A fly alighted on the ship. Salazar flicked at it. Aren’t you late for senior discount at the casinos, he asked.
Fuck yeah, Vines said, glancing at his watch. At the door he paused and, looking back, he said: Burn this one quick, rookie, and move on.
The moon was full and yellow as Salazar walked Vines to his car. Harvest moon.
Twenty-eight
You look like shit, Sunil said to Salazar.
Salazar, unshowered, unchanged, unshaven, sporting bloodshot eyes and nursing a cup of coffee, stared at himself in the reflective glass of the casino door. Yeah, he said. Well, you’re no fucking beauty queen yourself.
When his cell phone rang thirty minutes before, Sunil had just walked into his apartment and was quite looking forward to some downtime with a beer and basketball on TV. Salazar wanted Sunil to meet him at Fremont Street in front of the Golden Nugget. Immediately. Salazar sounded so like a B-movie gangster, Sunil was tempted to laugh. But there he was, meeting a surly Salazar and wondering to himself how much neon there was in this city. Now, that was a question he was sure Water had an answer for.
See those kids over there, Salazar asked, pointing to a group of kids lounging in the middle of the covered pedestrian walkway that sheltered this part of Fremont. They were sprawled across a white bench reflecting the crazy video projections on the roof of the walkway, eating hamburgers and sipping noisily on drinks. You remember that text you sent me about Fred, Salazar said.
Yeah, did you find anything on her?
No, no record, nothing in the system, not even a social security number.
Then why am I here?
Well, I figured if you were looking for a freak lover with a sideshow, where better to start than with the freaks themselves.
And you need me for what?
Freaks are your thing. Besides, I don’t have a partner so you’re it.
Who are these kids?
Street kids. I try to watch out for them and they in turn keep me informed on things I want to know. They’re kind of like CIs.
Hey guys, Salazar said to the kids. This is Dr. Singh. Dr. Singh, meet the gang. This is Horny Nick, he said, pointing to a teenager with star-shaped horns implanted in his forehead.
Coral probably, Sunil thought. With time it would fuse to look like real bone. They were disturbing but beautiful. When Nick smiled, Sunil could see that his teeth had been filed to points and he was sporting two-inch-long fingernails painted black.
And this, Salazar said, pointing, is Annie.
Annie took off her sunglasses and tucked them over her hair, revealing pointed ears, like an elf or a Vulcan. She ran her tongue over her lips and Sunil saw it had been split down the middle, but it was her eyes that transfixed him. Her sclera were a deep purple and her pupils a royal blue. There were two other teenagers with Annie and Horny Nick, a boy and another girl, and although their entire bodies, faces included, were covered with tattoos and piercings, they looked normal in comparison.
These two delinquents here are Peggy and Petrol, Salazar said.
Sunil nodded. Salazar thinks you might know someone we’re looking for, he said. He reached into his back pocket and took out a photo of Fire and Water. The kids studied the photo for a while before passing it around. Sunil watched their eyes, noticing shifts in expression, but it was only Annie who said: a real freak! She sounded envious.
We haven’t seen them, Petrol said, passing the photo back almost reluctantly.
Who else might have seen them? Where would they go, Salazar asked.
You should ask Fred, Annie said. Fred knows everything.
The others glared at her and Sunil caught the look.
I’m not a policeman, he said. I’m a doctor. I don’t want to harm Fred. I just want to talk to her. In fact, Sunil said, pointing to Water in the photo, this one says he is in love with Fred.
The kids laughed.
Everyone is in love with Fred, they said, almost in unison.
Where can we find this fucking Fred person, Salazar asked.
The kids looked away.
Please, Sunil said.
She lives out in Troubadour, Horny Nick said.
The ghost town, Sunil asked.
Fred doesn’t like uninvited guests, Petrol said.
Here, Sunil said, digging into his pocket and passing a twenty-dollar bill over to Peggy.
As she took it she leaned into him. Be careful, she whispered. Someone is following you.
Why would anyone follow me, he asked.
How the fuck should I know, she said. But I’m never wrong.
As they walked away, Salazar turned to Sunil. What was all that about, he asked.
She thinks I’m being followed, Sunil said.
Do you think you’re being followed?
No. Why would anyone follow me?
Salazar looked Sunil over for a minute, then said: Listen, is the ghost town far from here?
Yes, a couple of hours.
When do we leave?
Why don’t we go tomorrow morning? Come by my place about nine a.m. You’re driving, by the way.
What’s your address?
Like you don’t know, Detective.
As Sunil drove home, he kept glancing in his rearview mirror. Two cars behind him, Eskia smiled.
Twenty-nine
In this dream, Selah is an angel oak and all her leaves are yellow, a bright yellow like the soft down on a chick and irradiated by sunlight so the very air, the sky, is all yellow.
The tree is in a field of yellow shrubs: a yellow sky, a yellow field, and a yellow tree. The only things that are not yellow are the black limbs of the tree.
Water stands in the soft down of the shrubs and looks up at the tree. Selah, he says, crying, Selah.
The yellow tree shakes in a sudden wind until it is stripped of leaves, of everything. Now Water is standing in a brown field next to a small cabin leaning drunkenly.
Selah, he calls again, Selah.
Where is your brother, the tree asks.
Water looks down to his side and Fire is gone. He runs his hands down his sides and he is healed, his skin unmarked.
I don’t know, he says, his voice heavy with awe. What does this mean, Mother?
The tree turns white. A rude tree in a field of green and white and in the distance the white shrubs. Water looks around, confused.
Where am I, he asks no one, because there is no one to ask.
And the sky grows dark and brooding like a storm was coming, but there is a purity to the tree, to it all.
Selah, he calls one last time to the tree.
There is nothing but the searing whiteness everywhere.
Wake up, Water.
When he opened his eyes, a nurse was standing over him in the glare of the fluorescent overhead lights.
Time for your medication, the nurse said.
Water took the pill and swallowed it, then lay back, his breath shallow and ragged. Beside him, wrapped in the smoothness of his caul, Fire snored.
BUTTERFLIES
The sign outside painted in uneven lettering on a piece of plywood read: GOGO’S CURIO AND BOOKSHOP. Run by Gogo, a shriveled old woman who could have been colored or Indian or even a sunburned Boer, it was a place where people from different races overlapped without worrying about the authorities. Perhaps it was Gogo’s racial ambiguity, or her reputation as a fierce witch with so much muthi that even the police were unwilling to come up against her; whatever the reason, Gogo’s curio shop was probably the most liminal place in all of Jozi, sitting as it did in a dead zone between the Wits University campus and the Fort. The wall facing the street was covered in a colorful mural, and a ditch and a fence hid the entrance, which was down an alley.