The Best of Lucius Shepard (94 page)

—Carl’s
got this kinda religious thing going, I told Rickey.

This
inspired Carl to point at me and say, Hands up! Who wants to die?

Rickey
pricked up his ears at that, but again gave no response. Squire had climbed on
board the Ava train and was making tracks for the station, giving out with
chuffing noises. The springs backed him up with a jangly, crunchy rhythm and
the rain kept drumming and Ava sang a lyric with a single breathy word. Carl
nodded, smiled. Rickey’s eyes cut toward me—I expect he was wanting a sign it
would be okay for him to mix in.

The
floorboards creaked. Leeli had crept in and was nailing me with a .45 caliber
stare. She said, You asshole!, and ducked back out. Catching a last glimpse of
Ava’s heels and Squire’s pimply backside, I wheeled up from the chair and after
her. I checked the porch and saw Leeli standing with her arms folded out in the
rain. I didn’t think she was crying or nothing, just had a mad on. Rickey came
up at my shoulder and said, Hey, man! Is that Ava, she doing everybody?

—Don’t
be shy, boy. Ask her.

—You
serious?

—She
ain’t gonna screech and hold her knees together if you do. She’ll just tell you
yes or no.

—Cool.

—You
might wanna wait to ask ‘til Squire’s finished, I said as he turned away.

—Oh...yeah.
Okay.

—But
you better go back on in now. You wanna be there so you can get next.

He
set off again and I called to him, asked where the food was.

—Kitchen,
he said and slipped into Ava’s room.

Eight
Burger King take-out sacks were resting on the kitchen table. I found one full
of double cheeseburgers and carried it onto the porch. Leeli! I shouted, and
waggled the sack out through the hole in the screen door. I got burgers!

Her
head twitched, but she didn’t turn. I sat on the porch steps under the porch
overhang and unwrapped a cheeseburger and had a bite. Soaked through, Leeli’s
yellowy white hair had the look of the down on a baby chick. She glared at me similar
to how this drunk Seminole boy I’d met in the Panama Beach lock-up one fine
morning had glared: sideways, his shoulders rolled forward, with his close eye
wide and the other narrowed. I figured Leeli and that Seminole had about the
same ambition toward me.

I
finished the burger and Leeli stomped over, snatched the bag and switched past
me into the lodge. Don’t you come after me! she said. I’m not talking to you.

—I
hear you, sugar, I said. I’ll be right in.

*
* * *

With her belly full, Leeli’s
mood improved. She was near to purring, curled up on the bed and looking out at
the rain, but still it took me a few tries to drag her into a conversation. I
was just sitting there, I said, when they started going at it. What you expect
me to do? —Leave, she said. I know how Ava and Squire get. You had plenty of
warning.

—That
mean you watched ‘em?

—She
wants me to!

—Then
why go beating on me about it?

She
clammed up, so I worked another angle, and when that didn’t satisfy her, I
said, ‘Member what you told me ‘bout how you felt sometimes Ava was drowning
you? I think I got a taste of what you were talking about.

A
little something tweaked behind Leeli’s face, but she didn’t let it out.

—Yeah,
it was strange, I said. It was like she was pulling on me. Maybe that’s why I
kept setting there.

—She’s
a witch, Leeli said. I swear she is.

—I
don’t know ‘bout that.

—That’s
right! You don’t know fuck all! I’m telling you she’s got this power...it just
eats away at you ‘til you’re nothing. ‘Til you’re like Carl or Squire.

I
spun this around and then said, That’s how come you think Carl and Squire are
slow?

—Sometimes
I think that. Leeli picked at a fray on the pillowcase. Sometimes I think she
just wore ‘em away.

The
witchy woman had tried to draw me close and drown me in her power. This seemed
crazier than what Ava had told me, but only a little. Thinking about Ava as
someone who left you hollow inside but still walking around wasn’t that tough a
chore. I’d known regular folks who could do the same sort of job on you and I
said as much to Leeli.

—Naw,
un-uh, it’s more’n that. It’s what you were saying. She pulls at you, but she’s
not playing you. It’s who she is, know what I mean? It’s like that’s all she
is.. .this force.

A
lightning crack ran violet down the eastern sky, like we were inside a gray egg
that was cracking open in the middle of hell. The thunder came a few seconds
later.

—You
pull at me, too, I said. Know that? You been pulling at me since New Smyrna.

Leeli’s
face went little-girl serious and big-eyed.

I
eased down beside her, laid a hand on her hip.

—I’m
scared, she said. Ava wants to go to Mexico. I can’t think what to do.

—Let’s
leave tonight. Let’s just go.

—Where?
Where can we go?

—This
old boy I got to know in Raiford runs with some bikers got land over ‘round
Palatka. Cops never come near their place. We could stay ‘long as we want.

—Maybe
you’d be comfortable with a buncha bikers, but I wouldn’t. She snuggled in
closer. Maybe we should go with Ava and the second we get to Mexico, that’s it.
Money or not.

—I
don’t like the idea of traveling more miles with her.

—It’s
the safest way. Won’t be no security to pass through with a charter. Leeli
picked up my hand from her hip and moved it around so I was holding her. ‘Less
you got something better’n bikers.

I
considered Lauderdale, but Lauderdale was a hell of a drive and we couldn’t
stay for long at my friend’s house.

—Ain’t
you scared? Leeli asked. I can’t tell if you are or not.

—I’m
past scared, I’m on into survive. That’s why I say get shut of ‘em now.

We
left it hanging that way and closed the door and got foolish on the bed.
Desperate straits and the desire to forget them lit up our nerves and made us
better lovers. Leeli like to have died in my arms and my heart was sprained and
limping in my chest, I worked it so long and furious. I left her drowsing and
went into the kitchen and had another burger and a purple milk shake that
tasted like nothing purple and puddled like melted plastic in my stomach. The
TV was playing in Rickey’s room. I figured Ava must have kicked him to the
curb.

I
returned to the bedroom and drifted beside Leeli. My flesh felt light and
insubstantial and everything had the sharpness of an important memory, how you
feel the thing remembered before you see and smell and taste it. It was like
the world itself was forming a memory that used me how a pearl uses a sore
spot, sealing me in so I could be dug out at some later date to be admired. The
rain blew slanty, then straightened out, then it blew sideways and the
lightning moved closer. The air darkened to an ashy color. Things bumped and
clanked against some section of the lodge. You’d have thought the rain had
turned to chains. The marsh grass rippled with pantherish fury, twisting and
flowing in every direction. The storm smell was ozone and dank trouble.

Sleep
wouldn’t take me. I got dressed and padded down the hall to visit Rickey. He
was in his chair, scratching himself, watching the local news with the sound
low. He gave a disinterested, Hey, and paid me no mind as I drew up a chair.

—You
get laid? I asked.

—Damn!
Did I! That woman’s got some evil fucking ways!

Rickey
didn’t look much different for the experience and I thought the last
shriveled-up scrap of soul must have been sucked out before Ava got to him.

He
craned his neck to see me. How long y’all staying?

—Day
or two. Why, you wanna go again with her?

—She
promises not to kill me.

—Better
ask for the pony ride next time.

Rickey
coughed out a laugh and spat into the garbage alongside his chair. He spaced
out on the TV and I couldn’t think of anything more to say. Rickey wasn’t much
of a talker but he enjoyed people with him when he watched his programs. I knew
if I didn’t hang out a while, he’d feel he wasn’t being respected, so I sat
there dead-headed, peering at his mess. Must have been every kind of candy
wrapper in the world scattered around that floor. It was like investigating a
cave where some sick animal had puked up a month of bad meals. The next time I
glanced toward the TV, I saw a blonde woman in a pants suit with her microphone
stuck in the face of the gray-haired reverend I’d manhandled back in Ocala. I
told Rickey to hit the volume, and when he was slow to act, I grabbed the
remote and did it myself. The reverend shook his head mournfully and said,
There was so much confusion, I don’t know which one actually fired. It was the
skinny one I saw holding the gun, but that’s after the shooting. All I can tell
you for certain is I heard somebody shout, Hands up! Who wants to die? And then
I heard the shots.

—Hands
up! Who wants to die? The blonde reporter acquired a serious look as the camera
went to a close-up on her. Vikay Choudhoury responded to that challenge with a
hero’s answer and now he lies dead. She paused for effect and said, This is
Gloria Renard. Channel Twelve—

I
thumbed the mute button. There was a cold spread of panic inside me, like I was
standing on the edge of a cliff and had just lost my balance.

—You
get on outa here, Maceo! Rickey stared at me through the straggles of his hair.
I mean right fucking now!

—I
didn’t kill nobody, I said.

—I
don’t care you did or you didn’t. Every damn cop in Volusia knows who it is
says that dumb fucking hands-up-who-wants-to-die bullshit. You think they won’t
be snooping ‘round here? Wonder is, they ain’t here already.

—We
can’t leave now. They be on us ‘fore we get clear the driveway.

Rickey
reached down beside his hip and produced his pistol. I’ll shoot you my own
self, you don’t get on out.

Anger
was a cold snake snapping out of me. I ripped the gun from his hand, then I
stood and began punching him. He tried to block the first couple with his
forearms, but each one was a lesson I’d been taught to deliver, a preachment of
old pain. The blows drove him lower in the chair until his butt was hanging
half off the seat and his head was jammed into the join of the cushions and
there was blood in his eyes. I couldn’t have said why, but the sight of him
unconscious jabbed another red-hot stick into my brain. I smashed the pistol
against the wall again and again. The trigger guard fell off and the cylinder
popped out from the housing and I threw the rest to the floor. I knew Rickey
was right about the cops. Maybe that was what set me off. That and recognizing
how good a look at my face I’d given everybody in the Hojos. When God invented
the notion of crazy trumping common sense, He must’ve had me in mind for the
standard model. Everything considered, it was a goddamn miracle I’d come this
far in life.

*
* * *

The storm lived around us.
Seemed the lodge was a battery discharging thunder cracks and splintered
lightning that made stretches of churning marsh grass bloom for unholy seconds
against the dark gulf of land and sky. I told Leeli about Rickey and the
reverend and the cops and tried once again to persuade her to leave with me.
She wouldn’t budge. Mexico, she kept saying, was the way to go. I didn’t put up
all that much of an argument, having no better choice to offer. We brought Ava
and Carl into the conversation, leaving Squire asleep, and stood on the porch
in the flickering light and hashed things out. The storm appeared to frighten
Carl. He sat in one of the rotted porch chairs, his hands to his ears, rocking
his upper body.