by Faith Hunter
I thought of the sick craving I’d felt when I’d first seen the shoes, and the palpable evil that surrounded them. I thought of dancing until you died, a puppet controlled by a will that was not your own. I don’t think I’d wish that fate on my worst enemy.
“Nah,” I said. “Red isn’t really my color.”
SNAKESKIN
BY ROB THURMAN
These boots weren’t made for talking.
—TRIXA IKTOMI
This story, while part of the Trickster series, is a ten-year prequel and introduces several beloved secondary characters such as Zeke and Griffin. Enjoy.
There’re all sorts of sayings about shoes. “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.” “I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” “It’s no use carrying an umbrella if your shoes are leaking.” The last you don’t hear much unless you travel, but it is as wise as the others—worth remembering. But on and on it goes. Full of good intentions, these kinds of sayings are. They’re something to guide people who have no common sense or thoughts of their own, my mama liked to point out. My mama—well, I’d long stopped fighting it—my mama was rarely wrong. Sometimes a tad misdirected, but wrong? I can’t say that she was.
When it came to shoes and sayings, I had a favorite by a brilliant man who had enough thoughts for twenty people. Mark Twain said it as he said and wrote many things, not many of which I could disagree with, not offhand. He knew the hearts and minds of humanity and the lack that lay in most. It was my new client’s shoes that made me think of this particular saying of his, a delicious one: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
It was particularly outrageous and apt to describe this client—oh she was a liar, a talented one of spectacular degree. Her lies were a thing of glory that put the blue, blue heavens to shame.
And her shoes were almost as fabulous.
—
I lived in Las Vegas for several reasons, but one of them was it let me work. It let me do. And I needed to do, because if you don’t do, then how can you know you even exist? Boredom is the name of the game. Other people call it Russian roulette. You just keep pulling that trigger, click, click, click, and feel the excitement ramp up higher each time, all the while hoping that one of those pulls doesn’t propel boredom through your brain. Boredom was worse than any bullet for people like me. Adrenaline junkies—we couldn’t stand it when the fun stopped. When the fun stopped, life stopped, and boredom was that all over.
So I settled in Vegas, if only for a while; I wasn’t one to put down any permanent roots. I bought a bar for the background noise, the legal life, and then I did my true work.
I was never bored.
I could’ve gone to any city in the world and found clients, but Vegas is a shining star. People are so hungry there . . . for everything. I didn’t sell everything. I’m a businesswoman who knows her limits, but what I did sell went faster than spiked lemonade at a family reunion. Information was mainly what I offered, but there was guidance, too. You could call me a guidance counselor for adults if you wanted, or . . . I know: a life coach.
Now, sugar, don’t laugh like that. It’s unseemly.
Not to mention unhinged and a mite bit deranged.
Shoo with yourself and let me finish.
The bar paid the taxes and I made the real money sitting at a table with a beer or if I was feeling frisky, a mango margarita. I told those who needed telling; I steered those who’d lost their compasses; I offered relief to blistering souls. I had a fine and undeniably smug time doing it, too. Mainly it takes only the right word, a tiny nudge, and a whole lot of patience. Life had taught me how to manage all that plus more, and my mama taught me to hone it to an occupational skill.
But this time I didn’t think words would be enough. I was going to have to give over a little more than that. I might even lose more money than I made on this job. But that was all right. Sometimes you had to be the bigger-picture person and give to get. Let no one say that at the end of the day I wasn’t about the giving.
“Trixa Iktomi?”
I looked up at my brand-new client and gave her a smile as wide as the Mississippi River and pleased as punch on top of that. Holding out my hand to her, I said, “That’s me. Sit down, honey. As amazing as your shoes are, they’re not made for the sidewalk out front. I’m surprised you didn’t break an ankle.”
It was true. The strip of concrete in front of my bar, Trixsta, was a health hazard of cracks, splits, and the crumbling of time. The expensive snakeskin shoes she was wearing had four-inch heels and were made for anything except actual walking. They truly were gorgeous, though, even if the snake missing its hide would likely sorely disagree on that particular fact.
I loved shoes my own self. Whether they were spike heels, ass-kicking boots, or bright red sneakers when running was necessary—and in my business it occasionally was. I had a closet full, not counting the black spike-heeled boots I was wearing today, the ones my best friend said made me look like Catwoman on a bad-hair day. Wasn’t that hateful for no reason? I didn’t have bad-hair days. I had unique-hair days.
Of course this same friend described his last date’s strawberry blond hair as “orange.” Men. You couldn’t breed taste or tact into them for love nor money.
I should’ve known better than to ask him about anything as important as shoes.
“They are indeed something, aren’t they?” She took her measure of the bar—one regular passed out in a corner booth, one silently flickering TV, wood floors that had stains older than the legal drinking age—and then took my hand before sitting down opposite me at the tiny table. She extended one long leg to contemplate the black-and-white beauty of one of the shoes I’d admired. “Revenge for the whole apple thing, I like to think.”
The serpent and the apple . . . oh, I was going to like her.
Her smile was as bright as mine and more amused. “The husband that bought them for me would think that was blasphemy. He was a devout Catholic with no sense of whimsy, but a kind man. Very, very kind.” The amusement faded. “Even after a year I miss him. I miss everything about him.”
It was all I could do not to wriggle like a child watching her first magic trick. She told the best lies—a dark slice of night sky wrapped in a dazzling blanket of moonshine glitter. She was my kind of people and I’d known it: I surely couldn’t help but like her. Mrs. Elizabeth Rose Burke-Lane, and despite her name it wasn’t Shakespeare that made her smell just as sweet.
She sat with perfectly manicured nails the color of pearls resting on the table, discreet diamonds and a ruby the size of a pigeon’s egg on her left hand. Because that’s the way it was. If you flashed a big diamond, you were common trash and might as well park your mansion in a trailer park. But with the colored stones, you could show off. Who doesn’t want to show off what they’ve earned—am I right? No matter how they’d earned it.
Rich brown hair lay long and far past her shoulders, so obediently straight that my own halo of black curls without a doubt made my head look as if it had exploded. I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind Elizabeth Rose’s explosion, either. Hers was different from mine. Mine was cosmetic—hers was internal. Genuine. It boiled inside her, searching for a way out, any way it could find. And if it couldn’t be free, then it would be as happy to pull something in. Something or someone to keep it company. No one, inside or out, wanted to be alone, did they?
It was in her large gray eyes, drinking you in as if you were the sun in her sky, her smooth, pale skin that defied the Vegas sun, the bird-in-flight eyebrows that were a Michelangelo arch of beauty. Her mouth shaded that perfect deep red that said expensive and secret instead of slutty. If I was to try that brand and shade, I would somehow manage to turn it into Bozo the Magic Clown crimson, but I still didn’t care. She was such a treat, such a perfectly hidden package of dishonesty and preda
tory energy wrapped in silk and shine, that nothing could ruin this day. I couldn’t wait to puzzle out what I could do for her.
People thought I hated liars. Wouldn’t I have to since I was so excellent at nosing them out? Wouldn’t it bother me to know that someone was lying to my face?
People thought . . . But the trouble is, people don’t think. Lying is an art. Poorly done, of course, that’s a shame and annoying as hell. But brilliantly done, bless, you just have to stand back and applaud the artist.
Elizabeth Rose was an artist. I’d heard the lies on the phone when she made her appointment with me, referred by a past client. Elizabeth Rose, with a husband one year in the grave, had said she needed my help. Not information, which was simple, but my help, which was something not many asked of me. I wanted to do right by her for that alone.
For asking, for being interesting, for chasing away the boredom, and for giving me a chance to watch an artist at work—for all that, I would definitely do my best to do right. If the money was good, that would just be a big, fat, juicy cherry on top.
Elizabeth I-am-certainly-not-boring Rose deserved my best.
“Elizabeth”—I didn’t do formal with any of my clients; that they could take or leave—“would you like a drink before you tell me about your situation? I can whip you up anything from a brandy to a mint julep, but unless you’re wearing a hat and watching the horses race, I wouldn’t recommend the second. Without the sound of cheering and the smell of money in the air, it just doesn’t taste the same.”
“The Derby.” There was a mist of memories clinging to her, the same as the smell of mint would. “I’ve been. It was wonderful.” The memories fled as she focused on me. “You’re from the South. I could tell, from your accent, but Derby . . . If you haven’t been, you can’t know, can you?” There it was again—that sun in my sky, only person in this world, this time, this moment pull in her gaze. Elizabeth was a pitcher and she was filled to the brim with charisma.
As only the cream-of-the-crop liars ever are.
“Honey, I’m from everywhere.” I spread my arms to indicate the vastness of that everywhere. “I never settle too long. Born to hit the ground running—that’s me.” I also knew Derby was more wonderful if you were rich and sitting in Millionaires Row and not rolling around drunk in a muddy infield. “Now, how about that drink?”
She put her hands in the lap of a dress that probably cost more than the Titanic and stopped as many hearts. It was as red as her lips and for a magpie moment I wanted it greedily for myself. I did adore red. “Thank you for the offer, but no. The sooner I see if you can help me, the better I’ll feel.”
It was finely done, how she didn’t sound at all like my grubby little bar glasses would never touch her painted lips if she could help it. You couldn’t hear it, not one bit. Elizabeth, I thought fondly, lovely and unloving Bethy Rose, we could be such good friends. Our girls’ nights would leave men crying in their drinks for months. You are such fun.
“Then, tell me, Elizabeth.” I took a coolly sweet swallow of mango from my glass, and if it was grubby, I didn’t notice. “What can I do for you, sweetie? You seem like you want something more than information or a little help. You make me sound as if I can change your life. Do something big.” I put the doubt in my voice—it never hurt when it came to the dollar price. But inside, I had no doubt.
Go big or go home—isn’t that how it goes?
Big I could do.
“Go on, Elizabeth.” I nudged her with a sympathetic curve of my lips and tilt of my head. “Tell me what you need.”
—
I was wrong.
Elizabeth was boring.
I hated being wrong almost as much as I hated being bored. Still, I could take her problem, one I’d heard too many times, and make the solution entertaining. Making my own challenge. And why not? Someone had to do it.
I sulked—it’s not pretty to say, but I did—drank my margarita, and read Elizabeth’s face as she carefully laid out what she wanted piece by piece, artfully jumbled, because she thought if I saw the picture of the puzzle clear and bright as the North Star, I’d think her vain.
She was.
I’d think her greedy.
She was that, too.
I’d think her selfish and malicious.
Well, that’s in the eye of the beholder.
I’d think her a sociopath.
As if she’d be the first to cross my door, shy little guppy.
I’d think her a murderer.
Don’t we all have our piddly faults?
I made out the puzzle despite her best efforts, and her best was very good. The secret was to not look into her eyes but beside them before wrinkles in her fine skin were hidden like bodies in a graveyard under a blanket of softening spring grass . . . or, in this case, by expensive makeup. See the forehead not smooth from a peaceful nature but unmoving from poisoned nerve endings. Linger on that beautiful dress that had the high neck to conceal the minute sag of skin and also behold the bra that defied gravity, physics, and Einstein himself in one hellacious hat trick.
I felt for her—I did.
I do lie—how do you think I spot the best so well?—but that isn’t one of them.
No one wants to get old. Or rather we wouldn’t mind getting old if only it didn’t show so much. In the past we prized age not for appearance but for its wisdom. In this technology-drenched future when knowledge appears like magic at the press of a few keys if you cared (no one cared), it was different. No, these days we’d put the aged in nouveau leper colonies if we could, to hide the sight and wisdom. How much wisdom can you fit in one hundred forty characters or less? Is that really an issue the modern world cares about?
“Like” yes or no on that question, please.
Sighing, more bored than before, I put down my empty glass and laid it out for her . . . if not quite in the way as she’d laid it out for so many. I did it in words while she used silk sheets. “Elizabeth, you’re making this harder than it has to be, sugar. All this?” I brushed my hand an inch above the table to indicate the threads of her tapestry of deceit that draped in invisible folds. “It’s lies. And they’re good lies, mind you. I may tuck a few away for future use,” or just to take out and covet as the shiny trinkets they were, “but in my bar you don’t have to tell me lies. You said your husband was Catholic. Think of this place as a confessional.” I winked. “Or better yet, a whorehouse. No judgments from me, none at all. You can tell me anything and you should. You’re paying for my service. If you can’t tell me what you really want, how can I give it to you?”
I actually could, but where was the entertainment in that? The only thing better than a great liar was forcing a great liar to tell the truth. We hate it like poison. We’re contrary that way.
Hate it she did, all the warmth draining out of her as quickly as if she’d turned off the lights with a flip of the switch. It’s harder to be a successful sociopath if you have to show your true face to the world. Not impossible, though, not at all—just a little harder. I had faith that Elizabeth could handle it. I had faith that Elizabeth had handled many bumps in the particularly crooked road in her life, much larger ones than simply telling me the truth.
Then again, bigger isn’t always better.
But me? I’m easy as pie to bare heart and soul to—I had said no judgments. Elizabeth, one liar measuring another, saw what she saw and took me at my word. She told me.
The truth hurts. The truth will set you free. Today the truth was a business transaction and nothing more. We shook on it. It was sort of sweet, her trusting me with her most precious hope . . . sweet, indeed, if not for the murder and all.
Don’t you look at me that way. You’ll make me giggle like a five-year-old.
Honestly? Judgments? Please. Do you think I’d have any clients at all if I made them?
Or if I did make them,
didn’t keep them to myself?
Work is work. You do what you have to.
Or you do what you want to—sometimes it’s both.
“You can do it, then?” Elizabeth asked as I tapped a bronze nail against an empty glass and pondered the cost of paper umbrellas or little flamingo swizzle sticks. I switched my attention back to her and hid my irritation.
Could I do it?
That wasn’t a question. That was an insult. Of course I could do it. I simply had to figure out the most intriguing way to achieve it. “Oh, honey, you wound me with your doubts.” I forgot the glass, beamed at her, and put my fingers in my hair to give it a wild shake. It was good for getting the brain going. “It’ll cost you, though. Seventy-five thousand. No bargaining, no haggling. Payment on delivery. And it goes without saying, I hope, that I do a cash-only business.” Rich people like Elizabeth had forgotten about the quaint custom of haggling. They bought what they wanted and never cared about the price. I stopped bargaining with them a long time ago. They weren’t good enough at it to make it entertaining. Elizabeth had been rich long enough that while she hadn’t forgotten about it, she was disgusted by it. She thought herself too high and mighty, too good for the likes of that sort of thing now. Shame.
I guessed we couldn’t be friends after all.
“I’ll call you in a week.” I straightened from the less-than-ladylike slouch my mama had never been able to correct me of and stood to walk Elizabeth to the door, our herd of tall heels castanets on the floor. “It shouldn’t take longer than that.” Not to mention giving her time to gather up the money. Rich or not, or rich but not for much longer—either way it was hard to gather that sort of cash at a moment’s notice. Unless you’re keeping your money in a mattress, banks get possessive and are closefisted about handing someone seventy-five thousand dollars in cash. Write a check for a sports car if you want—intangible money—but handing over the real thing, stained with invisible blood and dirty with greed? They didn’t like that. They were suspicious. Why would you possibly need that much real-world money? For something illegal? For someone like me?