to carry on Voroslav’s work-you saved me the trouble. Now, thanks to you, I’m home free. Oh, and your money, that you embezzled-I’m afraid it’s in a different place now-a safe place. You can thank Toby here for that.”

“Hacksaw is my guy, you know,” Toby explained.

“Hey, you know something, Toby, why don’t you carry this stuff up here? Hell, it’s New Years. There’s no need in keeping the folks waiting. The band’s playing, after all-why not just start passing out the goods, make them all happy they decided to drop by?”

“Yeah, I guess I can put up with these freaks long enough to do that,” he said. “I tell you, though, if I’m going to have to spend my New Years in this damn place, I better get one hell of a bonus.”

He hoisted one keg up and onto a two-wheeler and started up the steps.

“And they is gonna drink this shit, right? Yeah, man, and white people say us black folks are dumb fucks. Man, oh man.”

He chuckled as he made his way to the top of the steps, and then out the door.

“This basement has a curse, Marnie,” Doris continued. “The last owner died in here, you know. I wonder which of us are going to die in it tonight. Do not bother reminding me you are my daughter, by the way, I am so not impressed by that. Of course, I might not kill you after all. I might just punish you, like I used to do when you were a little girl and you were bad. Do you remember what I used to do to you, Marnie, when you were bad?”

Marnie was suddenly in terror for her life, and knew her mother was not going to let her off so easily. How could she have been stupid enough to trust Toby, or for that matter, James Berry, who was also probably in on this as well. She wanted to run, to hide, the way she used to when her mother came home and would demand an account of her activities. She knew however that there was nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide.

“I need to take a piss, Marnie,” Doris now said. “Come to think of it, I think I need to take a big shit. Is there a bathroom, down here?”

Marnie trembled in fear, afraid to face her mother’s savage gaze.

“I just don’t think I can make it upstairs in time,” she said. “I sure can’t just go to the bathroom on the floor, you know. I need something else to go on.”

“No-please don’t,” Marnie begged, years of humiliation and terror suddenly bubbling to the surface.

“Get down on your knees, Marnie,” Doris demanded. “If you don’t you’re going to only make it worse on yourself-a lot worse.”

Marie now bawled like an infant as she lowered herself on her knees.

“Hold your face straight up in the air, Marnie,” now commanded the vicious voice of her mother. As she did so, she felt a thick, hot stream of urine cascading over her face, burning her nostrils and mouth, which she futilely attempted to spit out, as suddenly there was a knock at the basement door.

“Well, we have company, Marnie-I wonder who that could be? I guess I had better answer it, before whoever it is gets impatient and thinks you are being a bad hostess. Stay right where you are. I’ll be back to take my shit.”

Marnie cried pitifully as Doris opened the door, to admit David Chou, who looked remarkably grim.

“Turn around, Marnie-I want you to meet the man who salvaged our little operation-the man who retrieved the vials from that hotel room, before the little bomb you planted on him destroyed it. You really should thank him. After all, he is the man who isolated the enzyme responsible for the blood’s replication properties.”

Marnie was aghast to see Chou standing over her.

“I guess you want to piss on me too,” she said, still crying in humiliation.

“After what you did to my daughter, I want to do far more than merely piss on you,” he replied. “Part of my payment, for returning the vials, is that you die in horrible agony-very slowly. My daughter did nothing to deserve what happened to her. Your mother tells me that you undertook this solely on your own initiative. I tend to believe her. As such, I am happy to say I have been appointed the director of the Johns Hopkins research unit in specific charge of this project. Your mother has convinced me that the work with the blood stands to be a great boon to humanity. At least, in this way, I can feel my daughter did not die in vain.”

“You see, Marnie, before Voroslav died, he transferred all his stock in the company to me,” Doris explained. “I have elected to use this to leverage my own position, to make up in some small way for the bankruptcy the company is going through, thanks to yours and Phillips embezzlement.”

“She’s lying to you,” Marnie suddenly addressed Chou. “She was in on all of it. She knew all about the funds being embezzled. She has them all now.”

Chou just looked through her with a stone-faced expression.

“When I turned you in to the authorities,” he said, “after I learned your identity, do you know what they told me? They said that you were a federal witness, and that you had immunity from all crimes. There was nothing I could do about it. When you die, the people responsible for what happened to my daughter, those who were your confederates, will also face justice. If that happens to include your mother, so be it. If not, just as well.

“Since you have already given testimony to federal investigators, I have no qualms now about seeing you die. When that time comes, it will happen. It will happen quickly-but oh, so slowly.

Doris then suggested to Chou that if he wanted to end Marnie’s life, this would be the perfect opportunity. She would go upstairs and leave him alone with her to think about it. Chou watched dispassionately as Doris walked up the stairs, while Marnie screamed in terror, begging her not to leave her alone with him.

“Marnie, I am very sorry, but I have a business to run,” she said. “See, I neglected to tell you earlier-I’ve also had our accountant transfer your business here into my name. I took the liberty of having your signature forged, you see. I’m sure you won’t mind, will you dear?”

She recoiled in horror at the thought of how her mother manipulated this sequence of events, as she had all her life, and looked at Chou in desperation.

“This was all her doing,” she replied. “All of this was her plan, and that includes your daughter’s kidnapping. I swear to God, the murder was an accident. I had nothing to do with that, that was Toby’s people, and mom was probably responsible for that too. I swear, I am telling you the truth. Lieutenant James Berry was in on it as well.”

Chou looked at her coldly.

“I know,” he said, with a sudden knowing smile.

“When you look at me, where do you think I am from?” he continued. “I bet you think I am from China, right? No, I was born and raised here. My grandfather came here from Hong Kong. He came during the Cultural Revolution. He knew that eventually the People’s Republic would get Hong Kong back, according to terms of the treaty with Britain signed decades earlier. Even though he knew he would not be alive then, he hated the idea of his family being under that despicable regime, and so he saved all the money he could, and he came here.

“He was a gentle, humble, simple family doctor, and he believed in the American Dream. He was actually quite a good doctor. He was a modern doctor too. He kept up with all the medical journals and the new techniques and developments. When he came here, do you know what he did for a living? He was a janitor. He could not make enough money even to send his children to medical school. The best he could do was barely manage to send his oldest son, who was my father, to a two year business school.

“My father eventually opened a retail grocery store, in a downtown neighborhood of Baltimore, not far in fact from this very area. He did manage to send me to school, but I had to work my ass off in the meantime. That was especially true when my father and mother were robbed and murdered by a group of black thugs.

“Luckily, the perpetrators did not get away with it-not at first. The police apprehended them, due to an informant who identified all of them. When the police searched their premises, they had in their possessions certain items they traced directly back to my father’s store.

“One of the men turned state’s evidence on the others, and received a reduced sentence of five years. Another of the men denied any but the most indirect involvement, and as a result, they merely revoked his parole for a previous robbery and assault. As for the actual killer, he got twenty years to life. He claimed that the shooting was accidental, that he never intended to kill my father, but my father resisted the robbery-which that was probably the truth. He also claimed that my father in anger hurled a racist slur at him. He also insisted that my father charged inordinately high prices for his goods. My father extended credit to quite a few customers, you see, and he would add a ten percent surcharge on other purchases they made later in order to balance accounts. This robber accused my father of loan shark practices.

“The prosecutor’s office initially wanted life without parole, but eventually settled for twenty to life. Why do you think that happened? I will tell you. It was because of men like Harvey Caldwell, and Christopher George, and others of their ilk. They insisted on certain aspects of the arrest and investigation, as well as the trial itself, having racist overtones. And, of course, this was during an election year, and so white politicians such as Randall Morrison threw their weight behind demands for leniency.

“All of those men eventually got out of prison. The chief perpetrator ended up serving a mere four years in prison. You see, when the next election came around, a new judge, an appellate judge, reviewed the case and ordered a reduction of the sentence. The prosecutor, Mr. Lonnie Brock, convinced the DA not to file an appeal, and he prevailed. Both my father and my mother were murdered, for no reason that makes any sense, and the main killer serves four years in prison. He works now for one of Harvey Caldwell’s organizations, one geared supposedly toward prison rehabilitation, though some rumor it to be a recruitment tool for the Seventeenth Pulse. Another of the men works for the city, I believe as a garbage collector. Yet another is back in prison, for murder and rape. Another one died from a drug overdose.

“My father and mother, of course, are still dead.”

Marnie was now increasingly frantic, yet knew she would receive no sympathy from David Chou.

“I suppose you think I hate black people,” he mused. “No, I do not, not at all. What I hate is the system, and the people that run it and profit from it. In the meantime, most people are blind to it. They never see the injustices and inequities until it victimizes them. I am as bad as the rest in that regard. I had to lose my parents before I understood. I do not believe this is what my grandfather came to this country for, do you? Yet, to his dying day, he still believed in this country. He insisted that it was an aberration of the system, not the system itself. Well, he had to tell himself this to keep his sanity, I suppose. When he died, my grandmother went to Pyongyang. She lives in a nice little flat that she shares with her sister. They actually do quite well. Her nephew is a physician-from my understanding, quite a good one.”

Chou now produced a large hypodermic needle, into which he extracted a substance that looked suspiciously, to Marnie, like blood.

“I understand you have a word for this-“magic blood”-not the most original name one might think of, I suppose, yet simple, and certainly effective. I believe you plan for your patrons to drink it tonight. Now, it would be interesting to see what effects that might have on them. When I thought of this, it occurred to me to wonder how much greater the effect might be were it injected directly into a person’s bloodstream.”

Marnie’s face betrayed ever-growing terror, and now she was frantic.

“Please, don’t do this,” she begged.

“Oh, don’t be afraid, Miss Moloku,” he replied. “True, the apparent blood type of this amazing sample is AB negative, which is to say, it is the so-called “universal recipient”. Nevertheless, a small amount such as in this syringe would not have any seriously deleterious side effects to speak of, in ordinary cases. Of course, the amazing replication faculties might well serve to negate those reassurances. Perhaps we shall see. As a physician, I love to experiment. It is the inquisitive, scientific nature I suppose which is both my gift, and at times, my curse.”

“I know you are doing this because of your daughter,” she said. ‘I told you, that was not my plan. It was my mother’s doings. So you think you are going to punish her by taking me the way she took Susan. I’m telling you, she could care less about me. She has treated me like shit my whole life.”

Chou looked at her and gave an amused smile, though only briefly.

“I could care less about you either, or about her,” he replied. “The both of you are almost incidental. Oh, I shall extract retribution for Susan’s murder, for sure. That however is only a minor and temporary project. The most important one is yet to come, though it is well under way.

“You know, at first I thought I wanted to restore the “American Dream”. I quickly realized two things, however. The first one is, that is somewhat arrogant on my part. After all, I am, like my grandfather before me, a simple family physician. After I came down off my high horse, however, I realized a second fact, one that is more pertinent. You see, I have come to the realization that the so-called “American Dream”, like all other such dreams, are for those who sleep. They tend to slumber through dreams, and by the time they awake, it is too late once they see that dreams are, after all, fantasies. They tend to wake up from their dreams and come to their senses only when those dreams turn into nightmares.”

“Please don’t hurt me,” she begged.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied with a leer as he yanked her by her piss-drenched hair and slammed her face against the stone wall. He quickly puffed up a vein and, while she was semi-conscious from the sudden blow, he injected the hypodermic into her arm. As he withdrew the syringe, she suddenly gasped deeply, as her heart raced wildly and her eyes bulged in their sockets.

“If you are lucky, Miss Moloku, this will be over by the time the New Year arrives,” Chou said. “Speaking of which, if you will excuse me, I think I shall see it in. I really do need a drink.”

He made his way up the steps, as Marnie’s breathing grew ever faster and deeper, and the pain in her chest grew worse by the second. She felt as though she were burning, and might well at any second burst into flames. She wanted to scream for help, to beg for mercy, even though she realized it would be futile. Still, she tried to scream, but no words came out of her mouth. She looked at her arms, and saw to her horror the deep purplish red and black splotches that erupted on them, as she painfully pulled herself over toward where her purse lay. She opened it frantically, cursing herself for not having the foresight to think to have her gun with her. Instead, she found her compact. She opened it and looked into the mirror, and was immediately horrified by what she saw. She saw similar splotches erupting on her now swollen face, erupting with pus. Her entire body burned with an intense heat, and she felt as though some force inside of her threatened to tear her apart, though every movement by her only intensified the sensation. Her skin tightened and seemed to crack, as bodily fluids oozed out of her.

She wanted to move toward the door, to run, but every movement only brought her ever more intensified pain. Then, as she looked toward the door, it opened, and she saw the horrid form of Raven Randall, staring at her in a state of confused and anguished fury. She tried to ask the girl who she was, and tried to beg for help, but could make no sounds other than helplessly pitiful moans, as Raven cocked her head and looked at her in puzzlement, while her nostrils sniffed the air.

Raven turned from her, toward one of the remaining casks, her nostril picking up the scent of the liquid substance that oozed within. She made her way hungrily to the metal object and tried vainly to remove the lid, but succeeded only in picking up the entire full cask, which she threw to the ground in frustration. She then looked toward the helplessly flailing girl, who now lay writhing on the ground in agony. She looked at first one and then the other, deciding to try once more to open the cask. She set it upright, seeing as she did so that the top lid turned. She continued turning until she eventually loosened up the lid, and then removed it. She stuck her hand down inside of it, and then brought it up to her mouth, hungrily lapping up the cold, thick substance. She then picked up the entire cask, wrapping her arms around it as she did so, then bringing it up over her head. She turned it upside-down, allowing the thick blood to flow over her face as she drank hungrily of the life-giving substance. Then, she set it down.

She was not satisfied. It was cold, and it should be warm. This only made her want more, yet hurt her somehow at the same time. She turned once more toward the terrified, pain-wracked figure on the floor, and could sense the substance inside of her, only warm, and pumping wildly. Her nostrils turned once more toward Marnie, and Raven could smell the scent of her terror. She made her way over towards her. When she reached her, she rolled her over on her stomach, an action that seemed to cause the figure considerable pain, and inspired yet even greater terror. The scent of Marnie’s fear inflamed her senses, and so she tore into the stomach of the woman, who screamed in a cry of agony.

Raven snarled and laughed as the woman, for now still alive, lay there with her entrails exposed, watching in wild-eyed horror as Raven thrashed into her inside organs, blindly pulling out pieces of muscle and flesh, any organ she could reach, pulling them out and eating hungrily. She made her way up to the woman’s stomach, ripping it out in chunks and hastily eating. She finally found the heart, but it had stopped beating. She bit into it frantically, but stopped at the sound of the door opening from upstairs, and the sounds of heavy footsteps walking down the stairs, dragging behind him some strange object that slapped each of the old wooden steps with a metallic thud.

Raven looked up toward the approaching sounds, and then snarled. She growled as the footsteps drew ever closer. Then, she hurriedly scurried back toward the door, and behind some boxes, hiding from the view of Dwayne Lecher, who viewed the ghastly scene of the ravaged corpse of Marnie Moloku with a mixture of horror and disgust.

“Oh, hell naw!” he said as he stifled the sick feeling that permeated every fiber of his being. “Fuck this, I’m heading back to the hood. No wonder she didn’t want that motherfucker to come down here with me.”

He then noticed the overturned cask and the spilled contents, then walked over toward the other one. He shook his head as he angled the cask onto the two-wheeler, and then backed up toward the steps. He could not get out of here fast enough, he said to himself.

By the time that he returned to the upper level of The Crypt, the party was in full swing. He looked with amazement at the throngs of eerily dressed party-goers, dancing to the discordant sounds of what Marnie earlier bragged to him was one of the most in demand Goth metal bands in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan region. He shook his head in disbelief. After what he saw downstairs, they actually seemed normal.

Doris beckoned him toward her office, so he deposited the cask, taking the time to look toward the other, to see it was now half-empty.

“These fucking people are crazy,” he said. “Where is that fucking gook doctor? I thought you told me he was only going to rough her up a little. Shit, he butchered that girl.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” she demanded.

“I’m talking about she’s dead,” he replied. “I don’t just mean dead, I mean tore up inside out. Look at him over there. He don’t have a drop of anything on him. He acts like he just casually walked in here. Damn, that is some cold shit. I mean, I’ve killed people before, but damn”-

“Marnie is dead?” she demanded.

“Yeah, god damn it, she’s dead. Do I have to spell it out for you? She’s D-E-A-D! Dead!”

Doris told Toby to stay where he was, but before he could respond, she was down the steps. After ten minutes, she returned, a dazed look on her face. She made her way over toward Chou, who sat at the bar nursing a Scotch and Soda.

“What did you do to Marnie?” she asked.

“I injected her with a syringe full of the blood,” he explained with no visible trace of emotion. “It will kill her eventually, and she will be in an excruciating amount of pain until she dies, probably in about two weeks-give or take a day or two. That was our deal. If you intend to back out now, I have some bad news for you-it is too late.

“I told you all of this before. What part of it did you not understand?”

“The part where she was torn apart,” Doris replied. “You never mentioned anything about that.”

He finally betrayed a look of surprise, yet still betrayed no concern.

“I did nothing other than what I told you I would do. That was my price, and you agreed to it. Now, if you will excuse me-as much as I would like to see the New Year in with this fine crowd you have here, I think I would prefer to see it in with what is left of my own family. I bid you farewell, Miss Moloku. I have a great deal of work to prepare for-starting tomorrow.”

As he started toward the door, he noted the entrance of Marty Evans, whom he recently released from the hospital following a near fatal heroin overdose. He turned one last time toward Doris Moloku.

“By the way, Doris,” he said. “Give my regards to Lieutenant Berry.”

“I will do that,” she replied uneasily.

She called Berry immediately. She knew the man whom she and Marnie shared for so many years would be distraught at her demise, but it was unavoidable. He would have to know, especially since it was now incumbent on him to dispose of her body. She did not trust Berry. The more days that went by, the stranger he acted. She could usually read his moods and almost his very thoughts, but lately his manner was so reserved, she wondered seriously if he was in the process of turning states evidence on her. She decided this was unlikely, but something was definitely wrong.

He answered right away, and she told him straight out.

“Marnie has been murdered,” she said. “It’s pretty gruesome, so I thought I should warn you ahead of time. I know you were very fond of her, though why I could never understand. Still, you need to come here. Someone needs to dispose of her body.”

“Sure, I’ll be right over,” he replied, and then hung up. It was almost like a response to a casual invitation. She did not know what to make of it, as she approached Lecher, who looked on the scene of the overfilled nightclub in an attitude of amazement.

“Are you sure these people are even human beings?” he asked as he looked toward one man whose tattoos and piercings seemed almost to obscure his entire features, and who suddenly spun wildly to an extended solo from the band’s lead guitarist.

“Never mind that,” she replied. “I need to ask you about Berry. What do you know about him?”

“He’s a religious freak,” Lecher replied. “He thinks he’s got the god market cornered for some reason. He thinks everybody else is either sinners or hypocrites. Let me see, what was that fucking word he got for church people?”

He seemed to search his mind as he pondered the matter in silence, until finally he managed to dredge up the word that encapsulated the attitude of Lieutenant James Berry towards most other members of even the religious community to which he belonged.

“Oh yeah-heretics,” he said. “That’s people that worship God in the wrong way. He be going on about that shit every time I see him. He’s a fucking nut, is what it boils down to. He says one day when Christ comes back he be going to separate the wheat from the chaff, and every person on earth that aint saved in the right way, meaning his way of course, is going to be put through the wine press of God’s wrath.

“So anyways he introduces me to these two old people once, this old man and woman, and so I just plays along with him, and you know what they do? They baptize me. Yeah, Mercury and Hacksaw, they get in on it too, and Ratchet and Fishbait as well. You know something-I don’t give a shit, and besides, those two old people were really cool. They even like my music. They be the ones that convinced me to do that CD of Frank Sinatra songs.

“Anyway, I don’t think you have worry about Berry. That motherfucker over there, though, I don’t trust him. Ain’t nobody just going to let it slide they daughter be getting killed like she did. He ain’t right.”

Doris looked over toward where Chou stood now, talking to one of the regulars, a younger man who seemed gratefully intense as he stood talking to Chou, who lingered there to speak with him on his way out.

“That’s Marty Evans,” Lecher explained. “Now what in the fuck would Chou be doing talking to a fucking heroin addict? I tell you, everything about that guy sets alarm bells ringing. I know he knows about his daughter being down in the hood with my guys and me the night she died, but he doesn’t give me a second look. I’m telling you he’s up to something.”

“You’re letting your imagination run away with you,” she said. “I told him you were not responsible for his daughter’s death, that Marnie had her murdered after she picked her up from your place.”

“Yeah, right, and he just takes your word for that, and doesn’t even ask me anything about it, or so much as look my way. I tell you, something ain’t right.”

“Toby, for God’s sake, he’s getting a hundred million dollars,” she replied. “That is pretty good compensation for the death of a daughter that, to be blunt, he despised, who he fought with constantly, and who hated his guts in return.”

Toby kept his eyes peeled on the doctor, who now turned to leave.

“I still want to know what he’s talking to Evans about,” he said, as he casually made his way toward the man he knew well as one of the Seventeenth Pulses most consistent customers over the years. Evans didn’t notice him at first, not until Toby was almost up on him.

“You looking to score, Evans?” he said.

“Toby-what are you doing here?” Marty answered in apprehension. “If you came here for that money I owe you”-

“Aw hell, that shit is simple,” Toby said. “What, two hundred dollars? You’re good for it. If you need some more, your credit’s good.”

“I’m off the shit,” Evans said firmly. “No offense, man, but that drug shit is over for good. I’ve spent enough time in rehab the last few days, just enough to know I don’t ever want to go through the shit I’ve gone through lately. Have you by any chance seen Marlowe?”

“Marlowe-you mean Krovell? What the hell are you talking about, that fag is dead as a doorknob.”

“Yeah, well if he hears you called him a fag you’ll find out how dead he is,” Evans replied. “I’ve seen him, and believe me, you don’t want to get on his bad side.”

Toby just looked at Evans in amazement. He looked to be steady, and sober, but something had obviously gotten to him.

“Look, Evans, I ain’t some punk ass like Joseph Karinsky. I can handle myself, even if that freak is alive, which I know he ain’t, cos I saw his body after the hospital bombing. See, here’s a little bit of information for you. Not that I know anything, you understand, but word on the street is, that whole thing was Krovell’s doing, to try to escape, only it didn’t work. Whoever bombed that place for him did his job a little too good and Marlowe got all caught up in it. He’s dead. Don’t get me wrong now, I like a good ghost story as much as everybody else, but them and other fairy tales are only good up to a point. After a while they turn you into a fruit loop that hangs out in places like this, and thinks the shit those guys are doing up there is music. Just between you and me-you been hanging out here too long.

“Like I said about the smack though-if you change your mind, your credit’s good.”

“Well, I ain’t changing my mind, and I’ll get that two hundred to you in a few days,” Evans insisted. “Thanks anyway.”

He turned to walk off, but as he did, the door opened and Lieutenant Berry entered. Marty just stood rooted to the spot, unable to turn his gaze off Berry, who returned his glare with equal intensity, though with no apparent animosity, as he walked over to where the two stood.

“Marty, I hear you’re clean these days,” he said. “That’s good-I’m real pleased to hear that. Hard drugs can really screw with your head, you know.”

“Yeah, I figured that out,” he replied. “Did they ever figure out who killed those guys at the morgue?”

Berry looked at Evans in evident confusion, at first, and then drew himself back as though it took him a minute to realize what he meant.

“Oh, you mean Peyton and the guard,” he said. “No, not yet, but don’t worry. We know that had nothing to do with you. Well, I know anyway. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to have a little talk with Dwayne here.”

Marty nodded and left as though he couldn’t get away quickly enough, as Berry turned to the rap artist cum thug with an ear to ear grin.

“Quite a crowd here tonight, huh?” he asked.

“Man, you are really too much, do you know that?” Toby said, but Berry caught a glimpse of apprehension in his civilian informant’s eyes that gave him some concern.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“She hasn’t told you yet, has she?”

“You mean about Marnie?” Berry asked. “Yeah, she called me just a few minutes ago.”

Lecher stood there looking at Berry in wonder at his casual attitude. Maybe it just had not rally sunk in, he considered.

“Well, I think you ought to know, she’s tore up pretty fucking bad,” he said. “I know you were close and all, so I just thought you deserved a heads up.”

“Gee, well that’s right thoughtful of you, Toby,” Berry replied.

What in the hell is wrong with him, Toby wondered. Berry just stood there, smiling, as he looked around at first one and then another in the crowd, and toward the band.

“Look, I’m getting the hell out of here,” Toby finally said. “I got my own New Years party I supposed to be at, and in fact I’m more’n an hour late. Call if you need anything, but please-not until after two. I’ll try to make it here by three.”

Berry assured him he could handle everything here on his own, so Lecher turned to leave, but before he made it to the door, Berry stopped him and wished him a Happy New Year. Lecher stopped and looked at Berry, almost sure he was in a state of shock, or something similar to that. He returned the wish, and then walked out the door as quickly as he could, as Berry walked up to the bar and ordered a Samuel Adams beer. He sipped it slowly, and then, on a whim, ordered a round of drinks for the crowd.

“Everybody drink up!” he shouted, as the appreciative crowd thanked him in near unanimity. He began sipping his second drink as he surveyed the makeshift tattoo booth.

“You know, I’m not sure this is legal here,” Berry told “The Needle”. “On the other hand, the hell with it. What kinds of tattoos are you doing?”

“Anything you want,” Houser replied. “Dragon, snake, vulture, bat, spider’s web, or dagger dripping blood, all free, provided I include The Crypt logo underneath it. Ordinarily these tattoos would be from two hundred dollars on up to four-fifty. You don’t look like the type of guy that would be into tattoos, by the way, or piercings either. You ain’t a cop, are you?”

“Yeah, I am, but no problem, I ain’t on duty,” Berry replied reassuringly. “I just wondered if you could do a “MOM” tattoo, but I guess not, huh?”

“Sorry, no, I didn’t bring the design for that one,” Houser replied. “This is clean, by the way. It’s not really a standard tattoo needle. It’s a laser. It’s completely safe, takes less than one-fourth the time of a regular tattoo needle, and can be done in one setting. It’s also easier and less expensive to remove, with less resultant scarring.”

“Well, I’ll be hornswoggled,” Berry said. “So this is turning into something of a science fair. I see you also do piercings. Is there any chance you might pierce my rectum?”

“So, what are you a wise guy or something?” Houser asked with suddenly narrowed eyes.

“Oh, not at all,” Berry reassured him. “I just thought that since people pierce just about”-

“Hey Mister, thanks for the drink a minute ago,” an obviously under aged dyed pink-haired girl said as she tugged at Berry’s elbow. He turned to see her standing in front of a group of people most of who also looked considerably below the legal drinking age.

“I was thinking of getting my pussy tattooed with a snake or something? I was just wondering what you thought I should get.”

“A vulture would be more like it,” one of her friends said as she rolled her eyes.

“Or a spider’s web,” opined yet another.

“I wouldn’t get a tattoo on your pussy if I were you,” Berry said dryly. “When your pubic hairs start coming in it’s liable to cause some problems.”

The girl reacted with a stunned expression as her friends snickered.

“You have to have an adult ID anyway,” Houser explained.

“You could always get your nipple pierced,” Berry suggested. “As long as you wear it on a regular basis and guard against infection the hole will grow right along with the rest of it.”

To her friends delighted amusement, she raised her top to reveal two smaller than average sized bare breasts with relatively large, protruding nipples.

“I guess they’re big enough to do it now, huh?” she asked with a mock lecherous grin.

“Well, they seem to be nice and firm,” he replied as he reached out for her left nipple. He squeezed it tightly between his thumb and index finger, inducing a loud scream of pain as he started walking toward the door, both dragging and, with his right hand at her back, pushing her beside him all the way in a state of shock and humiliation.

“Now, you get your ass out of here,” he said, and then looked toward her friends, who stood staring at him and in each other in complete shock.

“That goes for the rest of you, get your asses out of here before I haul you in and close this place down,” he warned them.

“Kids these days,” he observed to Houser, who just stared at him coldly as he walked toward the stage, where the band now made ready to perform another set.

“You guys know anything by The Mocktones?” he asked.

“Who the fuck are they?” asked the band’s front man and lead singer, as the lead guitarist shrugged.

“Never mind,” he said. “Marilyn Manson will do. In fact, that will do fine. Happy New Years.”

He headed back toward the bar as the band regarded him with curious wonder. Before he got there, however, a wild looking woman with dark brown hair with blood red streaks and smears of the same colored make-up stopped him.

“Hey, you want to dance, man?” she asked. Berry turned and, seeing the girl, he screamed.

“Oh hell,” he said. “I’m sorry. I thought you were somebody I know. Hey, why not, I’ve always wanted to learn to dance. Why don’t you just let me watch a few times, then maybe I’ll know what to do?”

He finally made it back to the bar and ordered another Samuel Adams, and noticed almost everybody else seemed to be drinking Bloody Mary’s. He noticed something else. Everybody seemed to either be staring at him, or trying with great difficulty not to do so.

“What in the hell are you doing?” he suddenly heard Doris demand. He turned to see her standing behind him with an obvious look of impatient exasperation. “I need to see you back in the office.”

“I’ll be there in just a few minutes,” he said. “It’s been some time since I’ve been to a New Year’s Eve Party that I wasn’t on duty. Don’t worry, Marnie ain’t going anywhere.”

For just a second, she stiffened as though frozen in the instant, as the band suddenly began to play. Berry suddenly remembered a suggestion he wanted to make, but now he realized he would have to wait until this band finished yet another probably excruciatingly long number. He watched Doris stomp back toward the office in a fury, and he stood. He finished his drink. He removed his gun from his side-holster, pointed it up in the air, and discharged it.

The band stopped as several people either screamed or shouted in shock, and various people dropped to the floor.

“Hey, mister, what the hell is wrong with you?” the transgender bartender demanded in some concern, as a customer, who looked to be either an old regular or a bouncer, approached him calmly, yet methodically. Berry ignored both of them.

“Hey, everybody, I have a suggestion to make,” he shouted to the crowd. “Listen up. It just occurred to me that at the rate you people are drinking the magic blood, there won’t be any left to see the New Years in with. So I just suggest we hold off until then, and when the clock strikes twelve, we all toast in unison. What do you all say?”

“Anything you say, mister,” the bartender replied in a tone of notable concern and anxiety.

“Hey, you know, that’s not a bad fucking idea,” one of the customers said, whereupon a number of patrons agreed more or less enthusiastically.

“Great,” Berry said. “In the meantime-bartender, another round of drinks on me, for everybody.”

Everybody in the immediate vicinity cheered and shouted their thanks as Berry made his way slowly toward the office, then stopped once more to address the bartender, who seemed yet nervous over the disruption, as the band members seemed engaged in a conversation with Jim “The Needle” Houser.

“By the way, are you a woman changing into a man, or a man changing into a woman?”

“I’m a woman and I’ve already changed,” the transgender bartender answered uneasily.

“Oh-I’m really sorry. Please, my apologies,” Berry replied as he turned and headed toward the office, where Doris paced the floor.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Doris demanded.

“Look, I needed to linger around out there for a few minutes,” Berry replied. “You never can tell if there might be people from the department in this place, especially owing to its late reputation. From what I can tell, though, it seems clear, for now. Still, you can’t be too careful.”

“Fine, so what are you going to do about Marnie?” she asked. “Toby was no help at all. He insisted he had to leave, so I’m stuck with her. I have to get her out of here, just in case we are raided. Now here you are shooting off your weapon in a crowded barroom. What in the hell is wrong with you?”

Berry told her not to worry, that he would see to her in his own good time. For now, he just wanted to go down and pay his respects.

He walked downstairs, making sure to close and lock the basement door behind him. It was worse even than either Toby or Doris implied. Damn, he thought, there’s almost nothing left but bones. He kneeled down beside her, crossed himself, said a quick prayer, and then he cried. He sat there for a few minutes, crying profusely, until he caught the hint of a slight movement. Then, he heard a low, gutteral moan-and then a growl, that seemed to grow in intensity.

“Raven-is that you, sweetheart?” he asked.

Then he saw her hair sticking out from behind stacked crates of Hennessy Brandy.

“Raven, come out here-now!” he demanded. Slowly, she rose, and looked at him with foreboding. She looked at him, moaned lowly, and then let out a roar as she lowered herself into a threateningly offensive stance. She walked slowly and cautiously toward him as he rose.

“Where have you been, Raven? You know you’re not supposed to leave the house. I have the car parked out in the back. You’d better let me take you to the trunk. You know what will happen if you’re out when the sun rises.”

He said this slowly, deliberately, as she cocked her head, trying to understand, trying to decipher his tone, his body language, and his emotions. He was steady, and calm, but most of all, he was firm, though not angry. Yet, she felt an overwhelming sense of sadness emanating from him, and this confused her. She moaned.

“Come on, Raven, let’s go to the car. You can wait in the trunk until I take you home. It won’t take too long.”

She looked toward the ravaged body of Marnie Moloku, and he sighed with realization.

“Okay, we can take her with us,” he said. “I know you stay hungry, don’t you, Raven?”

She growled fiercely and loudly, however, when he moved toward the body, and when he bent down she bared her teeth and moved quickly toward him. He jumped back, whereupon she pounced on the cadaver, guarding it protectively.

“For God’s sake, Raven, we can’t stay down here,” he insisted. “You can’t stay down here. We have to leave.”

She continued to growl as he moved closer, and he reached into his inside coat pocket and retrieved the small, plastic water pistol he had carried with him for some days now. He sprayed her, and she howled in horror, and then backed away from the body. She continued to growl in impotent frustration and fear, as he bent down and picked up the body. He carried it outside to where his car awaited, and then he opened the trunk. After placing the body on top of a plastic sheet, he returned to the basement of the club. Raven was sitting on her haunches, rocking back and forth. She yet wore the same clothes she was buried in, and which now were dirty, threadbare, and in tatters.

After he got her home, he would clean her up and dress her in some decent clothes, he decided, though this would be a challenge due to the morbid fear of water that now afflicted her. He told her to bow her head.

“Let’s pray, Raven,” he said. “Lord, will you please watch out for Raven and keep her safe from harm. Take her into your bosom, oh Lord. Forgive her all her sins in the name of the Father, the Son, and The Holy Ghost. Amen.”

Raven looked at him as he recited this prayer, which he often did, with her head cocked on her shoulder. Then, she did something she never before had done. She spoke.

“Aaaa-Men!” she said. Then, she looked at his shocked expression, and she laughed. It was not a laugh of joy, however, but a derisive laugh of insanity, yet also of pain, and hopelessness.

“That’s a start, Raven,” he said. “Com on, now, let’s go. You can eat while you’re waiting.”

She followed behind him, out the basement door, around the back to the car. She looked up at the sky, in dread of seeing the sun, with its blistering heat and sickening light. Then, she looked into the car trunk, her nostrils sniffing wildly. She reached toward the body, but Berry grabbed her arm. She snarled as she pulled away from him.

“Raven, get in the trunk, before somebody sees you,” he commanded.

She looked back toward The Crypt, and he saw a sense of longing in her eyes.

“Yeah, I know, you miss this place, don’t you?” he asked. “That’s understandable. You had a lot of good times here. Everything has changed, Raven. All of your old friends, they are dead and gone. There’s nothing here for you anymore, but memories. You have to leave it behind.”

He said this with such sincerity that she could not help but feel overcome by simultaneous waves of pity, longing, regret, and despair. Somewhere deep inside, she understood what he told her, and knew that he was right. At the same time, it angered her. She looked inside the trunk once more, and then she carefully climbed inside of it. She looked up at the sky, and he saw her tremble. He retrieved his flashlight, and shone it above her, an action that made her stiffen with uncontrollable terror.

“It won’t be long now, Raven,” he said. He shut the car trunk.

“Try to get some sleep, Raven,” he said, and then he went back inside.

Back up in the bar, he had another Samuel Adams, and attempted to drown out the laughter and noise of the New Years revelers. He walked up to the Tarot booth, and asked for a reading, and asked the woman what the charge was.

“It’s free tonight, courtesy of the owner,” she said.

“Are you a Wiccan?” he asked.

“Yes I am, third generation Alexandrian trad, in fact. I’ve been doing tarot for eighteen years now. I’m also a professional astrologer.”

She shuffled the cards, and laid out three of them, all upside down, or as she put it, reversed.

“The Three of Swords means that you recently were forced to cut ties, or otherwise make some kind of profound change in your life, in order to force a resolution to an ongoing problem of some magnitude. It was painful, but necessary, though the pain yet lingers.

“The second card, the Emperor, describes your present situation. You are a man of firm commitments and values. Yet, you tend to be at times too much of an authoritarian, and can be unyielding. Even when things seem hopeless, you never give up, but work within the system to accomplish your long-term goals. The last card relates to the probable outcome in terms of the near future.”

She paused before continuing, and seemed to be considering her next words.

“Okay, I’m waiting,” he said.

“The last card is the Seven of Swords, which like the other two is reversed. This advises you to be wary of falling into the traps of your own deceptions, both those deceptions you portray in your relations towards others, and those delusions of your own self-deceptions.”

“Wow, that’s really very good,” he said. “You say you’ve been doing this for eighteen years?”

She affirmed that she had.

“You do know you’re going to go to hell, right?” he asked. She seemed taken aback by this, but tried to throw it off with a casual laugh.

“Just thought I’d better throw that out there, for your own good,” he said as he turned to walk away. “Happy New Year to you, though.”

Berry went back into the office, to see Doris sitting at the desk with her head lowered and her hands cupped over her face.

“Relax, it’s taken care of,” he said.

“No, it’s not taken care of,” she shouted. “It’s a fucking mess. Thanks to my husband’s insane trust of our daughter in matters she was not by any stretch of the imagination capable of coping with on anything like a rational level, it is a mountain of fucking shit. Now I have to pay all the people that she has hired, and close this place down. First, I have to go over everything here and make sure she did not leave anything that might incriminate me. In the meantime, when the feds figure out she is missing, they are going to come looking for me.

“So what are you still here for anyway? The idea was to take her body out somewhere and dispose of it, not leave her out in the trunk of your care for the next three or four hours.”

“I’m going to stay here and see in the New Year,” he replied. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“Fine,” she replied. “See it in, just stay the hell out of my way and don’t be making any more scenes out there. Those people are creepy enough as it is. Now, I have to hang out here and listen to some insane racket that passes to them for music, and when the clock strikes twelve, I have to pass out about seventy ounces of blood-for them to drink, no less, to ring in the New Year. Between now and then I have to worry about being raided, while you have my daughter’s body, or what’s left of it, out in the trunk of your car.”

The phone rang, and she answered it quickly, but seemed suspiciously unsure of what to say to whomever she spoke.

“I need to take this in private if you don’t mind,” she said.

“Uh-huh, sure,” he replied, and walked on out. He returned to the basement, moving as quickly as he could once he got down the steps and out of sight of the clubs patrons. He hurried to the basement door, which he left unlocked in case he needed to leave quickly. Sure enough, he heard someone outside, talking to someone on the phone.

“She was dirty and bloody as hell is all I can tell you,” the man said. “Yes, of course she was alive. He put her right in the trunk along with the body. She acted like she didn’t want to go at first, but he got her in there somehow and closed the trunk. Whoever she was she acted fucking crazy.”

For a minute, he said no more, but then spoke again.

“Yeah, I’ll call them, but I’m telling you now, I don’t want my name in this,” he continued.

Fishbait, he realized. That son-of-a-bitch. He should have killed him that night during the raid as he first planned, but the bastard gave up quick, so he could not just kill him in cold blood with all the other police in the club. Toby insisted he was cool, but on the other hand, he did not trust Toby either. Now, come to find out, they were planning to set him up. Doris, however, let it slip-unfortunately for her-by mentioning his already putting Marnie’s body in the car. She could not have known about that without having other eyes watching his movements.

It was all he could do to go out there and let Raven out of the trunk-let her deal with the backstabbing son-of-a-bitch. He had a better idea, however, one that would not be quite as messy. After Fishbait got off the phone, Berry casually walked out, with his gun drawn.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “Raven’s still hungry. That girl has got one hell of an appetite.”

“Berry,” Fishbait replied. “Hey, man, Happy New Year to you. Wha’cha doing hanging around here, though? Me, I’m looking for some action. Whose Raven?”

“Raven-you know, Raven, the girl you saw me put in the trunk a minute ago-that Raven.”

Fishbait looked at him with uncertainty, wondering how he could play this off, but was obviously at a loss for words.

“I would imagine she’s about ready for desert about now,” Berry continued. “She seems to really like it when a person’s blood starts pumping real fast and strong. That girl, she just can’t stop eating. But, you know how that is.

“As my ex-wife always used to say-a growing boy needs his food. Of course, Raven isn’t a boy, though she’s not really a girl, either, when you get right down to it. Just your average, garden-variety zombie, I guess. They especially like brains. I think that’s their version of soul food.”

“Look man, I don’t know what you’re going on about, dig it, I was just out celebrating the New Year and come out here to have a smoke.”

“Oh, good, I could use a cigarette. Can I bum one from you?”

Fishbait stiffened, but recovered from a frozen expression to make the pretence of searching his pockets.

“Maybe you dropped them while you were talking on your cell phone, you think?”

“All right, man, look now, there ain’t no need in getting”-

“You look worried, Fishbait,” Berry said as he aimed his gun. “Actually, this is your lucky night. You’re going to be a star. See, since this ain’t my police revolver, so since the bullets can’t be traced back to me, you’re going to be on Unsolved Mysteries. Oh, darn, wait a minute-they cancelled that show a long time ago. Well, shit, I don’t guess this is your lucky night after all.”

He fired a bullet straight into Fishbait’s throat, and the Pulse member dropped down to his knees.

“I would aim for the heart or the head, but then again, if I did that they might think you were killed by a professional hit man, and that would be kind of embarrassing.”

Berry watched as Fishbait clung desperately to life for a little over two minutes, and finally died. He opened the trunk of his car, but he did so cautiously. Raven was now half-asleep, and she growled, but seemed too far-gone to completely awake. He tugged gently at the decimated corpse which she half-covered as she slumbered, which induced a louder warning growl as she partially opened her eyes. He successfully removed the corpse, keeping it enclosed within the plastic sheeting as he did so, after which he closed the trunk back. He then stuffed the corpse into the open dumpster.

That bitch tried to screw me, he thought to himself. James Berry was a big believer in returning the favor when it came to getting a good fucking. He pulled Fushbait’s body off to the side of the dumpster, and with some difficulty, he hoisted him up and dumped him in there as well, then taking great pains to sufficiently cover both bodies with garbage, paper, and cardboard. Let the city dump sort them out, he mused, as he briefly walked back inside the basement. Satisfied that Doris had not followed him downstairs, he shut the door and walked up the steps to the upper street level. He then returned through the front door to The Crypt.

It was close now to midnight, and he looked toward the office, where Doris stood, looking at him curiously. He walked up to the bar and ordered another Samuel Adams. He decided he would wait around until twelve. The transgender bartender, whose name he learned was Leigh, was busily pouring blood into shot glasses, while at the same time trying to keep up with the demands for drinks. He offered to help him/her. But Leigh-or was it Lee-declined. She already had a helper, in fact, the same man who earlier seemed ready to pounce on him when he discharged his gun in the ceiling.

Berry was amazed that they somehow managed to fill and set all the glasses-easily more than a hundred of them-with just over ten minutes to spare until the New Years. She announced the temporary closing of the bar as she started to stack the shot glasses. She then announced the special of the hour was ready to be served, and was on the house for all who wanted it. They began filing up to the bar, reaching for the concoction, while Berry felt himself oddly compelled to join in. He looked around to see Marty Evans had returned, and was eyeing him suspiciously, then turned when he noted Berry watching him. That was never a good sign, he realized. Damn that fucking Peyton and his big mouth, he thought.

Soon, the countdown began, and when the clock struck twelve, he lifted his glass and prepared to drink along with almost the entire house full of patrons and employees, including Leigh. He looked over toward Marty. He was not drinking. Berry turned up his shut glass as The Butchers began the most bizarre rendition of Auld Lang Sine he ever heard.

Then, he heard nothing. Everything went silent. There was no noise from the band, no din of chatter from the patrons. He looked at several of them, and realized they were all the same. Their eyes were all green. That was damn strange. What was stranger was the way the green spread out over their faces. They were all green, and then gray. They were all dead, he realized. Holy shit! He looked over toward Evans, and even though Marty was not looking at him, he was watching him.

The little bastard fucking knows everything, he realized-or he thinks he does. The laughter of the patrons were now starting to filter through what he realized was the buzzing and low toned ringing that had at first drowned them out. He was starting to pick up pieces of conversation.

“Wow, what the fuck is in this shit?” somebody asked.

“Whatever it is,” another replied, “I damn sure want me some more of it.”

He could hear the band playing again, and everybody started dancing. They are all like cattle, he thought.

“You are right,” he heard a voice say. “They are livestock, in a sense.”

Who in the hell was that, he thought. He turned and saw no one at first, until he looked toward the mirror. He saw his reflection, but it was not his face. Oh, shit. He thought. It’s him again. The intense looking man with the blonde hair and beard, dressed like something out of a poor man’s Ren Fair. What is he doing in my reflection?

“They are very content, are they not?” the man asked him. “Livestock usually are until they reach the slaughter house. That is when they are at their tastiest.”

He closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples. When he opened his eyes again, the man was gone, and he was back there in the mirror, looking at himself the way he should be. The man was still somewhere, though. He could feel his presence. He looked around at the crowd, and realized then, the man was everywhere.

He felt a tap on his shoulder, and turned to see a sight that horrified him. Susie Chou was looking him straight in the eyes, with an accusatory look and threatening demeanor.

“You’re going to pay for what you did, mister,” she warned him.

“I-didn’t do anything,” he said.

“What’s wrong with you mister?” she asked, but it wasn’t Susie anymore, but another patron-a woman with multiple piercings, including through her tongue.

“Are you all right? You don’t look so good.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” he said, though he knew he was obviously far from that.

He realized then that everybody there knew him, and knew everything about him. It was not merely him, though. They all knew each other, and they all knew everything about each other. It was deep, inner knowledge, though, one that made them all a part of some universal consciousness. They were all One.

Leigh now returned to selling drinks, and he declined another. He looked at her and really saw her for the first time. That is no lady, he realized, and she never was. Oh, crap.

The band played, all the patrons danced and swayed, and then they began making out, and having sex. It soon turned into an orgy, one that threatened to go on throughout the night. He just sat back and watched, as did a number of other patrons. He was happy and relieved that he was not the only wallflower in the group. He turned to see if he could see any sign of Evans, but Marty was now again nowhere in sight. He began to wonder if he really saw him at all.

It took more than an hour for the feeling to fade, though it did so gradually, and he and seemingly everyone else was normal once more, though one man seemed obsessed with staring at himself in the mirror. He was babbling.

“Does he have blonde hair and a beard, and dressed in really old clothes?” he asked the man. The man just looked at him, however, with a wild expression.

“Mike, are you okay?” Leigh asked the man, but he just stared at her.

The man said nothing a first, but then he looked toward Berry, and then at the bartender.

“He’s going to kill everybody,” he observed. “I’ve got to get him out of me.”

“Yeah, you do that,” Berry said with a shrug. Suddenly, the man produced a knife and sliced an artery in his left arm, as Berry just watched.

“My God!” Leigh suddenly cried out, but everyone just stood around in a circle, watching as the man named Mike continually bled out on the bar, on the floor, and all over himself. She jumped over the bar and laid him down as she tried to stop the bleeding, while Berry just stood there. He knew then he had to leave, but realized he should stay on the premises. He walked slowly back toward the office.

“What in the hell is going on out there?” Doris asked.

“Some fool just killed himself, or tried to,” he replied. “I’m sticking back here until the cops leave. I didn’t see a damn thing.”

“Why in the hell are you even still here to begin with?”

“Oh, I thought you might want to join in on the orgy that’s been gong on for the last thirty minutes or so, but from your expression I’m guessing not. Are you closing this place down anytime soon?”

She told him she was, and this relieved him, as he still felt strange. He remained back in the office the entire time the police and the ambulance personnel were on the scene. Luckily, none of them entered the office, or got anywhere near it, as they busied themselves with taking statements from the patrons as they ushered them off the premises. It took some time for The Butchers and Jim “The Needle” Houser to load up their equipment, though the Wiccan Tarot Reader left quickly. Once all the featured artists were gone, the only ones left on the premises were himself, Doris, and Leigh, who insisted on speaking to Marnie.

“Where did she go anyway?” she demanded.

“She’s out in the dumpster,” Berry answered. “What’s left of her is probably being gnawed away by rats right about now.”

When he said this, Doris dropped her rum and coke on the floor, and stood in shock. Leigh just looked at him.

“Who are you, anyway?” she demanded.

“I’m the guy that put her there,” he replied. He looked back over toward Doris, who stood transfixed, her mouth open as drool trailed down her chin.

“I’m not the one that killed her though,” he continued. “I was just the one that was supposed to be accused of it, after an anonymous tipster called in that I had her in the trunk of my car. Ain’t that right, Doris?”

“That’s crazy,” she replied. “I don’t have any idea what you are talking about.”

He ignored Doris, however.

“How long have you been a fed, Leigh? I’m guessing you were here to protect Marnie from all these vicious criminals that might want to do her in before she testified. People like her mom here, for example.”

Before she could reply, Berry produced his gun.

“Do you know what the sentence is for killing a federal officer, you stupid son-of-a-bi”-

Before she finished, a gunshot pierced her abdomen. As she fell to the floor with a groan, Berry went through the inside of her blouse, where he found a badge that identified her as one Leigh Bosley, and an agent with the FBI. He threw this up on the desk, and then checked her thoroughly.

“Good, she wasn’t wearing a wire,” he said. “That means Marnie must have known who she was and was working with her”

Doris still looked to be in shock and not sure of how to react or what to say.

“Don’t feel bad, Doris-it’s not your fault,” he said. “You and Marnie both got caught up in something you never understood. Hell, even your brother Phillip can’t even begin to scratch the surface as to what this is really all about. He thinks he’s in charge. I guess that makes him an even bigger fool than you, don’t it? Hell, I don’t even know what’s going on myself. I’m just along for the ride. I have about as much of a clue as to what’s going on as Raven does.”

“Who’s-Raven?” she asked as she moved to sit at the desk in an attempt to steady herself. He watched her warily. Then, he beamed a smile.

“Hey, guess what? I’ve got a meeting with the Archbishop here in a couple of weeks. Ain’t that something? I’m being recommended as the head of a new Third Order for lay Catholics that work with the downtrodden, with whores and drug addicts, with criminals and the criminally insane. I always felt that was a special calling of mine. Being a decorated law enforcement officer for the City of Baltimore carries weight, you know. I might even get a special audience with the Pope.”

She sat there, looking toward the desk, afraid to look him in the eyes. He just watched her, and smiled, as he walked back and forth in front of her.

“Oh, you know something-strike that might business. I definitely will get that audience with the Pope. See, I have this goal in life. I want to be a Saint. The bad thing about having a goal like that is, you never live to achieve it. That is all right, though. Something happened tonight that made me realize, it is going to happen after all. I’m going to make it happen, and you’re not going to stop me, Doris.”

He then approached her with a smile of pure, unadulterated menace.

“You’re not going to stop me at all.”

“James, please-we can work this all out,” she said. “I’ve got money. I have a lot of it, more than you can imagine. I know you want to do good things for the Church, ain’t that right? Just imagine how much good you can do with two or three hundred million dollars. Hell, you can start your own religion with that.”

“I would never do that,” he replied. “That would be a heresy. You have a point about doing good, though. How much money do you have Doris? Why don’t you call and find out. Then maybe I’ll tell you how much of it I want.”

She regarded him cautiously, and it seemed to her that he was sincerely interested.

“You have to promise me, you won’t hurt me.”

He promised, so she called a number on a paper that lay upon the desk. After a series of rings, she requested to know the amount in a specific numbered account. Within under a minute, she felt the entire world come crashing down around her.

“It’s gone,” she said. “The money has gone. They transferred the money. God damn them they transferred the money.”

“You mean Toby and Hacksaw, right? You really thought you could trust them didn’t you? Now what would make you think a thing like that? Those people are criminals, Doris. I’ve known them for years. In fact, they work for me. Or, well, they did. See, they fucked me too, in a manner of speaking. One of them was going to turn me in to the cops a little while ago. They betrayed me, they betrayed Marnie-and damn, Doris, it looks like they betrayed you too.”

“You can make them give the money back,” she said. “You know how”-

“Doris, you haven’t caught on yet,” he answered. “Money is not important. Well, it is important, but in a bad way. It makes people do things they ordinarily would not do. Everybody has their price, for just about anything. They will betray their friends, their family, and even God. Hell, it almost turned my own head just now, but you know what? I am only human. Let Toby and the Pulse have their money. As for you, Doris, you have exactly what I want.”

“I-I do?”

“Yeah-nothing whatsoever.”

“James, please!” she screamed, but James shushed her with a finger to his lips.

“Do you hear that sound, Doris? Do you know what that is? That is a garbage truck. That is the sound of Marnie and Fishbait going on a journey to their final destination to the city dump, which I would imagine is already quite filled up by now. It is still dark out there, so nobody will see them when the driver unloads them onto the piles of papers and garbage and disposable diapers and what have you. They will be looking though, for Marnie at least, here in the next few days, in connection with the murder of a federal agent. She’s going to be wanted in connection with a double murder, actually.”

“Don’t do this, I’m”-

However, the gunshot rung out and hit Doris between her breasts. She crumpled to the floor, whereupon Berry placed another bullet to her temple and fired a second time.

Berry crossed himself and said a quick rosary. As he left, he decided he would leave the front door unlocked, and the basement as well. He would just have to be certain no one saw him leave. If they did, of course, even if they knew him, they would probably not connect him with such a gruesome series of murders.

What in the hell, he wondered, would make anybody think such a thing?

Ring Out The Old Ring In The New

I guess under the circumstances it's more practical than putting a bag over her head. On the other hand, this could be a worthwhile model for a Priapus or an Aphrodite type pagan cult confessional. If so, which one would be the devotee, and which one would be granting "absolution"?

Fuck it. Happy New Years.

WHAT Lickers?

You know this place gets a lot of business on New Years.

Trouble In So-Called Civilization

There might be a bit of trouble in the European Union faux paradise here in the near future, centered on a relatively recent addition-the Eastern European nation of Bulgaria. Some factions there in this Balkan nation have balked at what they see as the overly repressive demands for carbon emissions reduction. Many Bulgarians feel such restrictions might cause a reversal in the nation’s economy, perhaps throwing it into a recession. It does seem a bit draconian, in that the agreed target is to reduce to late 1990’s level emissions. As such, Bulgaria might challenge the ruling in court. Should they prevail, which in my opinion is unlikely, it would by necessity cause the entire agreement to be scrapped.

Of course, it is unlikely that any European nation will ever reach the announced target. There are multiple EU overseers ready and willing to take bribes to look the other way, of course, which is possibly the major function of the EU to begin with. The European Union is not really a union at all so much as it is a legitimized protection racket. I give it twenty years at the most before it either falls flat on it’s ass, or becomes so repressive by necessity in order to insure it’s survival that any pretense to democracy will be legitimately viewed as some archaic symbol, much like a modern European monarch.

Of course, Bulgaria could well decide to withdraw from the Union. The only problem is, if they do, they would probably end up suffering the fate of Serbia in the mid-nineteen nineties. First would come sanctions, and then, if worse came to worse, there would be a full scale NATO assault on some exaggerated or outright fictitious pretext, in which the US would be expected to provide the lead role.

I can almost even predict what that pretext might be-pollution of the Danube River.

I hope we do not carry their water for them this time. When you look at the laws and the flaws of the European Union as a whole, it does not look much different from the PRC, which might actually be a bit more advanced in some respects. At least China is not dependent on us continually propping them up. If anything, we are dependent on them. Without our influence, the European Union would dissolve back into dozens, possibly more than a hundred rival kingdoms and duchies slaughtering each other every bit as violently and bloodthirstily as any group of savage, rival tribes in Sub-Saharan Africa. Well, after all, that is pretty much their history, isn’t it? They are all pretty much cut from the same cloth. The Europeans just have more advanced technologies with which to slaughter each other. Repressive laws enacted under a pretense of consensus might in the end do little more than delay the inevitable while at the same time exacerbating it.

Geopolitical Jeopardy

Category-World Affairs

The Answer Is-Negotiations over this area have led to Russia supporting Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear energy capabilities.

The Question Is-What is the Caspian Sea?

Yeah, the Caspian Sea, one of the most underreported stories in the last decade, is an area of vital strategic importance. The reason for this, of course, has nothing to do with fishing rights amongst the five neighboring nations of Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan.

It’s all about the oil, reserves of which sit beneath the surface of the large body of water, which is actually a large inland lake comprising varying degrees of salinity owing to it’s lack of any outlets. The oil reserves are plentiful, and thus of vital strategic importance.

Russia plans to run a pipeline from its area of the sea through Europe, while Turkmenistan has recently began development of a multi-billion dollar beach resort area in order to encourage investment in its own share. Yes, a tentative agreement is within reach, and this is largely owing to Russia’s support for nuclear development within Iran. Still, it has not been an easy agreement to reach. After all, more Iranian oil in the market would mean a glut, which would of course mean a lowering of prices per barrel of oil. Suddenly, Russians’ holdings are not so lucrative. They are nevertheless considerable, and a huge leverage and bargaining chip.

Oil company executives have kept themselves up at night worrying about this situation. They must now contend with the possibility of a sudden glut of Iranian oil in addition to development of nuclear energy within the unstable region of the oil-producing Middle East, followed by vast oil reserve holdings within Russia, which will now exercise ever-greater controls of the market. The European Union does not like it any more than the energy executives and their political pawns here, though there is little it would seem that they can do about it. For a brief period there were whispers that since the Caspian is designated a sea, it falls under the auspices of international law-meaning the UN. Of course, Vladimir Putin has as much fear and respect for a UN division as Stalin did the theoretical one wielded by the Pope, and so that idea never gained much traction. Besides, as I said, the Caspian is a lake, and any attempts to designate it as being otherwise would meet with an obvious Russian veto that one would be hard-pressed to honestly say is illegitimate.

So now, you know the real major reason Europe is so determined to go green. It does not have anything to do with protecting the environment. That is nothing but a mirage. The real reason is their determination to protect themselves from domination, not only from the Middle East, but also and probably especially from Russia, the one nation on earth they seem to truly fear above all others.

Zeus Has Nothing To Do With It

Many might be inclined to blame God or Mother Nature for the recent drought in Georgia. As for me, I have in mind a more mundane set of perpetrators-Kentucky coal mining companies. They have continually raped the mountains and left them bare, refusing to restore the land to its original contours, while relying on some arcane legal inclusion in the law that allows for “community expansion”. This has recently been the case in Pikeville Kentucky. As a result, what we see is a lessening of those mountainous areas of the state that previously provided a bulwark against the approaches of Gulf based storms and hurricanes. Over the years, Kentucky has seen a drastic increase in the amount of tornadoes over the years. Where at one time a tornado was a rare once a year at most event, it now probably averages more like once a month at least.

Snowfall, which once was moderate in the winter, and sometimes though rarely severe, has tapered off to the extent it is now almost nonexistent in most years. More often than not, we have rain, not snow. In fact, it occurs to me-and it is becoming more and more obvious-Kentucky has stolen Georgia’s rain. In earlier years, Kentucky mountains prevented the majority of the Gulf based rain, what portions made it past the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee, from going further north than the Cumberland Gap. The vast majority of Kentucky’s rain came from the north and the west, mainly in the spring. In the winter, we got snow from the same directions. Now, of course, it usually melts into rain or condenses into sleet due to the now much more prevalent and warmer Gulf air incursions that add its own rain to the mix.

All of this so a relative handful of Kentucky mountain people can become nouveau riche, and the coal companies can rake in a hefty extra billion or two (like they wouldn’t still be filthy rich if they restored the land contours like they should).

All I can say is, if the water reservoirs and lakes of Atlanta dry completely up, do not blame me. I only live here, and if it is any consolation, I absolutely despise rain in the winter.

Nigerian Oil

While the world keeps its eyes peeled towards the Middle East and Western Asia, and to a lesser extent south of the border to Venezuela, another powder keg region of the world stands ready to explode on a moments notice. I am talking about the West African nation of Nigeria. Again, alas, the culprit is oil.

While the inhabitants of the Niger Delta are systematically looted and dispossessed of their land and livelihood, Shell Oil and other producers dole out royalty payments to Nigerian leaders and officials whose vision is limited to the tunnel type that seems to focus exclusively on the banks of Switzerland. The people get nothing. As a result, they are stirring to the point that armed militias are waging assaults on Nigerian naval vessels and corporate interests.

Possibly, this issue is not addressed because there is little that anyone can do about it. The oil companies are in a bind. If they do not play by the rules as is, the Nigerian overlords can find plenty of others who will do so gladly, including the Chinese, or possibly the Russians. Any American government attempts to ramrod any kind of guidelines intended to regulate how the oil companies do business in Nigeria, even if that were possible, would garner the same results. Of course, if Chinese companies replaced American companies, the people would not benefit one iota. The butchery of Darfur stands as testament to China’s hands-off approach to other nation’s internal affairs, which in ordinary cases would be commendable.

We could possibly buy off the Nigerian leaders of course, and subsidize investment in the country, but this would be ruinous in the long run, and frankly unconstitutional. To be sure, it would be inordinately expensive. While the supply of oil in the Niger Delta holds out, the power players in the country have a trump card they are playing not to the advantage of their nation, but themselves. They see no short-term or long-term gain by investing in the nation’s infrastructure, in such things as irrigation, education, health care, or modernization of rural villages with such things as electricity, and water and sewage treatment plants. Such investments would pay off long-term dividends in the nation’s future, but the people in charge of the country are interested solely in their own power and wealth.

In the meantime, more and more of the people of the Niger Delta are out for blood. Since a sizable portion, if not a majority, of the country’s population is Islamic, you have another factor that rears its ugly head from time to time and promotes instability, something the leaders can always rely on to discourage outside intervention.

What can we do about the situation? Well, to all practical purposes, there is not a damn thing, to be blunt. Sometimes, the sad, hard facts are what they are, and as they say, you have to play with the hand you are dealt. One thing should be abundantly clear, however. This is one situation you cannot or should not blame on the oil companies.

Of course, all it would take is the rise of a popular movement to focus in demagogic fashion the wrath of the beleaguered peoples of the Niger Delta on the oil companies, which are already a symbol to many of oppression, decadence and corruption. While government officials use royalty payments from oil companies to provide luxury cars and apartments for their girlfriends, a good many Nigerians trudge for miles to carry home a bucket of water filled with vicious parasites that tend to eat one’s guts from the inside out. Many poor families live in huts with no electricity, in villages surrounded by garbage and sewage. Many within the Delta find themselves driven from their homes and sources of livelihood. Too much farmland disappears, and fishing rights are worthless when the oil company leviathans swallow up traditional fishing areas.

Oil company executives of course would never countenance my suggestion. It would amount to them investing in the well-being of these people. Of course, there would be an expense, but they as well should consider the long-term dividends. I am not merely talking about the purchase of good will. That is a factor as well, but the more practical benefit would be the assurance of stability. They can do little, of course, in the way of health care and education. However, they are well situated to provide electrification and water and sewage treatment, at least, as well as irrigation.

Oil companies are noted for investing money in foundations the purposes of which in part is to conduct charitable activities. It would seem that such an effort in a nation where they derive a vast amount of profit would be more than justified to the stockholders. They just have to sell that idea to their board members. That is another problem. No CEO wants to make that kind of leap, and who can blame them? Of course, they can always point out that any such foundation investment would either provide yet another tax write-off, or yet another excuse to maintain oil prices at an artificially high level.

The cold hard truth is, those price levels are helped along now based on the instability, which they can easily do much to eradicate without harming their bottom line.

GOP Jeckyl And Hyde

I think something is very noteworthy about the present race for the Republican Party presidential nomination. That is, the Republican Party has fragmented into so many different personalities it is almost like watching a horror show. No one candidate seems to have a lock, because no one candidate seems to satisfy every different facet of the GOP’s fragmented personality split. Born again Christians seem to like Huckabee, but on the other hand, he is not really conservative enough (some would say not conservative at all) on economic and foreign policy issues.

Giuliani of course is conservative on economic and foreign policy matters, but many of the party faithful consider him far too liberal on social issues. As if that were not bad enough, he seems not only morally challenged in his personal life, but ethically challenged as well.

Then you have McCain, a conservative, but also a maverick whom many Republicans feel is a traitor-what they call a “RINO” (Republican In Name Only), due to his past stands on immigration and campaign finance reform, to name just a few examples. They also wonder about his mental stability.

Everybody seems to like Mitt Romney. The problem is, no one seems to trust him, though they want to. Yet, they view him as a northeastern elitist without core values, a man who will adopt any stand necessary to win elections, a man who for example once supported abortion rights as governor of Massachusetts, and now as candidate for President, is conveniently Pro-Life. Like fellow Massachusetts politician John Kerry, he is the penultimate flip-flopper.

Add to this the fact that a great many of the Christian conservatives view his affiliation with the Mormon religion with a suspicion eye, and you have yet more angst.

Then, let’s take a look at Ron Paul, who seems to represent what might well be the future Republican state of mind-pure insanity in the midst of hopelessness.

So, out of all these candidates, which one seems to most represent the values of the Republican Party in general? None of them that I have mentioned manages to do so, though there is yet one who does, and he is former Tennessee Senator and Hollywood actor Fred Thompson. He is the true face of the Republican Party past and present. Take a good, long, hard look at him, and you are looking into the face of profound clinical depression.

Yes, the Republican Party, the Grand Old Party of Lincoln, Taft, and Reagan, has fragmented, the sum total of its parts broken up, and broken down. If they don’t get their shit together, I have this idea there is no way they can hope to win against the merciless ruthlessness of Hillary Clinton, or the hopeful promise and enthusiasm of Barak Obama, or the populist appeal of John Edwards.

At the rate they are going, even Kucinich might give them a run for their money. All the Democratic Party has to do is gently take him off to the side and tell him the Klingon Empire is not interested in peace negotiations at this time.

Somalia-The Sequel

I fully expect George W. Bush in his last months in office to follow in his father’s footsteps regarding the nation of Somalia, with an eye to cleaning up the mess the elder Bush set up during his remaining weeks in office, for Clinton to leave behind during his first term. Bush probably feels that now he has a dependable ally in the region in the form of the nation of Ethiopia.

From the Neocon perspective, such an involvement would be justified. If Somalia could be placated, and pacified, it would provide a strategic harbor in the Red Sea, just a matter of a relative few nautical miles from the vast Arabian desert of the Saudi peninsula. It would insure relative tranquility for shipping in the area, which lately has become prone to provocations by Somali pirates (though this has eased somewhat lately due to increased US naval patrols).

Of course, the major problem is it would be next to impossible to pacify Somalia without engaging in an offensive campaign that would insure heavy civilian casualties. That of course would draw the ire of the UN, and would inflame the region. Therefore, it looks like the border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea is otherwise destined to go on for an extended period, with the Somalis taking advantage of the hostilities in order to stage their own incursions. We can provide aid and logistical support to the Ethiopians, but unfortunately, Somalia is a nation without a central government of which to speak. The only true hope at this stage for the nation to establish such a centralized governing body would be by the imposition by clerics of sharia law, which in fact is what is now in the process of transpiring. If that occurs, there is likely to be even less chance for negotiations.

For the time being, the clerics control the news that both goes into and out of the country. They recently forcibly closed a radio station in the north of the country. Meanwhile, since the aforementioned piracy has decreased in prospects for success and profitability, a series of kidnappings have occurred involving foreign aid workers. One such incident, involving staff members of the group Doctors Without Borders, ended with the victim’s release only after lengthy periods of negotiations.

Somalia is a perfect example of what happens when anarchy prevails. It results in a power vacuum, which eventually will be filled by one force or another, or in protracted power struggles by groups competing to fill the void. All the Ethiopians can hope to do is contain the spread of the chaos. Neither they nor the US can hope to enforce order.

Unfortunately, that might not prevent some from making what would amount to a foolhardy attempt-possibly based on the naive idea that we need to “get it right this time.” Well, the American people will not stand for it this time. The only way they will ever again sanction such an adventure is if leftist notions of insuring minimum civilian casualties, no matter the overall costs, are completely scrapped. In today’s world that is never going to happen.

Florida-The Quest For Black Gold

Oil, as always, is going to be an important factor and a vital aspect of economic vitality and national security concerns. The US is running out at a relatively fast clip, though there is yet probably enough to do for a few decades before we really feel the pinch in our domestic output. At the same time, we have vast areas of unexplored resources. I am only partially talking about Anwar. That would be an important source, but mainly, I am referring to the Florida coast. It is probably a good thing that development has stalled in this region, and for that matter in Anwar. Unfortunately, it is inevitable that all of these areas will eventually be exploited. They will eventually have to be. For the time being, the oil companies are more than happy to hold off on development. When oil tops one hundred dollars a barrel on a consistent basis, you will hear ever more demands to do so. The longer the wait, the more the profit margin increases when, not if, that time finally arrives.

Hopefully, by then oil will have become a supplementary form of our energy needs, though still the vital one it will always be, until such time as the last known gallon is finally extracted. There is truly no need for alarm when it comes to drilling for oil offshore. Environmental concerns are slight, if not petty. The North Sea has been exploited for more than three decades now, with little incident of environmental damage, or danger.

It should be a simple matter to drill for oil in an environmentally safe way, both in Anwar and in the Gulf, where the major cause for concern is the abundance of hurricane force winds. This is also manageable. Of course, this subject will be a topic for debate during the next election, especially with the voters of Florida, which once again will be a major battleground state.

Environmentalists of course will balk at such proposals and demand adherence to the stance of former Governor Jeb Bush. Whatever course it takes, it could well and even likely be the deciding factor in the Presidential race, at least in Florida, which could be the ultimate deciding factor for the nation at large.

Both parties could find themselves in a real bind. Republicans will be encouraged by their big business supporters and contributors to support exploration and drilling. Democrats will find themselves under equal pressure to oppose such proposals. It will be up to the voters in Florida, however, to make the decision. They will do so to at least some degree based on this factor.

The energy situation at the time, especially the price of gas and home heating fuel, might make it especially difficult for the Democrats to rationalize their position, and it could cause repercussions in other areas far removed from Florida as well. If prices are high, as I look for them to be, the people are not going to be impressed by arguments for energy independence and investment in alternative energy sources that will deliver no short-term relief, which in fact will not prove their viability for years into the future, provided they are ever implemented to begin with. That too, by the way, is a problematic prospect, and far from certain at this stage. Some will doubtless accuse the energy sector of manipulating prices in order to influence the election. Most will view this as an absurd charge, however.

At the same time, it is impossible to predict the likely outcome. Anger at the companies could well produce a backlash that draws Democratic voters to the polls, regardless of perception or lack of same regarding energy sector shenanigans. A Democratic voter need not vote based on belief in conspiracy theories. All that is required is a hope for change in direction regarding energy policy.

So will the voters demand short-term relief, or long-term change, or perhaps some rational combination of both? The candidate who can believably articulate such a promise, in a way that inspires trust, is the one that might well be positioned to win the election. It depends on two factors-one, whether such a candidate exists within one of the two major parties, and two, whether one exists at all.

They say that all politics is local. Well, you do not get much more “local” than your gas gauge and thermostat. For the time being, however, it will be extremely interesting to see the results of the up-and-coming Florida primary election, and how much of a factor this issue is at this early date.

The "Awawkening" in Iraq

There has been an “Awakening” in Anbar province of Iraq, amongst Arab Sunni tribes. They have cast their lot-for now-with the US forces instead of Al-Queda in Iraq. To put it bluntly, we have bought off a good many of the tribal leaders, who were ready to turn on Al-Queda due to the latter’s over-the-top tactics against their own Sunni brethren. All of this, in addition to “The Surge” has led to a quieting and lessening of violence in the province, and in Iraq as a whole. True, there is still violence, but in retrospect, things have gotten much better. Many credit the resurgence of the candidacy of Senator John McCain on this fact, as McCain’s support for the Administration’s Iraq policy, including the Surge, to many now seems prescient.

That is not to say the problem is well on its way to a resolution. In fact, the current strategy is a gamble at best. There are valid concerns that, over time, the new friends of convenience we now have will become determined foes of the yet fragile government we have encouraged and supported. It is almost a sure bet. The government after all is a Shiite dominated entity that by most accounts is corrupt and incompetent, and has not been eager and willing to share power with the minority parties. Over time, the Sunnis are going to expect more than vague guarantees of religious and political freedom. They are going to demand some degree at least of power and influence over their own regions.

The major sticking point to this, of course, will be what it always was-oil wealth. The Sunnis have none. It is an overextension of their legitimate rights to suppose they should have a greater percentage than what they actually possess. One way around this would be the simple act of investing a percentage of oil revenues in infrastructure in the region, and in health care and education. After all, as a part of the country, they do have a right to that much, and it would be a worthwhile investment in terms of insuring prosperity, security, and stability, to say nothing of encouraging economic initiative and development.

After all, even the oil of Iraq is not going to last forever. By the time it is gone, it would be good that in the meantime something might arise to insure continued prosperity for the nation. Something like-oh, maybe a fucking civilized society, perhaps.

Tatiana

I read not too long ago that if lions and tigers had their own historians, the history of safaris would read much differently. I will now be that historian.

Tatiana went out like a champion and heroine. She escaped her enforced enclosure and mauled three men who taunted her from what they falsely assumed was a vantage point of safety. One of the men died trying to protect the first man she attacked, who repaid this one and only act of human courage by running away with his brother, the third perpetrator, to where they thought other people would be-a cafe-possibly assuming unsuspecting patrons there would provide a similar decoy as their by now dead friend. The tigress tracked them there, and resumed her offensive against them. She would have finished them off, but unfortunately, the police arrived a bit too early, and shot her, killing her before she could do more than injure them non-fatally.

Does this particular report sound cruel and heartless? If so, well, the truth sometimes is just that. The two men who survived the attack have issued or released no statements, other than to say they are following the advice of their attorneys. In other words, one might as well come right out and say that these men intentionally provoked this tiger, though their intent in doing so is yet unclear. My assumption is they intended to lure the tiger out of her enclosure, possibly thinking to get well out of harms way by the time she successfully made her way out. She was a bit quicker than they thought, I am guessing, a fact for which one of them paid the ultimate price.

Another report has stated that the parents of the man killed placed a call to one of the two brothers asking of the whereabouts of their son, whom they wanted to come to their home to celebrate Christmas. The brother who answered the phone stated it had been some weeks since last he had seen the man-an obvious bald-faced lie.

I have to wonder what they used as bait to lure the tiger, and if the statement that the dying man distracted the tiger from the other and ended up sacrificing his life to save him might as well be another lie. I happen to think it is, and that the dead man was himself the bait for the tiger, being dangled over the edge of the enclosure, perhaps while unconscious. Maybe in this way, they attracted the attention of the tiger, which already had a developed taste for human flesh from the time a year earlier when she had mauled a zoo employee-an event of which the three men may well have been aware. In fact, Tatiana’s presence, and history, at the zoo were well known. Maybe they stood back and watched as the tiger assaulted the victim (who under this scenario may indeed have been innocent), until the tiger decided to make a go for them as well. I find it telling that the police, after killing Tatiana and securing the area, referred to it as a "crime scene."

We may never know all the details, but one thing is certain-for both of these brothers to refuse to answer questions and to hide behind attorney client privilege is a sure sign that their presence at the San Francisco Zoo, as well as their involvement in this particular matter, was far from innocent.

Personality Cults

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto will have repercussions throughout the world, extending to the American presidential race. Those candidates of both parties considered to have foreign policy expertise should certainly benefit the most. In some cases, the beneficial effects are not based on reality. Such is the case with Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose major foreign policy expertise seems to revolve around the fact that she voted in favor of the Iraq War when it seemed the popular thing to do and has since straddled the fence regarding the affair.

For the Republicans, both Giuliani and, especially, John McCain, should stand to benefit the most. The Democratic candidates who should, but probably will not benefit, are Elliot Richardson, Joe Biden, and to a lesser extent Chris Dodd. Nevertheless, they will not, mainly because Hillary Clinton sucks all the oxygen out of the atmosphere. Her major opponents are not candidates of foreign policy expertise, or any other kind, but simply representatives of the hopes for “change”-something the three qualified candidates cannot project, nor hope to.

Yet, Hilary’s chief claim to gravitas remains based on the presumption that she is the wife of Bill Clinton, hence she is his “rightful heir”. That is a very scary thought on a variety of levels.

Benazir Bhutto, while she lived, was herself the beneficiary of a political dynasty, and within a relatively short amount of time, a cult of personality revolved around her. To her supporters, she was the promised hope for change and advancement. To her enemies and detractors, she was the epitome of corruption and scandal. Support for her and opposition to her was fierce, and outwardly projected around the figurehead that was the person, perhaps as much if not more so than the principles she represented.

She was, and is, both revered and reviled.

That is of course the end of any movement. The promise of change and progress soon mires down in entitlement*. That brings us back to Hillary, and to US presidential politics in general. All of our major political figures, not just Hillary, are those with the greatest name recognition. Hillary, supposedly the most admired woman in America, will naturally outshine, both for good and for bad, those second tier politicians who do not have her name recognition, regardless of their qualifications.

Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, and Rudy Giuliani, all are beneficiaries of their own cult of personality. The same is true to a lesser extent of John McCain and Fred Thompson. Now added to the list is the meteoric rise of Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. John Edwards is a different story. He benefits from experience in Iowa. He has in place the same political organization as he did in 2004. If not for that, and for his status as the last Democratic Vice-Presidential running mate, he would not even be a contender. He would just be a notch or two in the polls above Dennis Kucinich, whose cult seems based on the prospect of establishing world peace, beginning at the local level, and extending from there to the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and the Klingon Empire. The scary thing about the Democratic Party is, if he was as good looking as Edwards, he would probably be a major contender.

It is interesting to note that the cults of personality vested in most of the Republican candidates-Huckabee being the sole exception-are based on experience. True, there is a cult of personality around Ron Paul, but that seems to be a minor movement. Of course, the same is true for the Thompson forces, at this point. The cult is there and always has been. It just is not, at this point at least, drawing the converts it initially hoped. Interestingly enough, there is no true cult of personality around Mitt Romney, though he is trying desperately to buy one. Unfortunately, for him, his personality cult has followed the same basic formula of his religious one-it is a regional cult that cannot seem to spread very far past its foundation point. Not true of Huckabee, who gains many converts based on dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the others, and the fact that he is, after all, a Southern Baptist minister who is openly Pro-Life. Of all the Republican candidates, in fact, he is the only major contender whose cult of personality is image based.

As for the cults of personality vested in the two major Democratic candidates, they all in fact seem based not on expertise and experience, but on image and perception. The images involved, however, may be all that is necessary to win, in their cases.

That is the bad thing about cults of personality. Sometimes they work out well, while other times they result in tragic consequences. It is really a crapshoot. In the case of Obama, the likely result will be the promise of a change that will never come about to any appreciable degree. In the case of Clinton, however, the result will be much more profound, and likely reveal the futile promise of an expertise based on qualifications that do not exist, wrapped around the vague illusion that she is, if appearances are an indication, some kind of female human.

As for the man of the house, he can only put so much of a smiley face on things. Legally, his role will perhaps be limited to watching in helpless frustration as his much-vaunted legacy comes crashing down in ruins around him, as he fulfills the role of his final destiny-White House Husband. (Of course, it could be worse. If Mitt Romney wins and his wife goes on years later to win the presidency, anti-Mormon wags might well designate Mitt the White House Husband-In-Chief)

The presidency of Hillary Clinton, if it does come about, might well be a perfect example of a cult of personality that is devoid of a personality-at least a pleasant one. As for what her accomplishments might be, only one thing is certain. She will not reverse the earlier rule she established as first lady against tobacco in the White House. Of course, we all know from that experience the wisdom of that old saying “rules are meant to be broken.”

Whoever wins, nevertheless, the fact remains that the victory will be thanks not to a thoughtful consideration of the issues and the qualifications of the candidates, but on that phenomenon that makes one choose a president based on who we would most like to have a beer with, or who we would like to have for a weekend fishing buddy. Issues are important, of course, but almost of secondary importance to all but the most politically adept, or the most devoted partisans. These are the people responsible for building up the myths inherent in the cults of personalities, and who expect the rest of us to follow blindly along. It's caused us a good deal of the problems we now have, and will continue to do so, until we as a people start taking a more active interest in the in-and-outs and goings-on of the behind-the-scenes machinations of the various political machines and their chief beneficiaries. Until such time, democracy will never be any more than a beauty contest at best, a shell game at the worse.

*After I wrote this, it seems now as though Bhutto’s son and brother are slated to become the new heads of the PPP. The dynasty, and cult of personality, lives on for now.