Walter Kist & the Seven Whorls Chapter 14

“Hand me that louche, Walter.” Irma downed the absinthe in a gulp.

“Those chalk raws...” she wheezed, her voice swept away by Clandestine. “Tell me more of their names and colours.”

Kist began listing them.

“Root Red,” she echoed. “That’s a blush. You know, Errol always said my makeup line would never fly. He didn’t have any faith in me, Walter, not like you do. Is there a colour for faith?”

“There’s a chakra right here.” He pointed to the air above his head. “It’s called Soulstar. There lives faith. Its colour is pure crystalline white, translucent and glowing.”

“A lipstick!”

And then something happened. Irma’s enthusiasm suddenly disappeared and was replaced with a steely glare directed at me. “Now I know who you are,” she said, training her pistol on me. She glanced down at Kist’s backpack. There, peeking out from a pocket, was a photo of the silver queen.

“This whore was fooling around with my husband, wasn’t she, Walter!? And then, not satisfied with that betrayal, she had to take you too.”

“Irma,” Kist said softly. “That’s not true.”

“I think you’re lying, Walter.” She turned the pistol on him again. “Get up.” She rose from the cot with him and cocked her rod. Her trigger finger quivered and I knew it was now or never. I lunged for the pistol. A loud crack burned my ears and a sharp pain seared through my shoulder. I fell to the floor as Kist and Irma struggled above me.

Before I bit the dust, as I was sure I would, I bit her ankle. There was a scream and she dropped her gun. I reached for it, felt hot metal on my fingertips, then became aware of blood, endless blood, my blood, red as cherries…and then, I felt the warmth of the West Coast sun as it eased me into sweet dreams, until everything went black.

My wound was worse than Jake Gittes’ slashed nose but not as bad as Sam Spade’s broken heart. Kist sustained a few scrapes wrestling the gun away from Irma but was otherwise all right. He stayed with me the whole time I was in the hospital then brought me back to full health in the secret room.

As winter fell outside in quiet white splendour Kist told me stories about his travels in Europe. My favourite was the one about how he’d been on the trail of Hem’s ski tracks in Switzerland when one night, he’d been drying his socks in front of a crackling fire. Suddenly they were set aflame. “The problem being I was still wearing them at the time.” This was more alpenglow than he’d bargained for and he knew his shot limit had been reached. It was time to come home.

When spring brought new buds I was completely healed and it came time for us to bid adieu to the secret room. We headed for the City of Light where we had a show of our photos and found a new garret for our life together.

Irma got a year in the pen and was out in nine months for good behaviour. She started "Tragalean Cosmetic Company", and her Shimmering Chakra line was a big success: Sapphire Voice Lipstick, Emerald Heart Eye Shadow, Root-Red Blush.

Kist found a publisher for The Chakra Shots and it did especially well in stores where they teamed it with Irma’s paint: “Flip through the pages of The Chakra Shots in Crown Violet Nail Polish.” Or “Walk the road to enlightenment with toenails of Tantric Orange.”

Kist and I moved to Paris and had a baby.

Strolling on the cobblestones of Gay Paree with our little Cosette we discovered that whorls of energy exist in everything and come in every colour, from the golds and blues of a carousel in Montmartre to the nicotine-stained fingers of a beggar in the Rue Mouftard, if only one had eyes to see.

The End

Thanks to my wonderful model Chloe Wilson. And thanks for reading!