Artful Creatures
Prologue
“Fuck!” The CEO swore, loud enough to make his secretary shift somewhat uncomfortably in the room beyond the glass door. She was meant to bring his attention to the young man at the door, the one who was dressed rather smartly. He had a briefcase in his hand, which he gripped tightly. He seemed somewhat oblivious to the raging maelstrom occurring in the next room, right before his eyes, taking more interest and care in whether his tie was crooked or not. The secretary sighed.
“Sir, Mr. Irwin Banks, is here to see you,” she stated, quickly preparing herself to face the inevitable.
“Who the fuck is Irwin, Katerina?” he yelled, his voice cracking under the pressure he was applying, “and why the fuck would you ever think I care?” He whipped out his hand and with an unsightly force sent all the books on his desk out flying, each one he threw in every imaginable direction. One, in fact, he threw upwards and after around three seconds landed with a careless thud onto the CEO’s head. The subsequent slew of swear words were executed with a loudness and malignancy that were quite remarkable.
“He’s your scheduled interview for today, sir,” Katerina sighed audibly, “the one you were looking forward to all morning, sir.”
“Well, why the fuck didn’t you say that before, Katerina? What do I pay you for? Send him in!”
Katerina sighed again. She wondered whether all the stress would one day pay off and if she would ever go to the Mauritius and bask in the sunlight. She liked the Mauritius. The adverts she saw on the television said it was quiet. Before she had seen the advert, she had almost forgotten the meaning of the word ‘quiet’. It was an atrocious thing, she thought, for a person with two degrees in the English Language and its Literature to forget the meaning of such a word. But in New York ‘quiet’ was dead. Katerina smiled at the irony of that thought. But she forced herself to deal with the matters at hand.
“Mr. Lambert will see you now, Mr. Banks.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Good luck,” Katerina looked at Mr. Banks’ figure entering the CEO’s room. If she were an author, she thought, she would describe the CEO’s rage as one so great it was causing an atmospheric disturbance in the room. With her mind’s eye, she could see the negative energy convex around the room like a wheel of fire. Katerina loved metaphors to death, and would take up every opportunity to use one whenever she could. It helped her remain somewhat sane while working for the illustrious Mr. Lambert. Although she knew the most work she had to do was at the motels with him on Thursday nights. He was so old. She shuddered at the reminder.
As Mr. Banks entered the CEO’s office, several thoughts went through his head. Foremost among them was whether he should wait for the CEO to sit first after shaking his hand or simply sit down first himself. The first action signified respect for his authority and command while the latter gave an idea of boldness and confidence. It was such a fine line, and yet Mr. Banks knew that every detail was crucial with the renowned Mr. Edwin Lambert. Mr. Banks needed this job intensely, though his pride would not allow him to acknowledge his desperation. This desperation came from a certain raging need of his to feel sophisticated and superior to other people, to claw his way out of the sea of lack of individuality that was modern society. Mr. Banks needed something that mattered.
“Good Morning, sir,” he said, putting on the brightest possible tone, yet not too bright so as to scare anyone. Excessive happiness made people uncomfortable and uneasy.
“Yes, well what’s good about it, eh?” Mr. Lambert scowled. “Do sit down boy, you look like a complete dolt standing up, as if you’re waiting for something. Good, now that you’re comfortable, Mr. Banks, I am going to make you a proposition. If you manage to pull my company out of a certain predicament, I will give you the highest position in my company after my own. Do you understand? Dear god, man, you’ve gone as pale as a sheet.” From the other side of the glass door, Katerina winced in pain at this statement. She intensely disliked the lack of creativity in phrases such as ‘pale as a sheet.’
“Oh yes, sir, of course I understand,” Mr. Banks stuttered. Beneath the desk, where the CEO couldn’t see, Mr. Banks insisted on pinching himself repeatedly to make sure this was not a dream.
“Well and good then, Mr. Banks, you have three days. Should you fail to succeed I will have your head severed and I shall present it to my three children. As you know, Mr. Banks, children today have become vile creatures that know no limit to their evil. They will defile your head in unimaginable ways, and even in death, Mr. Banks, you will not want certain things done to your severed head. Are we in agreement?”
Mr. Banks gulped. “Yes, sir,” he replied, in the most audible voice he could muster (which wasn’t very audible at all).
“Good, fuck off then.”
At that precise moment, the intercom buzzed.
“What is it, Katerina?” Mr. Lambert yelled into the machine, punching the ‘speak’ button with livid fury.
“You forgot to tell Mr. Banks the predicament, sir,” the intercom said, its voice lacking any sort of emotion, “and also, sir, it’s two thirty and your wife told me to remind you to take your meds.”
“You spoke to my wife?”
“Yes, sir, please take your meds.”
Mr. Lambert swore. “OK then, Katerina,” he spoke with an icy tone, “thank you.”
“Don’t forget to inform Mr. Banks, sir.”
Mr. Lambert’s eyebrow twitched. He tore the intercom off his desk and threw it against the wall of his office. It shattered with a sound that Katerina compared to a sigh of relief.
“We’re going to need a new intercom for the boss’s office, Rob,” she spoke into her own intercom.
The intercom spoke back. “Not again.”
It seemed that Mr. Lambert’s company, which was the proud owner of several oil rigs in the Pacific Ocean, had a huge dilemma on its hands. With the UN and Greenpeace dogging the company’s posterior already, as Mr. Lambert himself put it – albeit more crudely – things weren’t looking good. Mr. Lambert certainly did not want to give them further reason to nag at his company. After the incident with the intercom, Mr. Banks sheepishly exited the room to be briefed by Katerina. Mr. Banks found Katerina much less intimidating than Mr. Lambert – surely due to her most common job, he thought to himself – but, to his utter disdain, he found her rather depressing.
Katerina told him that one of the company’s oilrigs in the South Pacific had sprung a leak. Mr. Banks found this most amusing, so much so he actually sniggered like a child in his diapers.
Oilrigs don’t spring leaks, he thought to himself, that’s absolutely unheard of!
And yet, here he was sitting at Katerina’s desk, being briefed about the dangerous absurdity that was his new assignment. It was dangerous because of the consequences, mainly, and the fact that the solution lay beyond his expertise. Mr. Banks was a planner, not a doer. He could never do something himself, but he excelled at telling people what to do, since a young age, when he would often tell other children who to steal lunch money from. The idea of having to do something often haunted Mr. Banks in his dreams at night, but he was not going to let the nightmare impede his dream from becoming a reality.
The company gave Mr. Banks three days to solve the leak problem before they’d have to go public with both the fact itself - and going public meant that Mr. Lambert would lose a lot of money – and with Mr. Banks’ execution. He needed to plug this leak, both metaphorically and literally. But how? Mr. Banks racked his brain trying to find the answer. He could not afford the luxury of not thinking about it. Every second counted in this race against time.
First, he consulted an engineer within the company. He had to be tact, he could not let slip the company’s secret since not even the workers knew about it, but he needed to know where he stood. He posed as a prospective intern from the New York University who was absolutely fascinated by oilrigs. For Mr. Banks, this was a difficult task, as he knew almost nothing about oilrigs. Mr. Banks had had no interest in researching them prior to his interview, because he was only looking to be in Mr. Lambert’s company on the business side. He thought he would have nothing to do with the messy business of doing.
“So you’re an intern, huh?” The engineer snorted, producing a gruff, oil-stained hand. This particular engineer seemed to be a mechanic also. Mr. Banks took the hand with intense, yet well-hidden, displeasure. He had an inexplicable aversion to grime. It did not suit him.
“Yes, I am,” Mr. Banks replied, quickly whipping out a hand wipe as soon as the engineer-mechanic turned round.
“So what do you want to know?”
“Well I’m terribly excited, I must say,” Banks said, with an enthusiasm that hurt people’s ears, “I do love oilrigs so much, I actually dream about them in fact.”
A look flashed onto the engineer-mechanic’s face. “All well and good son, what do you want to know?”
“Do you fix oilrigs here sir?”
“Fix them? God no! We only plan them here they’re built in parts at a factory.”
“Oh, so if one were to spring a leak, say—”
“Spring a leak? God forbid! If that were to happen, Lambert would be in deep shit, eh? No there’s no fixing an oilrig once its sprung a leak, our equipment doesn’t work at that depth!”
“So the depth is a problem?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck.”
There was not much else for Mr. Banks to do at that point. With fixing the damn thing out of the question, Banks excused himself and in his rage and frustration attempted to vandalise a nearby trashcan, but due to his delicate, slender leg and the trashcan’s metallic body, the outcome was not very pleasant. Limping back to his apartment to brainstorm further, Banks realised he probably shouldn’t have underestimated Lambert. He definitely had asked his best men about fixing this; it couldn’t have been so easy. Yet Banks wanted to leave nothing to chance, he needed to go about this from the bottom up. His life depended on it. And yet within an hour of getting home, Banks inadvertently fell asleep.
The next day brought as much fruit as the previous one. Banks was a man who believed in fate and destiny. In fact, he knew the day was going to be fruitless straight from the beginning. He knew this because in the morning he woke up to find his foot swollen to around twice its original size. No doubt that this was a consequence of his thoughtless act of kicking the metallic trashcan the previous day. Banks should have known that his delicate feet could not take such harsh beatings. He wasn’t thinking.
All day Banks brainstormed. He racked his brain and paced his room to and fro with as much tenacity as a bull which if it were human would be considered as having ‘special needs’. His girlfriend came to visit bringing along her matching frustration, proving once more they were a perfect match. Many insults were exchanged and veracities exposed leading to the venting of all their emotions in very angry yet passionate make-up sex. The sex left him tired and limping and her with a very sore groin. As is apparent, nothing happened at all for Banks that day.
But his redemption came on the third day, in the most unsuspecting of manners. This seemingly innocuous event was in fact the trigger which led to a paroxysmal chain of events that would inevitably lead to utter chaos. One can only wonder what would have changed had anything happened differently. Perhaps, if Banks had decided how he was going to spend his day before he would inevitably suffer the not-so-incipient wrath of one Mr. Lambert a tad earlier, things might have been different. But History, fickle though it is, is definite and once it has occurred, nothing can touch it. Being subjunctive about it cannot help.
This was all brought about by Banks’ decision to tie up loose ends. He wanted a dignified exit, one which involved getting as much out of life as he wanted in a single day. Sadly, his idea of a dignified exit was a tad skewed as he intended to rut himself silly with anything in a skirt.
However all this was marred by Banks’ decision to get his foot a cast before commencing his bucket list quest. He decided he was going to the lavish hospital on East 77th street just off of Park Avenue. He made his way through the constant blur of motion that was the sea of people seemingly oblivious to everything, stuck in their own little worlds, minding his own business. For some reason, as he turned into Lexington Avenue, the sea of people seemed to augment and diminish at the same time. There were more people, for sure, but it seemed as if most were just ghosts or veneers. Banks, however, paid no attention to this. He simply limped on, very indignantly, almost as if he was daring anyone to pick on him. I say almost, of course, because if someone did in fact challenge Banks, he would most definitely squeal like a twelve-year old girl and limp/run in the opposite direction. Still he walked straight on, hell-bent on getting to his destination quickly, when he came to the crossroad between Lexington Avenue and East 76th street. He turned the corner sharply and collided head on into a boy coming the opposite way. The collision threw Banks onto his arse, quite harshly, while, curiously, the boy remained standing, as if he was rooted in position.
Ignoring the pain in his buttocks, Banks looked up to scrutinise the boy who caused him further pain. Banks had to contain the urge of hitting the boy as hard as he could – society would look down upon him were he to hit a boy. All teenagers were careless these days; it seemed to be a fault that everyone else let them get away with. The boy was not tall, he was of medium height. In fact, Banks actually towered over the boy, giving him a certain sense of authority and power. Banks quite enjoyed that.
What Banks did not enjoy, however, was the rest of this boy’s appearance. He wore a bright orange t-shirt that fit him tightly, made to show off the boy’s somewhat bulky form. His legs where bound by a pair of tight black trousers, decorated with a belt with a big buckle and a single chain dangling from the side. His shoes were big and also black. He wore spiked bangles on his wrists, had his lip pierced in several places and had a single strange marking on his left bicep. It was a tattoo, no doubt, of some obscure, foreign language character. Banks did not recognise it, nor did he want to. He was too busy showing extreme distaste at the boy’s hair. It was black, with several streaks of red, in colour and messy in style – reminding Banks of some teenage cult he had heard about on the news.
The boy’s face on the other hand was very strange. Banks could not tell the boy was in fact a boy by just his face; it had some sort of feminine and masculine quality at the same time. His eyes were like green jewels, his jaw elegantly, yet subtly, defined. His nose was a perfect curve in between two pronounced and understated cheekbones and straight above fleshy lips. It was, according to Banks, a perfect face.
“Hi,” the boy said, making no attempt to help Banks off the ground. His voice had some strange fervour in it.
“Do watch where you’re going young man,” Banks replied, mustering up all the authority he could.
“Nice limp you got there.” The fervour in his voice turned cheeky.
Banks smelled a strange odour suddenly emanate. It was too faint, however, to deign his attention.
“Now see here you little miscreant,” He started, anger welling up inside him. How dare this boy make fun of him? Today was his exit. He would not be humiliated further.
“You will apologise to me immediately!”
“I don’t like you very much.”
The gall! The audacity! Banks was fuming! Almost literally.
Fuming, Banks thought. Then it struck him: The smell.
Smoke.
“Well,” the boy said, “I think it’s time we say goodbye, little man.”
What was he talking about? Did this juvenile delinquent start a fire somewhere?
“What do you mean?”
The boy said nothing. He just smiled an eerie smile.
The police found a body in the exact same spot the next day. A John Doe; burnt beyond recognition. The charred flesh had no traces of any fuel, any oil or any flammable material. It was uncanny. It was as if the body had simply combusted spontaneously.
Detective O’Mallory did not, however, believe in spontaneous human combustion. Being on the force for twenty years or so made him into a world-weary person who did not believe in a God who played with dice or in coincidence either. He saw patterns and signs everywhere.
The young officer who was helping him with this case, on the other hand, saw no pattern, no sign.
“Whoever it was, he burnt this guy good, sir!”
“Yes.” O’Mallory replied, not really taking any notice of what the younger officer was saying. In his mind cogs were wheeling and turning and co-operating together to partake in the action called thought. O’Mallory was thinking hard.
“What do you think, sir?” The officer asked, breaking his boss’s concentration. It was an apt question, however.
“I think,” O’Mallory started, “that we have a serial killer on the run.”
“Oh no doubt about that sir,” the officer replied, with a chirpy tone that quite annoyed the detective, “five burned bodies in one week certainly counts for serial killer consideration, no doubt about that.”
“I’m not talking about just that, Officer Priley,” O’Mallory replied, reaching into his coat pocket for a cigarette. “I’m talking about all these,” he paused to light the cigarette. “Coincidences.”
The officer knew better than to ask what these coincidences were. Everybody knew O’Mallory did not believe in coincidence and that’s what made him one of the best detectives on the force.
“Bodies found drowned miles away from the closest water sources, bodies found blown miles away on days where there was just a slight breeze, bodies found swallowed by the Earth in a sinkhole just big enough to fit only the victim and bodies found burned to a cinder with no fuels as if they had just spontaneously combusted.”
The officer had heard about these murders. They scared the officer.
“It’s like God’s looking through a glass, darkly.” The officer seemed to be a religious man. Catholic, O’Mallory predicted.
“What’s god got to do with it?”
“Nothing sir.” The officer knew better than to debate with the old detective.
“That’s right,” O’Mallory sighed, “nothing. The Earth is angry.”
There was silence for a long stretch of time.
“Well, where do you think we should start, sir?”
“I think it’s time, officer.”
“Time for what, sir?”
“Time to ask the Black Wisp for help.”
I don't see why you'd bother writing about characters that die within a few paragraphs of introducing them. It was almost a waste of time to read about Banks. Nothing about him was unique or fun to read, really. Besides his injury.
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