The throne on which he found himself was of unusual shape and solid composition but surprisingly congenial to his backside. Both seat and arms were replete with all manner of intricately faceted gemstones and baroque decorations. Bending to inspect several, he saw that they were not gems at all, but rather, astonishingly refractive and beautifully tooled geometries of highly polished metal.
Narrow and deep, the throne would have been inappropriate for any life-form other than his nine-foot-long body. His short, stubby legs barely reached the ground, unlike his slim five-foot-long arms, which easily stroked the floor in the accepted attitude of expectant contemplation. Atop his head rode a frothy farrago of metal strips and wire curlicues like a tiara bent sideways. It hung down over his eyes and was secured somewhere at the back of his long neck. In place of his nose was a foot-long flexible trunk or snout that was no less maneuverable than either arm.
A clutch of similarly fantastic beings crowded the impressive hall in which he found himself. The effect of all the panoply was somewhat muted by the fact that he could see in only three colors. No reds or purples, no oranges or yellows. Everything tended to blue green, gray, or black. As if in compensation, he saw odd glows and light shifts where none ought to exist.
All this he absorbed and digested in an instant as his attention focused on the three figures ritually swaying before him. Though they were naked and unadorned, he did not find their gaunt, angular alien shapes in any way repellent. The tallest of the trio was female, though the means by which he was made aware of this were complex and not at all obvious. So was one of the two smaller shapes. The snout of the minor, six-foot-tall male had not yet developed.
Except for the male the trio was silent. The youngster emitted a steady, high, keening whine that sounded like a set of bagpipes laboring under sentence of death. The young female glared murderously from beneath protective eye ridges. By far the largest of the three, the mature female stared uncompromisingly back at the figure on the throne, managing to convey an opulent snarl of accusation, love, betrayal, and pity.
This is all wrong, he thought to himself. It felt right, but it looked wrong. Or maybe it felt wrong but looked right. Confused, he raised the reed-thin staff clutched in his left hand, startled at the effort this required. He would quickly set things to right.
But before he could make another move or utter a single sound, the trapdoor beneath the trio fell away. The mature female’s eyes remained locked inexorably on his until she disappeared from view. Less stoic both by nature and inclination, the two youngsters screamed as they fell.
Shocked and stunned, he started to rise and protest, but it seemed as if the simple act of drawing sufficient air into his lungs required an unaccountably large number of seconds. He could feel his trunk expanding preparatory to ejecting the negatives, but it was too late.
He knew what lay beneath the trapdoors, knew what fate awaited anyone who fell more than a few body lengths in the relentless, crushing gravity. The terrible thirty-foot drop would reduce the supplicants to a pulp of crushed organs and snapped bones, condemning them to a lifetime of excruciating pain if not immediate death. Too late to be of any use, he heard the royal commutation emerge from his snout. The backward blast of air made his eyes ripple and he blinked.
Sweat was pouring down his cheeks and neck, staining the immaculate collar of the handmade shirt, soaking the Italian silk tie, pooling up beneath his armpits. He staggered backward until he hit the inside of the counter. Laughter and helping hands pushed at him.
To her credit, Telita still engrossed the bartender while having enough presence of mind not to look in her “patron’s” direction. Steadying himself with an effort, Jerry Henderson found himself staring over the top of a wrinkled sports section at a concerned stranger.
“Hey, you okay, buddy? What’re you doing back there, anyway?”
“Nothing. It’s … nothing, I …” Henderson found he couldn’t finish the sentence.
As he stumbled out from behind the bar he hit his head on the drop leaf, which did nothing to improve his already seriously impaired equilibrium. This time Telita did notice him. Breaking off her conversation with the bartender, she hurried back as fast as was practical in the outfit she was wearing.
Putting an arm around his shoulders, she helped him to the nearest unoccupied chairs. They fronted a small table squeezed in between the back wall and a silent jukebox. Her concern was genuine. Visions of hundred-dollar bills departing like birds on the wing kept her motivated.
“Jerry-honey, what happened, what’s the matter?”
He was looking past her, a bad sign. His expression was haunted, which was worse. “Wife and kids,” he mumbled. “Crystal. Bill and Suzy.”
She grabbed his shoulders and shook him hard. It was always risky to lay strong hands on a client, but she didn’t care. It was clear that if she didn’t do something fast she was going to lose him. What the hell had happened to him?
Then he turned to look at her and she let him go. “Jesus, Jerry, what did you see? What…?”
“Never … never mind.” Fumbling with his pockets, he brought out his wallet. She did her best to ignore it, even when he shoved a handful of bills into her cleavage. He hadn’t bothered to count them, or note the denominations.
“Here. Take this.” His voice had gone all high and funny, matching his expression. “A-Louie, Louie, whoa, whoa, I gotta go now.” So saying, he rose from the chair and bolted past her before she could resume her grip.
“Telephone!” His desperate words were swallowed up in the boil and babble of the crowd. “Gotta find a telephone!”
Torn between chasing after him and counting the money, she elected to do the latter. The sum was respectable, especially for a few hours of nonwork, but nothing compared with what she’d been expecting. Tens and fives, damn him!
She determined to follow once he’d calmed down. What on earth had gotten into him? Sleazy but sensible, he was the most promising mark she’d scored in weeks. Then in a couple of minutes, poof, he’d gone crazy.
Eventually her attention strayed to the funny doll. It still sat on the back counter, apparently undisturbed. Had it done something to him? Was there a recording inside which had frightened him somehow? Did toy companies make a doll especially for bars which, when handled, blurted out “Hey, asshole, go call your wife and kids!”?
In all probability her carefully laid plans for a night of carefully getting laid were a total loss. Henderson had been clean and rich, two characteristics not often encountered in a mark. Now she was left with bar pickings to choose from, never a pleasant prospect. And it was all the fault of some stupid doll!
Stuffing the small bills into her purse, she rose and walked deliberately around the end of the counter, not even bothering to duck beneath the drop-leaf. Raising the barrier, she strode through and headed straight for her immobile nemesis.
Screw the bartender, she thought. What was the big dumb gringo going to do, manhandle her? She’d scream for help and accuse him of trying to force himself on her. Meanwhile it would be interesting to see how he would react when she raised the doll over her head and threw it into the crowd. After it got good and trampled a few times, maybe it wouldn’t be quite so provocative. And she would be on the potentially useful receiving end of much of the resultant attention. If she was lucky, her intercession might precipitate a nice, musky brawl.
Feeling a bit of a fool but too upset to care, she stuck her face in front of the doll’s and snarled at it. “What did you do, eh? You think you can spoil my evening? No damn toy spoils my evening, unless it’s one I bring with me!” Out of the corner of an eye she thought she saw the bartender, a surprised look on his face, turning toward her, but she didn’t hesitate. With her right hand she grabbed the outlandish effigy by its neck.
Her dress was whiter than the snow she had never seen, the starched lace trim like snowflakes standing at attention. She held in her hands a bouquet of mixed red, yellow, and white roses: blood, Texas, purity.
The priest was gently lowering the wrinkled brown larval creature that was her newborn nephew into the baptismal font. As he carefully dripped water on the wide-eyed infant, he chanted softly.
Around her, tears of happiness flowed freely from the visitants, all members of her extended family. Aunt and Uncle Gonzalves had come all the way up from Oaxaca, while Grand-madre Lucinda leaned on her cane as her gray head bobbed like an approving metronome. Telita’s mother rested one hand on her daughter’s shoulder. Heavier than air, the cheap, strong perfume she’d always favored dominated the lighter fragrances favored by some of the other women.
Telita observed the proceedings closely through bright black eyes whose sight was undistorted by the blue contact lenses she affected as an adult. Drinking in the church, her joyous relations, and the miraculous moment, she remembered how it had been oft-whispered in the family that it was biologically impossible for the child’s parents to conceive. How they had prayed hard and in addition made many visits to the best fertility doctor in El Paso. How he had prescribed special medication to go with Father Aranjez’s prayers. How one or the other or both had, to everyone’s amazement, worked.
Now here they were, proud Julio and Elena, with miracle baby Hector, whom everyone adored. Preparing to baptize him in the name of the Father, the Son, et cetera, et cetera and no one was paying the slightest attention to her. She couldn’t stand it. No one had paid much attention to her since Hector’s astonishing and unexpected birth. Was it ever to be so?
So while they ignored her, whereas previously everyone had stopped to remark on her beauty and bearing, she smiled and silently plotted. There were so many things that could happen to a newborn, so many possibilities for turning all that attention back to herself. One of the deadly little spiders with the red hourglass on its abdomen slipped unnoticed into his cradle, or a black scorpion from beneath a deserted rock introduced into his blanket. A malfunctioning heater, bathwater too hot, rat poison accidentally mixed into the formula … so many things.
Many noticed her smile, all misinterpreted its meaning. None of them suspected what she was capable of, if it meant regaining the attention that she had come to regard as her birthright.
A rumbling from underfoot, as of a subway train passing. Only, there was no subway in El Paso, none nearer than Los Angeles. As a startled Father Aranjez looked up from his undertaking, a few drops fell in one of the baby’s eyes. The insufferable little brat didn’t even cry.
The rumbling intensified and the shaking began. Everyone grabbed a friend or relative. Several people crossed themselves and one of the younger women began to moan. Telita’s mother gripped her daughter’s shoulder hard enough to hurt. Pictures of the saints were bouncing on the walls and dust fell from overhead. Pews creaked as the nails and screws that held them together were unnaturally stressed.
Then the chapel ceiling parted, wood and tile peeling back like cardboard. Women screamed and men threw up their arms or, forgetting where they were, cursed. A shaft of light intense enough to shame a laser pierced the opening. It struck not the ground, not the baptismal font where Father Aranjez stood bending protectively over the baby, but a little dark-haired girl held immobile in the grip of her mother.
She could feel the heat, could smell the ends of her hair beginning to burn like a thousand curly jet-black matches. Her dress shriveled against her as the beads of sweat on her face and arms evaporated in tiny puffs of steam.
