Radu-Chapter XXVI (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

Part Three
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Radu-Chapter XXVI (A Novel by Patrick Kelley)
14 pages approximate
Mia Chou cancelled all her appointments and decided to take an extended leave of absence. She had more than three weeks of vacation time, and the disappearance of Susie necessitated her using them. She doubted the agency would miss her, as she was not one of the agency’s top selling realtors. She doubted she would make the top ten during an average month anyway. This was how Mia calculated her decision for the first three days of Susie’s absence. By the time more than a week went by with no word as to her whereabouts, with not so much as a rumored sighting of her anywhere, she no longer cared about the job.

David Chou, by contrast, seemed unworried. This was not the first time Susie had pulled a stunt like this. She went missing one time for more than four days. There were innumerable other times when she vanished for two or three days. Mia insisted however that this time was different. This time there were no hang-up calls from random phone booths in downtown Baltimore or adjacent localities. There were no random sightings of her hanging around bars, such as the Crypt, or the Red Lion Lounge, where a girl of her age and description reportedly attempted once to get a job as a topless dancer at a time when older daughter Chrissy worked at the same job.

Mia knew that David was more worried than he let on. For one thing, he was more quiet even than usual, and what times he did speak, there was no evidence of that dry, sarcastic humor that made her want to go up the side of his head at times with his favorite brand of scotch. Since Susie’s absence, she noted he had not so much as sniffed let alone swilled his beloved Cutty Sark, as was his usual wont over the weekend. David Chou was, in fact, grimmer than Mia had ever known him to be.

Yet, he went to work, which she supposed one of them should, though he barely put in half the time he usually did. She also knew he had kept in more regular contact with their other two children. Not a night went by that he did not call Chrissy at her dorm room or her cell phone, and Chuck as well. Their phone held the records of all his calls, and she knew he called them in the hopes they had heard from their impetuous younger sister. Yet when Mia brought up the subject, he would answer her almost dismissively.

“It is probably good no one has heard from her,” he said once. “She would not call Chuck or Chrissy unless she was in real trouble. She is too proud and stubborn to call either them or us for help. She is probably out partying somewhere.”

“Well, even if that is true she could still be in danger,” Mia replied.

“We are all in danger, every minute of our lives,” he observed. “Neither Chrissy nor Chuck would be the kind you would turn to for help unless you were really desperate. I don’t believe she is dead, either. If she was, surely her body would have turned up.”

That did it. He was worried, very worried, to even express such a thought, albeit in the negative. It was as though he talked with two minds, the one that spoke to her on autopilot, and the other one she could see expressed in his facial features and demeanor, the one that dwelled on every horrific possibility.

All three of their children had problems. All three were impetuous, while Susie lived her life in a state of nearly constant rebellion and rage. Her brief foray into life at the church lasted less than five months, yet longer than either David or Mia expected it would. Chrissy had run up over thirty thousand dollars in debt. In the meantime, several stores ended up banning her from their premises. When her credit was cut-off, she had taken to shoplifting. Chuck in the meantime finally had a job that lasted, for now at least, more than half a year. It was just a matter of time before he would walk away from that one in a huff, as he had all the others. Those of course were other than the ones from which he ended up discharged for absenteeism, or some form of insubordination. More than likely, he would then make another extended trip to some place he just knew held the promise of a meaningful life-one he would quickly tire of in little over a month, if that long.

Mia had told all three of her children at one point or another that she was too tired, and far too old, to start over with new children.

“Don’t make me trade you in,” she would say.

“It would be silly to trade one mistake for a new one,” David would add. Now, it did not seem so funny. At forty-seven, Mia felt she was indeed far too old to have another child, as much as she wished she could just start over. She knew it was too late. Menopause came for her at age forty-three, and she was incapable now of having children, at least not naturally. She noticed hints of gray invading her hairline, and they were spreading, slowly but surely. As a devout Catholic, she could not see entering into a new marriage without the prospect of children involved. If not for that fact, the first trade-in she now would engage in would probably be for a new husband. She watched morosely as her current model David made his way down the steps without one word, and sat upon the recliner by the liquor cabinet, which she no longer kept locked from him.

Oh no, she thought. He is going for the Cutty Sark.

“You have heard something, haven’t you?” she asked.

However, David made no move toward the liquor cabinet. He just sat there and stared at her.

“I want to take some more of your blood,” he said. “You have been running low the last few weeks, and you look ill. I also want to give you an injection of something.”

“For God’s sake, David, I don’t want to rest. I want to stay in control of my faculties. I don’t want something that’s going to make me a zombie for the next weak.”

“That’s why I want to take some of your blood, for testing, to be sure there are no contraindications,” he explained. “It won’t make you a zombie. If anything, it will make you more clear-headed than you have ever been in your life.”

“So what exactly is this miracle drug that will make me capable of standing up to all my troubles and facing them down with nerves of steel?” she asked with notable skepticism. “Whatever it is you should bottle it and sell it out of your car, because I have an idea we are going to need the extra cash flow soon.”

He took a cotton ball and swabbed her arm with alcohol, after which he produced a syringe.

“Mia, you keep going on about these ransom notes you insist we are going to be receiving soon. I tell you if that were to be the case we would have heard something by now.”

He applied a tourniquet to her arm and puffed up an artery, while she sat there trying not to tense from the coming prick of the needle.

“I still say we should inform the police,” she said. “We should fill out an official report. You say at her age and her history it would be worthless, but I say it at least could not hurt.”

He seemed to ignore her as he drew he blood.

“I will go downtown today and fill out a report, all right?” he asked. She did not seem exactly convinced, and made him promise he would do that. He not only promised her he would, he swore he would make a few more rounds to some of the places she frequented, including those places she frequented at other occasions when she ran off abruptly.

“I don’t want to be disturbed while I am running this test,” he told her as he walked down to his basement.

He extracted the blood samples from his safe, including the one that reacted violently to the latest inclusion of blood from his daughter mere days before she vanished, in stark contrast to the first experiment with the same blood he earlier added to the Krovell samples, in the exact same proportion.

He could not get the conversation with his wife’s priest out of his mind. He had come by the house some weeks back to see not about his wife, but about Susie who, to his surprise, had taken instruction and become baptized. It was certainly news to David Chou, as the only change he noted in Susan’s manner and demeanor was her quiet solitude, her silent withdrawal from him and her mother. True, there were no arguments, no lashing out in anger, no petulant threats or temper-tantrums. There was not even so much as a casual obscenity.

He asked the priest if it was true, that prayer could have a physiological effect, not a mere psychological one, especially on the brain. Of course, he should have known better than to ask the priest, who only told him he believed it had an effect on all areas of life.

Therefore, he sought the advice of other physicians, most of who said there might well be a placebo effect that might induce calm, but there was no solid evidence to the effect that any chemical or other physiological change occurred-certainly none of any long lasting duration. There was a minority opinion of course that insisted regular prayer, in addition to regular spiritual disciplined life, especially when in conjunction with what might well be a profoundly unsettling experience, might well lead to the release of the same kinds of chemicals in the brain as those endorphins released in the brain’s pleasure centers. Of course, there was no way of telling for sure what the overall effect might be, and for that matter it was unclear how such a thing could even be tested, let alone proven.

David Chou considered he might have stumbled accidentally onto something. Over time, his daughter resumed her normal lifestyle and activities, and her temperament returned to its normal combative state. He wasted no time in retesting her blood. The old samples manifested the same original effects. Therefore, he found himself faced with a quandary. It was imperative that he tests new samples, but so much as a look at his daughter from him made her seem to boil, and made him almost shrivel up like a chihuahua out in a cold nor’easter. He had left to him then one recourse. He bribed her. It cost him two hundred dollars, which he considered a bargain. He would have paid her five if she insisted, but one way or another he would have that blood.

He got the new sample and added it to two of the Krovell samples. Though invisible to the naked eye, under the revealing lens of his electron microscope they both reacted as violently as he ever noted. They fumed and bubbled, so much so that he backed away in fright from them initially. Then, he added some from one of the old samples from his daughter to one. The one he added the old sample to, within a matter of seconds, calmed gradually, until within just under a minute, it appeared completely normal. It was in fact as healthy and vibrant a supply of blood as any he ever saw, while the other sample, the new sample, yet seemed ready to explode.

Unfortunately, there was, as before, nothing in the samples to give the remotest explanation for this anomaly. More unfortunately, the mystery was out of his hands. He loaded up the majority of the samples into a special briefcase, along with a number of empty tubes. It was almost time to keep his appointment.

He checked the stairs, though confidant Mia would not intrude. He then went to his computer, and placed the disc in the tray. He had watched the disc more than he could remember over the last week, hoping to catch some new glimpse, some new clue. It was always the same. Susan, his daughter, surrounded by mysterious, unseen figures, in what appeared to be a dark, damp basement, tied to a chair and crying. She looked badly beaten. She begged him to do as her captors demanded.

As he watched, the cell phone rang, and he answered quickly as he looked at the clock on the wall. It was two-thirty in the afternoon.

“It’s time,” the voice of the woman said. “Bring the samples.”

Before Chou could utter a word in response, the unknown woman terminated the call. Chou took a clean syringe, he filled it with a sample of the blood, and then he removed the disc from the computers DVD tray. He walked upstairs, where to his surprise Mia and he had company, their son and daughter, both distraught and overcome with anxiety, as Mia now cried openly.

“Has either of you had any word from her?” he asked in dread.

“No, I have not,” Chrissy replied. “I don’t much think I will either.”

Chou noticed that his son rolled his eyes and shook his head at this remark, then added he had heard nothing either. He wanted to tell them they should return home in case she tried to call either of them, but stopped himself. There was nothing to gain by continuing this charade any further, he decided.

“I have something I have to do,” he said. “I will return shortly. You two stay here with your mother until I get back, if you please. Mia, let me give you this injection.”

“All right, I think it’s a waste of time, but go ahead,” the now openly despondent woman said. “The last time I saw her, she cursed me as she was leaving, and I remember hoping she would never return. Now, I feel like”-

“That will be enough of that,” Chou told her as he took her arm. “Everyone has random thoughts they either express in anger, or they keep them to themselves. They are what they are in either case, natural human reactions to anger and stress.”

“What in the hell is that you are giving her?” Jack asked. “I f I didn’t know better I would swear that is a Bloody Mary in that syringe.”

“That is not a bad idea at that,” Chou replied. “That is not what it is, though.”

He then told them he would return within the hour, and walked to the door, but to his chagrin, Chrissy followed him outside. He did not like the look on her face as she walked up to him beside the car.

“I think she is dead,” Chrissy said, and David felt his heart stop for just a moment. He looked at her with stern intensity.

“Don’t you dare repeat that to your mother,” he warned her. “You haven’t already said that to her have you?”

“No, I haven’t, I swear,” she said defensively. “This is so unlike her, though. All those other times she ran away, she always called me, and Jack too. Now she has not called him or me either one. Nothing would prevent her from contacting at least one of us. I know she is either dead or very badly hurt.”

David said nothing as he put the briefcase in the trunk of his car. She just stared at him.

“I guess there is one possibility,” she said. “I guess she could have been kidnapped. If that was it though I would say you should have gotten a ransom demand by now.”

“Well, if someone had that intention, I guess they would have changed their minds once they saw how far in debt your little credit card addictions have put us in,” David said, growing ever more agitated at his oldest daughter’s invasive suppositions.

Chrissy, obviously hurt by this outburst, looked as though she might stumble as her mouth opened in shock.

“Is that all you can think about at a time like this?” she demanded.

“I think of every god damn thing,” he replied. “That is my problem. I seem to be the only one who thinks of anything.”

He opened the door and got in the driver’s side, as she stood there, still processing his outburst.

“Go back inside, Chrissy, and spend some time with your mother,” he said. “This might be your last opportunity to be some kind of comfort to her. The shock of these things usually wears off in time, at least to some extent. In your case especially, it might be too late when hers wears off.”

She looked at him as if too shocked by such open and calculated cruelty to make a response, and then she turned and walked back toward the front door. He left at that point, barely believing it himself.

It was not a long drive to the dining room of the Hyatt Regency, where he took a seat at the bar as prearranged. He ordered a Shirley Temple, and when he saw the look on the face of the barmaid, he found himself thankful he would never enter this place again. She went to fill the order, at which point the dark haired young woman that set just four stools down from him pointed out that there were many empty tables available which would be much more comfortable than the bar.

“So you are her,” he said, not attempting to disguise his angry disgust.

“I am she who makes the sun shine brightly on a cold winter’s night,” she said. He just nodded, finding himself barely able to control his temper.

“All right then lets get this shit over with,” he said.

They proceeded to a table, where Marnie watched in anticipation as he opened the briefcase.

“What is the purpose of all those empty vials?” she asked.

“The blood replicates of its own volition up to a point,” he explained with obvious disdain. “You will need more to hold them in time. After so long, they will break down, but the point is, the empty tubes will be necessary at some point.”

“Well, how very gallant of you,” Marnie replied. “Now, all there is to do is for you to sign over the rights to them. You will find these papers will all be in order.”

He looked at her in shock, and it was obvious to Marnie at this point that Chou was hiding the fact he was near the point of exhaustion.

“Surely you didn’t think we wouldn’t assume you would keep some samples,” she explained. “If you thought that, then you don’t know us at all.”

“Nor do I want to know you,” he replied. “All I want is my daughter returned, safe and sound, like you promised. That and for you to fulfill the other terms of our bargain.”

“Ten million dollars up front and half of one percent of any profits derived from anything developed using the samples, I know,” she replied. “Really, David, I am quite impressed. You drive a hard bargain for such a concerned parent. I am really quite surprised they all turned out so badly. One daughter a half-crazy little whore, and another one that will probably be on her way to prostitution when she gets so far in debt she has no other way out. Then of course, there is your son. Jack, I believe his name is.”

“What about Jack?” he hissed.

“Oh, that’s right, you didn’t know he was gay, did you? Oh come on, David, how did you think he managed to live such a comfortable lifestyle, going from one job to another like he does. Of course, you didn’t know about his suicide attempt in high school either, did you? Yeah, you knew about the ‘accident’, but that’s all. Yeah, he accidentally propositioned the wrong jock. That was his accident-he was so humiliated at the rebuke he received, and the rumors and ridicule afterwards, he decided to do himself a favor and end his misery. Who knows, he might yet go for another try, when he figures out he is not going to stay young and cute forever.

“And now here you are, and what is your main demand in return for handing over this important discovery that could be such a benefit to mankind in the way of scientific research? You want money. No, David, it is no surprise your children are whores-like father, like son and daughters.”

He looked at her in a rage, barely able to contain himself, as the waitress approached with his Shirley Temple.

“I didn’t realize you were here,” she said with a cheery smile. “Sorry about the wait.”

“Get that thing away from me,” he hissed to the waitress as he looked defiantly at Marnie. “Bring me a scotch-Cutty Sark, if you have it, if not a Chivas will do.”

“Very well, sir, I’ll still have to charge you for this one,” she said.

“If you think you are going to shame me out of our agreement, you have another think coming,” he told Marnie. “My children are my concern, and believe me, if Susie has been harmed in any way you and your criminal lowlife associates will pay in ways you would never comprehend in your wildest dreams.”

“Brave words, David,” she said. “Actually, the ten million dollars is a paltry amount. That is my point. You are a cheap date, Doctor Chou. Most whores usually are in the end. You see, we have already paid in ways I am sure you could never comprehend. That is the price we are willing to pay.”

She looked at him sternly as the waitress returned with a double shot of Cutty Sark, and the bill.

“If you would like anything else just let me know,” she said with a curiously dry expression, and then walked off.

“Enjoy your drink, Mr. Chou,” Marnie told him. “Also, enjoy your contract. I am sure you will see everything is indeed in order. Oh, and by the way-when I return to my car, I will transfer these vials into my own briefcase, and set this old one out somewhere in the parking lot. You might want to hurry and retrieve it. Who knows, someone might get the idea a terrorist has left a bomb in it. There seems to be a lot of that going around Baltimore these days.”

As she chattered, David perused the contract, which as promised seemed to be a legal document, a contract involving what he recognized as a bona fide pharmaceutical company by the name of Davis-Herschner Inc. There was a number circled at the bottom of the first page. He had no doubt when he called it he would receive confirmation of the legitimacy of the contract and the transfer of patent just conducted.

“So, does everything seem to be in order?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Now get the hell away from me before I change my mind and call the police.”

She nodded with a smile, and then rose with the briefcase.

“By the way,” she said. “I hear Jack is doing very well at his new job. As for Chrissy, we have taken care of her debt. She no longer has one. See, we have your family’s well-being in mind, David. We are watching out for them, and for you-all the time.”

He downed the scotch, and then waved at the barmaid for another one, as Marnie walked briskly away. Damn, did he ever need it! He reached into his coat pocket and extracted the tracking device. When he acquired it, the salesman assured him not only would it work despite the small size, no one would ever detect it inside the cork into which he inserted it. Unfortunately, it had a range of only three miles, so he had to work fast-but not too fast. He had a suspicion that someone else might yet be there, monitoring his every move. He looked around and, seeing no one suspicious, he downed his second scotch and left a fifty-dollar bill at the table.

By the time he got to his car, he had no doubt Marnie was gone as he got inside and started the ignition. There was the briefcase, in the front passenger’s seat, with a note attached.

“Directions to your daughter’s location are inside,” it said. “Wait thirty minutes to open.”

That did it! The terms of the agreement were that a cab would bring Susie home, right to their front door. Obviously, he should have known better than to trust such people as these to keep their word. Now they expected him to risk his life to go get her by himself. Well, he would not do it. He dropped the suitcase back down in the floorboard and turned on the tracking device. It worked as well as his private investigator promised it would. He also assured Chou that not only would it lead him to where he needed to be, it would prove undetectable.

He drove a mere fifteen minutes before he arrived at what seemed to be the ultimate destination, a Four Season’s Hotel. He drove slowly through the parking lot, and when the noise from the tracker decreased, he backed up into the closest empty space and waited. He looked warily at the briefcase. God only knew where he would be obliged to go to in order to supposedly retrieve Susan, to say nothing as to what waited for him there.

He turned on the tracker’s microphone receptor. He hoped by now it would be close enough to pick up any conversation. It had better, he muttered to himself. He certainly paid enough for it. Sure enough, there was no static, as the investigator told him there should not be, and he heard the voice of the woman as clearly as in the bar of the Hyatt Regency.

“Yes, this seems to be the blood samples,” said a man with an eerily familiar voice. “How did you ever convince him to go along with this?”

“Ten million dollars,” he heard Marnie say. “Also, he gets one half of one percent of all future profits.”

“That’s it?” the man said with a hoarse laugh. “Why, that stupid son-of-a-bitch! Does he know the company paid two billion dollars for this?”

“You have to hand it to him, though, he was insistent,” Marnie conceded.

Chou now had to sit there in his car and fume in silence as he heard himself belittled by some cheap corporate bimbo bitch, and by whom he swore had to be Scott Reese, a hospital administrator for Johns Hopkins University-in fact, a research department administrator. It made sense that he would have ties to at least one of the nation’s pharmaceutical giants, and now he stood to make a killing at Chou’s expense, and at the expense of his daughter, whom Chou had already accepted was probably dead-or doubtless soon would be.

“Once we stabilize these samples and isolate whatever protein or enzyme produces the properties of replication, it will revolutionize the medical industry,” Reese now mused. “There will never be a shortage of blood. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Actually, the company agrees with me that two billion dollars is a bargain. I do not know how you convinced Chou to go along with you, but I sure am going to enjoy rubbing it in the bastard’s face the first chance I get.

“I do have a question for you, though,” he continued. “Why did you not just go ahead and make him an offer? I understand your desire to fund your own research, and your need to keep some of the samples towards those ends, and I certainly can appreciate your desire to make ten billion dollars from your sell to us. Still, I would think he would not have been that hard to convince. It might have cost a little more”-

“That is exactly the point,” she replied. “It would have cost much more. Remember our deal, Mr. Reese-no questions asked, none answered. After all, I could ask you the same thing. Why not just offer him one billion, or two billion?”

“Fair enough-because he would have insisted on his name being attached to it,” Reese said. “He would have insisted on total credit. He also could ot have kept his damn mouth shut. I know him, all too well. He refused to hand them over to me, as a representative of Johns Hopkins, even though legally we could have taken him to court and probably would have prevailed. On the other hand, it would have caused months of legal wrangling. I’m sure we would have won out in the end, but in the meantime it would have caused a public relations problem, to say nothing of causing our competitors to get a heads up on our research. It would have been more trouble than it was worth, and I’m sure that drunken old fool could not be trusted to keep a secret. I’m still concerned about him, to tell you the truth.”

“Don’t be,” Marnie told her confederate. “David Chou will cause you no more problems, I can guarantee you that. He will soon be in no position to cause anyone any problems.”

Now what in the hell does she mean by that, David wondered?

“Well, it was good doing business with you, Miss Moloku-Marnie, is it?”

Marnie Moloku! Chou realized that he knew that name from somewhere.

He listened to them banter for a short time, and it became apparent to Chou that Reese wanted to take advantage of their present private hotel room accommodations, but the woman seemed uninterested. Soon, he watched her leave. He ducked down in his driver’s seat and hoped she did not recognize his car. After a number of minutes, he wondered what he was worried about anyway. He rose to see she had left, having obviously parked some distance from him. He never heard her car start.

Every fiber of his being wanted to go up to that hotel room and kick Scott Reese’s ass. Regardless of whether he knew about the involvement and fate of his daughter, he shared some responsibility for what happened to her. Suddenly, as he pondered whether to confront Reese, he heard tires screeching and turned to see Marnie leaving in a hurry.

Damn, she saw him after all, he realized. Now what in the hell was he to do? On the other hand, why was she so determined to get away from there so quickly?

Then, he remembered something she had said to Reese just minutes before she left.

“David Chou will cause you no more problems, I guarantee you that. Soon, he will be in no position to cause anyone any problems.”

Grimly, David Chou removed himself from his vehicle and took with him the briefcase. He walked quickly up the steps to the door from which Marnie emerged. He knocked upon the door and waited. The door opened more quickly than he had anticipated. Scott Reese looked at David Chou with a sneer, in an attitude of defiant triumph.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t David Chou-the ten million dollar doctor.” Reese said with a derisive laugh. Chou punched him savagely in the gut, and then kneed him in the forehead. When Reese went down to the ground, Chou kicked him savagely in the groin, and then fell upon him as he repeatedly battered his face with his fists, until soon Scott Reese was unconscious and helpless.

Chou then retrieved the briefcase with the blood samples, and looked down toward the unconscious form on the floor.

“It looks like you just convinced your company to put out two billion dollars on a patent for nothing,” he said. “As for me, I think I’ll just get me another one. Oh, and by the way”-

He brutally kicked the unconscious form one more time for good measure, which caused a pained stirring from the beaten hospital administrator. He set his old briefcase down beside the man, and he left. He walked hurriedly back to his automobile, and started the engine. As he drove off, he called his private investigator.

“I’m sending you an image,” he said. “I think her name is Marnie Moloku. Look her up in your database and see if you can confirm that. Also, I want you to do a background check on the board and chief officers of a pharmaceutical company-the name of it is Davis-Herschner Inc. Have you got all that? I want you to especially note the names and positions of Voroslav Moloku, and Phillip Khoska, as I am sure one or both of them will be listed in one capacity or another.”

Chou was driving away slowly as he listened to his private investigator mumble he would get right on it, and then clear his throat.

“I’ve been trying to call you,” he said.

“I had my cell phone turned off because of meeting with that bitch,” he said. “Did you hear everything? I had the transmitter turned on as you said.”

Larry was not answering him. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

“David, I’m sorry,” he said. “They found her. They found Susie. She is dead, David. It looks like she’s been dead for a while now.”

David almost did not hear him. He listened to him breathe, and he listened to his own heartbeat, and sat there at the intersection of the Four Seasons Hotel driveway and the road ahead. He sat and listened as the sound of the explosion ripped through the parking lot from Scott Reese’s rented apartment. He listened to the screams in the background. He listened, as the armored vehicle pulled in. He watched as the drivers hurriedly made their way in a panic toward Scott Reese’s apartment, on a futile errand to transport the prized blood samples. Some of them were supposed to have soon found themselves transported to the security of the research labs of Johns Hopkins University, with most sent on by special chartered jet to the laboratories of Davis Herschner Inc. Now, they would all be back in David Chou’s home office laboratories.

“David, are you there?” he asked as David Chou pulled out onto the road. “David, I’m so sorry, but-the police are going to want you to come in to make a positive identification. I assume you wouldn’t want Mia”-

“I’ll do it tonight,” he said as he drove, a bit more quickly now.

“David, what is going on?” Larry asked. “It sounded like an explosion there a minute ago, and now I’m hearing sirens.”

“Did you get everything?” Chou asked.

“Yes.”

“Was the deposit confirmed?”

“Yes, all ten million dollars.”

David Chou now was out of sight of the Four Seasons Hotel.

“Good.” He said.

It took twenty-five minutes for him to make his way to the Baltimore City morgue, where an on-duty staff member ushered him to the area that held the recently discovered body tentatively identified as that of Susan Chou. She lay there covered except for her face, the official cause of death not yet determined. She looked as defiant in death as she ever looked in life. In all the years Chou raised her, from her youngest years, Susie had never looked sad. She had never looked happy. She sometimes looked derisive, or dismissive, or arrogant, or withdrawn. Mostly, however, she just looked defiant. He found himself compelled to open her eyes, and as he did, he saw something in that defiance. It had nothing to do with anger. For the first time in a little over sixteen years, Chou saw the defiance now for what it was. It was determination.

“I wish I could tell you they will pay for this Susie,” he said, “but I think they already have. They just do it know it yet.”

Chou closed his daughter’s eyes, as he looked up at the morgue staff member who kept a respectful distance.

“It is her,” he said. “How did she die?”

“I haven’t completed the examination yet,” the Medical Examiner said uneasily. “If you wish, I will contact you directly as soon as the final results are confirmed.”

“I see,” said Chou. He walked out of the city morgue, and returned to his car. Only after he started up the engine, he realized he forgot to sign the identification papers, and the man in the morgue never asked him. He should return and do it now, he realized. Then, he started crying, loudly and uncontrollably.

The car continued to run, until there was a knock at his window. At first, he thought he had not heard it, but then came a second knock. He did not even realized that he turned off the car’s ignition, but he did so as he looked absently toward his window, to see the face of the man bent over looking into his car directly at him.

He rolled down his window, whereupon the man identified himself as Lieutenant Berry of the Baltimore Police Department.

“I know, I forgot to sign the papers,” Chou said. “I will do it in a moment. I would like to be alone now, if you please.”

“That’s-not exactly the reason I wanted to speak with you,” Berry replied. “I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am. I met your daughter briefly-we go to the same church.”

“Are you assigned to the case?” Chou asked, struggling with difficulty to pull himself together.

“No, I doubt I will be,” the detective replied. “I generally work organized crimes and gangs, that kind of thing. I just heard what happened, and thought I should be here.”

“That is very kind of you,” Chou replied. “How well did you know my daughter?”

“Not that well,” Berry told him. “I overheard her one time talking to someone about how she wanted to try to get some work as a dancer on a video. She mentioned something about that rap artist Toby Da Pimp. I probably stepped somewhat over the line, but I tried to warn her away from that. I know all about the kinds of people Dwayne Lecher associates with, so I thought it was incumbent on me to try to steer her away from that idea. She didn’t seem to be too impressed. She said she already had an appointment to try out for an audition. I wondered whether I should try to involve myself further, and now it really bothers me that I didn’t pursue it more. I only hope”-

“Detective Berry, I appreciate your concern, but you are on the wrong track. I know who murdered my daughter. It was a woman named Marnie Moloku. It was an extortion attempt, targeted towards me. I was to relinquish the rights to certain medical formulas I had discovered, and when I refused, they kidnapped my daughter, and then they killed her. I not only know Marnie Moloku was involved, but I suspect a man by the name of Phillip Khoska might also be involved. I cannot prove that much yet, but the woman I have proof of.”

He looked now at Detective Berry, who seemed at a loss for words.

“Does anybody else know about this?” he asked.

“My private investigators know about it, yes,” Chou replied. “Soon, everybody in the damn world is going to know about it.”

“Mr. Chou, did you report this to the police, this extortion attempt?” Berry asked him. “I hate to say this, but you could be criminally liable if you did not, especially as it involved an underage minor.”

Suddenly, Berry seemed agitated, and barely able to disguise it.

“Let them do what they will,” Chou replied. “They will certainly hear tomorrow when I go downtown to file a complaint-I promise you that. If they want to prosecute the grieving father of a murdered child victimized by corporate thugs, I am sure that would make an interesting headline in the news, possibly for quite a few news cycles.

“If you will excuse me now, Lieutenant, I really should go sign that paperwork, and then return home. My wife will be expecting me.”

Chou had now removed himself from his car and started walking back toward the morgue entrance, when he suddenly stopped, and turned around. Tears were still flowing from his eyes, and yet, he seemed remarkably calm.

“I used to warn Susie about hanging around the wrong people,” he said. “I used to warn her about the Seventeenth Pulse, the kind of people that hung around that rap artist. She used to say she was not worried about them. She never worried about anything.

“When the hospital was bombed, I warned her about being in the wrong place. She did not care. When those high school basketball players were poisoned, I tried to discuss that with her. She did not care about that either. She used to say she would not let anybody scare her and prevent her from living her life. Isn’t that ironic?

“You say I should have informed the police-yet, this city has been crawling with police, with FBI and ATF agents, with officials from the Department of Homeland Security, ever since the hospital was bombed by whoever was responsible for it. After all these months of investigations, no one yet seems to know for sure who is responsible. Some shadowy terrorist network, they say. Well, they have to say something, do they not?”

Berry looked at Chou, at a loss for words, and then looked down at the ground. Chou looked at him, seemingly lost in his thoughts.

“Do you really think they could have found her, Detective?” he finally asked.

“I’m very sorry,” Berry replied, obviously affected by Chou’s barely contained anguish. Chou seemed not to have heard this.

“Did you know that after the hospital was bombed, nine psychiatric patients were released?” he continued. “Someone seems to have forced Doctor Tariq to sign their discharge papers and enter it into his computer, before he was killed by the blast. He supposedly determined them cured, even though they were all involuntarily committed on the grounds of criminal insanity. Prior to their release, they dragged a psychiatric ward administrator, a woman, back to their rooms during the course of all the confusion that night. They brutally raped her, repeatedly. They were just out of harms way of the blast while all this occurred. The woman was in a coma weeks before she revived.

“Yet, due to a bureaucratic snafu, Doctor Tariq’s supposed recommendation was adhered to, and they were released-despite the fact that four of them really did not want to be released. One of them actually begged to stay. He was afraid of what he might do without his medication. H was afraid he might rape and murder another woman. He knew the voices in his head would keep at him until he did it.

“They let them go, all of them. Actually, they made them go. They transported them downtown and set them loose on the street. Did you know that to this day, no one knows to where they went? There is no sign of them, anywhere.”

Berry coughed, cleared his throat, as Chou now just seemed to stare outward.

“There have been a series of murders committed over the last three months. Women have had their throats ripped open and every drop of blood drained from their bodies. Obviously, the same perpetrator is involved-a man identified at the scene of the first of the murders as a man with boils and running sores all over his face, a man with dark, matted hair. Three different people saw the same perpetrator that night, in that general area.

“I see his face on wanted posters, in the post office and in other places around town, to this day. No one, despite his hideous affliction, has yet to find him or discover who he is.”

There was a glaze now over Chou’s eyes, as he turned around and returned to the morgue. By the time he exited, Lieutenant James Berry was gone. Chou started up his car and returned home. The front porch light was on, as was the front room. Otherwise, the house appeared to be dark.

When he entered, he saw no one but Jack, who looked understandably morose.

“Was it Susie?” he asked. Chou affirmed that it was. Jack began to cry, whereupon Chou uneasily walked to him and, taking him by the shoulder, held him to him. They sat, and Chou poured himself a scotch and offered one to his son, but Jack declined.

“There is something I think I should tell you later, though,” he said. “Not right now, but in a few days. Well, maybe in a few weeks.”

“You are gay, you mean? Jack, why in the hell would you keep something like this secret for so long? How could you keep it secret? Why would you think”-

“Did mom tell you about that?” Jack said, not nearly as surprised as Chou assumed he would be, while his father merely looked at him in some confusion.

“Your mother knew about this as well? What-am I the only person that didn’t know until today?”

“She not only knows,” Jack said in obvious anxiety, “she insists I am married to some man I have never in my life heard of. She insists that I bring him home for Christmas”

“What”?

“She has been acting very strange,” Jack continued. “That is why Chrissy is gone. She got upset because of things mom said about her. I should have told you before, but I was not quite sure how to explain it. She is just acting outright bizarrely. She is down in the basement den now, waiting for you.”

Chou knew he had to confront his wife at some point, and the quicker he did so the less painful it would be. At the same time, this latest news proved quite unnerving.

“Jack, would you stay here tonight?” he asked.

“Sure,” his son replied, as Chou made his way uneasily towards the basement steps. He stopped when he got to the doorway.

“Jack, if you don’t’ like the job you have now, please-feel free to quit. These meaningless jobs you take-well, we’ll talk about it later. Stay here as long as you wish. We’ll work something out.”

For a brief instant, Jack lost his composure, unsure of how to answer.

“The job’s not too bad,” he said. “There’s advancement potential, and it’s one I do enjoy doing, for once. Thanks though, pop, I appreciate that.”

Chou made his way down the basement steps, toward the dim light that revealed little, and felt in a real sense that he was walking toward his doom. What possessed him to give his wife that injection, he wondered? What in the name of God was he thinking? He knew she was low on blood, and it made her an insomniac, though constantly tired and depressed, and more irritable than usual. There was no valid reason for the blood to have any ill effect on her. It’s replicating faculties should, he reasoned, give her a boost until they wore off, at which time he could monitor her progress. There was no trace of any other diseases such as afflicted Marlowe Krovell upon his first admittance to Johns Hopkins, and yet which over time lessened in the presence of the blood samples, until they finally disappeared all together.

He told himself that he had not acted unethically, or coldly, considering some might consider such an action an ill-advised experiment to perform on one’s own wife. He tried not to worry. Surely, such a small amount of blood from a sample that by all indications was compatible with Mia’s own could have no lasting ill effects, certainly no more than to a minor and temporary extent.

“Mia, are you down here?” he asked. “We need to have a talk.”

“Yes, I am down here,” she said as he made his way down to the first landing, at which point he flipped on a light switch.

“Mia, what are you doing here in the dark?” he asked.

“I just felt like being in the dark,” she replied, not, he noted, with any trace of distress or sadness. Yet, as he turned on the light, he saw no sign of her, as he continued down the steps until he reached the bottom, and then stepped onto the basement floor.

“I am back here,” she said, at which point he turned. He saw her, sitting on the floor, her feet folded under her ass with her arms in front of her legs under her knees, holding them as she swayed, her bottom suspended from the basement floor. She was naked.

“Mia, what are you doing?” he said uneasily as he tried to hide his shock. “Jack told me”-

“Is he still here?” she asked as she rose quickly-lithely. She had a strange look in her eyes. It was a look of wonder, a look of curiosity-a look of hunger. Chou noticed that off to the side of her were her clothes, all folded neatly with one item on top of the other, with her shoes at the very top.

“Mia, why are you undressed?” he asked warily.

“Do I look old to you?” she asked, as though not hearing his question.

“Mia, you must listen to me,” he said. “I guess it best I just come right out and tell you-Susie is dead. I saw her at the morgue. I made the identification.”

She just looked at him quizzically for some time, while he stood and waited, unsure of what further to say.

“I know all that, David,” she finally said. “You are never going to get over that are you?”

“What-are you talking about?” he asked. She started walking slowly towards him.

“David, that’s been years ago,” she said. “We still have Jack. We still have Chrissy. Like I told you, we might have had another child in time, and we still could. Of course, at our ages we would have to adopt. That would hardly be fair to the child though, to be raised by such old parents who might not live to see their graduation.”

“Mia what in the hell are you talking about?” he demanded, starting to lose his patience, but at this point more afraid than angry or frustrated.

“And we have the grandchildren?” she continued as she got closer to him.

“Grandchildren?” Chou repeated.

“Of course, grandchildren-Chrissy’s kids, you know, the ones she wants to constantly drop off on us since she divorced her husband? Oh, that reminds me. You say Jack is still here. I wonder why he didn’t bring Bill. They are usually so inseparable.”

“Yes, I guess that is right,” Chou said, as he slowly began to back away from her. “I’m sure though Bill will come by eventually.”

“I remember the day of Chrissy’s wedding, when he brought Bill with him as his guest. The look on your face was priceless when you met him for the first time. Who would have thought their marriage would have lasted longer than Chrissy’s to that rich Finnish boy? Ha-I barely remember his name now, do you?”

Chou was by now terrified, and tried to assume a relaxed pose, and faked a laugh that did not sound quite as hearty as he would have liked.

“Snorri Sturleson, or something like that, wasn’t it? Hell, I don’t even remember when Jack and Bill got-married you say? Hell, where did they get married?”

“Here in Maryland,” she replied. “You were there, remember?”

Jack knew now that she was insane. That did it, he thought. Why did she keep coming up to him, closer and closer? What was it about her eyes that seemed so distant, as though she were looking into a distant memory? She looked so determined and yet aware.

Green, he realized. There was a trace of green shining from her eyes.

“Fuck me, David,” she suddenly demanded. “It’s been years since we have had sex. You are going to fuck me.”

Chou was aghast, and now gave up his futile attempt at pretense of normality. He was terrified and could no longer hide it even if he wanted to.

“No, Mia,” he said, attempting an appeal to reason. “This is not the time. I know you are upset over”-

“I don’t want to hear it, David,” she insisted as she suddenly grabbed him by his shirt collar, while he tensed in horror, paralyzed to the point of immobility, the only part of him capable of movement now his heartbeat and breathing, both bodily functions that now raged out of his control.

Suddenly she ripped his shirt, and then went for his trousers.

“Mia, please stop this!” he begged.

Mia however gave him a push that sent him sprawled out on his back to the floor below. Before he could move, she pounced on him.

“If you can’t fuck me,” she insisted, “then you are going to eat my fucking pussy, god damn you.”

David Chou now went limp and voided his bladder and his bowels, as he gave himself over to a terror the likes of which he had never before imagined-and then he cried, loudly and uncontrollably. The looks in the eyes of his wife was now suddenly savagely insane, and hideously determined.

“Please, Mia, stop this-leave me alone,” he begged between sobs-but it was too late. Mia Chou had her legs spread and her wet, throbbing vagina pressed down firmly, tightly, harshly, over the mouth of her husband.

“EAT MY PUSSY MOTHERFUCKER!” she shouted as she started to grind it fiercely onto the mouth of David Chou, who cried pitifully, yet otherwise was helpless to resist.

“EAT MY FUCKING PUSSY! EAT MY FUCKING PUSSY! EAT MY FUCKING PUSSY! EAT MY FUCKING PUSSY!”

Forty-Four Years After Dallas-The Mystery Thickens

Speaking of Vincent Bugliosi, the post prior to this one reminded me of this post on the Smirking Chimp, in which John Chuckman takes apart Bugliosi's book about the Kennedy assassination, "Reclaiming History", which he calls a "prosecutor's brief", attesting that it's huge volume is in itself an indictment against its veracity.

I tend to agree with him. I don't usually lend myself to conspiracy theories, not even the fun ones-well, okay, especially the fun ones. Still, that old saying "where there's smoke there's fire" makes a lot of sense in cases like this one.

Unfortunately, the current scam perpetrated by the people who want to keep the lid on the events of Dallas Texas 44 years ago is obvious. According to them, the only people who believe in a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy are the same folks who believe in alien spacecraft in hangars in New Mexico, and that the United States government was purposely responsible for 9/11.

In other words, shut the fuck up or they'll make sure you're tagged as being as big a loon as-well, as the guy who may actually have been responsible for the conspiracy that killed Kennedy.

Of course, that's just my own loony conspiracy theory.

Running With The Devil

Although I seldom talk about it, I once met a woman named Bary Bruner, who claimed to be a former member of the Manson family. One of these days I'll probably end up posting about it. I don't know if it was true or not (in profile, she looked dead on the picture in the book Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi), but every now and then she crosses my mind and I try to Google some information about her.

The last result of such a search turned up this page on YouTube. The video, however, is not the point, it's the resultant conversation. Have you ever wanted to read something that was sad, scary, and downright hilarious at the same time? Look no further than the conversation posted in response to the video here.

Hillary-An Extreme Makeover

No, all may not be as it appears on the surface. So, how would a President Hillary Clinton deal with such issues as, for example, the current crisis in Pakistan? Would she put President Musharraf in his place?

Well, in this article by Greg Palast, Greg explains how it was her husband who put him in the place he is now-yeah, in the first place-and why.

A clue-if she wins, don't get behind on your electric bill.

Hat tip to Uncle Ernie's Issues And Alibis

Polyamory

A redhead, a brunette, a blonde. One white, one black, one Oriental. Okay, and my favorite, a sexy, exotic Goth chick. Maybe a fat chick to handle the cooking. What more could a man ask for? Well, some privacy every now and then, maybe.

Of course, that's all a fantasy, I don't think I could handle more than one, and I sure as hell couldn't be one of a group myself.

Still,if you think you might be missing out in life being stuck to the same person day after day, check out Practical Polyamory. It could be just what the doctor ordered, along with Viagra-and maybe a Pacemaker.

Damn, I almost forgot-twins!

Is Nothing Sacred?

Hey, Marilyn Manson


I think it's pretty sick of you buying the skeleton of a Chinese child, and masks made of human skin, and Nazi memorabilia, with the proceeds of your band's profits. Don't you have any standards at all?

If you're going to engage in those types of purchases, do it on your own dime, don't stick it to your band mates. Jeeez.
Hat tip to Hillbilly White Trash

By the way, Lem, you shouldn't be so hard on the band members. Marilyn has been an expert at hiding his true nature. After all, this is the man that gave the world Jack Off Jill.

Sometimes They Wear Lavender

My new Christmas wishlist:
1. Hardbound copy of James Joyce's Ulysses
2. Flashlight
3. A bigger closet


And to think, it all started with Mad Magazine

Hat tip to Greg at Grad Student Madness

And if you really want to torture yourself, check out:

Encyclopediadramatica.com/USA

Radu-Chapter XXV (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

Part Three
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV

Radu-Chapter XXV (A Novel by Patrick Kelley)
11 pages approximate
Berry dreaded sending his kids away, but felt he had no choice. Things were becoming more dangerous than he ever imagined they would have, and too many people knew where he lived. Too many people knew where his children went to school. Too many people knew enough to understand that Lieutenant James Berry had one weakness and one weakness only-his family.

It was gut wrenching, especially as concerning his oldest child, twelve-year-old Darrell. He was at that age where a son needed his father more than ever, even though he was growing more and more difficult. When he heard the news of his up-and-coming move to Salt Lake City, he became more sullen than ever.

To nine-year-old Karinda and seven-year-old Jimmy, it was also hard, though not as difficult. Karinda liked the idea of spending some time with her mom, and to Jimmy it was a big adventure. They were ready.

“Darrell, come on, son, your mom will be here shortly,” he shouted up the steps. After a couple of minutes, Darrell came down, lugging two suitcases, which he set by the door alongside the others.

“So how long is this going to be?” he asked.

“Maybe just a few months,” Berry said. “It may be a couple of years or so, just depends on how everything goes.”

“Well, I think it sucks,” the young teen said. “That woman ain’t my mom, and I’ll never see her as my mom. How in the hell can I look at her as my mom or even pretend she is, after she walked off and left us when I was like five and Jimmy was like, hell, not even a year old?”

Berry reacted with a pained expression, which he tried to hide, but turning away from his son just added fuel to the fire of his concerns.

“Darrell, a lot went down that you don’t know about,” he said. “It wasn’t all her fault.”

“Yeah, something is always going down that I don’t know nothin’ about,” he said.

“For God’s sake, Darrell, you go there every summer, have been for three years now, how is this that much different? I’ll be in touch, I swear. Hell, I might even be coming around there sometime. Who knows, I might even move there.”

“You mean you and mommy might get back together?” Karinda asked, obviously pleased at the prospect.

“Well, I didn’t say that now,” Berry replied. “Sometimes it’s best to let sleeping dragons lie. Not that your mom is a dragon, just that sometimes two people can’t stay together.”

Karinda looked down as she faked a smile, as Berry looked over to his youngest, little Jimmy.

“So anything you want to say little man?” he asked as he ruffled the kid’s hair. “You are going to look out for these two for me, right?”

“Yeah,” he said with a grin. “What about you? Will you be all right, with your hand and all?”

Berry looked at his hand, still in a cast after seven excruciatingly difficult surgeries.

“The hand will be fine,” he said. “I can feel it tingling more every day, and the doc says it should be completely healed in another couple of months or so. So those bad guys better watch out, huh?”

Suddenly Karinda started crying, saying she did not want to leave, and James lowered into a crouching position and gathered her in his right arm, and then reached out for Jimmy, who fell into his other arm, as Berry cried.

“I love you both,” he said, as suddenly Berry heard the honking of the car horn from outside. They told him they loved him too, after which he rose and looked at Darrell, who now began to cry for the first time in years. Berry held his son up to him, told him he loved him, but by then Darrell could barely talk.

“Look out for yourself, and your brother and sister,” he told him.

“You do the same dad,” Darrell replied. “I love you.”

They went outside, where Frieda stood outside the Ford Explorer, its side passenger’s door open and ready to load.

Within a couple of minutes, the suitcases and other belongings were loaded up, and they were ready to go, but Frieda indicated a need to talk to Berry in private.

‘I’m going to need some more money,” she said.

“Hell, I’m giving you sixty grand a year, what more could you need?” he asked.

“Another sixty grand,” she said. “Kids are expensive, you know. You want them to be happy, don’t you?”

Berry unconsciously wiped his brow as he breathed deeply.

“Whatever I send you for the kids had damn well better be spent on the kids,” he replied. “I want them to know its coming from me too, because”-

“Hey, no problem,” Frieda replied. “Don’t worry, James. I promise I’ll look after them like they were my own.”

Berry shot her a stern look

“You know, that is really a smart-ass thing for you to be saying, isn’t it?” he asked. “I hope you don’t consider that funny, because I don’t think it’s a damn bit funny. In fact, I think it’s really kind of sad, don’t you?”

“James, you know I love these kids,” she said, now somewhat hurt by Berry’s none-too-subtle chiding. “I honestly appreciate you giving me the chances you’ve given me. God knows I don’t deserve it.”

“I don’t believe that or I’d never send them to stay with you,” he replied.

“I promise I’ll take good care of them,” she said. “I won’t let you down. You can trust me.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear,” Berry replied. “And for what it’s worth, I know that.”

“Good, then it’s settled,” Frieda said with a sigh. “Now, give me a hug to make it look good, and then I got to get the hell out of here.”

He hugged her, after which Frieda went to the car, now loaded with the children’s belongings. Berry tried to look brave as the kids waved goodbye and shouted they loved him, but as he waved back at them and told them he loved them too, all the time he smiled he wondered if he looked as stupid as he felt. He should have heard from Dorothy a week ago but had not. It was starting to concern him, and he wondered whether others had taken it on themselves to do the job he was supposed to do, and if so, why? The obvious implication might well be that somebody did not trust him, and that might certainly bode ill for him in some way or another.

It made it even more imperative that he do everything he had to do as though nothing were amiss. He had a job to do today, and he had to step on it before he ran behind schedule. He got in his car and drove to the upscale neighborhood where the girl lived, and parked across the street and just down two or three houses down, and waited. Before an hour went by, the girl left the house hopping mad. He could see the girl’s mother standing in the doorway. Berry rolled down his window just in time to hear the woman demand that her daughter return to the house.

“Fuck you, you fucking bitch!” the girl screamed in what was about the angriest tone of voice he ever heard. The girl went bounding down the street, and James wondered if this might be a good time to pull up to her and offer her a ride. No, he decided, that might look a little too suspicious. He really wanted nothing to do with this, but it was wholly out of his hands now. He knew what he had to do. He went to church.

At this time of day, no one was there, but the door was always open, as usual, and so he entered, dipped his good hand into the holy water, crossed himself, genuflected briefly, and then took his place at a pew as he started repeating the rosary. Hr then enunciated the Apostle’s Creed, after which he prayed earnestly for guidance. He was here earlier today, as he was almost every day, in time to partake of the Eucharist, but this time was different.

He heard the door open, and knew from the steps it was her. He lowered his head and shut his eyes, hoping he was wrong, that it was not her or that if it was she would back out at the last minute, and simply walk out. He told himself it would be out of his hands then. What could they say? He was only a human being, after all, and could only do so much. He was no miracle worker.

As he stood there, wishing he could make himself invisible, he noted the approach of the girl who even now kneeled down in the pew beside him.

“Hey are you trying to avoid me or something?” she said. “I’m here.”

“Yeah, I know, I’ll be ready in a minute,” he said.

“Are you sure you really know Dwayne Letcher?” the girl asked.

“You didn’t say anything to your parents or anything else about what we talked about did you?”

“Oh, hell no,” she said. “Not that I give a damn what they think, but I don’t want to mess up a good thing. Are you sure you can get me a job on one of Toby’s videos? You saw me dance, right?”

Indeed, Berry had seen the girl’s dance, and though he thought she was all right, Toby was unimpressed when he saw the audition tape the girl made.

“Let me get this straight,” he had said. “You say this girl is just sixteen years old, but you want me to”-

“I want you to do what the fuck I tell you,” Berry told him. “Everything will work out fine.”

That ended it, but Berry was really no happier than Toby had been. Still, he had no more choice than did his Citizen Informant. It was something Berry put down as a painful necessity.

“Yeah, not only did I see it, so did Toby.” he now told Susan Chou, “He practically begged me to send you over.”

The young girl was ecstatic, and for a minute Berry thought she was going to maul him right there in the church. It was a temptation, but luckily her firm, lithe body backed away from the embrace, which reminded him very much of when he began his affair with Marnie Moloku when she was about the same age as this girl.

“I still don’t get why you’re doing this,” she said. “Who am I that you’re so interested in helping me?”

“I just know talent when I see it, and I know you’ve got ambition,” he replied. “Look at it this way, one of these days when I’m an old man, and you’re a big star, I can brag to my grandkids that I helped you along the way, so to speak.”

“That’s cool, Mr. Berry, but how did you even know about me wanting to be in the music business? How do you know Toby anyway? Why would you even want to help me? I mean, I know you’re a devout Christian, as much as my mom supposedly is, and everybody here knows I had an abortion. I mean, shit, everybody has made it clear to me that as far as they’re concerned I’m the scum of the earth, whether they come right out and say it or not. I had already about had it with this place and these hypocrites until I met you a couple of weeks ago. Still, why me?”

“Oh, it’s just something I have to do, little lady,” Berry replied. “Everybody needs a second chance in life, and everybody deserves a chance to live their dream. Am I sounding hackneyed enough yet?”

“Hell I don’t even know what that means?” she said with a heartily childish laugh. “All I know is, I’m ready.”

Berry looked at her questioningly, s he said to himself that, yes, this one was probably always ready. At the same time, he almost hoped something would happen to change her mind-a sign from God perhaps, or a sudden outbreak of genital herpes. It was obvious though that something was driving her to take the path of least resistance on a road straight to her doom.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “When I talked to you about all this before you thought I was some pervert trying to pick up young girls.”

“Yeah, I called the Baltimore Police Department and asked to speak to you. They told me that you were on sick leave. I guess it’s your hand huh? What happened to it?”

“It got caught in a vise,” he said now showing some signs of concern. “Did you tell them who you were?”

“No, I just said I was a friend and I would call you at home,” she said. “Wow, though, I found out you’re some kind of hero or something. You helped catch some of those Arabs that blew up the hospital, and busted up that street gang too.”

“Did you call there from home or from a pay phone?” he asked, becoming increasingly worried.

“My cell phone,” she said. “What are you so worried about?”

“Well, for one thing, see, it wouldn’t look good for Toby if it got out he was friends with the cop that busted up the Pulse, because it would mess up his street creds,” he explained. “Just be sure you don’t mention that to anybody, especially to anybody around Toby. Also, the Arab thing at the hospital is still an ongoing investigation, and a lot of it is hush-hush, because we’re trying to prevent a backlash against innocent members of the Islamic community.”

“What does all this have to do with me?” Susan asked, and he could tell she was once more becoming suspicious of his true motives.

“Well, nothing, but if it gets out you’ve been calling me at work, you might get dragged into it,” he said. “That’s why you have to keep all of this between me and you, especially about me and Toby.”

She just looked at him for a second or two as though she were confused and not sure how to process this. He knew he had to do something, because he was losing her, and now he understood he could not afford to let that happen.

“Okay, let me put it to you this way,” he said. “Toby doesn’t work for me-I work for Toby.”

“Yeah, you explained that to me before,” she replied.

“Yeah, well here’s the thing,” he continued. “He found out it was actually the Pulse that blew up that hospital, and tried to blame it on the Arabs, in retribution for those kids that were poisoned. Two of those kids were relatives of the gang leader, but when Toby found out about it, he was appalled, and, well, he came to me. He thinks the Arabs had nothing to do with the poisoning either, and Toby hates terrorists, so when the Pulse pulled that stunt, it was the last straw. It’s a mess, and we’re still trying to work it out, but you have to keep quiet about all this.”

“Wow! Sure, Mr. Berry, my lips are sealed,” she said. “I guess its good you told me all this. Some people are saying Toby fucked over his own gang, but hell I know that’s not right, he was shot twice at that weirdo place, right?”

“Actually, the gang leader shot him because he knew Toby turned against them over the terrorist plot they hatched. They were planning to blow up Baltimore. The Reverend Harvey Caldwell was the ringleader of every bit of it. He was crazy as a loon, but nobody realized how insane he really was until he started ranting about a dead woman coming out of the toilet after him.”

The girl was in a state of rapture by now, and only wanted more. Berry handed her the card with the address of the recording studios of Dwayne Lecher’s Lecherous Records, which was dead in the heart of Seventeenth Pulse territory. Susan Chou left the church with stars in her eyes. Berry was sure that when they found her, those stars would still be there. Before he left the church, he resumed his prayers, and lit a special candle for the soul of Susan Chou. He asked God that she not suffer any more than necessary, and then he prayed for forgiveness.

When he finally left the church, he called Toby, and told him to make sure he disposed of Susan Chou’s telephone. He would have to think of something if the police searched her records, he reasoned.

“Oh, and by the way, Toby,” he concluded. “When you get through fucking Marnie, send her over my way. She and I need to have a long talk about her mother. She still hasn’t shown up yet.”

Lecher made no denials, just a slight haruumph, before Berry hung up. By the time he got to the house, he fixed a sandwich and decided to just sit around and wait for his kids to call, as Frieda promised she would have them do somewhere en route. As he thought of all of this, Berry went to the picture on the mantle, the one taken of him and a slim, svelte Frieda on the day of their wedding.

“You sure have changed, Frieda,” he muttered.

Just as he turned from the picture, the lights went out, and he heard the calling of the bird from outside his house. It startled him from his reveries, and sent a chill through his blood. He walked out the back door, and into the yard, where the large female black vulture sat perched uneasily on top of the rose bush, the weight of the now bare branches straining under the birds weight as she flapped her wings.

“What are you doing here?” he asked as he felt himself growing weaker. Then, the blonde man stepped forward, dressed like someone out of the fifteenth century, his long, thick, wavy blonde hair still in an ever growing wind, his green eyes piercing into his heart and soul with a cold malice that paralyzed Berry at once in his tracks. The bird hovered nearby the man, who he had almost forgotten. How could he have forgotten him?

“I hope you have said your prayers, James,” the man said. “I hope you have partaken of the sacred host. I will have need of you soon.”

Please, no, Berry thought, not again. He thought it was over with, and then he forgot it completely. The man made him forget. Now, he was back, and Berry realized he only wanted one thing.

“Please don’t do that to me again,” he begged.

Then, the bird let out a loud call that pierced through Berry’s very fiber, and he shuddered as he whimpered.

“I am not here for that,” the blonde man replied. “Though your blood can sustain me, it tastes sour to me, James. No, I am here for a different reason. I need your help in a different way. You are going to help me, too, aren’t you, my friend?”

“Of course,” Berry promised. “I’ll do anything you say.”

“That is good, James,” the man replied as his voice started to become other-worldly in nature, as though Berry was now hearing through a vacuum in time and space.

“Your hand is better, is it not? Of course it is. See, I really mean you no ill will. You have been a good friend to me, and I am of the mind that thinks a man should take good care of his friends. That is why I know I can depend on you now. Look into my eyes, and you will see what I mean.

“You are a servant of the people of course, and as such I think you should know that a heinous crime is about to be committed.”

Berry looked into the ancient eyes that pierced into his soul, but all he saw was dead bodies, in what looked to be a morgue. He was not sure what it meant at first, until he recognized one of the girls. Then, he recognized another one. Then, he recognized the man, standing there in the morgue, with a gun in his hand.

“You know what you have to do now, don’t you?” he asked.

“Yeah, I do,” Berry whispered.

Berry did not even realize the man had vanished until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“James, are you all right?”

Berry turned to see the face of his longtime partner on the force, Frank Anderson.

“Frank, what are you doing here?” he asked.

“Oh, I just come by to see how you were getting along,” Frank replied. “I guess the kids have gone by now, huh?”

“Yeah, Frieda came and got them a couple of hours ago,” Berry replied. “It was almost like I stood there and let her wrench my heart out of my chest. Still, I had to do it.”

Berry indicated his damaged hand, reminding Anderson of the excuse he gave for the injury, as well as the need to send the kids away. One night, after returning from work, a gang of blacks assaulted him right outside his house and placed his hand in some kind of iron vise, with his gun in the same hand. It was obviously in retribution for his busting the Seventeenth Pulse, but unfortunately, he never got a good look at any of the perpetrators, who wore hoods.

Berry invited Frank to come inside for a beer, and the two men went inside the house. Frank noted the marriage photos of Berry and Frieda, and one taken of them and the kids, right after the birth of little Jimmy. They seemed so happy in the picture, though taken a mere two months before Frieda left Berry and abandoned her own kids.

“I’m sorry I missed Frieda”, Frank said as Berry handed him a Miller Genuine Draft. “For one thing, she had good taste in alcohol.”

“She hasn’t changed much,” Berry replied as he smiled at the jibe. “Put on some weight, though. Hell, you might not even recognize her.”

They sat and talked over old times, as Frank reminded him of how depressed he was at the time of the abrupt departure. Of course, Berry did not need him to remind him of that. He remembered well the time he came home, to find his wife livid with rage after Dorothy Moloku came to their house and told her of Berry’s affair with her sixteen year old daughter Marnie. She began throwing things at him, a vase, a potted plant, even a lamp. What made it worse-or perhaps what made it better in the long run-was that Berry had simultaneously engaged in an affair with Dorothy as well, which the woman also admitted to. It was the end of what seemed on the surface to be an idyllic, all American family.

“I have to say, though, it didn’t seem to affect your police work, at least not in the long run,” Frank said.

“I wasn’t aware it affected it at all,” Berry said as he shifted uncomfortably.

“Well, you forgot your great unsolved case,” Berry reminded him. “You never did find that woman that murdered her husband. Of course by the time they found out she’d already absconded with the insurance money, so who knows where she went off to, huh?”

“Oh yeah,” Berry said with a type of realization that portrayed the eruption of years of forgotten memories. “I remember that. Somehow, it came out her husband beat her all the time, so they autopsied his body and found evidence of poisoning. Yeah, I almost forgot that. What was that woman’s name, anyway?”

“Geraldine Malone,” Frank replied, as he finished his beer. “You know, I wouldn’t mind having another one of these. Who knows, maybe by the time I drink three or four they might actually start to taste good.”

“Yeah, sure,” Berry replied as he went to the refrigerator, from where he retrieved two more beers. “Damn, you sure got a memory on you, Frank, that was what-seven years ago?”

“Well, that eye for detail and long-term memory has kept me in the game,” Frank replied. “What surprised me is you don’t remember. I guess you don’t want to, though.”

“Well, why would you say that?” Berry replied uneasily.

“Oh hell, no big deal,” Frank said with a wave of the hand as he took another long drink of the canned beer. “We all have them, at least one of them.”

“We all have at least one of what?” Berry asked.

“The one that got away,” Frank asked with a shrug and a smile.

“Oh, yeah-the one that got away,” Berry said.

He affected a smile, but when he turned to look in the face of his partner and friend of some eight years on the Baltimore Police Department, he found himself shaken by the suddenly serious expression on the face of the grizzled old veteran, known widely as the master of a thousand interrogation techniques.

“I’ve got to say, I never thought you would never let another one get away,” Frank continued. “On the other hand, I guess Grace Rodescu is a lot more slippery than most.”

“What about Grace Rodescu?” Berry asked, starting to become uneasy.

“Oh, nothing much, just that I know for a time she was one of your CI’s, and for a while it looked like you mined her for every nugget you could dig out of her, but now she’s just disappeared, seemingly without a trace. You have to admit that is very unusual for someone with her profile. A published reporter, in addition to a heroin addict and a prostitute, with potential ties to organized crime, and here she just vanishes, in the aftermath of two particularly gruesome murders she is at least an alleged witness to.

“I don’t know,” he concluded with a shrug. “I just find it hard to believe you haven’t kept some lines of communication open, that’s all. You would seem to be one of the first people she would turn to. Of course, you might also be one of the first people she would hide from, but I doubt it would be that hard for you to find her, if you really put your mind to it.”

Frank took another sip of beer as Berry eyed him with curiosity.

“Well, I have been rather occupied,” you know, Berry reminded him as he indicated his mangled hand. “Distracted, you might say. I promise you, Frank, there ain’t going to be any more Geraldine Malones. Wherever Grace is, I’ll find her. Of course that will be a bit easier when I’m put back on active duty.”

Frank nodded, and then looked toward the clock.

“Frank, is there another reason you’re here that you’re not telling me about?”

“Well, yeah, to tell you the truth, there is,” he said. “Like I said, it’s this photographic memory of mine. Sometimes I think it is a curse, but it can be a blessing in disguise. For example, I remember you telling me about the woman you were having an affair with. Her name was Moloku, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, Dorothy, that’s right,” Berry replied. “Damn, Frank, you do have a memory. Anyway, yeah, that was a big fuck-up on my part, getting involved with a woman that turned out to be the wife of a Russian mob associate. I dropped that hot potato real quick, believe me.”

Frank was looking at his longtime friend now more glumly than ever.

“You really don’t know, do you?”

“I don’t know about what?” Berry asked, growing more visibly alarmed by the second.

“Voroslav Moloku was murdered last week, and his wife Dorothy seems to have disappeared.”

Berry rose in his chair in an attempt to portray his growing anxiety concerning Frank’s obvious suspicions as a state of realistic and understandable surprise.

“My God!” he exclaimed. “No, of course I didn’t know about it. It doesn’t surprise me in the least, but-oh my Lord!”

“James, you’d better sit down, because that’s not all of it,” Frank continued. “You have to promise me you’re not going to breath a word of anything I’m about to tell you. I’ll just come right out and tell you-Internal Affairs is looking at you as possibly being complicit in his murder.”

For a while, Berry said nothing, as he sat back in his recliner, trying to put his thoughts into some kind of logical semblance of order, all the while pretending to process the news he was hearing, supposedly for the first time.

“Frank, that’s just crazy,” he finally said.

“Well, here’s the thing,” Frank continued. “Whoever killed Mr. Moloku left your gun at the crime scene, and evidently tried to make it look like a suicide, except whoever did it wiped the gun clean. There were no prints on the gun at all, not even Moloku’s, which does not make a bit of sense. According to forensics, it has been years since anybody even cleaned and oiled the damn gun, so there definitely should have been prints. It’s a wonder the damn thing didn’t explode and blow his or somebody’s hand off, to be frank.”

“Oh for God’s sake Frank, I got this injury six weeks ago,” Berry reminded him. “Do you really think if I was to do something like that, I would be that sloppy about it?”

“No, I don’t,” Frank replied. “I think I’ve convinced Internal Affairs of that, too. The point is it is definitely your gun. Do you have any idea how it ended up there? Did you ever have a gun stolen?”

Suddenly, Berry lowered his head, as though in a sudden flash of pained insight.

“The only gun I’ve ever had stolen is the one I thought Frieda took with her when she left,” he said. “I should have reported it, I know, but I just didn’t want to put the kids or me through any more hassle. It never occurred to me-Dorothy was at the house around that time. She was there several times, in fact, before I called off our relationship. Not only that, I left her in the house alone a couple of times. She was there once almost a whole day, watching the kids. I noticed it gone once while she was coming around, but in my mind, I just jumped to what I thought was the logical conclusion at the time. By then, Frieda had left and I had no idea where in the hell she was, and had no desire to go looking for her.

“Damn, what an idiot I’ve been!”

“It makes sense,” Frank said thoughtfully. “Just the same, I wanted to tell you to watch your back. You know how Internal Affairs can be when they think they might be onto something. They are going to want to go overboard getting all their damn ducks in a row.

“In fact, I might as well come out and tell you, they were here today. They were watching when Frieda came to pick up your kids. They know you went to the Catholic Church twice today, which they also consider somewhat curious. I told them you’re upset over the idea your kids might be in danger, but I don’t think they’re convinced, even though we’ve established you’re a devout catholic and a regular churchgoer.”

“And I bet they know you’re here now, right?” Berry asked, now feeling safe enough to allow the real anger he was feeling to show somewhat on the surface.

“Yeah, but they don’t know I’m telling you all this,” he said. “So keep quiet about it, all right?”

Frank was lying, Berry realized. Frank Anderson was the most above-board, by-the-book cop Berry had ever been associated with, and went out of his way to assist in any Internal Affairs investigation, feeling it was for the overall good of the police department to ferret out potentially rotten apples out of the barrel before they spoiled the entire crop. Berry knew this, but far from avoiding Frank, he went out of his way to cultivate him. He helped Frank in his efforts to improve the moral integrity of the force overall and never said or did anything that might leave his friend the impression that he was any less ethical than was Anderson himself. Now, he would almost be willing to bet his pension that Frank Anderson was wearing a wire as they spoke.

There were things Frank was not saying, and Berry knew that. Too much had happened over the course of the last four months, things that Berry always ended up in the middle of, and a lot of these things had the Moloku imprimatur, stamped on them like a maker’s mark. That would be something else he would have to explain, in time.

“Berry, are you sure there isn’t something you don’t want to tell me?” Frank asked. “I really want to help you, but if you’re holding something back, that might be impossible.”

Berry lowered his head.

“Yeah, I’ve been seeing Dorothy again,” he said. “I’ve been seeing her for the last couple of years, off and on. I haven’t been having an affair with her, though.”

“Are you sure?” Frank asked as he, almost seemingly despite himself, hunched his shoulders and lurched forward in his chair like a cat ready to pounce on a mouse.

“I’ve been seeing somebody, but not Dorothy,” Berry said. “I’ve been screwing her daughter Marnie.”

Frank whistled at this revelation and went back in his chair as though knocked backward by an unseen force.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for another beer,” Berry said as he rose and went to the kitchen. By the time that he returned, however, Frank had risen and looked at Berry with a mixture of sadness and sternness.

“James, I got to go,” he said. “Look, I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in, but I know something is going on that you’re not telling me. Personally, I believe somebody is trying to set you up to take the fall for this Moloku murder, but they wouldn’t do that if they didn’t think they had something on you that would make it easy to do that.”

“For God’s sake, Frank, I’m telling you”-

“Really, you shouldn’t tell me any more”, Frank objected. “I’ll tell you this, though. If you have any idea as to the whereabouts of Dorothy Moloku, you really should come clean on it, and if you do hear from her, at any time, you should encourage her to talk to the cops in Chicago. Yeah, they have been coming here asking questions. This looks like it might be an interstate affair, and you know what that means. That means trouble, and a hell of a lot of it, especially if it ends up implicating the Baltimore Police Department.”

Frank left the suggestion hanging in the air as he maintained a questioning gaze toward Berry, who found himself suddenly going limp.

“What was all that about out in the back a minute ago, anyway?” Frank asked. “It looked like you were talking to somebody.”

Suddenly, for just an instant, Berry found himself transposed out in the back year, and he saw once more the strangely garbed blonde haired man with the piercing green eyes, and remembered his words:

“Your hand is better, is it not? Of course it is. See, I really mean you no ill will. You have been a good friend to me, and I am of the mind that thinks a man should take good care of his friends. That is why I know I can depend on you now. Look into my eyes, and you will see what I mean.”

Berry knew then he had nothing to worry about, not from Frank, not from Marnie, not from Dorothy, and certainly not from the strange blonde haired man, who God, he now understood, sent to him in answer to his most earnest prayers for deliverance. He knew then that the man, whoever he was, could not be evil. He just seemed to be, as any avenging angel might to those who were uninformed and uninitiated. Berry rose and looked out his window, toward the bushes that waved in the breeze of a strong northeasterly wind.

“That rose bush was supposed to be a gift from me to Frieda,” he said. “I brought it for her, the day before she left me. Roses were her favorite flower. After she left, I planted it anyway. I guess in my mind, I thought it would somehow bring her back to me. Funny, ain’t it? The day she comes back here, she takes the kids, and all the roses are dead. Yeah, funny how things work out, huh?”

Frank nodded, and then lowered his head as he moved toward the door.

“Hurry back to work, James,” he finally said as he reached for the doorknob. “We miss you there. Everything will always work out for the best.”

“I should be back before too long,” Berry promised as he affected a well-practiced smile. “Remember what I said about church. The door is always open.”

“I’ll remember that,” Frank promised as he lingered just a moment in the face of the incoming cold air. “I might just finally take you up on that.”

Frank was almost out the door, but then he stopped and turned once more to face Berry.

“You know, the strangest thing,” he said. “As I walked up to you outside earlier, there in the back, I could have sworn I saw a vulture flying away.”

He shook his head, and then closed the door as he left.

Berry counted a full five minutes, and then bounded up the stairs, going into his bedroom where he hurriedly opened his closet door, where waited in a shoe-box hidden by old bills the cell phone he recently purchased under an assumed name, as he hurriedly called the number. After the third ring, he received an answer from the former Seventeenth Pulse member that went by the name of Hacksaw.

“Oh, shit, something’s up, huh?” he said. “You calling from this number do not make me feel good.”

“Yeah, Internal Affairs is what’s up, and they’re getting ready to stick a big rotten dick up all our asses. We’re going to have to call this off.”

“Too late,” Hacksaw replied. “It’s a done deal. She was good, too.”

“Did she suffer?” Berry asked in anxiety.

“Didn’t feel a thing”, he replied. “Matter of fact, she’s still got a smile on her face, last I saw. We made the video too. It’s gonna be killer shit when it’s put out. Toby thinks he’ll win an award, the numbskull. And yeah, before you ask, I did my magic. Spooky will be proud, wherever he be.”

“Hacksaw, you’re not hearing me,” Berry said in anxiety as he moved down the stairs to the living room window. Looking outside, he saw no sign of anybody.

“Is she still there?” he asked.

“Yeah, for now,” the Pulse member answered.

“Well, keep her there,” Berry demanded. “Whatever you do, do not under any circumstances bring her here, not now, not ever. Am I clear on that?”

“Oh, shit man, what in the hell are we supposed to do with her?” Hacksaw demanded.

“Hell, I don’t know, keep her on ice until I let you know,” he replied. “It shouldn’t have to be no more than two or three days, then you can dump her wherever. Just do it respectfully, all right? She was just a kid, you know.”

“Now what in the hell do you want me to do, order flowers?” Hacksaw asked in obvious exasperation. “Hell, man, this shit ain’t good. We cant’ keep her here long, and we’ve got to be damn careful where we take her, you know that.”

“Just do what I said,” Berry insisted. “Don’t bring her here, and wherever you take her, make sure you’re not followed. As my ex-wife used to always tell me when she wasn’t in the mood, sometimes you just have to improvise. Are we clear on that? Don’t fuck me, Hacksaw.”

Berry walked outside in time to see the moon waxing in a stately manner over the spot of the now dead rose bush. Maybe, he thought, the kids can return by the time it bloomed next spring, and this long nightmare will be over. He walked over to the side of it, where waited a deep hole, one deep enough and wide enough for the body that now he knew would never be there. He hurriedly removed the improvised sheet metal covering, and then he filled in the hole. Once he had it halfway filed, he picked up a handful of the rose bulbs and placed them inside, in a circle around where he then placed a cutting from the old tree, which would shoot forth with new life once the spring arrived in the company of the new addition, a continuation of its own life force.

He looked at his watch, amazed that it took him all of fifteen minutes to accomplish the work. He then walked over to the old withered branches that slept in a comatose state, warning of death, yet heralding the promise of new life.

“I’m really sorry, Frieda,” he said. “I’m really sorry it turned out this way. I guess you’re going to be alone out here for a while longer.”

The breeze blew stronger as though in response, and the cold cut through Berry like a knife. Otherwise, there was no sign of life. He looked around for the vulture, but even she deigned not to make another appearance on this dark night of the soul of Detective James Berry. He turned to walk back toward the house.

Almost as an afterthought, he turned once more toward the rose bush.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “The kids send their love.”

Tarot Reading For Democratic Presidential Candidates

As promised, here is the Tarot reading for the Democratic candidates for President of the United States. For some reason, they do not seem as well delineated as the previous post detailing the cards drawn for the Republican candidates, though they are interesting in their own right.

Hillary Clinton-Eight of Wands (R)
-This seems to indicate that Hillary is well on her way to wrapping up the nomination, at least at first glance, despite the negative connotations that entails, or perhaps even because of them, in a sense.

Barak Obama-Page of Wands (R)
-Barak Obama, here portrayed as a messenger of change and even hope, though the reverse position details his major weakness, a belief by some that he might have moved too early and is out of his depth at this stage of his political career. This perception by many will dog him throughout the primaries, despite how well he might or might not do in the early ones. In the event his candidacy fails in the end, this will be the primary factor of responsibility for that.

John Edwards-Ace of Wands
-Incredibly, this is the only Democratic candidate whose card I drew in the upright position. What does it mean? Well, it is easy to read too much into reverse cards. The “R”, incidentally, beside some cards signifies that when the card was drawn, it was upside down. Most Tarot readers generally view this aspect as a negative connotation. Edwards, however, is upright, the only one of this group that is, so in his case, what is signified by a drawing of the Ace of Wands in the upright position?

Well, Aces are indicative of a sudden surge of energy, in this case (Wands) of an inspirational, possibly spiritual nature. John Edwards typically makes a big deal out of running a “positive” campaign (while using his wife in the background as an attack dog), but while this might seem to fit his overall campaign style and strategy, I do not believe it tells the entire story.

I think this might well be indicative of a potential upset in the Iowa Caucus or the New Hampshire primary-or both. If Edwards comes in a close second in one and wins the other, which is conceivable, it might well change the face of the campaign, setting the stage for a roll through South Carolina, Michigan, and other states where a strong early showing might bode well for his candidacy.

Expect him to play the God card, so to speak, and do not be at all surprised if he becomes more aggressive in the face of Obama’s recent surge in the polls due to this tactic. He is, after all, a lawyer, and what do lawyers want more than anything? That is right-they want to win.

Joe Biden-Nine of Swords (R)
-Joe Biden is arguably, out of all the current crop of Democratic candidates, the one most qualified to hold the office of President. Though I disagree with him profoundly on certain issues-gun control and immigration being at the forefront-he is the one I will probably vote for when the primary season comes rolling into Kentucky. Unfortunately, by the time that happens, he might well be out of the running. Senator Biden is not going to win a single primary of importance, if he wins one at all.

The Nine of Swords in this reverse position can mean many things. Though I favor him of all Democratic candidates, I am not going to delude myself for one minute into thinking that he is fearful for the future of the country if someone besides himself is elected, though I will cede that he can present himself in such an arrogant manner.

What I think it signifies, in his case, is a nagging gut feeling, probably an unreasonable fear, that his presence in the primaries could inadvertently drain votes from one candidate and therefore throw certain primary contests to one that might not otherwise win, and therefore influence the overall nomination process to no benefit to himself or his own interests. If I were correct, I have no doubt who it is he thinks he would draw votes from. He would doubtless draw them away from Hillary Clinton. I also have no doubt, as to who he thinks that might benefit-Obama. This is probably something that would ordinarily be of no great concern to him, but since the early primaries are stacking up to be a statistical dead heat between the three front runners in most polls, and since Biden is generally ranked fourth in those same polls, it is easy to discern how he could easily swing some primary states. He might conceivably feel himself responsible for a divided convention, which might be traceable to the results of the early primary contests, were they to give a candidate a surge he might not ordinarily receive.

There is also the possibility that Joe Biden might feel some growing fear-and this might not be so unreasonable-that an ultimately successful Hillary Clinton might not look too kindly on his opposition, if his candidacy caused hers a great deal of indirect discomfort. A President Clinton, would, after all, have powerful allies in Congress, especially a Democratic Congress, and Joe Biden might well feel her wrath-indirectly, of course-when the next round of committee assignments comes rolling through Capitol Hill.

I expect Biden to drop out relatively early, due to the reasons I stated.

Elliott Richardson-Four of Swords (R)
-Out of all the cards I drew for this series, this is by far the most mysterious. The Four of Swords signifies a necessary time of healing. Yet, from what is Elliott Richardson healing? Out of all the former Clinton appointees, this former Congressman and Secretary of Defense, and current governor of New Mexico, seems to have everything going for him, on paper. He is one of the top three-hell, I’ll come right out and say the only three-actually qualified to be President. He should be on top of the world. In fact, he is. Anytime there is a potential crises brewing anywhere on the globe, Elliot Richardson will always be on the short list of those called to make things right, by Democrats and Republicans alike. President George W. Bush even sent him recently to come to some kind of accommodation with North Korea over that nation’s nuclear program. Is it possible the man is just overworked?

No. I think the injury he must heal from is a self-inflicted one. By doing so lousy in the polls, he might have injured whatever potential he may have had to be the next Vice-Presidential candidate, which otherwise would have been a near certainty. He will nevertheless be on that short list as well, but the outcome is not as probable. If he does not make a strong showing in the early primaries, he might well be toast for this reason. At to this the added reason that Hillary Clinton never forgets a slight, and she could well see Richardson’s candidacy as just that.

Look for Elliott Richardson to be among the first Democratic candidates to next withdraw from the race, on some ridiculous pretext that of necessity will take valuable time by definition. Look for an international emergency or a need for his steady hand at the helm of New Mexico state business, some problem or another that only he can solve, and which by it’s nature would make running an extended campaign impractical.

Chris Dodd-The Ace of Swords (R)
-You might remember I drew the exact same card, also in the reverse position, for Republican candidate Mitt Romney. In this reading, however, the significance, while similar, also takes on a different connotation. Where Romney is finding himself fin the position of fending off negative attacks, in Dodd’s case, he is the one that will find himself in the position of having to engage in such tactics if he hopes to keep his candidacy alive. Dodd is one of the three candidates actually qualified to be President, but if he and the other two were the Beatles (with Dennis Kucinich as Ringo, of course), he would be George Harrison-the invisible kid. Unfortunately, for them and him, they are not the Beatles, they are a group of slimy politicians, and what hampers Dodd the most is the appearance that he might well be the sleaziest of the bunch.

The only possible hope he has of becoming a factor in the race is to go negative, and do it quickly. I think you are going to see him do it, too, and he will make no bones about it. He has nothing to lose, as he sees it (or will) and nothing to gain by staying on his current course. He will attack Hillary’s credentials and agenda, and Edwards’s as well. As for Barak Obama, as regarding his relative inexperience and naivety, look for him to stop just short of calling him an uppity black.

Whether all this will work of course might well be-in fact, probably will be-an entirely different question. I have an idea he will also withdraw from the race after the early primaries, and he will do so with noticeable contempt.

Mike Gravell-Three of Pentacles (R)
-If Gravell had his way about it, US citizens would pass or reject all laws, at least those of any significance, by the process of a national referendum. What a way to run a country. He also evidently thinks borders are a waste of time. Let people come and go as they please. Yeah, who does not want to migrate down to Mexico to work, just as Mexicans do here? Ol’ Mike seems to think we should carry everybody’s water for them, but don’t count on him supplying the hepatitis, cholera free water you would need to migrate there to do that. It is no wonder the guy is nowhere in the polls. The fact that the guy is obviously a fucking nut is almost incidental. Yet, he trudges onward and outward.

This former Alaska Senator and Governor was one of the ones in support of the leak of the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam era, so you can expect him to eventually narrow his focus on the Nixonesque Clinton scandals of the nineties as his mantra. I doubt it gets him anywhere, but on the other hand, he might end up being the joker in this deck, if he inadvertently uncovers and then reveals some similar information regarding Hillary’s past influence on the Clinton Administration. He might also find new and improved ways to hit attack her influence in the current Iraq War. Gravell is the kind of guy that would probably pay big money for something like this. It probably still yet would not get him anywhere near spitting distance of the Democratic nomination. However, it might well get him a spot on an independent, third party ticket, which might be what he is really gunning for. What he might have to gain from such a thing-for that matter, what he might have to gain from doing what he is doing-only Mike Gravell could possibly know. Some things are beyond the range of Tarot cards, or for that matter, God.

Dennis Kucinich-The King of Swords (R)
-The little Smurf from Cleveland is probably in this race to the finish line. He is on a mission, and he will not surrender. He feels he is in the vanguard of truth, justice, and the American way, a leader of a movement to establish, once and for all, democracy, equality, and fairness, by God. He knows in his heart of hearts that if people would just listen to him, they will see the light and vote for him overwhelmingly, and to this end, he has developed a set of proposals straight from Alice in Wonderland, with a really cool version of The Matrix tossed in for good measure-a kindly, non-violent one, of course. No one would ever want to leave Dennis’s Matrix, you see, because once you stepped into the chamber, and saw the universe as Dennis sees it in his reality, you would never want to return to the world of anger, selfishness, greed, or meat.

Unfortunately, Dennis must punish the transgressors. In order to display his strength, uprightness, and determination that justice will prevail, he has sponsored a bill calling for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney, and has put the Democratic Congress in a bind, and actually accomplished something few have ever considered possible. He has formed a coalition between conservative Republicans and the most liberal of those Democratic members of Congress, both of which are determined the bill should be passed out of committee and put to a vote of the full house.

Dennis is obviously hoping to draw a distinction between him and those other mealy-mouthed Democrats running for President. What he does not realize is, we already get the distinction, all too well. Dennis Kucinich is leading a failed campaign. In true Don Quixote fashion, he is too far gone, unfortunately, to know it is way past time to fall on his sword.
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Attack Of The Clones-A Predictable Sequel

The picture at the left is the mugshot of Patrick Hutchinson, taken in December of 2005 following the murder of his wife Fontaine and Lexington Kentucky Fire Department employee Brenda Cowan. He was determined to be legally insane at the time of his arrest. A year later, he was determined yet to be legally insane. For a second time, as of today, he was determined, yet again, too mentally ill to stand trial.

So, what was the basis for the finding of legal insanity. Read on. I now present the original blog post about the entire incident, reprinted in it's entirety, as first published in December of 2005.

One day in February of 2004, a man by the name of Patrick Hutchinson, after years of dealing with the depths of insanity, finally went off the deep end. He shot and killed his wife of many years, leaving her dead body in the couples yard, in rural Fayette County. He then according to reports fired a number of shots, all of which precipitated a call to 911 by the police.

 

Unfortunately, there was an inexplicable disconnect between the Fayette County Kentucky Police  and the Fayette County Fire Department, which also responded to the call. Yet, due to a breakdown in communications, the Fire Department was seemingly unaware of the danger that they hurtled headlong into on that fateful mid-winter evening. They found themselves in the line of fire, in a madmans sights.

 

As a result, a woman by the name of Brenda Cowan, the first African American woman to work on the Fayette County Fire Department, who had received commendations and had appearred on the local media in interviews, was shot to death. In addition, a police officer was also shot and injured. He recovered, but the death of Cowan was particularly hard, especially to the members of the Fire Department with whom Cowan was a well liked and respected member.

 

So why did this happen? Why did this young, vital, admired woman lose her life? What twisted madness afflicted the mind of Patrick Hutchinson?

 

He believed that the entire world, except for a chosen few which included himself, were in reality clones, intent on taking over the world, destroying all the true humans of the world and replacing them with soleless replicas. He evidently believed that these clones were only human copies in appearrance, in reality they were evidently some disguised species of either supernatural or extraterrestrial (or possibly both) origin, and of a serpentine nature and appearrance.

 

That is what he believed, with the utmost sincerity. What the genesis of this delusion was can only be guessed at, or even how long ago it began, though it seems to have been of a long duration. His wife and family were aware to a small extent of his mental and emotional instability, though I would imagine they didn't exactly comprehend the extent of it. Bu in fact, in his tortured mind, he firmly believed that there were only perhaps twenty thousand or so true humans left on the earth. All the rest had been killed, murdered, and replaced by these clones. The last straw, the breaking point, seems to have occurred when he obviousy came to believe that his own wife was, after all, a clone herself. One can only imagine by what process he arrived at this fateful conclusion.

 

Had it been a recent occurrence? Or had she been "one of them" all along, and fooling him for all these years, trying to control him and at the same time trying to find out just what all he "knew".

 

Did the total and final break come when she threatened to leave him for good, or possibly to do so if he would not seek help? For all the reasoning she may have tried to utilize at her disposal, someone with this level of delusion would never listen to any kind of logic or reason. Their logic and reason, after all, is as firmly esconced in their own mind as the average persons is to themselves. Such an appeal would be viewed as a trick, a manever to get him imprisoned, entrapped within some alien realm where he would be at the mercy of their far superior technology. He was, after all, one of the few who had somehow been immune to their invasion of his body, heart, mind, and sould. He had not only successfully resisted them, but had at the same time become aware of their presence. Not only was he therefore a danger to them, it was of the utmost necessity that he be kept under observation, studied. Only the most thorough and disciplned scientific research might yield clues as to what was so special about this one particular human. Once they learned the truth then they would be able to adequately deal with the "others". Those very few twenty thousand or so.

 

Perhaps this is what set him off. Perhaps she even admitted to the "truth" of this, as a means to humor him, or out of sheer disgust. She had had it with him, and decided she might as well tell him what he wanted to hear, he was going to believe it regardless. We may never know, for certain, as the secret is now perhaps permanently locked inside the tortured mind of Patrick Hutchinson. 

 

It was recenty decided in court that Patrick Hutchinson was still yet unfit to stand trial. And so, for yet another year, he will be kept under psychiatric observation, yet safely locked away. It has been said that he may never be well enough to stand trial. He was obviosuly insane at the time of the trial, they said, and he is still every bit as insane now as he was then. True, he seems calm. Maybe he now believes he too is a clone. Maybe he has come to an inner acceptance of his fate. Maybe he now has come to loathe the person that was Patrick Hutchinson, and now longs to go out into the world at large, and take his place among the greater society of his fellow clones. Again, we may never know.

 

All we know for certain is that this procedure will be repeated once a year, he will be reevaluated on a yearly basis, to see if there has been an improvement in his mental condition. Should that day ever come that he is considered to be over his insanity, then he will finally, at long last, be put on trial for the murder of his wife and Brenda Cowen.

 

You see, Kentucky has this unusual policy that, if a person is considered insane, they can not be put on trial for any crime they may have committed while so afflicted. However, when it is perceived that they are cured, or in recovery, then they can be tried for the crime-depsite the fact that they were obviously insane at the time they comitted it.

 

In other words, it is not out of concern for the welfare for the mentally afflicted, out of a desire to see they are treated with compassion and fairness. They merely want to ensure that they know what they are being punished for when and if they finally are. Whether they had the vaquest idea of what they were doing at the time or not.

 

Patrick Hutchinson will probably never for the remainder of his life have a free day or night, he will doubtless be incarcerated for the rest of his life, whether he is ever tried in court or not. Crazy or not, I would imagine that the social life of a clone must look pretty good to him right now.

Be Careful What You Ask For (And Who You Ask It From)

The youth chastity movement, it seems, has a goddess saint, by the name of Karolina Kozka, a young teenage girl from Poland who was murdered while resisting rape by a Russian soldier in 1898. She was beatified by John Paul II twenty years ago or so, and so she is now the go-to protectress of teenage chastity.One such group that turns to her in such matters is The Silver Ring.

According to Beatroot, the movement has gravitated beyond the US, and is starting up now in Poland.

Beatroot explains in this post how it seems the Church, at least as far as this movement is concerned, has an uphill battle in his adopted country.

I have to wonder about the Church's choice for a saint to guide this movement. Are they sure Karoline died a virgin? Are they sure she was a virgin by conscious choice even if she did die a virgin?

Let's suppose she wasn't a virgin. Imagine here for a moment that she had sexual urges and fantasies, and would have gladly given in to under the right circumstances, without benefit of marriage. Does it necessarily follow that she would have had no problem being molested by a Russian soldier?

Do they suppose that, if she had not resisted rape by the occupying soldier, that would have made her "damaged goods"-maybe even a "whore"?

There have been a lot of teenage boys and girls that have worn the silver ring, or otherwise made similar vows of chastity, that have reneged on them under the right circumstances.

Who knows but that maybe Karoline is reliving her life through them, let us say, somewhat vicariously?

Tarot Reading For Republican Presidential Candidates

Admittedly, this post is not going to make any sense to people that are not devotees of Tarot, but I thought it would be fun to do anyway. Each card represents a current contender for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. As the meaning of Tarot cards are subjective in any kind of reading, bear in mind that each card as applied to the specific candidate for which it was drawn can have diverse meanings. A seemingly negative looking card does not necessarily mean a negative reading, candidate, or candidacy.

With that said, the cards drawn are as follows-

Rudolph Giuliani-The Devil (R)
-I have this strange idea some conservative Christians might suddenly become advocates of Tarot after seeing this. Be that as it may, this could be an indication of some problems that will continue to dog Giuliani going to issues of character and possibly temperament.

Fred Thompson-The Moon (R)
-An uncertain future and prospects with accompanying period of darkness and uncertainty for this presidential bid heightened by the effect that this candidate does not present what most people crave, which is an optimistic outlook, or at least he has not been clear in getting that message out.

Mitt Romney-Ace of Swords(R)
-Look for this candidate to become the focus of ever-growing negative attacks in the face of his potentially strong showing in the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. He would not do his campaign service by trying to portray himself as above the fray, nor should he do anything to encourage the perception that he is whining about it. He will simply have to adjust to it, or he might not survive it.

Mike Huckabee-The Hierophant
-This candidate has already shown himself to be the joker in the deck, speaking in terms of a standard deck of playing cards, but in this case, he is no “Fool”. The Hierophant is fitting for this candidate, who seeks to portray himself to socially conservative Christians in the GOP as a viable alternative candidate. This should pay dividends for him, as it in fact already has, at the polling booth and, in the aftermath, possibly in the Vice-Presidential selection process.

John McCain-The Magician
-This is interesting. If John McCain pulls out a victory in the New Hampshire primary, it would be akin to pulling a rabbit out of a hat, so to speak. It is not beyond the realm of possibility. What is difficult to fathom is how he can parlay such a victory into needed funds for his nearly bankrupt campaign, to say nothing as to how he might pull off the equally astounding feat of presenting himself as a viable candidate to a good many GOP voters who have honestly come to loathe the man.

Ron Paul-Wheel of Fortune (R)
-There is no “there” there. As the card implies, he has a hard-core, loyal following of devoted supporters. However, this will not last past the first few primary campaigns, at which point his fortunes will begin to illustrate obvious reversals.

Tom Tancredo-Five of Cups (R
-The one trick pony this candidate is trying to ride into the White House is going to throw him off before he ever gets out of the starting gate. In fact, it already has, he just does not seem to know it yet. He will when the results come in from Colorado, when he loses his own congressional district, probably to Romney or Thompson, or maybe even to Giuliani or McCain, either one of which would really seem like a betrayal. That of course is providing he stays in it that long, which would be inadvisable.

Duncan Hunter-Two of Cups
-This candidate will bow out gracefully soon, maybe after the New Hampshire primary, maybe before, but certainly shortly afterward. He will throw his support behind one of the other candidates, and will work tirelessly for the ultimate Republican nominee regardless of who that is, with an eye toward a potential future appointment.

So, there you have it. Later, I will do a reading for the Democratic candidates.

Before anyone asks me-no, there is not a Tarot card known as “The Bitch”.

Wars Within Wars

Christian conservatives are up in arms, yet divided against themselves, over the prospect of Rudolph Giuliani becoming the next Republican nominee for office of President. To them, Giuliani is the man that could well threaten their power base within the party, and many of them are threatening to sit the next election out, or to bolt from the GOP outright. Others are willing to “hold their noses” and pull the lever if they have to, while yet others are convinced that Rudy might well be the only hope to defeat almost certain Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Finally, there are those who feel Giuliani could well destroy not only the Republican Party, but could ruin the country.

They point to his allegedly liberal positions on such matters as abortion, gay rights, gun control, and illegal immigration. A former pledge he made to appoint only those judges who are strict constructionists of the Constitution seems to impress them not one whit.

Fact-Rudy, as mayor of New York, supported Draconian gun control measures.

Fact-Rudy, as mayor of New York, ran New York City as a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants.

Fact-Rudy, as mayor of New York, supported a woman’s right to choose.

Fact-Rudy, as mayor of New York, supported gay rights, and even the idea of gay civil unions.

The most important thing, however, for some of them at least, may be their deep fear that Rudy Giuliani might well permanently change the character of the Republican Party by attracting moderates and liberals from the ranks of independents and from Democrats who would forever reverse the conservative gains made by Ronald Reagan. The country, as a result, will suddenly lurch to “the left”.

I do not believe it. Few Presidents changed the characters of their party and the nation. You do not need a full set of fingers to count them all.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan are the only six, out of forty-three Presidents, who have accomplished this feat, and Lincoln was the only one of them who presided over a divided nation. Regarding most of them, their presidencies brought with them mainly mixed results, with the exception of Washington, the only one whose presidency resulted in generally positive with very little if any negative consequences.

What is more, for the most part, these men did not change anything. Circumstances changed things, and these nine men simply rode twin tidal waves of discontent and hope, much like a master horseman reins two horses of a chariot.

Now, however, the twin tidal waves are solely those of discontent, with little if any hope involved. Far from these twin waves acting in unison, they are in mutual conflict with each other. It is more like a low-pressure area in conflict with a high-pressure system. It is causing a storm of epic proportions. No one can easily ride it and the most any chief executive can do at this point is hold in the reins of two horses pulling in two opposite directions. Whoever does it, if anyone can at this stage, must be more a person of Lincolnesque proportions than like Reagan or Roosevelt. Remember, even Lincoln could not prevent a civil war, and its effects are yet with us.

Well, the civil war is already here, and whoever wins the presidency has to deal with it. Make no mistake-it is a war, though not a shooting war like in the War Between The States, but more like a Cold War. It is even now being fought out on the battle lines of the court of public opinion, where candidates for public office are not ferreted out and put forward by party bosses in smoke filled rooms, but by corporate elites, union bosses, other special interest groups, and by the media. It is a Cold War, and the participants are engaged in a fight to the death.

If the Christians and other social conservatives of the Republican Party are not careful, they might well find themselves the first casualties of that cold war. Nevertheless, it seems they are determined to throw away what influence they have gained over the years. If they do that, they might find out the hard way that it might not be so easy to get it back. The Republican Party, after all, will survive-with them or without them.

In fact, they might soon find themselves face to face with the uncomfortable fact that a good many others in the Republican Party might give them a send-off they might not care to receive-“don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.”

After all, the Republican Party leadership cares mainly about one thing-where is the money coming from. Who will support the party financially? Once they work that out-and believe me, they will work that out-the rest will follow. If the social conservatives leave the party, then certainly there will be those independents and moderate Democrats currently sick of the Democratic Party-like myself, for example-that will happily take their place.

That is not a threat. It is more along the lines of something that they, as religious, Bible believing Christians, should be able to relate to-it is a prophecy.

In the long run, however, I will say this. It is never good for any members of any self-identified group of citizens to cement themselves firmly within the ranks of one political party or another. There is a very good reason the Democratic Party is derided by many, after all, as the one who enslaved blacks to begin with, and now seek to keep them firmly entrenched within a "welfare plantation". The horrible truth is, there is in fact a great deal of truth to that. Ask any black conservative for public office.

If the nomination of Rudy Giuliani causes Republicans to rethink their party affiliation to the point that they actually become, as a group, thoughtful independents willing to look honestly at what both parties have to offer, and to likewise consider the negatives of both, it might in the long run be a good thing, for the Republican party, the Democratic Party, and for the country.

For the time being, however, they might well turn to the Bible, that to them sacred book which they place so much stock in, for guidance. They might well find words of wisdom therein that might be reminiscent of a Jagger-Richards song.

You can't always get what you want.