Fish Out of Water

by Ros Baxter

  Holy shit, she was a watch-keeper.

  I could hear Aldus behind me, on the two-way to Billy, the local paramedic. Billy runs the funeral home as well, but no-one’s ever questioned the conflict of interest. He picks up Dirtwater’s bruised, battered and, ever so occasionally, dead, and takes them to the hospital, the funeral home or the morgue. Depending on the type and degree of their misfortune.

  Aldus has loved Billy since Billy played ball for Dirtwater High a dozen years before, and I could tell he was thinking passing Blondie over to him might be his ticket back to the air-conditioned bliss of Boss Hadley’s poker room. I tried to tune Aldus out. My hands were shaking and my heart pounding as I contemplated it all.

  A mermaid. A watch-keeper. On the main street of Dirtwater. Dead.

  What the hell was she doing there? There’s never been a mermaid in Dirtwater. Talk about a fish out of water. So far out of water it’s not funny.

  Well, correction. There’s never been a mermaid here apart from my Mom. And me.

  Although technically I’m only half-mermaid.

  “Travel well, little one,” I said, sweeping my fingers lightly over her eyelids and down her cheeks in the ancient farewell. “May the seas be gentle with your ship of sleep.”

  My heart constricted and I felt out of breath. The spots before my eyes lengthened into jagged lines at the edges of my vision. Wow, go figure. Just when you’re sure you’ve seen it all and nothing can make you sad. I could hear Mom saying “Baby, your heart’s too big for this job.” Tell that to all the badasses I’d locked up, throwing away the key without a second thought.

  I looked again at the blonde. Her stillness stopped me. It seemed small and selfish to think about my own impending fate, but I couldn’t stop myself. Three weeks. Tick, tick, tick…

  Still, nothing an old friend wouldn’t fix.

  I tapped a cigarette out of its packet and slid its clean, dry beauty between my lips.

  It was like coming home. I’d been planning to clean up my body to prepare it for the hereafter – no Twinkies, no cigarettes. If I had to meet the Goddess, I didn’t want her seeing what a lousy job I did of looking after the fine body she gave me. For a start, I’d never seen another mermaid with cellulite. But I figured that was a technicality now. The quitting thing, I mean. Now I had something else to focus on for the next three weeks. I had to find out who hurt this Chosen One.

  I lit up, looking for comfort as much as the dizzy hit that I knew was my pay-off for walking this carcinogenic tightrope.

  I could always give up tomorrow.

  “Wish some woman loved to suck on me that much,” a seedy voice behind me wheezed. I swivelled to see a face that was heading towards handsome in high school but never quite fulfilled its promise. Billy. By the Goddess, this day couldn’t get any worse.

  “Hi Rania,” he oozed in that breathy drawl that some cheerleader back in the day had told him was sexy. He swayed closer to me so I could smell the sweet-sour cocktail of bad whiskey and bourbon chicken on his breath. I didn’t need to look into his puffy blue eyes to know he was looking at me the way he’d looked at me since we were in second grade together. Like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to catch me in a game of kiss chasey or pull my pigtails.

  Even now that I didn’t have a pigtails.

  “So what’s with the stiff? Aldus says we need an autopsy. Been trying to get Larry, but no luck. Done one of his disappearing acts. I guess I’ll take her to the morgue anyway, prep her, ’til we reach him.” Billy sidelines as a forensic assistant, helping out the coroner.

  Damn. Last thing I needed was this doofus poking around my girl.

  “Thanks Billy,” I purred, real friendly, to the background buzz of crickets and a lone generator. He grinned hopefully. “But you better not prep her tonight, huh? Federal law. Anyone who deals with a corpse under the influence is liable to hefty penalties.”

  Billy licked his lips in a gesture that came off stomach-churningly sensuous. “Really?”

  I nodded. “Oh yeah, man. And there’s something about this case.” I searched for the right word. “Something… fishy.”

  The crickets buzzed. The generator groaned. I waited, to give him time to catch up.

  Billy nodded, mentally watching the greenbacks fly out of his account.

  “The feds are gonna be all over it. Might be best if you just keep her on ice. I’ll meet you at the morgue in the morning.”

  Billy’s now glum face lit up, creasing into a toothy smile. “Tomorrow? Sunday?”

  I nodded reluctantly. Here it comes.

  That tongue reappeared to caress his lips. “Your Ma still do brownies Sunday mornin’?”

  Men and their appetites. Every atom in me wanted to tell him to take his greedy little brownie-loving fingers and shove ’em where the sun don’t shine, but I needed him on my side.

  “Sure. Leave Blondie alone tonight and there’ll be brownies in it for you tomorrow.”

  Billy smiled and turned back to his rig to pop the gurney out before speeding off, leaving Aldus and me on Main Street looking at the slick stain where she’d been a moment before. Aldus cracked his knuckles enthusiastically and smiled hopefully, but I couldn’t shake the fog of wrong that was dogging me.

  “I guess we’d better start canvassing,” I suggested to Aldus, who looked like a petulant twelve-year-old whose Mama’s told him he’s gotta do his homework before he goes to surf porn on the internet. Dr Phil would tell him to “muscle up.”

  “Come on Aldus,” I offered heartily, punching him on the arm affectionately but forgetting my strength until he winced and rubbed the spot my fist had landed. “Remember I said I’ll take the late? But we have a dead girl here. Our first corpse in God knows how long.”

  “Do you have to act so goddamn excited?” He sounded really petulant now. “Anyway, how bout old Mrs Kraus, down on Park and Lincoln last week? You forget already?”

  “Buh-bow.” I made a noise like a game show buzzer signalling wrong answer. “Cardiac arrest. She was eighty-five. Her team lost the bridge final. She didn’t have the heart to go on.”

  “Uncommon courage, my ass,” Aldus bitched. “Uncommon nagging more like. Shoulda given you the Medal of Pain-in-the-Ass, not the Medal of Freakin’ Valor.”

  I laughed and scratched my arm, where the shiny, plastic scar ran from cuff to elbow.

  Thing is, I agreed with him. No way am I brave. A year later and I still have nightmares about red-headed girls clutching smoking teddy bears.

  Aldus swiftly changed tack, reminding me he wasn’t as clueless as he liked everyone to believe. “Ah, so okay, okay. What the hell else we gotta do this week, right? Only business lately’s been those crazy sonsabitches out at the old Hagan estate.”

  “Technically,” I corrected him, “there are some pretty damn irritating daughtersabitches out there too.” We both sighed into the claggy heat of the Dirtwater night.

  Aldus and I had really had it with the Children of the Apocalypse. “They aren’t the only ones sayin’ the world’s gonna end,” Aldus snorted. He was in his Buick, one leg propped on the dash, and I could see sock and way too much hairy white leg. “I know it’s hot as hell and feels like the end of the goddamn world, but I blame her.” He jabbed a finger at the radio, which he’d flicked onto NPR. Not that he’d ever admit to anyone else that he loved the hell out of what he called in company that liberal crap.

  I tuned in. “…so I say it’s okay to look out for each other. To have a healthcare system that protects the vulnerable. To stop sending our kids off to die on foreign soil-”

  Aldus flicked it off as I visualized Susan Murray, the stunning fifty-something blonde with the soft voice. He made a throaty tick that was hard to interpret. “Ever since that goddam woman came on the scene, the nutjobs have gone even crazier. ‘S the heat, y’know?”

  I raised an eyebrow at him, and he went on.

  “Makes people nuts. Horses and nutjobs, they can smell the change in the air.” He made
that phlegmy tick again. “Maybe it is global warming or whatever the hell they call it. Whatever. But what I say is this. If we really are facing down maybe the first female President, then maybe the crazies are right. Maybe the world really is ending.” He paused for effect and I knew what was coming next. I’d heard it often enough. “No matter how good-lookin’ that goddam woman might be.”

  I tried to make the right kind of pissed face, the one he would expect. But I wasn’t really listening. Mom says back in Aegira they’re spooked and predicting the end of the world too. It’s all to do with the royal line and this damn prophecy. Only one world can survive. Bloodtides. And all that. I guess that’s enough to spook anyone.

  Me, I haven’t got enough headspace for anyone else’s prophecies. I’ve been living under the shadow of my own personal End of Days prediction for thirteen years now.

  But, as the song says, I’ve only got myself to blame.

  There’s one rule about visits to the Seer back in Aegira. And I had to break it.

  Don’t ask about the appointed hour of your own death.

  But hey, I was sixteen. And I didn’t think she’d really tell me.

  I spent a long time after trying to convince myself it was all just so much horseshit. But then slowly, surely, all the rest of it came true. Dad went to jail. Queen Imd didn’t fall pregnant. And the biggest long shot of all: Faigerst really did ask Zali to the Evensong Ball.

  And then I knew it for sure. I was screwed.

  No-one had seen Blondie arrive. Or seen her die. Or even seen her dead (well, except for the guy who stepped on her, and he was feeling pretty sheepish about the whole thing really; Dirtwater folks are kinda genteel like that). It was the first night of the Dirt Wrestling Festival, and by nine most folks were at The Dirty Boar, well-lubricated with Dirty Dan’s home brew.

  We only discovered two interesting things all night. First, the aquarium.

  We found it stashed in some bushes near Blondie. Like a sliver of ocean in the Dirtwater desert. A half-full, reef-fish aquarium. Still with the fish in it. Six beautiful, multi-colored angels, swimming in a daze around their half-drained home. Big too. The aquarium, that is. And something else; one tiny little blue-green fish, barely noticeable, swimming innocently beside its magnificent cellmates.

  Aldus decided immediately the aquarium had nothing to do with our girl. Despite the saltwater. “Too heavy,” he pronounced. “Skinny little thing’d never have lifted that sucker.”

  I said nothing, but when he disappeared (thank God for that prostate or I’d never get any work done) I checked. And yep, I could lift it. I bet a million bucks Blondie could too.

  I thought about that tiny blue fish. Maybe she hadn’t needed to lift it at all.

  The other thing was the second stranger. Dan, who ran the Dirty Boar, had seen something out back, when he was banging the generator. A shadow. And a back, retreating. He remembered because he’d stood up quickly to get a look, and got this buzz in his ears. Worried his tinnitus was playing up again. Couldn’t say much. Tall, dark clothes. But he did say the guy moved like a boxer, light on his feet. He’d wondered if it was a wrestler, for the festival.

  Missy Lovelace had seen something too, but was even less helpful. Admittedly, she was distracted and it had been hard to question her as she adjusted her bikini and mentally banked audience appreciation points. Man, dirt wrestling is just a whole other thing.

  This town doesn’t really have a lot going for it, just people on their way somewhere else, or hiding out, or dropping out. So about ten years ago, the big men of Dirtwater started looking for a way to attract tourists. They thought mud wrestling had something going for it, but given that there wasn’t much water, there wasn’t much mud. So dirt-wrestling was born.

  Anyway, I hit Missy up as she was preparing for her set, tugging on one improbable breast to bring it further into the action – a delicate task given that it already seemed unbelievable that you could expose that much breast without revealing nipple. Surely that little sucker was popping out any second. Watching Missy in her bikini, I cursed Mom’s sense of humor. I still couldn’t believe the theme for this year’s festival was Under The Sea.

  I could hear the dull murmur of the crowd building, even from inside. The little dressing room was hot and impossibly wet. Missy told me she kept the shower running because the steam helped her false eyelashes stick. “It’s good to see you, Rania. Listen, I know I said it at the time, but I really appreciate…” Pause. Tug, tug on her bikini. “What you did, y’know.”

  I tried not to look as she pulled on her bosom again. I shifted uncomfortably, as much at her words as at the whole bosom-fiddling thing. “It was nothing Missy, just part of the job.”

  She shook her head adamantly and flashed me a Zoom-whitened smile. “No way, honey. You’re the best. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like the way you flew in there and pulled him offa me. And y’know? He ain’t bothered me since.” She looked at me for approval. “And y’know what? I did just what y’ said. Changed the locks n’all.”

  I nodded, pleased Big Barry Buckford was leaving her alone. Missy and I had been in high school together. She was sweet but had a worse habit for ugly drunks than I did for pirates. I tried to do like Mom always said, just smile and say thanks. But I knew it was coming off like a grimace so I got down to business. “So, Missy. The guy Dan saw?”

  “Yeah I saw him too. I was late, y’see.” She rolled her eyes, motioning to the star-spangled bikini. “Costume dramas. Y’know how it is.”

  “Totally,” I lied. The room was even steamier than outside, the thick heat unbroken by the single, crippled fan sluicing through the air. It was making the shiny scar on my arm itch.

  “How did you know it was a guy?” I doubted if Missy knew her own last name right now, she was so jangled about her upcoming performance.

  “Dunno,” she offered unhelpfully. “But oh man, I knew. If there’s one thing I know, it’s guys. He looked hot too, y’know, from behind. Big. Yum. My kinda guy.” She chewed her lip and went on. “I was gonna call out to him, ask him if he was coming in, but my mouth got all gummy. Couldn’t talk. Nerves, I guess. You know, the competition.”

  “I guess,” I agreed. “Anything else? What’d he look like?”

  She shrugged.

  “Would you know him if you saw him again?”

  “Oh yeah, baby. Like I said, I know guys.” Another tug for good measure. I believed her. As she tugged some more, I was sure a thin pinkish-brown rim finally broke free of the bikini and I averted my eyes towards the shower before I threw up.

  As I did, it happened.

  The mildewy pink curtain billowed forward and a large shape crashed to the floor, right between Missy and me, wrapped in the voluminous plastic. Missy screamed.

  My heart tapped out a tango and one hand went to my Glock without any conscious command as I tried to disentangle the curtain from the lumpy shape.

  As I pulled it free, I had one of those moments. You know the ones. Where everything slows down and you know that for the rest of your life you’ll be able to describe it in vivid technicolor. Like the time I turned on the tv and saw that plane crashing into the towers.

  He was almost supernaturally beautiful. And naked. A long trickle of thick red blood ran from the side of one temple down to a graceful jaw.

  And he was lying on the floor half in and half out of Missy’s teeming shower.

  Had he been there, in the shower, the whole time?

  “Sweet Jesus,” Missy whistled, clearly impressed as she studied the region I was studiously avoiding. As beautiful as he was, it didn’t seem right to be copping an eyeful.

  Especially when he seemed to be in pretty bad shape.

  He was long and lean, dark blonde and strong like a runner. Golden hair glistened on his wet, brown body, but he was curled like a fetus and moaning softly. Something about the sight of him, which should have screamed “get the pervert outta here”, touched me right down inside. Right down in my
belly. And lower. I wanted to cover him up. I wanted to help him. And some parts of me wanted to do other things, but I wasn’t giving them any airtime.

  “This the guy?” I barked at Missy. She shook her head.

  “Go call Billy,” I barked again and she scuttled out with a petulant sniff.

  As she left, his eyes opened. And even through the disoriented blur, we had a moment. His eyes widened as they connected with mine and I felt my mouth swing open. I tore my hands away as though burned, but my eyes weren’t being torn anywhere. His were indigo, and their hot stare was like someone waving a searchlight in my face.

  Before I could act, one strong brown hand reached up and circled my wrist like a manacle, pulling me forward onto his wet, naked chest. With the other hand, he pinned me against him, crushing the small of my back and mashing my breasts and tummy against the length of him as he spoke. “You.” It sounded like a command, but his voice was deep and dark, like Lucky Strikes and home-baked toffee. Like the most delicious bad boy you ever knew.

  It was only a second or two, but I felt a sudden, unhelpful flush spread across my chest and my breath speed up as my brain struggled to catch up. Even through my dark denim jeans and the calico of my uniform shirt I could feel every wet bump and sinew of him. My legs had landed astride him, and my crotch was crushed against the hardness between his hips.

  He leaned forward and moaned into my ear, and as he did my mouth grazed his jaw. I tasted salty blood and smelled sweat and strung-out, dirty man. A thousand butterflies danced down my spine and landed in the pit of my stomach. My nipples puckered involuntarily, and the ensuing flash of self-disgust galvanized me to action.

  I arched back but he was not to be deterred. He lifted one long arm seamlessly to bring me closer again. As he did, I caught a glimpse of the red gold hair of his underarm, flat brown nipples and a whorl of hair south of his belly button that led…

  I twisted off him and leaped up with the instinct born of a thousand karate classes, ramming the heel of one calf-high black boot into the most sensitive place on his chest.