I looked back at the stage and the blue light flickered out, followed by the sound of a gong that reverberated through the room. The drumbeats picked up tempo and five red lights descended from the ceiling slowly, until they stopped in a circle above the stage. At the same time, something was rising out of the stage, directly opposite the sleeping snakes. It was in the shape of an oyster, maybe four feet wide and three feet high. When it came to a rest, the top half of the oyster unlocked and began to open. The sleeping snakes awoke, then fondled each other and began writhing and undulating on the log in very much a human fashion. Three-quarters of the way open, I could tell there was something in the oyster, something or someone where the pearl should have been. I took a step toward the stage and Ray grabbed my arm.
“You make sure you’re sure, Z,” he said. “This ain’t no place for mistakes.”
I took another step and stumbled, tripping over an outstretched leg. I fell to the floor in the dark. Whoever I tripped over kicked me with his boot and said, “Scram, kid!”
On my hands and knees, I looked up at the stage; the oyster was completely open, exposed in the circle of red light from above. When I saw what I saw, my body jumped, as if I’d been electrocuted. I felt rage, shock, terror, and pity all at once, and violation in the deepest sense. There was Star, dressed as a miniature Aphrodite in a white gown, sitting on a raised bench inside the oyster, staring across at the human snakes achieving every possible sexual position on and around the log beam. Her eyes were glazed, but not from drugs. It was something else, something worse. It was as if she were sitting at the bottom of a dry well, staring up at a light, an escape that was too distant to believe in or hope for, a light without salvation.
I screamed inside at the Fleur-du-Mal and his evil, his “aberration,” as it had been so delicately described. I stood up and started for the stage again, grabbing the Stone in my pocket as hard as I ever had. This could not go on.
Suddenly the drums became thunder in my head and the finger cymbals sounded like great glass panes crashing to the ground. The beautiful soprano voice was shrill and loud as a siren. The low sighs and moans of the audience became a snorting, slobbering herd of beasts. I could hear the skin of the human snakes slapping as they increased their tempo and passion. I could hear the log itself groan against the stone posts. I could hear Star breathing. I turned and glanced at Ray. He was a frozen silhouette in the darkness, watching me.
I took another step toward the stage. Then, from somewhere in the middle of the cacophony of music and noise, I heard my name. “Zezen,” a voice said in a low whisper. I stopped where I was and waited, focusing. “Zezen,” it said again and this time I knew the source. I looked up at the stage behind Star to a narrow opening, a slit in the oyster shell, and peering back at me through the shafts of red light were two familiar green eyes.
“Bonsoir, mon petit,” the voice said, slow and steady. “I thought you might acquire this ability sooner or later.”
I looked left and right.
“No, no, mon petit. Do not try and deny it. You can hear me easily, can you not?”
I stared back. “Yes,” I whispered. “And I suppose you can hear me just as easily. Correct?”
“Of course, of course. An ability that is a necessity if one is to survive against all odds.” He paused. “You look upset. Not because you are already missing your sycophantic little Meq watchdogs, I pray.”
I waited and tried to gather myself. “Why do you do this?” I asked. “This is sick and unnecessary.”
His eyes darted briefly to Star in front of him. “It is never too soon to start an education. You should know this, mon petit.”
I pulled the Stone out of my pocket. I was gripping it so hard, I could feel it almost piercing the skin on my palm.
“I would reconsider using your precious Stone, Zezen,” he said. “Look to the left of the child, by her throat.”
I looked and there, not two inches from Star’s jugular vein, was the point of a stiletto sticking through another slit in the oyster shell. I knew he would use it without a moment’s hesitation. “Please, I beg of you,” I said. “End this. End this now.”
“Oh, but now would be too soon. Just listen to that voice, Zezen.” The soprano was in full throat, building to a crescendo. “She could be Pamina in The Magic Flute, no?”
I looked at Star’s face. She had the same blue-gray eyes as Carolina, even down to the same flecks of gold in them. The same mouth and hair and freckles, but her expression was lifeless, traumatized, and lost.
“When will you let her go back to her mama?” I asked. “And deal with me. You know I won’t relent. I will not quit. I will find you.”
“You shall only find me when I wish you to, Zezen, and you shall never find me when I do not. In revenge, I am afraid you are a novice and compared to some Arabs I have known, you are truly a child.”
“You must release the girl,” I said. “How could she possibly interest you? She needs her mama and her mama needs her.”
He laughed his low, bitter laugh. “I do not think so. I think her mama will be busy soon with another little Giza abomination.”
My heart froze. He knew Carolina was pregnant. He knew all about it.
“Surely, you won’t, I mean, you don’t plan to—”
“No, no, mon petit, I could not care less.”
I couldn’t figure it out. What was the point? “Then, why?” I asked. “Why do you want Star?”
He laughed again. It cut through the drums, the soprano, and the sudden cry of release as the black man reached orgasm.
“The grandchild, you idiot,” the Fleur-du-Mal whispered. “I want the grandchild.”
At that moment, the red lights dimmed and a curtain began to descend from the ceiling. In a few more moments, the entire stage would be covered.
“Wait,” I pleaded.
“No, mon petit. I do not wait. That is where we differ greatly. I suggest you go off and chase something else. Perhaps Sailor will send you after the sixth Stone, or has he neglected to mention that to you?”
“What?”
“Oh, yes, it is true.”
I thought he was trying to distract me and somehow use my confusion to escape.
“There is a sixth Stone?”
“Oui. Ask Sailor where he got the star sapphire in his ring. Ask the annoying monkey, Usoa, where she got her blue diamond. Chase the truth there, Zezen, but do not chase me. That is pointless and will prove fruitless. Au revoir, mon petit.”
The curtain dropped the last few feet and covered the stage all around, followed almost immediately by seven or eight huge men who surrounded it. Lights in the back came on, and before I realized it, Ray had me by the arm and was leading me to the exit.
“It’s best we get on out of here, Z,” he said and glanced in my eyes.
We squeezed through the crowd and darted out of the door, not stopping until we were three blocks away and Ray pulled me in under the limbs of a magnolia tree.
“It was her, wasn’t it?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“Yes,” I said. I could hear my own voice sounding like a stranger’s. “It was her.”
By May, Carolina had indeed given birth to a boy, Solomon Jack Flowers, born the evening of April 26 and named after our Solomon and an outfielder for the Chicago Cubs, Jack Murphy, who threw out three Pirate runners at the plate that day and is the only major leaguer to have done so.