She had gone there in May, shortly after she’d found the cache of money in Judy Johnson’s luggage. Perhaps (she had speculated) there would be other booty in the Johnson home. In any case, she had been curious as to what had become of the old man. She’d not discovered his corpse, for she hadn’t gone into the church, but booty there had been, if not in any form she could have expected.
By taking the will, she had removed Jim Cottonwood’s claim to Reverend Johnson’s estate. Alan would be the old man’s sole heir. At that time Diana had not foreseen that she might soon be Alan’s wife, and possibly his widow. Taking the document and squirreling it away had seemed only a kind of prudence, and a kindness to Alan. The boy’s murder had been far from her thoughts.
39
“It’s your Jews and your Catholics who are the big rollers,” Merle was explaining to the lady beside him at the bar of the Taco-Nite Casino. “They both believe in luck, but in different ways. Jews believe in smart luck. They figure the odds at the crap table, try and count the cards at blackjack, and fold their hands half the time when they play poker, ‘cause the numbers don’t compute according to some complicated table of statistics they keep in their heads. Catholics, on the other hand, believe in dumb luck. Jews lose their money slowly and carefully, but Catholics go for broke. Catholics think God’s gonna help them get rich, just to make up for all the times before when he didn’t. They love the roulette tables. They’ll bluff on a pair of jacks. One or two drinks in them and they’ll pump the ATMs dry from a firm conviction that this time they’ll hit the jackpot.
“So that’s why these casinos up here won’t ever get off the ground. Outside the Twin Cities, where’s the Catholics and Jews in Minnesota? We got Lutherans and Indians, and all of them dirt poor. Lutherans mainly don’t gamble at all. Might as well open state brothels for all the money any Lutheran will shell out for sin. It’s not that they don’t sin, but they can’t stand to pay money for the privilege.” Merle blew a puff of cigarette smoke in the other direction from the lady beside him, who was not a smoker and obviously resented his smoking, though not enough to move farther off.
“Now, most Indians believe in dumb luck just like the Catholics, but we’re so damn poor that there’s not a lot of money to be made off us. The money Indians drop at Taco-Nite came from Taco-Nite. What a name, huh? Sounds like a special offer from Taco Bell.”
This was not the right lady for his too often recycled joke. She offered a polite smile and turned her attention to the casino floor. Did she feel she needed rescuing and was looking for her date? She wasn’t one of the Taco-Nite regulars, the hookers and the blackjack and bingo addicts. Merle figured she must be up from the Cities, staying at one of the resorts. And how many of her type were going to venture this far north on their own to catch walleyes? There must be a husband or a boyfriend around, but the crowd was pretty sparse this early on a Wednesday night, and he didn’t see any likely candidates. She just didn’t compute.
“There are never clocks in casinos, are there?” she said. “Do you have the time?”
“No, not in the way I guess you’re asking. This here”—he turned his wrist to show her—“is just a collar off a dead cat.”
She laughed at that plain fact as she had not at his joke. “Really?” she marveled. “A dead cat? Yours?”
“Well, no. It must have been a stray. I found it pretty deep in the woods.”
“Just the collar, no cat attached?”
He nodded, annoyed by her curiosity, and then it came back, the dream he’d had, where he was in some other bar, talking to another woman. No, to the very cat they were talking about. Who’d run off, in his dream, and when he woke, the real cat had run off, too, leaving her collar behind. Which he’d buckled round his wrist, ‘cause he liked the look of it.
And he was sure there was some connection between that dream and this lady here, staring so intently at the red leather collar he’d taken off that cat. He removed the collar and handed it to her.
Immediately she looked at the inner lining of paler leather, on which someone had written GINGER in childishly awkward ballpoint letters. He could see a glint of recognition and then, as she handed the collar back, the feigned indifference.
“Ginger,” she said lightly. “That’s how you can tell it was on a cat. There must be a thousand cats called Ginger.”
“There must be,” he agreed. “Hate to think of what must have happened to this Ginger, though—with just her collar there in the woods.” He took a meditative drag and didn’t bother directing the smoke another way. “I guess you must be a cat lover yourself.”
“Me? Oh no. I’m almost the opposite.”
“An ailurophobe?”
That got a rise out of her. She didn’t come right out and ask where he’d got a ten-dollar word like that, but he could see it registered. He’d finally caught her interest.
“My name’s Merle,” he said, slouching her way and offering his hand.
“Diana,” she said, accepting his handshake reluctantly.
“And what’s your game? If I may ask.”
He’d ruffled her feathers, but she replied, with a backward tilt of her head, “I’m a schoolteacher. Though I’m on a leave of absence right now. And yourself?”
He grinned. “The same—I’m on a leave of absence. Though that wasn’t what I was asking. I meant—what’s your game here, at the Taco-Nite? Blackjack? Roulette? I don’t see you as the bingo type, but I could be wrong. I only do the slots myself. Bingo’s too slow, and the other games get too expensive. I never got better than a C in arithmetic, but that was enough to take in the fact that the odds favor the house. Yourself?”
“A’s usually,” she said, loosening up all at once, seeming almost friendly, “though again that’s not what you were asking. My game? I’m here to play…” She offered a smiling, what-can-I-tell-you? shrug, “… the field?”
Was she putting the make on him? Merle wondered. It would not have been the first time he’d been beaten to the punch. There was a whole class of ladies who came to the casinos looking for some affirmative action with boys from the rez.
“You know, if there was a band, and we were dancing, this is the moment when I would slip the bandleader five bucks and ask him to play ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together,’ one of my all-time sentimental favorites.”
“Mine, too,” she agreed. “Though I’m not sure five bucks would do the job these days.”
“Then we got a problem. ‘Cause in the classic choice of my place or yours, you would not be very happy with my place. I know I’m not. But I’m near broke, so that rules out a motel. So, where are you staying? And are you here by yourself?”
“My place is possible, but it’s a ways away. Almost fifty miles. And I wouldn’t want to drive you back here after the date.”
“I’m the same,” he assured her. “Shy about making commitments. But how’s this for logistics? I follow you home on my bike. We spend the night together. I grab some sleep. You provide breakfast. Does that sound like love at first sight?”
“It sounds possible.”
They got off the bar stools in unison, and Merle could swear that at just that moment he could see Ginger, with her red collar on, scoot across the linoleum floor in the direction of the bingo hall.
They exited the casino through wheezing pneumatic doors and entered a summer evening that featured June bugs sizzling in the bug lights and a full-scale aurora beyond.
“Jesus,” said Merle. “We don’t get many as good as that.”
Her head swiveled sideways, like a television monitor, and a tongue slid out from her lips that was not a human tongue. Thin, and split at the tip, the tongue of a snake.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” she agreed, making her voice sound deep and sexy.
But it was too late. He knew her for a witch. And she didn’t know he knew that. Had no suspicion.
And he knew something else: this was the woman Judy Johnson wanted him to kill.
�
�Merle, would you excuse me a moment? It’s a long drive. I’d better hit the ladies’ room first.”
“Sure. Just point the way to your car, and I’ll get my bike ready.”
“It’s the white Camry at the far end of the lot.”
“I see it.”
She hesitated a moment and then, on tiptoe, her tongue human again, gave him a kiss, quick but not so quick as to seem perfunctory.
Would he kill her? He couldn’t decide. The shaman in him seemed to favor that impulse. His hands itched to be at her throat. But first another itch had to be taken care of.
He’d never felt so incredibly horny in his life. He felt like a slot machine poised on the brink of a jackpot. One touch and he’d be all lights and sirens and an endless blissful flow of silver dollars. The aurora was no accident tonight.
40
In a toilet stall that still had its doorknob and lock intact, Diana bolted down the mandragora cocktail she’d brought along in a miniature plastic vodka bottle. The sight of a whole mob of strangers seen in their animal aspect could be unnerving, so she no longer prepared for her hunting expeditions by taking the hellbroth before she absolutely had to. But now that she and Merle were on their own, she was curious to know his secret identity and the totem of his tribe. He was no pig, surely, so she would not be adding to her sty’s resident population. No Rosencrantz or Guildenstern tonight. Nowadays, even without the magic spectacles a sip of her home brew provided, she could often catch a glimmer of a stranger’s inner unperson, but not this guy’s. Merle was opaque.
And he remained so when she spotted him behind her Camry, helmeted and already mounted on his bike. Perhaps she hadn’t given the cocktail enough time to do its stuff. As she’d exited the casino, she had seen one or two beastly gamblers on the floor, but not the mob of them there might have been if she’d been viewing the casino at full optical power.
She slowed her pace, considering her options. She did not want to arrive home and discover she’d made a date with a horse or a weasel or something nastier. Should she back out now or take her chances? Perhaps the mandragora was losing its efficacy. It didn’t come packaged with an expiration date, and she was not yet an expert in dosages. But she didn’t need to add to the sty. So if, on arrival, Merle remained merely human, they might just have a conventional one-night stand. For he was, in his human form, a sexy guy. The type she’d rarely been able to entice in her prewitchcraft days. Not smooth John Travolta sexy, but craggy Nicholas Cage sexy. But that was good enough.
“Ready to go?” he asked as she came within speaking distance.
She smiled and wet her lips with her tongue, an invitation to be kissed. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
He nodded but didn’t accept the invitation. “Then let’s hit the road.” He pulled the plastic visor down over his face.
There had been a glint in his eye at that last moment, and she thought, I shouldn’t be doing this. But her sense of simple good manners prevented her acting on the impulse. She got into her car and they set off, she in the lead, he close behind, the beam of his headlight shifting position in her rearview mirror with each least bend in the highway. Mostly it never wavered, for the land was flat and the road seldom curved.
She felt she was being a fool, that there was some basic caution she’d neglected. A foolish virgin who hadn’t taken her pill but lacked the power to resist puppy-dog eyes and a wagging tail. Yet that was part of the excitement, too. Witch though she was, she could still find a thrill in danger.
And, it occurred to her as the highway’s dash, dash, dash of white lines flashed by, the thrill of adultery as well. She was a married woman now, a member of that tribe she’d always so despised. It had been only a few hours since she’d sent Alan packing after another dutiful wifely attempt to rouse his limp dick. Oh, she’d been an exemplary wife all through this first week of their official marriage, full of encouragement and the wisdom of The Joy of Sex. And he had tried so hard and failed so miserably. With never a reproach from her. But tonight she’d informed him, after his most effortful failure yet, that she had a terrible migraine and had to be alone and undisturbed, so he absolutely must not phone her, and he had promised not to.
To think that only last winter she’d thought she was in love with the little dork. And not (to be honest with herself) just thought it: she had been. What changes she’d been through!
Yes, and what changes were still in store? What new powers might she still discover in herself? As a witch she was just a fledgling. There were still bits of eggshell in her feathers.
But there, already, was the sign signaling the turn to County Road B, and she had to brake rather too quickly, and the headlight in her rearview mirror approached more quickly still. They both barely made the turn, but they did, and now it was only two more miles, without the white flashes of a median line. Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.
She pulled into the gravel driveway, eased to a stop, and was out of the car before Merle’s headlight held her in its monocular beam.
Then his headlight went out, and she was momentarily blind in the darkness. The night had misted over, and the aurora’s light was at an end. No way to know what he would look like when he took off his helmet. A bear? A bulldog? A bull?
But no, he took off his helmet and was still the Merle she’d met at the casino. No magic tonight.
“God damn,” said Merle, “it’s a good thing they don’t post cops on that road. You must have been doing ninety all the way here.”
“I was?”
“You were.”
“I better slow down, then.”
“Oh, it’s too late for that, lady. Keep your foot on the pedal. We haven’t got started.”
And then there was a scream.
“What in hell was that?” said Merle, taking a step back.
It was one of the pigs. Carl, she was almost certain, for Carl was the one the others most often attacked, even now that they’d been castrated and should be milder-tempered.
“It’s one of the pigs, I think,” she said.
“You got pigs here?”
“Only a few. Over the hill, behind the house. Usually you never hear them at this hour.”
“Pigs,” said Merle.
“You’re in the country,” said Diana. “People raise pigs.”
Merle made no response but headed, on his own, toward the back door of the house, and then veered right, up the hill, toward the sty.
“Merle!” she called out. “Merle, where are you going?”
Halfway up the hill he turned round and called back, “I know this place. I been here.” He continued quickly up to the crest of the hill and stopped.
“You’ve been here?” she said when she caught up to him.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know your whole spread. The sty, the corncrib. Over there, the smokehouse. But I’ve only seen it from above. That’s why I didn’t realize till just now where I was. God damn.”
“From above? Oh, you’re… a pilot?”
“You could say that. Yeah, I got my own private craft. Come here.”
She still might not have. Her instincts were against it. But she did. Whereupon he put his hands about her neck and gripped her firmly.
“Lady,” he said, “I know what you are. You’re a snake.”
She would have laughed in his face, but his grip was too strong. She could not breathe, nor speak any word of protest.
“A fucking snake,” he insisted.
She writhed in his grip, but she could not bite him.
“A god-damned snake. Yeah, right, look at you. Well, it looks like you met your match, lady. You got no power over me. I’m the boss now. Right?”
She could only flail in his grip.
“Right?” he insisted, tightening the hand that held her throat.
“Yes!” she hissed.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Sir!”
“I could kill you right now, lady. But you know what? I never met anyone like you. A
witch, I guess you could say. I always wanted to meet my female equivalent. I met a man once who had the same power. Almost. But never a witch.”
His squeeze became more powerful. She was being strangled.
“I could kill you, you know.”
She writhed in assent.
“So you got to agree you won’t ever even threaten me. You got to submit.”
She nodded. But that was not enough.
“Suck it,” he told her, and forced his cock into her mouth.
When he’d come, he let go, and she could breathe again.
“That felt good,” he told her.
She lay in the grass, exhausted, and wished she could kill him, but she knew she never would be able to do that. She could hate him but not hurt him. Because now she was his.
41
The whole house was full of mosquitoes because right in the middle of dinner one of the old ladies, Mrs. Witz, had keeled over into her plate of macaroni and cheese and died, prompting a mass exodus from the dining room to the front porch, and then, with the house all lit up, a constant coming and going and banging of the screen door as Dr. Karbenkian and then the police and the county coroner came by to make the death official. Once Mrs. Witz had been taken off to the funeral home, every mosquito in the neighborhood had found its way indoors, and the old ladies were helpless against them. They just didn’t have the reflexes to swat fast enough. Mrs. Turney had heard once that pine-scented room deodorants were as effective against mosquitoes as any of the bug bombs that cost so much more, but now she knew for certain that that wasn’t true, because the house reeked of the deodorant but the mosquitoes were still in charge. Alan and Louise did the best they could with the flyswatters, but it was obvious they were outnumbered and the mosquitoes would win.
That was when the phone call came from the sheriff’s office in New Ravensburg. They wanted to talk to Alan, and Mrs. Turney, certain that they must be calling for some reason connected with Mrs. Witz, assured them that Alan had no connection with the old lady, that all the paperwork was taken care of and the body had been taken to the Good Shepherd Funeral Home.
THE SUB A Study In Witchcraft Page 22