by Neil Plakcy
Farishta stepped to the bathroom window, and flicked her finger. The window rose silently, and she stuck her hand outside. She closed her eyes and twirled her fingers in a small circle, and with a quick whoosh a square block of Beekman 1802 goat milk soap appeared, still in its elegant paper wrapping. It was followed a second later by a sleek bottle of Desert Essence coconut shampoo.
He hadn’t bothered to embellish the shower; it was a simple glass cage with a white tile floor. He followed Farishta inside, bracing for the onslaught of the water. But before she touched the dial, she swept her finger from the top of his head down to his feet and he felt encased in a tiny swirl of air.
Farishta liked it hot. She pointed her finger at the dial, and immediately steaming hot water poured out. Like a dog, he tilted his head back, feeling the water cascade over him, for once not being hurt. He understood why humans liked this so much.
He and Farishta soaped each other’s bodies, then rinsed, and when he stepped out he felt refreshed and vibrant, smelling of flowers and coconut.
As he was toweling dry, his cell phone rang. He stepped into the bedroom and fumbled in his sweat pants until he found it. “Biff Andromeda,” he said, without looking at the display.
“We found Laskin’s Porsche,” Jimmy Stein said. “In the parking lot at Haulover Beach.”
“No sign of him?”
“Nope. Could have gone off in a boat, could be dead somewhere in the mangroves. I’ve got his fingerprints at Sveta Pshkov’s studio, so I can place him where she and Kiril Ovetschkin were murdered. He’s got a permit for the kind of gun used in the crime, though I doubt he’s stupid enough to use his own weapon. If I’m lucky that’s enough to get a warrant for his arrest. I’ve got a guy taking it to a judge this morning.”
“What do you need from me?”
“I was hoping you could use some of your super-duper observational powers. See if you can find any trace evidence the techs can’t, that might give us some idea if Laskin left voluntarily or not. The way you spotted that blood on Ovetschkin’s boat. And who knows, while we’re looking, maybe Laskin will show up, and I’ll get my warrant, and I can arrest the jerk.”
Jimmy had long ago accepted that Biff’s power of sight and smell was much greater than average, nearly superhuman. He had never probed to understand how.
“All right. I’ll head right over there now.” Biff disconnected the phone and looked at Farishta. “Come on, let’s go for a ride. You’ll like where we’re going—it’s by the water.”
Biff opened his closet and retrieved his standard work outfit—a pair of khaki slacks, a polo shirt, and deck shoes. When he turned to Farishta, he discovered she was already dressed. “You like Lily Pulitzer?” she asked, giving him a little spin.
She wore a short-sleeved cotton dress that would look perfect on a tennis court in Palm Beach, thought, in bright shades of pink and lime green, with matching pink tennis shoes. “Lovely,” he said. As they walked out, he explained that the police had been looking for Laskin, and had found his car at the marina.
When they got to the car, the squirrel was already sitting on the pavement by the front wheel, chittering.
“Yes, we’re running late,” Biff said. “I don’t need you to remind me.”
He lowered the top and they headed east on Ives Dairy Road. “Why is this amulet so important to you?” Biff asked as they drove.
“I am aging, Bivas,” Farishta said, turning to face him. “You can see it, can’t you?”
“You are still as beautiful and bewitching as ever.”
“Ah, you have always had a silver tongue.” She smiled. “This amulet contains a power that will help me control my decline.”
Biff laughed. “How can you speak of decline, my love, when you are still as lithe and sensuous as you were centuries ago?”
“I am older than you, Bivas. You have always known that.”
“But by a matter of years.”
She shook her head. “More than a few years. More than a few centuries.”
They stopped at a traffic light, and he shifted position, so he was resting on his elbow and surveying her. “Aging does not matter to our kind.”
“Ah, but it does, my love, especially if one has been careless with one’s powers, as I have. I fear that without this amulet I will continue to decline. I may have but a hundred years or so left unless I can harness it to recharge myself.”
The light changed, and as he accelerated, Biff spotted a donut shop. He signaled to pull in. “We’re going to meet a cop,” he said. “Always bring food in those circumstances.”
Farishta had a sweet tooth, and she was delighted to survey the wide range of donuts available—Bismarks, Boston Kremes, bow ties, chocolate cream, jelly-filled, glazed, cinnamon, cocoa, dulce de leche, scattered with sprinkles or dripping frosting. She ordered a box of a dozen just for herself, to the raised eyebrow of the female clerk. As they drove she ate donut after donut, daintily wiping her mouth of the powdered sugar that Biff would have preferred to lick away.
They drove down A1A, the beach road, past the high-rises of Sunny Isles Beach and the enclave of Little Moscow, then turned into the gravel parking lot for Haulover Beach. It was already jammed with cars and SUVs of all shapes and sizes, angle-parked in neat lines. A ramshackle fuel dock and the shell of a long-closed restaurant were all that stood between the lot and the sparkling blue-green expanse of Biscayne Bay, littered with dozens of sailboats moored in the shallow anchorage.
Jimmy’s government-issue sedan and a police cruiser were parked near the water’s edge. Jimmy stood two rows in beside a dark blue Porsche Biff recognized as Laskin’s. Biff pulled in behind the cruiser, and he and Farishta walked over to join Jimmy.
He handed over the donuts, then introduced Farishta. “She’s an old friend,” he said.
“Surely more than that, my love?” she said, curling her hand in Biff’s.
Biff felt himself blushing, and noticed Jimmy’s smirk. “Well, well,” Jimmy said to Farishta. “What’s a beautiful woman like you doing with a schmuck like this guy?”
Biff was tempted to tell Jimmy exactly what they’d been doing—but then, he was a gentleman. Instead he asked, “So, what do we have?”
“Cruiser doing a routine patrol early this morning saw the plate and called it in based on the APB I put out yesterday. I could call the crime scene team in to look for evidence—but that costs, and my boss hates it when I spend money when I’m just fishing. I’m hoping your eagle eyes can help me figure out if there was any kind of struggle around here, if Laskin went with somebody else—anything you can give me.”
“I’ll do my best,” Biff said. “Farishta, my sweet, if you and Jimmy would go over there, please?”
Farishta turned to Jimmy. “Tell me, Detective. Do you like the water?”
They walked toward the patrol car, and Biff focused on the area around the Porsche, isolating the cop, Jimmy, and Farishta from his senses. Laskin himself had been there; that was clear. His signature was all over the car and the area around it. The scent was no more than a few hours old. He must have left the car only a short time before the cruiser had noticed it. Perhaps he had taken an early morning fishing excursion? Biff knew that deep-sea boats left from the marina.
He turned to the side and looked down toward the gas dock. Though it was five to six hundred yards away, he could read the fine print on the advertisements. The fishing boats all departed much later in the morning than Laskin had left his car.
There were no other human signatures that matched the time Laskin had left the Porsche. Biff followed his trail along the shore to the pier. From there, it disappeared in a miasma of gasoline and motor oil fumes.
Farishta came up behind him. “He left on a boat?”
“Yes. Can you do anything to identify it?”
Farishta did not have Biff’s sense of smell, but she did have a close connection to the water, and could often sense disruptions in it. She held her hands out toward the bay, palms
out, and closed her eyes.
“Your friend have the same kind of talents you have?” Jimmy said, joining them.
“Similar, but different,” he said.
Biff and Jimmy had discussed many things in the years they’d known each other, from crime and punishment to movies and television shows. Jimmy did not believe in magic, ghosts, or aliens. He thought that popular entertainment depicting these creatures was based on the exploitation of deep-seated human fears.
Biff had never contradicted him, and Jimmy had never asked for a logical explanation of Biff’s abilities. And they got along just fine.
“Quiet, please,” Farishta said. “You are disrupting my aura.”
Biff and Jimmy stepped back a few paces. Farishta stood poised there for nearly two minutes, as if frozen like a mime on display.
“A fast boat,” she said, when she lowered her hands and turned back to them. “A cigarette type, I believe. I cannot say anything more than that.” She caught Biff’s eye, and he knew there was more, but she wouldn’t speak in front of Jimmy.
“Can’t get me a registration number, by chance?” Jimmy asked.
She shook her head and smiled.
Jimmy turned from them and strode back to his car. Farishta said, “We must follow Laskin. Here, on the water, I will be strong. I can find him, and with your help I can overpower the amulet and call it back to me.”
Biff shook his head. “You know I would do anything for you, my sweet. But you know that as water strengthens your powers, it weakens mine. I can’t help you.” Biff watched as Jimmy took a donut, then dropped the rest on the car’s front seat. While he ate, he called his office and reported his progress.
Even from a few hundred feet away, his conversation was as clear as if he was beside Biff, though uninteresting. He had other cases to attend to, but requested that the uniformed officer remain on site in case Laskin returned. Then he hung up.
“Are you listening to me, Bivas?” Farishta demanded, crossing her arms in front of her. “You are an obstinate ifrit!”
“I am as nature made me,” Biff said. “A spirit of the earth, just as you are a spirit of the water. We cannot change what we are.”
“But I must follow him!” Farishta stamped her foot.
“Not interrupting a lover’s quarrel, am I?” Jimmy asked, as he walked up. “I’ve got to get back to the office. But I’ll leave a car on stakeout, for whenever Laskin comes back. I should have a warrant to pick him up for questioning on the two murders within the next hour.”
“Let me know if we can help you with anything,” Biff said.
“Will do.” Jimmy tipped an imaginary cap to Farishta, who smiled flirtatiously, and then Jimmy returned to his car. Biff wondered if he imagined that his friend had a bit more spring in his step.
“Will you come with me?” Farishta asked.
Biff looked at her. She was even more alluring when the color rose in her cheeks, when she tossed her curls and twitched her nose. Of course, everything that involved her seemed to end up on the water. Or in the water, he thought, remembering their shower earlier that morning. But what the hell, that hadn’t been too bad. How tough could a boat ride be?
15 – Storm Front
“Summon your boat,” Biff said.
“Already here.” Farishta nodded down the pier, where a sleek white cigarette boat with red racing stripes was idling. It was about forty feet long, with a central navigation console protected by a plexiglass windscreen. The throaty rumble of the engines reminded Biff of hungry lions in the Serengeti.
“You know how to drive one of those?”
“Bivas. I am insulted.”
She hopped into the stern and stepped up to the console. Biff climbed in behind her. As he turned back toward the parking lot, he saw the squirrel bounding down the dock like a thoroughbred in a steeplechase.
“You sure you want to do this?” he asked the creature, but it had already taken a massive leap from the dock and landed on one of the cushions at the stern.
Placing a single finger on the steering wheel, Farishta expertly backed the boat out of the dock area, then turned its nose toward the bay.
“Farishta?” Biff asked, as they motored serenely out to Haulover Cut. “You have a protection spell for me?” The water around them was calm, and the rhythmic clatter of cars on the A1A bridge over the cut was almost soothing.
Farishta didn’t seem to hear him; it looked like she was concentrating on setting the steering coordinates for the boat. She touched a series of keys on the console, then turned to Biff. “You said something?”
All at once, the engines roared to full power and the cigarette zoomed ahead in a hydroplane. Biff was thrown back against the gunwale, and the spray hit him with even greater force than the shower had that morning. Tiny welts rose on his skin, angry red spots that burned like a thousand suns. It was beyond even his power to heal himself.
It all happened so quickly. He felt like he was going to pass out, and he slumped against the cushions. In his fading vision he saw the squirrel jump toward him and Farishta’s mouth open in horror. Then everything went black.
When he woke, he was lying on a narrow berth inside the main salon, with a coarse woolen blanket pulled over him. His skin tingled, but was no longer red or burning. “You are a fool, Bivas,” Farishta said.
She sat on the bar across from him, a martini glass in her hand. The boat was still moving at an incredible rate of speed, but she sipped daintily at the caramel-colored drink. “Who’s steering?” he asked groggily.
“The squirrel.”
He sat up so quickly he bumped his head on the wall. “What do you mean?”
“It’s simple enough,” Farishta said. “I set the coordinates to follow Laskin’s boat, and left the squirrel to mind the wheel. He says his name is Raki, by the way.”
“He can talk? Or you can talk to him?”
“He doesn’t have much to say. He is a rodent, after all. But we make ourselves understood.”
She drained the rest of her drink and hopped off the bar up. “I am sorry I forgot to protect you from the water, Bivas. I was so caught up in trying to find Laskin. But really, you should have spoken up earlier.”
“Apology accepted,” Biff said dryly.
“I must check on the squirrel now. You stay here, out of the water. It takes a lot of power to heal you.”
Biff nodded. He rubbed the back of his head where he had banged it, and focused on reducing the swelling. He was feeling better as he noticed the boat slow down dramatically. With the reduced speed, he figured it was safe to go above.
He climbed up the half-dozen steps from the salon to the steering console. The sun shone in the midst of a cloudless blue sky. The horizon was empty; there was nothing around them but sparkling aquamarine water. When he looked over the boat’s rail he saw a single hammerhead shark gliding far below them.
“Where are we?” he asked Farishta.
She looked down at the GPS screen and read him the coordinates.
“And that means…?”
She shrugged. “We are near Laskin,” she said. “That is all that matters.” She glanced to the where the squirrel balanced easily atop the wooden steering wheel, then looked back at Biff. “Raki will take care of the boat. I am going to see what Laskin is up to. Try not to fall overboard while I am gone.”
Biff felt Farishta suck together the humidity from the air around them as she transformed into a tiny cyclone again and sped off over the ocean, leaving him in the middle of the ocean with only a squirrel between him and disaster.
He decided it was time to try communication. He focused his attention on Raki, who clutched the steering wheel with his tiny claws, wrapping his long, furry tail around the wheel for extra balance.
Biff opened his mind, searching for the squirrel’s consciousness. And there it was, a very light aura in the air, like an oily sheen over the pavement after a rain shower. Thank you for helping when the water hit me, Biff sent him.
&n
bsp; ‘S all right, Raki said.
How come I can talk to you? Are you a special kind of squirrel?
Raki looked at him in confusion. Dunno.
Great, Biff thought. For the first time I can communicate with an animal, and he has nothing to say.
He scanned three hundred sixty degrees around them, looking for Farishta or any sign of Laskin’s boat. He couldn’t even spot a sea bird in the air, despite his extra-strong powers of sight. The waves were mere wrinkles, and the small flags along the boat’s lines hung limply without any breeze.
He moved forward to the navigation console, and after some study figured out which dial was the compass, and which was the GPS. They were several nautical miles off the Florida coast, due east of Miami. What if Farishta didn’t come back? He would be stuck out there in the middle of the ocean with a boat he couldn’t drive and an uncommunicative squirrel.
It would be just like Farishta to play that sort of trick on him. He didn’t trust her; she always had her own agenda. It was quite possible she was just using Biff to get back that amulet, and then she’d disappear without even thinking about what happened to him.
Who was he kidding? Of course she was doing just that. To the east, in the direction of Bimini, clouds began to gather, and he could see the wind rising. Was it a real storm? Probably not. From years of experience with Farishta, he guessed that she had found Laskin’s boat and was harnessing rain and wind to torment him. What would she do? She had told him she couldn’t forcibly take the amulet from Laskin or it would lose its power, so she had to come up with a way to trick the Russian into surrendering it.
He stood at the cigarette boat’s stern, watching the distant squall grow in intensity. Because it was so localized, more like a waterspout than a storm front, Biff was sure it was Farishta’s doing, and centered around Laskin’s boat.
Then suddenly, the storm was over, and the sun’s brilliance reflected off the waves. A moment later, a tiny cyclone zoomed toward to the boat. It slowed and transformed into a shimmer that grew to take Farishta’s size and shape. The sun shone through it in the colors of the rainbow. In a flash that was as stunning as it was gorgeous, the shimmer assumed Farishta’s shape, and she was in human form again.