“Will do,” Casey said. Then he turned and walked to a waiting black Escalade beyond the army barriers.
Brad shivered. Casey wouldn’t call him. He knew that. Damn it! He had a right to be in on this whole thing. He wanted to see Lucy squirm. And the Viking? Whipping wasn’t enough. But Casey would know how to make him suffer.
“Well, Mr. Lowell, this interview is going to be a little different than the last one.”
Lowell was tied to a chair bolted to the old boards of a ramshackle building down by the industrial side of the docks, not the tourist side. It was being redeveloped, but the permits were hung up in red tape. Permanently. Made a convenient interview site.
“Yeah. I figured.”
Lowell didn’t look scared. He should.
“You disappeared that girl and her Viking, Lowell. I want to know where they are.”
“How would a broken-down old apartment manager who likes jazz know anything about disappearing people, Colonel?” He made the title sound like an epithet.
“Like that’s what you are.” Casey paced around the chair. Pollington stood in his shirtsleeves in the shadows. He had a billy club dangling down the seam of pants that broke perfectly over his tasseled loafers. Too bad that nice white shirt was going to get ruined tonight. “I don’t want to spar with you, Lowell. I just want some answers.”
“If wishes were horses . . .”
Casey nodded to Pollington, who hit Lowell in the belly and left him retching all over his knees. “Now this can be easy or hard, Lowell. Easy or hard.”
“Do your worst,” Lowell spit when he could get his breath. Then he smiled. Like he knew something more that Casey didn’t than the whereabouts of the girl.
Monday
Galen watched Lucy sleeping beside him, on her belly, the swell of her breasts clearly visible as they pressed into the bed, her frfeaxen hair spread out over the crumpled white linen. Light leaked in through the windows around the cabin, and sun lit her hair with shiny copper threads. The dog lay sleeping in one corner. Galen got up and fed him last night after he and Lucy made love again, and let him out to relieve himself. He was a good dog. When Galen brought Lucy bread and cheese and beer, the dog had begged, of course, in spite of his full belly. But when Galen had seen Lucy’s eyes light yet again, one word and the dog retreated beyond the cabin door while Galen swived her well and thoroughly until she screamed her climax. She was a generous lover, a generous person. She had tried to comfort him by telling him he was enough for her.
Not true. He did not deserve her. But somehow he had been granted a time with her, the Norns only knew how long. He would take it and be grateful to the gods. And he would protect her, in his poor way, as well as he could.
He lay on his good side, his elbow propping up his head, and watched her breathe. He felt good. Whole. Perhaps for the first time in a long time. Maybe ever. Lucy did that for him. He closed his eyes. He felt Lucy’s breathing, his breathing. His shoulder didn’t ache as much now. He could almost feel it sealing itself together with each breath. The boat seemed to breathe, too. No, it was just rocking. It was the water that breathed. He could not help the smile that curved his lips. How right that felt, that the earth breathed. Water breathed into the air; the plants breathed; the land warmed and cooled with the passing of the sun. He felt the bay stretch beyond the boat, out under the marvelous bridge they called the Gate of Gold and away to other lands stranger than he could imagine, teeming with life. Down into deep trenches darker than night went the water and up shallow estuaries to meet the rivers. And below the water was the earth itself, the muck of all existence, fertile and quick, and below that was a seething core of molten glass, fiery, like Lucy’s hair. He felt the ice that crept over the earth in places, colder even than the lands north of the Volga, and hot barren sands blowing in fury. They were all connected. They all breathed as one. . . .
But there was a sickness in the earth. The cities, like cankers, breathed out smoke. He felt a shelf of precious ice fall into the sea somewhere. The earth shuddered beneath it. He felt the fishes suck for air and gasp and die where rivers ran, yellow and noxious, into the pure blue-green of the sea. . . . Something was wrong, terribly wrong. . . .
“Well, sleepyhead, are you going back to sleep?”
His eyes snapped open, his feeling of connection gone. “Lucy.” He smiled, blinking. Had that been a dream? It was a strange one.
She sat up, clutching the sheet to her breasts. The dog rose and stretched and wandered over. Galen gathered Lucy into his chest and fondled the dog’s ears. “Yful hund,” he said.
“He’s not a bad dog.”
“You must name him, Lucy, if he is to be your friend.”
“You could name him,” she said, snuggling into Galen. She was so soft, so absolutely female. He held her more tightly to his body. He couldn’t imagine how she could not know she was beautiful. Had the men in her life never showed her what her beauty, inside and out, must do to them? He had thought to bind her to him by bedding her. But it was he who was bound. He only hoped that if and when this Brad came to claim her, she would not choose the man who could provide for her better than he could. That struck him to his heart. How selfish he was, to think to take her from a better life than he could give her.
He left off stroking the dog and stroked Lucy instead.
“I’m not sure what happened last night,” she murmured, sleep still slurring in her voice. “But I liked it.”
“You love my wpn,” he chided, smiling.
“Weapon?” She looked up at him. “You’re kidding.” She lifted the sheet. “Tell me that’s not what you call your . . .” She nodded to his pintel.
“Ja. We call it wpn. Like sword or spear. Same.”
“Technically it’s called a penis.”
“Pintel is my word.”
“But we call it cock, or shaft. I guess that’s like a spear.”
“Cock, like the bird, cock?”
“Uh-huh. Cockerel. Rooster.”
He tried to keep his mouth serious. “That is a very stupid name.”
“I think it’s because cockerels are so proud of themselves, just like men are of their. . . .”
“Their wpns.”
“Weapons.” She pretended to capitulate. But he knew her better than that now. “Okay, so tell me what you call other parts of your body.” She touched his chest.
“Breast, bosom.” He’d play this game all day if she would touch him.
She touched his eye.
“Eye.” Then other parts. “Chin. Shoulder. Elnborga.”
“That’s sort of like elbow.”
“Mh. Tunge.” When she touched his tongue, it made him shiver in places that had nothing to do with his mouth. “Hype, thoh,” He cleared his throat. Touching those was like to have consequences. “Hearthan.”
“Those are testicles. We call them balls.”
“I will remember that.” He kissed her hair.
Suddenly the dog came up beside them and shook one of Galen’s stockings fiercely to get their attention. Lucy laughed. “He still likes socks.” She turned to Galen in surprise. “I know. I’ll call him Vandal.”
“What means this word?”
“They were a people from around Germany, I think. It has come to mean ‘thief.’ You understand that?”
“Ja. Thof. Word is same. And we call those men Wendalls.” He turned it over in his mind. “Ja, Vandal is a good name for this dog.”