Aldus has loved Billy since Billy played ball for Dirtwater High a dozen years before, and I could tell he was thinking passing Blondie over to him might be his ticket back to the air-conditioned bliss of Boss Hadley’s poker room. I tried to tune Aldus out. My hands were shaking and my heart pounding as I contemplated it all.
A mermaid. A watch-keeper. On the main street of Dirtwater. Dead.
What the hell was she doing there? There’s never been a mermaid in Dirtwater. Talk about a fish out of water. So far out of water it’s not funny.
Well, correction. There’s never been a mermaid here apart from my Mom. And me.
Although technically I’m only half-mermaid.
“Travel well, little one,” I said, sweeping my fingers lightly over her eyelids and down her cheeks in the ancient farewell. “May the seas be gentle with your ship of sleep.”
My heart constricted and I felt out of breath. The spots before my eyes lengthened into jagged lines at the edges of my vision. Wow, go figure. Just when you’re sure you’ve seen it all and nothing can make you sad. I could hear Mom saying “Baby, your heart’s too big for this job.” Tell that to all the badasses I’d locked up, throwing away the key without a second thought.
I looked again at the blonde. Her stillness stopped me. It seemed small and selfish to think about my own impending fate, but I couldn’t stop myself. Three weeks. Tick, tick, tick…
Still, nothing an old friend wouldn’t fix.
I tapped a cigarette out of its packet and slid its clean, dry beauty between my lips.
It was like coming home. I’d been planning to clean up my body to prepare it for the hereafter – no Twinkies, no cigarettes. If I had to meet the Goddess, I didn’t want her seeing what a lousy job I did of looking after the fine body she gave me. For a start, I’d never seen another mermaid with cellulite. But I figured that was a technicality now. The quitting thing, I mean. Now I had something else to focus on for the next three weeks. I had to find out who hurt this Chosen One.
I lit up, looking for comfort as much as the dizzy hit that I knew was my pay-off for walking this carcinogenic tightrope.
I could always give up tomorrow.
“Wish some woman loved to suck on me that much,” a seedy voice behind me wheezed. I swivelled to see a face that was heading towards handsome in high school but never quite fulfilled its promise. Billy. By the Goddess, this day couldn’t get any worse.
“Hi Rania,” he oozed in that breathy drawl that some cheerleader back in the day had told him was sexy. He swayed closer to me so I could smell the sweet-sour cocktail of bad whiskey and bourbon chicken on his breath. I didn’t need to look into his puffy blue eyes to know he was looking at me the way he’d looked at me since we were in second grade together. Like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to catch me in a game of kiss chasey or pull my pigtails.
Even now that I didn’t have a pigtails.
“So what’s with the stiff? Aldus says we need an autopsy. Been trying to get Larry, but no luck. Done one of his disappearing acts. I guess I’ll take her to the morgue anyway, prep her, ’til we reach him.” Billy sidelines as a forensic assistant, helping out the coroner.
Damn. Last thing I needed was this doofus poking around my girl.
“Thanks Billy,” I purred, real friendly, to the background buzz of crickets and a lone generator. He grinned hopefully. “But you better not prep her tonight, huh? Federal law. Anyone who deals with a corpse under the influence is liable to hefty penalties.”
Billy licked his lips in a gesture that came off stomach-churningly sensuous. “Really?”
I nodded. “Oh yeah, man. And there’s something about this case.” I searched for the right word. “Something… fishy.”
The crickets buzzed. The generator groaned. I waited, to give him time to catch up.
Billy nodded, mentally watching the greenbacks fly out of his account.
“The feds are gonna be all over it. Might be best if you just keep her on ice. I’ll meet you at the morgue in the morning.”
Billy’s now glum face lit up, creasing into a toothy smile. “Tomorrow? Sunday?”
I nodded reluctantly. Here it comes.
That tongue reappeared to caress his lips. “Your Ma still do brownies Sunday mornin’?”