At The Dessert Palace

 

AT THE DESSERT PALACE

by

Christopher Stires

“Lethal injection.”

Michael, his head reeling--his body convulsing, staggered across the barroom as if he’d been on a three-day bender.

“We don’t mix those trendy concoctions here,” the bartender replied, his long face helmeted in a shadow.

The man who had spoken glanced at his two companions standing with him at the chiseled, black-marble bar then turned toward the bartender. “I wasn’t talking about a drink, ol’ stick.”

Michael struggled onto a barstool, nearly toppling twice to the plank floor, as his legs jellied underneath him. Sweat peppered his face. His right arm was numb and his heart jackhammered inside his chest. He expected the organ to explode out of his body at any moment and fireball across the room. In the far distance, he heard Melissa yelling his name. Her calls slowly...

...fad...

...e...

...d...

Michael clutched the slab bar-top to steady himself. Instantly, he felt better. Then, just as quickly, he was worse. Much worse. He had no idea where he was. No clue how he’d come to be here. He wasn’t drunk. He hadn’t boozed until he had the blind staggers since college and that was well over two decades ago.

Pressing his cheek down against the cool marble-top, he closed his eyes. His body notched down to a nervous twitch. He recited his favorite Robert Frost poem then reopened his eyes. The barroom was dark and damp and reeked of ashes and mildew. The rectangular tables scattered about the room were filled with people whispering in frightened, muted voices. He eased himself upright. At the far side of the room, past all the tables, was an enticing white light that pierced through the doors that led into the Dessert Palace.

This was the Dessert Palace. How did he know that? How did he know?

A crimson snake, with bright emerald eyes, uncurled from the glass rack above him and dropped to the floor.

The entire floor as far as he could see was moving, slithering. What was this place?

The shadow-tender glided away from the trio down the bar and placed a cocktail napkin on the bar-top in front of Michael.

“You look like the light beer-type,” he said without enthusiasm. “Or maybe a wine cooler?”

“I. Don’t. I---.”

“I know. It’s your first time. The procedure is simple. You wait here until they are ready for you in the other room. There’s plenty of seats so don’t worry.”

“I-I don’t know ... what you’re talking-talking about,” Michael stammered. “I shouldn’t b-be ... here.”

“You’re in the right place, Mr. Rimmerson. Mistakes are not allowed. Light beer, wasn’t it?”

Michael nodded yes as if he was a puppet and an unseen hand was controlling his movement. How did he get here? And where was here? Was he dreaming? Having a nervous breakdown?

Was he dead?

He remembered the party Melissa and he had hosted. There were eleven guests. All family and friends. It was a warm, affectionate get-together. He had thoroughly enjoyed himself except when Melissa’s sister and his lit agent appeared to be headed for an re-enactment of the 1923 Dempsey-Firpo boxing match. Melissa was amused throughout the incident. Everyone left about half past midnight. Melissa’s sister and his agent left arm-in-arm as Melissa had preordained. Her matchmaking efforts had paid off again. He shouldn’t have been surprised. She had the “knack” for putting the right people together. Alone, at last, Melissa and he snagged a comfortable blanket and slipped into the back yard. Under their magnificent oak tree and a sky of Malibu stars, they made love. They had always been passionate about each other but last night they were inspiring. He was exhausted when they finally crawled into bed around two. Unusually exhausted. His bones had ached.

The bartender side-armed a mug of beer in front of him then returned to Herman, Lester, and Ted.

Michael started to ask--Where am I?--but the sentence never formed on his lips. His hands trembled as they were hitting an eight-point-five on the Richter scale. He stared at the trio. He knew their first names. He knew them as well as he knew the tender spot on Melissa’s neck below her right ear and his own social security number.

But how?

Glancing at the beer mug in front of him, Michael thought his head was going to ax-split from chin to crown. His entire being centered on that glass. Immersed in the gold liquid was a folded straight razor. It was ivory-handled with a silver swirl design and the initials MR etched in the tip. He would have known it anywhere. He’d bought it along with a matching shaving cup in a little antique shop on the outskirts of the Jornada del Muerto desert near Las Cruces. Now, however, the razor belonged to Matthew Railsbeck and he’d used it to butcher seventeen women in Tartarus City. His intended eighteenth victim, Homicide Detective Brittany O’Shannon, did not go along with his plan though. She got the best of him and Railsbeck ended his miserable existence by being shot four times then falling feet-first into an industrial woodchipper.

Michael had lived with Railsbeck for sixteen months while he wrote Touch of the Beast. It was his one and only bestseller (forty-two straight weeks on the NY Times hot-book list and movie rights optioned by Time-Warner). After the Beast, Michael returned to penning his time-travel romances and colonial mysteries that lasted ten days at Safeway and 7-Eleven before heading to the pulp recycler. His agent wanted a sequel to the Beast but he felt Brittany O’Shannon had suffered enough. He had anyway. His work had never received so much attention. And personally, he had never been condemned and attacked so vigorously. He was not anti-female as the feminist groups and critics claimed. He wasn’t. Railsbeck was. That was one of the points of the novel.

Michael turned on the stool toward the entrance window. Outside, he saw only sky and the sky seemed trapped in that twilight blue-gray when the sun has dropped below the horizon but night has not yet come. He attempted to stand but his legs would not cooperate. They felt as if the bones had melted away.

“Lethal injection has no fuckin’ style,” Lester said cockily. “Neither has the goddamn ‘lectric chair. Naw, the only way to go down is in a blazin’ gunfight with a gun in each fist and takin’ some sonvabitch coppers with you.”

Herman shook his head. “I disagree, ol’ stick,” he responded. “The gallows is the answer. Thirteen steps to the scaffold. Final words. Newspaper cameras clicking. A big crowd watching. Now that has style.”

Ted chuckled. “There is no good way. You two are only trying to justify your own ends.”

The bartender motioned to Lester. “They’re ready for you.”

Lester licked his lips and pivoted toward the lighted doors. He sniffed loudly and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. He glanced back at the bartender, as if pleading with the shadow-tender to say he was wrong, and then he walked toward the light.

The bartender washed a glass.

Lester walked through the doorway.

“H-Hey,” Michael called. “There’s been a mistake. I don’t belong here.”

“Mistakes are not allowed,” the bartender replied.

Ted turned toward him. He grinned, amused. “This isn’t a courtroom. Whitman still claims he didn’t know what he was doing. DeSalvo, too. It’s a waste of breath. We know better.”

Herman lifted his wine glass in a toast. “It was society’s fault.”

“I was misunderstood,” Ted added, laughing.

“I was poor.”

“I heard voices coming from the dog.”

“It was the legal system.”

“It was too much sugar in momma’s fudge brownies.”

“It was for the money,” Herman said, lowering his glass.

Ted grinned warmly. “Because we could.”

Michael shoved the beer mug away from him. “I didn’t do anything. There’s been a mistake, dammit.”

“Mistakes are not allowed,” the bartender said.

Michael started to scream but stopped. A beautiful, blonde-haired woman stood in the lighted doorway. Her face seemed familiar. But from where?

The bartender turned and, for the first time, Michael heard emotion in his voice. He heard anguish. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the shadow said softly. “Charlie’s not here yet. Soon though. Soon.”

The woman stepped back into the light.

The bartender motioned to Ted. “They’re ready.”

Ted grinned again. This time, however, Michael saw that the smile was neither amused nor warm. He was terrified.

Herman eased down the bar beside Michael as Ted marched toward the light.

“It’s a simple concept,” he said quietly. “Accountability. Very simple. Very Old Testament.”

Michael started to grab Herman’s sleeve but pulled back. He didn’t want to touch the man. “I swear I didn’t do anything.”

The bartender stepped in front of them. He held an ancient, thumb-worn book in his dark hands. “Here we are. Michael James Rimmerson. Age forty-eight. Married for fifteen years to Melissa Stewart-Rimmerson. No children. Novelist. Short-story writer. Author of Touch of the Beast. Seventeen victims. Straight razor.”

“Straight razor,” repeated Herman. “Not good, ol’ stick. If I’d known what would be, I’d have been gentler with mine. I’d still do it more than likely than I’d have been much gentler.”

“Those seventeen women never existed!” Michael yelled at the bartender. “I created them! They were characters in a book I wrote! Dammit, you’ve made a mistake!”

“Mistakes are not allowed.”

“Then why isn’t it eighteen victims? I killed Railsbeck, too!”

“You are Matthew Railsbeck.”

“Someone help me!”

The bartender closed the book.

“Accountability,” Herman said.

Michael slapped the beer mug off the bar. It shattered against the plank floor. Pieces of glass shattered in every direction. The straight razor skidded toward an empty table.

“In here is the worst part,” Herman said quickly. “Knowing what is going to happen. Knowing it will never end. Knowing you created your own eternity.”

“Herman,” the bartender called, motioning to him.

Herman trembled. “Thanks for mentioning me in your novel, ol’ stick. I enjoyed seeing my name in print.” He stood and headed toward the light.

Michael couldn’t breathe. Now he knew the trio. He had used all of them in his book. For color and texture. Lester Gillis--bank robber and killer. Better known as Baby Face Nelson. Ted Bundy--serial killer. Herman W. Mudgett--mass murderer.

He lowered his head into his hands. No. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening.

The bartender called names. Sawney Bean, Elizabeth Bathory, Gilles de Rais.

The sky outside remained forever in twilight.

The bartender called names. William Burke, Belle Gunness, Henri Landru.

Michael couldn’t leave the stool.

The bartender called names. Charles Starkweather, Dean Corll, Jeffrey Dahmer.

Soon he was alone.

And he waited. And waited. His name wasn’t called though. The shadow-tender washing glasses behind the bar wouldn’t admit a mistake had been made yet his name wasn’t called.

The doors at the entrance opened and new people filled the barroom. Michael smiled. The people swarming inside were friends. Most were friends he had never met but they were friends nonetheless. Some he had known since childhood. Others were more recent acquaintances. All were friends however. They had come to him on birthdays, holidays, bright nights, and dark days. They were friends he happily shared with Melissa but she never felt the same bond he did.

One fact was most evident. He had been early. He was not an equal--and would never claim to be--with these people but this was a fate of his own choosing. He could feel his legs again.

Three separated from the others and walked over to him at the bar.

“Welcome to the Dessert Palace, Rimmerson,” Dashiell Hammett said. “I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed Stone River. You captured the very essence of San Francisco in the 1920s. I felt as if I was there again.”

Michael grinned.

“And the orphan scalawag in Hummingbird Hill was a sheer delight,” added Agatha Christie. “Marvelous characterization, my boy, marvelous.”

Robert Bloch patted his shoulder gently. “I wish I’d never written that shower scene in Psycho.”

“What?”

The bartender stepped in front of Michael, his long face still helmeted in a shadow, as the crimson snake crawled back onto the bar-top. “Mistakes are not allowed.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will very soon. The seventeen are waiting for you in the other room.”

 

 

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