LITMIR.BIZ

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      “You’re too full of piss to die anytime soon,” Deucalion said. “As preserved as a pickle in vinegar. Besides, I am perhaps the last one on Earth to whom God would listen.”

      “Or perhaps the first,” said Nebo with an enigmatic but knowing smile. “All right. If you intend to walk again in the world beyond these mountains, first allow me to give you a gift.”

      LIKE WAXY STALAGMITES, yellow candles rose from golden holders, softly brightening the room. Gracing the walls were painted mandalas, geometric designs enclosed in a circle, representing the cosmos.

      Reclining in a chair padded with thin red silk cushions, Deucalion stared at a ceiling of carved and painted lotus blossoms.

      Nebo sat at an angle to him, leaning over him, studying his face with the attention of a scholar deciphering intricate sutra scrolls.

      During his decades in carnivals, Deucalion had been accepted by carnies as though nothing about him was remarkable. They, too, were all outsiders by choice or by necessity.

      He’d made a good living working the freak shows, which were called ten-in-ones because they offered ten exhibits under one tent.

      On his small stage, he had sat in profile, the handsome side of his face turned to the sawdust aisle along which the marks traveled from act to act, from fat lady to rubber man. When they gathered before him, puzzling over why he was included in such a show, he turned to reveal the ruined side of his face.

      Grown men gasped and shuddered. Women fainted, though fewer as the decades passed. Only adults eighteen and older were admitted, because children, seeing him, might be traumatized for life.

      Face fully revealed, he had stood and removed his shirt to show them his body to the waist. The keloid scars, the enduring welts from primitive metal sutures, the strange excrescences…

      Now beside Nebo stood a tray that held an array of thin steel needles and tiny vials of inks in many colors. With nimble skill, the monk tattooed Deucalion’s face.

      “This is my gift to you, a pattern of protection.” Nebo leaned over to inspect his work, then began an even more intricate tracing in dark blues, blacks, greens.

      Deucalion did not wince, nor would he have cried out at the stings of a thousand wasps. “Are you creating a puzzle on my face?”

      “The puzzle is your face.” The monk smiled down at his work and at the uneven canvas on which he imprinted his rich designs.

      Dripping color, dripping blood, needles pricked, gleamed, and clicked together when, at times, Nebo used two at once.

      “With this much pattern, I should offer something for the pain. The monastery has opium, though we do not often condone its use.”

      “I don’t fear pain,” Deucalion said. “Life is an ocean of pain.”

      “Life outside of here, perhaps.”

      “Even here we bring our memories with us.”

      The old monk selected a vial of crimson ink, adding to the pattern, disguising grotesque concavities and broken planes, creating an illusion of normalcy under the decorative motifs.

      The work continued in heavy silence until Nebo said, “This will serve as a diversion for the curious eye. Of course, not even such a detailed pattern will conceal everything.”

      Deucalion reached up to touch the stinging tattoo that covered the surface of the cracked-mirror scar tissue. “I’ll live by night and by distraction, as so often I have before.”

      After inserting stoppers in the ink vials, wiping his needles on a cloth, the monk said, “Once more before you leave…the coin?”

      Sitting up straighter in his chair, Deucalion plucked a silver coin from midair with his right hand.

      Nebo watched as Deucalion turned the coin across his knuckles—walked it, as magicians say—exhibiting remarkable dexterity considering the great size and brutal appearance of his hands.

      That much, any good magician could have done.

      With thumb and forefinger, Deucalion snapped the coin into the air. Candlelight winked off the piece as it flipped high.

      Deucalion snatched it from the air, clutching it in his fist…opened his hand to show it empty

      Any good magician could have done this, too, and could have then produced the coin from behind Nebo’s ear, which Deucalion also did.

      The monk was mystified, however, by what came next.

      Deucalion snapped the coin into the air again. Candlelight winked off it. Then before Nebo’s eyes, the coin just…vanished.

      At the apex of its arc, turning head to tail to head, it turned out of existence. The coin didn’t fall to the floor. Deucalion’s hands were not near it when it disappeared.

      Nebo had seen this illusion many times. He had watched it from a distance of inches, yet he couldn’t say what happened to the coin.

      He had often meditated on this illusion. To no avail.

      Now Nebo shook his head. “Is it truly magic, or just a trick?”

      Smiling, Deucalion said, “And what is the sound of one hand clapping?”

      “Even after all these years, you’re still a mystery.”

      ‘As is life itself.”

      Nebo scanned the ceiling, as if expecting to see the coin stuck to one of the carved and painted lotus blossoms. Lowering his stare to Deucalion once more, he said, “Your friend in America addressed your letter to seven different names.”

      “I’ve used many more than that.”

      “Police trouble?”

      “Not for a long time. Just…always seeking a new beginning.”

      “Deucalion…,” the monk said.

      “A name from old mythology—not known to many people anymore.” He rose from the chair, ignoring the throbbing pain of countless pinpricks.

      The old man turned his face upward. “In America, will you return to the carnival life?”

      “Carnivals have no place for me. There aren’t freak shows anymore, not like in the old days. They’re politically incorrect.”

      “Back when there were freak shows, what was your act?”

      Deucalion turned from the candlelit mandalas on the wall, his newly tattooed face hidden in shadows. When he spoke, a subtle pulse of luminosity passed through his eyes, like the throb of lightning hidden behind thick clouds.

      “They called me…the Monster.”

       CHAPTER 2

      MORNING RUSH-HOUR TRAFFIC on the 1-10 Expressway flowed as languidly as the Mississippi River that wound through New Orleans.

      When Detective Carson O’Connor got off the expressway in the suburb of Metairie, intending to use surface streets to make better time, the morning took a turn for the worse.

      Stopped interminably at an intersection, she impatiently kneaded the steering wheel of her plainwrap sedan. To dispel a growing sense of suffocation, she rolled down the window.

      Already the morning streets were griddles. None of the airheads on the TV news, however, would try to cook an egg on the pavement. Even journalism school left them with enough brain cells to realize that on these streets you could flash-fry even ice cream.

      Carson liked the heat but not the humidity. Maybe one day she’d move somewhere nicer, hot but dry, like Arizona. Or Nevada. Or

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