Shivaree (15 page)

TWENTY-EIGHT

Frank had polished off the bottle pretty much on his own, but the alcohol wasn’t working. True, it had dulled his senses and messed with his memory, but what was forgotten and what was remembered didn’t follow Frank’s preference. He had made his way from Nola’s bar to her bed without remembering how, but for the life of him, he couldn’t shake the memory of that trip he and Bayard had made to retrieve Ruby. Eyes open, eyes closed, his thoughts kept returning to a day best forgotten.

They had made their way from the train station and traveled miles down the straight then winding Sunset Boulevard. “There it is,” Crane, the detective, had said right before pulling his fake delivery truck into the drive leading to Myrna King’s house. “Keep low,” Crane ordered, but Frank couldn’t help but lean out the window to take it all in. The house was huge, with a rough white plaster exterior. It had one of those red tile roofs, the likes of which he’d never seen before arriving in California. Naked lady statues and bright flowers lined the drive, and he knew without looking there had to be a pool in back. This was exactly the kind of place where a movie star should live. This was exactly the kind of place Frank would have liked for himself.

Frank knew he was a good-looking guy. Definitely for Conroy. But he was also as handsome as many of the faces that ended up on the big screen. For a moment, Frank let himself imagine letting Bayard take Ruby home on his own. Staying here in Hollywood, maybe seeing if he could make it in the movies.

Crane killed the engine, and, with it, Frank’s daydream. “I’ve got a box of groceries in the back. I’ll take it around to the delivery entrance. See if they’ll let me in. If so, I’ll try to find an excuse to get further into the house. Figure out the lay of the place and see if I can spot your Ruby.” He swung his door open. “Stay here, and stay out of sight.”

“How long you gonna be?” Bayard asked, his voice thinner and more high-pitched than usual.

“As long as it takes,” Crane responded, but then stopped, as if he’d suddenly thought of something. “You both armed?”

Frank patted his coat, and Bayard said, “Of course,” like it was the dumbest question in the world.

Crane ignored Bayard’s tone. “If I’m not out in fifteen, you come in after me.” He shut the driver’s door and opened the back of truck.

“You sure you want to work it this way?” Frank called back over his shoulder in a hushed but audible voice. “Maybe we should just push our way in and pull her out?”

“No. Let me take a look first.” He leaned over Frank and Bayard’s borrowed suitcase and lifted up the box of groceries. He slammed the door closed, and began whistling as he carried the box toward the delivery entrance of the house.

Frank looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes.

“I don’t like this,” Bayard said. “He said these people are witches.”

“No,” Frank said, trying to keep his partner calm. “He said they’re ‘occultists.’ And they aren’t very good ones or their boss wouldn’t have blown himself up. There’s nothing to worry about. These are just plain regular people. Crazier than shithouse rats maybe, but still nothing to be alarmed about. Nothing this”—he flipped open his jacket to reveal his holster—“won’t take care of.”

Bayard’s face relaxed, but the dark circles under his watery blue eyes were a reminder that he hadn’t felt at ease since leaving Conroy. “What about the boy? Do we take him back, too, if we find him, or do we kill him?”

“The Judge ain’t said nothing about the boy,” Frank continued. “He only said he wants us to bring Ruby home. And this ain’t Conroy. If you get your sorry ass thrown into jail out here for hurting the boy, ain’t gonna be much the Judge can do to help us. And we will have failed the Judge by not bringing Ruby home.”

Bayard’s jaw moved side to side as he considered Frank’s words. “How much longer?”

“Fourteen minutes,” Frank said, shaking his wristwatch, then holding it up to his ear to make sure the damned thing was still running. He lowered his wrist and began tracking the curves of one of the statues with his eyes. Bayard shifted in his seat, clearly impatient to get in and get the job done. He opened his mouth to say something when the sound of a gunshot caused them both to startle and stare at each other.

Frank flung his door open, ran to the front of the house, and tried to open the massive handle, only to find it locked. Always the slower of the two, Bayard only reached the door as Frank was releasing the handle. “You go that way”—Frank pointed right—“and meet me at the back.” After glancing around to see if anyone was headed in their direction, he tore around the house’s left. He arrived at the back to find the door to the service entrance wide open. He moved toward it with caution, keeping close to the wall and ducking as he passed a window. He slid up near the open entrance as Bayard came puffing and red faced around the corner. Frank held up his hand to signal that they should move forward with caution.

Leading the way, Frank peered through the door, which opened into a large kitchen. There was no movement, no sign of life. He rounded the doorway with his back toward the jamb. He stopped short when he noticed the box Crane had been carrying. It had been flung to the floor, its contents scattered in a nearly straight line toward the far side of the room, but there was no sign of Crane himself. Bayard arrived at the entrance, nearly stumbling over the threshold and into the room. He’d already drawn his gun, and in his other hand he held his favorite knife, the one with the serrated blade. Frank nodded toward the door at the far side of the kitchen, and made his way across the room with the softest steps his leather-soled shoes allowed. Bayard plodded heavily behind him, causing Frank to turn and hold his finger up to his lips. His partner clearly didn’t understand, so he pointed down at Bayard’s feet and mimicked taking a step.

The sound of a woman’s laughter rang out all around them like a pealing bell. “Really,” a voice came from a darkened corner, “you two are positively delightful. Now put away your toys.” She pointed at Bayard’s weapons, and watched until he obeyed.

Frank squinted to make out the figure he’d somehow missed. He instantly recognized her from the matinees he’d seen as a boy. It was Myrna King herself. She laughed again, gliding with a practiced grace across the floor and toward the open door. “If you wanted an autograph, there are easier ways to go about it than breaking and entering.”

“We didn’t break nothing, lady,” Bayard said, a quiver in his voice. He gave Frank a look that begged him to figure out what was happening, to take the lead.

“Perhaps not,” Myrna said, closing the door and turning the lock with a pronounced click. “But you did enter.” She stopped and struck a dramatic pose.
“
‘Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will,
’
” she said looking at them with expectation in her eyes. She tilted her head to the side, and in spite of the uneasiness Frank felt gnawing at his guts, he liked what he saw when he looked at her. Crane was right. She looked a hell of a lot better than a woman her age had any right to look. She had a waist he could put his hands around, and her bottom reminded Frank of a sweet, ripe peach. She had tits for days, and they still hung high and perky. Her blue eyes sparkled. Her curly blonde hair felt softly around her face. More than that, though, this lady had class. She gave her curls a slight shake. “No?” she asked, seemingly disappointed by their failure to react. “Okay, not the literary type, I see. How may I help you gentlemen?”

“We heard a shot . . .” Bayard began.

“So dramatic you two are. You heard the neighbor’s auto backfiring.” She waved her hand as if to dismiss his worry. “One of those odd little foreign jobs. That still doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

“We’re looking for a friend,” Frank said, but she responded only by raising her eyebrows. “The guy who brought in those.” He pointed at the groceries strewn across the floor.

“Oh,” she said, her perfect lips curving into a smile. “The delivery fellow. I’ve never known a delivery man to travel with an entourage before.” She batted her eyelashes at Frank. “I’m afraid he took a spill coming in, twisted his ankle or something.” She crossed the room to the door that led from the kitchen deeper into the house. She placed her hand against it, then looked back over her shoulder at them. “Come through, come through,” she said, smiling widely. “Your friend is inside getting patched up.” When neither of the men moved, she held the door for them, her smile growing wider. “Come.”

Frank took a few furtive steps toward her, then recovered his normal self-assuredness. A new and exciting fantasy began to stir within his imagination. He returned her smile and glanced back at Bayard. “You heard the lady,” he said, following her as he spoke. Soon the sound of Bayard’s heavy footfalls echoed behind them.

Frank found himself walking a tad closer to her than perhaps he should. Her perfume, a spicy, almost too-sweet scent, made him lean in even closer, drawing his breaths slowly, as if to breathe her in. Myrna noticed, but she didn’t seem to mind. She kept glancing over her shoulder at him. “You smell real good,” Frank said, feeling foolish as soon as the words escaped him. “Your perfume,” he backpedaled.

She paused. “Are you a religious man?” Her eyes seemed to mock him, but he didn’t care. “Catholic perhaps?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I only ask as I’ve been told the scent is reminiscent of the incense of which they are so fond. Myrrh, to be precise. The papists evidently burn it by the pound.” She paused as if in thought. “Of course, the resin was used long before the church was born. The ancient Egyptians associated its scent with immortality. But then again, what did the ancient Egyptians know? Sure, they built the pyramids, but they also married their own sisters.” She smiled again, her eyes narrowing seductively. “Would it surprise you if I told you I don’t wear perfume?” She turned and continued down the marble-floored hallway that seemed even longer than the great hall of the cathedral-like station where they’d arrived. He felt like they’d been walking for several minutes, even though he knew it couldn’t be true. The walls were lined on both sides with mirrors in golden frames. Frank was sure it was just his imagination, but it seemed his hostess’s reflection blurred in each of them, almost like she was vibrating as she passed. He cast a glance back at Bayard, lumpy and sweating through his suit, but in fine focus. The reflection of Bayard’s eyes, skittish and uncertain, met his own. The way the mirrors were situated across from each other reflected the three of them into what seemed an eternity.

Just when Frank was about to ask how much farther the hall could possibly reach, she stopped before a door and placed her hand on its oversized knob. “If you two will just wait in here, I’ll go see what’s become of your friend.”

She pushed open the door, motioning with her free hand that they should enter. Frank stepped over the threshold into the room, which was presided over by a long, curving sofa, covered in white fabric. He turned back to see their hostess carrying on down the hall in the opposite direction from which they’d just come.

His focus returned to the room. Before the sofa sat a low round table that echoed the shape of one of the couch’s inward bends. A chandelier—not a dangly one like the one he’d noticed in the train station, but rounded like a puffed-out dandelion—hung in the center of the room. There were
three large windows, but each had been covered in curtains of
heavy gold
fabric. This place sure as hell beat the two-room apartment he kept in Conroy, and it didn’t stink of pulpwood either. It smelled like her. The whole place carried her scent, a scent, Frank realized, he could grow to like very much. Bayard entered the room, and the door closed with a loud clack behind him, as if it had been slammed shut by an unseen hand.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” his partner asked, the reek of his musky sweat breaking through Frank’s intoxication. “I’m going to take a look around, see if I can find Ruby and get us out of this place.”

Frank nodded slowly, and licked his dry lips. He no longer felt so sure he wanted to leave.

TWENTY-NINE

War had accustomed Corinne to the colors of injury, disease, and death, but there was something about the sight of Judge Lowell’s pallor and his rasping breath that caused the skin of her arms to prickle. She hesitated before taking his wrist, the way she might before touching a slug. Silently cursing her own cowardice, she forced herself to place her fingers against the man’s wrist, then focused her eyes on her trusty wristwatch—the one gift she’d bought for herself upon completing her nurse’s training—and counted. “His pulse is still thready, Doctor.”
Hypovolemia
—the term crossed her mind, a lack of blood. But it was a condition, not a diagnosis.

The Judge needed to be treated in the hospital; any fool could see he wouldn’t survive for long without a transfusion, but Dr. McAvoy was adamantly opposed to moving him.

The doctor struggled to pull an armchair closer to the bed, then sat in it and looked up at Corinne. “I know you are worried that I am just a country sawbones, filled with all kinds of antiquated ideas.” The doctor’s large blue eyes watered behind the thick lenses of his glasses. “Don’t worry, though, I’m not just some bumpkin.” He took a deep breath and removed those glasses, pretending to use his handkerchief to clean the lenses, but quickly dabbing his eyes in the process. “Come daylight, I’ll drive over to the hospital in Tupelo. They got one of them blood centers there. I’ll take a sample of Ovid’s blood to get it typed, and bring back what we need to replenish the blood he’s lost. I’ll see to it that he gets the good, proper, modern care he needs, but we will have to provide that care for him here, in his home.”

Rather than taking Muhammad to the mountain, McAvoy seemed intent on bringing the mountain to Muhammad. “But wouldn’t it be better to take him there now? I know how to drive if you are worried about seeing . . .”

“You don’t understand, Miss Ford,” he interrupted her. He didn’t sound angry, just weary. “We can’t let people know how poorly Ovid is doing. He’s an important man around these parts,” he said, speaking slowly, as if he were responding to an inquisitive child who couldn’t comprehend an adult matter. “A lot of people . . . depend on him. We need to patch him up, get him back on his feet first, and then we’ll worry about what comes next.”

Corinne nodded a silent assent, as if she agreed with his plan of care, even though in truth it made no sense to her. Dr. McAvoy sat still for several minutes, watching over the Judge like a concerned father until his own eyes fell closed, and he, too, began soughing. An hour passed, then two. Corinne had learned to take catnaps standing up and during heavy shelling, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so now. Something in all of this struck her as unwholesome, unnatural, so in spite of her weariness, she remained on high alert. But it was more than the situation with the Judge or the old doctor’s odd behavior that bothered her.

Had she done the wrong thing in coming here? In spite of her earlier conversation with Elijah, the trip across the river to this house had been done in a nearly complete silence. What resolve Elijah had within him seemed to wilt beneath his parents’ scornful gaze. Elijah felt like a stranger to her or, worse, an imposter of the man who’d charmed her all those many thousands of miles away.

Corinne went to the window, scanning the sky for familiar constellations. Somehow knowing where she stood in relation to the sky had always helped her center herself. If it were a winter sky, she could have easily spotted Orion by his belt, but she had to settle for the sight of Vega before picking out the five brightest stars of Cygnus that also made up the Northern Cross. She felt foolish. She hadn’t even given Conroy a full twenty-four hours, but a very large part of her wanted to leave on the first morning train out. She couldn’t do that to Elijah, though. He’d just lost two dear friends, maybe four. Her thoughts slowed as the instincts she was trying to suppress began hitting back.

Did she love Elijah? It struck her as an odd question to be contemplating, even in this strange place, on this far from typical night. The human race didn’t used to think along those terms. Until a couple of hundred years ago or so, marriage was a practical proposition, having little or nothing to do with romance or other emotional entanglements. Now most people seemed to think it was the only aspect that mattered. Corinne had never known this intoxicating variety of love. Fondness, yes. Passion, no. She searched her heart again, hoping to find some kind of spark or fire there for her intended.

She cared for Elijah; she knew that. Or at least she cared for the man she’d met beneath the mess hall’s canvas flaps. She’d believed that would be enough, but now she suspected that Elijah had known that fiery variety of love before meeting her. It was the kind of love he would never forget, and that they could never re-create together. These feelings couldn’t be cultured. They sprang fully formed, or they never rose at all.

Was it crueler to leave or crueler to stay and marry him, knowing she’d be depriving him of the chance to find again what he’d lost? Or was this type of love a once-in-a-lifetime thing? She even began to wonder if she should envy Elijah. Was this romantic fervor an experience she should risk all to seek out for herself? Movies and music portrayed romantic passion, losing one’s self in the beloved, as the ultimate pleasure, the very pinnacle of human existence. But the thought of surrendering herself, her will, completely, even for pleasure, terrified her. Did it make her less of a woman that she’d never gotten caught up and lost in her emotions? She’d met plenty of men over the years, good, solid, decent men, and a few absolute scoundrels. Was there something wrong with her that none had ever stirred those desperate, romantic feelings within her? She leaned against the window frame and asked the stars for answers.

At around 3:00 a.m., the Judge startled, his eyes flying wide open. His jaw worked silently at first, then sounds resembling the yelps of a frightened dog rang piteously through the room. He struggled to free himself from the bedclothes, finally managing to fling the blankets to the floor. Corinne moved quickly to comfort him, to try and return him to a supine position, but he lunged forward, grasping her forearms so tightly that she couldn’t help but squeal. His grip was much stronger than any sick, middle-aged man with soft pale hands should be able to muster. McAvoy, who was startled out of sleep by the commotion, rushed to their side and administered the Judge a barbiturate. Judge Lowell went limp, collapsing back on the bed, but not before he spoke a single word: “
Ruby
.”