Gods Go Begging by Alfredo Vea Page A

out.”
    “Let there be darkness,” said Chris Gauger.
    People were standing up now, grabbing their books, jackets, and briefcases. Some were gulping down the dregs of their coffee and swearing never to buy the dishwater brew again. Someone who had eaten the oily wonton soup was hurriedly looking for his bottle of Maalox. They were heading off to open law books and read advance sheets, to peer into another failed life, to view the uglier faces of desire, to examine a twisted moment of grief or cruelty, to take it on—to assume its weight for a client who could not or would not, for a client who should not.
    “Why is it that you are taking IQ tests with one of your clients?” asked a departing voice.
    “Because el señor supremo is a white supremacist,” answered Freya, who had been fired by the repugnant man in a previous case. She continued speaking as she walked toward the jail elevator. “He hates just about everyone: Japanese, Irish, Italians, Samoans, Jews, Mexicans, Africans. He hates the National Endowment for the Arts, the Boy Scouts, librarians… everybody. But here’s the best part of all: he believes himself to be a great legal mind.”
    “Yeah,” added Jesse with a large smile, “and the winner of this IQ test gets to be the lawyer.”
    The entire group walked to the elevators. Chris wadded up his paper cup, spread his fingers for a four-seam fastball, took careful aim at a trash can, then missed it by a mile. Behind them the cooks were mopping the floors and setting the chairs on top of the tables. As the elevator doors were closing, leaving behind an empty hallway, the voice of one defense lawyer could still be heard referring to the sadomasochistic murder case.
    “What on earth do you think the mayonnaise was for? Listen, I once had this guy…”
    At the same moment that the elevator filled with defense lawyers began rising up the hollow spine of the building, three women were leaving the coroner’s office and climbing silently into a taxi that was headed for the San Francisco airport. The sisters of Persephone Flyer had just arranged to have the body of their loved one flown back home to Alexandria, Louisiana. When they learned that there were no claimants for Mai’s body, they shipped her back to Alexandria to be buried next to their dear Persephone.
    Once back home, they would shoo away that old mortician and spend a full night, from sunset to sunrise, with their dear sisters. None of them knew if the tradition, the deep need for this death watch, was French, Indian, or African, but they all knew it had to be done. It had always been done this way. The moment the three sisters had learned of the death, they had begun the process of carefully choosing the clothing in which Persephone would be buried. Now their hands would dress her, their eyes would remember her, and their lips would fill the air with stories of her life.
    As the eldest sister held Persephone’s heavy, sleeping head, the other sisters carefully bathed her with her favorite beauty soap, then moistened her with fragrant oils, removing as much evidence of the coroner’s hand as they could. No one would mention the scalpel cuts on her fingers. One sister would quietly cover them with soft daubs of foundation makeup.
    “My, my, but that scar she got when she shinnied up that telephone pole still hasn’t gone away,” said the youngest sister. “C‘esttrop dommage. These panties,” she said softly as she pulled a pair of pink panties past the knees, “were the ones she wore on her wedding day. Damn if they don’t still fit. Look here, her tummy’s as tight as a schoolgirl’s. C’est incroyable!”
    The others would agree. There were no stretch marks on her tummy. No burgeoning fetus had spread her hips. How she had wanted those telltale marks. One sister would begin to cry. One would whisper that Persephone had miscarried out of loneliness. Two of them would lift her midsection. Another would pull up a pair of cinnamon