LITMIR.BIZ

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       “It is not important. I have come for you at last. To give you what you most desire.”

       She stares, her brain obviously thrumming behind the glassy eyes. “How—Do you have a car for us?” she asks finally.

       “I thought you might call for one of yours.”

       “Yes,” she says much too quickly. “If you’ll just let me get some things—”

       “No.”

       She freezes near her bedside table. Her eyes dart downward, then back to my face. It is breaking down. Kali was right: fantasy and reality are alternate universes. I come to save, but who can grasp great purpose with vision clouded by terror? My hopes crash around me like shattered icons. I slip my right hand behind my back and grip the butt of the pistol.

       “Karin?” I plead, offering one last chance.

       Then her mask cracks, revealing her panic as she stabs a hand at the bedside table. I see a button there. An alarm.

       I have no choice but to fire.

       The feathers of the dart bloom in the midline, just above where her navel must be. The patient looks down with animal incomprehension and pulls out the dart, but it is much too late for that. Then she runs. The brave ones usually do.

       She runs right at me. Not actually at me, but toward me, because I stand between her and the door.

       I let her run past me.

       She gasps.

       I turn.

       Kali stands in the doorway. Faithful Kali. Saffron sari, nut-brown skin, jet hair, blacker eyes. She holds a dagger, wickedly curved. A fearsome instrument. Simple. Effective in two dimensions, the physical and the psychological.

       The patient turns to me for some explanation. How powerfully her heart must be beating

       “Kali,” I say, regretting every moment.

       The patient starts at the sound of Kali closing the door, watches the young woman move lithely across the floor with my briefcase, like a dark angel.

       Kali sets the case on the floor, then stands and unfastens her sari. It falls to the carpet, leaving her utterly naked. I watch the patient trying to work out what is happening as the Ketamine cocktail courses through her system. Why is the Indian woman undressing? Just before she loses consciousness, she might work it out. That Kali is undressing to keep her clothes free of blood.

       I must disrobe as well, but first I walk to the computer, log off, type a few commands, and shut off the machine. Then I return to the patient, kneel, and open my briefcase.

       “What’s in there?” she asks dully, sitting down on the floor.

       “My instruments.” I lift a stainless steel rongeur from the case and try to smile, but my heart is a black hole.

       The patient has done enough research for her novels to recognize the rongeur. In blind panic she breaks once more for the door, scrambling on all fours like an infant, but Kali channels her flat onto her stomach. I watch silently until I see the dagger flash and press against the patient’s throat.

       “Don’t dare,” I say, alarmed by the blood lust in her eyes. Command rises into my throat. “Strip her.”

       We took our time with the patient. We could afford to, as Karin allowed no guards inside the mansion. But our options were limited. How I longed to spend myself within that still body. But of course it was impossible.

       This time I forced Kali to be careful to get no blood on her feet. After she finished and I had collected my specimen, we retired to the shower. Genuine marble. We wear rubber caps to keep as many hairs as possible out of the drain trap. The blood slipped off our shaved skin and swirled on the white stone. At last I could allow myself release.

       Self-control is so important.

       Kali knelt before me in the hot spray. I had held back so long that neither her expertise nor her diligence were required. She swallowed every drop of evidence, as she must. She may have left traces of her own arousal, but what will the police make of that? They will be confused enough as it is.

       As we stole out of the estate, carrying not only the briefcase but also the rubber bag, now filled, I recalled the patient. So much potential there. For my work. For public relations. All lost, and for what? More homogenate? But I must not dwell on failure. Great souls rejoice in adversity.

       Tomorrow is another day.

       ONE

      Life is simple.

      The more complicated you believe yours is, the less you know of your true condition.

      For a long time I did not understand this.

      Now I do.

      You are hungry or you are full. You are healthy or you are sick. You are faithful to your wife or you are not. You are alive or you are dead.

      I am alive.

      We complain about complexity, about moral shades of gray, but we take refuge in these things. Complexity offers refuge from choice, and thus from action. In most situations, most of us would prefer to do nothing.

      Sic transit gloria mundi.

      Something is wrong.

      I stare at the phone number of the New Orleans police department, which I have just taken down from directory assistance.

      I have known something is wrong for some time, at some level, but it took what happened today to make me face it squarely. To override the opposition.

      “I have information about the Karin Wheat murder,” I say when the call goes through.

      “I’ll connect you to Homicide,” says a female voice.

      I glance up from my desk to the small color television I keep tuned to CNN sixteen hours a day. They’re into the International Hour. It was CNN that brought me news of the murder.

      “Detective Mozingo,” says a male voice.

      “I have information relevant to the Karin Wheat case.”

      “What’s your name?”

      “Harper Cole.”

      “Address?”

      “I’m calling from Rain, Mississippi.”

      A pause. “Where?”

      “It’s a farming area in the Delta.”

      “How do you know anything about the Wheat case? The body was just discovered six hours ago.”

      “I saw it on CNN. They cut into a regular newscast to show Wheat’s estate. I guess she was more famous than I thought.”

      I hear the detective sigh and mutter something that sounds like “… freakin’ high profile …” away from the phone.

      “Are you working on that case?” I ask him.

      “No, thank God. Mayeux’s got it. But I’ll

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