She shot a look up at the Bear. “Look, no offense, Henry . . .” His eyes clicked to mine. “If you believe this mumbo-jumbo that’s fine, but I don’t see how we’re going to do it before the shit wagon gets here.”
I reached over and lifted the lid—the diameter of the formed plastic stool was about eighteen inches across at the widest part from front to back. “We have to try and get in there.”
She made a face. “And then what?”
I pulled the copper-colored scarf from my shoulders. “We can use this to wrap around her so that she doesn’t attack and then scoop her out.” Ignoring the smell, I stooped by the toilet and reached in with both arms, my progress impeded where the width of my shoulders lodged against the edge of the plastic sides. “Unh-uh.” I looked up at the Cheyenne Nation, but knew his shoulders were every bit as large as my own; finally, the two of us looked at Victoria Moretti.
She didn’t move. “No fucking way.”
“We can grab you by your ankles . . .”
“And kiss my ass! There’s no way I’m crawling into that thing.”
Henry leaned forward to get her attention, demonstrating the technique by raising his arms in a diving position. “If you raise your arms.” He demonstrated. “It will narrow your shoulder width, and we can lower you in.”
She went so far as to rest her hand on her high-riding sidearm. “I’m not toilet diving for an owl.”
I stood and gestured toward both Henry and me. “We don’t fit.”
“Yeah, well I don’t give a rat’s ass.”
I placed an arm across the open doorway. “With both of us holding on to you, there’s no way anything can happen.”
She folded her arms. “I’m not climbing in that toilet.” Her eyes flicked between us, and I could tell she was weakening, probably thinking of the things I had told her that Virgil White Buffalo had said. She took a deep breath and gagged a little at the smell but began unbuckling her belt, unclipped her holstered Glock, and lowering it to the ground, and began pulling her iPod, pens, notepads, keys, sunglasses, and other assorted items from her pockets. Pausing in the action, she shot a finger at the two of us. “You drop me, and we’re all three going to be in a world of shit.”
• • •
“What do you weigh, Vic?”
“Fuck you, that’s what I weigh.”
I glanced at the Cheyenne Nation and he nodded, both of us figuring we could handle her amount of weight all day without any problems. I handed Vic the scarf, which luckily was made of surprisingly thick yarn. “I’d wrap this around her as quickly as I could just to make sure she doesn’t get at you.”
She pulled on the gloves she’d retrieved from the cab of Rezdawg, a wise precaution to all our thoughts. “You’re damn right.”
Henry glanced into the hole and then stooped to pick Vic’s sunglasses from her pile. “You might want to wear these.”
She looked at the Bear. “That is a pair of two-hundred-and-twenty dollar Oakley Fast Jacket sunglasses, and I am not about to lose them in there—anyway, don’t you think it’s going to be dark enough?”
Henry unfolded the expensive eyewear. “I would want some eye protection, if I were you.”
Vic took the sunglasses and reluctantly put them on. “If I drop them, I’m going to want to fish them out.”
The Bear nodded. “Deal.”
Vic walked over and stood in front of the toilet, and I clicked on the game warden’s Mag-Lite to check on the location of the owl—she hadn’t moved. “You want me to try and hold the flashlight while . . . ?”
Her voice went up a few octaves in response. “You fucking well better hold on to me; I don’t want you assholes concentrating on anything other than hanging on to my legs and not letting go!”
“Right.”
She glanced up at me. “I’m serious.”
“I can tell.” I looked at the hole and added, “I would be, too.”
She stared into the abyss. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“It is for a greater cause.” Henry placed a hand on her shoulder. “I would also keep my mouth closed.”
Vic looked at him, smiled a fake smile, reached over, and unrolled a few sections of toilet paper, rolling them into impromptu nose plugs, and stuffing them into her nostrils; then she held her hands up and wrapped the scarf between both of them. “Ready.”
Henry and I reached down and gripped her legs at the knees and ankles. We easily lifted her and flipped her over. “You okay?”
She nodded, and we began lowering her into the vault, outstretched arms and the scarf first. There was a fluttering noise, and Vic struggled, but our grip remained firm. “What’s happening?”
Her voice, muffled and nasal, echoed up from the chamber. “She’s moved over to the other side. Can you turn me so I’m facing her more?”
The Bear and I looked at each other, trying to imagine how we were going to accomplish that; finally Henry straddled the back of the toilet and stepped over as I pivoted to the right. “That better?”
There was another fluttering from below, and Vic’s voice sounded against the concrete that was underneath the floor. “I think. It’s so dark down here I can’t see anything..” There was a pause, and then she spoke again. “You’re going to have to lower me more; I can’t reach into the corner where I think she is.”
“How much?”
The voice echoed up. “Maybe another foot—but no more than that.”
“Right.”
Henry and I started lowering her when she called out. “Stop!”
“Right.”
“It’s going to take me a minute to get ready, so just hold me here.”
The Cheyenne Nation and I stood over the toilet with Vic Moretti’s feet in our faces, and I thought that even her feet smelled nice, but maybe it was comparative to the environs. There wasn’t much else to do, so I broached the subject again. “Lola?”
He nodded with a sense of finality, the kind of finality that usually meant The Greatest Legal Mind of Our Time had made up her mind. “Lola, short for Delores, taken from the title of the Virgin Mary: Virgen Maria de los Delores.”
“Our Lady of Sorrows?”
He thought about it. “Well, yes . . . technically.”
Vic’s voice echoed up again. “Great, that can be her stage name.”
He shook his head at me, and we felt Vic move in our hands again, probably preparing for the monumental grab. “You still all right?”
Her voice echoed up again. “Hang on—this might get a little hairy here in a second.”
“Okay.” I gripped my undersheriff’s leg a little tighter. Henry grunted. I looked up at him. “What?”
His dark eyes rested easy on mine. “What what?”
“You said something?”
“No.”
I shrugged but then heard the grunt again, this time while looking directly at his face—his mouth hadn’t moved. Both of us looked at each other with eyebrows raised before pivoting our heads in unison toward the propped open door of the restroom where the sow black bear was sniffing the ground just off the concrete pad. “Vic . . .”
“Hold it steady, I’m making my move . . .”
The black bear raised her head up and looked into the restroom at the sound of my voice. You really don’t get a sense of how big the things are until you’re up close and personal with them. The sow was roughly our height, but the months of summer bounty had helped her to pack on the weight, and I was betting she weighed as much as Henry and me together. Their eyesight isn’t the greatest, but their sense of smell is extremely acute and the things that repulse us smell like the Usual at the Busy Bee Café to them.
I spoke voce sotto. “I thought you said they wouldn’t double back?”
The Bear’s whisper was low and steady. “They did not, but evidently she did.”
“I think we should pull Vic out.”
“I agree.”
We were about to do it when Vic made her move, a jarring lunge that made for a mad fluttering and some vicious swearing along with a certain amount of animation translating up her legs to us.