A weak light over the stove glistened on their skin.
Vivian looked down at him. She took him into both of her hands and massaged.
“No, Vivian,” he whispered.
“Oh, yes,” she said, but let him do the necessary while she held tight to his neck.
He barely got his hands on her waist before she hooked a knee over his hip. Spike tore her thong away and wrapped her legs around his waist. No time for finesse. He jerked himself inside her. The heat and urgency burned him up. Vivian rose and fell on him. They
wrung each other out. And they hung together then, panting, Vivian crying in racking sobs he knew had nothing to do with being sad.
He wanted to lie down, and did slide down the wall, with Vivian in his arms, until he sat on the floor with her in his lap.
She rubbed her breasts against him. He started to quicken again and flicked the head of his penis over the swollen flesh between her legs.
From a great distance came the sound of the front doorbell.
Spike groaned and rested his face on Vivian’s shoulder. “Who would come to that door? No one ever does.”
“They can go away.” She pushed back, knelt and took him into her mouth for a long, urgently sucking kiss.
The doorbell rang and this time it kept on ringing.
“Of all the bitchin’ luck,” Vivian said and Spike snickered at the language. Vivian didn’t swear.
He reached for her but she dodged his hands and hopped up. She grabbed her clothes and started pulling them on. “I don’t think they’re going away. You might want to put something on.”
“Ouch,” he said, wincing. He’d stepped into his pants. “Look what you’ve started—all over again.”
She looked and turned on the light to get a better view. “I see it,” she said. “I want to be right back there.”
Spike groaned, tucked in his shirt and got his belt fastened. Just as he’d expected, footsteps sounded on the gallery steps out back and someone rattled the screen door.
He ran his hands through his hair and saw Vivian shake hers. It had a way of falling into place beautifully. “Do up my bra, please,” she said and he obliged. She slipped out of what was left of the thong and stuffed it quickly into her bag.
Spike opened the back door and looked out.
“Praise be,” Cyrus said, yanking open the screen and herding Wazoo in front of him. “I’ve looked all over for you. Things are happening and you’re the one to make decisions.”
Wazoo scuttled into the kitchen and took herself off into a corner where she huddled and looked scared.
Cyrus closed the door behind him and took in the scene in the kitchen. He frowned and Spike felt his mind was being read.
“Hmm,” Cyrus said. “I guess a whole bunch of things are happening. Remember that talk we kinda started, Spike?”
Spike hesitated before saying, “Yes.”
“Good. We’d better get it finished. Soon.”
M
ight make a man feel a little more respected if the should-be penitents didn’t keep staring at each other with hot eyes. Cyrus took note of Vivian’s flushed cheeks and swollen mouth—and of Spike’s wrinkled uniform, and his equally well-used-looking mouth, and felt a wholly inappropriate irritation.
“I think I might as well talk to the two of you,” Cyrus said. Vivian showed no sign of being anything other than a willing participant in what he’d interrupted. “Now, Wazoo, please don’t cower.”
“Miz Vivian, she gonna kill me,” Wazoo said. “Then Miz Charlotte do the same t’ing.”
“Wazoo,” Vivian said. “How silly. You couldn’t do anything to upset us more than a little. Oh, maybe you’ve called off the fete for tomorrow, if so, don’t worry about it, we’ll do it sometime in the future.”
“I ain’t called it off, me. It’s going to be the biggest fete this place ever see and we gonna raise all kind of money to help out at Rosebank.”
Cyrus glanced at Vivian who looked as uncomfort
able as he’d expected. On the other hand, how easy could it be to say you’d inherited a fortune and didn’t need help anymore? Well, he would never have to find out. St. Cécil’s bumped along but there was never enough money.
Wazoo did the unthinkable. She cried, sat herself down on the floor and rocked.
Dealing with crying women was part of his duties, but it didn’t get easier. “Now, Wazoo, this isn’t goin’ to be that bad. You know Miz Vivian is goin’ to try to understand what you’ve done. She’ll do the right thing even though she will be disappointed in you.”
”
Cyrus
,” Vivian said, and he guessed that so far he wasn’t doing too well with Wazoo.
“I won’t have no home again, me.” Wazoo’s voice grew higher. “And I won’t have my lovely job. I’ll have to creep away into some swamp and live on rats too old to run away. My shoes’ll wear out and nasty things will eat up my feet—”
“Wazoo,” Vivian said sharply. “You’re overdoing it.”
“Not me, uh-uh.” Wazoo shook her head hard enough to make Cyrus’s neck ache just from watching. “I’m too bad. I’ll have to go to prison first, of course, because you’ll turn me in, you ain’t got no choice. Criminal like me.”
Spike went to Wazoo with the resigned manner of a man accustomed to sorting out problems of all kinds. “Up you come,” he said, and lifted her by the shoulders. “Should I arrest you right now, or would you like to plead your case first?”
Cyrus couldn’t hold back a grin but Vivian didn’t look too happy. “That’s enough of that,” she told Spike. “Come and sit down, Wazoo.”
Dragging her sneakers, Wazoo let Spike take her to a chair at the table. There she slumped, her face hidden in her hands. “I did it,” she said. “I don’t know what come over me, but I couldn’t stop myself.”
”
No.
” Vivian fell back against the refrigerator. “What is she saying?”
Maybe he just never would get the hang of women, Cyrus thought. “Hear her out,” he said and noted that Spike wasn’t smiling anymore, either. “If God can forgive the offense, so can you two.” He was getting angry.
“I should have come right out with it,” Wazoo said. “But I had a whole lot of violence around when I was growin’ up and it does things to you.”
“I hate that,” Vivian said, color returning to her face. “People who blame their own wrongdoing on what happened when they were children. Their parents were mean, or something, so they’re mean.” Her eyes glittered. “Or worse. Sooner or later a person has to be responsible for their own actions.”
“Hush,
cher
,” Spike said. “Start at the top, Wazoo, and let’s have it.”
“Start at the bottom, you mean,” she muttered. “Ellie Byron’s my friend. She treats me like I’m anyone else and there ain’t many who would. So what do I do? I steal from her, me. She know I don’t got the money for books but how I love the big, fancy ones with pictures of places and beautiful t’ings. She say I can borrow anything I want.”
Cyrus had already heard the story but could feel how badly she needed to tell it again.
“It was the silk bag,” Wazoo said, wiping at her eyes. “Yellow and orange and green and red stars all over it. And the shiny cord to close it, all gold and glittery. That’s what made me notice. Me, I never seen a book kept safe in a bag like that, so I knew it was special. All I wanted to do was look at it. That was just before you come here, Miz Vivian, and I heard Ellie say she was fixin’ to give it to you the first opportunity she got. So I borrowed it, only, Ellie was upstairs at the time and I left before I could tell her I was takin’ the book for a little while.”
Her eyes slid past each of them. “Oh, alligator poop. Who’m I tryin’ to boondaddle? I was afraid she wouldn’t want me to take somethin’ that good so I sneaked off with it. Vivian’s uncle Guy left it with Ellie. It was a present for you, Vivian. I should have given it back right away but I could tell what it was and what it meant, and I, well, I wanted to figure it all out and find that treasure for myself.”
This, Cyrus hadn’t heard. He smiled encouragement at Wazoo who had taken her tale into a make-believe realm. “It takes a strong spirit to be completely honest,” he told her. “Thank you for being so open with us.”
She glared at him, the old fire back in her expression. “Don’t you do that God man stuff to me. If you’re bad, you’re bad, and I’m bad, me. I come to you because I reckon someone put a hex on you so you can’t tell no one nothin’ after it’s bin told to you, that’s all.”
L’Oiseau de Nuit would take a special place in his personal memories. “That’s fine,” he told her. “And it was nice of you to agree to come here and tell Vivian and Spike. ’Specially since you only did it because you’re sorry for me.”
“Hah.” Wazoo turned her face from him. “So you make me tell it again myself.”
“As long as the book’s safe,” Vivian said, her arms crossed tightly about her, “I’m glad if you’ve had fun with it. But I really would like to have it back.”
“That the t’ing,” Wazoo said. “Someone stole it from me yesterday. Can you imagine the nerve of some people? Walked right into my room at Rosebank, where I got a right to guard my t’ings, and
stole
that book.”
Vivian wouldn’t appreciate a laughing priest when she’d just discovered something she wanted had been stolen from her…twice. “That’s terrible,” Cyrus said.
“Oh” was all Vivian said.
“You knew about this book?” Spike asked. He tilted his head and studied Vivian.
“Yes. Ellie told me, but I didn’t know it had anything to do with what Wazoo calls treasure.”
“Notes on some of them pages,” Wazoo said. “They was short notes. Okay, they was only two notes. Well, two and a bit, ’cause there was a torn one, too. And your uncle drawed a sort of picture in one place—near a picture. Not
on
it. Near it. I think it’s the treasure.”
Vivian scuffed across the kitchen, and retraced her steps again. Her crestfallen expression only made Cyrus feel more helpless.
“Ah, Vivian,” Spike said. “Is it so much of a deal now? I mean, how much do you and Charlotte—”
”
Don’t.
” She pointed her forefinger at him as if taking up position for a sword fight. “Don’t you dare make presumptions about me. I thought you knew me better than that. What I need, and what my mother needs, is what was intended for us and what we’d feel okay acceptin’. The other is blood money, conscience money, and we don’t want any part of it.”
“Darn my mouth,” Spike said. “I don’t know what came over me. I do know you better than that, not that it’s any of my business.”
“Isn’t it?”
Cyrus decided that any advice from him wouldn’t be well received. He also decided these two were definitely in love.
Spike tapped the heel of a boot on the worn linoleum and reminded Cyrus of a very overgrown boy who hadn’t been so good lately.
”
Do it by the book
,” Wazoo said loudly and sat very straight as if expecting trouble. “That’s what one of the notes said—the one what wasn’t tore. I’ve got a good memory, me.”
“Thanks,” Vivian said. “And I would if I could.”
”
Check all your pineapples.
” Wazoo delivered this line in ringing tones.
Vivian frowned at Wazoo. “I beg your pardon?”
“The other note.
Check all your pineapples.
”
Cyrus was hearing all of this for the first time.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Spike said.
“None,” Vivian agreed. “Uncle Guy was a joker. I guess I should have expected him to lead me on a wild-goose chase if he could. Although I did think he intended to make sure Mama and I could keep the house up.”
Laughter erupted from Wazoo in a high peal. “The goose that laid the golden egg,” she said. “What else would he do but lead you…on…a wild…Well, no, he didn’t. He did intend to provide for you. That man, he surely did. You got hundreds of pineapples, Miz Vivian. They all over that house. They carved on bedposts and chair legs and made out of bronze, and bone, and stone, and pottery, and painted gold and all manner of things. I know ’cause I been doin’ my best to find one with that fancy egg in it.”
“She’s sick.” Vivian got a glass of water and handed it to Wazoo. “It’s okay, we’ll take care of you.”
“Uh-huh. That book was all about these dolled-up eggs made for some rich Russian people what got knocked off. Some Frenchman made ’em special, lots of ’em. Your uncle just had the one, but it’s worth more money than you or me ever seen. Fabergé. That’s the name of them. Your uncle drew a picture of the one he reckons is inside one of your pineapples. Leastwise, I think that’s what he was tellin’ you. He wasn’t so much of an artist. But I know feet when I see em, ugly feet, too. This one had bumpy legs and ugly feet. And a tufty thing on top.”
“A Fabergé egg,” Vivian said with reverence. “A copy, I expect.”
“Uh-uh. It come out of some passageway under a palace in Russia where it got lost for a long time. If it was
like the picture next to the drawing, it was one of the ones made real early, so it said. Someone died over it.”
Vivian shivered. She took another chair at the kitchen table. “Come on, you two,” she said to Spike and Cyrus. “Sit down with us. Seems to me we’ve got the perfect opportunity for our treasure hunt. With all this construction getting started again.”
Morose, Wazoo said, “And all those people pokin’ all over the place, prob’ly includin’ whoever stole my book.”
Vivian didn’t correct her on the ownership issue.
“A map inside the book showed how the house is. I used that ’cause there was crosses on rooms and I found pineapple stuff all over ’em.” Wazoo paused. “There was crosses on plenty of rooms. That map, one just the same, that’s what the killer took from the lawyer’s bag that day. I got good eyes, me. Couldn’t see if he took anythin’ else though.”
“Wazoo,” Spike said carefully, digesting what she was telling them, “what do you remember about the man…that man?”
She shrugged. “He wear one of them masks over his head so I don’t see his face. Not too tall but big shoulders. Strong. And he move that knife so fast, all I see is a flash.”
Spike glanced at Vivian—who flinched—and Cyrus.
“The other one, the one who said to start the fire where they did, he wore a mask, too, only he was taller.”
“Taller,” Cyrus said. “You mean there were
two
men in masks?”
“I told that,” Wazoo said, sounding cross. “When the fire burnin’ I tell that.”
Two.
“I didn’t understand that’s what you were suggesting,” Spike said. “Wazoo, are you sure these men weren’t pretty much the same height and weight?” he asked, thinking of the Martin brothers.
“Yes!” She glared at him. “I’m sure, me. I said what I saw and I saw it. They was different. It was the taller man who took Gil away. I recognized him when I see him again at the fire.”
The Devols’ house was old and creaked a lot. In the hush that followed Wazoo’s curious comment, every board in the place made its presence known.
“Hoo mama,” Wazoo wailed, freshly stricken. “I say it. Now I live in the swamp, for sure.” She spoke to Vivian, “That night, the night when you found the lawyer, I should never have tried to cover it all up.”
Now Cyrus was confused again. She hadn’t mentioned anything about covering up the murder before. Or about seeing Gil taken away. “You saw Gil killed, too?”
She gave one of her ferocious shakes of the head. “No, I did not. I only see that other man take him away because he found him watchin’ while the first one killed the lawyer. I don’t know where he took Gil, but he surely did kill him later, didn’t he?”
They nodded but couldn’t look at one another.
“I’m greedy, me,” Wazoo said in a small voice. “And I know that’s not anybody else’s fault, even if I have always been poor. I thought I’d finally found a way to get some money and make a start and I wasn’t goin’ to let no dead man in a fancy car stop me. I thought Gil would be okay.” She scrubbed at her eyes and her wild black hair only made her white skin more luminous.
Spike got Cyrus’s attention and shook his head. “Hold up, Wazoo.” Spike was signaling that he couldn’t let Wazoo go on without hearing a Miranda. “If you’re gonna keep talkin’ to us I’m going to have to read you your rights.” He did so while her crying grew louder. “You need a lawyer.”
“I don’t want no lawyer. I don’t need no lawyer. I can’t afford no lawyer. How long will they lock me away for stealin’ a book and not tellin’ I seen a murder?”