Perchance to Dream

    Her eyes were very wide and almost all pupil. And there was a sick bubbly sound to the giggle that went very well with the faint medicinal smell that drifted through the vent from the room. There were silk brocade hangings around the room and a bunch of flowering plants in big pots here and there. Simpson was staring at Bonsentir, and it was his voice that I heard, deep and full of overtones, like a B-movie version of God speaking from the clouds.

    "You are too powerful, Randolph, he can't touch you. No one can. We can go on with our life as we have."

    Simpson gazed at him like the extras in ill-fitting sandals and moth-eaten robes would have looked at God in the B-movie. He drank some of the reddish liquid from his glass. Carmen scooped some rice and fruit off the platter with the first three fingers of her right hand and shoveled it into Simpson's mouth. He swallowed most of it, let a little of it dribble onto his shirt. Carmen wiped it away with a cerise silk napkin. And fed a crumb to the eager kitten.

    "He won't stop," Simpson said. "He keeps coming around, asking questions. He found the old mine."

    "He's a little man," Bonsentir intoned, "a little man. We will simply swat him, the way flies are swatted."

    I felt a small catch in my throat. They were talking about me.

    Simpson's high voice was a little shaky. He stared at Bonsentir, leaning a little toward him. Carmen ran her hand along his thigh and took a single grape from the platter and popped it in her mouth. She chewed it slowly while she rubbed her cheek against Simpson's left arm. The kitten meowed.

    "He found the mine. He and that nosy old woman at the newspaper."

    "He found nothing that matters. You have the force, Randolph. You have the power and I know it and can bring it out of you."

    "And the plan," Simpson squeaked. "He's been up to Neville Valley and he's been to the Springs. He knows."

    Bonsentir took Simpson's right hand in both of his and squeezed them.

    "I'll have him removed, Randolph. He annoys you. I'll have him removed."

    "What if he told?"

    "Who would he tell? The police? We own the police, Randolph. We own the mayor and the governor and the legislature. This is ours, Randolph. California belongs to you."

    They were silent, Bonsentir holding Simpson's hand.

    "Yes!" Simpson's voice lost its squeaky plaintive trill. Carmen rubbed her cheek against his arm and her hand along his thigh. The kitten meowed again. Simpson glanced at it with irritation.

    "When you sent the men," Simpson said, "you told me they'd make him stop." The voice began to slide back up to whiny again. "And he didn't. And you sent the men to Vivian and she said he didn't even work for her and even when they were hurting her she said that. And he wouldn't stop. I don't like that!"

    "What did they do to Vivian?" Carmen said and giggled again, the bubbling corrupt giggle that sometimes I still hear in my dreams. Neither Simpson nor Bonsentir paid her any attention.

    "He'll not disturb you further," Bonsentir said.

    Carmen stopped running her hand along Simpson's thigh and put her peculiar little thumb in her mouth and began to suck it turning it a little, this way and that, as if to get all the flavor out of it.

    "Is it that you are going to kill him?" she said, her head still pressed to Simpson's shoulder.

    Simpson smiled at her like he was her grandpapa. "Would you like to help us?"

    Carmen's bubbly giggle erupted and sustained as she nodded her head, quite solemnly, her thumb still in her mouth, her big eyes as empty as a haunted house.

    "Carmen likes that," she said and opened her mouth and displayed her sharp little shiny teeth.

    "I know," Simpson said, his voice now low and calm. "And I like Carmen."

    She got up then and kissed him on top of his head.

    "Carmen has to go to the little girls' room for a minute," she said and flitted gaily out of the stateroom, as carefree as a monarch butterfly. Simpson watched her go and then looked at Bonsentir. The kitten meowed and rubbed along Bonsentir's thigh. He stared at it for a moment with distaste. Then he stood suddenly and picked the kitten up by the neck. The kitten screeched. Simpson took one long-legged stride across the room and threw the kitten out the open porthole. Then he turned back and sat down.

    "Soon," he said, his tone dark and very guttural. "I feel it coming on. Soon it will be Carmen's time."

    "She has lasted longer than many," Bonsentir said.

    "I like to think-" Simpson said, the words oozing out of him like some viscous effluent. "I like to think of her face the first moment when she knows, when she realizes what will happen to her."

    Both men were silent, admiring the thought. Then the door opened and Carmen floated in again.

    "All done," she announced and plumped herself back down beside Simpson, and leaned her head against his fleshy shoulder. He tilted her chin up with one hand and kissed her hard on the mouth. She wriggled her little body, excitedly, like a fish on a hook.