Absolute Instinct

FOURTEEN

The following day in Portland

Jessica was awakened by a pounding on her door, but it turned out to be the adjoining room's door-Darwin, shouting something unintelligible on the other side. While she threw on her terry-cloth robe, she worked out in her head what she was hearing. Darwin continued shouting, “We've gotten a terrific break in our case, Jess. On the tube, now!”

She tore open the door and he barged past her, searching for her remote. Finding it, he snapped on the television set.

“What is it?” she asked, following him into her room. “Darwin?”

“Watch! CNN, MSNBC, Fox, they all have the breaking story, and it's going to blow that fucking smug Governor Hughes outta his pants. They gotta give Robert a reprieve now. They won't have a choice.”

Jessica sat on the very edge of her bed facing the TV screen as it filled with images of a police raid, a box crate the size of a small pool table confiscated, shots of a man in handcuffs, his long hair and clothing looking like that of a rock star. Jessica tried to put it all together, wondering what it had to do with their case.

“It's Chicago, and the guy they're snatching around and forcing into the squad car, that's Orion, Keith Orion. Seems an old girlfriend's corpse turned up.”

“You mean Orion pulled an Ira Einhorn?”

“Yeah, and in similar fashion. Crated up a murder victim-someone my team in Milwaukee believes we've heard about before.”

“My God, who?”

“Lucinda Wellingham.”

“The art gallery girl, the one who backed Orion's exhibit in Milwaukee? This could be our trump card to get your brother off death row.”

“Yeah, but it gets even better. Listen.” Darwin pointed to the tube, and her gaze followed.

CNN newswoman Paula Zahn was reporting.

“I thought Zahn went to night-time television,” Jessica said.

“She's back to daytime. Will you just listen?”

With a look of frightened consternation creasing her forehead, Paula Zahn read the TelePrompTer. “… following a breaking story out of Chicago… just in… just gruesome… something out of an Evan Kingsbury novel.” Zahn took a moment to compose and gather her assaulted sensibilities, obviously shaken. “In a bizarre and gruesome find, Chicago UPS workers, sorting mail at their Grace-Ravenswood-Lakeview facility, discovered a large, leaking container. With terror alerts still at orange, UPS management immediately notified officials, and the leaking container remained a mystery for the better part of the day as seven hundred eighty employees were evacuated and Chicago biohazard team and the EPA went in.” Coanchor Bill Zimmer cut in with, “After initial tests, chemists on hand at the UPS facility discovered the fluid staining the container and floor to be the result of human decomposition-fluids from a decaying body.”

“How could she be decaying so quickly,” asked Jessica, “if no one even knew she'd disappeared until now? Unless…”

“Yeah,” said Darwin, “unless. Keep listening, Jess.”

Paula Zahn, through gnashed teeth and frown, continued. “The crate was ordered opened, and within was found a nude young woman in mid-twenties who's back had been so completely splayed open that her killer had actually… Oh, dear God…”

Zimmer had to pick up the story from here. “The killer had actually removed the victim's entire backbone, which remains missing! Paula.”

Paula looked as if she wanted to storm off. Again Zimmer took up the slack. “Investigators suspect there might be a connection between this and three previous murders in three other states involving the taking of spinal columns- for what grisly purpose no one yet knows.”

Zahn finally recovered and turned to her coanchor and mock-gagged, repeating, “'Backbones'? A killer interested in backbones? Uggghhh… whatever for?”

“Well, Paula,” replied Zimmer, “police aren't saying for certain that they have the murderer in custody, but they do have what CNN sources are calling a person of interest in custody.”

Paula shook off any thoughts of hyperventilating and interjected, “And given UPS's penchant for a lot of paperwork, they strongly suspect the man to whom the box was being shipped, as Keith Orion is believed to have sent the crate to Chicago from Milwaukee-where he was having a showing of his artwork.”

Zimmer picked up the story there. “We're not likely to hear anything definite on the identity of the lady in the crate anytime soon from authorities, but there is rampant speculation at this hour as to her identity. Some saying that it is this woman.”

They flashed a photo of Lucinda Wellingham, smiling, bright, cheerful, eyes alive with excited enthusiasm. “We are told,” began Paula, “at this time that while police won't speculate on the identity of the victim, CNN has obtained a second photo for comparison.”

They flashed the second photo, this one a morgue mug shot of the victim. “Geez,” complained Jessica, “how do these parasites do it? How do they get photos from an M.E.'s office?”

“Big bucks change hands,” was all that Darwin replied, glued to the set.

Zahn continued speaking now. “Many speculate it may be Lucinda Wellingham” again they put up the vivacious photo of Lucinda, but this time side by side with the morgue shot. “Friends knew her as Lucy, and she was last seen in Orion's company at an opening in Hamilton Museum's Fine Arts Center in downtown Milwaukee. Eyewitnesses said the couple quarreled and got into a shouting match during the largest opening in Orion's career.”

Jack Cafferty, the third wheel on the show, piped up now off-camera, saying, “I thought we couldn't release the name of the victim until police have notified the next of kin.”

“That's easier said than done if you are so well known in the arts community,” replied Zimmer quickly and calmly.

“Just hope we can take the heat when her parents come at us with a lawsuit.” Cafferty's chuckle could be heard off camera.

Paula Zahn added, “Many in the art world in and around Milwaukee and Chicago will likely recognize her photo and we will soon have a positive ID.”

“We will keep you posted on this developing story,” added Zimmer moments before breaking for an Altoids commercial.

Darwin looked as if he might jump on the bed and bounce to the ceiling. “It's what we've been waiting for, Jess, a break in the case! Evidence the real killer is indeed still out there, still operating and not some copycat killer. Two such mutilations involving backbone theft in a matter of weeks in Milwaukee.”

“Certainly, it's gotta cut some ice with the governor.”

“Cut some ice? Wake up, Dr. Coran. Hell, it'll free Robert. Damn fine morning for Robert, this news.”

“Not so fine for the young victim.”

“We gotta call Chicago authorities and get the details.”

Paula Zahn's image came back on screen. Unaware she was on, she was saying again to Jack Cafferty, “Backbones? What the hell's he doing with the backbones?” Then she shivered as if something like rough sandpaper had scratched across her spine.

Cafferty indicated the camera was rolling, and he replied to her question, “He must've wanted to be certain she couldn't stand up and come back to haunt him maybe?”

Zimmer shook his head as in mourning. “Each time we hear someone at CNN say, 'And I thought I'd heard it all,' we know better. There's always more at CNN, America's number-one choice for up-to-the-minute, unbiased news reporting.”

Paula waved a new sheet of copy over her head, announcing, “Now we turn to lighter fare, the New York City's Bronx Zoo's ninetieth anniversary fair.”

Zimmer cut in. “Paula, sorry but we have more news on that horrible story coming out of Chicago. Our sources tell us that the box's origin was indeed Milwaukee, its destination the controversial artist and sculptor, Keith Orion, care of Chicago Prop Works Inc., a company owned by Orion that sets up and breaks down theatrical, educational and cultural events, including but not limited to plays, music concerts, film production needs and art showings.”

Again Paula read from the TelePrompTer. “Keith Orion has never been without controversy as he creates shock-value artwork calculated to get a reaction from viewers of his art. Called the Marilyn Manson of the arts community in and around Chicago, his notoriety has followed him across the states, wherever he has shown.”

Smirking to suppress a laugh, Zimmer added, “His record for art show shutdowns stands alone. His last showing in Milwaukee, while sold out, saw people leaving in droves before promoters had time to uncork the champagne bottles and serve the cheese.”

“Do we have film on some of Orion's more shocking pieces?” asked Paula of an off-camera producer.

“Sorry,” she apologized to the public, “but perhaps later, we will bring you an example of Mr. Orion's decidedly shocking work. I am told he has gone so far as to hang crucified cats, dogs, and other small animals in relief against his paintings.”

“He calls it odorous art,” commented Zimmer. “Wait till Bill O'Reilly gets wind of this.”

Cafferty joined the other two co-anchors in a belly laugh, adding, “Indeed.”

Jessica switched it off to an elated Darwin who looked ready to bounce off the walls. “If we can say we have someone in custody in Chicago, and new evidence has surfaced now in Chicago as well as Minnesota with DNA matching, and we can show a connection between Orion and Millbrook then-”

Jessica put up both hands to him and cautioned, “You're reaching way ahead of yourself, Darwin.”

“But this is good! Great!”

“You're reacting, creating rationalization to arrest Orion on the basis of a news story that has him connected in some way to this recent body, but he's a long way from replacing your brother in the death chamber.”

“I tell you there's something sick about that motherfucker. You saw his art. Hell, you smelled it-roadkill on the canvas, and he's guilty as hell of… of…“Of what? Rodent murder? Call in animal control. What's he done beside be a prick? Where's the evidence he's actually killed anyone? You and I can't work on suppositions, Darwin.”

“He's the Spine Thief. I just know it.”

“Sure he's despicable and distasteful and has a hate on for women, but that does not prove he's the killer we seek, and I don't have a good feeling about him suddenly falling into our laps like this.”

“Regardless, Hughes has to listen to reason now. I know… we'll confiscate all Orion's art.”

“That crap'll go through the roof in value. Become the hottest collectors' items on the market thanks to this notoriety. Look, hell, we don't even know who the victim in that crate is, not for sure, and it could all prove to be an elaborate hoax for attention, part of the bastard's public-relations effort-got a body from a morgue or a funeral home, some sick shit like that. Hell, I can imagine someone even wanting to set Orion up-possibly the real killer.”

“What're you saying?”

“It's all just too pat is what I'm saying.”

Darwin gritted his teeth, paced the room and wound up at the window, staring out over the expanse of gardens and trees of a nursery across the street. “We still gotta find out. We gotta know what Chicago knows. I have Agents Amanda Petersaul and Jared Cates teaming on it.”

Jessica blew out a long breath of air, a signal of exasperation. “Who's Cates?”

“A five-year man with our field office. He's good and thorough.”

“I'm glad you have an experienced agent with Pete.”

“Pete's a fine agent. She's sharp as a tack, and she is dogged about getting the facts.”

“Now you're talking. Let's get some details and facts. The Devil is in the details as they say.”

“That's my intention.”

“Your people need a little paving of the way in Chicago, I know some of the agents in our field office there. Worked a couple of cases with them.”

“What about the M.E. there?”

“As a matter of fact, I know the Chicago M.E. well. Keene, Horace Keene. Runs a fine crime lab and morgue. Fact is, we both studied under Holcraft, just not at the same time.”

“That's good. You two'll be on the same wavelength.”

“Keene is quick and efficient. By now he'll have any facts ascertainable from the crate, and maybe he can verify that the body is in fact Lucinda Wellingham’s.”

“And if it is?”

“Then we learn what evidence they have against Orion, circumstantial or overwhelming.”

“And then?”

“Then we go at the governor with all the facts, and we shove it down his fat face.”

“Now you're talking.”

Still, something nagged at Jessica and she was not ready to celebrate. “But what troubles me is that from what we know of Lucy Wellingham, she does not fit the victim profile.”

“So Orion changed the pattern. It happens. I've read about it happening in your own book.”

“Still, we can't ignore the facts. All the others were matronly, in their late forties. They were all shut-ins or self-imposed introverts who related better and more to animals than to people. While Lucinda appears their opposite.”

“Hardly reclusive with a business of her own,” he agreed.

“A large, prominent family. Busy businesswoman. Bet she had no animals, at least not in the city, at her place.”

“From her photos, she appears to be a classy dresser, quite up on fashion.”

Jessica agreed. “Beautiful from her photo, in step with the young and hip crowd in Milwaukee, and in her mid-twenties. Not the killer's victim of choice.”

“OK, so Orion changed his pattern drastically.”

Jessica paced the room, her chin in her hand. “It could mean that she somehow found out about his extracurricular activities and… so she was killed out of expediency, not like the others who were targeted, stalked, massaged through the drawings and then murdered.”

“By now every scrap of his artwork and supplies and instruments are confiscated, and the techs are searching for blood evidence on his art scalpels.”

“Yeah, and maybe they found the bone cutter still fresh with Lucinda's blood on it,” she sarcastically replied. “Let's stay grounded, Darwin. In a few hours we're going to be meeting Richard at the airport and all we've got in hand is the blood typing. So, let's go as planned.”

“Penitentiary for the blood test.”

“Right. And to meet your brother.”

“It's all set for two this afternoon.”

“And Richard's plane is due in at six. We see the governor again at seven. Now get outta my room and let me get dressed for the day.”

“I'll keep you apprised of any and all I learn as Petersaul is going down to Chicago to find out all she can. Meantime, our people in Milwaukee have raided the place where Orion stayed while in Milwaukee, the downtown Marriott, for anything he may have left behind.”

“Anything breaks in the investigation, let me know. Otherwise, I need some peace and quiet, and to put on my foundations, Darwin. Out, out, and Darwin, don't get me wrong, I am as pleased as you at this new development. I just think, given what we know now about J. J. Hughes that nothing 'back East' is going to persuade him unless it is absolutely overwhelming.”

“By end of business day, I am hoping to make it overwhelming,” Reynolds countered.

“I do hope you can, Darwin. I do hope so.”

Cafe Avanti sat flush below a four-story brownstone on Southport within shouting distance of the Music Box Theater's marquee, just as Lucinda had described it to Giles. The doors to Cafe Avanti opened inward and a lilting bell sounded, announcing yet another customer. The place appeared as quaint and curious as Lucinda had told him it would be over pillow talk just before he'd fallen asleep, just before he'd had to kill her.

He stood at the center of the room, staring down a narrow corridor leading to the rear where he'd been told the cafe housed a small galleria-styled maze of nooks and crannies. Standing before the stenciled windows, Giles Gahran, his ornate box tucked under one arm, his huge artist's portfolio dangling from his other hand, drew the attention of the Spanish woman behind the counter.

“Good morning. Can I be helping you, sir?”

“Lucinda sent me.”

“Who?”

He replied, “Art dealer in Milwaukee, Lucinda Wellingham.”

“Ahhh… jes, jes. She sends you here to me? Ahhh… that is good then. Let me see your work.”

“Said you'd show my stuff on her recommendation. I have a note to that effect with her signature.”

“That's perfect timing. I just got the rooms cleared out again. Get tired of seeing the same things too long… not good for business. New exhibit is. Show me what you got.”

“Lucinda said Cafe Avanti is the premier place for a first showing in Chicago, and from there word will spread.” “Right, spread like spilled India ink on a white satin tablecloth. Lucinda told you that, sweetheart… good how she help us… good to us… and now they are showing her picture in the paper and saying she has been killed, do you know?” She handed him the Sun-Times lying on a nearby table. “Horrible… so horrible what that black-hearted bastard Orion done to her, and look how he goes walking free!”

Giles read the headlines and scanned for details. “Imagine letting a monster like that just walk away,” he muttered in response.

“God, so awful about her death-murdered, horribly disfigured.”

“Terrible, I agree.”

“I'd only seen her jus' last week in Milwaukee to preview Orion's work, too.”

“Oh, really? What'd you think of it?”

“The man is a pig. A murdering pig now. Such evil in him to horribly disfigure my beautiful Lucinda.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “It turns my stomach, the whole thing.” Giles pretended innocence for the part owner of the Cafe Avanti.

“It must've been so shocking for you. Oh, where are my manners. Coffee? Juice? Something stronger?”

“Coffee, yes, thank you. Yes, I… I just saw her a few days ago myself. How. could such a thing happen?”

“Well, how well do you know that arrogant ass Orion?” she asked. “I can just imagine if a girl were to cross him. It's been all over the news. Hated that man before, but now I really hate him.”

“I didn't know until recently. Been too busy moving in, you know. I rarely look at the papers, and I don't own a TV.”

“The bastard wasn't even arrested or arraigned! No jail time, no bail, nothing, but if he dares show his face here again, I'll make him wish they had kept him behind bars.

I'll personally scratch his eyes out, you know, for my poor, sweet Lucinda.”

She'd gone back around the counter and handed him an Irish coffee with whipped cream. “On the house.”

“Imagine, Keith Orion, theeeee Keith Orion, a killer.”

“He's finished in the art world, especially in the Chicago arts community.” She reared up. “When I saw her face on the tube… and then they flashed her death photo… Oh my God, I thought I'd throw up and faint. I called the authorities immediately, you know, to, you know, identify her as exactly who they thought she might be, but I think I… my word put a cap on it for them.”

She took a moment to compose herself. “Now tell me, Mr. Gahran, why should we display your art, your paintings, your sculptures at Avanti? I've got to fill out a flyer, get the word around, plaster it on some windows that original artwork is on display at Avanti. Got to have good reason, other than the fact Lucy sent you to us just before she died. In other words, defend your work.”

He spread out his show photos and several sketches and a few paintings to give her a broad range of the kind of work he was doing at the moment.

She tried to curb her immediate positive reaction to the unusual work.

Giles began speaking as she glanced over each painting and sketch slowly, carefully sizing each up, one at a time.

“Kinda reminds me of Goya, your style anyway, and maybe Picasso's Guernica like the way their bones are out of their bodies.”

“In occult physiology the most important bone in the body is the sacrum and-”

“What's a sacrum?” asked Conchita Raold, interrupting Giles's spiel.

“Ahhh… sacrum… it's not what you think,” he said with a little smirk.

“Oh, and what am I thinking?” “It's got nothing to do with the male member. It refers to the ancient sacer, meaning the sacred, so it's called… was called the sacred or holy bone-the-”

“Spinal cord.”

“Backbone to be exact-cord refers to the nerves. You mean spinal column.”

“Holy bone but not holy boner then. OK, so your show is about this holy bone.”

“You see in ancient civilizations it had a role to play… a role of like special-”

“Significance?”

Giles hated the way this woman finished all his sentences for him. “Yeah, significance in many systems of divination by the bones of the body, in religious rites, in sacrificial-”

“Ceremonies?”

“Ahhh… right again. It was commonly believed to contain the immortal part of the body and to be directly connected with the spirit realm. In the Western tradition this was the bone kissed at the witch sabbat.”

“Man, really? Wow. I didn't know that. I love Wicca stuff like they got next door in the candle and card shop. How many people would know that. That's kinda amazing. Man, Giles, you are going to fit right in around here. People coming to Avanti, they love shit like this.”

“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.”