In the end, Ellie found herself filling a half-dozen pages of her sketchbook with surreptitious drawings of the pair, Bettina on her stool, Chantal at the modeling stand, her large fingers pulling the most delicate details from the bust. She didn’t think Ms. Wood would mind. After all, there had to be a settling-in period, didn’t there, and she had already come up with some great ideas for the mask.
The one thing she did, Bettina’s tea notwithstanding, was keep her gaze away from the windows in the studio. They looked out onto the rear lawns where she’d seen the strange group of men and she wasn’t taking any chances. Perhaps it was childish—pathetic, really, for a grown woman to expect that if she couldn’t see something, then it wasn’t there—but she couldn’t help herself. From the way Bettina had spoken earlier, if she did look, she might find a whole other world waiting for her out there, and Ellie truly wasn’t prepared for anything but the simple winter landscape that rationality told her had to be on the other side of the window’s panes.
“Oh, man,” Fiona said when she heard about what had happened to Miki’s apartment. “That really sucks. What is wrong with people, anyway?”
She sat perched beside the cash register on the front counter of Gypsy Records in full Goth mode: long straight hair, lace blouse, calf-length skirt and leather bodice, all black and contrasting sharply against her porcelain skin. Here and there silver jewelry twinkled about her person like stars viewed through a layer of dark clouds. Rings, bracelets, earrings, an eyebrow ring, choker.
“Many of them,” Miki said from where she was slouched on a chair behind the counter, “are simply shite.”
“Yeah, really. I wonder who you pissed off.”
Miki only shrugged.
“Because a friend of mine—remember Andrea? She’s sort of gangly, with long black hair and a slinky wardrobe.”
“Fiona, that describes most of your friends—male and female.”
“Yeah, well. When the people in her building found out she was a pagan, there was this big fuss about having a Satanist living in the building, you know, conducting unspeakable rituals and all that crap, as if. But before it all died down, someone broke into her place and trashed it, wrote Biblical quotations all over the walls and stuff.”
“It’s not exactly the same thing.”
“No, but it just goes to show you. Nobody had anything personally against her, there were just people who didn’t like who she was on principal, and even then they didn’t have a clue.”
“And the point is?”
“The point is, I don’t know. Maybe somebody really hates Celtic music or accordions or something. It could be a clue.”
Miki had to smile at that.
“Anyway,” Fiona said. “Do you want some help cleaning up?”
Miki shook her head. “I’m never going back there.”
“But all your stuff…”
“Is ruined,” Hunter put in as he passed by the cash filing CDs. He paused to lean against a browser. “It’s like somebody emptied out the vats of a piss factory in her place.”
Fiona grimaced. “Well, thank you for that lovely image.”
Hunter shrugged and went back to filing CDs.
“It’s true,” Miki said. “They didn’t miss anything except for my old Hohner. I swear, they must’ve had bladders the size of hot air balloons.”
“You’re grossing me out.”
“This from a woman who enjoys Marilyn Manson.”
“It’s not the same.”
Miki nodded. “No, I don’t suppose it is.”
Hunter tuned them out as they got into a discussion of Goth versus Metal and where various artists fit in. Humming along with the Sam Bush CD that was playing on the store’s sound system, he went to the front of the store and started rearranging the new release display to accommodate the latest set of Verve reissues that had come in that morning. He didn’t know what made him look up and out at the street, but when he did, he found himself face-to-face with one of the hard men standing outside the store, smirking at him. When the man saw he had Hunter’s attention, he took a hand out of the pocket of his trench coat, did a Michael Jackson crotch grab, and sauntered off.
Hunter stood there for a long moment trying to fight down the sudden rage that had flared in him, Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans CDs forgotten in his hand. It was hard to let the adrenaline rush go, because fear had been as much a part of what had called it up as anger. When he finally felt calm enough to trust his voice, he turned slowly to see if Miki had noticed the hard man, too, but she and Fiona were still arguing musical classifications. He found a place on the rack for the CDs he was holding, then returned to the counter.
“Fiona,” he said, breaking into their conversation. “You know a lot of these New Age types, right?”
She looked confused. “What, you mean like John Tesh and Yanni fans?”
“No, not music. The other kind of New Age. Healing crystals and Tarot cards and that kind of stuff.”
“I guess. Why? You planning on consulting an oracle to find out when business is going to pick up?”
She grinned at him and turned to Miki to share the joke, but Hunter could tell Miki knew where he was going with this and she only managed a halfhearted smile for Fiona. He wondered if her nostrils had filled with the memory smell of that rank urine back at her apartment the way his just had.
“I was wondering if you knew anybody into Native American spirituality,” he said.
“You mean like for real?”
Hunter nodded.
“Well, Jessica goes up to the rez all the time—”
“You know her,” Miki put in, obviously unable to pass up the opportunity to tease, even in her present mood. “Kind of gangly, with long black hair and a slinky wardrobe.”
Fiona punched her in the arm.
“Like it’s not true,” Miki said.
“What about Jessica?” Hunter asked.
“Well, her boyfriend’s father leads a lot of the sweats and he’s really into the old ways of doing things.”
“Any chance I could talk to either of them?”
“I suppose, but neither of them’s easy to get hold of. They live back in the bush, without a phone. You might be better off with one of the Creek sisters.”
“Who are they?”
“Oh, I know them,” Miki said. “Or a couple of them, at least. Verity and Zulema. They often help out at those benefit concerts for street people that I play at every year.”
“Interesting names,” Hunter said. “Are they Natives?”
Fiona nodded. “There’s like twelve or thirteen of them and everybody up on the rez treats them with deference.”
“So how do I get hold of one of them?”
“I don’t know,” Fiona said. “I’ll call Jessica when she gets home tonight. I can’t call her at work because they’re not allowed to get personal calls there.”
Hunter gave a thoughtful nod. “Maybe I should start thinking about that.”
Fiona gave him a whack on the arm at the same time as Miki threw a section of the newspaper at him.
At closing time Fiona asked Miki if she wanted to stay over at her apartment.
“Depends,” Miki said. “Are you planning any Satanic rituals?”
“Only if you’re still a virgin, as if.”
“And you won’t expect me to dye my hair black?”
“No, but you will have to wear something black and slinky and listen to at least a couple of hours of All About Eve.”