Chimera

by Rob Thurman

  “Don’t push your luck,” I said without any real heat. But all the while I was thinking that he wasn’t far off the mark. Not far at all.

  Chapter 22

  Lunch turned out to be more exciting than I’d planned. It wasn’t the fun fest that had ended up with me shot in a parking lot, but neither was it hot dogs and a football game on the big screen. It just goes to show that it’s true what they say. No good deed goes unpunished, “unpunished” being the euphemism for many things. It could be a mild inconvenience or it could be a royal ass kicking. My punishment lay, as it usually did, somewhere near the ass-kicking end of the spectrum.

  Picking up the pregnant girl was my first mistake.

  Several minutes into the ride, Michael spoke up. He’d been busy entertaining the malevolent Zilla. Out of the cage and creating havoc, it was a must-buy option for every car—air, power locks, carnivorous eel with fur. And then there was the odor. What genetic manipulation had given Michael in healing and supersmarts, it had obviously taken away from his sense of smell in the worst sort of robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul scenario.

  “I was thinking,” he contemplated as the ferret perched on his shoulder. “One of the books mentions a Dr. Bellucci who . . .” He stopped and reached over to tap my arm. “Stefan, there’s a girl.”

  I’d already seen her. She was standing nearly half a mile past the park entrance. On the gravel shoulder she stood prim and proper as a princess attended by her royal hound. They matched, the two of them. Woven into two thick strawberry blond plaits, her hair was nearly identical in color to the red-gold color of the dog sitting upright beside her. An unusual dog, it looked as if someone had wrestled Lassie to the ground and given her a marine buzz cut.

  The girl was wearing jeans, a long lavender sweater, and a thigh-length white jacket trimmed in blatantly fake fur. Some Muppet had apparently given its all in the name of fashion. Together, she and the dog were pretty as a picture and completely out of place in the middle of nowhere. Those were the first things you noticed. That she was about nine months pregnant came as a surprising distant second.

  “What’s she doing out here?” I muttered, my foot automatically easing up on the gas as we approached her. One hand was resting on the dog’s smooth head while the other was held shoulder height in a breezy thumbs-out. She was hitching. The princess was actually hitching, dog and all.

  “Are we stopping?”

  “Not hardly,” I retorted, getting my foot back under control. Feeding the car gas, I steered us into the opposite lane to give the girl a wide berth.

  “But”—his head swiveled to keep her in view—“she’s pregnant, and she’s out here alone.”

  “And that’s a big fat clue, isn’t it? No pun intended.” Hearing the engine of our car, she turned to face us while waving her thumb with almost-imperious demand. Royalty all right, even if only in her own mind. I swung the wheel even wider. “This is an urban legend in the making. Why doesn’t she have a cell phone? Everyone has a cell phone. Her dog should have a cell phone. Maybe she’s not even pregnant. She could have accomplices hiding in the woods, a gun in her purse, or an armed dwarf under her shirt. Who the hell knows? She could rob us and leave us for dead. Maybe even feed your damn rat to her dog. The possibilities are endless, kid.”

  “All from a girl and her dog? And I thought I had trust issues.” He returned the ferret to its cage. “I’ll clean out the back.”

  I was about to tell him there was no point, but at that moment in the rearview mirror I caught sight of the girl leaning over, clutching her stomach, and the happy hitching thumb gone. Even the dog looked worried.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  And just like that we were saddled with a hitchhiker. I didn’t kid myself. I would’ve kept driving and called her a cab—hell, no cabs out here; I’d have called 911. I would’ve let the local sheriff give her a ride, but with this . . . and in front of Michael. I’d told him I’d been a criminal, and I’d told him I would change. Passing up a pregnant girl at the side of the road possibly in labor didn’t make me appear particularly changed, but change I would. I’d promised Michael and I’d promised myself.

  In other words, I was screwed—on the path to all that’s good and goddamn righteous, damn it, but still screwed. The knowledge didn’t improve my mood any when I pulled over. Michael rolled down his window and said, “Um . . . are you . . . you know . . . all right?”

  The insistent tone he’d taken with Saul and the critical one with the ex-doctor had disappeared under this newly diffident one. I’d found a weakness in Mr. Extraordinary. He was shy around girls; how relentlessly common and mundane. How would he ever live it down? I smothered a grin as one pink-nailed hand found the window opening with entitled assurance.

  About nineteen, the girl had a heart-shaped face—which I’d thought a trite phrase every time I’d read it—twilight blue eyes, that one as well, and a sudden and complete lack of labor pains. With pale skin free of makeup and only the lightest gleam of gloss on her lips, the princess was as beautiful as in any fairy tale or Miss Universe pageant, depending how your media tastes ran. She smiled and drawled in an accent as thick as clover honey as she addressed Michael’s concern, “Oh, that? That was just a little bit of indigestion. Goes with the territory. But right now, sweetie? I’m finer than frog hair.” I could all but hear Michael’s heart clunking against his ribs.

  I couldn’t help but take the teasing shot and said lightly, “ Crashennui.” The tips of Michael’s ears flushed red at the remark. He was smitten indeed.

  Studiously ignoring me, he asked her, “Do you need a ride?”

  “That would be fabulous.” The smile and the drawl became even broader. “You boys aren’t killers or perverts, are you?”

  Rarely in life is fifty percent a passing score, but it was the best that Michael and I could do between us. If she didn’t call us on that, I wouldn’t call her on her slightly overdone modern-day Southern belle act. She was playing us, although maybe modern-day Southern girls did say “finer than frog hair.” I wasn’t a Georgia guy; so I couldn’t say. But she was conning us. It probably was for a simple ride and not anything more sinister, on par with a pretty woman flirting her way out of a ticket, but that didn’t quell my suspicion completely. You never knew with people. You just never frigging knew. I did try to keep in mind she was just a teenage girl, but my faith in innocent girlish appearances had faded considerably in the past week thanks to Jericho’s Wendy.

  “Not so much that you’d notice,” I replied in a lazy drawl of my own. “But we can call someone to come get you if you’d rather.”

  “Oh, no. This’ll be just fine.” Before Michael could get out to open the back door for her, she’d already helped herself. The dog jumped in before her and she scooted with a heavy grace into the seat behind it. “I’m Fisher Lee. Fisher Lee Redwine. This is Bouncing Blue Blossom. The Bouncing Blue Blossom.” If thinking up names like that was what this girl did in her spare time, way too much spare time just reached a new standard of measurement.

  Blossom, the Blossom, gave a soft yip when she heard her name, then curled up on the seat and dozed off immediately.

  I held back a hand over the seat and waited until hers slid into mine. Shaking it briskly, I said, “Nice to meet you, Ms. Redwine.” I was far less concerned with the etiquette of introduction than I was with checking out her stomach to see if it looked authentic. Paranoia, suspicion; call it whatever. It had kept me alive thus far. Wendy wasn’t the only member of the fairer sex in my lifetime who had demonstrated deadly tendencies. One of the strippers at the club had once stabbed her boyfriend in the bathroom and then had calmly gone out to work another set. I’d been the one to find him. Facedown on the tile with his blood spider-webbing around him as it flowed along the path of the grout, he hadn’t been dead, but he probably wished he had been. She’d taken him down with a deep wound to the belly and then she’d gotten creative. The surgeons had stitched his face together like a patchwork quilt. Other pa
rts of him weren’t so easily pieced together. She’d flushed those down the toilet.

  It could’ve been that he’d deserved it; it could’ve been that he didn’t. I had never asked, but it was a lesson I hadn’t forgotten. Anyone could be dangerous—absolutely anyone.

  “What should I call you handsome fellas?” Fisher asked as she pressed hands to the small of her back and stretched. “Besides my saviors?” The Georgia accent had the R sound fading before it hit the air.

  “Nick and Albert,” I answered promptly before Michael could let slip our real ones. I wasn’t positive that he would have, but hedging my bets was a longtime habit. “You can call the kid Al.” Beside me Michael made an almost inaudible snort to let me know he had caught the Einstein reference.

  Turning back, I took the car back out onto the road. She looked genuinely pregnant, but not being precisely an expert in the field, I kept a sharp eye on the rearview mirror. “We’re headed toward Waycross. We can drop you off there.” Can and would; a philanthropist such as I had to have his limits. The sarcasm sounded the same in my head as it would have out . . . sharp and edgy. I didn’t like risk where Michael was involved, and thanks to the past, I wasn’t wild about the unexpected. What was setting up camp in my backseat definitely qualified as one, maybe both.

  “Waycross is fine. It’s a little one-horse town, one and a half at the most.” She smiled and patted the mound of her stomach. “Just like me. Horse and a half, right here.”

  “What . . . mmm.” Michael cleared his throat, the redness in his ears fading to a pale pink. “What are you doing out here? All by yourself, I mean.”

  “Oh, honey, y’all wouldn’t believe it if I told you.” She must have slipped off her shoes as up popped two feet on the console between my seat and Michael’s. The toenails were painted to match her fingernails, a pearlescent rose. Wiggling her toes, she asked Michael, “Albert, would you be a doll and rub my feet? They haven’t been the same since Junior here hit his seventh month.”

  The flush was back and it spread to the rest of Michael’s face with the speed of a wildfire. Frozen, his eyes darted from the feet to me and then back again. I had to admit, even slightly swollen they were very pretty feet. Snorting, I took a hand off the wheel to grab his and place it on a foot. “You heard the lady, Big Al. Get to work.”

  If I’d seen anything more amusing than a profoundly pregnant woman flirting with my brother, I couldn’t think of it offhand. But I wasn’t going to let that stop me from giving Miss Fisher Lee a good, hard verbal shove. “Go on with your story, Fisher.” I gifted her with an encouraging and completely insincere grin over my shoulder. It made my teeth hurt. “We’re interested. Goddamn interested. Couldn’t be more interested if we tried.”

  Michael was touching the pink and ivory feet with acutely cautious fingers. For all the force he was using he might have been massaging a creation formed from the most delicate of blown glass. I’ve heard the old cliché before . . . a thousand times at least. But now was the first time I had felt it as opposed to only hearing it. Clichés make us cringe for a reason, and it isn’t from the banal repetition. It is the unbearable truth of them. I watched Michael touch smooth skin with a normal embarrassment and a not-so-normal wariness, and I honestly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He wasn’t scared simply because she was a gorgeous, if rather round, girl. He was afraid he might accidentally hurt her. I’d seen his control over the past week and it was unshakable, but with that kind of power, how could you not have the occasional doubt slither through your mind? If a foot rub could help him overcome that, then I was all for it.

  “Aren’t you sweet? Taking such a concern.” Unlike mine, Fisher’s sincerity was bona fide or at least it seemed to be from her good-natured tone. “Good guys like you make up for dirtbags like my boyfriend. Albert, honey, you can rub a little harder. I’m tougher than I look.”

  I heard Michael’s convulsive swallow as loudly as if it had come from my own throat, but he obeyed and increased the pressure. The contented sigh that ruffled my hair from the backseat indicated he had hit the spot. “It’s the usual sad, sad story,” she said with a carefree air that was belied by a faintly bitter undertone. “Cocky guy, stupid girl. Junior doesn’t have a chance. With his parents, the poor kid will probably have to repeat preschool three times.” There was another sigh, this one much less content. “Can’t say I didn’t make my bed, though, and whining won’t change a thing. We had one last big fight and I told him to stop the car and let me out. Great guy that he is, he did. Took off and didn’t even look back.”

  Pink nails flicked through Michael’s hair. “You get a girlfriend, sweetie; you treat her real nice, okay?”

  On that note Michael’s blush progressed to full-blown, spontaneous human combustion and he hurriedly finished with the massage, “I’m not sure a girlfriend is the best idea for me.”

  “Oh, well, a little boyfriend then.” Untroubled, she fished a piece of hard candy out of her coat pocket and popped it into her mouth. “Just be sweet to whoever you end up with.”

  “That’s not what I . . . Never mind.” The conversation was too close to home for Michael and he turned in the seat to face the front. It was debatable whether he would ever trust himself enough to allow the creation of a bond—sexual, romantic, or both—with a girl or woman. That same uncertainty applied to the bonds between family . . . between brothers. Eventually, when we were safe, I could look into providing him with DNA evidence proving that we were related, but that still might not do the trick. Michael had to allow himself to believe, and I wasn’t sure he was emotionally capable of that—not now; perhaps not ever.

  It was not the best of thoughts and I let it wash away under the bright chatter that flowed out of Fisher like an endless stream of sticky, sweet molasses. She talked about her worthless boyfriend, her cheerleading days, her plans to go to college after the baby was born, but mostly she talked about Blossom. Blossom this and Blossom that. The dog ignored it all, even the tale of her rescuing seven children from a burning building while still wearing the blue ribbon from her last dog show. I didn’t believe any of it for a second, but it made for a good story.

  It wasn’t long before we had to stop for lunch. Waycross was only twenty or so miles, but it turned out a hungry pregnant woman could be a cranky one. The honey in her voice began to turn to vinegar after she finished off the last of her candy. We ended up at yet another barbecue joint. They sprinkle the landscape of the South like a savory-smelling, greasy-fingered Milky Way. This one was lacking a purple pig out front, which was probably for the best. A repeat of that scenario might have PETA all over my ass, and my ass was fairly well booked up for the moment, although we hadn’t seen any sign of Jericho in the past two days. Then again, I really hadn’t expected to. The fastest of supernatural healers wasn’t going to shake off a bullet to the gut and a shattered leg that quickly. And I doubted he would send a team after us that he couldn’t head himself. Jericho was the hands-on type.

  “Here! Stop here.” A hand pounded the back of my headrest. “I’ve heard of this place. It’s supposed to be best round these parts.”

  Best round these parts . . . who could argue with that? I pulled into the parking lot that was nothing more than a patch of bald, red ground. And there we were at Annie’s Big Fat Fannie. There was a blinking neon sign in the window that let us know just how fat that fanny was. It was a simple design: glass tubing twisted into two pinkish red curves that buzzed cheerfully as we walked to the door. If Annie’s fanny was indeed as large as indicated, the food they served must be good. Inside there were mostly booths with red and yellow plastic seats and a few scattered tables. We chose a table to accommodate Junior’s girth, but I did maintain enough control of the situation to choose one that gave me a clear view of both exits.

  Fisher didn’t care one way or the other. She dived headfirst into the menu as she waved one frantic hand for immediate service. By the time the waitress—obviously not Annie as the fanny was flat as
a pancake—arrived, Fisher had picked out three lunch specials. Two were for her and the other was for Blossom who was still snoozing along with Godzilla in the back of the car. Michael and I put in our own orders, unmanly single servings, and a few minutes later were provided with pint-sized jars full of iced tea garnished with a frozen peach slice. Fisher ignored hers and made her way through a basket full of fried biscuits slathered with apple butter.

  “Someone who can out-eat you, kid.” I kicked Michael’s ankle lightly under the table and tipped the fruit into the tea before taking a swallow. Not too bad. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

  “Even the best of us have off days.” Clearly challenged, Michael reached for a biscuit, only to have his hand swatted away.

  “Sorry, sweetie,” Fisher apologized. “It’s you or Junior, and Junior always wins.”

  “I see.” He shook his fingers as if they stung. Fisher must pack quite a punch, I thought with amusement. “It’s too bad Junior hasn’t learned about sharing yet.”

  “Kids, kids, come on now,” I admonished. “Play nice. I’ll get another basket.” Rising, I went to the counter to ask for more biscuits. By the time I returned, the two had come to terms and they promptly divided the new basket between them. Licking a finger, I philosophically dabbed at the three or four remaining crumbs. “What was that you said about sharing?”

  Michael didn’t blink an eye at his hypocrisy. “I don’t recall.”

  “Yeah. Plead the Fifth. Toss me under the bus.” The gun in my back waistband dug into my flesh and I leaned a few inches forward away from the ladder-back chair. “You have family in Waycross, Fisher?”

  “My great-gramma Lilly-Mae.” Biscuits gone, she rubbed the end of her braid across the curve of her cheek. “She’s amazing. Everything you can think of, she’s done. She ran moonshine with her brothers back when she was younger than me. She worked the farm all by herself when her first husband died. Then, when she lost it, she became a stripper. And not just to survive, but because she thought it sounded like fun.” The blue eyes glittered with laughter and pride. “And that was in the old days when they’d run you out of town for something like that. She remarried more times than I can remember and ran for mayor when she was fifty. She didn’t win, but they still talk about her campaign . . . even twenty years later. They say she threw the best ‘we lost’ celebration ever. There were buffets, clowns, belly dancers, and even an elephant. The guy who won left his own victory party to go to hers.”