by Jack Yeovil
"She's talking about me," Krokodil said.
The bow scraped higher, and 'Ti-Mouche's eyes glowed in the dark. Her skirts whipped around her thin legs, and her caterwauling was answered by cries from creatures out in the swamp.
Elvis nudged Zhille. "What is she saying now?"
Zhille was reluctant. "She talk about your woman. She say your woman 'ave ze diable a sa coeur. Yiu understand." 'Ti-Mouche was saying that Krokodil was the Devil in disguise. Krokodil did not seem unsettled by the accusation.
"Bot, eet alright to make spaice for yiu at ze fire…"
DuFrezne looked happier, his decision vindicated.
"…because yiu such a pow'ful sorciere."
The fires flared up again as Ti-Mouche finished her recital. She flopped down, exhausted, and was handed a jug of white lightning.
After a while, Elvis asked. "Say, how much do we owe you for the food and gas?"
He had his moneyclip out.
Zhille looked offended. "No monai, m'sieu. Yiu pay os een kaind. We feed yiu, warm yiu at our fire, play yiu our museec. Yiu most pay os back weeth a story, a song, a dance. Sometheeng to pass ze naight-taime."
Krokodil was smirking, stretched out like a cat.
'Ti-Mouche knew what to do. She took a battered guitar from one of the band, and laid it in front of him.
"Yiu most play," Zhille said. "'Ti-Mouche wishes eet."
Krokodil sat up, interested.
Elvis ran some chords. It was an old instrument, but a good one.
It was as if the music had never gone away.
"Welllll," he began, "since my baby left me…."
XI
Raimundo Rex brought Spermwhale Visser into Shiba's office, and towered over the Good Ole Boy, dripping saliva. Everywhere inside, Raimundo had to hunch over, and still his huge, rough-skinned head scraped paint off ceilings.
"Good morning," Shiba said to the trembling security man.
He had had to wrench the back off his chair to accomodate his tail, and rip out the seats of all his pants. He would be making little adjustments like that for a long time. But he was already used to his new self. The tail apart, his suits still fit him, and he didn't have to worry about the heat or the insects any more.
"An interesting thing about alligators, Mr Visser, did you know that…"
Visser spat blood and teeth. "Can it, Nip!"
The Good Ole Boy was pushed down into a chair by Raimundo's feeble hands. Visser glowered at Shiba, and wiped his bruised face. Raimundo was clumsy by nature, and prone to over-using his teeth and talons.
"Eh, Fatty," Raimundo said, "doncha show no disrespeck for the maaan, else maybe yo' cabeza an' my stomach get together for a leetle cha-cha."
The saurian laughed, and flapped an arm.
"Mr Visser, there is no reason why this interview should be unpleasant."
The Good Ole Boy grunted.
"I am no more responsible for my condition than you are for yours. Indeed, if responsibility is to be handed out, you should perhaps step forward to accept it."
Visser fidgeted. He took out a packet of Hi-Tars.
"Kindly refrain from smoking."
Raimundo reached down and lashed the cigarettes out of Visser's hand.
"Don' damage yo' health, Fatty…"
Shiba straightened the files laid out on his desk. He had been making full use of Dr Blaikley's cardkeys. One of the Suitcase People had been a hacker, and he had got them into the compound's datalink records. Shiba was appalled at how much had been kept from him these past few months. If he had been apprised of the nature and history of Dr Blaikley's project, he might well have done the unthinkable and questioned an order from GenTech central. He certainly wouldn't have come to Florida if he had known what the effects were likely to be. Of course, he was not yet sure how much of the story Dr Blaikley had chosen to share with the corp.
"Your predecessor. Captain Marcus, has been most informative…"
"Freakin' reptile!"
Raimundo growled, and Visser slumped again.
"It seems that you were brought in after Dr Blaikley's first little disaster. A shame. You have done little to prevent the second unfortunate incident…"
"Freakin' mad scientist bitch!"
Shiba was offended by the disloyalty.
"But no. Only now do I fully understand the late doctor's genius. Am I not…improved?"
"You're a freakin' monster, Shiba."
Shiba laughed. "How little you understand. It is a pity that you cannot share my condition…"
Visser blanched.
"I know all about the drugs Dr Blaikley has been giving to you, to make you immune."
Visser looked mutely hostile.
"You should, of course, have shared your supply, shouldn't you?"
Raimundo scratched the wall with his hindleg, leaving five deep clawmarks.
"You should have made sure that I was immune, and the indentees…"
Visser's piggy eyes were open, defiant.
"But you have been profiting from your supplies, haven't you? How many of us are as we are not through Dr Blaikley's designs, but through your greed and carelessness? Oh, I admit that when the changes began, the doctor invariably took advantage of the situation. She never investigated your affairs too closely…"
"She was a cuckoo, Shiba…"
"She was under pressure. After the first outbreak of spontaneous mutation, and the mass escape she must have realized the project was under threat. She stepped up the work. A shame that she died before she realized how well she succeeded."
Shiba stood up, his tail dragging as he walked, and paced the office. Beyond the windows, he could see the Suitcase People basking in the morning sun. How many were there? It was hard to tell. Marcus's group had split up in the swamps. Some had swum towards the coast, others struck south for the Everglades. The rate of change differed from subject to subject. Some evolved naturally, without the need for surgery, but some had been jumped through several stages by Dr Blaikley. It wasn't quite a disease, but it spread from long-term contact among other factors. You had to live in the swamp with the infection in you for at least six months, but when it came upon you the change was quite rapid. Startlingly so, in fact.
"The indentees took a vote, Visser," Shiba said. "They want you and your crew to be weighted down and thrown into the swamp. Some of our reptile brethren think that would be wasteful. They want to…it pains me to say it, but be said it must…they want to eat you."
Visser was sweating. Raimundo chuckled through a thousand teeth. He was whistling "La Bamba."
"What do you want, Shiba?"
"An apology would be nice."
"Sorry."
"Thank you. I appreciate your sincerity."
Shiba nodded, and Raimundo dragged Visser out of the room.
"See yo' later, alligator," Raimundo said.
Shiba smiled, and replied, "after a while, crocodile."
The saurian was surprised he knew the come-back.
"I made a study of American culture at GenTech college in Japan, Raimundo. Bill Haley, Mickey Mouse, Ernest Hemingway. I know all the greats."
"Right onnnn, maaan!" Raimundo made a tiny fist in the air, and shuffled off, the complaining Visser in front of him.
Shiba really had no idea what to do with the Good Ole Boys. He had not yet resolved the question of how to conduct himself, to decide where his loyalties lay. Captain Marcus was confirmed in his old job, replacing Visser as security chief. He had posted guards, and was even supervising the repair of the compound fences. Together with the indentees, many of whom were already showing signs of changing, the Suitcase People were working hard. Some of the indentees had fled into the swamps, but most had stayed. They reasoned that the Suitcase People were at least better company than the Good Ole Boys had been. Shiba was touched that he had always been singled out by the workers for his fair-minded treatment of them and, just as long as he was in charge of the compound, they would elect to stay under his prote
ction. Reuben, a full-jawed Suitcase Person, was their representative, liaising with Shiba and Marcus. The compound was being run more efficiently now that Blaikley and Visser were deposed.
There was a new factor in the area. A group had moved into the abandoned launching site at Cape Canaveral, and Marcus's people had had several clashes with them. Shiba was shown a black-clad corpse. It had been one of a party from the Cape who had ventured inland to hunt down Suitcase People. The clothes had been unusual, with pegs instead of buttons, no pockets, large stitches. Certain fundamentalist American sects favoured such clothing. Marcus had suggested fortifying the compound against a possible mass attack, and Shiba had authorized the work. He had also organized patrols and sent them out on reconnaissance sweeps through the swampland. He wanted to know the disposition of any hypothetical enemy.
Few of the scientists had survived the attack on the compound. Old scores had been bloodily settled. Shiba had interviewed a lab assistant and a specialist with a tunnel vision knowledge of recombinant DNA and an incredible ignorance about everything else. He had tried to understand Dr Blaikley's idiosyncratic experiment log, written in her own peculiar and profane shorthand, but it was beyond him. Clearly, the death of the scientist did not curtail the experiment. Shiba felt a duty to his employers and to science, not to mention the memory of Mary Louise Blaikley, to continue the collection of data. Any findings would be named after her, he had decided. The Blaikley Effect. The Mary Louise Syndrome.
He would have liked to contact Kyoto and give a full report, but the satellite link radio had been destroyed by an explosion and was beyond repair. He could have used the GenTech intelligence nets to fill him in on the Cape Canaveral situation. But the Suitcase People were on their own until Dr Zarathustra or someone noticed the compound had not been heard from. Then, Shiba would decide whether he owed loyalty to the corp or to his new race. Again, he recited his Blood Banner Oath.
He came to a decision. It would be best all round if Visser were quietly killed without ceremony.
He lashed the intercom buzzer with his tail.
"Marielle," he said to his green-faced secretary, "rustle me up a firing squad, would you?"
He felt hungry.
XII
Elvis felt different this morning. He had woken up with the music in his head again. It was as strong as it had been in the early days. Before Parker and Seth turned it all bad with B-movies and pep pills.
The Cajuns had listened to him play for over an hour. The words of the songs all came back as if he had sung them the day before, rather than forty years ago. "Blue Suede Shoes," "I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine," "Love Me Tender," "Long Tall Sally," "Blue Moon," "Guitar Man," "Good Rockin' Tonight," "Baby, Let's Play House," "Mystery Train," "Remember to Forget," "Lawdy, Miss Clawdy," "Don't Be Cruel," "Poor Boy," "When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again," "Blueberry Hill," "Mean Woman Blues," "Jailhouse Rock," "Crawfish," "Fever," "Are You Lonesome Tonight?," "Love is Strange."
He tried the songs he'd never sung before, just heard over the years. He approximated a few Petya Tcherkassoff numbers, strangled his voice around "Don't Stop the Carnival"—the one Ken Dodd song he could stand—riffed jokily through Lesley Gore's "It's My Party," taken a shot at the Mothers of Violence's "Tas" and wound up croaking, banging his bleeding fingers against the silver strings as he went through the other Mississippi singer's repertoire. "Crossroads," 'Terraplane," "Walking Blues," "Me and the Devil."
The elation that had had the Cajuns dancing now evaporated, leaving only the chill of the encroaching night Elvis had imagined Robert Johnson himself standing outside the circle of the light, knowing the hellhound was on his trail, listening to the white boy sing his songs, too bone-weary to react.
When he sang "Me and the Devil," Elvis remembered Mr Seth. He had been a sharp-suited, well-spoken huckster. Now, he was an all-in-black preacher. Elder Nguyen Seth.
It was creepy. That Krokodil and he should have the same Devil. 'Ti-Mouche said he had magic and she had a demon. Something had brought them together.
They had slept in the boat, huddled together under a blanket. At least, he thought Krokodil had slept. He could never be sure.
Once, fighting a dream, he had found himself struggling with her. He had been running through the darkness, trying to keep up with Jesse Garon. She had soothed him like his Mama used to, and quieted him down.
Now, as direct sunlight woke him up, he was alone. His throat was sore, but the real pain was in his fingers. The strings had worn grooves, opened the old wounds.
A hand shot out of the water and grabbed the side of the boat. He made a grab for the Moulinex machine pistol.
A head broke the surface, and Krokodil pulled herself out, naked but not shivering. She towelled herself on the blanket, getting the algae out of her hair.
"You can swim in that muck?"
"1 wouldn't advise it for everybody."
"Ain't that the truth."
Dry, she dressed herself. Again, Elvis looked at her body. She looked real. Marie Walton had looked like a cyborg. But Krokodil seemed like a real woman.
"We've got to be on our way. We've waited too long."
Elvis took a hit from the canteen, and swilled the distilled water around his mouth, licking his teeth clean. His tongue was still burned.
Krokodil was checking their weapons. She paused in her task.
"Elvis?"
"Yes?"
She looked at him. "I just wanted to say you sing very well."
"Thank you, ma'am."
"No, I mean it. Your old records don't do you justice. You could have made something of yourself."
"Maybe, maybe not"
There was an early morning fog. It was going to be a hot day. Now, it was pleasantly cool.
"No, really. Why didn't you stay with it?"
He'd been asked that before, but he'd never answered as truly as he did now. "I don't know. Maybe, I wanted to keep a piece of my soul for myself."
"I think I know what you mean. I wasn't always like this. My father…well, you don't want to know about him…it's all ancient history. I'm not even the same person. Not even physically."
She held up her hand, as if trying to look through the skin.
"Durium-laced bones, you know," she said. "And the whole catalogue of doodads. I've got a sponge in my heart that can change the pattern of the beat."
"There's something else, though. Last night, the witch, she said…"
"That I was possessed? Look around you, who isn't?"
"Your soul is all you own, Krokodil. It's worth more than the Devil's hundred dollars."
She smiled. "Is that the going rate?"
"It was for Robert Johnson, they say. A hundred dollars and all the music."
"That sounds like a better deal. All the music."
It really was surprisingly cold. The blanket had been heavy with dew. "Not really."
"But you could have changed the world. You could have been Petya Tcherkassoff."
"Petya Tcherkassoff? Ma'am, you are showing your youth."
"How do you mean?"
"You ain't hardly heard of me, have you?"
"You were very highly recommended. Not many Ops…"
"No, not for the Op Agency, for the music. I don't mean any more to you than, uh, Glenn Miller or Al Jolson?"
"Who?"
"That's what I mean. Who? Lady, without me there wouldn't have been a Petya Tcherkassoff. You know his 'Don't Be Cruel'?"
"Sure. You sang it last night. Pretty well."
"Krokodil, I sang it first. He copied me. Here in the USA, I'm forgotten, but all those Sove musickies remember. My old records were smuggled into Russia in the '50s. I started the whole thing."
"Come on, now."
"No, really. Once I had this bodyguarding job. A feller called Lennon who came over from England for some UN conference. He's head of their Labour Party. That's the opposition, or something. He ain't got much power or influence or anything, but he's there to speak
against the Prime Minister, What's-His-Name Archer. He knew who I was. Back before he was a politician, he used to have all my records. He said that he'd been a musician too. He said that if I hadn't given up, he might have stuck to it despite all the discouragement. But however it turned out, I touched his life. That's a hell of a responsibility, and I ain't sure I really want it. I don't know why it's important I tell you this. I'm just an old man with a trunk full of memories, but you must know that this is the plain truth. I was big, and I walked away from it"
"Why are you telling me? Why is it important?"
"Because of what 'Ti-Mouche said. The thing in you. Don't sell out to it. I had years of that, years of selling out."
"To some crooked manager, sure, but…"
"Seth. He was one of them. He's the Devil, ain't he?"
Krokodil was affected. "Yes. I think he is."
"Damn. I knowed it. I knowed it back in '56 when Colonel Parker took me up to his red-carpeted office and showed me the contracts. I knowed it, I knowed it, I knowed it…"
"You hiring me? It wasn't no accident, was it?"
Krokodil sighed. "No. I don't think so."
"What made you?"
She tried to speak, but found it difficult. "The…the thing in me. It brought me to Memphis. It made me seek you out."
"You don't need a nursemaid. You can take care of yourself. You could have brought your Indian."
"That's true. But I think I need you, Elvis. I don't know what for. It's maddening sometimes. It's not like knowing everything you need to know. You only get little bits and pieces. I keep having visions…waking dreams, whatever…and you were one of them. Hawk tracked you down. He's a dreamwalker, a Navaho witch doctor…"
"These visions, am I…what?…fighting? Dying?"
Krokodil smiled again, a tight and quiet little smile. Her remaining eye twinkled. "No, Elvis. You're singing, playing the guitar. What the hag said last night was true. That's your magic."
"I can't figure this. It's just plumb crazy."
"I've had to live with it since I was seventeen. You can get used to anything."
"You must have had some life, sister."