Absolute Instinct (32 page)

“
It means different things to different people, still does,” he continued. “Semitic peoples have a tradition that there exists in every man a tiny bone that cannot be seen or felt, cannot be burned or otherwise destroyed, never rots or perishes, and is lodged in the sacrum.”

“
You're shitting me?”

“
No, really. I've studied it. At death this indestructible, incombustible, imponderable, impalpable, atomic bone particle will remain incorrupt in the earth, and when the time of resurrection comes—and it will—it will form the 'seed' around which a new body will be built, the body that will proceed to the last judgment and to its final destiny in heaven or hell.”

She had been silenced, awed by all this strange talk.

Finally, Conchita stammered, “Damn, I gotta get you a showing, and I mean immediately. Just start carting your stuff over. I love it... love it, fucking love it.”

“
Formerly, Jews believed that when they died this bone, which they called luz or luez, would find a resting place in the Holy Land, and that if a Jew was buried far away, the luz would travel underground or find some means of getting to the sacred soil. If the bone was eaten en route by say a bird or an animal, it would not be absorbed into the system but passed out while using the bird or animal to trans-port itself.”

Wide-eyed at this, Conchita muttered, “That's some creep-azoid shit, Giles. OK, I call you by your first name?”

He nodded, but kept on explaining about the luz bone. “Muslims, too, believe in the existence of this bone, which they call al ajb.”

“
Al-a-jib? What's that mean?”

“
The curious bone, a tiny fragment around which the resurrection-body will take shape.”

“
The resurrection-body? Yes... I see... I think.”

“
In medieval Europe a number of popular beliefs were associated with the spine. I mean a man possessed of an unusually large spine, such as a hunchback or an Abe Lincoln was thought to be endowed with almost talismanic power.”

“
Fucking cool man. I'm pretty tall myself.”

“
Didja know that an old form of address for a hunchback was 'My Lord'?”

“
No way. Amazing.”

“
To touch a hunchback brought good luck, and to touch and wish at the same time ensured that the wish would come true. The expression 'to have a hunch,' implying—”

“
Get out, no way.”

“
Implied prescience.”

“
Pre-what?”

“
Knowing about something before it happens, like in pre—”

“
I know! Precognition!”

“
A belief in the precognitive faculty inherent in the hunch of a hunchbacked person actually.”

“
Damn, you oughta write all this up for a program guide on the gallery showing.”

“
And explain why a gnarly little hunchback psychic is trusted far more than a good-looking, straight-backed person claiming such powers, huh?”

“
You mean like the little sawed off psychic in Poltergeist! I get it. Right. Look, Giles, I really want you to show here at the Avanti, and I swear to you that I'll get all my contacts in the art world here in Chicago to be here for the opening show. You're going to be a smash with them, and soon it'll lead to larger shows, larger venues for your work. Is it a deal?”

“
It's wonderful. I understand you've showcased a lot of talented artists here over the years.”

“
Since eighty-two, yes, we have—my husband, Arnie, and me... We worked hard to build a reputation for the place as being a refuge for struggling young artists of all sorts, from artists like yourself to cabbies working on screenplays. We encourage all creative-like-stuff here.” She frowned and added, “Orion got his start here, I'm ashamed to say now.”

“
You have my undying gratitude.” He shook her hand vigorously.

“
Can you arrange to have the sculptures here tomorrow?”

“
Tonight if you like.”

“
Then it's settled.”

They shook on it again.

“
You don't have to get your husband's OK?”

“
Hey baby, this is 2004, and I'm a liberated Spanish Gypsy Queen. I didn't even take on his name when we got married. He's Irish. What the fuck am I going to look like to people with a face like this, and a name like Conchita Murphy? Huh? Hey? It's got no whatayma-callit?”

“
Cadence?”

“
What's that?”

“
Like music, rhythm.”

“
Ahhh...” She gave it some thought. “Nah, I was thinking something else, not about the sound but if people would believe it or not. You know, like I was some kind of liar. Me!”

“
Credence, it doesn't feel like it has credence.”

“
Yeah, right, credence, cadence... like that, yeah. You're right, Giles. You're smart, aren't you? Hey, you know what, you oughta talk to the cops, too, since you knew Lucy and you think Orion was trying to set you up.”

“
I have! I did.”

“
And they still let him go?”

“
They're keeping an eye on him. They let the fox out of the cage for good reason, to lead them to where the evidence is buried.”

“
You think so?”

“
Remember how the cops did things in the Laci Peterson case? They didn't arrest the guy right away, remember?”

“
Oh, yeah... that's right.”

She contemplated this for a long moment. “Hey, Giles, don't you find it a little ironic that the bastard ripped out her spine and here you got sculptures with spines floating up above people's heads?”

“
That's just it. Orion was jealous of my art. Jealous of Lucy and me. I think he thinks the cops'll think I killed her 'cause my art is like it is.”

“
Wow, how diabolic is that?” She laughed raucously and he struggled to join in her mirth. “You're not worried the cops're looking for you?”

“
Nahhh... I got nothing to hide.”

“
Good... good, Giles.”

Later that same day, Giles was erecting his various sculptures in the dark back rooms of Cafe Avanti.

# # #

IN the muted light of the dimly lit old world cellblock look of the back rooms of Cafe Avanti no one could see the strings, and Lucinda was right again about leaving one of the spines in its natural state, unpainted.

The curious sweet smell of blood on the three painted vertebrae, comingling with the damp, earthy odors of the ancient sweating brick walls, proved the perfect olfactory effect, one that would never be captured in an aerosol can. The colored lights of this palace of old Chicago history reflected magically off the myriad multifaceted surfaces of the other three vertebrae. The life-size sculptures could not simply be walked around but required care in negotiating their way into the back rooms as they filled the closed in little nooks and crannies made available to them. There remained hardly elbow space in the rooms featuring each of his three women and four spines.

Looking on the work, once set up, Giles again felt a sense of pride come over him. He wondered what Father would say if he were here; he knew Mother would not understand any of it as art. Still, he'd never felt so certain and self-confident of himself than at this moment of his unveiling, his coming out, toasted by Conchita and all her patrons, wine flowing and cheese balls abounding. Across the doorway to his showing, Conchita had surprised him with a banner reading: Sweet Marrow of Life.

Delighted at causing grief and bad publicity for Keith Orion, Giles felt even more delighted at having learned that Orion had been picked up for questioning a second time now. Although allowed to roam free again, no doubt suspicions surrounded him wherever he went now, and no doubt police officials were hounding his every step, while they knew nothing of a Giles Gahran.

Orion's balloon had burst, while Giles's future could only be up-up and away!

If he could keep from acting on a great urge to rip out the energetic spinal column of one Conchita Raold.

Conchita called to him now and in tow she had her partner and husband, Arnold Murphy, an enormously powerful looking black man—hardly Irish. “Go ahead, tell him, Giles... Tell Arnie all that stuff you told me about how the shamans of old used the backbones of their victims, you know, how 'waste not, want not' meant something to these people, and they even used bones in their everyday lives— bone jewelry, bone implements, dishes, even bone utensils—bone forks.” She yanked at her husband and asked, “Isn't that fascinating, Arnie?”

Arnie only stared, his mouth going slack at the four spinal columns floating one after another through the rooms in places usually preserved for darts and pool cues.

“
Giles, you gotta tell Arnie about the luz bone.” She made the two men sit down. “Arnie, you're not going to believe this shit.”

FIFTEEN

In the psychopathic mind no common law exists. Without law, there is no injustice or moral wrongs. Only a Hobbsian state of nature wherein power, rape, torture, mutilation is the order of things—natural selection, for in this parallel universe inside a psycho's head every man has the rights of nature, including the right to another person's body.

—
JESSICA CORAN, FBI M.E.

AGENTS Amanda Petersaul and Jared Cates had learned that Lucinda Wellingham had showed up at Keith Orion's art opening on the arm of some no-account, down-and-out artist whose work no one had ever seen, a guy named Giles Gahran whom Lucinda was talking about all night long, a guy she threatened to replace Orion with, and she made these comments loudly and often during the night. It had something to do with putting Keith Orion in his place, seeing to it that if he didn't behave and do exactly as she wanted, that she would back another horse. Petersaul and Cates had gotten this information before leaving Milwaukee for Chicago.

Petersaul had gone from the museum gallery people to locate the mysterious other artist, Gahran. They failed to locate Gahran, who had left Milwaukee in what appeared a sudden flurry of activity. This they had learned from his landlady who'd been surprised when he paid up all his back rent.

“
Did he say where he was going?” asked Petersaul, mulling over this news.

“
He only said he would soon be a household name. I took it to mean due to his art, nothing like being wanted by the FBI.”

“
We only want to question him, ma'am,” Cates had said.

“
You ought've been here last night then when the fire department was called out and they traced an odor in the vents to the man's apartment.”

“
Fire department?”

“
A whole truckload of firemen tearing around the building in gas masks, yes. We all thought it was some sorta terrorist thing, you know.”

The agents telephoned the nearest firehouse and asked if anyone there had cited Giles Gahran for causing undue alarm at his apartment building.

A Captain Edward Lee was pat on. “Damn,” he muttered when he learned who they were and who they were interested in. “Stay put. I'll come to you!”

Lee was soon filling their ears with information and his regrets at not having looked closer at their guy, Giles Gahran. Cates and Petersaul learned that the fire marshal, Captain Lee, had left Gahran without giving him a citation for causing the choking odors that had permeated the building.

“
Ah-ha, odors of decay and death?” asked Cates.

“
Filthy odors like purification?” Petersaul eagerly added.

Fire Marshal Ed Lee shook his head while chanting “No.” “It was really just the opposite, cleaning fluids... lots of cleaning fluids, including muriatic acid, enough to burn out the lining of your nostrils and throat, but this guy seemed oblivious to the odors escaping the place and working into the vents.”

“
Muriatic acid,” repeated Cates.

“
Did he offer up any explanations as to why he was so bent on cleaning house?” Petersaul asked.

Ed Lee gritted his teeth hard, obviously angry with himself. Petersaul thought Lee looked like an even wilder wild-eyed version of the actor Billy Bob Thornton.

The Billy Bob look-a-like, thin and angular of face, rubbed his day-old stubble and said, “Something to do with a final pa... pa... patina? I think it was something he'd had to put over his sculptures. Keep 'em from breaking in transit. The guy talked like nonstop.”

“
Sculptures? Transit?”

“
Yeah, he was crating up, preparing to leave. Back of my head, I thought just for a couple seconds of calling in the cops. Cops get real interested in this kinda quick exit, don't they? But everything seemed to check out. Crates were carrying his stone sculptures. Soapstone I think it was, but don't quote me.”

“
Crates? He was crating up stuff...” Petersaul shared an astonished look with Jared Cates.

“
Yeah, but it was just his artwork. He even pried open one of the boxes to give me a look inside. Not my type art, but it was you know, different.”

Petersaul replied rapid-fire fashion. “Different? Just how different? Give me some detail here, Captain.”

“
Weird shit, you know. A lady holding out her hand, a bird sitting on her finger. Couldn't see much else, you know, looking downward from overhead and the statue was lying on its side, stuffing all round it like exploded bedding.”