The car
belonged to Celene, to her father to be precise, the notorious Colonel
Forrester who was reputed to be the most powerful man in Saint Anthony.
The three
of them had spent the afternoon together, primping and preparing for a mini-bacchanal:
smoking opium, imbibing ether, ingesting various other substances apart from
the alcohol that Celene appeared to drink like water.
Helga played
along while she covertly concealed the scant amount of intoxicants that she
actually consumed; she did not want to lose her head, though she wanted Celene
and Dr. Johnson to believe that she had.
Helga was
on a mission and she would not be deterred; she was in Saint Anthony pretending
to be her twin sister Ingrid, who she had drawn away from the city on a ruse. The
game of switching identities was one they had played many times before…they were
good at it.
Helga was
getting away with it; at least she believed she was.
She was
certain that neither the foppish Dr. Johnson, who seemed to be distressed and preoccupied
with something else entirely, nor the reckless drunken debutant suspected a
thing.
On this
occasion Helga and Celene had dressed themselves like ladies of the night,
wearing nothing but scanty lingerie, as had become fashionable in the jazz
clubs and dance halls of Saint Anthony. They wore clear-plastic raincoats to
keep themselves dry through the storm, concealing nothing at all of their
figures.
The three
of them left Dr. Johnson’s residence just as it was beginning to rain.
Together,
they visited a couple of speakeasies where wealthy people met anonymously to
explore their peccadilloes, which they spoke of as the mystical dimensions
of hedonism.
Helga and
Celene danced together like lovers while Dr. Johnson watched them and fretted, but
all the while Helga was merely killing time until she would be able to
rendezvous with her husband, the crime boss Karl Thorrson.
Karl had no
idea that Helga was here in Saint Anthony; he had no idea that she had tricked
her sister into leaving town for the day. He had no idea that Helga was
posturing as Ingrid, and he had not slightest inclination that Helga intended
to kill him.
At the
appropriate hour Helga excused herself from the niche they were sitting in at
the Café Bohemian, she stepped over Dr. Johnson where he sat slumped over with
poor posture, and Celene who was laying across his lap, smoking one of her
slender cigarettes.
Celene
watched her go to the front desk and make a phone call, after which she quickly
returned to collect her companions and guide them toward the exit, suggesting
that they go to her studio at the warehouse for more fun.
A trip to Ingrid’s
sanctum was the enticement that guaranteed the two of them would come quickly, they
were students of the occult, and all such devotees were eager to spend time in
the abode of a witch.
Helga was
not surprised at their readiness; Celene however, was simply playing along. She
had already ascertained that Helgo was not Ingrid.
On the ride
from Jewett’s Park to the studio off Lake Street, Helga became fixed on her
desire to kill her husband; the more she concentrated on that the harder it was
to maintain the illusion she had been casting…her Ingrid mask began to crack.
When they
pulled up to the loading dock she saw that her informant had been reliable and
her husband had already arrived. Her heart began to pound with a heady mixture
of bloodlust and fear.
She was
done with him…she had come to hate the monster she was married too; he had become
a grotesque thing. Helga was so intent on seeing him dead that she did not
notice Celene pluck the tiniest hair from her neck and blow it back at her like
pixie dust.
Her
adrenalin pushed her out the car door.
She did not
notice how woozy she was feeling or how light on her feet she had become as she
went to confront her husband. She did not realize how weak she had become when
she lifted the pistol and fired the gun.
She did not
know how she had been betrayed until the bullet she had prepared glanced off the
giant Thorrson, ricocheting back at her, at which point she had become undone.
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