Valentine's Exile (Vampire Earth #5) - Page 7
Memphis: The dwindling number of old-time residents of this good-times city divide Memphis history into prequake and postquake. The destruction, the starvation, the Kurian arrival, the appearance of Grogs; all are linguistically bound together and organized by that single cataclysmic event.
When the New Madrid fault went, most of the city went with it. One of the few substantial buildings to survive the quake was the St. Jude Children's Hospital, whose grave granite now houses many of the city's Kurian rulers behind concentric circles of barracks and fencing.
The rubble left behind was pushing into piles. Eventually those piles were redistributed about the city, forming a fourteen-mile Great Wall of Junk in a blister based at the river that eventually had dirt piled on top of it to turn it into a true barrier. Now a precarious jeep trail circumnavigates the city atop the wall, except for three gaps to the north, east, and south.
The south gap is a subcarbuncle of its own, a fenced-in stretch of land between Memphis and Tunica full of livestock pens and grain silos, barge docks and coal piles, a supplemental reserve of food and fuel for the city in case events of war or nature cut it off from the rest of the Kurian Order.
Inside the wall, around the heart of the city, are the great bank camps, a temporary concentration of identical, wire-divided cantonments that stretch in some cases for miles. Once a tent city for those left homeless after the quake, the tents have given way to fifty foot barracks, now wooden-sided, with windows and cooking stoves. Rail lines, sidings, and spurs stretch into the camp like the arteries, veins, and capillaries feeding the liver.
The residents go out of their way not to think about those in the camps.
Memphis still has some of its pre-2022 culture along Beale Street and in the "commons," the stretch of city bordering the waterfront. The commons are dominated by the ravaged and only partially glassed superstructure of the Pyramid. This mighty sports arena and convention center has canvas stretched over the missing panes, to admit air without the heat of the sun, giving it the appearance of an impossibly huge sailing ship squatting at the edge of the Mississippi, the trees of Mud Island separating its inlet from the main river.
The area around the Pyramid rivals Chicago's famous zoo as a center of dubious entertainments, though it is a good deal more exclusive, limiting its clientele to the River Rats, the men who work the barges and patrol craft of the great rivers of middle North America, and those brave enough to go slumming. The Pyramid itself sees a higher order of customer with appetites just as base. As a den where flesh is exchanged for goods or services, temporarily or permanently, the Pyramid has no rival on the continent.
While the city has any number of competing factions, captains of war and industry, mouthpieces both civil and Kurian, the commons and the Pyramid look to only one man for leadership. The great auctioneer Moyo has bought and sold more slaves in his forty years than many of the tyrants of old. Always to an advantage.
If anyone has gotten the better of him and lived to tell of it, even the old-timers of Memphis cannot say.
"You want to do what?" Vic Cotswald said.
Cotswald was a heavyset man, and puffed constantly, like an idling steam engine. He took up a substantial portion of the back cabin of his "limo"-a yellow-painted old Hummer.
"Learn about this fellow's setup," Valentine said. "Everyone's heard of Moyo. Why not do what he did, only somewhere else?"
They'd met at a roadside diner built out of a pair of old trailers fixed together and put up on concrete blocks. Duvalier looked a little wan and not at all herself. Valentine hoped it was just the pain of her wound and not the onset of ravies.
He'd know if she started trembling. That was usually the first sign. It might have been better to leave her with Everready in his casino-barge hideout, but she'd insisted on accompanying him into Memphis.
Valentine was dressed all in black. His costume was, in fact, a cut-down version of a priest's habit-it was the only well-made, matching clothing Everready could easily find at the Missions. Valentine had dyed the snake-boots to match on his own, and after cutting off the sleeves added a red neck cloth and a plastic carnation, scavenged from a discarded kitchen on one of the old gambling barges. He wore the gleaming pistol openly in its leather shoulder holster. The U-gun was zipped back up with the rest of their dunnage.
Cotswald wiped grease from his brow and sweat from his upper lip. "Of course everyone's heard of Moyo. Nobody moves deposits in or out of this town without him. The reason Moyo's still Moyo is that he doesn't let anyone get close to him who hasn't come up through his organization. He doesn't just hire Gulfies up to get a chance at the inventory."
Valentine had already learned two pieces of Memphis slang: deposits were the individuals in the bank camps waiting for transshipment to their probable doom; inventory was attractive women-and a few men and kids, he imagined-meant for the fleshpots, private and public.
"Octopus is a good guy. Pays well for the little scraps of information that pass my way. What are you offering?"
Valentine reached under his shirt and pulled up a simple lanyard that hung around his neck. A shiny ring turned at the end of the line.
Everready had taken it off a dead general.
"A brass ring? Is it legit?"
"It's mine. You get me in to see Moyo, talk me up, and I'll give it to you. I'm sure you have contacts who can verify its authenticity. If it doesn't check out, you can blow the whistle on me."
"A coast ring's no good here."
"But it is good on the coast. Ever think of your retirement? There are worse places than a beach in Florida."
Cotswald broke into a fresh sweat. "A ring. You better not be doing a bait and switch."
"A real ring and a friend named Jacksonville. The higher-ups are putting me in charge of Port Recreation. Got to keep the plebes happy."
"When's the end of the rainbow, Jacksonville?"
"I'm rebuilding a hotel down there. Furnishings are on their way. I just want to see about some-inventory."
"I'm your man," Cotswald said. "Just be warned, stay on the up-and-up with Moyo. He's a razor, he is."
As they drove through the city Valentine got a feel for the people of Memphis. For the most part they were drab, tired-looking, clad in denim or corduroys. Hats seemed to be the main differentiator between the classes of the city. The workers wore baseball-style hats, turbans, or various styles of tied kerchiefs. Those who gave the orders wore brimmed hats-a broad-brimmed variety called a planter seemed to be the most popular.
Cotswald's Hummer wove through horse carts and mopeds on the way downtown-they took a turn riverward to avoid the jagged outline of the old children's hospital. It had sprouted tulip-shaped towers since the advent of the Kurian Order. A communications tower next to the hospital supported ball-like structures, like spider egg sacks, planted irregularly along the sides, a strange fusion of steel and what looked like concrete-but concrete globes of that size couldn't be supported by the tower.
Cotswald stared studiously out the opposite window, reading billboards for birth-enhancement medications. Something called Wondera promised "twins or triplets with every conception."
OUR GOAL: TRANQUILITY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL read another. WHY SETTLE FOR VITAMINS? GET VITAMAX-GUARANTEED SATISFACTION (HIS AND HERS).
Once in the summit of the city-the ground rose at the edge of the river before falling away sharply into the Mississippi-Valentine saw men and women dressed with a little more flash. Some of the women even wore heels. Many of the men sported suits that would cause heads to turn and mouths to gape in the Ozarks: broad-shouldered, pinstriped suit coats with matching trousers and patent-leather shoes in a variety of colors.
"It's a party town," Cotswald said as the sharp notes of an outdoor jazz trio came in through the open windows of the Hummer.
The car turned north onto a well-paved road and shot down an avenue of impressive new homes looking out over the breeze-etched river. The car slowed and turned onto a broader highway that went down the steep hill to the river. Valentine looked up at the riverfront homes. All had balconies, some had two or more.
In the distance to the north, seemingly sitting out on the river, he saw the blue-and-white checkerboard of the Memphis Pyramid.
"That's my house," Cotswald said as they slowed below a brownstone monstrosity, pregnant with a glass-roofed patio thick with potted plants. "Should say, the top floor is mine. I rent out the bottom floor to a colonel and his family. Helps to have friends in the City Guard."
"I admire the neighborhood," Valentine said. Duvalier tapped her fingers on her walking stick.
"But I'm hardly ever there. I usually sleep at the office. Hard to make good when you don't have your own bank, but I couldn't manage it. The faces get to me."
Valentine marked Cotswald as one of the Kurian Zone survivors who made himself as comfortable as possible without hindering the regime. Born in a different time and place, would I shuffle loads of rice and beans in and out of my warehouses? Trade in a few luxuries on the side?
Look the other way to avoid the faces?
Docks with tethered small craft filled the riverbank. Valentine saw the soldiers of the City Guard everywhere, the russet-colored cotton uniforms and canvas-covered sun-helmets going everywhere in pairs. Pairs searching boats, pairs driving in small vehicles Valentine had heard called "golf carts," pairs walking along the raised wooden promenades.
They got out of the way for the Hummer.
"South end of the riverfront is strictly family fun," Cotswald said as they passed into an amusement park. Valentine marked a merry-go-round in operation and a Ferris wheel giving a good view of the area. Many of the other rides were motionless. "You should see it on Jubilation Day, or Peace Week. People camped out all over the hillside. Great time. Except for the Year Forty-three shelling. The vicious bastards across the river dropped artillery shells all over the place the last night of Peace Week. Killed hundreds. Hasn't felt the same since."
"That was-" Duvalier began.
"Horrible," Valentine cut in. "Macon radio carried the story." He'd heard some Wolves talking about it after the Kurian propaganda broadcasts. Evidently they'd hired mercenaries to do it, then killed the three gun crews. A patrol from Bravo Company found the bodies and shell casings.
The Pyramid grew larger as they approached. Valentine had underestimated its size at first glance. It too had a superstructure capping it, a tall, thin tower with a mushroomlike top, a tiny umbrella perched atop the great canvas-colored structure.
Valentine had never seen anything that more perfectly summed up what Mali Carrasca called Vampire Earth: a ruin from the old world, a pyramid of power, with a Kurian at the very top, looking down on the foreshortened, antlike inhabitants of his domain.
"That's some setup Moyo's got."
"It's an old convention center," Cotswald said, wheezing a little more. "Kind of a city to itself. Every riverman on the big three has his own story about his visits there. The Chicago or Vegas or New York girls got nothing on Moyo's; he takes his pick from the deposits across half a continent."
"I'm going to make Jacksonville compete," Valentine said.
"Moyo was young once too," Cotswald said, eyeing the gap in Valentine's shirt that showed the chain to the brass ring.
"What do you do for him?" Valentine asked.
"Run a little booze and high-grade beef."
"He pay you with parties?"
"No, I don't go in for that-not that I'm disapproving of your line of work, Stu. He's got his own clothing lines. When his girls aren't working they're sewing. Some of the fashions you saw downtown, they come from his Graceland label. I sell 'em to shops as far away as Des Moines and Chattanooga."
Duvalier had fallen asleep in the back of the Hummer. Her eyes opened again when it came to a stop.
Cotswald had brought them to the north edge of the commercial docks. A fresh concrete pier and wharves built out of what looked like rubble sat in the shadow of what must have once been a great bridge across the Mississippi. A low, tree-filled peninsula hugged the Memphis side. A rail line ran up into the city from its main tracks, running perpendicular to the old east-west interstate. Valentine saw platform cars being loaded with bags and barrels from the river craft.
"That's the river shuttle," Cotswald said. "My warehouses are at the other end of it."
A narrow pedestrian bridge jumped a few hundred feet of rail line and jumbled rubble separating the Pyramid from the rest of Memphis. Houseboats like suckling baby pigs lined up along the river side of the Pyramid in the channel between the tree-filled island and the Pyramid's plaza.
"You get a lot of boat traffic in Jacksonville?" Cotswald asked.
"A few big ships and a lot of small, intracoastal traders. Looks like you've got your share too."
"That big white one up against Mud Island is Moyo's yacht. Hey, your girl alright?"
Duvalier had sagged against the side of the Hummer.
"You okay, Red?" Valentine asked.
"Just a little faint," she said.
Spiders of anxiety climbed up Valentine's back. "Let me take the packs."
"Thanks."
"Mind if I check your pulse?" Valentine asked. He lifted Duvalier's wrist and watched her hand. Still steady-no, was that a tremble ?
She was bitten four days ago. She should be in the clear.
Valentine threw the satchel of "traveling supplies"-the pseudo-Spam, chocolate bars, and a few detonators surrounded by fresh underwear and toiletries-over his shoulder, along with the bigger duffel carrying their guns. She used her stick to walk down to the bridge.
"I think I've got a little fever," Duvalier said. Cotswald puffed ahead, almost filling the sidewalk-sized bridge.
Cotswald explained something to the City Guard at the other end ". . . here on business . . . show the big gear a good time . . ." as Valentine gave Duvalier a water bottle.
"Val, I don't want to be walking around naked in that pen," Duvalier said. "If I got it-"
"You've got an infection from the bite, I bet. God knows what kind of bacteria they have in their mouths."
"Everready says it mutates sometimes. Maybe it mutated so it takes four or five days . . ."
Cotswald waved at them impatiently and they stepped off the walkway. The City Guards smiled and nodded.
"Welcome to Memphis. Roll yourself a good time, sir."
Valentine felt around in his pocket for some of the Memphis scrip-Everready sometimes used the lower-denomination bills for hygiene purposes, he'd accumulated so much of it over the years-and tipped the City Guard. He'd learned in Chicago to tip everyone who so much as wished you a good afternoon.
The bill disappeared with a speed that would do credit to a zoo doorman.
The Pyramid island had obviously once been parkland, but a maze of trailer homes had sprung up around it, separated by canvas tents selling food and beverages.
"Remember, Cots, I've got to get a peek at Moyo's operation if you want your ring," Valentine said.
"Stay away from the Common," Cotswald said, indicating the trailers and tents with a wave. "You hear stories about men disappearing. Don't know if it's shanghaied or"-he jerked his thick chin upward toward the Kurian Tower, a gesture almost imperceptible thanks to his thick flesh. "No society types go there, not if they want to avoid the drip."
Duvalier stiffened at the word "society." "Bastards," she said.
Cotswald furrowed his eyebrows. "Seems a funny attitude for a bodyguard to-"
"Her mother died from complications of syphilis," Valentine said evenly.
"Visitors with gold buy themselves housing," Cotswald went on, pointing to the other side of the island, where the houseboats were nosed into the protective dike around the city.
"Not too expensive, please," Valentine said. Everready's gold would only go so far.
"I'll arrange something for a budget. Let's go down to the rental agent."
They walked along the flood wall. Like most Kurian civic improvements, it was a patched-up conglomeration of sandbags and concrete. The river wall made the dikes of New Orleans look like monuments to engineering. Too bad the river was dropping to its summer low. . . .
"Seems quiet," Valentine said, thinking of the towering white propane tank on the river flank of the Pyramid. Most of the activity around the colossal structure involved men pushing crates on two-wheelers into the convention center. Valentine wondered at the lack of Grogs; in both Chicago and New Orleans their horselike strength and highly trainable intelligence were used for loading and unloading jobs everywhere. "Don't you have Grogs on your docks?"
"Moyo hates them. As to the quiet, everyone's sleeping out the heat," Cotswald said.
Duvalier's face ran with sweat, and her hair hugged her head.
"Let's make this quick," Valentine said.
They followed a path up the side of the flood wall and went down to the docks. Cotswald spoke to an enormous man sitting beneath a beach umbrella near the entryway to the boats.
"He needs to see the color of your coin," Cotswald said.
After a little bartering-Valentine had some difficulty with the man's accent-through Cotswald's offices they arranged for an old cabin cruiser at the rock-bottom price of four hundred dollars a week. In gold. One week in advance, and after the first day the second week had to be paid for or the rate would go to five hundred fifty dollars.
Valentine nodded at the terms. We'll be gone before then. Unless Duvalier. . .
Valentine sacrificed one of Everready's coins and got a pile of devalued Memphis scrip in return.
"Let me make sure those are Memphis bills," Cotswald said before Valentine could turn away. He thumbed through the wad. "Hold it, this fifty's in Atlanta dollars."
"Sorreh-suh," the rental agent slurred back.
Cotswald arranged the money and handed it to Valentine. "There's a couple of little markets inside the Pyramid. I wouldn't buy anything from the carts in the commons unless it's fruit or vegetables. They'll sell you dog and tell you it's veal. And don't buy the sausages unless you need stink-bait."
"Thank you."
"I have to attend to a few things in town. I'll be back tonight to show you around."
"Maybe not tonight. My security's not well. How about tomorrow night?"
"Even better. It'll be the weekend."
"Fuck it!" Duvalier barked.
Valentine took her arm. She flinched, but settled down when she saw who he was. "She doesn't like it when I fuss. C'mon, Red. Let's get you in the shade."
She still wasn't trembling. Valentine wished he had listened to old Doctor Jalenga from Second Regiment talk more about ravies. All he could remember is that when they started to spaz out the safest thing to do was shoot-
He'd agreed not to let her suffer-but now he wondered.
Cotswald followed them down the wharf, puffing: "Our arrangement. The-"
Valentine quickened his step, looking at the numbers painted on the cement alongside the moored houseboats. "You'll get it. Once you get me a tour of Moyo's setup."
"I need a chance … to check out that ring . . . before you blow town."
"As soon as I'm in the Pyramid."
Number 28.5. This was their boat.
It looked like a frog sitting between two giant white tortoises. The two-level houseboats on either side of the spade-shaped cruiser looked as though they were using the craft as a fender. It had once been a dual-outboard, judging from the fixtures.
Cotswald shrugged. "It's a cabin."
A man who was mostly beer gut and sunglasses sat under an awning atop the port-side craft. "Yello, stranger," he offered.
"Hello back."
"You'll want to wash your bedding out good," their neighbor said. "Last time that cabin was used, it was by the president of the Ohio-Nebraska. He kept his bird dogs in there. They scratched a lot."
"I'll be back tomorrow," Cotswald said, perhaps fearing becoming part of a decontamination press-gang. Valentine nodded.
"Stu Jacksonville, Leisure and Entertainment," Valentine said. "Thanks for the tip."
"Forbes Abernathy. I'm a poor benighted refugee from Dallas, adrift in the world and drowning my sorrows in alcohol and Midway pussy. Or that's what the wife said before she took off with a Cincinnati general. Does this boat look adrift to you?"
Valentine threw the satchel down in the stern of his housing and helped Duvalier in. "Not in the least."
"Now, your putt-putt; a strong storm comes and you'll be blown downriver."
"Thanks for the warning." He tried the key in the padlock holding the doors to the front half of the cabin cruiser closed. After a little jiggling, it opened.
He could smell the dogs. Or rather, their urine.
"Sorry, Ali," he said. He went into the cabin-it had two bed-couches set at angles that joined at the front, and moldy-smelling carpeting that looked like the perfect place to hatch fleas-and opened a tiny top hatch to air it out. There was a tiny washroom and sink. He tried the tap and got nothing.
"Thanks, Forbes," Duvalier said to him as she almost fell into the cabin and plunged, facedown, onto the bench.
Valentine knelt beside her and checked her pulse again. It was fast but strong. Still no trembling.
Another piece of Doctor Jalenga's lecture rose from the tar pit of Valentine's memory. A few people had proven immune to the various strains of ravies virus, or fought it off with nothing more than a bad fever. He crouched next to her-crouching was all that was possible in the tiny cabin-and touched her back. It was wet through, wet enough to leave his hand slick and damp.
She stirred. "Got any water?" Duvalier asked, rolling over. Her hazel eyes looked as though they were made of glass.
Valentine poured her another cup from his canteen. Perhaps a half cup remained. He needed to get them some supplies.
"Why are we back, David?" she asked.
"We're not back. We're in Memphis."
"That's what I mean. Back in the KZ."
"We're trying-"
"We're trying to die."
He put his hand on her forehead. It felt hot and pebbly. "We're doing no such thing."
"That's why we keep going back in," she insisted. "Every time we get out of the KZ, all we can think about is the next trip in. Now why is that? We feel guilty. We want to die like them."
"Rest. I'm going to see about food and something to drink." He unbuckled the shoulder holster.
He went up on deck, feeling alone and vulnerable. Such a tiny piece of information measured against the vastness of the structure above him-
After a moment's thought he locked the door to the cabin with the padlock again. The orblike superstructure atop the Pyramid seemed designed to stare straight down into the back of his boat.
Job at hand. Eat the elephant one bite at a time.
His neighbor had a comic book perched on his bulging stomach.
"Excuse me, Mr. Abernathy," Valentine called. "Is there a market around?"
"Inside the Pyramid. Plaza north. Jackson, was it?"
"Jacksonville."
"Where you two from ?"
"The Gulf." Valentine jumped up onto the wharf. "Excuse me, my friend's feeling a little sick."
"You two ever been to Dallas?"
Valentine pretended not to hear the question and waved as he walked down the wharf as quickly as he could. The boat attendant saw him coming and suddenly found something to do inside a rusted catamaran.
Valentine ignored him and crossed a wide plaza to the Pyramid. From close-in the base seemed enormous, flanked by concrete out-croppings with pairs of City Guard doing little but being visible.
A towering stone pharaoh, leaning slightly to the left thanks to the earthquake, Valentine imagined, looked out on the main parking lot with its hodgepodge of trailers from the bottom of an entrance ramp.
He walked up the ramp and noticed dozens of chaise lounges on the southwest outer concourse. Women and men, mostly in bathing suits or camp shorts, lounged and chatted and drank while waiters in white shirts and shorts dispensed food and drink from a great cart. It struck Valentine as similar to the lunches in the yard of the Nut.
No double line of fencing topped with razor wire separated these people from their freedom. Habit? The security of position? One deeply tanned man snored into a white naval hat with braiding on its black brim, a thick ring of brass around his white-haired knuckle.
Valentine paid them no more attention than he would a group of lakeside turtles. He passed through a set of steel-and-glass doors and into the Pyramid.
Moyo kept his realm cleaner than the zoo, Valentine gave him that. The impossibly cool interior smelled of floor polish and washroom disinfectant. He was on some kind of outer concourse, advertisements for alcohol, tobacco, women, games of chance, and sporting events hung on banners tied everywhere. As he walked tout after tout, mostly teenage boys Hank's age, tried to hand him flyers. Valentine finally took one.
Black letters on orange card stock read:
Bloody "Cyborg" Action Pulp Fontaine
(hook on right hand)
VS
The Draw
(solid aluminum left arm)
3 rounds or maiming
Friday July 22 9PM Center Ring
all wagers arranged by
Roger Smalltree Productions
"the pharaoh of fair odds since y37"
• Payouts are Moyo Bonded and Insured •
(Gallery of Stars Booth 6)
The teen squeaked: "Listen, sir, my brother's a locker warden. He says Draw's long-shotted to pay off big. Do a bet and you can pay a whole week on the Midway, say?"
"Say," Valentine said and moved on. A woman thrust out a mimeograph of a nude woman with snakes held in each outstretched arm. "Angelica the Eel-swallower!"
Four-color circus posters, bigger than life-size, screamed out their attractions as he followed an arrow to Plaza North.
Tammy's Tigereye Casino-Fortune Level
Rowdy Skybox
• Bring Your Attitude and Leave Your Teeth •
M-certified Tricks and Treats at Zuzya's-
You've tried the rest, now get sqweeffed by the best!
Loudspeakers played upbeat jazz or orchestral renditions of old tunes Valentine couldn't quite categorize but which fell under the penumbra of rock-and-roll.
He found the food market using his nose. A lively trade from grill and fish vendors added to the aromas of cut melons, fresh berries, and tomatoes. At another stall fryers bubbled, turning everything from bread paste to sliced potatoes into hot, greasy delight, ready for salting.
His stomach growled.
He placed his hand on a pile of ice at the edge of an ice-filled bin holding two gigantic Mississippi catfish, resting on a semicircular counter, and felt the wonder of the wet cold.
"Mind! Mind!" yelled the woman behind the bins of freshwater food. "You buy? No? Shove off!"
Valentine settled on buying a five-gallon plastic jug full of water and some "wheat mix for cereals." Then he found a bottle labeled aspirin-it also smelled like it.
"You just bought that, son," the trucker-cap-wearing druggist said. He paid, glad that Memphis scrip was good in here.
Valentine sought out some food. The rotisserie chickens were reasonably priced and looked fresh-he had to buy a stick for them to put it on, and he topped his purchases off with a sugar-frosted funnel cake. He ate half of the last as he wandered, getting a feel for the layout of the Pyramid-or Midway, as the locals seemed to call it.
An area labeled the Arena seemed to be the center of activity; he heard a woman's voice warbling through a door as a pair of sandal-wearing rivermen exited. There were also two huge convention-center spaces, filled with wooden partitions turning the areas into a maze of tiny bars, tattoo parlors, and what he imagined were brothels or sex shows. Guards stood in front of the elevators, checking credentials and searching those waiting in line for a lift. Valentine guessed that Moyo's offices were somewhere upstairs.
Few visitors seemed to be around at this time of day; Valentine counted at least one employee for every tourist. Red-jacketed security supervisors ordered around men in black overalls with tight-fitting helmets; the footsoldiers bore slung assault rifles and shotguns, but twirled less-lethal-looking batons as they walked in pairs around the concourses, grazing from the food vendor stalls or being passed a lit cigarette by a marketer. Beefy old women pushed buckets and wheeled trash bins everywhere, their gray bandannas wet with sweat and PYRAMID POWER! buttons pinned to their sagging bosoms.
Valentine had done enough sightseeing and returned to the line of houseboats. His Dallas neighbor had disappeared. He hurried back to his small, rented boat, roasted chicken in one hand, water in the other. He set down the water jug and unlocked the cabin.
Duvalier came into the sunshine and reclined on the vinyl cushions-spiderwebbed with breaks exposing white stuffing threads-and drank almost her entire oversized canteen of water. Valentine mixed her up some of the cereal (IDEAL FOR CHILDREN AND SENIORS-ADVANCED NUTRITION ! the label read) from the bag, and she ate a few bites with her field spoon.
"Gaw," she said, and tossed the rest to the Mississippi fishes. She leaned against the side of the boat and closed her eyes. He gave her two tablets of aspirin and she gulped them down, then gave him her cup to refill.
"Chicken?" Valentine asked
"You can have it. You get anywhere with this Moyo guy?"
"Haven't met him yet." He felt helpless against the heat coming up through her skin. "How are you feeling?"
"Weird dreams. Really weird dreams. Thought I was running in Kansas with a co