Free Aaaiiieee by Jeffrey Thomas Page A

The Roman busts in Ricky’s halls were lifelike by comparison.
    “It’s beautiful,” Ricky whispered, his voice breaking with emotion. “Hello, Sammy.” He lifted his strained grin to the heavyset man with disheveled gray hair who called himself Kolosimo. “Kol,” Ricky prompted.
    The older man reached out, plucked the eye into his fist, drew back his arm to clench the fist against his forehead. “Ohhh…” muttered Kolosimo, eyes scrunched tightly shut.
    “Is he there?”
    “Oh…oh yes, Ricky. Oh yes. Sammy saw so much. I can see Sinatra…”
    “Peter Lawford?”
    “No…no. He died before this eye. But he saw so much. Yes…Sammy is here. He is very much soaked in.”
    “You did well,” Ricky said, turning his grin up to Jimmy. He offered his slim waxen hand, the ultimate signal of praise, and Jimmy held it lightly before Ricky slid it out of his fingers, Ricky’s gem-encrusted rings scraping against his hand.
    “If I might ask, Rick,” Jimmy ventured, not having dared until he was praised, “how do you plan on taking this in? Not swallowing it whole…”
    A slight frown crept onto the contrived features. “You know better than that, Jim. It has to be melded with the other ingredients. It will be ground into a powder and mixed in the blender.”
    “Of course. Just please be sure to have it ground very fine, is all.”
    His shrewd show of concern worked on Ricky, restoring him to his good spirits. “Jim, see to it that the replica gets made by Friday, okay?”
    “See to it, huh?” Jimmy chuckled lightly. Ricky realized his own pun and giggled. Bastinado and Kolosimo laughed heartily. Maybe Strappado’s scowl shifted a few microbes.
    The glass eye would be duplicated and the duplicate displayed in the museum alongside the duplication of the Elephant Man’s skeleton—a replica surpassing even that which Ricky had presented to the London Hospital Medical College Museum. The actual skeleton had been ground to a fine powder—limb by limb, portion by portion—and ingested completely.
    Jimmy had arranged that purchase as well, though it had been Kolosimo who had acquired the very first one…one that hadn’t been publicized in the tabloids. That had been the severed portion of Vincent Van Gogh’s right ear, acquired from a Japanese collector who had come into possession of the piece through very mysterious sources. Jimmy hadn’t believed the ear to be authentic, despite Kolosimo’s rhapsodizing over it. But after the ear was ground and mixed in the blender with the rest of Kolosimo’s recipe, and Ricky had ingested the resultant chocolate-flavored shake, the pop idol was so overwhelmed by flaming colors and swirling vortexes of energy that he was inspired to create his best selling album to that date. He told Jimmy he had been seeing brighter shades of color and the seething energy of all things ever since.
    Between Jimmy, Kolosimo, and others, Ricky Concertina had ingested and absorbed the power locked in handwriting samples (usually from Christmas cards) of such figures as David Bowie and Ringo Starr, locks of hair from John Lennon and Brooke Shields, and a finger stolen from Jimi Hendrix. Subsequently, Ricky Concertina was the most popular and powerful celebrity in the world.
    But, of course, that was something which, once obtained, had to be carefully maintained.
    “Springsteen’s new album is due to hit the stores next month, Jimmy. I’d really like you to acquire that new item very soon.”
    “I will, Ricky. I’ve got my boys probing.”
    “ You probe, Jim…now that you’ve finished collecting this wonderful piece.”
    “I will, Rick.”
    “The Boss is our biggest threat, Ricky,” Bastinado chimed in. “Maybe we should have ourselves a little plane wreck.”
    Ricky whipped around in his chair, twisting his mouth into a grimace that must have required great exertion. “You stupid shit,” he hissed. “Don’t you ever think? If Bruce got killed he’d be the biggest thing