Blackfly Season

23

“YOU’RE CERTAIN HE’S DEAD?” Red Bear said. “I don’t want any surprises down the road.”

“He’s dead all right.” Leon turned the stereo up a notch, a top-of-the-line Marantz. And R.E.M., man, experience counts for a lot. You couldn’t beat those old bands. “Had to finish him off with a baseball bat, though.”

“Are you all right with it?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” Leon shrugged. “The girl was a little tougher. I’m getting more used to it.”

“And this time you did it somewhere else, I hope. You didn’t go back to the falls again.”

“Naw. We drove way out near West Rock.”

The two of them were lying fully clothed on the huge bed Red Bear had had trucked up from Toronto. Teak or something, a four-poster with tons of fancy carving. He had a way with physical objects, Red Bear. Lamps with silky scarlet shades bathed the room in red light, giving the place a certain atmosphere, like a movie set.

There was a massive oak dresser by the window, with crystal candlesticks and a set of silver hairbrushes that Red Bear used to make his hair shine.

They had smoked a couple of joints. For some reason, Red Bear didn’t have any problem with weed. It was just the hard stuff he didn’t want them using. Good smoke, too. The music twisted and stretched and drooped in the air like taffy.

Red Bear turned on his side and gripped Leon’s bicep. “Thank you for being so loyal, Leon. I think you know loyalty means a lot to me.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

Red Bear stared into his eyes. Leon couldn’t take it for very long; he had to look away.

“I got a question,” Leon said. “About the girl, and now with Toof.”

“Ask me.”

Leon had never before let a man touch him. Somehow, with Red Bear, there was nothing queer about it, nothing effeminate.

“How come you didn’t do them the way you did Wombat? You didn’t make them suffer. Didn’t cut them apart.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“Maybe.”

Red Bear pointed to the ceiling. “The moon. The moon is not waxing just now. It’s waning. A sacrifice must always be done when the moon is waxing.”

“How come?”

“If you kill them when the moon is waning, their spirit will have power over you. That is the opposite of what you want.”

“Great. So now their spirits have power over me? I’m gonna be haunted?”

“Not at all. You didn’t sacrifice them. You didn’t invoke the spirits. And you did what you did with my blessing. My protection. And now I’m going to increase that protection one-hundredfold. Take your shirt off.”

Leon sat up and pulled his shirt off over his head. Red Bear went to the dresser and came back to the bed with an intricately carved wooden box. He opened it and pulled out a chain with a gold amulet hanging from it.

“Classy,” Leon said. “What do the symbols mean?”

“I have blessed this with the power of Oggun.”

Red Bear hung the chain around Leon’s neck. The amulet was cold against his chest.

“Oggun’s the one in charge of iron, right?”

Red Bear smiled. “Not just iron. All metals. Lead, for example. From this you will gain the powers of gold: its purity, its strength, its flexibility. Wear this, and bullets cannot harm you. They will pass right through your body without leaving a mark.”

“Wow. That’s amazing.” Leon could feel the gold warming against his skin. He took a deep breath and concentrated, trying to absorb the purity, the strength, the flexibility.

“Now you are bulletproof,” Red Bear said. “You have nothing to fear, my friend.”

They lay silent for a while. The music had changed to some woman crooning about finding peace. The song set up a sharp ache in Leon’s heart. Red Bear was saying something to him.

“What? What did you say?”

“I asked you if it bothered you. Killing a woman.”

Leon thought a moment. Something about Red Bear made you want to tell him the truth. Those strange eyes of his made you feel he already knew the truth.

“Yes. I was shaking after. And scared. Maybe because she was a woman, I don’t know. That’s why I done her the same place you done Wombat. Woman. Man. Don’t see why it should make no difference. There’s nothing special about women. They’ve never done anything for me except make me feel like a loser, give me a lot of grief. Kinda feel bad for Kevin, though. He’s an okay guy. I don’t want him to know about it.”

Red Bear tapped Leon’s chest, gently. It felt like someone banging on a castle door, loud and echoey, fate come calling.

“There’s your loyalty again,” Red Bear said. “I admire that so much.”

“Kevin better not find out. Him and his sister were close.”

“He’ll get over it. How was he about Toof?”

“Scared. Same as I was first time.”

“I’ll calm him down. But now I want you to just lie still. I’m going to give you another little reward.”

Red Bear got up and pulled off his sweater. He was well muscled but not much bigger than Leon. Down his back, two long scars formed a V from his shoulders to his tail-bone.

“How’d you get those scars?” Leon said. “They don’t look accidental.”

“Never mind about that now.”

“I told you about mine.”

Red Bear smiled and stepped out of his drawstring pants. “Maybe I’ll tell you about them sometime. But for now, we have other things to do.”

Red Bear went to the door and called out to the other room. A moment later, a small blond woman stepped into the bedroom, naked. She had small breasts, a wonderful smile. She looked Russian, with deep-set eyes, wide cheekbones.

“This is Mira,” Red Bear said.

Mira sat on the bed. She took hold of Leon’s belt and undid the buckle.

“And this is Katya.”

A second woman came in, this one darker, bigger in the chest and, like her colleague, naked.

“Somehow,” Red Bear said, “I don’t think these ladies are going to make you feel like a loser.”