Blood Oranges (9781101594858) (16 page)

“Well, you know,” said the gull, “God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.”

“I sure as hell didn't expect a seagull who quotes scripture.”

“Ain't scripture, lady. Just a hymn by William Cowper, 1731 to 1800. Fella went crazy as a fruitcake, thought he was condemned to Hell, and that divine voices were urging him to commit suicide. Total kook. Still and all, pretty good quote.”

“Seagulls believe in God?” And, by the way, that's got to be one of the strangest things I've ever uttered.

“Hell no!” the bird squawked. “Well, I can't rightly speak for the lot of us, but this one don't.”

“I call for Boston Harry, and he sends unto me an atheist seagull.”

The bird looked offended. “Would you have preferred something fancier, maybe? Something not so drab and ordinary. How's about a puffin or an osprey or a great big—”

“I'm just surprised, okay?” I interrupted. “Nothing personal.” But the herring gull's expression didn't change. “You gonna tell me how to find Boston Harry or not?” I asked.

“Sure, lady. Easy as pie. Just shut your eyes, count to ten, then open them again.”

I did exactly as the bird said. But when I opened my eyes, I was still sitting on the Athenaeum steps, with that big damn talking gull glaring at me.

“I do
not
believe you fell for that,” it said.

“Asshole,” I replied, then flicked my cigarette butt at its head, but missed.

“Now, now, Miss Siobhan Quinn, let's not go losing our temper. I might just fly away. I might just tell Harry how you went and changed your mind, got cold feet and, therefore, wasted his precious time and all. I might just do that very thing, you don't behave yourself. Mind your Ps and Qs and whatnot.”

I wanted to throw something else at the creep, but there was nothing handy. I settled on giving him the finger (yeah, I do that a lot; I find that gesture worth a thousand words, as they say; plus, in this instance, the irony of giving a bird the bird . . . well, you get it).

“See now, that's just what I've been talking about. Rude little girls and boys and monsters, they don't get to meet with Boston Harry.”

“You gonna tell me how this works or not?”

Ever seen a seagull grin? Well, whether you have or not, this one grinned at me.

“Let me guess,” I said, “I just close my eyes, click my heels together, think of Auntie Em and Kansas—”

“Nope,” the bird smirked. “It's lots easier than that. Know what a psychopomp is?”

“I'm not a total idiot,” I replied (all evidence thus far essentially to the contrary). “Is that what you're supposed to be? My escort?”

“Bingo, vampire-werewolf lady.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Hey, right now, you're the talk of the town. You're a goddamn celebrity. Now, we're wasting time, and the Boss Man, he hates that.”

The bird shook itself, and a single feather came free and wafted onto the granite step below it. I noted that it moved against the wind, that the breeze should have carried it in exactly the opposite direction.

“Pick that up,” said the seagull.

I did as I was told. The feather felt slightly oily, and I wondered if that was how seagull feathers were supposed to feel, or if it was a trait peculiar to those in the employ of “men” like Boston Harry.

“What now?”

“What now is you think of a song. Think of the lyrics of a song that means a lot to you, and put the feather in your mouth.”

I glared at the gull.

“I am not putting this nasty-ass feather in my mouth.”

“Then you am not gonna see the Boss Man, and he am gonna be pretty pissed at the way you've wasted his time.”

“Did I mention you're an asshole?” I muttered and slipped the feather across my lips. It tasted faintly of dusty sardines.

“You might have. Now, the song. Quick, before the window of opportunity closes again.”

I did not think of Patti Smith. I almost thought of Bob Dylan's “All Along the Watchtower,” but settled on something by Elliott Smith instead.

“Good choice,” the bird said. “You hold tight to that. Don't dare let it go. Oh, and try not to toss your cookies. Happens almost every time.”

Ever ridden one of those Tilt-A-Whirl things? There used to be one down at Rocky Point, before the amusement park shut down. Anyway, there's an accurate description of what I felt for the next minute or two minutes. The world went about a thousand shades of foggy gray, and I rode an invisible, incorporeal Tilt-A-Whirl down to the lair of Mr. Boston Harry. I managed not to toss my cookies, so score one for the “it girl,” so good on me.

The tilting, whirling sensation ceased as abruptly as it had begun, but the foggy grayness, that dissipated slowly, by minute degrees, gradually granting entrance to other colors. As it did, I became aware of voices and smells. I became aware of the stink of wet fur, and mold, and a kind of humid closeness. I grew scared, and if I wasn't dead, I'm sure my heart would have raced. I very much wanted, suddenly, to go back to Benefit Street and the steps of the Athenaeum.

“Well, well, well,” he said—Boston Harry, I mean—“I must admit, I gave the tales little credence. But here you are, and it's plain as day. The girl who's both. The unfortunate and double-damned who's undead
and
who bears the curse of the moon.”

I squinted and tried to blink away the last of the smothering gray. I realized it was sticky, that fog, and I thought maybe bits of it would cling to me forever. I squinted, and my vision cleared. I had the impression I was inside an enormous wooden shipping crate. The wooden slats that were the walls were dark with mildew, and, here and there, water dripped from the ceiling. There were actually great clumps of excelsior and sawdust scattered about. There was a flickering orange light, like candlelight, though there weren't any candles. At least, none that I could see. And maybe ten feet away—perched on a wooden stool that listed because one leg was shorter than the others—was the man himself, Boston Harry.

Only, he wasn't a man. He was . . . something else. Maybe a variety of bogie or goblin or something like that. Maybe he'd
been
a man, once upon a time. More than anything else, he reminded me of a rat trying its damnedest to
look
human and failing miserably. The seagull was standing on an upended aluminum pail to Boston Harry's left. There was an identical pail to the right of the stool, but it was vacant and half lost in tufts of excelsior.

“I admit, it's a mighty sight, what you are, Miss Quinn. What you've been made. A mighty sight, indeed. And you're a looker, in the bargain. Quite an impressive package.”

His voice was high and tinny, and scratchy in a way that reminded me of vinyl LPs that had seen better days.

“Glad to meet you, too,” I said, and he waved a gnarled paw in my direction and chuckled.

“No, no, no. The pleasure is all mine, Miss Quinn. I'm honored, as a matter of fact.”

“Then maybe you won't mind answering a couple or three questions I have.”

“Not at all,” he said, and smiled an almost absurdly unctuous smile. “If I can be of service, of service I shall certainly be. Ask away.”

I wiped sweat from my forehead, only just then realizing I was sweating. I said, “I almost thought you might know without my having to put them into words.” Probably not the sort of thing I should have said, but I was disoriented, and nauseous, and I said it anyway.

“As a matter of fact, it happens that I do. Every vowel and intonation. But where's the fun in skipping half the transaction? Which brings me to the admittedly indelicate, or let us say
gauche
, matter of what you intend to offer in the way of remuneration for my services. Do you have anything of value, Miss Quinn?”

“Not much,” I admitted.

“Well, I hope you'll understand how that poses a problem, yes?” And he sort of wrinkled his rattish snout, and I got a peek at teeth that were surely as sharp as my own. “A body goes giving out his stock and trade for free, what manner of business acumen is that?”

“Just being honest,” I said. “Me being the ‘it girl' and all, I was hoping there might be a discount or an exception or something of the sort.”

“Very sorry to disappoint, my love,” he replied, curling back his black lips in just such a way that he was smirking
and
making a grand show of graciousness.

I held up my left hand, and I wiggled my pinkie finger for him. The seagull looked confused, but Boston Harry, it was clear I'd gotten his attention.

“A souvenir?” he asked.

“A souvenir,” I said.

“Oh, oh, that would be most acceptable. That would, I daresay, be both sufficient and generous. You're a woman of integrity, you are.”

“One finger, two questions.”

“Terms I find entirely within reason,” he assured me again. “But, I do hope you'll understand I'll have to ask for payment up front. Nothing personal. Company policy and all. These days, you can never be too careful, can you?”

“Absolutely not.”

What happened next, well, there was a sharp pain that began in my hand and ran all the way to my shoulder. I wanted like hell to scream, and I bit my lip hard enough it bled (not so difficult with these choppers). And then the little rat man was holding my pinkie finger, and the pain was gone. There wasn't any gore, no torn flesh or protruding bone. He'd collected his fee so cleanly you'd think I'd been born without the finger. He cupped it lovingly in his paws and crouched over it and crooned. Like, he was in love with my fucking finger. Somehow, that was way worse than having given it up for whatever he had to say—which I knew, of course, might be as useless as Aloysius' riddle had been. We call this gambling, right? And desperate times call for desperate wagers, and you don't waste time quibbling over the stakes.

“Oh,” he trilled. “It is so, so beautiful. I've held few things of such exquisite loveliness and remarkable symmetry. You truly
are
a woman of integrity, Miss Quinn.”

“Anything to please,” I muttered. Boston Harry, too busy admiring his prize, he didn't seem to hear me, but the gull glared daggers.

“My turn?” I wanted to know, and “Of course,” the rat thing replied, nodding his head and looking up, closing a grubby paw tightly around my amputated pinkie. It looked sort of like a pinkish-white grub.

“Why did you sell Bobby Ng that gun?”

Boston Harry closed one eye, opened it, then closed the other. He nibbled at his nails, and flipped his tail back and forth a few times. He furrowed his brow, then laid his ears back flat against his narrow skull. He did not look like an especially happy rat thing.

“You
do
know who Bobby Ng is?” I asked, trying not to sound impatient.

“Of
course
I know who he is,” Harry shot back, and opened the closed eyes. Oh, I've neglected to mention that his eyes reminded me of pieces of candy corn. “Rather, I know who he
was
. Monsieur Robert Ng—nom de guerre,
naturellement
—incurably inadequate wannabe, sad-sack postulant to the role of inquisitor and executioner, and, as it happens,
your
first meal as a loup. By the way, you ever hear about the Samhain he was up at Marblehead—or maybe it was Salem—and the silly bastard went and tried—”

“Yeah,” I answered. “I have.” (Even though I hadn't. But I hadn't given up a finger to stand around swapping Bobby Ng anecdotes with Templeton the Rat.) “So, why did you sell him that blunderbuss?”

Clearly annoyed at my not wanting to hear about whatever antics Bobby Ng had committed in Salem or Marblehead or where the hell ever, he scowled and sniffed the musty air. “I didn't,” he told me. “I never sold a thing to that
figlio di puttana
. I have a reputation to worry about, you know? You start doing business with scum like that, potential buyers and sellers gonna think twice, and maybe cast an eye towards the competition. Which we—we being me—do not want.”

“But you sold it to
someone
.”

“That your second question, my love?” Boston Harry asked and cocked an eager, hopeful eyebrow.

“No. It isn't. It was just an observation.”

“Regardless, I prefer not to go blabbing about my clients—past, present, or future. Cuts down on repeat customers, you know what I mean.”

“I gave you a finger,” I said.

“And you still have nine more. And ten toes. And I'm sure each and every one is as precious as the last. If you'd like to renegotiate the terms of our deal . . .”

Which is when I wondered why the hell I hadn't offered him a little toe instead of a pinkie. Then again, this whole bargaining-with-body-parts enterprise was new to me, and a girl makes mistakes. A shame the rat wasn't in it for booze, porn, and 3 Musketeers bars.

“What's so special about the gun, Ng thought it would take out a vamp like Cregan?
That's
my second question.”

“Poor choice,” he said and spat into the excelsior and Styrofoam peanuts. “How's it gonna help your case, muffin, learning what the gun can and can't do, when what you
need
to know is who's the dearest bodily part in back of the dead undead lady's assassination, right? The who it is, however indirectly, got you involved in this affair. But, like I said, we can still remedy that.”

The seagull, perched on its aluminum pail, made the odd giggling sound that seagulls sometimes make. Boston Harry seemed to be considering his long yellow toenails with the greatest of interest.

“Second toe off your left foot, that'll buy you two whole extra questions. You think about that, Miss Quinn. A little flesh and bone goes a long way.”

“How about, first, you answer the question I've already asked?” Oh, I knew he was right, sure as shit, but like I said, I wasn't yet wise in the ways of swapping digits for intel. “How about that?”