“How you been doing?” Arthur asked, and Magdalena said, “You sure made my mom’s week.”
For a good five minutes, they talked about the ring discovery. Manfred could have predicted every word of the dialogue, just like a bad movie. Normally he would have been at least moderately glad to see the two, but tonight he had other fish to fry. And urgently. It was almost dark. And lately, dark had meant a higher chance of a suicide at the crossroads.
Manfred glanced at the window, trying to conceal his impatience. He’d been carrying Xylda’s warning around with him all day, and it was a heavy burden. He needed to spread the word. If he hadn’t been so eager to get back to normal after his road trip . . .
“Okay, how the hell did you know about the ring?” Magdalena demanded, not for the first time. Manfred sighed, but he’d known she’d demand a “rational” explanation for one of the cleanest and clearest readings he’d gotten in his life. “I don’t know how you could have done that! Mama’s been looking for that ring for years.”
“I guess she hasn’t sewed on a button in that long,” Manfred said. “Your aunt showed up and told her that was where the ring was, in the button box. Believe me, I was just as surprised as your mom. She’s a wonderful lady, by the way.”
Magdalena’s face softened. “Yes, she is,” she said. “My dad died young, and she did a good job raising us.”
“That neighbor of hers,” Manfred said awkwardly. “Linda.”
“What about her?”
“She’s pretty sick.” This was something he didn’t want to talk about, but he felt he had to warn Magdalena. Agnes Orta was going to take Linda’s death hard.
“She’s young,” Magdalena said, smiling, but without conviction. She knew there was a reason he’d brought up Linda’s health.
Manfred just shook his head. Her smile vanished. After a tense moment, she nodded, just a jerk of her head.
Arthur broke the silence by asking Manfred how things had been going in Midnight. “Any more suicides?” he asked, trying to lighten up the conversation. He couldn’t have imagined that just made it worse.
“That would be pretty stunning, wouldn’t it?” Manfred said.
Arthur laughed. “Even in Midnight, that seems pretty unlikely,” he said.
Manfred offered them a drink, pretty sure Magdalena and Arthur would turn it down and see the offer as a signal to depart. Sure enough, Magdalena thanked Manfred but turned down the drink. Soon after, she and Arthur rose to take their leave. They were going to stop by the Cartoon Saloon for a sandwich and a beer, and then catch a movie in Marthasville.
When their taillights were out of sight, Manfred walked over to the pawnshop. As he’d expected, Lemuel was behind the counter. The old book was open in front of him and a spiral-bound notebook was beside it. Lemuel was busy writing when Manfred came in, but he put down his pen to regard Manfred. “What brings you out this night, neighbor?” Lemuel asked in his rusty voice.
“I got a warning today,” Manfred said. “A true warning.”
Lemuel’s cold gaze intensified, which made Manfred shiver. It felt odd and unpleasant to be the object of Lemuel’s interest.
“Tell me about it.”
As concisely as possible, Manfred related his grandmother’s warning. “She said it was waking up,” he said.
Lemuel said, “I think we are very close to catastrophe.”
“Do you know what lies underneath the crossroad?” Manfred asked.
“I suspect I do.” Lemuel laid his hand on the book.
Manfred wanted to tell Lemuel to hurry up, but a strong sense of self-preservation stopped him.
“Since I have to finish the translation, it’s slow work.” Lemuel’s tone made it clear this was not an apology, but an explanation. “I dare not skip anything. It’s too important. A crossroad is a place where hunting trails cross, a place where criminals are executed, or a place where shrines are set up. This crossroad may be all three, but I have to be sure what we’re dealing with.”
Manfred could only nod. He turned to go, but Lemuel had more to say.
“I understand Teacher went to Killeen with you today,” Lemuel observed. “What did you think of him?”
“Interesting you should bring that up,” Manfred said. “I wasn’t comfortable with him, and I don’t know why. He seems like the easiest person in the world to get along with, in general conversation, but one-on-one . . . I just can’t figure him out.”
“Did he seem to want to know you?”
“Yes, he asked several questions. I kept telling myself it was only natural when you don’t know someone, to ask those questions, but you know what? It felt like filling out a form for a job. So I tried to ask him the same questions, see how he liked it. He didn’t.” He told Lemuel about Teacher’s visit to the hardware store.
“Interesting,” Lemuel said, and dismissed Manfred by becoming engrossed in the pages of the book.
Manfred shook his head and left. He would have been surprised to know what Lemuel did about three a.m.
7
When everyone else in Midnight was asleep, Lemuel left the pawnshop. He drifted through the night, which was as close to silent as an inhabited place can get. The electronic sounds of the stoplight were small and easy to ignore. The bugs were not too noisy at this time of year. A coyote yipped to the north, a lonely and feral comment. He listened, but the sound was not repeated.
Lemuel paused at the hotel to listen. He heard Lenore Whitefield, the manager, get up and visit the bathroom. He heard her husband snoring. One of the senior citizens on the ground floor stirred restlessly in her sleep. Lemuel moved soundlessly past the hotel, then past Home Cookin, and then drifted behind the restaurant to circle the double-wide trailer where the Reeds lived.
Grady woke up crying, perhaps sensing Lemuel’s presence, and Lemuel listened to Madonna plod into Grady’s little bedroom. Her voice and words were softer than he’d ever heard them as she gave the toddler a dry diaper and a soft kiss. Grady settled back into sleep almost immediately, but Madonna went into the kitchen to get a drink of water. Moving around the outside of the trailer, parallel to the woman inside, Lemuel followed her, his fingertips brushing the siding.
He had long wanted to search the Reeds’ trailer, but they were never gone long enough at night. He could trust Olivia to do a good job while the Reeds were gone during the day, if he could only be sure enough to tell her his suspicions.
If this had been a different day and age, Lemuel would have broken down the trailer door. Lemuel would have gone in and killed the Reeds, perhaps taking Grady to an orphanage if he was feeling merciful.
There were many things Lemuel liked about here and now. He did not have to hide what he was anymore. He had friends, and a lover who accepted him for what he was. Some of his friends would willingly feed him the energy he needed to thrive. If not, he could visit a bar. He could travel, too, with some care and forethought. That delighted Lemuel, who had been tied to the area around Midnight for decades and decades.
The downside of the modern world? His natural tendency to settle things in a permanent and drastic way had to be curbed. Law enforcement was much more consistent and effective, at least in part because communication was instant. Ways of tracking those who broke the rules were scientific and relentless; or at least, they seemed so to Lemuel when he considered the past, where moving from one area to another had rendered him practically invisible. Now, he had to think twice before he acted.
So he circled the trailer, pondering his options, until he had to return to Midnight Pawn because a car pulled up in front. He was in the side door and on the stool at the counter just before the customers entered, hooting and hollering and stumbling: three males, young, all drunk.
Lemuel would have sighed if he’d needed to.
Predictably, the young men had come in to pawn the television that they’d probabl
y stolen from one or another of their kin. Lemuel took a picture of them with his telephone (the novelty never ceased to entertain him) and kept the television for the police to collect, giving the kids each forty dollars, just enough to get them to leave. When their car taillights flashed, he called the highway patrol and gave them the license number.
“Lemuel Bridger, good citizen,” he said out loud after he’d hung up. “That’s me.” And he smiled, all to himself. He’d had a gulp of energy from all three. He wrote a note for Bobo and taped it to the television. The police would pick the set up tomorrow. Possibly, they would stop the boys before they’d had time to spend the money, and he would get it back.
Olivia had been out of town all day and would return sometime this night. He kept watch for her, while he sat and translated. Every now and then he would go out to look at the crossroads, but no one appeared. In between watching and looking, he translated, but it was slow going. He was ever conscious that if what he suspected was true, he was running out of time.
They all were.
8
Fiji got up extra early the next day so she could work in her garden without her sister’s constant, irritating presence. It was not a huge surprise when Diederik joined her. The boy enjoyed gardening almost as much she did, though perhaps being free of Rev’s presence and being outside had as much to do with that pleasure as the actual work did.
Today, Diederik had pulled his dark hair back into a ponytail and he was wearing a cowboy hat and cutoffs. No shirt. Fiji had to glance away to stifle a giggle. Diederik looked like he was about to go on stage at a male strip club. The boy’s olive skin was a beautiful even tone all over. Fiji told herself to not drool, not even for a moment. Though her sister’s cruel words had appalled Fiji, she had to admit that this morning she noticed the way Diederik looked at her. Kiki was right. Diederik was aware that he was a man and Fiji was a woman.
To reinforce her maternal role in the boy’s life, she offered Diederik some biscuits.
He was delighted at biscuits. She’d figured he would be. Diederik loved food, especially home-cooked food. Perhaps the way he looked at Fiji was because he thought of her as the source of deliciousness. She smiled to herself at the thought as they sat on the back porch with tea and a plate of buttered goodness.
“What’s your dad up to today?” she asked.
“My father is at the hotel, still, working on the Internet.” Diederik licked some butter off his fingers. Fiji looked away. “He is preparing for a packleader challenge in Wyoming.”
“Soon you’ll be going with him.”
“Yes, and I want to see some of the world,” Diederik said, slowly and thoughtfully. “I do. I don’t really remember the journey here. But I love Midnight, which my father thinks is strange. Apparently, most people my age are not content with their homes.”
“It can’t be very exciting living with the Rev,” Fiji said gently. “He is a great man and I admire him, but no one would think of him as fun.”
“In some ways, no,” the boy admitted. He pointed at the last biscuit, asking a silent question. Fiji nodded. He ate it slowly. “But he tells wonderful stories about the creation of the world and all the animals in it, including humans, and he prays a lot, and he tells me how to be grateful for work and friends. And now I know how to read, and my father got me an account on the Internet, and I can go over to Mr. Manfred’s house and order books directly onto my e-reader. Mr. Bobo is teaching me how to play the piano. And Madonna shows me how to cook. And Marina who works at the hotel at night . . .” He stopped in his conversational tracks and smiled. It was a look both delighted as a child’s and satisfied as an adult’s.
“Oh, Diederik!” Fiji tried not to be taken aback by this honesty.
“But Marina, she was not a virgin,” he said anxiously. “I know that if she had never . . .”
“No, no, it’s not that. It’s the birth control issue. I know your dad talked to you about that,” Fiji said. She could not imagine the consequences if a weretiger got a human girl pregnant, especially since Marina was in her teens and clinging on to her junior college scholarship. Fiji knew Marina needed the money she earned at the Midnight Hotel. She also knew that Marina’s huge extended family was a drinking and fighting clan who never missed a weekly Mass.
“She takes a pill,” Diederik said. He beamed at Fiji. “So she will not become pregnant.”
“I’m very relieved to hear that,” Fiji said. “But you know, Diederik, there are diseases people having sex can catch from each other. Some of them are very terrible.”
“STDs,” Diederik said, very matter-of-fact. “I’m a weretiger, and I can’t catch them.”
“Good,” Fiji said weakly. “That’s really good.” She took a sip from her cup. “I’m glad you’re happy here,” she said, knowing it was a weak ending to the conversation. Fiji could hear Kiki moving around in the house, and she was thankful the conversation had been concluded before her sister came out to find out who was visiting. (Kiki did not like anything happening that she didn’t know about.)
Diederik’s acute hearing had also informed him Kiki was up. He leaned over, gave Fiji a quick kiss on the cheek (just as his father had), and bounded away to find someone else to play with.
From inside the kitchen, she heard her sister say, “I smell biscuits. Where are they?”
Fiji sighed. Something else she’d have to explain.
9
The next morning, Bobo was glad to hear the bell ring as soon as he’d unlocked the door. For days, he’d been brooding over his catastrophic failure with Fiji. He’d called himself the chicken who wouldn’t cross the road. (What happened to the chicken who wouldn’t cross the road? Nothing. Ever.) He had made up his mind to go over to Fiji’s house and straighten things out. If she’d let him in.
But Fiji’s sister was there, and Bobo had to admit to himself he was not a fan, from the little he’d seen of Kiki. She’d visited the pawnshop, asked him a lot of questions about his romantic status and income in a not-very-subtle way, flirted with the same blatant obviousness. He couldn’t think of way to have a heart-to-heart with Fiji with her sister around.
He’d bungled asking her to go on vacation. He should have led with his strength; he should have told her he found her beautiful and kissed her, and then asked if they could spend time together. But he’d been trying to lead up to that, and in trying not to sound presumptuous, he’d blown his chance. It had taken him too long, anyway, too long to realize that he had a wonderful woman right across the street, too long to understand that she cared about him, too long to appreciate that she was keeping her feelings clamped down so she would not intrude on their friendship. Too long to realize he felt the same way about her as she did about him. His blunder had alienated the person he most cared about.
Maybe over time she’d return to her former warmth? But Fiji seemed really, truly put out with him.
Fiji was so smart, and powerful way down deep, and the way her hair fluffed around her face . . . it turned him on. He found himself dreaming of sex with her, and (even better) after-sex, when he would put his arms around her and hold her to him and nuzzle her neck. Bobo hadn’t known guys could dream of cuddling—and it was embarrassing, sort of.
But it was also massively alluring.
It was an understatement to say that Bobo was preoccupied that morning. He scarcely registered the truck pulling up in front of the pawnshop until the bell rang. His first reaction was pleasure. He needed to think about something else.
Then he recognized the newcomer. Instantly, Bobo tensed up and retreated behind the counter. “What are you doing here?” he asked Price Eggleston. He hadn’t seen Price in months, and that had suited him just fine. Price was a right-wing fanatic, and he’d tormented Bobo and kidnapped Fiji a few months before.
“Leave,” Bobo said.
“I’m here to buy a gun,” Price said quite calmly
.
Bobo glanced down to be sure he had his own gun handy. “I don’t believe you,” he said. He was almost certain Olivia had returned during the night: her car was in the parking lot behind the pawnshop. He pressed the buzzer under the counter. It couldn’t be heard up here, but it sounded in Olivia’s and Lemuel’s apartments. Lemuel would not hear the buzzer in the daytime, but Olivia would. The way Bobo’s luck was running lately, she was probably in the shower with the water turned up to full volume.
“Why not?” Price said, and it took Bobo a second or two to realize Price was responding to his statement. Finally, Bobo noticed how odd Price was acting. The man seemed almost mechanical.
“Because you can’t stand me,” Bobo said, watching Price closely. “Because we thwarted you when you wanted to beat me up and rob me last time. Because you sent a woman to pretend she loved me, in order to get information.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Price said, still very matter-of-fact. “I just want to buy a gun.”
“But you have guns,” Bobo said, even more confused and aware something was seriously off. “Why do you need to buy one from me?”
Olivia flew out of the trapdoor, her bow and arrow in hand. She’d been experimenting with holding her arrows in her bow hand and firing that way after she’d watched a video on YouTube. After hours of practice the results had become impressive, judging by the target in the open ground north of the pawnshop. She was ready to try her new technique out in live action, and she was smiling.
Bobo felt relieved now that she’d appeared, and he expected Price to back down, even leave. But Price was looking at Olivia as if he’d never seen her.
She stood, clearly ready to shoot him.
He didn’t react at all.
This situation was getting stranger and stranger.
“Olivia, this is Price Eggleston, in case you two haven’t ever met formally,” Bobo said quietly. “I figure you remember him from Aubrey’s funeral.”