The Queen and I (27 page)

“You two ladies enjoy your dinner?” Sean Wagner asked from the darkness, his silhouette visible but masking his facial features.

Only his voice alerted Jeffrey to whom it was who was speaking to them. Jeffrey turned to Jacob and whispered, “Just the town drunk and troublemaker. Ignore him; let’s get to the car.”

Sean came out of the shadows and said, “Where’s the party, Jew boy? Got a ghost to go visit?”

“I thought you said nobody knew about him except you and that girl?” Jacob whispered.

“I forgot that this schmuck and his friend were spying on me last week.”

“Your ghost ain’t here to help you now, Rothstein,” Wagner said as he slowly approached. He looked at Jacob and continued, “You two faggots have a nice meal, did you?”

“Started early tonight, didn’t you, Sean?” Jeffrey asked, referring to his drinking. “Does your father know that you’re out past your bedtime?”

Sean’s eyes went red with anger and he charged Jeffrey, exposing the chain-wrapped fist as he did. The two of them collided with an explosion of arms and fists as Jeffrey tried to keep the bigger man off of him, and Jacob hurried to help his friend. Wagner punched Jacob across the face, opening a cut over his right eye, which sent him sprawling to the ground. He turned on Jeffrey, who was now back on his feet, and charged again, this time making contact with Jeffrey’s midsection, knocking the air out of his lungs.

Jeffrey dropped to one knee and Wagner kicked him in the side, causing him to fall to the ground. He straddled Jeffrey and grabbed hold of his collar while raising his chain-wrapped fist high above for the money shot, when he was suddenly lifted up in the air and thrown twenty feet across the parking lot.

Sean landed in a tangle of limbs and metal and hurried to his feet, trying to get his bearings and find out who it was that intervened. He saw no one and yelled to nobody in particular, “Where are you, you fucking demon monster?”

A recycling bin filled with cans and bottles flew across the lot and made a direct hit against Sean’s side, sending cans crashing to the ground noisily. Sean spun around, looking for who was behind it, and Jeffrey could see the look of recognition cross his eyes.

“Come out, you devil!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “I got something for you!” He pulled out the water gun filled with the holy elixir that he was sure would do away with the ghost, when he heard Abby Tisch yelling from the distance for him to stop.

Jeffrey turned on Sean and said, “Put the gun down, Sean.” He realized how ridiculous this sounded, but he had no idea what was in that gun, and knowing Wagner the way that he did, he knew that it could be anything. “Just calm down, Sean.”

Abby reached them, a confused Carl following in the distance, and she said, “You can’t do this, Sean! We don’t know whether it’s friendly or not.”

“He’s not an it,” Jeffrey shouted. “Now leave him alone and drop the fucking gun!”

Sean looked around and rewrapped his fist with the chain and said through his panting breaths, “Tell it to show itself. Tell it or I kill you.” He looked at Jeffrey and reached down to his ankle and pulled out a small revolver. He pointed it at Jeffrey and said, “You ain’t having no more fun on my account, Jew boy!”

His hand suddenly went cold, and there was a building sensation of pressure around his knuckles, growing into pain. Sean struggled to move his hand and found that it was stuck in something that he could not see. He came to the realization that the ghost had to be behind this and that it was holding his hand. Sean turned the water gun and fired in the direction of where he thought the ghost was while Abby shrieked her objections.

Sean’s hand was released, blood began flowing back to his fingers, and everyone in the lot now heard a young girl scream, “Saul!”

They spun and saw Melissa Foreman standing on the fringe of the light from the parking lot and she continued, “Saul, are you okay?”

A phosphorescent glow started to form in the lot, and they all heard a very deep and raspy voice reply, “No, I’m not all right. This jacket was suede.”

Abby Tisch, Sean Wagner, and the out-of-breath Carl Thomas stood in stunned silence as Saul revealed himself to them. He was wearing a rose-colored suede jacket and charming black skirt with sensible shoes for walking long distances and continued, “Do you have any idea what water does to suede?”

Jacob now turned and saw the ghost that his friend had told him about and found he could not find the words to express what he was feeling at that moment. Jeffrey attended to his friend while Melissa came to help, and they watched as Saul approached the trio who had been haunting
his
existence for so long now.

He reached out quickly and yanked the water gun out of Sean’s hand and said, “Give me that, you schmendrick. I should send you the dry-cleaning bill.”

Sean was trembling like a windblown leaf and had lost control of his bodily functions. Saul looked down at the puddle forming and added, “Good thing I didn’t wear suede shoes.” He looked at Abby, and tears were building in her eyes.

A smile was forming across her face and she said, “You’re beautiful.”

Saul, being the showman that he always was, forced his face to take on a blushing look, and replied, “I’ll tell you, it’s not easy nowadays, but a lady has her responsibilities.”

Abby laughed, and tears streamed down her cheeks. She reached out to touch Saul and continued, “You’re actually here. You’re real.”

“Don’t bother trying, sweetheart,” Saul said. “This merchandise can’t be fondled.”

She withdrew her hands as Carl Thomas turned and ran as if he had never run before. Saul turned on Sean Wagner and said, “Can someone please get that horrible sheriff over here to pick up his boy?”

Sean grew furious at the ghost referring to Sheriff Pitts as his father and tried to strike, but his hands only went through Saul, causing no damage. He spun to the ground, and Abby lifted his revolver and pointed it at him.

“I’ll take him to his daddy,” she said and kicked him while he stared at her with angry eyes. She looked at Saul and said, “I’m so sorry I treated you this way.”

“All you had to do was introduce yourself, dear,” Saul answered. “I’ve been dying to give you a makeover since the first time I saw you.”

She laughed, and Saul turned his attention to Jeffrey and Jacob. He offered Jeffrey his hand to help him up and asked Jacob, “Can you walk?”

Jacob stared at Saul with stunned eyes and replied, “I think so.” He slowly got to his feet and continued, “I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it, honey,” Saul said. “Nothing this fabulous comes from an imagination.”

Chapter Forty-Two: Leaving the Nest

Louis Grecko returned to his home where he had not been in over a week. The music and the Way had been directing him in different ways, and none of the paths laid out for him led him there. It was only after he discovered the whereabouts of Rothstein that he decided it was time to return home and sever the ties with his mother and any relationship with Heinrich Schultz.

Schultz was the easy solution, as was his odd little friend; they did not mean much to Louis to begin with and exterminating them would hurt no more than removing a Band-Aid. It was his mother he feared.

Since Louis had been very young, she had had a hold over him that was not normal by any comparison for a mother and son. With his father gone at such a young age, he was left to her designs when it came to his upbringing, and the ghosts of her past had left her unstable and certainly unsuitable for child rearing. Her love for the company of the dark things in life and the art of implementing pain on others had been passed on to her onetime innocent son, and what she had left was a monster only she could control. But as in all things, the teacher must eventually be surpassed by the student, especially when the student studied under a more qualified professor, which only expedited the change.

Where his mother’s voice was the only one that mattered to him and the only one who could dictate what course of action he would follow next, she was replaced by the music and the Way. The Way was her creation, a way to control her son, but it had grown in his fragile mind into something more tangible than just a way of thinking or ideology; it was his new way of seeing the world and was now his focal point on any decision he made.

Before arriving home, the Way had led him to a young man who was no older than high school age, walking home alone and innocent as any young man of that age would be when raised under normal conditions. It did not take long for Louis to fall on him and gather up what was left of the initial attack for easy disposal in one of the thousands of dumpsters strewn about the city. He cut off the young man’s ear and planned on giving it to his mother as a farewell gift.

She appreciated being showered with his variety of gifts and often reciprocated the gesture with rare moments of loving affection that did not speak to the other kind, the kind that made Louis angry and that he wished to never think about. That affection started shortly after his father had left and was what had driven Louis into the dark shadows he now lurked in; it had driven him to the music, and it had helped him understand what it was that was truly expected of him.

He knew she was home as soon as he entered the apartment, because he could smell the sour stench of her perspiration mixed with her Chanel No.5.
The air was also thick with cigar smoke, and she had obviously neglected to open any windows to vent the toxic air. She did this on purpose, because she knew how much the smell of her smoking bothered Louis. By allowing the air to go so foul, she punished him emotionally before she even had a chance to put her hands on him.

Louis walked into the kitchen and splashed some water on his face by the sink. He looked out the window to the courtyard below and saw pigeons mingling around some breadcrumbs that were obviously left by a neighbor. He liked watching the birds and had always wanted to feed them himself, but that was also another pleasure Cloris would not allow him. Any pleasure he was going to experience in his life would be the kind she chose for him, and she determined if it was worthy of the work she was doing with him.

He remembered one Chanukah when she brought him home a dead puppy. She teased him with it, accusing him of being so disobedient that it had died rather than see the boy who did not listen to his mother. Every New Year’s Eve, he was sent out to bring her souvenirs of drunken revelers who had not obeyed the lifestyle that the Way had set out for all of its children. She watched with unabated joy as he removed body parts from his bag of goodies, and she rubbed them over her entire body, making love to some of them as she told Louis that one day he would be allowed to keep some of these treats for himself. He turned and saw his reflection in the toaster and thought,
Today is a good day for a treat
.

He removed the ear from his pocket and examined it in the hazy light of the kitchen. He was amazed at the resolve of the young man who it had belonged to just a couple of hours earlier. He had put up a struggle that did not befit his size and had not even shed a tear when Louis cut the ear from his head; rather, he spit in Louis’s face and kicked him in the groin, almost achieving an escape. Louis was too quick and too well trained for an amateur to beat him, though, and quickly conquered his prize with a quick snap of the neck. It was the dismembering that gave him the most satisfaction, though.

He had thought of Jeffrey David Rothstein the entire time and imagined he was working on him and not this young boy. How he wanted to kill Rothstein for all the trouble he was causing. It was because of Rothstein that he was back in touch with Schultz, why he had had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting the odd little man who was with Schultz, and why the music and the Way had now told him what he must do with the rest of his life.

Louis was not sure he had what it was going to take to please the Way, to do as it had ordered, but he also knew that at this point any resistance would only be met with his own death, and that was unacceptable to him. There was still the woman out there who he had to dominate and make his own, there was still a score to be settled with Heinrich for driving him to this very painful decision, and of course, there was his mother.

He walked toward the living room and heard her chuckling at the television. She enjoyed her quiet TV time, and Louis knew better than to bother her during such time. But he was not interested in what she wanted anymore, and knew that the longer he waited, the longer he ran the risk of the Way abandoning him and turning him into the prey rather than the predator.

“I’m home, Mommy,” he said in his slightly high-pitched voice. “I brought you a present.”

“What did I tell you about talking during my programs?” she snapped at him. “Jesus! You’re becoming more and more like your father.”

Louis winced at the insult. He had always thought his father had left them when Louis was a very young age and he was now performing as a mime, which normally would have been amusing to him, but Louis had learned that his father had really returned to Europe and joined a rather nefarious consortium that wreaked havoc across the continent. He would one day find his father and introduce him to the Way.

“I’m sorry, Mommy. Shall I talk to you later?”

She coughed and answered, “No, goddamn it! I want my gift; bring it to me.”

He entered the room and sat across from her. She watched him with a stern expression on her face and continued, “You know that Heinrich is looking for you.” She lifted his chin with a single finger and said, “He says you aren’t listening to him anymore.”

Louis shrugged and took out the ear and presented it to his mother. She ogled it with intense appraisal and gently kissed the lobe. She cradled it like a baby and smiled at Louis. “You have always been Mommy’s good boy.”

He nodded his head in agreement and asked, “Can I have a present?”

“I don’t feel good today, Louis, maybe tomorrow.”

“I wasn’t talking about that,” he answered. “I want to get a present for myself. I know who she is.”

Cloris’ face went cold and she replied, “Who is she?”

“She used to be Rothstein’s, but now another man has taken her. I want her; she should be mine.”

His mother shook her head disapprovingly and said, “I don’t think so. There is no room around here for another woman like me.”

“She’s not like you, Mommy,” he answered defensively.

Cloris slapped him hard across the face, sending pain from his jaw to his ear. She knew how to hit him and where to cause the most pain, and she succeeded this time as she had on every other occasion.

“What is that supposed to mean? Does she treat you better than me? Has she introduced you to the art of the hunt? Did she tell you about the Way?”

Louis fought back a tear; he hated when his mother berated him. “She’s not like you. That’s what makes her special.”

Cloris’s eyes went wide with rage, and she rose to her feet, grabbing a cane as she did, which she held high above her head. “On your knees, son,” she said coldly.

Louis felt a fire burning deep in his chest and did as she asked and waited for the punishment that he knew was coming. She lashed at him repeatedly, hitting him so hard that the vibration in the cane hurt her own hands, and she yelled, “You are nothing but a disappointment! You are nothing without me! The Way will take you soon!”

At hearing her mention the Way, Louis suddenly felt very calm, and for the first time in his life he felt clarity that he had never known before. He knew why the Way had led him home and why it had told him to attack that young man for no apparent reason. It was time for a sacrifice, a sacrifice that would deliver Louis from the life he was living and escort him to the life he wanted. It was time for Louis to leave the nest and spread his wings to fly on the wind that the Way was providing.

She continued to beat him with growing ferocity, her eyes growing wider with anger and hatred, followed by surprise when he stood to face her and ripped the cane from her hands.

He snapped it in half easily and threw the pieces across the room, all the while keeping his gaze on his now stunned mother. She slowly took a step back and raised her hands defensively as she began recognizing the purpose of her son’s stare. She had bred a monster that only she could had been able to control for these past thirty-some-odd years and now realized that the end was upon her. The Way she had introduced him to had obviously betrayed her and was now guiding her son in ways she was incapable of doing. She closed her eyes and waited for the curtain call to what was a beautiful performance.

Louis gently grabbed his mother and held her back to his chest and wrapped his giant arms around her neck. He gently kissed her cheek and whispered, “The Way is ready for you now, and I have my own apprentice to train.”

The snap of her neck echoed through the room, and her limp body fell from his arms in a clump of tangled limbs and a little blood from her mouth.

Louis looked down at his mother’s body and heard the music playing softly in his ears. It was pleased with what he had just done and was signaling him that it was time for him to complete his training and take his rightful place in the Way. It was time for Louis to shed the memories of this life and begin building his new one, one that would show the world what only he and his mother had known for so long—he was the salvation and the means by which the world would be guided by the Way.

It was time to leave for Zion, New York and his first pupil, Jeffrey David Rothstein. Anyone who interfered would be casualties of his crusade. He would leave destruction in his wake, and there would be no one to stop him. Schultz and Fujikawa would be next, and then he would make the woman his own.

The dawn of his new life was before him, and Louis smiled to himself as the music began playing again.