The Shakespeare Incident Read online

  The desk clerk looked at them strangely—was this a drug deal, some lesbian prostitution, or a kidnapping? He stared at Denise, puzzled. “What are you?”

  Why do people keep asking her that? Denise gave him the magic credit card and flashed her law student ID.

  “Are you Attorney Jen Song?” the clerk asked.

  “I’m her daughter, I’m an authorized user of this card.” Denise showed her clinical law student ID.

  “OK, I have to run it through for one night. Do you mind if we take an extra deposit on the card, just in case?”

  “Not at all.”

  The magic card came through. It always did. Thankfully, Room 333 had two queen beds. Denise assembled her staff and put it at the side of the bed, just in case. Nastia quickly retired to the bathroom and locked the door. Whatever drug Nastia had used behind closed doors was some kind of downer, she was groggy when she emerged.

  “Can I see the photos of Denny?” Denise asked.

  “Not now, too tired.”

  Nastia safely snoring, Denise picked up her staff. She did five minutes of martial arts katas with her staff—a pantomime of combat taught by her women’s self-defense teacher.

  Nastia would sleep through anything. Denise rifled through Nastia’s large purse, avoiding the zipped compartments. She noticed a flask poking out of one compartment. She unscrewed the cap and sniffed at the opening. It smelled terrible. Was it a precursor for meth? She really didn’t want to know what this woman hid and zipped the flask back into its compartment.

  She emptied out some of the items she presumed were related to Denny. They were the usual photos and even a small wrestling trophy from that junior high tournament. First, she held the piece of paper where her mother supposedly signed away her rights to Denny.

  As she closed her eyes and concentrated, Denise could picture her mother getting the form in the mail. “It says here that I might have a claim to someone named ‘Denephew Solzhenitsyn,’” Jen said out loud in the vision to Aunt Luna, the big-time lawyer.

  “Just sign it so they can’t come after you for money,” Luna said in the vision. “It’s probably a scam. Denny’s dead.”

  Denise didn’t know whether she was angrier at her mother or aunt. That was all she could get from the form. Denise had never made it to the Domestic Relations class in law school, so was unsure of the document’s validity in American or International court. Still the document must have been authentic enough to allow Nastia to take care of the boy for the first few years of his life and then allow him to be taken in by this Dunsinane family over in Lordsburg as a foster child. Record keeping in the New Mexico outback didn’t always make it online so that’s why he was so hard to find.

  Nastia chortled in her sleep. Denise put the forms back in the purse and picked up some pictures. One was a photo of Nastia with a fourteen-year old Denny, and a young cowgirl; the three of them standing by the ranch. Denise put the photo to her forehead and felt a slight vibration.

  She instantly disliked the tall cowgirl in the picture. Cordelia was everything Denise was not—tall, confident, a woman who belonged.

  Denise held the picture to her forehead again and could picture the scene. She visualized Nastia giving Denny a final hug before leaving him at Cordelia’s ranch.

  “Your mother is going away for a while,” Nastia told Denny in the vision. “So’s Fally. You’ll live with these people.”

  “You were never my mother,” Denny said to Nastia. “Will you finally tell me: who was she?”

  “Your real mother was a woman named Jen Song,” Nastia told Denny.

  Denise could visualize what happened next. Denny took the name Denny Song and probably wrote to Jen. Jen was probably away in Asia at that time, and she either never received the letter or Aunt Luna handled it. Aunt Luna probably figured it was all part of the same scam and never responded.

  “Do I have a sister?” Denny asked Nastia in the vision.

  “Denise.”

  Denise dropped the photo as if it had cut her. She carefully put them back in the purse. Nastia gave another loud snore and tossed and turned some more.

  Now what?

  Denise hesitated for a moment, but realized it was time to dive in, so to speak. She took a deep breath and went to the other bedside.

  “You can do this,” she said to herself. She had used her touch on Marley’s brick, why not try it on the live body of a stranger. After another moment of hesitation, she gently touched Nastia’s forehead.

  Denise wasn’t like Freddy in Nightmare on Elm Street or even Leo in Inception. She couldn’t influence dreams, and most times people didn’t even notice her. She’d done it a few times with her cousin Dew when they were younger.

  Invading Dew’s dreams made her feel dirty. With Nastia, she knew it would get downright ugly.

  Denise focused all of her energy and was soon inside Nastia’s dream. The discussion must have triggered a memory and Nastia was reliving it in her mind. After her eyes adjusted, Denise recognized the El Paso skyline twenty-seven years ago, right across the border from Mexico. In revolving police and ambulance lights, she could see herself, her infant self, being cradled in her mother’s arms. Damn, her mother was so young and even more beautiful back then.

  In the dream, the infant Denny lay stillborn on a blanket. The small body was lifted carefully and taken to an ambulance by two EMTs. The ambulance door was not shut. The two EMTs, male and female were distracted, tired. They were smoking joints against the red ambulance doors before the final run to the morgue.

  Denise could shift her point-of-view and could see that Nastia was indeed behind an abandoned car in the alley, just as she had said. Denise spied a shiny object on the ground in the distant revolving ambulance lights.

  And then Denise noticed a silver cup on the ground.

  Where had Denise seen that cup before? The cup was similar to the ones featured in the 24 Grails Contest. That was odd.

  The object wasn’t just a cup; it was heavy, like it was made of sterling silver. It was a grail.

  Nastia had a flask and when she opened it there was a whiff of something terrible. It wasn’t alcohol, it smelled like cleaning fluid and motor oil. Why would this woman keep that in her flask?

  The ambulance door was still open, the EMTs were still smoking. They looked up for a moment, cognizant of the smell, but soon turned their attention to each other. Nastia was drawn to the grail, poured the liquid into the grail. The liquid bubbled. She hesitated for a moment, noticed that Denny was still on the gurney and the EMTs were still distracted. She hurried over to the gurney, then poured it from the grail directly on Denny’s face.

  Denny opened his mouth, and some of the liquid got into his mouth. He then took a breath and opened his eyes abruptly but didn’t cry. He smiled at Nastia.

  “Save me!” a voice said in the dream. Was the voice Denny’s? How could an infant talk?

  “I will save you,” a voice replied. It was Nastia.

  Meanwhile, the male EMT continued his embrace of the female EMT. It was almost as if Nastia was doing some Jedi mind trick to keep them occupied.

  Denise could see her own mother, still cradling her infant self, look over at Nastia. Was there a nod? It was hard to tell. If anything, Jen was nodding at the young Denise in her arms.

  Nastia nodded back. The coast clear, Nastia grabbed the infant Denny and took him away, right off the gurney. Nastia hailed a cab down the street and drove off with the baby. Denise was there in the cab with them. Suddenly Nastia noticed her.

  “What are you doing in my dream, bitch?”

  Who said that? Denise felt intense pain, she couldn’t breathe, someone was choking her. No this wasn’t the dream. She opened her eyes to the dark hotel room.

  “Get the fuck out of my dream!” It was Nastia, now wide awake. Nastia’s arms tightened around Denise’s neck…<
br />
  Denise gasped…

  Chapter 7

  They struggled for a moment, but Denise was younger and stronger than Nastia. Denise pushed the older woman back onto the bed. Before Nastia could charge her again, Denise grabbed her staff and assumed a fighting stance like a stick fighter from a martial arts movie.

  Still intoxicated and half asleep, Nastia stumbled toward Denise but when she saw the staff, she held up her hands. “Don’t ever go inside my brain again!”

  “I’m sorry,” Denise said. “You’re like me?”

  Nastia snarled at her. “I used to be. I don’t like it when people like you get inside my brain.”

  “I promise I won’t do it again. But I need to know, was that real? Did you see a silver cup or whatever it was? Was that a memory or a dream?”

  “I don’t know, kinda both.”

  “So how did you bring Denny back?”

  “It wasn’t me that brought him back, if he was ever really gone. It was the cup. What do they call those cups, like with King Arthur?”

  “A grail?”

  “Yeah a grail. Just like in that 24 Grails Contest. I never saw it before, never saw it again. It just appeared for a moment and I figured it had to be there for a reason. And I don’t know why I always carry this flask with me. It’s kinda funny, but Fally always told me it would bring good luck. And I can order this fluid online. Don’t even ask me about that!”

  Denise wanted to know more about the smelly liquid in the flask, and sensed it would be important, but she didn’t want to change the subject. “So, what did you do with that liquid?”

  “I poured the stuff from the flask into the grail and then poured it on Denny. And then the grail was gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “But then again, maybe it was never there at all.”

  “So, you can’t do things like that anymore?”

  “I can sense things. I sensed your brother’s pain and I just knew that the grail could save him. That’s why I grabbed him. I was trying to save him.”

  “So why did you really call me here?”

  “I want to make it right with you, right with Denny, right with your mom,” Nastia said. “Maybe this is all happening for a reason. I know my ex, Fally, is involved in all of this. You got to help me. This restraining order is real. I am in real danger.”

  The room lights flickered on and off.

  Denise was a sucker for tears. “So, what do you need from me?”

  “Just promise me one thing, no matter how messed up it gets, even if I tell you to stop, you’ve got to protect me from Fally and his gang. And I will help you find your brother. I will make everything all right.”

  Nastia reached out to Denise with her left hand. Denise took it. The rumbling subsided.

  “Promise,” Denise said.

  The two hugged. Denise did feel a slight electrical charge which faded rapidly. Moments later, Nastia was fast asleep again in her bed.

  The grails, and the smelly liquid, clearly had something to do with her brother. What could this silly treasure hunt have to do with her brother’s resurrection twenty-seven years ago?

  Denise took an allergy pill, and then another and was finally out for the night.

  Chapter 8

  Thursday, July 9

  Denise awoke Nastia at 6:30 in the morning, hitting her lightly with a pillow. Nastia awoke and after one moment of confusion, she nodded at Denise.

  “We got to get to court,” Denise said. “You’re still coming with me?”

  “Yes.” Nastia rubbed her eyes. “We’re cool, no? I told you that your mom signed the rights away. It’s like what-do-you-call-it, kosher.”

  “I think the statute of limitations has long since passed. We can work it all out later.”

  Thankfully Nastia didn’t mention anything about the night before. Denise showered; Nastia did not. Nastia wore the same clothes as before. Denise had gone with her usual courthouse ninja style—all black.

  Denise had a mobile printer and printed out some documents and case law for the morning. How hard could this hearing be?

  Outside, Crazy Town Roswell felt sane so early in the morning, but that could change as the temperature and humidity began to rise. She could smell the dairy farms off in the distance. The tourists in UFO t-shirts looked for fresh alien wreckage up and down Main Street.

  When they arrived at the courthouse, it was already hot and muggy. Roswell must be the most humid place in New Mexico from the farms and lawns irrigated by the brown waters of the nearby Pecos River. If this was Little Texas, it was more like the swamp of Houston than the desert of El Paso.

  The town’s district courthouse looked more medieval than New Mexican. In the front, a majestic green dome floated over the brick walls, but the more modern back of the courthouse was now the entrance.

  Denise parked the Lexus as far away from the courthouse entrance as possible in the large parking lot, which was surprisingly full this early in the morning. They were next to a shiny black van that looked like it had a bicycle on the roof. Denise felt something electrical emanating from the van. Nastia looked at her, she clearly felt something too. Nastia pointed to the courthouse. “Are you sure about this?”

  “I guess so.”

  Nastia pointed to a few beat up pick-up trucks in the parking lot.

  “Those are Fally’s people,” Nastia said.

  Denise wished that she could bring her staff. The two women ascended a steep flight of stairs to get to the main entrance. Nastia was winded by the third step and hesitated, especially when she saw a large group ahead, waiting to go past the metal detectors inside.

  “I don’t know about this.” Nastia said. “Are you sure you can protect me?”

  Fally, now dressed in a light suit, was already inside, on the left side of the atrium. He was soon joined by the rest of the Groundlings, ten strong, who were all waved through by security. They wore polyester suits that tended toward the brown and tan, reflecting the desert outside, and looked more like a church group than a street gang.

  One of the ten, a man even larger than Fally, must have had Tourette’s because he kept swearing as he talked on the phone which was against the rules. The man was completely dressed in purple but was certainly no prince. When a deputy approached, he showed her some kind of laminated green disability card. She sighed and let him keep the phone.

  The Groundlings were of various races and ages, as if someone had plucked random people out of a crowd and gave them a bad attitude. But there was something about this bunch. Denise felt a wave of electricity pass through her like a solar flare. Upon closer inspection, the Groundlings had tattoos sneaking up under their sleeves and around their necks—tattoos of snakes and tentacles wrapped around virginal maidens. Were those neck tattoos moving?

  Nastia was clearly agitated by the Groundlings. So was Denise. Nastia turned back to the door to flee but Denise grabbed her. The posse stayed there in the atrium, watching Denise and Nastia as they waited in line to pass security.

  Denise and Nastia finally made it to the security checkpoint comprised of a heavy-set man and a large female deputy. The female deputy had a commanding presence—she looked like a mixed martial arts (MMA) competitor who was more martial than artistic.

  Nastia made it through the checkpoint without issue. She was a frequent flier here after all.

  With Denise it was another story. The male security officer grabbed Denise’s phone when it went into the metal detector. “You can’t have a phone in here unless you’re a lawyer or you have a disability. ID?”

  Denise flashed her clinical law student ID.

  “Do you work for a lawyer?” the male guard asked. “Only lawyers are allowed to bring their phones in.”

  “I’m a clinical law student under Rule 5-110.1 of the New Mexico Rules of Criminal Procedure for the District
Courts,” Denise said by rote. “My supervising attorney is on her way. Look for a well-dressed Asian woman named Jen Song.”

  “I don’t know her,” the guard said.

  Nastia signaled to the female deputy. “She’s with me,” Nastia said. “She’s my lawyer.”

  The female MMA deputy gave her the benefit of the doubt. “Court is downstairs.”

  “I’ll look for that other lawyer,” the male deputy chimed in. “The songbird, if and when she gets here.”

  “We might be done before she gets here,” Denise said.

  The Groundlings hadn’t moved. Their ears perked up. “She looks like Denny,” the purple man said.

  “Yeah, Prospero,” Fally replied. “That’s why we’re here.”

  A guard announced that the air conditioning was out, but they were working on it. Denise took a moment to get her bearing, hoping the AC worked somewhere in the building.

  From a guard she learned that the domestic violence/ restraining order hearing would be held in the basement, in one of the cramped magistrate courtrooms. The Groundlings clearly wanted to get ahead of Denise and Nastia, they had already crowded ten in a single elevator.

  When Denise and Nastia found the courtroom in the basement, the Groundling were already seated inside. The courtroom air was even more fetid. The crowd made it even worse. Had the polyester ever been washed? Denise had suffered from occasional bouts of claustrophobia, but never like this. It was more of a coffin than a courtroom.

  Down here, Denise had no phone reception whatsoever. Even worse, her spark reflected off the walls back at her, giving her a headache.

  The MMA deputy came down to play courtroom bailiff. She directed them inside to the right side of the court room. The Groundlings were already on the left, in the two back rows.

  “We’re good to go. But you gotta fix the air conditioning down here, we’re dying,” she spoke into the radio. “The courtroom is really uncomfortable.”