Blind Shrike

THIRTY THREE The Killer Inside Me

The plaza was full of papers, kicked up by sluggish cross-winds. The papers were pages from old books and yellowed newspapers. Spyder stood at the bottom of a mountain of books taller than the highest ziggurat in Berenice.

He picked up a leather-bound volume embossed in gold Cyrillic on the cover. Inside the book were equations, a swamp of calculus problems and diagrams. He tossed the book back on the pile and picked up a paperback copy of The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson. It had the same cover as the edition he’d read as a teenager. Spyder hadn’t seen a copy in years. He read a page at random and felt the same tingle at the base of his spine that he’d felt when he’d first run across Thompson’s spare, hardened-steel prose at fifteen. Spyder wondered what would happen if he put the book in his pocket and just walked away.

“An interesting choice,” said a man around the far side of the pile. “Considering the choices available.”

Spyder craned his neck to see a short, round man in a kind of leather khaftan. Over the khaftan yards of barbed wire had been looped, encasing the man in spiny metal. On his face, the man wore a wooden mask depicting some grinning Japanese demon. Spyder remembered that Shrike had said something about masks. Some of the humans in Berenice wore masks, she’d said, to keep lost memories from attaching themselves to them and becoming false memories of a life they’d never led.

“I had this book when I was younger,” said Spyder, tossing the Thompson back on the pile.

“I knew there was a reason and the reason was emotional, rather than an intellectual attachment. You picked up the book which moved your heart, not some great work of literature meant to impress others.”

“I was a junior varsity criminal and had a few run-ins with the cops, so the book was a big deal to me back then.”

“Of course it was!” said the round man. “If you enjoyed that, may I show you some other, rarer volumes at my stall nearby?”

“I’m just passing through. I’m not buying.”

“No, no. No buying. Just looking. Come. It’s a pleasure to meet a man of similar interests. I guarantee you will enjoys my wares. Books never written. Paintings never painted. Films never committed to celluloid. All only ever existed in the minds and hearts of the artists who dreamed them.” The man turned and said to Spyder, “I am Bulgarkov.”

“Spyder.”

“Are you Spider Clan?”

“Whatever.” Spyder followed Bulgarkov. “Nice zoot suit. You expecting a stampede?”

“Are you referring to my garments? The streets are full of dreams and men, two equally dangerous organisms. The mask keeps the hungry memories of men at bay and the wire keeps away the men themselves.”

“I don’t think I’m going to have time to look at anything,” said Spyder, intending to leave the man at his stall. Spyder picked up a copy of Poodle Springs by Raymond Chandler. He vaguely remembered the book. Chandler had died before finishing it, but left notes and a partial manuscript. His publisher had hired some other hack to finish the novel years later. There was no second name on this Poodle Springs title page. Spyder flipped to the ending. It wasn’t what he remembered in the patched-together version he’d read.

The stall was piled high with books. Paintings were stacked against the back wall and 35mm movie film cans were piled on wooden shelves and floor. The title on one caught Spyder’s eye.

“This movie doesn’t exist,” he said.

“Of course it doesn’t. If it did, I wouldn’t have the thing in my shop.”

“This says Heart of Darkness, directed by Orson Welles. Welles never directed Heart of Darkness. The budget was too big and the studio wouldn’t pony up the money. That’s why he made Citizen Kane.”

“And yet you hold that very film in your hands. Do you know why?”

“No.”

“Because Mr. Welles made the film in his mind. He saw it in his dreams, and the memories of those dreams have manifested themselves in the ethereal celluloid you see before you. Would you like to buy it?”

“I told you, I’m not here to buy. And I can’t play a film like this. You need a movie theater projector. My VCR doesn’t even work.”

“Would you like to see the film?”

“Of course.”

“There is a small cinema nearby. It is for people such as ourselves, the humans who inhabit our quaint little city. I allow all my films to be shown there. It’s very good publicity.”

“I can’t,” said Spyder. “I have to meet some friends.”

“You’ll just go for a little while. Not for the whole thing. When will you have this chance again?”

“You aren’t trying to hustle me, are you? Because I’m going through kind of a weird period right now and it’s left me cranky. Someone trying to hustle me would definitely go home limping.”

“Why would I need to hustle you or anyone? I have the rarest merchandise in all of Berenice—the dreams of great artists. What will you give me to see Mr. Welles’ wonderful film?”

“I have a little cash, but that’s probably not worth anything here.”

“No, no. Money is trash to me.” He looked Spyder up and down like Spyder had once seen his uncle size up a neighbor’s ’57 T-Bird. The uncle came back that night to steal the car, but the neighbor was waiting and shot him in the head with a thirty-ought six.

“That ring,” Bulgarkov said. “I’ll take that.”

“My ex gave me that.”

“Even better. The memory of the gesture will still live in the metal.”

Spyder looked at the ring on his left hand. It was a half skull that wrapped around the back of his finger. Jenny had given him the ring on their six month anniversary. It was a cheap thing, but he’d always loved it.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Mr. Welles is waiting. I am waiting. You are waiting, too. The girl, obviously, is gone. Let the ring go and get on with your life.”

Spyder thought about it. Things hadn’t always been bad with Jenny, and the ring was a reminder of a time when things had been close to great. These days, every memory of her felt like five hundred pounds of nails. That wasn’t what made the decision for him. In the end, he gave the ring to the merchant for the same reason he’d done so many things in his life: “Why the hell not?” he said and slid the ring off.

Bulgarkov dropped the ring into a pocket beneath his loops of barbed wire and said, “The cinema is this way.” He pointed back toward the plaza and came from his stall to show Spyder, but tripped over the frame of an unknown Francis Bacon self-portrait. The merchant started to fall and Spyder instinctively reached out to grab him. Bulgarkov’s barbed wire ripped through the palm of Spyder’s right hand.

“Shit!” yelled Spyder.

“Take this,” said Bulgarkov, going to the back of his stall and returning with a silk scarf. He wrapped the material tightly around Spyder’s wounded hand and stanched the flow, but blood had already splashed on the pavement and the floor of the stall.

“You’re a goddam menace in that suit, man,” Spyder said.

“I’m so sorry.” Bulgarkov grabbed a book from the stall and handed it to Spyder. “Here, the book you were admiring, please take it, with my apologies.”

“I’m okay. It just startled me, is all,” said Spyder, but his hand was throbbing. “Don’t go square dancing in that get-up. Adios.” He took the book and headed off, following the directions Bulgarkov had given him.

As Bulgarkov said, the cinema was indeed small, a converted cafe, full of silent patrons, with a wrinkled sheet for a screen at one end and a clattering film projector at the other. Through the front entrance, Spyder could see a sliver of the face of a young, handsome Orson Welles. He was sweating and his eyes were wide. Welles’ voice came through the open door, “Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision—he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath…

“The horror! The horror!”

A shadow moved across Spyder. “When they told me you were in Berenice, I knew you’d show up here.”

Spyder looked at the man. He dropped Bulgarkov’s book, seeing his own face, ten years younger.