The Secret History of Las Vegas

One

A desert wind rippled across Lake Mead and through the tamarisk on the shore. Dotting the reedy grass, the ghostly foundations of the sunken Mormon town of St. Thomas returned with the water level falling, like a rude reminder of all the secrets this place kept.

Detective Salazar was taken by the quiet of the ghost town. He liked that the only sound was the wind through the needle-leaved shrubs, the occasional birdcall, and the crunch of shells underfoot. He went there as often as he could, but not for the scenery or the quiet. It was his habit to visit crime scenes, long after the evidence had been tagged, bagged, and collected. He came to this site where, two years before, dead homeless men had begun appearing in dumps of ten, sometimes twelve, occasionally fewer, in an untidy pile. He combed over it again and again, convinced there was something he had overlooked, something that would break the case. Other times it was just to sit with the spirits of the place, as he liked to explain to his former — now retired — partner, Vines.

Shitload of good it does, Vines had told him.

But Salazar was convinced it did.

Maybe Vines was right, though. Even with increased patrols, they hadn’t been able to apprehend the killer. The local police had called in the FBI and even psychiatrists and specialists in psychopathy from a local institute, the Desert Palms, all to no avail.

Then one day the killings stopped, but not before Salazar came upon the body of a teenager in the last dump. It wasn’t only her age that marked her apart, or the fact that she was the only girl who had ever shown up at the body dumps. It was something else, something about her eyes, about the serenity that shone from them belying the thick finger bruises around her neck. That girl haunted him, kept him returning to the different dump sites around the lake for the last year. He was determined to find her killer.

Two months ago, at the end of summer, the body dumps had begun again, and this time Salazar didn’t wait for the case to be assigned to him. He asked for it. Demanded it. He was due to retire soon, anytime he wanted to, as Human Resources put it. This would be his swan song, his last good thing. The only part he truly regretted about being a homicide detective was that he never arrived in time to save anyone. This would change that for him.

But it was now Halloween and he had no leads, was no closer to solving the murders. He looked down at his watch—4:00 p.m. If he was going to leave, he had to do it soon; otherwise he’d be stuck in traffic. But still, he didn’t move. He looked out across the water.

• • •

Across the lake, unknown to Salazar, a park ranger had come across a man taking a dip in the blue water. To be fair, Ranger Green had first come across an old sedan with a bad paint job at the edge of the lake and, following the line of the car, a man in the water.

Sir, he called on his bullhorn. Sir, you have to get out of the water. This area of the lake is off-limits to the public. Overton Beach is a mile from here; there are signs.

The man was still, like he might have been carved out of driftwood, torso bent at a near ninety-degree angle, left side submerged under the water.

Sir, the ranger called.

The man in the water turned to the ranger, mouth moving, as though he were arguing with himself. He stood up straight and Green saw something attached to the man’s left side, something that had previously been submerged under the water, something flailing. Green thought it looked like a baby or, at the very least, a small child. But that didn’t make sense; surely the man couldn’t be drowning a baby. He reached for his radio and called the police. Looking up, he saw that the man in the water was hesitating in the shallows. Green returned the horn to his mouth.

Sir, get out of the water now. The police are on their way.

Whatever internal debate the man seemed to be having ceased at this information and as he advanced rather rapidly toward the ranger, he gave off an air of quiet threat. Green stepped back, realizing now that the man was in front of him, shirtless, that there had been no baby. In one glance he took in the second man, though to call him that was a stretch, hanging as he was like an appendage off the first one’s side.

Your name, sir, was the only thing he could think to say.

Fire, the appendage said. And this is Water, the appendage added in a high-pitched wheeze, pointing to the man Green had seen in the water.

A group of twelve or more cows is called a flink, Water said.

Come with me, Green said to Water, careful not to look at Fire.

Attached as he was, and measuring just over twelve inches long, Fire appeared to be little more than a head with two arms projecting out of Water’s chest. He had no legs or feet, but he did have one toe, and that was attached to Water’s torso. He was bald, and a large skin caul, like a turkey wattle, drooped down one side of his head. His left eyelid was swollen and misshapen, almost as if he had been punched there. His nose was squished nearly flat against his face and the nostrils flared with every breath he took, although he seemed to do most of his breathing through his mouth, a rattling harsh wheeze, and with each one his surprisingly generous lips curled back to reveal caninelike teeth. Only his bright and gentle eyes gave any indication of the intelligence behind them.

Water, at six feet, had a muscular, lean body and a face so perfectly proportioned that he seemed like a cruel joke at Fire’s expense. He was quite simply beautiful. And this made Fire seem all the more shocking and alien.

The ranger pulled a blanket out of the back of his truck and offered it to Water, averting his gaze from Fire. He was glad when the blanket covered him.

It was getting dark, and the ranger’s truck, roof lights flashing, idled next to the hunched sedan whose slender back tires were sunk a little into the soft mud by the lakeshore. The sedan’s door bore the legend KING KONGO: AFRICAN WITCHDOCTOR.

This is too fucking much, the ranger muttered, and walked a little up the trail to look out for the police cruiser.

Water, a stoic and perhaps even otherworldly look on his face, gazed off to the hills in the distance behind which the Hoover Dam sat like an alien ship anchored to the walls of the Black Canyon. Left of the dam, just a few weeks before, a magician had walked across the lake, stopping in the middle to sink from sight, down to the wreck of the B-29 bomber that had crashed there in 1948. To the right of his line of sight, the Valley of Fire, also known as the playground of the gods, named for the spectacular red sandstone rock formations that flickered like grainy flames against the sky, spread like a red rash on the landscape. Behind the twins, snaking up through the tall tamarisk like a green tunnel, was a path of shells.

Fire, hanging from Water’s side, was getting cold and irritated.

Is this a citizen’s arrest, he asked. You can’t keep us here.

But he had swallowed so much water from the lake that his voice was raspier than usual and, muffled by the blanket, he wasn’t audible.

The ranger didn’t respond but kept glancing over at the twins with a very disturbed look, somewhere between open curiosity and repulsion. An unmarked police cruiser winding down the trail, dust cloud in tow, brought a tight smile to his face.

Salazar, in a gray suit, stepped out and walked over to the ranger.

Fire moved the blanket from his face and blinked in the sudden light.

You really have no right to keep us here, he shouted.

Salazar, his gleaming gold badge on a chain around his neck, glanced at Fire, not quite believing his eyes.

Some fucking Halloween costume, he said to Green.

I’m afraid it’s no costume, Green said.

No shit?

No shit.

Fuck, Salazar said under his breath, approaching the twins. I’m Detective Salazar, he said, looking at them with a little unease.

Salazar took the call because he was only five minutes away when it came in. This could be the killer he had been looking for. He hoped it was; that way this case would finally be over. Salazar was a twenty-year veteran of the Vegas police and nothing fazed him much. Still, he was a little unsettled by the twins in front of him.

What the fuck are you, he asked.

People, Fire said.

You don’t look much like people, Salazar said. He does, he added, pointing to Water. But not you, he said to Fire, and turned to spit.

Only humans and horses have hymens, Water said.

That’s some fucked-up shit to say, Salazar said to him. Who the fuck talks like that?

Leave him alone, Fire said.

Are you Siamese twins?

There is no Siam, Fire said.

Feisty, Salazar said to Green, who looked unhappy. To the twins, he said: Listen, I don’t usually respond to these calls. It’s more for the uniforms, you know? I just happened to be in the area, and quite frankly I don’t appreciate your shit, understand?

Water smiled serenely while Fire glowered.

Listen, I need you to turn around and put your arms behind you, Salazar said.

What the fuck, Fire said.

Come on, freaks like you, I can’t be the first policeman who has cuffed you. Turn the fuck around.

Water turned. Salazar approached and, careful not to touch Fire, put cuffs on him.

Now, he said, which one of you fucks is King Kong?

King Kongo, Fire corrected.

Salazar squinted at the sign on the car door. Whatever, he muttered, not like I give a fuck. Then to Water: ID?

Water shook his head.

See, that’s a problem, Salazar said. You’re supposed to have your ID on you.

Is this a police state, Fire demanded.

Shut the fuck up, Salazar said to Fire. Names?

Water shook his head.

Water Esau Grimes and Fire Jacob Grimes, Fire said.

For real?

Water shrugged, which sent Fire into spasms, and Salazar looked away again.

Address?

We have no fixed abode, Fire said.

Occupation?

Fire waved at the car: We are King Kongo.

Didn’t I tell you to shut the fuck up, Salazar said. Fire was confused because while clearly addressing him, Salazar’s gaze never left Water’s face.

Water shrugged, causing Fire to jiggle up and down again. Salazar looked away once more.

I can see the look in your eyes, Detective. You look like you’ve just seen the devil, Fire said.

Only if the devil is a fat man in a pink dress, Salazar shot back. Jesus, you’ve got me talking like a freak too. Is King Kong the name of some kind of act?

Yes, Fire said. King Kongo is our act.

And what are you doing out here?

Enjoying the ruins, Fire said. Is that illegal?

It is illegal to be in an area prohibited to the public, Salazar said, pointing to a sign leaning at a forty-five-degree angle.

It is illegal to ride a camel on the freeway in Nevada, Water said.

Cut that out, Salazar said to him. Why would you be out here on Halloween? That is, unless you are up to something strange. You know anything about the bodies that we’ve been finding around here?

Water had a serene look, but Fire was getting visibly agitated.

Come on, Freak Show, Salazar said. Tell me why you’re really here.

We’re here to sightsee, Fire said.

Do I look that fucking stupid, Salazar asked.

The twins were quiet.

The ranger says you were out in the lake. Says you were drowning that thing on your side. Says it was submerged under water, Salazar said. He was back to addressing only Water.

We have rights, Fire yelled. You can’t treat us this way. We’ve done nothing wrong.

In Idaho you may not fish on a camel’s back, Water said.

You’re fucking with me, right?

There are feral camels in the southwest United States, Water said.

Shut the fuck up, Salazar said.

Hadji Ali was the lead camel driver for the U.S. Army Camel Corps. He died in 1902 and is buried in Quartzite, Arizona, where a metal camel on a pyramid marks his grave that bears his name as Hi Jolly.

Salazar looked intently at Water. Don’t push me, he said. Where are the rest of your clothes, he asked, waving at Water’s bare midriff.

On the hood of our car, Fire said.

Wait here, Salazar said, and walked over to their sedan. There was a baggy shirt and jacket on the hood.

A little big for you, Salazar said to Water.

I need space to breathe, Fire said.

I am searching your clothing for drugs and weapons, Salazar said to Water. Tell me if there are any sharp objects in the pockets.

There are no sharp objects, Fire said. Why would you think we have drugs or weapons?

Salazar ignored him.

You’re really going to pretend I’m not here, Fire asked.

Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe is the patron saint of drug addicts, Water said.

Fuckhead, Salazar said to Water. To Green he said: Get the digital camera out of my glove compartment and photograph the scene for me, will you, while I run their ID.

The scene, Green asked, a little confused.

The damn scene, Salazar said, waving around him. I’m going to go run them on my computer.

Sure, Green said, trailing Salazar, who was heading back to his cruiser.

Could you push our car out of the mud, Fire asked.

Tow truck’s coming, Salazar threw over his shoulder. Your car’s headed for impound.

This is a shakedown, Fire said. We are Americans.

Uh-huh, Salazar said. Keep talking and I’ll arrest you.

For what, Fire asked.

You know, I’ll get a camera from my trunk, Green said, wanting to put some distance between himself, the twins, and Salazar, whom he found abrasive.

Knock yourself out, Salazar said, continuing to his cruiser.

Green retrieved the camera and walked to the twins’ sedan. Approaching from the rear, he noticed that the grass to the left was soaked in blood. He examined the spread of blood and found it coming from a plastic five-gallon drum lying on its side. The leak was slow, the blood coagulating. From what Green could make out, the drum was still about half full.

Detective, he called.

Yes, Salazar yelled back from his cruiser. He was about to settle himself into it and boot up the computer.

I think there’s blood.

What?

Blood.

Salazar ran to the sedan. He took in the drum of blood quickly.

No body, he asked Green.

Green shook his head and turned to puke in the grass.

Don’t fuck up my crime scene, Salazar growled at him. Turning to the twins, he said: I knew you freaks were up to something.

He had his gun trained on them.

Isn’t that overkill, Fire asked. We haven’t moved in a while.

You shut the fuck up, Salazar said, reaching for his radio.

Two

Thirty apes shot in the head with a butcher’s bolt gun is not promising by any standards.

Sunil stared at the phrase used for the executions: “humane endpoint.” A contradiction in terms, surely. The cost of sacrifice, the weight of absolution, or something more mundane and necessary — the killing of nonviable laboratory test subjects. The term had no doubt been coined by an ethically challenged researcher, or worse, an administrator. Sunil wasn’t skilled in the delicacy of finding the right language for obscuring the intersection of death and scientific distance, and he had a grudging respect for those who were. At least it was nearly five, and while the institute didn’t run regular hours, it was still close to the end of the day.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes, staring at the results of the tests graphing neatly across the squared paper in blue, green, and red hills. He willed them to change, to be different, to have the data reevaluate itself. But this was the beauty of science — most times the evidence was irrefutable, especially if the tests had been run with the kind of strict controls that he had implemented. Doubly so if they had been repeated as often as these had.

Such a waste, Sunil muttered, thinking not only in terms of lives and resources but also in terms of time. He looked over the termination order that was attached to the data, grateful that he wouldn’t have to deal with the tedious task of drafting the paperwork.

He hadn’t authorized this test, which meant that his boss, Brewster, must have. No one else had the authority. The last test that Sunil authorized used capuchins, but these test subjects were apes, bonobos to be exact, and they were more than 99 percent genetically similar to humans. That seemed like a significant line, not one Sunil would have crossed lightly. He was no stranger to experiments with lower primates and would never authorize a test that could result in this many deaths unless he was sure that it would be worth it.

There had been many such experiments when he worked in South Africa, in Vlakplaas, a notorious apartheid death camp. To test the limits of endurance, they would put a female baboon and her baby in a cage. Then they would start a fire under the metal floor, slowly turning up the heat, calculating how long the mother would endure the pain before putting the baby down and standing on it. It never took that long, usually less than thirty minutes. Sunil never told anyone at Vlakplaas, especially not his boss Eugene, that the screams of the dying infant kept him up at night. He couldn’t show that kind of weakness, so instead he stuffed his ears with cotton wool while the experiments were being conducted. That sound, a muffled gurgle, like a distant brook, became the soundtrack of his denial, a white noise that successfully obliterated every last bit of conscience when he needed it. In this way he was no different from any South African: they all had their soundtracks.

The problem with primate tests was that sooner or later, apes weren’t enough. The first human trial at Vlakplaas of the heat test was a woman called Beatrice. No last name. Her baby didn’t even get a name in the file. Just Baby.

Flicking through these results, he found nothing remarkable in them; nothing he didn’t already know, and, by extension, since he shared everything he knew with him, nothing that Brewster didn’t know either. So why had Brewster authorized this, and why was he hijacking Sunil’s experiments when he had access to all his data? Of course, the bigger question was what else had Brewster done behind his back?

Sunil had three labs, and each one was under video surveillance, and the footage fed live to his laptop and was stored on a hard drive he took everywhere. But there was no evidence of the test anywhere in the footage. Sunil cross-checked the time stamps. All in order, so it wasn’t that. There was only one other explanation: the tests were not conducted in any of his labs. So why was Brewster keen for him to sign these papers? Why not one of the interns? Why was it being brought to his attention? What was going on? Fuck, Sunil thought. His best move was to sign the form and say nothing to Brewster.

He held his pen over the paper, nib poised, hesitating, unable to shake the feeling that beyond the mere fact of his signature, beyond this moment, everything would change. It was a clammy feeling, but feelings have no place in science, in the rational, and that was perhaps the real problem — that beyond his denial, he knew exactly where this feeling was coming from. He knew the power of saying the wrong thing, of taking the truth on a detour.

Fuck, Sunil muttered, I have become more American than I thought.

He too, it seemed, had come to believe that he could somehow escape history. That it was possible, and even desirable, to live in a perpetual present. When had that happened? He hadn’t been here long enough, it seemed, a mere seven years, and yet like the almost imperceptible, if inevitable, creep of sand in the desert, it had happened.

With a sigh he scratched his signature across the form and crossed the room to the coffee machine. Through the window behind him the sun was beginning to dim on Las Vegas.

Three

Less than twenty minutes after Salazar called it in, the lakeside was crawling with police cars and an ambulance. Crime scene investigators were in everything, taking samples and photographing, and cataloging and sniffing.

Terry Jones, the CSI shift leader, stood next to Salazar and scratched his head.

So, no body, huh, he said.

No, Salazar said.

But you went ahead and called us all in, Terry said, indicating the uniforms with a sweep of his coffee cup.

Already a team of divers had arrived to look for the body in the lake.

I mean, it’s almost six thirty, Terry said. Shift change is at seven. You couldn’t wait?

What the fuck are you implying, Salazar asked. That I’m wasting your time?

You’re too close to this case, he said. Maybe you’re not thinking straight.

Fuck you, Salazar said.

Yeah, well, Terry said.

Yeah, well, fucking find the body, Salazar said.

If this is connected to the case from two years ago, shouldn’t there be more bodies, Terry asked.

Fuck you, Salazar said.

Terry nodded. We’re not likely to find anything soon, he said.

Why not, Salazar asked.

Big lake, Terry said. A lot of undercurrents. The body, if there was one, and with that amount of blood you’d need several, could be in Arizona by now. Or washed up somewhere where the lake meets the river and the river the desert. The desert gives nothing back.

Salazar liked Terry, they went back a ways and Salazar respected that Terry, a beat cop, had taken night classes at UNLV to qualify as a forensic expert. It took guts to go for a thing you wanted, at least that was how Salazar saw it. Still, he thought Terry talked a lot of shit sometimes.

Fuck, Salazar said.

I hear you. But there’s more. There’s no blood on the twins. I mean, if there had been a body, with that much blood, they would be covered in it. Nothing on them, not even a trace. And with all that blood, we would be looking for a lot more than one body.

How many?

Fuck if I know, Terry said.

But it’s definitely human blood?

Yep, Terry said. Very human.

Shit. Could they have at least transported the drums of blood and dumped them here?

Nope. No blood in the car, either, Terry said.

Shit, Salazar said.

I know, Terry said.

They could have washed off in the lake.

Trace would still show up under the black light. There was an awkward pause. You know we have to move on soon, Terry continued.

Why?

Well, there’s no body, so this isn’t an active crime scene, Terry said. Half a five-gallon drum full of human blood is disturbing, but budget cuts and all mean we need an actual body, you know?

Salazar wanted to scream. Instead he said: I have to take the freaks in.

If they lawyer up, you’ll have nothing, Terry said.

Yeah, Salazar sighed. I guess I have to break them. You remember how that goes?

Terry smiled. I sure do, he said. Listen, didn’t you work closely with a psychiatrist a couple of years ago when the bodies first began to turn up? Singh, right? Take the twins to County. Before you go, call Dr. Singh and ask him to meet you at County to perform a psychological evaluation. You’d have them for seventy-two hours.

Salazar smiled. They do look kind of sick, he said.

Shortly after Salazar took the twins, the crime scene crew and the rest of the police left. Even the divers gave up the search for the night. The lakeshore returned to its normal quiet. An animal rustled in the tamarisk. A bird landed on the water. The wind threw some dust from the road onto the foundations of the houses that sat in the mud like the ruins of an ancient culture. On the shore, only the ranger’s truck remained, lights still flashing in the gloom.

Four

The dying sun burnished the copper ingot of the Mandalay Bay. Next to it was the pyramid of the Luxor and, reclining in front, the light catching the gold paint of its headdress, the Sphinx. Farther to Sunil’s left, the Bellagio and the tip of the Eiffel Tower rose above Paris Las Vegas. The Venetian, his favorite, was obscured.

He loved this moment when the sun was on a slow decline, just before the abruptness of night that seemed exclusive to deserts and plains. It reminded him of the light on the South African veld. One moment bright and full, the next, gone. The veld was just like its name, a stubby felt of grass and trees and small hills that seemed to break only when the green and brown rim of it touched the sky.

For one magical summer as a seven-year-old, he’d left Soweto behind on a summer trip to see his grandmother, Marie. She lived in KwaZulu, a homeland — one of those odd geographies created arbitrarily by the apartheid state as all black enclaves within South Africa. Not unlike Native American reservations, homelands were corrals, ways to contain and further impoverish native populations: entire settlements made up of shanties leaning unevenly into the wind.

Grandma Marie lived in the foothills, and as Sunil and his mother, Dorothy, traveled higher into the old Zulu territory, the shanties disappeared. Up there, everything felt different — the pace moved only as fast as the swaying fields of corn, or the lumbering herds of zebu that roamed everywhere, horns curved like arms raised in prayer. Each cow was marked so distinctively, in so many variations of red, white, black, brown, rust, and dun, that from a distance they looked like flocks of birds littering the grass on the hillsides.

The frenetic mood of Soweto seemed then like a bad taste spat from the mouth, and the air smelled fresh and sometimes heavy with rain. There was hardly a white person to be seen, and the blacks were less suspicious of one another. The only anger was the gossip — how Lindiwe Mabena had slept with Blessing Nkosi’s husband a week after she died. How Catechist Brown was never the same after Father John passed, though no one would admit they’d been lovers. How Doreen Duduzile always miscarried because she’d had an abortion as a young woman in Cape Town, and how though she’d renounced the world and followed the Lord, she couldn’t find any respite until she confessed to the murder of her unborn child, but as his mother told Grandma Marie, there are no words for some things. Everything else was pure scent. The smell of the toffees his grandmother pressed into his palms that melted in the heat of his clutched fingers, the drying grass and herd animals that filled the air with dust and delight. And something else — butterflies — everywhere, butterflies. And at dusk, the soft purple pastel of sky blurred into the darkening grass and then, before he could count to a hundred, night.

Sunil knew that his memory was faulty, that it was so tempered by nostalgia it could offer nothing concrete, but that knowledge did nothing to diminish his joy in the recollection.

The sun in his eye brought him back to the moment, to his body standing at the window of his sixth-floor office in the nondescript building in the nondescript business park east of the strip that was home to the Desert Palms Institute. His reflection in the glass made him uncomfortable, the way the honesty of shop windows makes fat women flinch. His hair was kinky and thick like a wool cap — not quite an Afro, but close enough — his nose clearly his mother’s, the soft mouth that he believed he’d inherited from his father, and skin so dark, he could be black. His eyes were the only thing he liked about himself, soft and warm, and honey-colored flecked with green; his father’s eyes, Brahmin eyes, a strange thing for a Sikh, stranger still in an African. Sighing, he took a sip from his coffee cup and focused on the view.

Sunil loved to watch the city from his office window, high up, tracking every little change in the landscape. He knew very well the illusion of chronology, the way it gave the impression that everything moved onward, expanding on a straight line, heading toward epiphany. But events weren’t linear, they moved in circular loops that made little sense, and this disjointed reality was the only truth. Chronology, he believed, was a pattern grafted over the past to claim control and understanding, to pretend meaning. It was all shit, though, in the end. He felt people were made of little more than this: history, myth, and ritual. When he remembered his past, he remembered his father with the distance of myth.

He drew with his forefinger on the glass to connect the hotels with invisible lines, reading some esoteric Masonic notions in the pattern. Even from this far away, he could see the extravagance of it all, an extravagance that was as old as the city itself. A history buff, he knew the Jewish-Irish-Sicilian mob syndicate that built the mirage of Vegas opened grandiose hotels early. In 1952, the Sahara was designed to mimic the movie romanticism of North Africa. In 1955, the Dunes, with waitresses dressed like DeMille extras in an Arabian Nights production, and a thirty-foot-tall turbaned black sultan with crossed arms guarding the doors, appeared almost overnight. And in 1956, in the new Fremont, twelve-year-old Wayne Newton rose to fame singing “Danke Schoen.”

Vegas is really an African city, Sunil thought. What other imagination would build such a grandiose tomb to itself? And just like in every major city across Africa, from Cairo to his hometown of Johannesburg, the palatial exteriors of the city architecture barely screened the seething poverty, the homelessness, and the despair that spread in townships and shantytowns as far as the eye could see. But just as there, here in Vegas the glamour beguiled and blinded all but those truly intent on seeing, and in this way the tinsel of it mocked the obsessive hope of those who flocked there.

In Johannesburg there had been the allure of gold and untold monies to be made in the mines. Gold so plentiful, there were hills of it. No one bothered to explain to the obsessed that the glittering hills were just a trick of the light — mounds of yellow sand dug up for the gold, the silicate glowing in the sun with false promise. No wonder he felt at home here.

He hadn’t lived in Johannesburg since White Alice left, shortly after his mother was taken to the madhouse, and he had returned only once in the years since, just after apartheid officially came to an end. He’d been shocked then to see that the once vibrant city center had turned into a ghost town. Indians and whites had emptied out, fleeing either abroad or to the suburbs. What surprised Sunil, though, was that in the wake of that flight, the city hadn’t been filled by South African blacks leaving the townships for more salubrious digs, but by Nigerian and Senegalese businessmen selling everything from the popular Nollywood movies to phone cards. The feeling of racial camaraderie hadn’t been extended to these invading blacks, who the more gentle South Africans thought were worse than Zulus, which was saying something.

Now Sunil thought of Las Vegas as home. That’s the thing about having always been a displaced person; home was not a physical space but rather an internal landscape, a feeling that he could anchor to different places. Some took easier than others, and although it was always hard work, he was good at it.

He had come to Vegas from Cape Town seven years ago to codirect a new research project at the Desert Palms Institute, which, among its many government contracts and research projects with no oversight, was studying psychopathic behavior. This was the project Sunil had come here to work on. He had expected to enjoy the work, but what he had not expected was that he would fall in love with the city.

His attention returned to the coming night and the darkness that held nothing but what was projected. Was night the same everywhere? In the Soweto of his childhood the darkness was a contradiction of lights, noise, and an absolute stillness that held only police cars cockroaching through. Here in Las Vegas, near the Strip, where it never really got dark, could anything be revealed in the bright neon? He often tried to read the faces teeming there but quickly realized that everything was obscured, even in revelation; the brightness was its own kind of night.

Noticing that the coffee had run in a tiny rivulet down the side of the cup, Sunil frowned and reached for his monogrammed handkerchief, a throwback to his childhood, to the older men in Soweto who always seemed to have a clean handkerchief on them, no matter how threadbare and patched. He wiped the rivulet away, brows furrowed in concentration.

There was an exactness to Sunil that spilled out into the world and was reflected in his sense of order: the neat row of very sharp pencils in the carved ebony holder on his desk, upright and ranked by use like soldiers on a parade ground; the sharp diagonal line connecting the brushed aluminum box of multicolored paper clips and the stapler; the small photo, not much bigger than a baseball card, held in a solid block of Perspex, angled so that it was visible to him and anyone sitting across from him.

The photo was of a man with a red turban and a thick black beard and mustache. It was eroded on one side, the man’s face disappearing under a mottled furry stain. Sunil still sometimes wondered if it really was his father or a generic photo of a guru that his mother had bought in the market. He’d been too scared to ask and he regretted that.

Against one wall, color photographs of zebu cattle were arranged like the speckled squares of a Rubik’s Cube. The riotous color and patterns of the cattle hides contradicted all his control. Like a tarot deck, Asia had said the first and only time she’d come to his office. They’d had sex on the sofa and, walking around nude, she’d stopped by the wall, mentally shuffling the framed cows, trying to read the spread. He’d felt more naked than she was in that moment, more revealed than when they had sex, and though she came to his home often after that, he never asked her back to the office again.

He sighed now and crossed to the sideboard to pour himself some more coffee, wondering if he should call her and see if she was free tonight. It was Halloween, though, and she was no doubt busier tonight than on other nights. Everyone else was.

Five

Eskia was sitting in his car in the parking lot of the Desert Palms Institute, watching Sunil’s sixth-floor office. He had followed Sunil from a distance for days, always staying just out of sight, always within touching distance. He couldn’t believe how soft America had made Sunil. In the past he would never have been able to get this close to him. Those were the days — days that Eskia both loved and hated. Days that he could never forget, never quite muster the will to leave behind. He said the word, apartheid, under his breath. The way someone says the name of a lover they want to murder and fuck at the same time. His character had been forged in that crucible, in that dysfunctional relationship. Yep, Sunil had become as soft as the police. They were the easiest to follow, they never saw it coming, their sense of complete invincibility made them blind. Eskia laughed at the thought of Sunil being like the police.

There was a small bag of biltong on the seat beside him and he chewed thoughtfully on the cured meat, grateful that he’d been able to get it past customs. The last time he’d had to make do with American jerky. He took a swig from the Dr Pepper that was not as cold as he liked it, and a bite of biltong, and looked up at the window he had seen Sunil standing in. It didn’t seem to bother Eskia that he was in plain sight in the parking lot and that the thick-rimmed plastic-framed glasses were the only disguise he wore. It was surprising how people never gave nerds a second glance, how this look always blurred into a generic account if witnesses were pressed to recall who they’d seen.

He’d learned from his years working undercover for the African National Congress, the political party Nelson Mandela led, that this disguise was most effective on white people. Something about a black man in thick Clark Kent glasses threw off their balance and they simply edited him out of their perceptual reality. He even checked into hotels under the name Clark Kent, and no one ever made a joke when he presented his papers, pushing his oversize glasses up his nose. Not at the hotels, not at the airport or in customs or immigration: nowhere. If it worked for Superman, he always said, it was good enough for him. Besides, the security guards at the institute were predictable and not paid well.

What he’d come for would be easier than he thought, but no less fun. He was here to kill Sunil.

He leaned back to wait. He was good at that.

Six

Sunil touched the soft leather of his desk chair. With his forefinger and thumb he rubbed at a line of dust that had become visible in a shaft of light, making a mental note to speak to the cleaner. It would be the third time this week. Really, he sighed, and reached for his phone.

Asia’s number rang for a long time, then went to voice mail. As usual there was no outgoing message, just a beep. In her line of work it was pointless, she changed numbers every other week. Occupational hazard. If she wanted to get back to him she would just hit Redial. Still he wished he could say something to her. He hung up and turned on his computer, to return to studying the MRIs his team had taken the week before in the Arizona State Penitentiary.

An e-mail alert pinged up on his screen. He opened the message and scanned it quickly. He didn’t know who’d sent it, but it was a photo of a ring; a big silver ring, with a turquoise butterfly wing under resin. His stomach fell away. It was Jan’s ring. He had buried her with it, all those years ago in South Africa.

Sunil had been in college on a state scholarship when he met Jan Krige. The first thing he noticed about her was the Bible. She had it with her always, a red pocket-sized leather-bound book with a red five-pointed star and a gold-and-black kudu in the middle stamped on the front: a South African Army Bible. Sunil had loved that there was a meticulousness to her. To the blond hair pulled back severely into a bun so tight he could see the blue veins pulse just under her hairline. To the green eyes carefully shaded by eye shadow and lined in fine black liner. To the expensive cashmere sweaters buttoned over newly starched white shirts, and then the white coats with the pens lined up like little soldiers in the breast pocket: red, blue, green, and black. Pens she never used, never even took out of her pocket. She always wrote with a heavy fountain pen — all black body with a gold cap — wielded like a wand, like a sword. He sat next to her at every opportunity, mostly because she was the only one who never moved away from him when he sat. Never shrank or wrinkled her nose as if he secreted an odor. It intrigued him that she treated him no different from anyone else, and it wasn’t like she couldn’t tell. He was the only black in the room.

He would sit next to her, watch her pull open an old leather satchel, a man’s satchel, worn and fading in brown. She would select her notebook, a different one for each class, whatever text they were studying, and her pen. She would line them up on the desk and then, finally, she would pull out the Bible, and lay it down. Then, turning to look at him, as though noticing him for the first time, she would smile, her red lips parting to reveal small white teeth in pink gums. Hello, Sunil, she said, every day. Hello, he said, and smiled back.

When he finally plucked up the courage to ask her about the pen and the satchel, she explained that they had belonged to her father. He died before she was born, on a peace mission to Mozambique, she explained, to convince the ANC terrorists to give up their attacks on the government.

That was his, she said, pointing to the Bible. It had been a gift from Mr. Botha to her father. It’s signed by Mr. Botha, she added.

Sunil couldn’t tell which Mr. Botha she meant. May I see, he asked, reaching for it.

She put her hand on his, white on black, small on large, and shook her head gently, sadly even. No, she said, it would be like looking into his soul. I’ve never even opened it.

Oh, he said, his hand burning under hers, wanting the pressure. My father died before I was born too, he said, lying.

I’m sorry, she said, moving her hand imperceptibly.

He felt it ignite a flame in him, feeling the delight of her, the warmth of her, and yet the conflict of his desire was strong. How could he feel this for a woman whose people were oppressing his? Desire is a fool, he thought then, wondering if it was his thought or something he had read somewhere.

He had never seen a Bible like hers before, so red, and that day it pulsed under his palm like a heart.

But that had all been so long ago. And yet here she was, at least the ghost of her. Material and present; a heavy silver ring with a wing. He touched the computer screen.

Seven

Fire watched keenly as Shiva’s eight arms waved dangerously close to Chewbacca’s face every time he moved. Chewy, tired of ducking, threatened to pull off Shiva’s extra arms if His Royal Blueness didn’t sit still.

Fire looked at Water, but Water had his eyes closed. Fire returned to watching, peering out from Water’s shirt.

Across the aisle from the ER waiting area, a man, pants down around his ankles, shuffled up to the nurses’ desk to find out how much longer he had to wait. The wool sheep attached to his waist kept him at arm’s length from the desk and the nurse had to cup her ear to hear him over the noise of the ER.

It was six when I got here, he said, pointing at the clock. Now it’s seven thirty. What the fuck is taking so long?

Please sit over there, sir, she said in a tired voice, pointing to the waiting area. The man sighed loudly and shuffled back to sit down next to a woman and her daughter. The woman pulled her child closer.

In the corner a very skinny Spider-Man was being harangued by a three-hundred-pound Wonder Woman wearing her hair in a three-foot updo: Don’t rub up against me, pervert, she said, pushing against his chest. The skinny Spider-Man backed away and Fire realized that apart from a leather G-string he was naked, his costume painted on in colored vinyl.

Salazar stood a ways down the hall talking to the duty cop. Vegas County saw a lot of law enforcement and correctional patients and there were always several cops milling around, in addition to the two officers permanently stationed there to make sure that nobody left unless they wore the appropriate wrist tag. Everyone was issued a tag at check-in: red for convict, blue for supervised (which included mental patients or people not yet processed, like Fire and Water), and green for everyone else. Simple but effective.

In the back row, a teenager wearing the costume from Scream bled from a knife embedded in his head. It was hard to tell if the knife was real or fake, and if it was blood or syrup dribbling down his face. A man in a Predator costume, sans face mask, screamed: Shit, I’ve been shot, shit; all the while holding a thick piece of gauze tight against his alien arm. It’s not that bad, the woman next to him said, I only shot you with a BB rifle. It was clear that she was his girlfriend. She wasn’t wearing a costume, and for that reason, she looked the weirdest in the room. The man next to the twins wore a gorilla costume with a cage attached to the front. In the cage was a man in jungle fatigues, hands wrapped around the cage’s foam bars. The twins didn’t immediately realize it was one costume, and that the wearer’s head was poking out of the gorilla’s chest, becoming the head of the caged man.

Fire undid Water’s buttons and pushed out into the open. Staring around with open curiosity, he seemed completely at home in the melee.

Hey, you’re not going to the Halloween pageant at the Fremont, are you, the gorilla asked the twins. ’Cause your costume looks even better than mine. The pot is five thousand dollars and frankly, I don’t need the competition.

This isn’t a costume, Fire said. We are twins.

Right, got you, the gorilla said. Bending down, he added in a conspiratorial whisper: I won’t tell.

Before Fire could answer, Salazar came over and led them to an examination stall, screened off but otherwise open to the ward. Fire overheard him say to a nurse: I want a psych consult for the patient.

Why, the nurse asked.

Salazar looked at her name tag: Andrea Hassiba. Listen, Andrea, Salazar said. My assessment of the scene leads me to believe they are a risk to themselves.

Fine, Nurse Hassiba said, I’ll call for one. In the meantime, it would help if you go to the admissions desk and fill out all the required paperwork. They will get the duty psychiatrist down here.

I would rather have my own psychiatrist come down, someone who has worked with me before on police business. A Dr. Singh.

Nurse Hassiba shrugged. Work that out with Admissions, she said.

Salazar headed off to take care of things.

Alone with the twins, Nurse Hassiba attempted to wrestle what she thought was a wet doll away from Water. Dressed as she was for Halloween, as a vampire, teeth and all, and having been an ER nurse for twenty years in Vegas, she had seen weirder costumes.

Please unhand me, Fire said, his grip unexpectedly firm, all but immobilizing the nurse.

When she realized that this was no costume, and just before she apologized and let go, a primordial look of disgust crossed her face.

Can you fetch the doctor now, Fire asked.

Yes, Nurse Hassiba said, glad for an excuse to leave the examination stall.

While Water stroked Fire’s bald head, Fire rolled his eyes and muttered, Bigot, under his breath. Lost in meditation, the twins waited for the doctor.

Eight

Hello.

Sunil started, looking up. Sheila was standing at his door. Dr. Sheila Jackson was a colleague and one of the smartest and most beautiful women he knew. He liked her but there was something about the way she dressed, like a young Pat Benatar with spiky black hair, dark shaded eyes, boxy ’80s tweed jackets with weird lapels, Palestinian neck scarves, and ripped jeans, that made him wary of her. It was Halloween and yet Sheila wasn’t in costume. He’d always thought it was an odd way for a black woman to dress, although if pressed to explain what he meant, he wouldn’t be able to.

Hello, Sheila, he said. You startled me.

She sat opposite him and put her legs up on his desk. Her shoes were shiny.

So, he said, what’s up?

Not much. Just heading out for the day. Thought I’d stop by and warn you to stay out of Brewster’s way.

Bruiser Brewster, as the interns called him. Bad mood, Sunil asked.

Worse than usual, Sheila said. How’s it going, anyway, Sheila asked.

It’s good, he said.

Really, she asked. I’m sorry, Sunil, but all those dead apes and no results can’t be good. She paused at the look on his face. It wasn’t you? I knew it. Is Brewster hijacking your work?

Why would you say that? Has he ever hijacked your work?

My work is not that interesting, I build robotic insects, she said, sitting up and craning her neck to see the images on his screen. How do you tell anything from these MRIs? I mean, how can you even be sure they are meaningful?

Sunil said nothing. He wouldn’t admit it, but Sheila’s question had touched a raw nerve. All this time and he still had nothing to show. Putting the thought out of his head, he turned his attention back to the screen and the MRI images.

There were two groups of MRIs, the test subjects and the controls. All the test subjects were inmates of the same prison and the controls were kids from the same university, a fact that seemed important at the time but in retrospect didn’t matter at all, as it ended up not affecting the process at all. His prison subjects were all serial offenders. They were the perfect study group because while also having committed many small crimes, they usually had one major crime they returned to over and over. It was the pattern of these major crimes and their triggers that held the most promise for his work.

To generate the MRI images that were meaningful in any way, his test subjects were shown different sets of photographs, sometimes concurrently, sometimes consecutively. The sets included photos of flowers and sunsets and children laughing and also horrific and often bloody images: one moment flashing a flower, the next a mutilated human body. The MRI took scans of the brain, and the accompanying computer program tracked what parts of the brain lit up in response to the images. The variances were what Sunil studied.

Sheila finally broke the silence.

Are you happy with these new MRIs?

Yes, he said.

Compared to your test subjects, mine are harmless, Sheila said.

You’re right, Sunil said. My subjects are unsavory and I must admit many people would find this kind of research difficult.

But not you, she asked.

No, he said. That wasn’t entirely true, but he shrugged off the small nag from his subconscious.

Sunil’s research was part psychological, part chemical. He was studying the causes of psychopathic and other violent behavior with the aim of harnessing and controlling that behavior. To turn it off and on at will, as it were, with a serum or drug of some kind.

For Sunil, though, the work at its core was redemptive. He wanted to find cures, ways to help.

Brewster laughed at him when he expressed that sentiment. Redemption is easy, Sunil, he said. Restoration, now, there’s the kicker.

Sunil hated that Brewster was right. Redemption was easy — that momentary flash of conversion, the road-to-Damascus moment. Turning it into a lived thing was what made it restorative and that was hard.

Don’t kid yourself, Sunil, Brewster said. There’s a reason only the U.S. Army will fund your research. This serum you’re developing is to weaponize the condition.

Is that even a word, Sunil thought. He hated words that ended in “ize.” They never led to anything good: weaponize, Africanize, terrorize. Weapons, all of them.

His research, in comparing notes from his control subjects and his prison group, seemed to indicate that at least 5 percent of the general male population of the United States was afflicted with the condition. These were successful psychopaths, successful in the sense that they had found ways to live with the condition, either by sublimating desires or by being smart enough not to get caught.

Like other researchers in the field, Sunil was sure that the condition had its cause in a defect in the paralimbic system, a network of the brain stretching from the orbital frontal cortex to the posterior cingulate cortex. These areas were involved in processing emotion, inhibition, and attention.

The brain scans on his computer were the last step in this new data-collection phase. Next he would have to conduct field studies, which meant triggering the condition in people whose brains showed latent possibilities for it and then waiting to see if the drug he had developed to control the condition was effective.

Two years earlier they had moved into human trials prematurely, with disastrous results. Sunil tried not to think about that time. But he was worried about this new phase of testing.

To be really sure the serum worked, the more advanced stage of testing would have to be conducted outside laboratory conditions — in the real world, so to speak. There was no exit strategy, and neither were there real controls in place to limit the damage. As Brewster said, To see if the product works, we have to see it work.

I’m going away in a few days, Sheila said, changing the subject. This will be my first holiday in five years.

Good for you, Sunil said.

You should get away too, she said.

I do need a break.

Come with me?

You’re going to Cape Town, aren’t you? I have no interest in going back there. There I’m just a black man.

I thought it was here that you were just a black man, Sheila said.

As black as I am, I am also Indian. Not half, not part, but in equal whole measures. In the new South Africa, there is no room for complications like me. I know there’s no real room in the U.S. for the kind of complication I present either, but at least it’s big enough to give the illusion that there is. And you, Sunil asked.

And me what?

How much of you has been tainted and fucked up by the racism here? Is that why you dress like a white soft-rock singer from the eighties, he asked.

I’m not sure. I think I’m just a nerd who thinks she looked her best back in the eighties. I think that it’s more about being a woman that preoccupies me, she said. You know, the cost of the extensive education I’ve had, the demands of the work I do, the expectations I have for myself and also for a partner, all these concern me more than race.

You think these things isolate you, as a woman? Lead to a lonelier life?

Of course they do. There are just fewer men in the world who want or can deal with a black woman like me; even fewer that I want.

Funny, I didn’t even think about that, Sunil said.

Never thought about me as a woman?

I mean, Sunil began, but stopped.

Yeah, well, it’s different for women, Sheila said. Time and all that.

Yes, time and all that, Sunil echoed.

Trying to clear the air, she asked: So — seeing anyone?

It’s complicated, Sunil said.

It always is, Sheila said.

Sunil smiled. He crossed the room and refilled his cup, pausing to inhale the fragrant, woody smell. He loved this blend — all wet forest leaves and warm hearth fires. Sheila watched him.

I’m sorry, he said, catching her look. Would you like some coffee?

She shook her head. No, I don’t want to be up all night.

Right, he said, of course.

When you were a child, did you imagine your life would ever turn out the way it did? I didn’t. I don’t really know what I expected, what I thought it would be like. It’s elusive, like the fragment of a song, or a smell or even a taste, all of which come upon me in the least expected places at the least expected times, she said.

I know what you mean, he said. The smell of pipe tobacco and rain will always remind me of my father, of long drives in a car, none of which are mine or true. Yet sometimes the memory is so visceral it makes me want to cry. And it feels like I know what’s missing but then it’s gone.

In my case, I know exactly what’s missing, she said.

You do?

And then he caught that look in her eye. The one he’d seen so many times. The one she had when she thought he wasn’t looking. And he loved it, the look, the feeling it gave him, like he could fall into it and be in love. But he was already in love, with Asia. And though it made no sense since she was a prostitute and unable to love him back, he couldn’t help it. And what if he gave up Asia and fell for Sheila? What then?

Whatever Sheila saw in his face made her sit up. Look at the time, she said.

Yes, he said.

I must go, she said. I have work.

Yes, me too.

See you tomorrow, then?

Yes, sure.

At the door she paused momentarily, then shut it resolutely behind her.

Nine

Sunil knocked on Brewster’s door and entered without waiting. An older, often offensive, and unpleasant man, Brewster had founded the institute thirty years before. His early work had been in the area of group dynamics, a term that was a catchall for all kinds of work and that made Sunil in particular deeply worried. When it came to Brewster, everything sounded like a euphemism for something darker. There were five other projects housed there, all sponsored by the Department of Defense — Psychological Research; Weapons and Applied Tactics; Information Extraction and Analysis; Robotics and Organic Intelligence; and Planetary Resource Management.

Dr. Brewster, Sunil said, I need to talk to you.

As urgent as you might feel that need is, Sunil, you can’t just barge in here. Brewster was wheezing a little from the oxygen pumping from the portable tank, not much bigger than a thermos, in his lab-coat pocket. A hose snaked up to his nose, held in each nostril by a discreet clip. Brewster used the oxygen to stay alert for the long hours he put into work, and at seventy-five he probably needed it.

I just got an order to sign for thirty dead apes, Sunil said.

Brewster looked at Sunil with a blank expression.

Bonobos, Sunil said, as though that would jog Brewster’s memory.

So what? We run a lot of animal experiments here.

So I didn’t authorize any tests on bonobos. I was wondering if you did.

Listen, Sunil, I made it clear when I hired you that you answer to me, did I not?

It’s just that thirty bonobos are a lot, and I wasn’t consulted on it. I would like to be consulted on experiments that are being signed through my lab.

How long have you been here now, Sunil?

Six, seven years, why?

Wrong answer, Brewster wheezed. You should have said, long enough to know that’s just how things run here.

I don’t like wading through shit like this. It’s too much to ask.

Just hold your breath and swim upstream, Sunil. Don’t take it all so personally.

Sunil smiled tightly. He wanted to say that in South Africa it was always personal. But he didn’t.

Brewster was watching Sunil closely.

Fine, Sunil said. He was awkward and uncomfortable as any boy would be in the principal’s office. Just then Sunil’s phone rang.

Take it, Brewster said, waving his approval.

Sunil took out his cell and looked at the caller ID. It was Detective Salazar. He vaguely remembered the man, but he did remember the case from two years ago that had led Salazar to consult him. Dead homeless men dumped out by Lake Mead. Sunil had been brought in as a psychological consultant. But since, unbeknownst to Salazar, the institute had dumped the bodies in the first place, Sunil was really more of a spin doctor. Protecting the institute.

Salazar, he said.

Dr. Singh, so good to get hold of you. I have a problem I think you can help me with.

Listen, now is not a good time—

The bodies have started appearing again.

Sunil looked at Brewster and turned away, thinking, Shit, shit, shit.

I can’t really help, Detective, he said.

Yes, you can. I think we’ve arrested the killer and I need you to come down to County and administer a psychological evaluation.

You caught the killer?

Yes.

So why do you need a psychological evaluation?

It’s complicated.

It always is with you, Salazar.

They are Siamese twins.

Conjoined twins?

Yeah. I found them out by Lake Mead and there seems to be some uncertainty as to whether they were committing suicide or covering up a crime scene.

The duty psychiatrist could handle this, Sunil said.

No, Salazar said. I am convinced it’s the same case we worked on.

Then surely it’s a police matter.

No, I need your help on this.

Okay, look, I’ll call you back in an hour.

Can you make it sooner?

I’ll do my best, Sunil said, hanging up.

What was that about, Brewster asked.

It’s a police matter.

All the more reason I need to know what it’s about, Brewster said. Can’t have any potential security breaches.

Remember the body dumps from two years ago?

Of course, he said.

The police think they’ve found the killer and want a psych eval from me, but I don’t think I’m going to do it.

What’s the matter with you, Sunil? This is perfect for us, and in particular for your project.

The killers are apparently conjoined twins.

Imagine the opportunities. We’ve never had the chance to study the brain chemistry of a monster before.

Sunil flinched at the medical term for genetic abnormalities. I study psychopaths, he said. Not monsters.

And conjoined twins can’t be psychopaths?

They can be, yes. But we have to be careful about finding psychopaths everywhere. My research has to be very focused and free of anything that could devalue its science. Besides, we both know that there is no killer.

There’s always a killer, Sunil, Brewster said with a smile.

Sunil hated Brewster. It was Brewster who said what everyone must have been thinking when they first met Sunil: You don’t look Indian. You are very dark; you look black.

Which was true. Sunil was very dark, near black, with kinky hair, but still, he was pretty sure he looked Indian enough. After all, there were plenty of dark-skinned Indians.

But when Brewster first said it, Sunil had wondered if he was referring to the fact that he didn’t look Native American, and felt his anger rise. But he realized years ago that it never helped to go down that path, so he explained that he didn’t look Indian because he was half Zulu, and no, they didn’t have Zulus in India, at least not that he knew of, but they did have them in South Africa. And yes, he added, there were a lot of South African Indians. Mostly in Durban, thank you very much, even though Sunil was from Johannesburg. Well, I’ve never met an Indian like you before, Brewster had insisted. What kind of Indian doesn’t have a lilt in their voice or talk with their hands and head? In that moment Sunil had been glad the man was over seventy; otherwise he might have given in to his urge to hit him.

There was something else about Brewster that bothered Sunil. He reminded him of the old guard of apartheid: privileged and smug in their power, but even worse, carrying a deep conviction in their own rightness. Sunil liked his job, though, so he tempered his response. But that’s the thing with fights; if you fold too early, you keep folding.

I don’t really know that much about conjoined twins, Sunil said. How their biology might affect their psychology.

That’s okay, Brewster said. I will have the research department put a file together for you and have it delivered to your doorman tonight. It’ll be there before you finish at the hospital.

Fine, Sunil said. He had to admit to himself that he was curious.

Just make sure to sign the papers so we can have them for at least seventy-two hours, Brewster said. Here, at the Desert Palms, not County.

This isn’t the way I like to work.

Just go get me those monsters. With the weekend, we might get away with holding them for five days, Brewster said.

Sunil returned to his office to get his stuff. The elevator took only a moment to get to him.

As he stepped into the lobby and walked briskly to the front door he passed the usual Halloween decorations. There was one new addition this year: a hanging skeleton. He paused for a moment to regard the lynched figure and wondered if it was inappropriate before heading outside, where he heard the peacocks that roamed free through the grounds screeching. He paused by his car and inclined his head up at Brewster’s window, throwing a malevolent look in the dark. He never noticed the car seven spaces down, from which Eskia watched his every move.

Ten

Eskia started up his engine and pulled out of the institute’s parking lot, tailing Sunil. He had been waiting all day in his car, and he was hot and irritable. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and reached forward to turn up the air and the music. Hugh Masekela’s “Grazing in the Grass” filled the car, and Eskia whistled along. Tailing Sunil right now was not really necessary; it was more for the fun of it. Having intercepted Sunil’s phone call from Salazar on the cell-cloning software he was running on his laptop, he knew Sunil was heading to County to interview conjoined twins suspected of being serial killers. It would probably be quicker just to meet him there, but Eskia was a dedicated hunter, trained for years to follow his prey until he had secured the kill, and in this case he intended to do just that.

Eskia was an operative of South Africa’s Security Services based in a clandestine unit that didn’t officially exist. The clandestine units still operated the same as they had under apartheid — assassinations of enemies of the state, spying on politicians, stealing secrets from other countries, starting wars in other countries, carrying out renditions for other governments for a price, and more. But he wasn’t here in Vegas in an official capacity. This was personal.

Eskia had joined the security arm of the African National Congress while still in college. You could say it was a family tradition. His father, Isaac, had been a weapons expert for the ANC. He built bombs and trained others to build bombs. A chemist, and later a chemistry teacher, trained in Moscow, he returned in the ’50s to an oppressive state. Six weeks after he came back, he was assigned a house in Soweto and an all-black school to teach in. It seemed he was content to do nothing more than teach young blacks chemistry and try to live a quiet life. That was until the Sharpeville incident when the police had fired on and killed young schoolkids peacefully protesting. As he watched the tear gas fly, the Casspirs tear through the crowds, and the children fall in bloody masses, he felt himself change. A couple of weeks later he joined the ANC and sought out the armed units. While he adored Mandela and believed in the need for a peaceful transition to self-rule, he couldn’t stomach what he had seen. His soul ruptured that day, a rupture that would never fully heal. He turned to violence and, in turn, violence turned itself to him.

Eskia’s mother was in labor with him the day Isaac decided to build his first bomb. It was an experiment he wasn’t sure would work, and he hadn’t told anyone about it.

It was 1965 and a mild day in Johannesburg when the gentle mannered Isaac stood on the edge of that downtown street and stared at the small rivulet of water running at the edge of the concrete. Across the street history awaited; taking a deep breath, he stepped off and crossed quickly to the small chemist shop. He emerged a few minutes later with a package wrapped in brown paper: ordinary household chemicals that were harmless on their own but volatile when mixed. They were forbidden in Soweto and it was illegal for a black person to be in possession of them. As he walked, he tried really hard to appear nonchalant. It was the days of the pass laws and he couldn’t afford to be stopped by the police. Ahead, two policemen demanded passbooks from a black couple, and Isaac pressed into the shadows of an alley to wait.

Passbooks, known in those days as dompas, controlled everything. They laid out your race, where you lived, where you were allowed to travel. Passbooks, carried only by blacks, Indians, and coloreds (the light-skinned non-whites who were a mix of races, and the Indians), made them guest workers in their own country.

Isaac stepped back onto the pavement. The policemen moved on. Isaac trotted over to the taxi rank and got aboard a taxi bus headed back to Soweto. If he got caught now, he would go to prison for bomb-making, having never made his first bomb. But it was his lucky day.

It was also the last day he built bombs himself, from then on restricting himself to teaching others. But it wasn’t enough for him. A veteran of the Second World War, he missed the rust of blood. So he began hunting for Boer, as he put it, laughing at the pun. His old Lee-Enfield rifle was his weapon of choice. And with time, Eskia became its constant companion.

Eskia pulled up to the hospital and studied the façade. Sunil would be in there for much of the night. Eskia hacked into the hospital records. His fingers moved fast over the keyboard of his laptop. Thank God for broadband Internet cards; it made spying such a breeze these days. He didn’t know the names of the twins, but it would be easy searching under “conjoined.” How many could there be? Sure enough, their record popped up — it was still pretty blank. It had their names and the date. Even their vitals hadn’t been added. Eskia was bored.

There was nothing interesting happening here, so he decided he would break into Sunil’s office tonight and steal his hard drives. All Sunil’s research should be on them and he could sell that for a lot of money. Or at the very least the research could be used as a bargaining chip. What for was not clear yet, but then he’d only arrived a few days ago, plenty of time to get into trouble. He started his car. The only question was whether to stop by his hotel first, so he flipped a coin.

Eskia pulled out of the hospital parking lot, headed back to his hotel: New York, New York. Why was it that Vegas had to wring every last gag out of things? Everything here was a pun on a pun, so many times removed that it was not clear what the original joke had been, or if there had even been one in the first place. As he drove past the ziggurat of the MGM, black and polished, like an ancient Aztec temple cleaned up for a visitation by aliens, he thought of ways to hurt Sunil. He knew just the thing.

Smiling, he turned on his phone and used the voice-dialing function.

Call Asia, he said.

The phone rang.

Hello, Asia said on the second ring.

Eleven

Sunil’s drive over to County was slow, and he played with the idea of taking the Strip. Natives always avoided that route, so taking it seemed like a good idea. Going up West Flamingo Drive, he made a right onto Las Vegas Boulevard. As he’d guessed, there was less traffic, although the sidewalks were packed with people.

The Halloween crowds poured up and down the Strip like a thick sludge. Fireworks, set off by the Bellagio, fired straight up and out of its fountains, filling the sky with mushrooms of dazzle. Sunil was reminded of the old bomb parties the casinos used to host back in the ’50s, when the U.S. government set off nukes in the nearby desert, sometimes as close as six miles from the city. The casinos sold package tours to see U.S. history in the making: the end of the Commies and the death of the Red Threat. People flocked by the thousands to the dawn parties to watch the mushroom clouds. Minutes after the display, they would return to gambling or turn in to catch some much-needed sleep. Seats on the terrace, where one could watch the explosions while sipping on a cocktail, were fought over. Those unable to afford the parties or terraces drove out to ground zero and hiked as close as possible. The Atomic Energy Commission never turned them away, even when there were families with children.

Sunil watched the light show across his windshield, fireworks ceding to electricity. The radiance gave the impression that the city was a mirage. At a stoplight, where the traffic was held up not so much by the red but by the endless stream of pedestrians in costume, Sunil saw a young woman, a girl really, eating fire. Slowly, with what seemed like reasonable trepidation, she dipped the long-stemmed tapers into a clear fluid and lit each one. Holding the flaming stem delicately, she tilted her head back and pushed the fiery tip into her mouth, where it died with an audible sigh. Something about that girl took Sunil back to a memory of Dorothy, lighting and blowing out votives set at the foot of a statue of Jesus in the corner of her hospital room. Flame. No flame. Flame. No flame.

The duty psychiatrist, a small mousy man, was waiting outside the ER. Sunil recognized him as he approached from the parking lot but couldn’t remember the man’s name. They’d probably met at a conference; Vegas was the city for that. The doctor snuffed out the cigarette he was smoking in the sand-filled ashtray by the automatic doors.

Dr. Singh, he said.

Hello, good to see you again, Sunil said, holding out his hand.

Dr. Alan, the duty psychiatrist said, taking Sunil’s hand limply. Sunil had never gotten used to the fact that American men didn’t shake hands as a matter of course.

Of course, Dr. Alan, Sunil said.

Look, I’m not happy with you doing this; I just wanted to express my position.

Noted, Dr. Alan, Sunil said, but you should tell that to the police.

I already did.

Good. Have you seen the twins?

Yes.

Can you tell me anything about them?

Their twinning is rare.

How so?

One twin has only a small torso and head growing out of the side of the other one. Quite disturbing, even from a medical point of view.

That is odd, I’ve never even heard of a modern case of undifferentiated twins. How old are they?

In their late thirties, I think, much older than you would think. They are also pretty unresponsive.

Well, thank you for letting me interview them. Is the policeman who brought them in still here?

Yes. Just over there, Dr. Alan said, pointing into the ER. I think his name is Salazar.

Thanks again, Sunil said, heading inside toward Salazar.

I’ll meet you in Exam Room 3. The twins are there, Dr. Alan said.

Sunil paused: That’s okay. I’d rather see them alone. You understand?

Fuck you, Dr. Alan said, turning away.

Sunil ignored him and walked down the hall, tracking Salazar to the snack shop around the corner. Pausing by the door, he took it all in — shelves of chocolate and candy, sugary treats and drinks, and nary a piece of fruit in sight. It was as if the hospital were trying to drum up repeat business. He recognized Salazar straightaway. He looked like every cop Sunil had ever seen, and he’d seen plenty.

Officer Salazar, Sunil said, offering his hand.

Dr. Singh. Thank you for coming. I wasn’t sure you would remember me.

Of course I remember you, Sunil said. So tell me what happened exactly.

Well, earlier this evening I received a call to assist a park ranger out by Lake Mead. When I got there, it appeared as though two suspects were trying to commit suicide or murder.

Which is it, Sunil asked, thinking Salazar seemed more polite than he remembered. He must want something pretty bad, he thought.

I don’t know, Salazar said. The suspects were in the water. The tall one, whose name is also Water, was bent over. The smaller one, named Fire, on Water’s side, was submerged. The ranger says he had to ask Water to come out of the water — oh, fuck it; he had to ask the suspect to come out of the water several times.

Sounds like the park ranger could have handled it by himself.

Well, he called it in, so I came to his assistance.

All right, Sunil said. But why a psych evaluation, why not just arrest them?

There are no bodies, just drums of blood.

But you said the body dumps had started again, Sunil said.

I had to say something to get you here, Salazar said.

Sunil sighed with relief. So this is not really a straight-ahead psych eval, he said. You want me to help you hold them for seventy-two hours while you search for the body or bodies?

Yes. I’m also hoping you might find out for me where they might have dumped the bodies.

If there still are any, Sunil said.

How do you mean?

A quick memory flashed through Sunil’s mind. A hillside with stubby grass, a quickly dug shallow grave. A body. Male. Teeth extracted, ground to powder earlier. Overhead a hawk circling. Heat shimmering. Then powdered lime poured over the body. Then that horrible sizzling, soft almost, like effervescence.

Anyway, he said, to Salazar. If I recall from two years ago, the killer dumped the bodies out in the open. If the twins are the killers, shouldn’t there be bodies in plain sight?

Salazar shrugged. Fuck, nothing’s ever that easy, he said.

Is there anything else I should know, Sunil asked. Anything you tell me is bound to help, even the slightest thing.

Well, the small one is kind of feisty, but sounds college-educated, and the tall one looks normal but is kind of like Rain Man.

Rain Man?

You know, like the movie. He never says anything directly, only mumbles weird facts, like someone on Jeopardy!

Interesting, Sunil said. Anything else?

Just a feeling.

What kind of feeling?

I don’t know. They’re pretty odd-looking, but there’s something else off about them. Look in their eyes.

Sunil nodded as Salazar walked away, down the hallway.

Twelve

Alone with the twins, Sunil drew the green cubicle curtain closed behind him. There was a dark stain on the fabric just below his left elbow that Fire seemed to be staring at.

My name is Dr. Sunil Singh, he said. You must be Fire, he said to Fire, and you must be Water.

Dr. SS, Fire said, and laughed.

Sunil smiled wanly. Please don’t call me that, he said. You may call me either Sunil or Dr. Singh. Sitting down, he pinched the crease of his pants between two fingers and smoothed it out.

I’ll just call you Doc, Fire said.

I wish you wouldn’t, Sunil said, but Fire showed no sign he had heard him. Sunil studied the twins. Water was sitting on the examination table, feet nearly touching the floor. He was wearing pants and a shirt that was unbuttoned but no shoes, and Sunil wondered whether his shoes had been left at the scene. Fire had pushed the left panel of the unbuttoned shirt behind his head and Sunil could make out his caul draped like a thick fleshy scarf. Why hadn’t they had it removed, he wondered.

Have you been treated well, he asked.

No worse than usual, Fire said.

Are you used to being treated badly?

Look at us, Doc, Fire said. Of course we are.

And when you say “we,” are you speaking for your brother, too?

Yes, Doc.

Is that true, Water, Sunil asked.

Twins have an unusually high incidence of left-handedness, Water said.

Sunil smiled. This must be what Salazar meant; Water avoided direct questions. Sunil tried a different approach. I didn’t know that, he said. But did you know that polar bears are left-handed?

Bats always turn left when they exit a cave, Water said.

Don’t get him started, Doc, or we’ll be here all night, Fire said.

Does Water talk like that often, Sunil asked him, glad to have drawn a response.

Yes, Fire said.

The voices of people settling into the next cubicle came over the curtain. Across the room a baby was crying. Medical personnel walked back and forth; their shadows against the curtain looked like a puppet show. Fire looked Sunil over, taking in his three-hundred-dollar shoes, his gold pen, the Rolex, and the tailored suit pants.

You don’t look like a county employee, he said.

I’m not, Sunil said.

Who do you work for?

I’m here to conduct a psychiatric exam, he said. Do you know what that is?

Conjoined twin, Fire said sarcastically, not retarded.

Good, Sunil said, unfazed. Do you mind if I conduct a basic physical? Check your vitals?

“Vital” is from the Latin for “life,” Water said.

Yes, Sunil said, careful not to indulge Water. May I examine you?

Fire nodded.

Water?

Water nodded.

Sunil conducted a brief but thorough exam and with the exception of telling them what he was going to do from time to time, and asking them to clamp down on thermometers or open their mouths, the process was conducted in silence and the twins surrendered with ease to Sunil’s quiet authority.

I need to take some pictures, he said. Is that okay?

Whatever, Doc, Fire said.

Good, Sunil said, reaching for the Polaroid camera in his coat pocket. Please stand against the wall.

Water shrugged off his shirt and did as he was told. Sunil lifted the camera to his face and took a picture.

Turn to your left, Sunil said to Water, who turned, bringing Fire straight into focus.

Please put your shirt back on and sit, he said to Water.

Water sat and arranged the shirt so Fire was visible, hanging off his side; clearly they had done this before. Sunil waved the Polaroid around to dry, and something in the movement looked like he was fanning away a bad smell.

You don’t have to do that anymore, Fire said. They dry by themselves.

Sunil ignored him and took a manila file from his briefcase and flipped it open. With extra care he stapled the photos to a blank sheet of paper.

How odd, Sunil said, rubbing the photo where Water’s mouth was. He looked up at Water. Is your mouth always slightly open?

I call him Lizard Mouth sometimes, Fire said. His tongue flicks.

Why is that?

Probably some birth defect, Doc, I mean, look at us.

And what is this tattoo, he asked, pointing in the photo to Water’s chest, over his heart. These lines — looks like a Chinese character.

It’s a hexagram, Fire said, from the I–Ching. It means Fire and Water.

A hexagram is a combination of characters for the elements, Sunil said. It can mean many things. Isn’t that the point of the I–Ching? Precision is important.

Even at the risk of sounding like an asshole, Fire said.

Even then, Sunil replied, reaching for the hole-punch on a medicine cart. He lined the paper up exactly and punched two clean holes and then threaded the paper onto the metal clasps. When he looked up Fire was studying him intently. Their eyes met; Fire smiled, Sunil flinched. Fire’s teeth were rather canine looking.

You should get a tattoo, Fire said.

No, I don’t want a chup, Sunil thought, returning in his mind to the slang of his youth.

In Vegas you can get a tattoo on your eyeball, Water volunteered.

Sunil thought about Asia and the tattoo on her shoulder. No, he wouldn’t be getting one anytime soon.

I’m just going to ask some questions. May I record the session?

The twins nodded.

Good, Sunil said, setting a digital recorder between them.

Full names, please.

Water Esau Grimes and Fire Jacob Grimes.

Date of birth?

December twenty-first, 1969.

Address?

No fixed abode, Fire said.

Where do you live, then, Sunil asked. Did the police not ask for ID?

We live off the grid. Don’t believe in IDs, Fire said.

So what did you tell the officer?

He didn’t press it. He was too busy trying to get us here.

I see, Sunil said, not seeing at all. You must be staying somewhere.

Motel over by Fourteenth, Fire said.

Sunil asked for and wrote down the address. Maybe he could get Salazar to search it.

Occupation, he asked.

King Kongo the African Witchdoctor, Fire said.

Circus act?

No, Fire said. Sideshow.

Marital status?

Single, Fire said.

Fred loves me, Water said.

What is your sexual orientation, Sunil asked.

Fred is a girl, Fire said.

Are you married to her, Water?

Water shook his head.

I would still like you both to answer the question regarding your sexual orientation.

Water here is straight, Fire said. And I have no penis.

Iguanas have two penises, Water said.

Thank you, Sunil said. Have either of you had any trouble with your mental health before?

No, Fire said.

Water shook his head.

Have either of you seen a psychiatrist or been admitted to a psychiatric facility before?

No, Doc.

Sunil nodded at Fire, then looked pointedly at Water.

Charlie Chaplin once won third place in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest, Water said.

Sunil shook his head, irritated. Do you have any problems with your physical health, he asked.

No, Fire said.

Water shook his head.

In the past?

Yes, Fire said. I get burned regularly in my work. I’m a fire wizard.

A fire wizard?

A very good fire wizard, Water said.

Just to clarify, Sunil asked, is this part of your act?

Yes.

So outside of your act you don’t think you are an actual wizard?

Like in Lord of the Rings?

Yes.

No, no, I don’t, Doc, ’cause I’m not suffering from dementia.

That’s the wrong term for what you would be suffering from if you thought you were a wizard, Sunil said. And you, Water, are you a fire wizard too?

Wrong element, Fire said.

Sunil ignored him. Water, he pressed.

A cockroach can live for nine days with its head cut off, Water said.

Good to know, Sunil said to him. Is either of you currently on any medication?

No, Fire said.

Water shook his head.

Have you taken medication regularly in the past for any condition?

No, Fire said.

Water shook his head.

As far as you know, has anyone in your family ever had any problems with mental health?

The twins shook their heads. One head was where it should be, at eye level; the other, hanging halfway off Water’s side, made the otherwise banal action disconcerting.

Do either of you suffer from any hallucinations — visual or otherwise?

No, Fire said.

Water shook his head.

Would you tell me if you did?

Neither brother spoke.

Were you trying to commit suicide at the lake and, if so, have there been any previous attempts at suicide, Sunil asked.

No, Fire said. No, he repeated emphatically.

If you weren’t trying to commit suicide, what were you doing in the lake?

Swimming, Fire said.

Did you tell the police that you were swimming?

No.

Why?

Neither twin spoke.

Would you say either of you is impulsive, Sunil asked.

Hard to be impulsive when you are chained to someone’s side, Fire said.

Right, Sunil said. What about you, Water?

Water shook his head.

Can you explain the blood the police found?

No, Fire said.

You’re being completely honest?

Fire shrugged. He looked like a shuddering rat.

You know, Sunil said, in my experience it never pays to play with the police.

I thought you were evaluating our minds, Fire said. Now you just sound like you’re trying to solve the case for the police. We plead the fifth, Fire said.

In a medical exam, Sunil asked.

Fire drew his fingers across his lips, mimicking a zipping motion. Water copied him.

Sunil changed tack.

If I let you go now, would you try to harm yourself or anyone else?

Who can say, Fire said.

You can, Sunil said.

Fire looked away. Water was examining his nails.

Even if you didn’t kill anyone, attempted suicide is an extreme measure, Sunil said, voice softening. I am not convinced that it is in your best interest to release you. I think that a combination of medication and counseling could really help you. It is important that you are well enough to help the police resolve this matter.

So you think we are crazy, Fire asked.

Crazy is not a useful term. Now, at least for tonight, I’m going to recommend that you be put on a forty-minute-interval suicide watch. This is a county hospital; I am afraid that their facilities are limited, so I am having you transferred tonight to the institution where I work. The police, I am sure, will find that acceptable.

Anything has to be better than county jail, Fire said. I knew you weren’t a state employee, he added.

I work for the Desert Palms Institute. It’s a very nice facility with the best doctors. We’ll take care of you. Sunil hesitated for a moment. I can’t imagine how hard your life has been, but I do think that we can help you.

Neither twin spoke.

I am going to set up your transfer. The next time I see you will be at the institute, he said.

Tonight, Fire asked.

No, tomorrow morning, Sunil said. I’ll check you in tonight, but I won’t be there until tomorrow.

He stepped out of the cubicle, then went looking for Salazar to make transfer arrangements and to tell him to check out the motel. The curtain fell behind Sunil and the irregularly shaped stain that Fire had noticed before seemed to suddenly fill the green field of it.

I wonder if it is dried blood, Fire said, pointing at it. County, he scoffed.

A dark tree, Water said.

It was well after ten that night before Sunil finally left County Hospital.

Thirteen

Birds on a wire, a drunk leaning up against a Dumpster, a homeless man sprawled on a stained mattress in the corner between the drunk, the Dumpster, and the wall. Salazar slammed the car door and the birds took off. The wire dropped water in benediction. Fucked neighborhood, Salazar said under his breath, crossing the street to the run-down motel. THE PINK FLAMINGO, the sign said. A lone flamingo grew out of the roof of the office building. These kinds of motels had once been so important to the city. Now they were reduced to being long-term residences for those on welfare or otherwise down on their luck. A sign outside the office window offered free lunch with a room. He shuddered to think what the lunch was made of. It was already past ten at night and he hadn’t had anything to eat, but he wouldn’t touch it.

The clerk behind the desk didn’t look so much old as resigned, his expression giving him the appearance of the archaic.

Hey, Salazar said, and put his shield down in front of the clerk’s face.

Hey, the clerk said, taking in the shield, expression unchanging.

Are there Siamese twins staying here?

The freaks? Yeah. Room 12, the clerk said. He took a key down from behind him and handed it to Salazar, in anticipation. That way, he pointed, losing interest. As Salazar turned to leave, the clerk looked up with what seemed like extreme effort. They checked out two weeks ago, though, he added.

Salazar stopped. Then why did you give me the key?

The clerk shrugged. Nobody’s been in there since, except the maid. I thought you police types like to do your forensics shit.

Salazar shook his head and handed the key back. The room would yield nothing and the CSI team would not come out for this. If there had been anything unusual, like a decomposing body or stuff like that, the clerk would already know. He walked back to his car. An old black man leaned against it, smoking. Salazar ignored him, got in and gunned the engine, and the old man moved off reluctantly. As Salazar drove away he reached for his cell and called Dr. Singh.

Have the twins talked yet, he asked.

Sunil struggled to keep the irritation out of his voice: Nothing you will find useful. How are your investigations going?

We haven’t turned up a body yet. But I am at the address you gave me.

Did you find anything interesting?

No, it’s just an old motel.

Did you find anything in the old motel?

No, they checked out of here two weeks ago. Fuck, Salazar said. Do me a favor, Doctor. Get them to explain what the fuck is going on.

All in good time. Good night, Detective.

Good night, Salazar said. Then under his breath, Fuck you very much.

He decided to head back to the station. Maybe he had overlooked something. He just needed to go over everything repeatedly until he found it.

Fourteen

It was cold when Sunil got home. Desert cold was the worst. Hot all day, with the temperature dropping by so many degrees at night that he went from sweat to shivers. The fact that the central air was on all the time probably didn’t help. He crossed the room and flicked a switch to turn on the fire.

This was his routine: set keys into the valet on the sideboard in the hall, briefcase down next to it, sift mail collected from doorman before putting it down next to the briefcase. The only variations today: a piece of candy from the bowl laid out for trick-or-treat, popped into his mouth; and tucked under his arm, the envelope containing a research file on twins from the institute, also handed over by the doorman. He meant to read it that night. Tomorrow was Saturday but he intended on interviewing the twins in the morning. No one worked a five-day week at the institute.

Sunil lived in a soft loft in one of Vegas’s modern, hip buildings. He argued to others that the incredible architecture of the place was the draw, but its location just five minutes off the Strip probably had more to do with its appeal for him. He could be near all that noise and energy, and just distant enough to remain a voyeur — all of the excitement, yet no risk.

The soft loft was one of those real estate terms for condominiums with high ceilings and an elevated but open sleeping area. Since the ’80s nobody had bought or wanted to buy a condo, so real estate brokers got creative. It was nice on the inside, noise- and weather-insulated blue glass walls on the far side. Cut stone floors, an immaculate kitchen, a den hidden behind sliding wood doors, and a second bedroom just off the front hall.

He put the file down on the marble-topped island in the middle of the kitchen and opened the Sub-Zero refrigerator, careful to leave no fingerprint smudges on the polished silver door. He took out a beer, a piece of tuna, and a cantaloupe.

On a plastic cutting board, he cut the cantaloupe neatly in half with one smooth movement. He placed one half facedown on a plate and returned it to a shelf in the fridge, then cleaned and cubed the other, enjoying the sound of the cutting.

Next he set the tuna on a wooden cutting board, noting the time on the microwave clock—11:00. He hesitated for a moment, then picked up a balanced ceramic knife that had cost too much and sliced perfect slivers of fish. The shape of the pieces, and the sound of the knife scraping the wood, reminded him of slicing plantains in Johannesburg for Dorothy to fry. Pausing in his slicing, he inspected his work, mentally checking for precision. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been this concerned about order. Perhaps it was a reaction to the memory of Jan. He put a piece of cantaloupe into his mouth and thought about her.

Their first date, Sunil came to realize later, hadn’t been a date at all, just coffee that Sunil brought with him from home and his lunch of fried fish and hard-dough bread. Even with this new experiment in integration, the black students weren’t allowed to eat in the cafeteria, so they all brought lunch from home. Once, early on, Sunil had tried to eat in the cafeteria, but one of the blacks cleaning the floors had come over to him, and barely able to make eye contact for shame, pointed to the sign on the wall above Sunil: VIR GEBRUIK DEUR BLANKES — FOR USE BY WHITE PERSONS.

He left and never returned, opting to eat under the umbrella tree outside the science building, on the only stretch of lawn where the black students were allowed to be. Every day, they spread out like a flock of blackbirds at lunch, pretending not to see one another.

That day, on a whim, Sunil asked Jan if she would like to have lunch with him.

Yes, she said, her easy assent taking him by surprise.

She followed him to the patch of grass under the tree as though it were the most natural thing in the world. He turned his jacket inside out and spread it for her to sit on. He remembered every detail fondly for days afterward: that they shared coffee out of the cap of his thermos because he hadn’t brought any cups; that she ate the hard bread and oily fish with a relish that he could still summon like a taste to his mouth; that he had no napkins so she sucked on her fingers and he felt himself swell with desire. Finally he remembered his handkerchief and handed it to her. It was pretty threadbare, but clean, and if she noticed its condition, she said nothing. She dabbed delicately around her lips with it and handed it back.

Later, he walked her back to class, and then after, naturally, easily, to her car. They stood in the gloom of the car-park lights, lingering, neither wanting to go home, it seemed.

Yet the next day, in class, it was as if none of it had happened. She was still very polite to him, but nothing more, until a week later, when they happened upon each other in Gogo’s, which was the only neutral space in the city, where all races could interact without fear or concern.

Returning to the present moment, he placed the fruit and raw fish on a stoneware plate garnished with ginger and then cleaned up.

He took the food to the living room, crossed to the sectional, and flopped in front of the fire, over which hung a large print of a William Kentridge painting, Felix in Exile. Reaching for the remote control on the coffee table, he turned down the fire and turned on some music — Chopin’s Nocturnes in E Minor. He ate quickly, barely taking in the view that spread fourteen floors below. When he was finished, he fetched the rather thick file from the sideboard, adjusted his glasses, and began to read.

There were two theories about how conjoined twins are formed — fission and fusion. Fission theory postulated that conjoined twins occur when a fertilized egg begins to split into identical twins, but is somehow interrupted during the process and develops into two partially formed individuals who are stuck together. Fusion theory argued that conjoining happens after an egg has split into two distinct but identical embryos and that the joining is a result of early cellular development in embryos in close proximity.

A human embryo in its early stages consists of three layers of cells that seek out cells of the same type and use these stem cells to build organs and the rest of the body. When identical embryos lie in close proximity, such as in the case of identical twins, these cells can have mixed signals, which cause them to attach to the cells of the same type but that are already part of the twin embryo.

Sunil rubbed his eyes and skimmed the rest, letting only the major classifications jump out at him. Craniopagus twins are joined at the head. Thoracopagus twins are joined at the upper chest, usually from clavicle to sternum. Omphalopagus twins are joined at the abdomen from their groin to their sternum, resulting in a shared liver and even parts of the digestive tract. Xiphopagus twins are joined at the sternum but only by cartilage, like the famous Chang and Eng, and only rarely share organs. Ischiopagus twins are joined at the front of the pelvis and at the lower spine, with their spines twisted at a 180-degree angle from each other. These twins can have three or four legs between them; the third leg in these tripus cases is a fusion of two legs that didn’t separate. Ischio-omphalopagus twins have spines joined in a Y shape, three legs, and a single set of genitalia; and on and on, in a seemingly unending list.

Sunil thought that it all read like a bizarre biblical genealogy, or the taxonomy of dinosaurs. He understood only too well this need to classify; that had been the backbone of apartheid.

At the back of the file he found a reference to Edward Mordake, a nineteenth-century Englishman with no recorded birth or death dates. He was unusually handsome and gifted as a scholar and musician. He had a second face growing out of the back of his head. This other face, rumored to have been female, wasn’t fully functional and couldn’t speak or eat. But it could laugh and cry and its eyes would follow people around a room. Edward claimed that this devil twin, as he called it, whispered awful things to him at night while he tried to sleep. He begged to have it removed, but no doctor would agree to the risky operation. Finally he secluded himself until he succumbed to suicide at twenty-three. This was clearly a case of parasitic twinning and Sunil wondered if Fire and Water were parasitic twins. But which was the parasite?

In spite of himself, Sunil yawned. It was late, or early, and he nodded off, sprawled on the sectional with papers and photos strewn around him.

Fifteen

The moon was high and fat. Pregnant moon, Water said under his breath, the way Selah used to, the boys in her lap, rocking in the porch swing on those late nights when they couldn’t sleep. A full moon always rises at sunset, he said to himself. Selah used to say that. Water was fifteen when he realized her death would always be inside him. Selah is tree, he whispered.

The swath of light falling through the window, however, was not from the moon but from the violet streetlamp on the hospital grounds. He swung his legs to the floor and got up slowly. Fire was snoring slightly, the sound muffled by the caul. Drawn tight, it would grow warm and then hot against Water’s side, as though he were carrying a hot water bottle.

It was light enough to make it across the room and as Water crossed to the window, Fire stirred, yawned, and then went back to sleep. Water searched the sky as if for some truth. Auguring; that had been Selah’s skill. Reading the future from the sky, by watching birds or clouds. Tracking to see if they were flying together or alone, the truth revealed in their formations. Water couldn’t sleep and lay awake for a long time gazing up at the moon, humming a lullaby, one that Selah had sung to them.

Sixteen

Sunil woke with a start. He peeled a sheet of paper from his cheek and crossed to the window. Below, the Strip was awake, like a sentient being made of neon, all pulse and wink, but it wasn’t dawn yet, probably nearer five in the morning. Sunil closed his eyes, shook his head rapidly, and opened them again. Dizzy, he watched the lights make a new pattern, like a kaleidoscope. He closed his eyes again. This time when he opened them and looked, he was so dizzy he had to put his hand on the cold metal of the window frame to keep from falling over. This was a game he’d played as a child, only the lights had been the stars, and back then he could get dizzy without feeling nauseated.

Dorothy taught him that game, said it was how the old soothsayers read the future. Izikhombi, she’d called it, bones used to divine the way, except she said they used the bones of the stars.

She was a good storyteller. Some people call that being a good liar. But that was just frivolous gossip, as Reverend Bhekithemba would say. Remove the log from your own eye first, he would add. The reverend had a soft spot for Sunil and Dorothy, which of course only made people gossip about the reverend and Dorothy. There has always been in African communities a deep suspicion of the Catholic priest’s professed celibacy. Father Bhekithemba was the priest of St. Francis, the Catholic church on the corner of Sunil’s street. But none of this, of course, changed the fact that Dorothy was a good storyteller.

She came to Soweto in 1960 to study nursing. She meant to return to her small town in the KwaZulu homeland, but no one ever leaves Soweto alive, as the saying goes.

She worked at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital on Old Potchefstroom Road. Baragwanath was more of a city than a hospital, serving about a million people every day. Much of what she saw there — the misery, the pain, the loss, the despair, but also the incredible strength of the people of Soweto — shaped her. She was a good woman who did what she could. Brought home medicines for the local mothers to give to their children. Nothing serious, just the basics — vitamins, cough medicine, painkillers, fever reducers, disinfectants, and iodine for scrapes and cuts. She cut quite the figure striding through the neighborhood at dusk, dressed in her nurse’s uniform — crisp, starched white dress and bonnet, palm flat on her belly, resting on the big buckle of the purple belt that marked her rank, a black handbag draped from the crook. Sunil followed her discreetly, pretending in his mind to be her bodyguard, and if Dorothy was aware she didn’t show it. Meanwhile, Johnny Ten-Ten, sitting on the low wall of the church smoking with other teenagers in the shadow of the statue of Saint Francis, called him Mommy’s Shadow.

Between St. Francis and Sunil’s house was an open lot of land that ran down to a ditch at the back of the township. Over the years, Dorothy put the local children to work turning it into a communal garden. They grew everything there — potatoes, tomatoes, spinach, carrots, peas, and even some onions — and gave it all away to those needier than them.

It seemed like the only things Dorothy kept for herself were the truth of Sunil’s father and the three tangerine trees she planted and replanted by the side fence of their house, a fence made of rippling and rusting corrugated iron sheets.

The trees never really grew much larger than shrubs, but they wore their size well, with all the gravitas of trees. Three trees Dorothy planted and replanted every year. Three trees were all they had room for, crowded as they were by the tomatoes and curry and potatoes and onions overflowing from the communal garden just over the fence. Three trees that seemed so superfluous they could as well have been chocolate trees instead of tangerines.

They always grew to about three feet high, branches thick and low like a shrub, and heavy with the small citrus. As soon as they bore their yellow fruit, and Sunil and his mother harvested buckets of them for themselves and their neighbors, they would begin to die and Dorothy would gather seeds and cuttings that still had green signs of life in them, and replant the tangerines in the cluster of three by the fence, where the off-flow from the kitchen sink kept the dusty Soweto soil moist and fragrant with decay and rebirth.

Always three, a mystical number not intended. Planting and replanting every year until it seemed she, like the tangerines, would die of happiness. Sunil love to peel the zesty fruit and bite into the soft sweet flesh. What a freedom.

But these were still the days of terror, of tear gas in the streets. Of armored Casspirs rolling through Soweto like hyenas on the prowl. These were still the days of beatings, and of the lynching of suspected informers by locals. When police enforced pass law. When they drank from illegal shebeens and then burned them down. When they kicked in the doors of frightened Soweto families and dragged the men out to be shot in the street in the middle of the night. When the police drove by emptying rounds of ammo into the houses of the ANC leadership who crouched behind the cast-iron stoves with their children in the kitchen, the safest place in the house. When rape was a state-sanctioned form of policing. When children playing in empty lots came upon dead bodies decomposing in the heat, or half-dissolved from chemicals. When the ANC and Inkatha Freedom Party recruited young men and women and trained them to be warriors.

If Dorothy had any misgivings about any of it, about Sunil training to be a freedom fighter, she didn’t show it. Maybe she suspected his heart wasn’t really in the fighting but more in becoming an impi, like the one in the story she told of his mythical father, as though he were trying somehow to make a connection with the absence that his father had become.

Maybe that was why she told stories, stories to counter, or perhaps balance, the ones the political movements were telling the children — stories of a different path, and maybe a different future. It was hard to tell, because she kept so much to herself.

She was a good storyteller and Sunil and the others gathered by the communal garden to hear her.

Have you heard about the Sorrow Tree, she asked them.

No, Nurse Dorothy, they chorused.

Deep in a mythical forest lost to time is the Sorrow Tree. Its existence was known only to the wisest of the sangomas, who kept it a close secret. Once, a very long time ago, the people who would become our ancestors went to the chief sangoma, a man so old no one could remember a time when he hadn’t been there, and asked him to remove the suffering and misery from the world. He told them that he couldn’t do it but that there was a tree called the Sorrow Tree that could bear everyone’s pain for a short while. He took them on a pilgrimage deep into the forest until finally, after nearly a moon of traveling, they came upon a clearing. There stood the most beautiful tree anyone had seen. It was as wide as many townships and as tall as Mount Kilimanjaro, and yet its limbs were thin and wispy as though made of smoke. And though the tree was so big and tall, it took only a few minutes to walk around it and even the shortest person could reach the tallest limbs.

The sangoma told the people to make a bundle of their suffering and sorrow and hang it from a limb of the tree. And although many thousands of people hung their sorrows from those delicate limbs, they barely swayed from the weight of it. At once the people felt a deep happiness come over them and they danced and sang for days. As they prepared to leave, the sangoma told them that there was a condition that he hadn’t mentioned before. They could leave none of the bundles of sorrow on the tree; otherwise the others to come would have nowhere to hang theirs. They must leave with a bundle, but not necessarily the bundle they came with. Everyone walked around the tree examining the bundles, but in the end they each settled for the bundles they had come with. It seemed that no matter how bad their lot was, they did not prefer anyone else’s to theirs. As the people left with their sorrows on their heads, their happiness faded, but they found instead a deep joy.