Tempter (13 page)

Chapter Seventeen

“Where is the book?”

“The book?” Rossiter moaned and twitched in his sleep, responding to the voice haunting his dreams.

“The book that lead you to me.
The Aegrisomnia
. Where is it?”

“I returned it to the person I got it from.”

“
Who is this person who claims to own my book?”

Tee’s face shimmered across Rossiter’s sleeping mind like a heat mirage.

Her?
The book belongs to
her?

The doppelganger’s anger pressed like a weight against Rossiter’s medulla oblongata. “
You must retrieve the book! You have to get it back!”

“How? She won’t even speak to me now!”

“
I don’t care how you do it! Bring me the
Aegrisomnia
!”

“But...”

“If you want your fame returned to you, bring me the book!

“Alex? Alex, wake up, honey! You’re having a bad dream.”

The scream rising in Rossiter’s throat turned into a thick groan. He stared at the slowly cycling blades of the ceiling fan for several seconds before realizing where he was. Charlie leaned over him, peering intently into his face.

“Are you okay? You were talking in your sleep.”

“What was I saying?” he asked, a little too quickly.

“It sounded like you were saying ‘look’. Do you remember what you were dreaming about?”

“No. Not a thing,” he lied. He staggered into the bathroom, palms pressed to his temples.

Charlie sighed and looked at the alarm clock next to the bed. The digital display blinked 5:57 A.M. In a half-hour and she would have to get up and ready herself for another workday.

She wasn’t surprised Alex had emotional scarring. Sensitive artistic types always did. But she had been unprepared for the nightmares. At first she tried to ignore them, hoping that they would diminish. But, if anything, the bad dreams were growing progressively worse.

The fact the man she loved was suffering drove her to distraction. She found her thoughts turning to Alex whenever her mind wasn’t occupied with work. She wished he would open up to her, so she could help him with whatever it was that was bothering him. He wasn’t very good at taking care of himself. He might know a lot about guitars and sound equipment, but he was like a child when it came to the day-to-day world. She wondered how he had managed to survive for so long without someone like her to look after him.

Pluto hopped onto the bed, bumping his head against Charlie’s leg. “What’s with you, puss?” she sighed, absently scratching the tabby behind the ears. “You and Alex are the two most important men in my life, you know that? So why can’t y’all get along? Hell, you liked Simon, and we both know what an utter jerk
he
was!”

Pluto answered by plopping onto his back, exposing a fuzzy belly in need of rubbing. As she scratched Pluto’s undercarriage, Charlie mulled over the events that had lead Alex to her bed and, by extension, her life.

The past month had been the most exciting she had ever known. There was something about Rossiter she found fascinating, even when he was being an insensitive ass. It was like he was a drug she couldn’t get enough of. When he was with her she was one hundred percent alive. When he was elsewhere, she spent most of her time thinking about being with him. It was starting to interfere with her work.

She had fallen in love with numerous men in the past, but this was different. She wished she could call up Jerry and talk about what she was feeling, but she could not bring herself to pick up the phone. The look of hurt on his face when he saw her with Rossiter...

Thinking about Jerry made her feel bad, so she stopped.

She put on her kimono and headed for the stairs, Pluto following behind her at a dead trot. She gave the bathroom door a sharp rap as she passed. “Don’t take too long in there, okay? I’ve got to get ready for work.”

There was a grunt from the other side. Charlie went down stairs, Pluto doing his best to follow and run ahead of her at the same time.

Rossiter sat on the toilet and stared at the floor, tracing the patterns made by the interlocking linoleum squares with his eyes. There was no getting away from it: he was coming unglued. He’d had the feeling he wasn’t really in control of himself ever since that night with Tee, when he had tried to...

He couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought.

His involvement with Charlie was a prime example of things getting out of hand. Sure, she was a looker and decent in bed, but she was way too white and uptight for his tastes. Rossiter knew Charlie’s type all too well: if you fucked them twice it meant you were in a committed relationship. She was an emotional basket case; he could tell it by the way she fussed over him. Besides, her CD collection consisted of nothing but Britney Spears, Christine Aguilara, and the latest
American Idol
winners. Outside of enjoying sex, they had absolutely nothing in common.

Every night he lay next to Charlie and promised himself he would leave her for good the next morning. But for some reason he kept coming back, no matter how hard he tried to stay away. He would be much better off dumping the bitch and letting Jerry Sloan pick up the pieces. After all, they were meant for each other: two neurotic, tight-assed suburban white kids playing at being hip.

Still, Rossiter couldn’t figure out why he kept winding up in bed with Charlie. Was it possible he was actually in love with her? He quickly dismissed that thought. Rossiter knew what love felt like. The best he could work up for Charlie was a hard-on.

“
You are thinking too much. That is your problem. What does it matter if you make the decision or I do? We are one and the same, are we not?”

Rossiter looked up from the linoleum at his feet and saw his younger self perched on the rim of the bathtub.

“It makes a difference to
me.
I’m the one that’s living my life, not you.”

“I understand your feelings towards the woman,”
the doppelganger replied.
“She is a tedious cow, is she not? But then they all are. They’re nothing but cattle: complacent, stupid cattle hungering for the butcher’s blade. This Charlie woman is no different. She senses our power; that is what excites her and makes her wet. She fucks your flesh, but it is the fame she lusts for. The same was true of the black bitch”.

“That’s not true,” Rossiter countered. “Tee had never heard of Crash before she met me.”

The doppelganger cocked an eyebrow, apparently amused by Rossiter’s defense of the voodoo priestess.
“You think she was attracted to you and you alone?”

“Shut up,” Rossiter snapped. “And leave me alone, will you? You’re starting to scare me.”

“Why should you be scared of yourself?”
the doppelganger queried.
“I would never let anything bad happen to you. I love you, just as you love me.”
His younger self rose from tub and moved towards Rossiter, arms outstretched.
“I will prove my love to you. Then you shall prove your love to
me
.”

His younger self’s fingers brushed against Rossiter’s naked chest, causing him to become suddenly, painfully erect. He tried to push the doppelganger away, but it was as if his arms were tied behind his back. Rossiter opened his mouth to protest, but a quick, probing tongue slipped between his lips. The smell of vanilla and sweat was strong, and the heard the faint clacking of ceramic beads.

Ti Alice stood over him, naked save for the elaborate beadwork decorating her cornrows. She straddled him in one fluid motion, lowering herself onto his erect member. Her fingernails bit onto his shoulders as she pumped herself against him. When he finally jetted, she laughed and dissolved like a cloud caught in a high wind.

Rossiter blinked in confusion then looked down at his right hand, still cradling his wilting penis. He got up to wash himself in the sink, wrinkling his nose in disgust. He was going insane. He was split into two personalities and was now reduced to literally fucking himself. As he glanced up at the mirror in the medicine cabinet, his mouth went dry.

There were fresh scratches on his bare shoulders.

Les Damnes

Monarch is night

Of all eldest things,

Pain and affright

Rapturous wings

—William Rose Benet,
Night

Chapter Eighteen

Rossiter snuck another look at his wristwatch. When was the old fart going to call it a night and go to bed? He was already the only white guy in the neighborhood; the last thing he needed was to call even
more
attention to himself. It was nearly eleven at night, but the elderly African American man who lived next door to Tee showed no sign of getting bored of sitting on his porch. Rossiter had barely noticed the geezer during previous visits, but now he realized the old dude was as much a fixture of the double-shotgun’s front porch as the drainpipe.

The elderly neighbor was dressed in baggy khaki trousers and a moderately soiled t-shirt, and had a pair of Medicaid-issue glasses drooping off the end of his nose. All he did was sit on cheap plastic lawn chair with a sweaty forty of Country Club malt liquor at his feet, and watch the traffic go past. Every now and again he would wave at pedestrians walking by and engage in brief conversations, but that was about it.

Rossiter ground his teeth in frustration. Tee got off work at midnight, but he didn’t want to cut it that close. All he wanted was to get in, grab the book, and get out. The last thing he needed was another confrontation with the voodoo priestess.

From his hiding place across the street, at half-past ten he saw the old man suddenly stand up, fold his lawn chair, and disappear inside his house. He hurried across the street, circling behind the duplex. He paused beneath the neighbor’s window long enough to see a 1960s horror movie blaring away in the living room. He continued to the back of the house, careful to avoid knocking into the garbage cans.

During his hard-core junkie days in New York, he had studied the fine art of forced entry at the feet of one of its undisputed masters. Alberto was a slate-eyed Puerto Rican somewhere between the ages of thirty and two hundred. He had been doing smack since he was twelve, possibly younger, and wielded a crowbar the same way Toshiro Mifune handled a samurai sword. While Rossiter was in detox, Alberto caught a hot shot in a shooting gallery in the South Bronx while celebrating his latest acquittal on B&E.

The lock on Tee’s back door groaned like an arthritic grandmother before it finally gave way. He took a deep breath as he reoriented himself to the interior of the darkened house. He edged along the hall, wincing every time a board creaked under his weight. He paused for a moment in the bedroom and caressed the blanket that covered the mattress on which they had made love. The smell of her was everywhere.

“
You don’t have time to moon about,”
the doppelganger’s voice said angrily.
“Just find the book.”

Rossiter jerked his hand away as if he’d been burned. As he stepped into the front room, the devotional candles set on the shrine behind the door suddenly flared, as if fanned by a gust of wind.

“
The Guardian of the Cross Roads has a path to this place!”
The voice inside his head sounded panicked. “
You must hurry before he knows we are here!”

“What do you mean?”

“
Can’t you see? Can’t you hear? We are in danger every second we remain here! Hurry!”

Rossiter frowned as he looked at the humble card table with its scented icon candles and ritual bowls of candy and rum. What was there to be frightened of? Then he noticed that the smoke rising from the candles was as red and as thick as satin ribbons. As he followed the winding plaits of colored smoke upward, he saw that the ceiling was no longer there, and in its place was a vast star field. The red ribbons of smoke continued to broaden as they drifted upward until they were as wide as two-lane highways. Rossiter could see that the path had many branches that intersected and split off and re-intersected, like the stands of a spider web. From where he stood, it was as if the stars were snared in a fisherman’s net of red and black thread. He could hear the sound of drums in the distance. It was a steady, measured beat, like the footsteps of an approaching giant.

“
Hurry! He comes!”
The doppelganger’s voice was all but shrieking inside his skull.

Rossiter turned his back on the shrine and began searching the nearby bookshelf for what he had come for. The drums were booming in his ears, growing louder with every beat. His hands shook so badly he nearly dropped the pry bar. As he groped along the top shelf, his fingers finally brushed across the book’s spine. Rossiter lunged for the front door, the copy of the
Aegrisomnia
tucked under one arm, only to have it suddenly swing open, knocking him off balance.

Tee stood in the doorway, staring open-mouthed at the intruder in her home, her key ring dangling from her hand. “What th’ fuck are
you
doin’ here?” she demanded.

The drums were so loud they shook the house, rattling Rossiter’s teeth. He saw Tee’s lips move, but he could not hear her voice. His left hand jerked upward without his willing it and he cried out in horror as the pry bar came down upon her head.

Rossiter wanted to stop and see if she was still alive, but his legs pumped him out the door and across the street. He tried to stop, but his body refused to obey him. He could hear somebody—probably the old man from next door—shouting curses after him. There was a sound like a truck backfiring and something buzzed like an angry bee past his right ear. He continued running, the stolen book hot against his skin.

It was midnight by the time he got home. He half-expected a cop car to be parked in front of the house, but the street was deserted. His shirt was plastered to his back and his heart thumped like a drum pedal. He was glad the glare from the city’s lights obscured the night sky over head. He didn’t think he could stand looking at the stars again after what he had seen that night.

He tossed the book onto the bed and hurried into the bathroom. His head was throbbing and his guts felt like an oil tanker had run aground on his pancreas. He kept seeing Tee drop to the floor over and over again, the moment captured in a memory loop that never lost its ability to shock him. He was certain he had killed her. Another sharp spasm grabbed his guts, and he vomited into the bath tub.

“All this misery over a nigger whore. You really are pathetic, Rossiter.”
The doppelganger was seated on the toilet, his boyishly handsome face twisted by an ugly grin. “
It’s no more than she deserved.”

“Shut up!”

“
Why? Could it be you prefer nigger cunt?”

“Don’t call her that!” Rossiter wiped his mouth on the back of the back of his hand. “It’s racist.”

The smirk on the doppelganger’s face widened into a nasty smile. “
I’d say you kill my soul, if it wasn’t redundant.”

The tension between the two was broken by the sound of the door buzzer. Rossiter’s eyes widened. “Jesus, it’s the cops!”

“
I don’t care who it is. Get rid of them.”
Rossiter could tell by the gleam in the doppelganger’s scarlet eyes that he wasn’t in the mood to be argued with.

Trying to keep his hands from shaking, he opened the door of his apartment, expecting to see a member of the NOPD on the other side. Instead, there was a man of medium build, dressed in jeans and a tank top that read ‘She’s With The Best’. A handful of gold chains glinted in his very visible chest hair.

“You Alex Rossiter?” the stranger asked, exhaling a cloud of Captain Morgan’s Rum as he spoke.

“Who wants to know?”

The stranger shoved the door open, sending him staggering backwards. “I wanna talk t’you, asshole,” he slurred. “I wanna know what th’ fuck you been doin’ with Charlie.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Rossiter snapped back.

“You’re not foolin’ me, cocksucker. You know me awright. I’m Tony Scramuzza. I know that bitch has been tellin’ you all about me. I want you to clear off, unnerstand? I want you to leave Charlie ‘lone. You git that, asshole?”

Rossiter’s laugh was short and sharp. “You can have her, dude!”

Scramuzza did not seem to hear him and continued with his drunken spiel. “You know what that cunt did? She called th’ bank and put a stop payment on the check for my Trans Am! Fuckin’ bitch! Can’t trust a bitch worth shit. Now the collection agency is comin’ after my ride!” His face crumpled as he thought of his beloved muscle car being repossessed. “And it’s all your fault, muthafucker.” His swing was wild, but it still managed to connect. Rossiter landed on his ass beside the hide-a-bed. He could taste the blood rising in mouth. “C’mon, pansy ass! C’mon and take it like a man! What the fuck makes Charlie think you’re so fuckin’ hot, huh? You look like a fuckin’ queer to me!”

The sound the jimmy bar made as it connected with Tony Scramuzza’s shoulder was not unlike a bundle of twigs being snapped over a man’s knee. His eyes cleared as he fell to the floor, the pain sobering him up instantly.

“You hit me!” he squalled as he clutched his fractured collarbone.

The bar came down again, this time shattering his jaw. Tony tried to scream, but all that came out was a gurgling sound, as he lifted his good arm to shield himself, only to have that one broken as well. The fourth hit cracked his skull open like a ripe cantaloupe. The fifth and final blow sent his right eye flying from its socket.

Rossiter stood over the bloodied body of his would-be attacker, his chest rising and falling as if he’d just climbed a mountain. This was
definitely
shaping up to be a bad night.

Charlie’s ex-boyfriend looked like a broken scarecrow, only instead of straw there were fractured bones jutting out here and there and brains protruding through the inch-wide crack in his cranium. Scramuzza’s left eye was shut, while the right stared sightlessly at his own chin. To Rossiter’s amazement, the bastard was still breathing.

He collapsed onto the sofa bed and stared glumly at the bleeding mess before him. No two ways about it: he was fucked. There was no way the cops would believe this was self defense. He was looking at fifteen to life. They’d ship him down to Angola, where the new fish had their teeth knocked out so they could give better head. Or so he was told.

Rossiter’s left arm, from shoulder blade to finger tip, suddenly went rigid, the muscles contracting. Panic mixed with pain as his brow broke out in an ice-cold sweat. Was he having a heart attack? He was abruptly jerked to his feet by an invisible hand. He cried out as the cramping in his arm worsened, tears springing from his eyes.

He watched in dumb amazement as his left hand clawed at the jumble of pencils he kept in the coffee cup next to his answering machine. The first pencil snapped in his grasp, but he did not feel the splinters of wood and graphite in his fingers. The second fared better and he watched as his left hand made wild, childish scrawls on the white plaster of the living room wall. After a couple of minutes his left arm went slack and fell to his side and the pencil dropped from his twitching fingers.

At first the scrawls and squiggles didn’t look like anything at all. Then, with a start, he realized he was staring at a map. Rossiter glanced down at Scramuzza, whose breathing was growing increasingly shallow.

I know a place where no one will ever find the body
, a familiar, disembodied voice purred inside his head.
Trust me. What have you got to lose?