Chapter 12 “Babe,” she said, “I have to go to Truste, Loade, and Surn.”
Scarlett and Lazarus sat at his table in the apartment ready to dive into a dinner of chicken parmesan and broccoli. It was a week before fall break. Lazarus uncorked the bottle of Pinot Noir and poured a glass for each of them. She watched him as he did this.
Seeing her looking at him, he smiled and said, “Okay, now what is this all about. Why are we having this fancy dinner?”
He watched her face get sad and saw a year’s worth of apprehension descend upon it.
“Uh-oh,” he said, “Unless I am interpreting this wrong, something bad is coming. Let’s make this a happy dinner and talk afterwards, especially after the wine had been flowing.”
She smiled, and they started eating. After the dinner was done, Lazarus poured them each another glass of wine, and they retired to the couch right behind the table and sat facing the fireplace. Scarlett put her legs across his lap, and he stroked her legs.
“Babe,” she said, “I have to go to Truste, Loade, and Surn.”
Lazarus choked on his wine, spilling a little on the black but already stained couch.
“What? Why?”
“It’s part of the requirements. Pyrle says it is just for the week. Trust me when I say that I didn’t know about it until today.”
“And he expects you to drop everything and go there during break?”
She nodded and put a hand on his shoulder. Then she put her wine glass on the table and leaned in and hugged him hard. He could hear her crying into his shoulder, and it turned into huge rocking sobs. Lazarus put his arms around her and hugged her back, his stomach dropping out at high velocity. She pulled back and the tears were running down her cheeks, little rivers of fear.
“I’m scared too,” he said.
They slept that night clinging to each other, trying, at least until they fell asleep, to minimize the space between them as if that could erase the physical gulf between them which was coming in the following week.
Lazarus woke to his phone beeping that he had a new text message. Scarlett groaned and rolled over away from him. Bleary eyed he grabbed his phone. The time was 11:15 a.m., and the message was from a number he did not recognize. He opened the text message and read it. He did not need to know who had sent it.
It said, “Go now to the marsh, and follow Amelia. Learn more about her. Now.”
Glancing over at Scarlett who had gone back to sleep, he pulled the covers off, got dressed in yesterday’s clothes, and left.
The marsh was steaming as the fog burned off from the morning sun. He found a truck parked at the edge and saw Amelia off in the distance, a mere speck of humanity in the totality of nature. The marsh consisted of brown and green, waist high plants, and plenty of muckiness. As soon as he stepped into the marsh, his tennis shoes started sinking into the mud, making small squishing sounds.
“She’s in the middle of nowhere on a Saturday morning,” he grumbled, “What the hell is she doing here?”
He snuck close and saw that she was wearing thick wading boots, dirty jeans, and a brown pullover. To top it off, she stored her brown hair under a beret cap. Amelia stood in the marsh with a small spiral notebook pad in one hand and a pair of binoculars in the other. Every so often she would snap the binoculars up to her eyes and scan the skies or trees for birds that she saw. Lazarus was impressed with the speed of her snap. He was close enough to hear her mutter to herself as she watched and wrote down the birds she saw.
“A flock of black ducks, spectacular. Twelve.”
Lazarus rolled his eyes. His legs were growing stiff from crouching in the reeds.
“Ohh,” she said not looking in her binoculars, “One poorly dressed idiot hiding in the plants.”
Lazarus tensed, cracking a stick.
“Who can’t stalk worth a damn,” she continued, “Why don’t you come out and introduce yourself.”
Lazarus stood up as red as the windbreaker he was wearing.
“My name’s Amelia,” she said.
He looked at her proffered hand and shook it.
“So, what are you doing out here? Aside from watching me?”
“Uhh.”
“Well spit it out. I haven’t got all day.”
“I was, uh, watching you,” he said.
“Not shit, Sherlock. What do you-”
She stopped, cocked her head, and then snapped her binoculars up to the sky as a miniscule bird flew by.
“Want?” she said, turning back to him.
Lazarus was unsure how to continue.
“Well,” he said as he scratched his arm, “I was hoping I could take you out for coffee.”
There was a silence for a second and then as Lazarus was about to leave, Amelia burst out laughing.
“Just like you took my sister to your room for a beer. The argument she got into with Todd over you. From the way she tells it, nothing even happened.
“Nothing did happen. We both passed out.”
“Well that’s a relief. I knew she wouldn’t cheat on her fiancé, though they broke up.”
“I guess she should have seen that coming,” he said, “He’s gay, right?”
“Yea, so why do you want to take me out for coffee. I work at a coffeehouse.”
“Uh, right,” Lazarus said, “Well then how about a beer.”
“I don’t drink,” she said,” but I always wanted try. Don’t worry I’m 18 and over 21.”
“What?”
“You don’t think your reputation doesn’t precede you?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, “That reputation. I’m a changed man now.”
“Sure, that’s why you’re out stalking girls in the middle of a marsh on a Saturday morning. Who’s responsible for that?”
Lazarus stood still for a second, almost saying Scarlett, then he said, “Me.”
“Hmmph,” she said, giving him another once over, “Here’s my number, now get out of here. You’re scaring all the birds away with that red blazer.”
He took the paper, “It’s a wind breaker, and I’ll see you around.”
“Well, yeah. I’m giving you another chance.”
She turned away from him and went back to watching birds. Lazarus left, feeling he had nothing else to say, mostly just grateful to get out of there.
Chapter 11 Cuppacinno
A girl walked in wearing the Cuppacinno uniform. Her curly brown hair hung over her peach uniform shirt. His eyes went right to the bird tattoo on her neck. His recent encounters with tattoo artists made him especially aware of ink on a person’s body. It was a humming bird in flight, black wings outspread and long pointed beak aimed at her neck. His eyes got stuck on her neck. It was slender, unblemished, tanned, and shapely, like the curve of a smooth Egyptian vase. When his eyes pulled away from her neck, his mouth fell open and he dropped his ceramic coffee cup which shattered.
The guy behind the counter, Joe, yelled at her, “Amelia will you get that.”
“I just got here,” she said back to him and smiled, “Give me thirty seconds to put my purse away.”
She still had not seen him yet. Lazarus got up as she went to the back. He apologized to Joe and left before she came back out to clean up the coffee.
Lazarus walked hands in his pockets back to his apartment.
How could it be her? he thought, Jessica’s sister! I didn’t even know she was into law. This is all Pyrle’s doing.
Lazarus walked back to his apartment, the memory of that party all too fresh.
“Dude, this party is overkill,” Harry said into Lazarus’s ear.
Lazarus could barely hear his best friend above the booming of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.”
“I know. Isn’t this great?” he said, “What better way to celebrate my acceptance than by getting smashed three nights in a row.”
The apartment was crowded. People were almost forced to sit on one another and moving to the kitchen was like swimming upstream. When a drunk stumbled on the other side of the room from Lazarus, his actions sent a ripple of energy through all the others to where Lazarus stood. The wave of people pushed Lazarus into his small 1980s style kitchen and into the arms of Jessica. Already off balance because the alcohol, Lazarus looked up into her warm blue eyes and flushed cheeks with a stupid grin as he held onto her to stop himself from falling over.
“You know you are the hottest girl here,” he said.
He pushed himself off her, hoping that she would think his hands had accidentally brushed her breasts.
“Why, uh, thank you,” she said.
Jessica looked around the kitchen, but the others, including her fiancé, were absorbed in their conversations, their drinks, and the party. It was already really warm in the Lazarus’s apartment and even warmer in the small kitchen.
“Do you want a beer?” she asked.
“Yea, sure, and we can take it down the hall, if you want.”
“I don’t know it that’s a good idea. Todd is on the other side of the room.”
“Please,” said Lazarus, taking her hand, “He’s too busy showing off his muscles to that group over there, and it would just be for conversation.”
The words “deltoids of compassion” drifted up from their conversation in a slightly sing-song voice.
“Okay, fine—just one beer and only because it’s hard to hear in your kitchen.”
The two half stumbled, half walked through the crowd of people. Neither noticed the eyes of the small curly brown haired girl with the bird tattoo, watching them from just outside the kitchen through the crowd of people. If they had, Lazarus would have winked, and Jessica would have been shamed by her sister. They passed his roommate’s room and heard telltale signs of intimate activity behind the door. Jessica turned and looked out the corner of her eye at Lazarus. When Lazarus opened his door, they walked in on a scruffy shirtless guy with a hippy girl entangled on his sheets.
“Out,” he said to their red faces, “This is my room.”
“Well, that’s better,” Jessica said, as she sat on his bed rubbing the red sheets with the flat of her palm.
“Yea, they’re like rabbits here. Cheers.”
They both sat in silence, sipping their beers. Lazarus gazed at his Rage Against the Machine poster, and Jessica stared at her feet. Suddenly, Jessica slipped off the bed and crashed to the floor.
Lazarus bent down and helped her up and she said, “Must be drunker that I realize. The bed sort of moved, didn’t it?”
“No, not too much,” Lazarus replied.
His arm still rested on hers, just above the elbow.
“So, Falhorn,” she said, “That’s a pretty good law program. I mean, not Yale, but good enough.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Lazarus replied, putting his other hand on her thigh, “But I can’t say I’m really concentrating on law at the moment.”
The doorknob rattled, and they heard Harry say to whoever he was with, “Score one for the Laz-master.”
The girl outside the door giggled, and they walked off. Lazarus chuckled, and Jessica looked away. He took his arm off her elbow and put it to her chin, pulling her back around. Lazarus leaned in and kissed her. At first, Jessica was unresponsive, but then her lips moved against his. They fell back on the bed, and he felt her hands undoing the buttons on his shirt. After shedding his button down, he pulled her sweater off revealing her smooth cream colored skin.
“I’ll just get the lights,” he said.
Lazarus rolled off the bed and hit the switch on the other side of the room. He climbed back into bed next to Jessica and leaned in for a kiss, but he stopped when he heard her light snoring.
“Damn,” he said and flopped over next to her eventually joining her in the sleep of the drunk.
Lazarus reached his apartment door and stood outside for a minute. His hand went to his jaw which ached from the memory. Todd had punched pretty hard and then had thrown him out of his own apartment. He could not believe he was back in this family’s life with her sister.
Chapter 10 “Or he’ll get dinner from you.”
Lazarus slumped in the chair exhausted and panting. He now understood Scarlett’s strange behavior after each of her meetings and put a trembling hand up to his neck. He was surprised to find it did not come away bloody.
“Isn’t that funny?” Pyrle said as he licked his lips, “No blood. It’s too precious to waste. There is a serum secreted by my body which creates a seal when I am finished, allowing me to suck again and again and again, and trust me, what you felt was not nearly as good as what I experienced. Since you have been bumped up, so to speak, on the ladder to senior privileges, I now have an assignment. Her name is Amelia.”
Lazarus nodded weakly, and the sun went down.
He returned home that evening still woozy from his encounter with Pyrle. When Scarlett opened the door, she saw him and pulled him to her.
“So,” she said, “He got you too.”
Lazarus pushed her away.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He blinked, trying to stop the room from spinning.
He glared at her and said, “Did you not tell me because you didn’t want me to stop you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The feeling when he is sucking your blood—it’s marvelous. Is that why you didn’t tell me, so you could keep cheating on me?”
“What?! Cheating on you?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips, “I have never cheated on you. We weren’t allowed to tell. It would have cost us—it would have cost us a lot.”
Lazarus placed a heavy hand on the wall to support himself and walked by her, “I need to sleep. I guess I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Let me take care of you,” she said to his retreating back.
Scarlett stood in the hall shocked, as he disappeared. She listened to him walk to his bedroom and shut the door, and then ran out into the night, tears of anger and hurt streaming down her face.
Lazarus and Scarlett sat in the living room of his apartment, he reading the paper, and she doing here homework. Two hours earlier Scarlett had walked in without a word. She had said nothing to him, but her face spoke volumes. There were lines on her face, and her eyes were still puffy from crying. Her clothes were wrinkled as if they had been slept in. Lazarus was not used to seeing here like this, as she was usually so put together. It threw him off.
“Hey,” Scarlett said, finally breaking the silence, “Do you want to order some dinner?”
“Why bother?”
“Well, if you want, we can make dinner.”
“I don’t think it will make a difference,” he said, “I’ll just be hungry later.”
“What are you saying about my cooking?” she asked, putting down her homework and crossing her arms.
“Babe, I don’t know? What’s the point? Won’t you just get dinner with Pyrle, or he’ll get dinner from you?”
“Woah,” she said and stood up, “Where did this come from? I was asking about dinner? Why is this bothering you so much?”
Lazarus sighed and stared out the window for a long while. His profile caught the sun’s rays just as they emerged from behind a cloud. It illuminated his exposed half in a brilliant gold while throwing the other side into dark, dark relief.
“I’m bothered because it feels so good,” he said, looking into her eyes.
“What?”
“I feel like…since you didn’t stop getting your blood sucked—you even volunteered.”
“Wait. How do you know about that?”
“I sort of spied on you guys. I was curious, so when I found out, I freaked out.”
Scarlett grabbed his hands which were clenched together, knuckles turning white.
“I volunteered to save Leslie, but it still didn’t work.”
“You did? Wait, why?”
“”She won’t be in class tomorrow again either,” Scarlett said, “or anymore for that matter.”
“Where’d she go?”
Lazarus freed his hands and cleared off his books, and Scarlett pulled herself onto his lap.
“She’s not coming back,” she said, the meaning heavy in her voice.
“Oh,” Lazarus said, “Why didn’t you stop then? I mean, I’m here. Don’t I please you enough?”
They kissed. It was gentle and forgiving.
“Honey,” she said, stroking his hair, “It’s not that. I am happy with you, but you can’t and don’t want to stop.”
“So it’s an addiction?” he asked, stiffening and the current moment was lost.
“No, maybe. I don’t know. You had it done once, just yesterday. Maybe you’ll feel it, maybe you won’t. For your sake, I hope you don’t.”
“Wow.”
“Don’t even do that to me again,” she said.
She grabbed the neck of his shirt, half joking and half serious, “I will never cheat on you. Just because I was assigned to you, doesn’t mean that I don’t have feelings for you now.”
“Okay, sorry,” he said, taking her hand.
“Do you want to make dinner now? I really am hungry and wasn’t just trying to break the silence,” she asked and got off his lap.
Lazarus watched her walk away and his eyes glanced first at her figure and then to the corner of his notebook where in tiny all caps block handwriting in blue ink he had written the name: AMELIA. He wrung his hands and cracked his knuckles, but the questions and worries he had were soon drowned out by the sound of frying onions.
—
Lazarus watched and waited. He had come to hate surveillance, especially after the fiasco outside Pyrle’s office. Scarlett was in class, and he was following his first lead in tracking down Amelia. Her shift started at six p.m. and went all night to closing. Pyrle had only given him a first name and a place where she worked. Lazarus figured that Pyrle wanted him to do some detective work to get him invested in the girl. The only problem was that he did not have any time to do this, so as he sat waiting, he poured over his law textbook and drank coffee. He was here to put a face to a name.
Chapter 9 Burst Artery
The next day Leslie was not in class. Pyrle strode around Lazarus’s desk, strutting like a peacock.
“Laz, can I call you that? I would like to speak with you after class since you seem unable to answer my very simple question.”
Lazarus snapped out of it. Hearing his pet name come from the lips of his professor whom he had grown to hate overnight because of what he heard last night at Pyrle’s office caused a burning sensation within his stomach as if someone had dropped a spoonful of acid.
“Yes, sir. I will meet you,” Lazarus said, wishing he had said, Sir, What the fuck are you doing to my girlfriend?
—
Lazarus let himself into Pyrle’s dark office and stood waiting in front of his desk. Time stood still as if it had found a hiding spot within this dark, curtained, and musty room while trying to avoid the man who owned it.
Pyrle strode into his office, “Lazarus. Lazarus, what are we going to do with you? I sense a feeling of anger coming off of you. I mean I’m pretty good at reading people. Your posture—it’s so tense. Relax.”
Pyrle came up and put his hands Lazarus’s shoulders. He shrugged out of them and spun around to face his professor.
“I demand to know what is going on here,” he said, crossing his arms and puffing up his chest.
Pyrle raised an eyebrow, “You demand, do you? You’re not really in a position to demand anything seeing as how I’m blocking your only exit.”
“Is that a threat?” Lazarus asked and added almost as an afterthought, “Sir.”
“No, no, no,” he crooned, “Please, sit. I merely just want you to see it from my perspective.”
Lazarus sat, and Pyrle smiled. He circled around to the other side of the desk. Lazarus waited for the other shoe to drop.
“Have I taught you nothing about how to be a lawyer? Where’s your tactics?” Pyrle asked, pulling open a drawer and withdrawing a fifth of gin, “Drink?”
“”You taught me to be assertive, to go for the kill, and to quote you, Go for the fucking jugular, rip it out, and let the blood bathe you in your glory.”
“Ahh, so you do pay attention,” he withdrew the bottle as Lazarus ignored his offer and poured himself a glass.
Lazarus got the feeling he was being toyed with and the drink was only an excuse for delay.
“Tonic, too. Can’t forget the tonic,” said Pyrle, as if he were at a dinner party where he did not care about anything except getting drunk and knew that he had a right to do so.
Behind Pyrle the setting sun struggled to get into the office. What little illumination got through the gaps in the curtains, shot daggers of light filled with dancing particles of dust. Their recent movements had stirred these particles into a whirling frenzy in and out of the spotlight in a mad dance.
“So let’s get down to business. What’s your problem?” purred Pyrle.
“I want to know what goes on in the senior meetings, and I want you to stop sexually using my girlfriend.”
“And that would be whom?” asked Pyrle, eyebrows raised.
“Oh, you know very well who that is. You approved of me. It’s Scarlett.”
“Please consider what you are saying,” he said, “These are some pretty heavy accusations.”
“Stop playing dumb with me, Pyrle,” Lazarus said leaning forward, “I was outside the curtain. I heard things—sexual things. And while we’re on the subject of demands. I want to know what you saw in me.”
“As to the second, you should ask Scarlett-”
“I will,” interrupted Lazarus.
Pyrle frowned. Lazarus could that he was getting to Pyrle, or at least he hoped he was. Lazarus wanted to find out something to justify these seeming random happenings that led down a road where he did not know nor could even sense the destination—meeting Scarlett, getting into Pyrle’s class, finding out he was on a track to go work for Truste, Loade, and Surn, and discovering that something not kosher was going on at these senior meetings.
“But I will tell you anyway,” Pyrle continued, “I liked this—your arrogance, brashness, and stupidity to barge ahead without thinking of the consequences. If you survive law school, you will make a good lawyer.”
Pyrle got up, going over to the curtained windows directly behind the desk.
“I like that about you, Laz. I like it a lot because it’s not me. Because I hate everyone that is not me.
“Sir?” asked Lazarus, sitting back and crossing his arms protectively.
“You said you wanted to know what we do in our meetings. Sure, I’ll show you, but only because it will have a calculated and drastic effect on you. Everything I do has maximum impact, and this will be one of them.”
Lazarus moved to rise out of his seat, but Pyrle flung open the blinds and closed them again. For an instant Lazarus saw the beauty of the room which was eternally cloaked in darkness by Pyrle’s curtains. In that snapshot of time and space, Pyrle stood framed in the light, a mere shadow of black against the blinding yellow of the setting sun. Lazarus flung his arms up to protect against the intruding light. Then he felt Pyrle’s hands on him.
How had he moved so fast? Lazarus thought.
This time however the hands were not calm and encouraging or needy and seeking. They were rock hard, vise-like, and paralyzing. One held his mouth and the other was on his shoulder, cementing him to the seat.
Pyrle’s mouth was next to his ear, breath tickling the nape of his neck, “You see, Lazarus, this is what we do. It is slightly sexual but not anything you probably imagined with your mind as it is—conditioned by hours of that disgusting pornography us humans are fascinated with. No, there is something much better than that and something which violates so much more while feeling so good. This is a bit unorthodox, taking you this early, but you are unorthodox.”
Pyrle stopped and breathed in heavily through his nose.
“Your blood smells so sweet.”
Wh-What?” Lazarus tried to say.
“You see, you are unorthodox. You are not blinded as the others in your cohort by greed and power. The ones who can stomach it, my class, only care about getting to the top. It is part of my vetting process. However, somehow you slipped in. You are willing to stop and question and spy. I blame Scarlett. It makes you strong, but it also makes you trouble. I shall remedy that.”
“err oo a ammbire?”
“No, not quite. It is much uglier than and not as nice as me. You may meet my maker in time.”
Lazarus began a futile struggle as he felt Pyrle’s warm mouth press against his neck and the sharp pinch of pointed teeth on his neck. Instead of the burst of pain Lazarus expected to feel, he felt an intense wave of pleasure. He could feel Pyrle’s tongue tickling the burst artery as if that were the only spot of contact between them. A moan escaped his lips, and he felt Pyrle smile. The whole process seemed to last an eternity but in reality was only a few seconds.
Pyrle stepped back, releasing him, “Just a taste.”
