LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 11

      A week after moving into my house I was seized by a fit of domesticity and bought a vacuum cleaner. Or, judging by the looks of things when I’d unboxed it earlier this evening, several vacuum cleaners: tubes, brushes, cords, bags, and all manner of vaguely obscene, mouthlike devices. Finally assembling a working instrument, I’d given everything a good suctioning. I squeaked gray film from my windows with rubbing alcohol. The toilet bowl received magic blue dust that fizzed and bubbled. Stacks of clothes were tucked into drawers. After an hour the place dazzled, in a relative sense.

      By 7:30 I was sitting on the deck contemplating the slender odds that Dr. Davanelle might appear. The sun slid through its last degrees of arc. A squall to the east pushed toward Pensacola, but the remaining sky was warm blue. The phone rang and I popped up like anxious toast. Be Ava, I wished, reaching for the phone.

      “Carson? This is Vangie Prowse.”

      My heart dropped to my knees. “Hello, Dr. Prowse. What a surprise. I haven’t seen you in—”

      “Jeremy called you a few nights ago, or early morning, rather?”

      Her voice always split the difference between question and statement, a good voice for a psychiatrist.

      I said, “I didn’t know he was allowed to call out.”

      “He isn’t. He slipped a cell phone from an attendant’s pocket. I left a message for you the other night, to call me? I wanted to apologize for the lapse.”

      My mind-photos of Dr. Evangeline Prowse, taken a year ago, gave her brown eyes as penetrating as those of a snow owl, fortune-teller eyes. In her mid-sixties, she had more pepper than salt in her hair, the salt more silver than gray. Her loose-jointed knees and elbows conferred the gait of a retired marathoner. She would be calling from her office, high ceiling, shelves dense with books, an intricate carpet from some country where rugs have meaning.

      I said, “He was manic, spinning. Is he any better?”

      “Overall? We try to keep him stable, Carson. Never think he’ll be better, not in the usual sense.” She paused. “He wants to talk to you.”

      “You mean now? I have a friend due any minute, Dr. Prowse.”

      “It’s Vangie, Carson. You mentioned you’d stay in contact? I’d hoped to hear from you more often.”

      “I’ll call back. Now’s just not a good time.”

      “Jeremy wanted me to say it’s been a long time since you two connected? He also says he thinks you both have current events to discuss.”

      “I’m very busy right now, Vangie. Seriously.”

      Her voice dropped away. Never try to match silences with a shrink, they’ll wear you down every time. I finally said, “I have a few minutes.”

      “Thank you, Carson. If he can’t speak to you he’ll start obsessing, and that creates problems. I’ll have him brought to a room with a phone? Hang on.”

      She put me on hold. Three minutes passed. Five.

      The line clicked open. I said, “Jeremy? Is that you?”

      “Jeremy is that you?”

      Like an echo my voice returned to me; he was a brilliant mimic of men or women, a mynah. Then his true voice, midrange, musical, a wet finger making a wineglass sing, one octave lower.

      “Yes, it’s me, Carson. How nice of you to remember someone with whom you once shared a womb. A few years apart, but shared nonetheless. Cold in there, wasn’t it?”

      “How’ve you been?” The words sounded ridiculous as I spoke them.

      Jeremy cupped his hand over the phone as if talking to someone in another room. “He asks how I’ve been.” A different voice called back, but still his. “Tell him the cookies were delicious.”

      He took his hand from the phone. “The cookies were delicious, Carson. But I can’t quite get it clear in my head, brother—did you send them on the first or third year I was here?”

      “I’ve never sent cookies, Jeremy.”

      “No cookies?” pouted a little-girl’s voice. “Don’t you wuv me?”

      “I’m busy here, Jeremy. Can I call you back tomorrow?”

      “NO! YOU CAN NOT CAN NOT CAN NOT! Holding this fear-crusted, sweat-dripping phone is the first freedom I’ve had in A YEAR! Speaking of that, we have to talk. How does one get ahead in the world, Carson?”

      I sighed. “I don’t know, Jeremy. How?”

      “A knife is always helpful.” He laughed. “Get it? A knife’s helpful to get…a…HEAD! It zeems to me like you haff a leetle problem in Moe-byle, Carson. A free spirit. Need some help? If one is traveling to Iceland, one should take along someone who speaks ice, n’est-ce pas?”

      “Jeremy, I don’t think—”

      “Our first dead lad was—or perhaps still is, depending on various philosophies—one Jerrold Elton Nelson, age twenty-two, beheaded in Bowderie Park, sharp instrument, body dressed in et cetera, et cetera…the Mobile Register offered such a sterile recitation. COLORLESS! Then this morning I find another poor boy’s gone to bed without his head. A French name—Duchamp? I hope he didn’t lose his beret as well. It was on the news for all of ten seconds. Are they your cases?”

      “I can’t discuss—”

      He banged the phone on a hard surface. “HELLO? HELLO? This is your REALITY CHECK service.” He put a hand over his mouth and made hissing radio-interference noises, abruptly stopping.

      “There, Mr. Ryder, your lines are CLEAR. How about your conscience? You can’t discuss, can’t discuss?…dear sir, did we not spend hours and hours hotly discussing a previous incident? Does the name JOEL ADRIAN come to mind, dear sir, esteemed sir? Was I not of some simple, humble help to you in that instance, good sir, dear sir, most honored sir? DID I NOT SOLVE THE BLOODY FUCKING CASE FOR YOU, CARSON?”

      I listened to my heart. What seemed like a thousand beats later, I said, “Yes.”

      “We’re going to have so much fun on this one. I can hardly wait. I’m thinking of having a decorator in, redo the place, get it all nice and cozy for your arrival.”

      “Jeremy, I’m not—”

      “You

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