In the dream I drift
float to a gentle motion outside my control.  
Unaware of my surroundings. Unafraid. Until
the first touch.
A wisp tickles my face. Clammy.
It recedes.
Drifts back. Wraps like an eel around my neck,
slithers down my arm.
I shiver as
it caresses bare flesh with a slimy finger.
Tendrils lash my ankles. Drift over calf, thigh. Slither between my legs.
I thrash, flail. At nothing.
Elusive strands float away, return. Thickening. Clinging.
Entwining.
Dank fronds cover my face, fouler than night.
I open my mouth to scream.
I inhale death.

1. Prufrock measured out his life in coffee spoons.

Rebecca sympathized with the compulsion. She would have delighted in counting out days of productive work, cars delivered on time, payrolls met. Nights of uninterrupted sleep. Or borrowed books of poetry read, and returned.

Instead her life was littered with dead bodies.

Val’s panicked call had come around eleven o’clock on what had been a normal Tuesday morning. His cackle echoed through the line competing with the background voices of men at work, the buzz of official activity. Rebecca’s first fear had been a logistics mix-up at the docks. Val giggled, said no. Her second fear was worse—a twisted fender, shattered headlamps, a wire wheel bouncing along the berm of the Washington-Baltimore Parkway.

She closed her eyes. “Tell me you didn’t wreck the Bentley.”

The day before, she’d received a package from Todd Shelley—a prayer rug he’d haggled for in some Turkish bazaar. Pinned to it had been a four-color postcard of the interior of Santa Sophia with the message: “Pray for the Bentley. ‘Something that made the car go broke. And it must have been important ‘cause now it don’t go at all.’” The quip was from NASCAR driver, Michael Waltrip. Shelley was trying to be funny. Rebecca had not been amused. Especially when she read the postscript saying that the 1925, 3-Litre  would arrive in Baltimore on July 22^nd .

Three days ago.

Val, her youngest mechanic, had begged a flatbed from his cousin’s wrecking yard. That morning, he took Paulie and left Vintage & Classics at seven for the Dundalk docks in Baltimore. Instead of being on their way back with the car, they were being hassled by District police.

Val had to yell over a siren coming closer. Cops wanted to search the 3-Litre. Said they had probable cause, didn’t want to wait. Wanted Val to sign a consent form. No way was he letting them near the car. That wasn’t his call. And, no, he couldn’t contact the owner. The guy was schlepping around China in a Hispano-Suiza.

Then an officer had come across Rebecca Moore’s name on the transit papers. He said she’d do.

Rebecca had pressed the phone to her ear, sagged against the rough edge of a workbench and stared at a splat of oil on her steel-toed boots. Palms sweating, she’d heard Val screech that blood was dripping through the floorboards of the Bentley.

Rebecca downshifted, flicked the turn signal and exited the Capitol Beltway at route 214, Central Avenue. She was in the easternmost point of the District of Colombia, a far cry from the Capitol. She poked along until she reached Division Street, took it north. With each turn the per capita income dropped, as did her spirits. Mid-way down 56^th Street, she squeezed the MG against the curb behind a station wagon with four flat tires. She was out of the car before Jo could locate the pull cord to open his door.

Across the street, the Bentley baked in the sun. It was chained to a flatbed, draped with yellow scene-of-the-crime tape. The green paint was streaked with fingerprint powder. The tonneau was unsnapped and flung back, falling over the tail end of the car like a serape. The rear door was open. An amorphous bundle hugged the floor.

Emergency medics wheeled a Gurney toward the car. A large man in a polyester suit stopped them. One nodded; the other bounced on the balls of his feet. A gust of wind slapped the wrapper from a Whopper against the leg of her jeans. She bent to peel it off, reluctant to take her eyes from the Bentley. It was déjà vu all over again. Last crime, the car had been in her restoration shop with a splatter of blood on the door edge. This time, it was parked in a rundown city neighborhood, drenched in the stuff. There was no sign of either Val or Paulie.

What was the car doing here?

Chained to the rollback, it squatted in front of Naomi’s Boutique like an automotive hunchback, shadowing the display window already obscured by orange plastic to protect Naomi’s goods from sun fade. The surrounding block was littered with abandoned vehicles, emaciated row houses branded with graffiti, storefronts boasting metal grilles for after-hours protection. Derelicts huddled amid garbage cans. One balanced on a lid, stared at the Bentley like the lookout in a crow’s nest. Next door an Hispanic pretended to re-stack produce while he watched the policemen. A homeless woman, layered in castoff clothing too warm for the day, stepped on and off the curb, mumbling.

Val had complained about a stupid bag lady. Said that, while they were in the store, she’d crawled onto the flatbed to nap in the sun. Beat cops had spotted her. Crossed the street to roust her. When she’d rolled off and stood up her backside had been covered in blood that wasn’t hers.

Rebecca sensed her friend and lawyer, Jo Delacroix, standing an arm’s length behind her.

He waited for her to turn before informing her that the employees had been taken to the Sixth District Police Headquarters on 42^nd Street for questioning. An officer would drive him there. Rebecca nodded. She would follow the transporter to the impound lot and see the car safely stowed, then join them. Val was just eighteen; Paulie was a naive rich kid, amused at life. She fretted over what they’d already said to the police. They needed their lawyer.

She needed her workers.

Rebecca started across the street. The man in the shapeless suit glared as she advanced, blocked her progress  midway. He was the size of your average football tight end, six-two maybe six-four if the hunched shoulders ever straightened. He introduced himself as Lieutenant Theodore Schneider. He flashed his badge, widened his stance to center his bulk.

He asked for identification. His eyes bounced from her face to the plastic likeness, trying to match the shaved hair and smudged eyes to the woman in the photo. The picture had been snapped at the height of her days as an investigative reporter: eighty dollar hair cut skimmed the collar of an Ungaro suit, cocky grey-green stare, lips smug at an insider’s joke.

Schneider shoved the license at an underling, wrapped his hand around her upper arm and leered down at her.

“You faint?”

Rebecca shook her head. Probably not. She hadn’t the last two times she’d seen a body.

The detective propelled her toward the car. He elbowed a medical technician aside. With one hand he hoisted Rebecca up onto the bed of the rollback. She hugged the edge of the Bentley to balance.

Below her in the open car was the body of a girl. She lay face down on the floor, wedged between the seats. She was bent over, kneeling with one arm outstretched, fingers curved like a ballerina’s in first position. Her other hand disappeared under her body. Black hair spilled across her shoulders concealing her face. She could have been a dancer waiting for her music, poised to unfold and begin the routine.

If it weren’t for the blood.

Blood saturated the thin chiffon covering her thighs. It pooled around her knees. Rivulets streaked away from the body like electricity seeking an easier path. It ran under the foot rests, toward the door sills. Seeped through the carpet, soaked into the floorboards, dripped onto the bed of the trailer. The metallic stench, intensified by the heat, rose in waves. Rebecca could taste it in the back of her throat. Again. So much blood. Drained from the body of a girl too young to die.

Rebecca didn’t realize she’d swayed until a technician asked if she was okay. She held onto the door with both hands, said she was fine.

Schneider told him to cut the crap.

The medic’s mouth hardened into a frown.  He leaned in from the opposite side and gripped the body under her arms. He gently pulled the torso erect. With latex fingertips he raked back strands of matted hair then  raised the elfin chin of the too-white face of an alabaster angel.

Someone on the ground inhaled a gasp, turned it into a short cough. As if that were a cue, the corpse’s arm extended, her hand eased away from her body. Graceful fingers remained curled, frozen in the act of clutching the knife embedded in her flesh. One drop of blood trickled down her finger, quivered, then plopped onto the ivory chiffon shielding her lap.

Rebecca forced herself to look up. The teen’s soft lips were parted over small even teeth. Her dark almond eyes were wide. They stared directly at Rebecca, slightly perplexed. As if asking how her life could have been cut so short? Asking who had thrust the blade into her.