Ordinarily, dining with Wally is a lot like sex with Wally. It’s fun, enthusiastic, and prone to wild changes in speed and direction. Today was a rarity, though, because she acted decisively and with remarkable brevity.
“A bowl of half-sour pickles. As many as you can fit into the bowl, and then, maybe more. And a tuna salad sandwich with lots of tomato. Make it on toast, please.” Wally finished with a single nod, and Toot, or Toot Toot if we were using her apparent patronymic, left with an alacrity that shocked even experienced deli people such as ourselves. She wasn’t screwing around.
Scarlett looked around, drinking in the flavor of a South Florida deli, which was a lot like a New York deli, but with better weather and more parking.
“Out of your habitat?” Risa asked her, grinning.
She considered the question, and then shook her head. “Not really. I rather like diners, and delis seem to have some of the same qualities. You know, a distinct language, unspoken rules”—she examined the clientele again, chuckling—“and the same people, just different names.”
“Like Toot Toot?” I asked.
“Yep. Just like that.” Scarlett finished as our food arrived.
While we were eating, Risa and Wally gradually drew details out of Scarlett, which were usually missing from her lengthy but uninformative chats. They invited her to speak of her childhood—wet and fun, to her more recent years—wet and profitable, but it was Wally who finally drove the point home that we weren’t just interested in Boots and Ella Tolson; we wanted to know how Scarlett’s family fit into the narrative.
Putting her sandwich down with a mournful look, Scarlett placed her elbows on the table and held her iced tea, looking into the glass with an inscrutable stare.
“Well, I haven’t always been quite this domesticated, ya know.” Her rueful grin intimated another history, and a person very different from who we were beginning to know. “My family was a lot wilder than me, and when I say wild, I mean more like animals. They were . . . well, they weren’t very good with people, just with each other. We had a house and all, and I went to school, but we lived near a big reservoir that connected into the river system in Wisconsin, and when it started to get really cold, we went south. All of us.”
“Your family migrated?” Risa asked.
Scarlett nodded, abashed by the fact. “I know, looking back, it was really different when I was living that way. We were kind of nomadic, I guess, but we weren’t malicious. I even had friends, all over the eastern United States, and I would see them every year and they never thought it was weird that we lived in more than one place. I know I didn’t.”
Risa held her hands up in apology. “I didn’t mean to offend you, honestly. I just find that kind of life interesting, that’s all.”
“You do?” Scarlett blurted in surprise.
Risa smiled and said, “I do. I lived in two places as well. To me, I always felt like I had something new to see, or experiences that were waiting for me just over the horizon. I guess I have wanderlust.”
“Me too.” Wally chimed in, and then crunched another pickle into oblivion.
Risa seemed troubled, and she formed a question. “Scarlett, if your family loved to travel, and explore, and you had so many normal things, how did they get involved in something that would make Boots and Ella accuse them of . . .” she trailed off, scrupulously avoiding any word that branded the family as killers. I gained new appreciation there and then for the subtlety with which Risa could manipulate through tact. Her extraction of information from the unusual woman was masterful. It was just a lunch, and nothing about it seemed mechanical or scripted.
Scarlett took a contemplative sip of her tea, stirring the ice with her finger. Sparks of anger flashed somewhere behind her eyes, and during the long interval, I wondered if we’d lost her. But she frowned in thought, and then spoke, her eyes downcast and sad.
“Well, about that. When I say that my family members were wild, I guess I should elaborate. My parents held jobs, sometimes, and we had all of the trappings of a fairly normal family.” Her voice was distant.
Wally chuckled. “Nobody has a normal family.”
Scarlett laughed and shook her head in agreement. “True. But only the barest parts of my family were like the other people I knew, so,”—she spread her hands wide in admission of the weirdness that had surrounded her—“we migrated. A lot. And after a long, frigid winter, we found ourselves in a river that was unknown to us. We got a hotel room, looked at some maps, and my dad decided we would stay a while. That’s when the shit hit the fan, so to speak.”
“How so?” I prompted, but gently.
Scarlett looked out at an egret walking along the median and hesitated. Then, in a rush, she said, “He drowned those people.”
An icy still fell over our table and Wally carefully placed a half-eaten pickle back in the bowl. Nobody moved. When the minute began to stretch, I placed a cautioning hand on Risa’s arm before she could interject. Wally looked with sudden interest at the placemat menu, and I put the least inquisitive expression I could create on my face. Finally, Scarlett broke her reverie with a bitter laugh.
“The Tolsons were guiding some people down the river, near a big wide turn without as much as a ripple. Where they worked, the river is quiet, friendly, you know? Just a lumbering, sweet middle-sized place to go be lazy, or fish, or swim or whatever. There’s no particular thing that could really hurt anyone.” She swallowed dryly and took a drink of tea. “Except that the inflatable boat had a rowdy, drunk bunch of idiots from Richmond, all making hillbilly jokes and shit. We were on the bank, and dad was looking at a hide scraper he had found. It was beautiful, probably a thousand years old and made by someone who had lived upriver. A Native American of who knew what nation. I marveled at it in dad’s hand, just like all of the things he found. The boat full of people came a bit closer to us, they were swinging wide in the channel and—I’ll never forget the one guy. He was close enough that I could see his tongue when he stuck it out at me, wagging it and grabbing his balls. The Tolsons didn’t say a word; they just sort of laughed it off. And then the inflatable hit a submerged tree . . . gashed the hell out of the boat and popped way too many cells for it to stay afloat. The current, it couldn’t have been more than four knots, brisk, but not anything you couldn’t, excuse me, nothing that we couldn’t handle, but the boat flipped and they were half drunk and every one of them panicked, except for the Tolsons.” Scarlett took a deep breath, and her eyes were dark with memory.
“Life preservers?” Risa asked, keeping her question as minimal as possible.
“Yep, some of them, anyway. There were six in the boat, plus the guides, and I remember staring at them as they all thrashed like wild boars in the water, then one of the women caught my eye and she screamed—she screamed at me—” She broke off, choking back something like a sob.
“Go on, it’s okay. How old were you?” I asked, sensing the rest of the story was far from good.
“She screamed at me to help, but she kept yelling ‘Quit staring and help us you hillbilly cunt’, over and over, then one of the guys pulled her head halfway under and she took in a lungful of water. I didn’t see her again, and my parents told me to stay put. So I did, but it was mostly shock. They dove in immediately and I remember being so angry at the woman, but relieved that my parents were going to help.” Tears fell openly now on her cheeks, and Wally slid her hands across the table, palms up. Scarlett took them and clutched them tightly, the skin going white on their fingers.
“But they didn’t help, did they?” Wally’s question was rhetorical.
“The guides, the Tolsons, they were coming ashore. They had one person each and one guy was okay on his own, he was swimming at an angle and he seemed fine. I saw my father’s hand snake up under the life vest on the woman, who was farthest away, and she went under like a cork, bobbing once, and she didn’t even have time to scream. By now, everyone was too tired to yell, and I watched my family, led by my father, s
eparate every single person from their vest, pull them under, and murder them. But the Tolsons, they were last. My father was grating in their ears that they brought poison into the river with people like he was killing, and they should be thankful he was going to get it over with fast. It made . . . it made me think he had done it before.”
She shook her head ruefully at that secret come to light. “He drowned them last, pulling them both up once and clearing their lungs. Their eyes were rolling white like animals in pain and I think I heard one of them asking Jesus to help, but no one came to help. Not then. There was only my dad and his muscles and his strong kicks downward every time they tried to fight their way free. And then, it was over.”
A wintry smile crossed her face as she looked at our rapt expressions. “They hid the bodies and the boat. No one has ever found it, but the son, Boots—he’s really smart. He asked around right away, and he started checking upriver and he didn’t waste a minute. Then, he found a hotel we’d stayed at, started chasing down lots of information that we hadn’t bothered to keep secret, and two months later, for whatever stupid reason, we went back the same way. He was waiting. I can tell he didn’t think we were really human, but he was brilliant at stringing traps. Ella worked one side, Boots worked the other, and they had a purse seine net that caught my mother and father in one second. I watched Boots Tolson empty a pistol into my dad, and I can’t say the son of a bitch didn’t deserve it. But it didn’t end there, ya know? They were just getting warmed up. Never mind they killed my mom ten minutes later when she tried to get to my father, they put their heads together and hunted down other Swimmers. People I guess I was related to, but never really knew. Boots was like a . . . I watched him once, setting a net in West Virginia. I’d followed him there. I was miserable, had been land dry for weeks, just another normal girl, right?” She laughed, short and sour. “He watched a teenaged Swimmer get in the water near a train trestle, and dropped a stick of dynamite in the water just before she swam under the bridge. It blew her apart, she must have landed almost on her back, and all he did was smile and walk to his car. How he knew she was there, I’ll never know, but I think he’s really smart and he did the dirty work while Ella watched.”
“Did?” Wally perked up at the past tense.
“Yep, did. Not does. I watched him again, once, and he’d lost the stomach for it. I got to know him, and he’s just sad. He’s not broken, not suicidal or anything, but Ella’s kind of a bitch, their life is lonely, and they feel like they’re on an island of weirdness in the middle of southern Virginia.”
“How extensively did you get into their business?” I asked.
Scarlett’s lip curled. “Personal business? Very, because when Ella yells at him, you can hear it for a mile. Sure, I had a little fun with Boots, he’s handsome, sweet—I mostly slept with him in order to help him forget how pissy his sister was, and also a little bit because I knew she would hate it when she found out.” She smiled wickedly. “But if you’re talking about their ability to gather information, I think they’re both pretty good at reaching out, but they’re too scared to leave home, unless it’s for a Swimmer. They’re fixated, but they definitely know about a lot of . . . other things that are out there.”
I tapped my fingers on the table until Risa put a hand over mine. “Sorry.” I said, and then asked Scarlett, “Did you see any of their sources? Specific names, locations, that sort of thing?”
A single shake of her head, but she grinned. “I didn’t. But Boots is lonely, ya know?”
I squelched that line of thinking with a gesture. “They’ll put two and two together, Scarlett. You can’t go back there and ask someone who you have seen kill people—with a gun, as well as dynamite, mind you. It’s too risky.”
An exaggerated sigh burst from Wally and she let her head drop backwards until her neck rested on the pleather booth. She straightened and looked at Scarlett. “Why do you wear the red lipstick?”
Scarlett shrugged. “I’m a redhead and my lips get chapped from the water. I like the color. Plus, it’s hard to feel feminine when you’re wet as a sponge all the time.”
Wally leered. “Did Boots like it? The kissy kissy?” She dissolved into childish noises before becoming serious again. “Well, did he?”
“I guess. I know Ella hated it, she was always looking for evidence of it on his face.” Or wondered where it was that she couldn’t see it, her eyes said, twinkling.
“Give it to me. I will buy you more,” Wally said
Scarlett smiled hesitantly. “I have a backup at all times.”
Wally gestured at Scarlett, who handed over the tube. Winking at Risa, she slipped it in her pocket, standing with finality. “Come, Risa. Let us see how Boots likes blonde and brunette girls, too.”
37
Ariana
The dream was as pleasant as he could imagine. He floated, disembodied and invisible within the cave that served as his dominion for those halcyon days when his judgment was beyond law. For so many souls, his determination of worth was the connection to life itself. What was it called now? Altamira? His dream mind puzzled over the Spanish landmark, then decided that it was lost to time. It had been, he calculated lazily, more than a thousand years since he had presided over the chamber. Paintings of beasts long dead danced merrily on the walls, and the shadows of tallow lamps threw demonic shapes moving wildly about as the columns of petitioners and penitents would shuffle forth, paralyzed with either fear or desire. It was where he earned a name as fearsome as any spoken throughout history, but also so carefully guarded that when he was forced to flee, his name, along with the stone place of his justice, was lost to time.
The Bishop of Scales will see you today. Those simple words froze the hearts of any who he deemed impure. And oh, the impurity was rampant during those years of power and lust. It was a wonder he had time to collect the debts of those lucky few he decided to assist, and the fewer still who realized, much too late, that his attentions to their concerns would cause them to wish fervently for death. Such creativity took an artist, and he was proud of his skill with the lash of wishes granted and punishments levied.
I wonder if the scales are still there. Bronze they had been, delicate, even feminine in their construction. A set of humble dishes hung on a wire chain of tiny links, so gracile and at odds with their purpose. How they would swing down, or up, with aching slowness as they were filled by the penance of those he had found wanting. Blood. Flesh. The tongue of a gossip, or the eyelids of a sluggard. The seed of a man found lying with his daughter—how he had delighted in handing down that punishment, watching the man’s hand whip furiously back and forth on his limp cock, only to hear the guilty sob that he could not perform, and so, could not hope to fill the scale enough to balance his fine. The man’s testicles made up the difference nicely, removed there and then by a burly sinner who acted as a part-time enforcer and a full-time sadist. Oh, the dispensation of justice was so demanding, it was a wonder he found time for himself during those hectic years.
But he had. He found time visiting all manner of cruelty upon his people in an utterly random series of wanderings. There was time for supping at the breasts of new mothers, one hand over their mouths and a laugh in his throat at their horror, and time to move amongst the villages within range of his chamber, where he would sample all manner of things from his subjects. Eventually, even his imagination began to wane under the demands of inventiveness, and his lack of creativity began to leave him aching. There were things missing from his life. That unpleasant fact came to him one day while he took his pleasure with a nameless family who gave him a moment’s sport. As he let the last body fall to the dirt, he understood that his entire legacy would be regarded as shallow. Temporary, even forgettable—these were the words that described his efforts, and his fists curled in rage at the realization that he was not building, but merely destroying. Yes, the joy of feasting was without parallel, but it was becoming rote. He needed to grow. Does the dragon molt? We shall see.
He recollected a stoneworker some distance away, and set his feet to motion. The blazing sun kept him hot and motivated, and his thoughts ran to grandiose designs as he covered the distance to one who could build in his image. A burn scar from one of his earlier spring sojourns still lashed the land with char and stubble, but green pushed through the ashes and remains of scorched timbers. He could not even recall if it had been pleasurable, but it must have, because in his memory he could find disappointment, except for one humiliation centuries earlier. That would be rectified soon enough. Death was a whisper, a mirage, and nothing to concern him—certainly not here in these hinterlands filled with docile, unimaginative prey. Disgust surged fresh within him and he quickened his pace, minding his anger so that he did not overset his natural sense of direction. There will be world enough for unending destruction when I ascend—
—And then he was back in his hotel room, but not really. A silhouette, female he surmised, was busily attending his body, which lay supine and inert in the bed. The entire room seemed shadowed somehow, washed out in tones of sepia and gray, and in the midst of the bland haze, stood the object of the stranger’s intense scrutiny. The woman’s hands moved in a dance, placing objects of some tantalizing, unseen nature. He tried to peer around her, but it seemed there were limitations to the vision of his dream eye. Then she cleared to one side, but remained active. A semi-circle of jars began to appear as she placed them in a loose crescent about the jumbled bedclothes. The petite urns were small and shapely, and spanned a riot of color, each painted or enameled in brilliant hues. He watched, rapt, as her fingers dipped first into one, then the next, and began oiling his body with unguents and pastes dotted with bits of herbs. Her hands moved with a gentle precision, she neither explored nor tarried, and he began to sense other aspects of her presence. Smells, perhaps, tantalizing hints of aromatic creations that were familiar, and yet well beyond the subtlety of his home culture, lost to the recesses of his mind. It was so considerate, even loving.
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