Staked

They say dead men tell no tales. But Edwin Rotherhithe sits opposite me on a green leather club chair in his personal library, telling me the excruciating details of his life before he was killed. I don’t know how he looked in life. In death, the folds of flesh on his corpulent face conspire to push his brown eyes further into their sockets, like gophers retreating to their dens. The silver buttons of his brown houndstooth vest look ready to pop as they strain to maintain the burgeoning belly beneath.

“...that was back in the summer of ’46 when I was stationed in Bombay, young lady. I had a border collie, named Lizzie, whom I shot after she shat on my oriental carpet, the one I’d picked up for a song in Istanbul, from a positively indecorous Turk who flashed me his undergarments…”

He’s been talking like this for hours, maybe longer. I’ve lost track of time. I hadn’t planned on being in New Orleans during Carnival. I was supposed to leave immediately after I’d finished auditing the books for the construction company, but all the flights were cancelled because the blonde lady with perfect teeth standing in front of the green screen with high and low pressure isobars said Hurricane Destin was headed for Louisiana. Thankfully it veered off course before doing any real damage, and Lucy had insisted that we at least go have a look at the parade.

“…of course in those days, you were meant to pinch the buttocks, it’s a sign of respect and admiration. What I didn’t expect was to be walloped with my own ebony walking cane, the one with a silver wolf’s head, that I picked up in Romania from a blind gypsy who claimed to be a descendant of Vlad the Impaler...”

Lucy had dragged me from the balcony of our hotel, saying we’d have a much better view if we went a few streets over, and then somehow we got pulled into the parade, swept away in the current of humanity. At some point, a man in a crayfish costume lifted Lucy onto float with giant green frog. That's the last I saw of her. I was trying to escape the crush of people when a laughing Caribbean woman with a yellow and green scarf wrapped round her head handed me a drink.

“...he had very sharp teeth, and I didn’t feel the bite at first. But then I felt a tad drowsy, and laid down in the coffin. Mind you, it was filled with earth. Dark soil, that is. And I was just about to close my eyes when a terrible shrieking commenced…”

When I finished the drink, she gave me another and another. And soon I was pulsating, alive with the music, the singing, my heart beating in sync with the drums.

“…and it was ghastly, let me tell you, that first time. Terribly messy. Blood everywhere. They ought to tell you what to expect. The jugular is mighty powerful and spurts of its own accord. You need to keep your lips clamped over the bite for some time.”

After my fourth drink I noticed a woman standing off to the side, wearing a jester’s hat and a black mask. I walked toward her, the crowd parting with each forward step before closing again behind me. Finally I reached her. She grabbed my hand and pulled me into a narrow alleyway.

“…use sonar, and I never got the knack of it. Once I got quite lost and ended up in a children’s playground hanging from the jungle gym. I awoke to see the mouth of a ferocious Labrador only inches away from my face. Just then the sun peeked over the horizon and I couldn’t support my human weight, dangling from legs, and I fell onto the dog, flattening him like a golden pancake…”

She’d removed the mask and kissed me, nipping at my lips and drawing me in deeper with her tongue, languorous at first, then more insistent. She asked for my name, and foolishly I told her. Elena, I have something special for you, she’d said, and led me to an imposing victorian house, where we walked under a wrought iron arbour covered in bright pink bougainvillea.

“…where I got the idea of making a Labrador mask for the masquerade party, waste not want not, as they say. What I didn’t know, of course, I had no idea of knowing such a thing, mind you, was that I’d killed Clarice’s dog, which I only found out when she’d asked why I was wearing a dog mask, and then she became terribly unreasonable...”

I need you, she’d whispered in my ear, as she unbuttoned her dress, revealing the tops of her toffee-coloured breasts. She said I could have whatever I wanted, if I’d do her one small favour.

“…the code of conduct prohibits us from harming each other at such masquerade parties, thankfully, otherwise she'd have done more than bind me to this chair with enchanted chains. Haha. You know, the first book I stocked this library with was a fascinating tome on the Peloponnesian war…”

Yes, I’d said, and she picked out a mask for me, half black, half white. We walked through the ballroom, the swirling heart of the masquerade party, jostled by people in ballgowns, and suits and colourful costumes from centuries past. I was beguiled by the chandeliers, the prisms of light refracting and ricocheting against my skin. The music pulsing like blood through my veins.

“…Athens, at that point, had naval superiority. All the while Sparta was attacking Attica...”

She broke the leg off a wooden chair like snapping a toothpick in half. From the depths of her pockets she produced a small dagger, and whittled one end of the leg to a sharp point. She gave it to me and told me that when the time comes, I’d know what to do. Then Clarice opened the door to the library.

The grandfather clock in the corner strikes midnight. In the dim light Edwin’s incisors seem to lengthen. He licks his fleshy lips.

“I do apologise, my dear. I must be rambling. Why don’t you come a bit closer,” he says, patting his lap.

I nod and walk toward him.

“That’s it. Come closer. A bit closer. You are a lovely sight, so full of life. Eh, what’s that in your hand, my dear?”

I hold up the sharp stake and shrug, before plunging it into his houndstooth vest.