She still has the book. Bizarre World, Bizarre World, it"s called. Warning label: NOT FOR SALE TO MINORS. She"d found it in Daddy"s Room. It"s black, hardbound. It makes a little crunching noise whenever she opens it, sort of like the crunching noise when she stuck the Yale 13gauge biopsy needle into that U Street guy"s brain stem to see how long he could live with a subdural membrane full of motor oil. He hadn"t lived long. It was still fun, though. it"s called. Warning label: NOT FOR SALE TO MINORS. She"d found it in Daddy"s Room. It"s black, hardbound. It makes a little crunching noise whenever she opens it, sort of like the crunching noise when she stuck the Yale 13gauge biopsy needle into that U Street guy"s brain stem to see how long he could live with a subdural membrane full of motor oil. He hadn"t lived long. It was still fun, though.

The book whispers many things.

Secrets.

It"s all tribal.

INITIATORY RITES is her favorite chapter.

Even today, society is a tribe, no different in function than the UruWauWaus, the Kus.h.i.tes, or the Druids of eons ago...

Pain presses tears from her eyes.

She looks up in the mirror. She"s placed her feet against the warm gla.s.s.

She sees her face there, between her pretty legs, looking back.

Her face so red from pain it"s nearly purple.

In the mirror she sees her fingers poised.

In the mirror she sees her s.e.x.

In her eyes she sees The Cross.

Of course! Her story!

This will be the first part of her story!

She"ll begin it tonight.

She"ll share her secrets.

After all, they"re both women.

They"re both from the same tribe.

She"ll share her secrets with Kathleen Shade.

But for now...

The needle sinks again.

She rests awhile. Minutes or hours. Time means nothing to her. She looks at her pretty, bare feet against the mirror, wriggles her pretty, painted toes.

She"s very smart.

She knows lots of things.

She"s like the tribes. They knew lots of things, too-secrets. But who told them the secrets?

G.o.d?

"It"s absolutely unbelievable that your grades are so poor," the lanky counselor said. Years ago. She barely graduated. She couldn"t concentrate. "You have an IQ of 177. Do you know what that means?"

"That means I"m a genius."

"Yes, it does."

She thinks that she would like to put a pencil in his eye.

"You have an eidetic memory. That means that if you applied yourself, if you buckled down to your studies, you could write your own ticket."

She would like to buckle him down, with shackles. She would write his his ticket. She would like to aspirate all of his spinal fluid. She would like to sc.r.a.pe his face off with a Red Devil razor. Just a fantasy. "Skulls mean death," she whispers. ticket. She would like to aspirate all of his spinal fluid. She would like to sc.r.a.pe his face off with a Red Devil razor. Just a fantasy. "Skulls mean death," she whispers.

Sometimes she walks in her sleep.

Sometimes she sees her mother.

She"s the midnight mopgirl at the hospital. She has no aversions to the job, she enjoys it. When patients excrete in their beds, she likes to clean it up. When patients vomit on themselves, she likes to clean it up and look at it later.

Mopping up blood in the ER is her favorite. Seeing the flesh writhe in gunshot agony, or gilled by knifeslits. Innards quivering in opened abdomens. Faces smashed flat by baseball bats. She likes to watch the doctors operate. She likes to see the doctors cut people open.

It must be wonderful to get paid to cut people open.

Sometimes she rushes to her closet, to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e.

She lives in a little box of memories, a little box of nightmares.

Daddy"s House. Though it"s really her mother"s.

Daddy"s House is in a little town called Cottage City. Just down from the district line.

The old house sits back on the corner, in darkness.

No one bothers her. No one can hear.

Sometimes she forgets things. Sometimes the lights go out because she forgets to pay the bill. Sometimes she forgets to have the gra.s.s mowed, and the neighbors complain.

Once she left the garage door open all night. The car-a bright green Ford Pinto-could be seen from the street "til dawn. No one said anything, though. Once she forgot to close the window in Daddy"s Room. She"d been cutting a man"s belly open, to feel his insides, and he"d been screaming. He"d screamed even more when she"d begun to take his insides out of him. How could she forget something so important? No one heard anything, though.

Now she sews their mouths shut so they can"t scream.

She keeps the prost.i.tute down in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Out of the light. Mother gave her the idea. She needs to be very careful. She needs to be smart, like the counselor said she was.

The prost.i.tute is secured to Daddy"s old workbench. Wrists chained to the hook on the wall. Waist tied down. Ankles chained to the table legs. She"s cut a gap in the table, so the prost.i.tute can excrete into a bucket. She"s read all about it in the books she ordered from Thomas and Elsevier. Radioimmune a.s.say. SEM radiography. Cuticular microscopy. There"s no other way.

"I"m sorry," she says to the prost.i.tute. "There"s no other way. Please understand. You must understand."

The prost.i.tute, of course, cannot reply. Her lips, too, are sewn shut by highgrade vicryl surgical suture. The suture is a bright pretty violet color. It comes in sterile packets, like condoms.

"Vanilla?" she asks.

The gap between two st.i.tches leaves enough s.p.a.ce for her to feed the prost.i.tute with a convalescent squeeze bottle. She feeds her a nutritional drink called SEGO. It comes in several flavors: vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, and Dutch chocolate.

What are you thinking? she thinks. What"s going on in your mind?

The prost.i.tute"s green eyes are dull. She"s rackthin stretched out like this, and her ribs show. Nipples so pale they"re almost invisible. Nearly invisible marks inside her thighs, where men have burned her with cigarettes. Her throat makes m.u.f.fled animal gulping noises as she sucks the SEGO through the squeeze bottle"s flexible straw.

"I"m saving you. Did you know that? I"m saving you from yourself. You give them power over all of us when you let them use you for their devil. Mother called it the Devil"s Horn."

The prost.i.tute"s throat wobbles as she gulps.

"I know. You couldn"t help it. Neither could Mother. Sometimes we have to do things we don"t like."

She smiles down.

"Let"s get you pretty now."

She brushes the prost.i.tute"s plush hair. She sponges her off and empties her bucket. She clips her nails. She shaves her legs and her armpits.

"There. Better?"

The prost.i.tute"s head lolls against the wood.

Back upstairs she drinks cold wine called MoutonCadet.

It makes her feel good. It rounds off the hard edges of the pain.

Cricket sounds come in through the kitchen window.

It"s hot out.

She likes hot nights.

When she"s in bed, she can see The Cross in the window. Sometimes she walks all the way down Bladensburg Road at night, to look at it up close. The Cross stands huge and beautiful in the middle of the road, in a ring of white light, and it reminds her of something, but she never knows what.

It reminds her of something but she never knows what.

It reminds her of something but she never knows what. Once she saw the town police shoot a r.e.t.a.r.ded man in the subshop across the street. The man was drooling. The man was having a fit, a seizure, or epilepsy, and a knife fell out of his pocket, and when he reached, drooling to pick up his knife, the police shot him.

July"s "90s Woman "90s Woman is opened on the table. "Lose 10 Pounds In 14 Days And Keep It Off!" reads one article before "Verdict." Folded back next to it is is opened on the table. "Lose 10 Pounds In 14 Days And Keep It Off!" reads one article before "Verdict." Folded back next to it is The Washington Post BookWorld The Washington Post BookWorld.

When she closes her eyes she sees beautiful blood.

The flesh writhing.

Their smothered screams are the herald.

To her? To her mother? To The Cross?

Later she will type.

CALENDAR OF LITERARY EVENTS reads the BookWorld BookWorld caption. caption.

The Writer"s a.s.sociation of Washington, American University, Pickman Fine Arts Center, 7:30 p.m., lectures by abstractionist poet Maxwell Platt and feminist columnist Kathleen Shade.

Tomorrow she will go and see Kathleen Shade.

(II).

Midnight in the city was yellow, an endless shroud of pallor lain by innumerable sodium lights. Spence thought of lost worlds. Metropolitan Police Traffic Branch occupied a piewedge of 100yearold asphalt where New York Avenue crossed L Street, a high, shabby brick building stained by age. The desk sergeant, a young black man, seemed enthusiastic, sharp, yet on an instant edge. Spence was no stranger to this regard. Anyone from Major Case Section got it: glints in the eye like subtle terror. They were spooks. The Department Occupational Designation was cla.s.sified. n.o.body really knew who they were or what they did. If you made even an insignificant error in front of any Major Case personnel, you were rea.s.signed.

Poor kid, Spence thought. Spence thought. Don"t s.h.i.t in your pants on account of me. Don"t s.h.i.t in your pants on account of me.

"It was a priority system flag," the sergeant said. "I hope I didn"t disturb you, sir."

The sergeant had called Spence at home. "If you hadn"t hadn"t disturbed me, you"d have been transferred to Warehouse Division in the morning," Spence said, trying to make a joke. disturbed me, you"d have been transferred to Warehouse Division in the morning," Spence said, trying to make a joke.

The sergeant didn"t laugh. "I diverted them en route on their way to impound. What is it?"

"GTA," Spence said. He was looking at the printout. AUDI 4DR, GR. WT. 3700, TYPE: A, STEPHEN WILLARD CALABRICE.

"GTA? How come it"s not on the hot sheet?"

"You ask too many questions, sergeant. It"s a GTA."

"Yes sir."

Through the smudged window he could see the tow truck from District Impound lowering the car off the ramp.

Traffic Branch had picked up Spence"s priority code on the computer when the vehicle"s plates had been run. They"d found it blocking a hydrant in front of a gutted Northwest rowhouse. Parking Section, thanks to budget cuts, didn"t even get near that area until after dark now, and-A prost.i.tute would know that, Spence considered. Lots of prost.i.tutes shacked up out that way, in the deeper blocks. And no one would f.u.c.k with the car-an Audi Quattro-fearing it might be a pimp"s. Hmm, Hmm, Spence thought. Had the car been parked there deliberately, or for convenience"s sake? Spence thought. Had the car been parked there deliberately, or for convenience"s sake?

"When did your guys tag it?"

"About 40 minutes ago," the sergeant said. He restrained his obvious curiosity. What was the big deal? Cars parked in front of hydrants weren"t rare in this city. "PS"s tied up all night these days."

"Thanks for moving on this," Spence said. "And call Mobile CES, will you?"

"Yes sir."

Spence walked outside. He wore tailored shirts from a Korean clothier on Connecticut Avenue, 80 bucks a pop. He had broad shoulders, welldeveloped arms. Keeping fit and wearing good clothes let him feel vividly separate from the city that was falling in on itself. He"d been promoted two years ago-he was 36 now-from 2nd District Homicide, after solving a rash of crackrelated murders. "Major Case Section needs men like you, Spence," his deputy chief had told him. "And I presume you"d prefer to work alone-you know, because, uh, because-"