Mine(7)
“Only a day?” I asked suspiciously.
“Tomorrow. That’s why they contacted me. Wanted someone who would be able to jump right into the role.”
You mean they wanted someone desperate, I thought. They must be filling in for someone who dropped out. Well, I was desperate.
“I can do tomorrow,” I said. “What time?”
“Eight in the morning. You’ll meet the client at the Starbucks right near Paramount. You know the one on Van Ness Avenue?”
“Is it a Paramount movie part?”
“They didn’t say, but that’s the guy who called me. He works there.”
The little flicker of hope inside me began to flame up. I took a swig of Jack to dampen it back down.
“What kind of a part is it? Do you have any other information? What should I wear?”
“Sorry, they didn’t give me much about it. Sounds like a one-shot thing. Nothing long term.”
“Ah. Boo.”
“If you’re not interested—”
“No, I am! I am,” I said. “I was just hoping to go there prepared.”
“They said they’d prepare you on-set,” Roger said, sounding so confident that I actually began to think that this was a job I would get if I just showed up. Hell, even if it was a walk-on role as an extra, they’d pay me fifty dollars and I’d get to scavenge the snack table for lunch. A warmth spread through my chest that could have been a newfound sense of hopefulness. It could also have been the Jack Daniels. I didn’t mind either way.
“Thank you so much, Roger!” I said. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”
“Sure, sure,” he said, his attention already waning. “I’ll be out next week for an agent conference, but I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”
“Thanks again,” I said. “You’re the best.”
“Of course I am, kid. Hey. Break a leg.”
Rien
It was the next morning before I dealt with the cleanup. I always sleep better when there’s a body in the house. Even if it’s dead.
I checked my watch. It was only ten. If I worked quickly, I could crack this guy’s skull open and still have time to watch an episode of Sherlock while I ate lunch. Excellent. Humming along to the bass line, I picked up my mallet and tossed it up in a spin, catching it again on the downbeat. Ready to go.
Jazz is good for killing, but the cleanup afterwards always puts me in more of a post-rock sort of mood. Something with a weird beat, something to keep my head bobbing.
Most serial killers save trophies from their victims. Gav never did, the damn quitter, but most of us do. Some of us take the victim’s jewelry. Some of us keep locks of hair, or fingernails, or fingers. I heard of one guy who clipped the Garfield comic from that day’s copy of the New York Times every time he killed.
Me, I’m working on a sculpture.
It’s in the front of my waiting room inside of a glass globe. I’m sure my patients have no idea what it is, and none of them have ever commented on it. I suppose when you’re getting ready to have your face cut open, there’s no time to waste looking at art.
If they looked closer, though, they would see that the plastic sculpture is made out of smaller parts, almost like a fractal. Each part is a thin sheet of tissue.
Specifically, human tissue.
Even more specifically, the tissue that makes up the part of the brain known as the claustrum, the little bit of gray matter in our skulls that turns our consciousness on and off.
That’s right. I’m making brain art.
The man’s skull was already exposed at the hairline where Gav had made his first cut. I peeled that layer back and pinned it down. I could see the ridge where I wanted to put the chisel. I set the pointed edge into the crack between the skull plates and whacked it with the mallet. The pop! sound of the skull cracking into two was so satisfying. Like cracking open a walnut.
I had to move fast. This part was what kids call gross, even for a surgeon. Brain matter is hard to work with. It falls apart in your hands like the cheap knockoff Jello they serve in hospitals. But the skull plates pulled back easily, and now I was close. The feds might want the teeth back, for proof. But I didn’t want teeth.
I wanted my trophy.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sara
The coffeeshops near Paramount are filled with hack writers churning out their next screenplay. Everybody thinks they’re going to be the next big thing, and everybody is wrong. Eighty percent of movies nowadays are sequels or adaptations. Nothing’s new under the sun. Original and daring doesn’t sell. It’s depressing, but I try not to think about it too much. I always figured that if I got a part in Fast and Furious 23: Faster Than Peregrine Falcons, I’d be able to convince the writers to do some real dialogue. Not that terrible one-liner shit that passes for writing nowadays.