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“I’m Margaux LeClaire,” said the woman on screen. “In case you didn’t know that.”
She stretched her yellowish-blond hair into a tight bun, mak- ing her look like the wolfish grandmother in Little Red Riding Hood. Her New Orleans roots prompted her to tan too often, tinting her skin forever Oompa-Loompa orange. Her jewelry was made of bright pink and yellow stones so heavy that they weighed her neck down.
Like a golden toilet, the look was attractive...in a remark- able way.
Margaux LeClaire looked rich with a side of white trash pok- ing through.
“I don’t need prayers,” she said. “How much do miracles cost?”
“Excuse me?” Abbot Joseph scoffed as the monks shuffled uncomfortably. “You can’t buy miracles.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Margaux said. “Jesus was Jewish after all.” Margaux slinked into a dark Lincoln Center. Rubble from a fashion show covered the floor, Visage purses carelessly tossed aside. Posters for the Visage luxury brand lined the walls. “You can’t buy mira- cles,” Margaux chided in a sarcastic tone. “Tell that to my church on Madison Avenue. I have to give them ten grand just to piss in their toilet. If that money’s really for Jesus, he’s one greedy little Jew.”
“Ma’am,” the abbot said. “We’re going to have to move for- ward if you keep speaking this way.”
Margaux opened the door to the fashion show where a coat made of human skin was being lifted off Ava Germaine’s naked body by a small crane. Crevier crystals were sewn into purplish skin. Elaborate embroidery tangled around gemstones and bedazzled buttons.
Margaux wobbled up to the bloody eyeball on the runway and put her phone next to it until a police officer swatted her away.
“That’s my model,” she said, pointing the camera toward the girl beneath the coat. “I’m a model agent. And somehow, my model wore a dead body onto the Visage runway show.”
“Is she okay?” Abbot Joseph asked.
“Not the point,” Margaux said. “I’d like to pay one of the monks to come down here and tell the police I’m Christian and