"Alfredo?"
He croaked something unintelligible.
She followed him out into the air. "Alfredo?" He was dripping with sweat. The moonlight made him glow. "Did you have a nightmare?" Ridiculous. Why would he have nightmares?
He turned to her and his face was wet with tears, the long scabs from Lydia’s fingernails dark on his silver face. He shook his head, buried his face in his hands.
"What’s going on?" She started toward him.
He looked at her in such pain she stepped back. "1 am..."
Suddenly, Jean did not want to know. She left him and reentered the apartment. Alfredo followed her, reached out to her. She backed away. He was huge. He filled the room—she remembered the night in Hector’s house, how strong he was. He was dark in the shadows of the room, looming over her.
"I am…," he repeated. "I am a man." He reached for her again.
Jean dodged him and ran to the other edge of the table. "Stay there."
"Jean… I have become a man for you."
"Stay there! That’s an order!"
He followed her. They circled the table. Jean grabbed the scissors from the table and held them in front of her. "Stay away from me."
"Jean. I love you."
The moonlight struck his face and it was all shadows and silver. His eyes glowed for her, his face was transfigured by some secret knowledge. He leaped the table toward her and she fell back and he took her shoulders. She screamed and drove the scissors deep into his chest.
His hands fell away from her and she stumbled against the wall, staring at him.
Alfredo touched the handles of the scissors, looked at her and began to sway, caught himself, fell down to his knees. He looked at her again and full realization of what had happened seemed to touch him. He fell on his back, twitched twice, and was still.
Jean crumpled into a chair and watched the body. Finally, she pulled the scissors from his chest and washed them in the bathroom until they were clean. She drew her finger down the blades. Not sharp. Not sharp at all. But sharp enough. She smiled. She felt filled somehow. Satisfied.
Jean packed carefully and when she was done, she kissed Alfredo good-bye on his cold lips and walked down to the ferry dock. She reached the Cancún airport in time for the early morning flight to New Orleans. From there, she took a flight to Boston.
As she lay back in her seat watching the clouds move beneath her, she thought about Marc: if he had waited for her, if he had divorced her. She would like to start again with him if she could, but she would survive if she couldn’t. She felt alive with possibility.
Jean fell asleep and dreamed of frigate birds circling endlessly above her.
Hector found him an hour after dawn. "Mierda," he said when he saw the blood. "That she could…" He shook his head as he opened the suitcase he had with him. With tools he had brought with him, he cut open Alfredo’s chest and sewed the heart and lungs back together, then closed the chest cavity. From the suitcase he brought two broad plates connected to thick electrical cables and attached them to either side of Alfredo’s chest. Alfredo convulsed as Hector adjusted the controls inside the suitcase. Alfredo moaned and opened his eyes.
"Good," said Hector. He detached the plates and returned them to the suitcase.
"Hector…" Alfredo shook his head from side to side. "She hurt me."
Hector watched him carefully but did not listen. He flicked two switches and watched the meters.
Alfredo sat up. "I am a man, Hector."
Hector nodded absently and adjusted his controls. "Certainly, she thought you were. Or she would never have tried to kill you. Stand, por favor."
Alfredo stood. "I am still a man."
Hector shrugged. "For the moment."
"You can’t take something like that away." Alfredo clutched his hands together and looked out the window. "I must follow her."
"She doesn’t want you. She’s gotten what she needed."
Alfredo turned and noticed the suitcase. He watched Hector adjusting the controls. Alfredo pleaded with him. "I love her. She needs me. You can’t take something like that away."
"No?" Two needles appeared on either side of one dial. Carefully, Hector brought them together.
"Hector! Don’t. Please." Alfredo’s hands clutched the air and his face twisted. "Please," he whispered. "You can’t—"
Hector flicked a switch and Alfredo stiffened. A blank look descended on Alfredo’s face.
"Of course I can," said Hector and stood up himself. "Señora Conklin? He is ready."
Lydia entered the room. "He is? Wonderful." She turned to the Mayan. "Alberto." The blank eyes turned toward the sound of her voice. "I am so glad to see you again."
(2003)
THAT LAUGH
Patrick O’Leary
Patrick O’Leary was born September 13, 1952 in Saginaw, Michigan. He drifted from journalism into advertising, and became a copy intern at one of the major Detroit agencies, working on the Chevrolet account – work that has seen him through his entire professional career. His first novel, Door Number Three, appeared in 1995. His latest novel is The Impossible Bird (2002). A collection of stories, The Black Heart, was published in 2009. O’Leary told Locus magazine, "I try to write books that are indescribable. If you try to describe them, they sort of crumble." "That Laugh" was inspired by a visit with some colleagues to La Brea Tar Pits in California. "When we returned to my rental car, we discovered it had been broken into. We lost briefcases, passports, laptops, etc. I lost some fifty handwritten pages of a novel. Which sucked. But at least, now, I can say I have managed to retrieve something useful from the experience."
Twenty years ago, in the summer of 2002, I was hired to make an examination at the La Brea Tar Pits Museum in Los Angeles. At that time I had been in the field of forensic psychology for some thirty years. It was a lucrative contract, as all government contracts are, and for my trouble I was required to submit an oral and written report, take my check, and disappear. All contact with me was entirely routine and formal and conveyed no hint of urgency, but at no time was I given any clues whatsoever about the subject’s identity. Thus I knew it was no ordinary interview. This was confirmed by the security clearances involved—for example: I took two flights across the country to arrive at the museum, which I assume was some sort of elaborate subterfuge.
During my stay I enjoyed the hospitality of a Santa Monica beachfront hotel. I was allowed three days to transcribe the interview, type my report, and record my oral top-line summary. Met a lovely woman on the pier the first night, and after a late meal of margaritas and white fish we enjoyed a pleasant sexual romp. At three o’clock in the morning I was woken by the roar of the ocean. I saw her standing naked at the threshold of the balcony, the pale diaphanous white curtains blowing back into the room, the scent of the surf, and her dark caramel skin black in the half light, and I thought for a few seconds I was dreaming. She must have sensed I was watching her, admiring her lithe form, for she turned to me and said, "Shouldn’t you be working on your report? They expect it day after tomorrow."
Then she laughed.
In the morning she was gone and I had to convince myself that the whole episode was real. The littlest things about that night bothered me like a pebble in my shoe. Why didn’t she use the word "the"? Why didn’t she say "The day after tomorrow?" How come she never said what country she was from? Her accent was curious, but I couldn’t place it. To this day, I’m frankly not sure how much of this actually happened. And, given all that followed this encounter, I remain in an uncomfortable quantum state of unknowable alternatives.