The Forest Bull (The Fearless) Page 9

  July 31: Death.

  Florida

  I hold Saturdays in a special regard. It’s the day to put the boat in the water, go fishing, make umbrella drinks, and feel my muscles atrophy in front of sports on television. I tend to get up early and swim or run. I then return to a state of near coma after eating waffles until I am psychologically prepared for the rigors of fishing and drinking. Wally and Risa share this passion for the finest day of the week, so it was no great surprise when I woke from my post-breakfast nap and found the girls out on the dock, sunning like oily iguanas. In between their respective lounges, ice settled in a rolling cooler, completely devoid of bottles. Several empties were rolled casually across the wooden planks. The girls had either started early, or I had napped late. Wally stared mournfully into the barren ice from beneath her lowered sunglasses while Risa purposely ignored her.

  “Ring, tell that brunette slut to get up and grab more beer. She’s ahead four to three, and I am not going for more because she drinks like a dolphin.” Wally was too comfortable to do more than complain, incorrect analogy and all, and was probably well on her way to a healthy buzz. I wondered whose bladder would yield first.

  Risa responded to Wally with a yeasty belch and stuck out her tongue. The atmosphere was one of prim adulthood and silken manners. I made a noise of agreement and turned back to the house in order to keep the peace by delivering beer.

  “Blue texted me,” Wally continued at my shoulder. “She wants to talk to you and . . . ,” her pause made me look to see her mime driving our boat, “maybe tomorrow . . . ,” thus indicating that our friend wanted to borrow the boat for a day on the water with her son. “And, while inside, be good and make us peanut butter sandwiches. With cinnamon. And much more beer.” She settled back on the chaise in dismissal.

  Risa spoke up, “Make mine toasted.” I gave an obedient sigh and went in to fulfill my stint as a short order cook, and to call Blue.

  Keeping a minimal profile is in our collective best interest, but Blue is a friend. She has a direct line of information we need through her business. At thirty-nine, she is one of the youngest strip club owners in the area. Blue had gone to school for textiles, only to find the job market a wilderness of nepotism and unpaid internships. She seized a retail position at the first chance, working her way into the management staff of a high-end men’s store. It was there that she was romantically pursued by a customer named Walid, whose hot pursuit of her resulted in a marriage that was cut short by his untimely death. Walid, an unrepentant Arabic chain smoker, suffered a fatal heart attack that left Blue a young widow with a controlling interest in a strip club and a one-year-old son. Her adaptation to the role as a club owner was a testament to her boundless character and intellect. As a woman, and an unrelentingly honest human, she is a rarity among the seedier establishments. In addition to her many qualities, Blue doesn’t ask excessive questions. We love her style, and her club. Since the adult industry is awash with European women, men, and their castoffs, we mine that group for immortals and their crimes. Rarely is investigative work quite as engaging as being surrounded by gyrating naked women. It’s a sacrifice I make for the good of our team and for the children. Or something like that.

  We are never unsuccessful. The anonymity, cash business, and late nights make strip clubs and all that they entail one of our primary places of business. The cast of characters is fluid. Blue sits squarely in the middle, and she asks nothing of us, other than personal favors that benefit her son. Since Evan likes the water, our boat is hers. In return, we enjoy tips and other perks without undue interrogation from Blue. Her sense of fair play dictated that she only asked for the boat when she heard or saw something of interest to us.

  After the girls dozed in the sun all day, I would ask if they felt like enjoying a little neon and nudity for dinner at Blue’s club. It would, of course, be rude to ignore her implied invitation to chat, and I am nothing if not courteous.

  Our achievements for the day as a group were, to be kind, minimal. While the girls acquired deep tans and an all-day state of inebriation, I cleaned and spooled my fishing reels, breaking only to doze with Gyro after he tired of the nonstop laughter on the dock and joined me in the living room. I checked my email to find that the Baron was awake and eager to chat. While my partners slept away the early evening in a gently sodden dreamstate, I connected with Cazimir, uncertain of what I would say. As it turned out, I said very little, since he judged our rapport sufficient to offer additional history to the lost collection.

  Again at his desk, he began our chat by holding up a ring of smooth wood. Not all permanent things were stone, it seemed. Some, he explained, could be as timeless as stone. Like a simple ring.

  Or a cross.

  “Are you familiar with the larch tree, Ring?” he asked, rolling the object between his fingers in a gentle, reverent motion. I was not and said as much.

  “The wood is hard but not remarkably so. This ring is larch. I did not carve it, but I wish I had. Simplicity is elegance in this case. By oiling and buffing the simple circle, a common piece of wood becomes something notable, valued. The grain becomes visible and demands the attention of an admirer; it is whorled and free but still orderly. It is history in a small circle. The minutiae of the band indicate dry years when they are tightly bound. Wet years, too, years with fire or clouds. In a sense, the ring is a story to whoever is willing to read it. It has passed from hand to hand for centuries. Isn’t that hopeful? That something this small can survive the rigors of time while only becoming more polished?” He stared, shortsighted, at the ring, admiration coloring his expression.

  “What is the purpose of the ring? Was it a wedding band?” I felt obtuse, but curious.

  “I do not know. Larch has been a favorite wood of the animists and pagans for millennia. Perhaps it is the shape of the tree, or the color, that lends itself to being a fulcrum between some people and the supernatural. Look at the effects of a simple cross, two millennia later after a woodworker was hung to die in the sun. Do you think that the Romans could have possibly foreseen the boulder they were carelessly tossing into the pond of history? I doubt it. I show you this ring because it represents a bookend to my collection. I began as a keeper of these antiquities before I ever set my hammer to a gem or any metal. Value is rarely universal, but, to me, something as simple as this,” he brandished the ring, tersely, “is worth keeping and protecting, if only for respect of its history.”

  He set the ring down, regaining his composure, as a woman came into the picture, carrying a glass of wine. Tall and blonde, she moved with soundless efficiency. “Thank you, Ilsa.” He returned his gaze as she wordlessly departed the screen. “My staff is efficient but rarely verbose. It makes for quiet evenings.” His face betrayed a hint of boredom at this admission.

  “I understand the scope of your labors a bit better now. Do you have any family left, other than Elizabeth? Is the collection your legacy?” I asked this man, who was nearly alone in a glorified log fortress, hidden from the world.

  “It would seem so. I can feel my time here becoming thin. I am, or I should say, was prideful, a terrible sin, to be so, but now, I feel myself losing depth, like an echo or a reflection of a man. The beasts here are unaware of my presence, anymore. My time for challenging and changing is past. I only hope, rudely, for my own benefit, to recover some of what once was. In my wistfulness, I am becoming that which I would mock, looking back into the sunset. That same pride demands that I bring Elizabeth to heel and not leave a legacy of sinful jetsam spurred by my own hands. I cannot allow it, so I implore you to find her. And, when you do, to keep my legacy for yourself, or sell it to create lives for the helpless. Please leave me with that knowledge, that my sins will be expiated through the good of strangers. And, if you succeed, I leave here fulfilled, completely.”

  I nodded to his fading image. I knew he was right, and assuaging my own pride could wait.

  Sandrine

  Posers. I should be in surgery; not
standing here smiling like a simpleton among these people, thought Arnaud, although he was far too meek to say so out loud. His dumpy shape and thinning hair made him stand out in the midst of the beautiful, wealthy crowd around him. At the nexus of the room stood an auctioneer, his hair as slick as his delivery, droning in a playful British intonation under the enormous white tent. Thin, tanned arms glittering with gold, rose to bid on more jewels, all in the name of charity. It was a farce, and Arnaud would not have attended were it not for the fact that these people funded his work at the hospital in West Palm Beach. His penance for offering his surgical skills to fix the broken bodies of women and children marred by abuse was to stand here, pretending as if he could afford the jewelry being offered. It was a display that was anathema to his personal morality, but he endured it in quiet misery.

  He took a polite sip from his champagne flute and tried to focus on the object being held up by an auctioneer. The screen behind the podium displayed a ring of unusual beauty, setting the tent abuzz.

  “Magnifique,” said a soft voice at his ear. He turned, smiling to hear his mother tongue. He smiled wider when he saw the speaker.

  She was young, perhaps in her late teens, willowy and Gallic in every way. Her close-cut hair and eyes were black, her skin pale, and her countenance silky, a touch disdainful. Her eyes were even with his, but he felt small next to her grace. Arnaud was instantly enchanted.

  She pointed with her chin at the auctioneer. “Bid for me, please? I will pay as high as twenty thousand American dollars. I am a bit shy for this room,” she concluded, with a glance from under her lashes. His arm rose, unbidden, to enter the fray of the auction. When her breath caught at his clear tone as he shouted above the others, he made his decision.

  The girl will have the ring no matter what price, he thought, and, maybe this time, I will get the girl.

  “Look at the light in it. Like falling stars. So perfect.” Sandrine rested her hand on Arnaud’s thigh, his pulse racing higher with each miniscule motion. They sat, shoulder-to-shoulder, in the sand, the sun long since set. The crowd had dispersed in their fleet of cars, their collective social duty complete, and their egos sufficiently caressed by the charity staff that had grown tired of pandering. It was quiet, save the waves. She laid her arm over his shoulder and leaned to him, her lips curled in a smile. Arnaud sighed in pure submission. This is real. Not like emailing the prostitute from the advertisement and answering her questions, exposing my loneliness to a whore who would not even send me her picture until she could investigate me. I will never feel that shame again.

  “How many surgeries will your hands do this year,” she asked, close enough to kiss. “They are so beautiful. Like an artist’s.”

  “I hope to . . . well, I shall, as many as I can afford, we can afford, rather, so, a hundred, but more if I can. There are always so many, from so far away. There is so much violence and I only have so much time,” his voice fluttered away into her mouth, which met his softly.

  She pulled back, the kiss still hot on his face. Her arm wrapped around his neck, hugging him with a possession he had yearned for. Her grip began to tighten. How can she be so strong, he mused, as spots flooded his vision, floating red starbursts of pain. Sparks. Shadows. A red curtain, descending.

  “You are quite right. Our time here is rarely as long as we wish.” Laying his inert form on the soft sand, she began to drag him, his body leaving a furrow in the shells.

  Arnaud awoke to the first steely gray hints of dawn. I am nude. And I am buried? In sand? He was still at the beach, but under a copse of trees. Above him waved palmetto fronds, a sea grape, and an oak. He felt air on his stomach, and his face was clear, but he was held tight by the sand. Wriggling, he strained and groaned at the pain in his neck, a deep bruise from being choked. It was a miracle his hyoid bone had not broken. He sensed she was near, and then she spoke. He felt his first genuine whisper of terror, like a spigot being turned on slowly.

  “I did not intend to kill you, of course. That would be wasteful, not to mention rude. I do love the ring so, and my mother taught me that I should reward the men who are kind to me,” Sandrine said as she appeared above him, unbuttoning her blouse. She was very thin. Her skirt and shoes were gone. She straddled him, nude, her hands braced on either side of his head. Her pelvic bones pressed into his abdomen like spikes. Naked, he realized how angular her frame truly was. Sweat beaded her brow and lip. She was straining, but at what Arnaud could not guess. She gave him a cursory smile as she leaned to kiss him.

  “I would like to give you a gift in return. It is only proper, since you would be most generous to my children. In fact, they could thank you for every meal,” she murmured, raising her torso high above his exposed midsection. A clicking noise emanated from where her sex should have been, as a bone white appendage extended from her dark junction. It glistened malevolently in the growing light. She pressed in to kiss him, a fleshy dart under her tongue flicking forth and piercing his soft palate. Bitter venom flooded his mouth as he began to numb instantly. Arnaud felt himself deaden as the lassitude from her poison worked through his body.

  I cannot move. Dear God, I can feel, but I cannot move. She is like a parasitic wasp. I am her children’s food. The scientist in him was dispassionate, even removed, from her real nature, but observant of how she would bring death. The man in him screamed wordlessly in a helpless, piteous roar.

  He felt the shock of her ovipositor puncturing his navel, but no pain. It pulsed once, and again, and then a last time, the sterile eggs spearing into his thoracic cavern to be enclosed in warmth, safety, and blood. They would yield no live births, but would result in certain death for Arnaud. She withdrew from him, spent, her skin flushed with the effort of insertion. Arnaud could not even scream as she stood, brushing sand from her legs and hands as she reached for her clothes, hanging on a low oak limb. The sun began to warm his face, and he became aware of an itching from within as his body went to war against the hostile invaders who would survive only long enough to kill, the egg cases rotting within him as he decayed under the sands of a picturesque beach.

  Her heels now on, Sandrine kicked sand over Arnaud’s stomach and face, thinking to keep him hidden until he had been consumed.

  As I was taught. A good mother leaves nothing to chance.

  I opted to drive to Blue’s club, as the girls were still rowdily drunk, although showered and dressed. Both wore cowboy hats in honor of our destination’s unique theme. The Corral was appropriately rife with western imagery, neon, saloon doors, and pleather couches, where girls could grind their marks into submission, one three-minute song at a time. I parked discreetly in the gravel lot next door; the Corral was across the street from the Intracoastal, and the smell of saltwater and mud spiked the breeze with each draft. Even though Risa was quietly arguing with Wally about what type of champagne they would order, we were all casually investigating our area as we approached the growing rowdy locus of noise and light under the canopy at the front door.

  A bouncer I didn’t know politely asked us for our identification, looming over us in a white dress shirt that fit him as if it was sprayed on. He moved with the heavy rigor of many power lifters, but he was friendly and invited us in with a flourish as we pushed the second set of swinging doors open and stepped inside.

  Atmosphere cannot be underestimated in setting a tone, and Blue was hardly subtle in her shrewd approach. In essence, a well-run strip club is a flawless business model. All efforts are made to peel as much money away from patrons over an extended period of time, with the least resistance possible. Liquor is king. Bar profits are astronomical when management is honest and present. Blue was both. Add to the mix loud music, beautiful nude women in numbers, and a charged atmosphere of lust and gender warfare, and you have a concoction that simultaneously creates and destroys.

  We loved it. It was like setting an ambush in a narrow pass. There was little chance of failure, given the realities of the business. Foreign women flooded the cl
ubs, some working as dancers, others as escorts. They gyrated alongside American girls who were locals, or worked a circuit, or short-timers who stepped onstage with the sole intent of landing a man--or woman--that would see to their needs permanently. It was desperate, outrageous, and exhilarating, even genuinely fun at times, but I never forgot that peering from underneath the feast before me was danger. Petty crime, drugs, assault, and more sinister events percolated in a permanent cycle of chaos. The money held many of the dancers and other employees hostage. So did the late nights, late mornings, sexual freedom, and anonymity even under the glare of the club’s lights. I knew to be outwardly carefree but observant. We were here to learn something, hopefully.

  At least I knew I was, as the girls ordered a magnum of Cristal. Some nights, they were too clubby for their own good. I let the room wash over me. A miasma of noises and smells came to me uninvited, assertive and raucously lewd. Body spray, beer, whiskey, cigarette smoke, and lust were raw on my soft palate from my first inhalation as I leaned back in my chair. I assessed the patrons, and then, the dancers. None of the talent could compare to the natural beauty of Wally, but they were still tanned, prancing about for customers in a lazy circle. Like sharks, but with long, smooth legs and glittering makeup.

  The waitress, clad only in a thong, hat, and boots, brought the bottle to the table, and I gave her my credit card. On the tray was a folded note that simply read “Office.” As the girls poured and settled in, I stood and headed to the back corner, where the money room door was hidden behind a partition. Even inebriated, I knew that nothing would evade the constant, darting eyes of my partners, so I left, wondering only what we were here for, other than the scenery.

  The door clicked solidly behind me as I blinked in the glare of a modern, fully lit office devoid of nudity and western décor. Blue slid from her desk to embrace me and kiss my cheek with a, “Hullo, kid.” I smiled back and slid into a cloth chair, frankly admiring her in the process. She was naturally beautiful but tiny, with a competitive edge to her smile that made it known she was the pack leader on her premises. Her vibe was pure alpha out of necessity. She exuded stable, genuine confidence. In her business, the unending drama would consume a lesser human. There was no risk of that, I thought, looking at her intelligent green eyes in a face that was heart-shaped and capped with brown curls. A pair of sunglasses still rested, forgotten, on her head from her arrival at work earlier that day. She was driven.