Adrift in the Sound (24 page)

As she left, pushing the stroller toward the door, pausing, pulling it back and forth to soothe Violet’s fussing, she asked, “Who’s the agent?”

“Pardon me?” the man said, excusing himself from the couple and crossing to Lizette as she stood by the door. “The agent?”

“For the painter? The canvas we were looking at?” Lizette caught his eyes, searched for deception, found only honesty.

“Oh, yes,” he said, figuring it out. “The agent is a local, Henri Toussaint. I think we have his number around here somewhere, if you want to contact him.” He leaned toward her and added in a confidential tone, “He’s a poet, although I hear not a very good one, but clearly he has an eye for art talent and he’s well connected to the art scene. Do you want to wait while I find his contact information?”

“No,” Lizette said as she rolled the stroller out the door, tipping it to maneuver the short step to the brick sidewalk.
Toulouse! You bastard! How did you get my stuff
? Then it hit her. He must have taken her paintings while she and Marian were away from the ranch at Sandy’s, when Violet was born. She remembered finding him snooping around the cabin during the party, and wondered how Rocket figured in this.

She pumped up the street, jolting Violet on the uneven surface. The baby was wailing by the time she reached the corner. She pulled up beside the bus benches under the pergola at First and Yesler, sat down and lifted Violet out of the stroller. She carried her to the Tlingit totem pole, studied how the weather was wearing it away, aging it, and embraced the battered carving with both arms, squeezing Violet against the weather-beaten pole in a barrel hug. She cried along with the baby over the theft and loss. A middle-aged woman waiting for the bus put a hand on her shoulder.

“You all right here?” the woman asked. “Everything OK, honey?”

Lizette nodded, half turning. “Tired, I guess.”

“Well, get some rest. I’ve had a few little ones of my own. My heart goes out to you.” She peeked around Lizette’s shoulder. “Such a pretty child.”

“Thanks.” Lizette held back a coo. When the bus came, the woman got on. She looked down on Lizette from the window with a worried expression, making Lizette fear the old bag might report her to the cops or something. She gathered herself, fuming, and struck off for Franklin Street, pushing the stroller hard, cackling under her breath. People stepped aside when they saw her coming. A man with a short gray beard hollered after her, “Slow down, girlie. You’re gonna kill somebody.”

TWENTY–FIVE

SLOUCHED AT THE KITCHEN TABLE IN THE DOG HOUSE
, Rocket sipped tea and held his ear toward the open window above the sink. He listened between the notes Fisher played on the piano. He’d asked Fisher who wrote the music, but couldn’t catch the name he’d spat out the side of his mouth. Rocket stood over the keyboard briefly then went back to slump in the kitchen.
Some Commie Russian
, he thought, scraping dried egg stuck on the table with a fingernail.

It’d been a long week and he clutched the chipped mug for comfort and stewed over his mishaps. The hookup with the gravel barge from Vancouver hadn’t gone smoothly. The Canadian tow boat had engine trouble and was late. It limped to the rendezvous under half power, its diesel engine straining into the swells that surged through the strait. Rocket thought he spotted Looney off to starboard, his black and white body splashing and rolling, dipping, breeching, but couldn’t be sure. He slipped on the deck in the evening light, missed the cleat when he threw the tie-up lines, nearly went overboard. The first mate chewed his ass for the sloppy maneuvers, and later the old salt won a hundred bucks off him playing poker, but he suspected cheating. Then he’d had to deal with Al, and Lizette freaking out.

He listened now for the baby’s cry from next door, amused at how her sounds were getting stronger, more like a human child than a kitten.
Spoiled
, he thought. He missed Sandy, sleeping late in her steamy upstairs bedroom, watching her waltz around the bed, completely comfortable in her nakedness. The curve of her hip, trim waist, the lush fall of blonde hair. He listened for the rattle of dishes in her kitchen, the front door banging, the wind chimes tinkling on the porch, Sandy’s throaty laugh. He missed her and he missed Carl’s convenient deliveries, hated hustling for drugs.

Big Al being over there with Lizette and Violet made him uneasy. He sensed nothing stirring and worried they’d gone out, that Al had taken them and was putting his filthy hands on Violet, changing her diapers, touching her privates, sending Lizette into orbit. His stomach turned and he checked the clock.
After two
, he thought and got up, put his mug in the sink, peered through the murky window at Sandy’s house.
Better check
.

“Hey, Mama,” he shouted from Sandy’s front door. “Lizzie? Hey! Anybody here?” No sound came back. He went to the kitchen, tidy and cold. He could feel they were gone, but went and called up the stairs again anyway. The silence held. He turned to leave, hand on the door knob, but felt a bump, a heavy thud he sensed more than heard. Rocket scooted toward the basement door and listened again. Thump. “Aagh,” faintly.

At the top of the basement stairs he called down into the darkness, “Lizette?” He flipped on the stairwell light and peered into the abyss. At the bottom was a throbbing coil of black and cream. Feet, human feet, protruded from the mangle. He started down the stairs, but pulled back when Bella turned her menacing head toward him, her jaw unhinged, displaying the full expanse of her gaping pink mouth, darting red tongue. She warned him back, the narrow tail of her body flicked like a whip. Rocket inched back up the stairs, slammed the door, ran.

“Help!” Rocket lurched head first through the front door of the Dog House, regained his footing. “God! Shit! Holy shit!”

He ran into the kitchen, yelling for help. Fisher jumped up from the keyboard when Rocket burst in, grabbed him by the shoulders. “What’re you screaming about?”

“Call the cops!” Rocket yelled at him, pulling open kitchen drawers, rummaging like a madman, dumping the contents on the floor. He charged into the dining room waving a butcher knife. “Bella’s got somebody!”

“Who?” Fisher asked, looking owlish behind his glasses, craning his long neck, dropping the piano’s keyboard cover with a clap.

“All I could see is feet,” Rocket gasped. “He’s wrapped up!”

“No shit?” Fisher moved to the phone on the kitchen wall and pulled the dial around from zero. “Emergency! We need the police … a snake … In the basement … No…. This isn’t a joke! … On Franklin Street. Off Eastlake … I don’t know. I didn’t see it … Because somebody else did … A boa constrictor … Yes. A big snake! A really big one!”

“Come on, man!” Rocket shouted, bouncing around the kitchen, waving the knife in Fisher’s face as he spoke into the receiver.

“Franklin Street, 600 block. Above the boat works … Yeah. We’ll be out front.” Fisher hung up and picked up a long knife from the floor. “Let’s go.”

They charged down the front walk and ran next door. Stinky and Buzz bumped into them by Sandy’s front gate, laughing at first, but looking worried as they realized the men held knives, that they were running into Sandy’s with them. “What’s up?” Stinky demanded, blocking their path on the sidewalk.

“Fuckin’ snake!” Rocket pushed past them. “In the basement.”

“Where’s Liz,” Stinky yelled, “and the baby?”

Rocket halted on the path, “Oh my God!” He broke for the front door and disappeared. A cop car cruised up. The officers rolled down the window and looked with bored faces at the men.

“What’s up?”

“Snake in the basement!” the men blurted out. “Might be a baby down there, too!”

The officer on the passenger side got out, pulled the shotgun from the rack on the dashboard and swiped the gun butt side to side, pushing past the Dogs. Lucky stumped up the sidewalk on his cane, Gizzard arrived from the other end of the street. The cop on the driver’s side rolled out with the car’s radio mike in his hand, surveyed the ratty knot.

“Car 463, over. Responding, 612 Franklin, over. Claims there’s a snake in the basement.” The radio crackled back, something garbled. “Possible child involved, over. We’re going in. Over.”

The officer with the gun burst out the front door onto the walkway, “Call for back up! Thing is huge! A monster! Get animal control out here! Call an ambulance. We need a meat wagon.”

“Where’s Rocket?” Buzzard scanned the officer’s frightened face.

“Who?”

“The guy with the knife!”

“He’s got a knife?”

“For the snake, man,” Buzzard shouted in his face. “Calm down. It’s for the snake!”

“Jesus!” The cop nudged his partner. “Cover me. I’m going down.”

Guns drawn, the officers inched down the basement steps, flattening their backs on the greasy wall. Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder. They saw Rocket at the bottom of the flight, growling like a bear, plunging the knife into Bella’s side, plunging and slicing, plunging, shaking blood from his hand, making grunting sounds.

“Halt!” the cop commanded. Rocket looked up the stairs, seeing the men for the first time. Bella snapped around and locked onto his free hand and Rocket yelped in pain, the snake’s backward raking teeth shredded his skin. Her tail wrapped around his ankle, almost toppling him. “Stand aside,” the cop ordered, gun pointed at Rocket’s chest. Rocket swiped the knife at Bella’s probing head, sliced her neck. She relaxed her body and he stepped back. She coiled tighter around her prey. One of Al’s eyes popped out of his purple face and dangled on his cheek like yolk from a broken egg.

“Don’t shoot, Jim!” the cop directed his partner as they studied the scene. They could see the victim was a man, his face slimed and bulging, Bella flicking blood that dripped from the eye socket. “You might hit the guy!”

TWENTY–SIX

LIZETTE PUSHED THE STROLLER UP HILL
, bending into the handle, pumping her long legs. The trudge home had leeched away most of her anger. She puffed and planned what she’d say to Rocket—about stealing her paintings, violating her space, his relationship with Sandy and Violet and Marian and Greg, and that idiot Poet … and … and. She planned to set him straight. The steam built again and she brushed the thoughts from her mind. A van whipped past, King County News pasted across the back doors. She turned the corner to find cop cars, flashing lights, the Dogs huddled on the sidewalk. Trucks, sirens, engines idling, then gun shots, muffled but distinct, hot reports.

She halted. Waited for the shots’ echo to fade under the freeway bridge. In the collective inhale, the silent gap, the traffic on I-5 sounded jolly, rolling along overhead, honking and whirring, rhythmically pulsing into the void. In the pause, the Dogs looked around and saw Lizette. They thundered toward her in a pack. Newly arriving cops charged the front door and disappeared into Sandy’s house.

“You OK?” The Dogs demanded, almost knocking her over.

She scanned their faces, smelled their fear and asked the huddle what was going on. They jockeyed for position around her, leaning across the stroller to touch her. Fisher ran up. She realized he had a big knife, his face white. She searched their faces. They offered garbled details: The basement. The baby. Thought she was down there, too. They heard shots!

“Rocket’s still not out.” Fisher wailed running up to them. “It’s Al! Killed him! Ate his head.” He ran back into Sandy’s house.

Lizette felt her knees give like worn springs, sagging from too much weight. She pulled away from the gabbling, chirped nervously under her breath, tried to control her trembling. Violet started crying. The Dogs lifted the sun cover, leaned in. Bomber pulled the baby’s blanket away and looked at her pink face. “She looks OK,” he said. Everyone nodded, agreeing like puppets.

“She’s hungry,” Lizette said and tugged the stroller to the front of the Dog House. “Help me get the stroller inside.” The men followed her up the cracked walkway, lifted the stroller across the broken boards on the porch and through the front door, Violet cried hard. In the kitchen, she picked the baby up, bounced her while digging in the diaper bag for a bottle. She popped the nipple in Violet’s mouth and stood swaying in front of the kitchen sink where she could see a slice of the commotion going on outside Sandy’s house. The baby quieted.

The Dogs circled around the picket fence. An ambulance rolled up and parked. A TV camera was screwed on a tall tripod, the operator scanning it across the front of Sandy’s house. Another police cruiser rumbled up. People from down the street gathered by the curb, sniffing and leaning toward the house. One old woman finally talked to Gizzard, pulled him aside, but Lizette could see she wasn’t satisfied with his answers. They rolled a stretcher up the walk and the sounds coming to her through the window became hushed.

When they wheeled the stretcher back out, the Dogs helped lower it down the front steps. All they could see was a long, black bag strapped securely on top. A young guy in a business suit talked into a microphone and looked earnestly into the TV camera while behind him they loaded the body into the back of the ambulance and slammed the door. The drivers paused, fawned for the camera, got in and pulled away. No siren. No need.

Everyone turned to stare at the house again, the front door wide open. A few people wandered away. The guy with the microphone approached the Dogs, tipping the mike toward their mouths and then away to his own lips. Lizette strained, but could not hear what they were saying.

A gasp from the crowd interrupted the interviews. An officer came through the door and onto the porch, Bella’s big limp body suspended behind him, a pillowcase over her head. Then another officer, holding her further down, emerged, followed by Fisher at Bella’s thick mid-section, then another officer, Rocket carrying her long tail. They coiled her like rope in the street, the TV camera moving in for a close-up, then, forming a scrum, the men lifted her into the animal control truck, pushing and squeezing to make her fit. The guy with the microphone tried to talk to Rocket, but he shooed him away. Two more cops came out of the house. They pulled Rocket aside, handed him a white towel for his bleeding hand, and the whole pack of men turned toward the Dog house. Lizette moved away from the window and into the living room.

“Liz?” Rocket hit the front door. “They want to talk to you.”

“I’m changing Violet’s diaper,” she answered. The Dogs tromped in, flopped down around her, shoving aside food wrappers and empty beer bottles. “She pooped.” Rocket stood over her as she sat on the torn couch and fixed the diaper pins, rolled up the dirty one, handed it to him. “What do they want?”

“They want to know what happened,” he said, weighing the diaper like a brick.

“I went for a walk and came back to this scene.” She stood up and placed the baby’s head on her shoulder, patting Violet’s back to soothe her. “I don’t know anything. I wasn’t here, didn’t want to be alone with Al in the house.”

“I’m hip,” Rocket said, nodding his head. “I wasn’t cool with the guy being there either. They just want to ask you some questions. Somebody said the baby was down there with Bella. They want to make sure she’s OK.”

They went next door. Rocket warned under his breath, “Don’t say nothing about Carl.” They sat in the living room, a cop in Sandy’s favorite chair, notepad on his knee. “Do you live here?”

“We’re house sitting while Sandy’s gone,” Lizette said.

“How about you?” he asked, turning toward Rocket.

“I live next door,” Rocket said. “Came over to check on Lizette and the baby.”

He spoke to Lizette. “What’s your name?”

“Elizabeth Karlson.”

“I know you,” the cop standing in the doorway said, moving into the room to get a better look at her. “You were … ah, assaulted. At the Twisted Owl. Weren’t you? In the alley. Last December?” Lizette felt the blood drain from her face, looked around at the men, held Violet closer. “I went over to the hospital,” he said. “Went a couple of times. We tried to get a description of the guy, but you were … ah. We never caught him … How’re you doing?”

“OK” Lizette said softly. Rocket looked away from her, she could feel him pull back, avoid touching her as they sat side-by-side on the couch, felt dirty.

“And the baby?” The cop looked searchingly at Violet, sleeping in Lizette’s arms. “Is she?” He stepped forward, touched the edge of the baby blanket, looked up with sorrow clouding his eyes. “I mean.” He stepped back, looked down, said softly, “Did you?”

“Yes,” Lizette said flatly, her eyes focused on the floor.

“Sorry to hear that,” he said. “I mean, maybe it’s OK.” He sounded flustered, looked around. “So, who lives here?”

“Sandy Shore,” Rocket said. “She took a vacation.”

“Isn’t she that stripper?” the cop standing closest to Lizette asked.

“Yeah, but she doesn’t dance anymore,” Lizette offered. “She went on a trip with some friends who live on Queen Anne Hill. I don’t know them. I’m just bringing in the mail.”

“What’s with the snake?”

Lizette looked at Rocket. “It was part of her act,” he explained. “She danced with her—Sandy Shore and Bella the Beautiful Boa, that’s how they billed it at Vixens. She kept Bella in a cage in the basement, fed her rabbits.”

“Do you know the victim?”

“Al,” Rocket said, frowning. “Al Munoz. Friend of Sandy’s. Just got out of jail. Don’t know him very well. She met him at work. He comes around off and on. None of my business.”

The cop taking notes bobbed his head knowingly and scribbled. He reached over and turned on the lamp as dusk had crept into the room. The officers scuffed their heavy boots on the wood floor, shifted their weight from foot to foot like anxious horses, glanced around. Violet yawned in her sleep, wiggled.

“We found a duffle bag in the upstairs bedroom,” the cop said. “Looks like Al was a drug user.”

“Wouldn’t know,” Rocket said. “Like I said, he just got out of jail. Crashed here last night. Sandy’s gone. That’s all I know.”

“We’re taking his things for evidence,” he said, hunching his shoulders, as if preparing for an argument. “What’s the phone number here, in case we have more questions?”

“Evergreen six, 0543.”

“How long will you be staying here?” the cop asked Lizette.

“Not too long,” she said. “I’m taking the baby and going to live with my sister in San Francisco.” Rocket looked at her sideways. “I’m house sitting as a favor.”

After the cops left, Rocket got up and settled in Sandy’s comfortable chair. “You don’t have a sister in San Francisco.” Lizette put Violet down on the couch and got up and went into the kitchen. “Why’d you lie?” he asked, following her. “I almost believed you. You could have said you were going back to Orcas.”

“You should wash out those scratches,” Lizette said, pulling hydrogen peroxide from the cupboard, handing it to him. “Serpent’s teeth. Dirty mouths.”

Rocket unwrapped the towel from his hand and ran it under the faucet until the water steamed. He lathered with dish soap, rinsed, and poured the peroxide over the scratches. “Not too deep,” he said rotating his hands to check the scratches. “This one’s pretty bad.” He traced one gash down the back of his hand. “Wish Sandy was here,” he said wistfully. “We’d get Chinese.”

He went to the couch and pulled the blanket away from Violet’s face, smiled down at her, turned and left. Lizette locked the door after him. Feeling the cold tendrils of fall sneaking in with the night, she flipped on the furnace and smelled the burning dust. Violet fussed and she scooped her off the couch.

In the kitchen, she held the baby to her chest and swished Rocket’s blood spatters from the sink, gathered clean towels, and filled the sink with warm water. Laying Violet on the counter, she carefully undressed her, marveling at her plump thighs and round belly. She turned her over and examined her butt, looking for diaper rash, but found only dimples. She dipped Violet’s toes in the water, smiled at her surprise. Violet smiled back, startled Lizette with her first laugh. She soaped the baby’s neck, the folds between her legs and took her hands away to see if she could sit, catching her on either side when she tipped. Lizette leaned closer, swirled bubbles, and hummed in Violet’s ear.

The front door rattled. “Open up!” Rocket banged on the door. “Who locked the goddamned door?” Lizette carried the dripping baby to the front door, wrapping her in a towel as she went and flipped the latch. Rocket burst in. “Turn on the TV!”

The image flickered on Sandy’s TV. The news anchor, hair slicked into a pomp, looked at them directly …
“was bitten and squeezed to death by an 18-foot boa constrictor.”

“Burmese python,” Lizette snapped and frowned at the TV screen.

“Witnesses said the huge snake was kept as a pet in an Eastlake home. A friend of the victim, who gave his name as Buzzard, had this to say—”

Buzzard’s haggard face filled the screen.
“She was a good snake, always gentle, easy to handle. Don’t know what got into her. He was just doing laundry. In the basement. We was worried about the baby. Kid’s just a few months old. Real cute. Glad she’s OK.”

The screen switched to pictures of the men carrying Bella’s limp body to the sidewalk, then the young guy that had showed up at Sandy’s with the microphone came on:
“In a heroic effort, officers tried to save the victim from the crushing strength of the giant snake, but were too late. Officers shot the animal in self-defense when it turned on them. Authorities say there are no laws prohibiting the keeping of exotic snakes, but the matter has been referred to child welfare officials for investigation because an infant was living in the home at the time of the fatal attack.”

“Idiots!” Lizette blurted, got up, paced. “Who told them about Violet?”

“You were here.” Rocket looked defensive, picked at the fabric on the arm of Sandy’s chair. “We were worried, we thought … “

“Shut up!” Lizette turned on him, machine-gunned questions. “Have you got any boxes at your place? Have you got gas in the car? How long does it take to get to Anacortes? What’s the ferry schedule? When can you leave?”