Love You To Death

CHAPTER FIVE

The music starts, and I call Nova on talkback. “That was a trip through bizarro world,” I say. “So was Rani just having a little fun with me, or is she really a man-killer?”

Nova’s voice is tense. “The police couldn’t trace the call. They think she was probably using one of those cheap phones you can buy at convenience stores.”

“So my move is to keep charming her on air and hope she’ll call back on a landline.”

“Or make a personal appearance here at the studio,” Nova says. “And you’re back on air.”

I give it my all. “Rani, Rani, Rani,” I plead. “Why did you hang up on me? We were just getting to know each other. You enchanted me. You bewitched me. And then-you ditched me. Give me another chance, my seductive student of mysterious cultures. I am a ruin in desperate need of excavation.” For the tenth time that night I tell listeners how they can reach us by phone or email. Then I glance at my monitor and read the name of our next caller. It’s Britney-another regular. She’s young, self-absorbed and sweetly crazy. Britney’s sentences tilt up at the end. It’s as if, before committing herself to an opinion, she has to see which way the winds are blowing. Despite the winds that are battering me tonight, I try to be a gentle breeze for her.

“Hey, it’s Britney, the devil baby,” I say.

“Oh, Charlie,” she trills. “You know I’m not the devil baby. I don’t even have any real problems. I just like to hear myself on the radio.”

“Don’t we all,” I say. “So, Brit, what’s on your mind on this first day of spring?”

“Orlando Bloom,” she says. “Because I’m, like, no longer addicted to him.”

“Ah,” I say. “So you’re a recovering Bloomie.”

She corrects me. “A recovered Bloomie. And I was, like, so into him.” Her words cascade like a waterfall, shining and unstoppable. “I saw every one of his movies nine times-even The Curse of the Black Pearl, and that movie really sucked. When I read on his website that he and the other members of the Fellowship got the elvish word for ‘nine’ tattooed on their wrists, I got the elvish word for ‘nine’ tattooed on my wrist. And my mother just about disowned me because I used my birthday money. It was supposed to go into my college fund-like I’m ever actually going to go to university.

“And I became a Buddhist because Orlando is a Buddhist, and I went green and started recycling everything because Orlando is seriously into caring about the environment. I was like a total Orlando Bloom FREAK!”

Nova and I exchange smiles. The child Nova is carrying is a girl. Nova believes her daughter will be a Nobel Prize winner. I tell her she’ll probably give birth to the next Britney. The current Britney stops to take a breath, and I see my chance. “So what made you decide to do the Orlando detox?” I ask.

She sighs theatrically. “Loving him just took too much time. No offence to your Buddhist listeners, Charlie D, but all that meditating really ate up my mall time. And I’m sorry-I believe in recycling and all, but whenever I stirred my compost heap, that smell stayed in my hair for, like, hours.”

“So how did you kick the habit?” I ask.

“Purging.”

I wait for Britney to embroider her story, but she has become a woman of few words. “Purging as in throwing up?” I ask encouragingly.

“Right,” she says, and she’s back on track. “Doing the technicolor yawn. Spewing. Woofing. Zuking. Blowing chunks.”

“Got it,” I say. “So how do we purge ourselves of the passions that destroy us?”

“Condensed milk,” she says. “Charlie D, for a man who’s supposed to have all the answers, there’s a lot you don’t know. Every time I thought of Orlando, I just drank a can of room-temperature condensed milk. By the time I was halfway through the second case of milk, I couldn’t look at Orlando without ralphing, and I’d lost seven pounds. ”

“Impressive,” I say. “NOneed for a twelve-step program when you can open a can of moo and chug-a-lug. Keep clean, Brit…”

I glance into the control room. Nova is talking on the phone, but she’s also keying a message on her computer. I look at my screen: Appeal to Rani. Make it good. Then we’ll go to music. Marilyn Manson-“Sweet Dreams.”

“Hey, Rani,” I say. “Are you purging yourself of me? We were getting along so well and now…silence. What went wrong between us? I need to know. I’m waiting for your call. You’re my fantasy. Here’s Marilyn Manson’s take on the love that doesn’t quit-‘Sweet Dreams.’”

The music starts, and Nova is on the talkback. “No word from Rani,” she says. “The coward in me hopes that we won’t hear from her again-that she’s just vanished, crawled back into whatever hellhole she crawled out of. Then I remember Ian Blaise and Marcie Zhang and James Washington, and I want her caught.” I can hear the anger in Nova’s voice. She’s a good and gentle person, but she believes in justice. “I googled the meaning of Rani’s name,” Nova says. “It means ‘queen.’”

“And Queen Rani gets to decide who lives and who dies,” I say. “Are you doing all right?”

Nova laughs softly. “As well as can be expected for a woman who’s eight-and-threequarter months pregnant and waiting for a call from a sychopath.”

“Somewhere along the line, you must have made a bad life decision,” I say.

“Actually, I’ve made quite a few bad life decisions,” she says. “But none of them involved you. When it comes to you, Charlie, I have no regrets.”

Through the glass that separates us, her eyes seek out mine. “Surprised?” she asks.

“Surprised and speechless,” I say.

“You’ll think of something.” Nova glances at her computer screen, and her smile fades. “Charlie, take a look at your monitor. There’s an email from someone named S.A. Viour.”

“S.A. Viour,” I say. “Saviour.”

“Your Saviour,” Nova says. “Read the note.”

The message is chilling. They’r e burying you, Charlie D. Every night they pile their weakness and loneliness and stupidity on you. They’re suffocating you. But it’s almost over. I’m going to save you. I’m going to kill them all. After the first three, it will be easy.