Mercurial Dreams

by Hadena James

  He sighed again and drank from his glass. He had several bodies in his pool already. He had intended to clean it next week. It would have to wait now. He would be scouting new positions later this week or maybe the week after. The bodies in the pool could wait and he had plenty of unsold sculptures lying around. It had been almost five years since he had done a show.

  That thought brought another sigh from him. He imagined the critics were saying something about him fading into obscurity or worse. They expected him to display pieces all the time, but that was tiring, even for a man in his forties.

  He booted his laptop and found a few specific pieces of email. They were from galleries requesting pieces. Was it wise to send them pieces right now? So soon after the bodies had been found? He wasn’t sure. He closed them again. He’d think about it tomorrow. Tonight, he was going to get blind drunk. It was his birthday and he was forty-three years old. He’d been a widower for exactly twenty of those years.

  His gaze found the pool again. They had plans that night, a special night. She wouldn’t tell him what they were supposed to be doing, just that it was something special. Something she knew he was going to love.

  He’d never found out what she had planned for the surprise. She had drowned in the pool in the middle of the afternoon on his twenty-third birthday. They had been married for four years, they’d been high school sweethearts. They had lost their virginity together, one hot night in Death Valley, camping when their parents thought they were with friends. They had gone to the Racetrack that night. She had explained the Sailing Stones and they had watched the sky. It had also been the first time he had seen stars.

  He’d been born in Los Angeles and they didn’t have stars either. Then when he was in sixth grade, his father had been transferred to Las Vegas and there had still been no stars. He had only heard about them before that night. He owed his dead wife everything. She had given him a career in art, taught him the ways of making love to a woman and showed him the stars for the first time in his life.

  He drained his glass and refilled it from a bottle sitting on the shelf near the window. He missed her so much. He moved his gaze from the pool to the old Polaroid photos of her. Her face tilted back, eyes closed in ecstasy as he moved in and out of her and snapped her picture, over and over again. The pictures and his body creating a rhythm that he couldn’t have expected. He had framed them some time ago so that he could look at her face whenever he wanted.

  There was an unexpected knock on his door. He sat down his glass of wine, covered his most recent sculpture and headed towards the sound. He had to stoop slightly to look through his peep hole. He sighed and opened the door.

  “We figured you were spending your birthday alone, again,” his brother pushed his way into the room. Behind him trailed his wife and two kids, his wife was carrying a cake.

  “You know how it is,” he shrugged and locked the door to his studio.

  “We’ve come to celebrate with you,” his sister-in-law, Teresa, said, sitting the cake down in the kitchen.

  “Hi Uncle Kyle,” one of the little girls, Mandi, giggled at him. “We brought you a present.”

  The two girls pulled out a wrapped package from behind their backs. It was obvious they had wrapped it. The corners were not pulled in and the seams were off kilter. The paper was covered in Disney Princesses. Kyle took the package from them.

  “Thank you girls,” he said to them.

  “Aren’t you going to open it?” Layla, the oldest girl, asked. Layla was nine, her sister Mandi was six, Kyle liked the girls, but he wasn’t fond of unannounced visits. But he should have known that Mike, Teresa, and the girls would show up today.

  “I will after cake,” Kyle grinned at the girls and pulled them in for a hug.

  Ten

  “We have bodies and a possible cause of death,” I said as Xavier and I entered yet another morgue.

  “And salts,” Xavier reminded me.

  “And salts,” I parroted. The walls were painted an awful blue color that I was sure was supposed to be soothing, but made the place look dreary. The floors were linoleum tiles, white with black flecks in it that did nothing to increase the appeal of them or the wall color.

  “Is that in anyway helpful?” Xavier asked.

  “Nope,” I answered as we went through a set of stainless steel doors. At this point, any attempts to hide the fact that we were in a morgue were completely stripped away. The entire place was done in stainless steel and tiles. The tiles were a dark blue and much more appealing than the colors in the hallway. The floor was also tiled, but they had stuck to basic black. It was an odd mixture of colors and I couldn’t help but remind myself that just because I wouldn’t want to spend much time in the room, didn’t mean it couldn’t appeal to others. “How long before our expert gets here?”

  “Tomorrow,” Xavier answered.

  “Then why are we here?” I asked.

  “Because I asked for you to be here,” someone turned around from the row of drawers on the wall. She looked young, younger than me and since I wasn’t really that old, biologically speaking, this made me frown.

  “And you are?” I asked, walking forward.

  “I am Dr. Andrea Price. I’m guessing you are Aislinn Cain and Xavier Reece,” she said.

  “Yep,” Xavier answered.

  “Can I ask what I’m supposed to do with all these bodies until your specialist arrives?” Her tone became viperish in a matter of milliseconds.

  “My best guess, keep them from falling apart,” Xavier shrugged at her.

  “This is Vegas, the drawers stay pretty full. Your bodies are not helping,” she spat at him.

  “Well, maybe we could run a special announcement asking people to not die in the next twenty-four hours,” Xavier grinned at her.

  “I don’t think this is funny,” she narrowed her eyes even more. I was beginning to think her entire head was going to implode.

  “He doesn’t either, not really, but we have orders and you have orders and I imagine we are going to have to learn to get along, so this isn’t really a great start,” I intervened. “I am a little hard pressed to believe that you have no room in the entire office for our bodies.”

  “Our facilities haven’t yet caught up to our population,” Dr. Price informed me.

  “That’s a real bitch,” I said to her. “If people only knew how important these types of places were, they’d up their funding. It’s that way all over the place. We visit about thirty morgues a year and none of them ever seem to have the room they need. Do you get many bodies from the desert?”

  “Um, what?” For a second at least, I seemed to have confused Dr. Price, which was better than the alternative.

  “Bodies from the desert, do you get many?” I asked.

  “A few I guess,” she answered cautiously, as if she were still trying to figure out the conversation.

  “Get many mummified remains?” I continued asking questions as I walked a large circle in the room.

  “Once in a while, I suppose, usually due to exposure,” Dr. Price commented.

  “Great, then you know more about mummies than us,” I said, suddenly stopping my walk and staring at her. “Can you tell us anything about the bodies?”

  “I haven’t really looked at them,” Dr. Price was now stammering. I took several steps backwards and leaned against a counter. For a moment, I had forgotten that I could be intimidating. I hoped the more relaxed posture would calm Dr. Price down.

  “I think what Marshal Cain is getting at, is that she would like you to take a look at the bodies because we don’t deal with many mummies,” Xavier had lowered his voice some, trying to make it sound soothing. Unfortunately for Xavier, he didn’t have a soothing or reassuring voice. He just sounded creepy when he tried it. His bedside manner sucked, which explained why the Federal Government thought it was fine for him to work on us but not real people.

  “Xavier,” I said his name softly, grabbing his attention, his gaze moved from Dr.
Price to me. His eyes searched my face and found why I had grabbed his attention.

  “You know what, we’ll come back tomorrow,” I pushed away from the counter. As I beat a hasty exit, I grabbed hold of Xavier, jerking him with me. Outside, I took a deep breath. I hadn’t even felt the calm come on that time, it had just happened during my attempt to defuse the situation.

  “Did we both come across as creepy, possibly sadistic, killers?” Xavier asked outside.

  “Yes, you should know better than try to be charming,” I told him.

  “I get told all the time that I am charming,” he defended himself.

  “And I would agree with that statement, when you are yourself and you aren’t giggling, you are charming. When you attempt to be charming you come across as one of Satan’s more insane minions.”

  “Good to know,” Xavier looked around the parking lot. “Well, it’s night time and we have all of Vegas before us. Gabriel isn’t expecting us back for a couple of hours. What do you want to do?”

  “Go back to the hotel,” I told him. His smile disappeared.

  “You’re no fun,” he said.

  “I’m just being practical. In a city of this size, it seems likely that there are a handful of serial killers and a mass murderer or two, planning to devastate a crowd watching the pirates or something. It is also quite possible that there are at least three hundred thieves, most of them armed. Given the history that you and I have, coupled with the violent nature of Vegas’ past, if we were to walk around the Strip, it is highly probable that one or both of us will be shot, stabbed or some have some other violent act perpetrated on us. So going back to the hotel seems safest.”

  “I believe all of that to be more than likely correct, but we will be driving, not walking, and I think it would be good to take in some of the sights and sounds of Vegas,” Xavier said. “And since I have the keys,” he grinned at me.

  I grudgingly climbed into the passenger’s seat of the SUV.

  “I expect to be back at the hotel in one hour, Xavier. If I’m not, I’m going to kick your ass,” I said.

  “Noted,” Xavier started the engine.

  For the next hour, I saw dozens if not hundreds of hotels as Xavier crept down Las Vegas Boulevard. I also saw thousands of people, including a guy carrying a capuchin monkey and a girl with a python. At least a billion lights seem to decorate the sides of the roads. Some blinked, some flashed, some were steady, some chased other lights, I finally put my head against the tinted glass window and closed my eyes. The sights and sounds of Las Vegas were overwhelming at night. I felt as if I had been shoved in some horrid carnival fun house meant to induce seizures and migraines.

  We stopped at a light and I heard a very distinctive pinging sound on my door. I sat up and glared at Xavier. He drew his gun, I followed suit and in a matter of seconds, we both rolled out of the SUV and onto the Las Vegas Strip, badges flashing. The bullets instantly stopped hitting our SUV and I saw two juveniles take off running. Xavier noticed them too. We headed after them.

  Despite the gunfire, no one seemed interested in moving out of our way. They also didn’t seem to care about our badges or our guns. It seemed that everyone was more intent on filming us. Cameras and phones were appearing from all directions. Xavier and I, running at full speed, were knocking people over to get to the fleeing juveniles.

  I tackled one from behind, we rolled to the ground. It ended with me on top. I held my gun in one hand and pointed it at the back of his head.

  “I’m an armed federal officer, move and I will take it as a threat,” I told the kid, while my free hand patted him down. I heard a grunt and saw Xavier disappear into the sea of onlookers.

  “Don’t you have to Mirandize me?” The juvenile shouted.

  “No,” I told him. “I’m not that kind of federal officer.”

  The new Serial Killer and Mass Murder Laws meant that I did not have to Mirandize him. I simply had to identify myself and I could then conduct a search. Nothing he said to me would ever end up in a court room.

  He was holding a semi-automatic machine gun, trapped between his body and the ground. I pulled it out and took a quick look at it. Aside from my own guns and being shot, I didn’t have enough experience to tell what it was just from looking at it. I guessed it was an AK-47 since that seemed to be the weapon of choice in the automatic weapons world and easily available on the black market. I slung the holster over my shoulder, causing several onlookers to back up. I dug cuffs out of the holder on my back and slipped them on the cursing juvenile, one handed. Lowering the gun, I stood up, luckily I had lots of practice and it didn’t look awkward. I grabbed hold of the cuffed juvenile and stood him up.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Fuck you bitch,” he said.

  “Brave parents if they put that on your birth certificate. Ok, Mr. Bitch, let’s go talk about your illegal possession of a firearm and your shooting into a crowded street,” I looked down the sidewalk. Xavier had disappeared near the Bellagio. Our SUV was still running in the middle of the street and we were attracting a lot of attention.

  “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’,” he finished his sentence by spitting on me. I tried to restrain myself from beating the shit out of him. In theory, I liked teenagers. But that like extended to teenagers that didn’t talk back, didn’t spit on people and didn’t discharge firearms within a crowded area. So far, this teenager was not on my “like” list.

  “We’ll try this again, my name is US Marshal Aislinn Cain of the Serial Crimes Tracking Unit. You’ve already told me your name is Fuck You Bitch, so we’ll move past that. I do not have to Mirandize you, I do not have to have probable cause to detain you, I do not even need to know anything more about you at the moment. I watched you discharge a firearm at a federal vehicle in a crowded area. In my world, that qualifies you to be charged with attempted mass murder and attempted murder of a federal officer times two,” in the distance, I could hear sirens. “And you spit on me which is assault of a federal officer. So, if you have nothing you want to say to me, that’s fine. Once the locals show up and haul you and your buddy away, I’m going to get search warrants and search every place you’ve ever lived, the house of every friend you’ve ever had, every relative, even if you’ve never met them will be visited by me and I am destructive when I do searches. Got it?”

  Xavier suddenly slammed the second juvenile against the hood of the SUV.

  “This one talking?” Xavier pointed to the kid in my hands.

  “No, he’s spitting,” I snarled the last word.

  “And you let him live?” Xavier gave me a strange look.

  “Only because there are lots of witnesses,” I turned back to the kid in front of me. “Now, do you understand that at this moment, you have no rights?”

  “Suck my...” Xavier clamped a hand over the kid’s mouth before he could finish his sentence.

  “Trust me, kid, however big and bad, you think you are, she can kick your ass,” Xavier told him.

  “Man, I ain’t afraid of no girl,” the kid said as Xavier removed his hand from his mouth.

  “Proving how stupid you are,” Xavier said. “That girl is a natural born killer. You should be very afraid of her. Now, which of you dodos want to explain why you were shooting at us?”

  “We weren’t,” the younger one in Xavier’s custody said.

  “So the bullet marks appeared by magic,” I said, turning my gaze on him. He shifted nervously. Xavier nodded once and we swapped kids. Now the younger one had my full attention with my hand on his shoulder. “Now, I’ll ask again, why were you shooting at us?”

  “Don’t tell that bitch nothin’, dawg,” the older kid shouted.

  “We weren’t shooting at you,” the younger one said again, quieter.

  “I find that hard to believe considering you were carrying guns and ran from us,” I told him. He shifted again; his forehead becoming covered in sweat. It was beginning to drip from his eyebrows, creating the illusion of
tears. It ran down the side of his face, disappearing beneath his T-Shirt.

  “That’s fine, you don’t have to talk to us,” Xavier suddenly said, he flashed his badge as a cop approached.

  “Is there a problem?” The officer asked.

  “Yes, but it’s yours now,” Xavier handed the larger juvenile to the cop. “Careful, he’s a spitter.”

  “This one will talk,” I told another cop. “Just grill him good. They opened fire on our vehicle.”

  Xavier was pointing out the bullet dents on the side of the SUV. He passed off the recovered guns and we said good-bye to the Las Vegas Police Department. Once in the car, I took Xavier’s shirt sleeve and wiped the spit off my face.

  “I should have just shot him,” I said.

  “No worries, he keeps living the way he’s living and we’ll be hunting him down again one day,” Xavier said.

  “We don’t hunt down gangsters,” I reminded him.

  “True, but he wasn’t freaked out by your sociopathic stance, so he’s more than just a gangster. He’ll eventually lose it, walk into a bar and gun down half the patrons and staff. Then you can kick his ass. On the other hand, I was waiting for his buddy to wet himself when you took hold of him. I think running into you, probably saved his life. I think he’ll walk the straight and narrow from now on.”

  “Nice to know I could do my part to fight crime,” I sighed and wished for a cigarette.

  Eleven

  Gabriel’s face was crimson, making the freckles blend into his skin and making his hair look even redder. His hands were balled into fists and he was pacing his hotel room when we walked in.

  Lucas did not seem to have the blood pressure problem that Gabriel had. He was kicked back in a chair, with a small twisted smile on his face and he seemed perfectly calm. The two were at polar opposites of the stress spectrum. I wondered what had gotten Gabriel’s panties in a twist.