Tango Key (43 page)

Matches. First she has to find the matches and the candle. "Daddy?" she whispers. "You there?"

Her words hiss out into the dark and seem to echo. But she doesn't hear her daddy. She crawls over the thing that fell, toward where the table should be. Her hand comes down on something sharp and she cries out, rolls back onto her heels, feels the end of a splinter of glass sticking up from the center of her hand. Whimpering, she tries to pick it out with her nails. When that doesn't work, she sucks at it, tasting blood.

The matches, Evie, find the matches first.

Her daddy again. She calls to him, loudly this time. He doesn't answer. She crawls to the right of where the glass is, and moves toward where she thinks she heard his voice. Her feet slide into the pile of matches and she laughs gaily, dipping her hands into them, and then up, spewing the matchbooks into the air. They rain down around her. She grabs a handful and stuffs them into the pockets of her jeans. She strikes two matches and holds them up high, so she can see.

9he spots the carton where she found the candle before. She digs into it, finds two more candles. She lights one, tucks the other in the waistband of her jeans, under her shirt. She feels it against her skin, smooth and cool. Now she'll always have light. Always.

She giggles and hurries across the room to the sink, to the shelves stacked high with cans, boxes of food, to the jars of water. Eve melts wax onto the edge of the counter first, twists the candle into it, then lifts one of the jugs off the shelf. She unscrews the cap and tilts it to her mouth. It tastes gross, of Plastic. But she's too thirsty to spit it out, and she drinks and drinks, water dribbling down her chin, the front of her shirt. Then she sets it down and looks at the labels on the cans of food. Apple sauce. Her favorite. She yanks open the drawers, looking for a can opener. The one she finds is rusty and barely works, but she keeps trying and finally gets the lid open enough so she can pry it back. She grabs a spoon from the drawer and drops it into the apple sauce and shovels it into her mouth.

It tastes funny, but it oozes over her broken teeth and eases that soft, persistent throb in her gums. Her stomach rumbles for more. She plucks another can off the shelf, removes the lid. Peaches in sweet, thick syrup. She dips her fingers into the syrup and the slices of peaches wiggle like worms as she tries to catch them. She sighs as the first slice slides over her tongue. She sits on the floor with it and finishes half the can. She
sets it aside, wanting something else,
something that will fill her. Meat. I want meat. But the cans contain nothing except fruit, and the boxes are things like cereal and grains.

"Meat meat meat." She crouches and pulls open the door to the cabinet under the sink. It's too dark to see anything. She lights the second candle, makes a nest of wax for it on the floor. There. Now she can see. More jugs of water. Cans of juices. A box of detergent. Insect spray. A carton of Pall Mall cigarettes. She rips open the carton, pulls out a pack, tears it open, lights a cigarette, and inhales it sitting there on the concrete floor. The first puff makes her so dizzy she stabs it out. But she pushes the pack into the pocket of her shirt and begins grabbing at the jugs of water, the cans of juices, tossing them out of the storage area, looking for food, real food. Meat. Sausage. Anything that will take away the dull hunger in her gut.

A while later, everything under the sink is strewn around her, and there's no meat. She screams. She pounds her fists against the cabinet door. It makes the cabinet rattle, and the drawer, which is tottering in its slot like a seesaw, suddenly tumbles to the floor, knocking over the can of peaches. Knives and forks and spoons clatter against the concrete. She grabs a long knife and slaps the flat edge of it against a jug of water.

"Punith," she whispers, and slaps it again, harder. "Punith punith." Then she clutches the knife in her hand and plunges it into the side of the jug. "Bad Doug, bad." She yanks the knife out and drives it into the jug again and again. Water leaks out of the holes. The knife comes through the other side of the jug and strikes the flour, bending the tip. She screams and kicks the jug away from her, then spins on her buttocks and impales the next jug with the knife. Again and again she thrusts, her chest heaving, her breath coming hard, her heart hammering. "You thouldn't have been tho mean, Doug." She carves into the jug now, smiling, pressing down on the edge of the knife, then jamming the tip up under the lip of the jug and lifting it. She hurls it across the room and turns to attack another jug, but they're all dead.

Dead dead dead

But the knife is alive in her hand. The knife pulses. The knife whispers to her. She slams it against the peaches that have spilled out of the overturned can, chopping them to bits. She whirls and plunges the knife into the side of a can of juice. But the tip is so bent it doesn't penetrate the aluminum, and the force sweeps up her arm and jars her gums. She screams and her hands fly to her mouth, her face. The knife hits the floor, and she sobs and sobs until her nose is so stuffed she can barely breathe.

She stretches out in the puddles of water, resting her forehead against the lower edge of the storage area, sniffling. She tells herself that when she opens her eyes, she will find herself in her room at home. In her wide, comfortable bed. In her ice blue nightgown. A man will be touching her, kissing her.

She shudders.

No.

The burning between her legs seems worse now. She has to pee. She is afraid that when she pees, she will see more blood. She will die like Mama did.

When she raises her head, she sees an opening in the wall under the sink, a vertical shaft of darkness. Frowning, she hunkers down and fits her fingers into the slat and shoves hard to the right. A door slides open.

"Daddy?" she calls.

In here, Evie, he whispers back, and she grins and reaches for the candle on the counter. She blows it out and loosens the other one from the floor. Her fingers pick through the knives scattered across the floor until she settles on a meat cleaver. It's heavy, but she knows her daddy would want her to take it with her.

She thrusts her legs into the space under the sink and wiggles through this new hole. She fixes the candle to the floor inside, then closes the outer door, the one to the cabinet, and then the door closest to her, the new door.

For several long seconds, as the candle flickers, threatening to go out, she doesn't move, barely breaths. Here, in whatever this place is, where the ceiling is so low she can't stand up straight, she can feel the weight of the earth on top of her. She can feel it pushing down against the top of her head like a giant hand, the hand of God. She knows if she blinks, if she moves, it will crush her like a fly.

July 6, 6:00 P.M.

T
hey had left the Saab deep in the woods just north of the Pleskin farmhouse and now made their way through the thick brush. Banyans and pines, ficus and rubber trees, feasted on the waning light, absorbing it, so that beneath their canopies it was almost dusk. The air was tight with heat, and calm. The hum of crickets occasionally burst through the stillness and pulsed against the backdrop of other sounds: the warbles of mockingbirds, the rustle of bushes as rodents scurried through them, and once, the startled cries of a flock of wild green parrots rising from the trees.

Kincaid, who'd taken the lead, suddenly stopped, turned with a finger to his mouth, and dropped to his knees. Aline did the same. "What is it?" she whispered.

He pointed off to the left. Downwind from where they were, maybe thirty yards away, a panther and her cub appeared. They paused under a tree, noses to the ground, and Aline just stared, barely breathing, the magic of the creatures imbuing her completely. In the dim light, their sandy hue camouflaged them well. Neither was very large, but even from where Aline was crouched, she could see the musculature in their powerful legs. The mother suddenly lifted her head and peered directly at them.

Gooseflesh rippled along Aline's arms.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kincaid's hand move to his weapon.

But the panthers suddenly took off through the trees, sleek and lovely and impossibly fast. For a long moment afterward she remained where she was, thrilled and humbled. Then Kincaid touched her arm and they moved on.

They scaled the wall that surrounded the old Pleskin place and dropped to the ground behind the barn. They moved at a crouch to the corner and peered into the clearing. No cars. No movement at all. They crept to the front of the barn; a padlock secured the door.

Kincaid reached into the trusty pouch at his belt and brought out a small hammer. He slammed it against the padlock twice and the thing popped loose. He passed her a flashlight, she opened the door a crack, and they stepped inside. Snuggled into a hitch was a sloop, its mast rising toward the ceiling of the barn like an arm reaching for the sky. The beam of her flashlight danced across the name along the side: Bella. Eve's sloop.

What's it doing here?

"C'mon," Kincaid whispered. "Let's take a look." He climbed onto the hitch, pulled her up, and they moved toward the cabin door. It was also padlocked. Kincaid broke it open with the hammer and they descended three steps into the cabin. It still smelled faintly of varnish, but it was stocked to the hilt with enough supplies to last two people a very long time.

Kincaid started going through the cabinets in the galley and Aline walked back to the stem of the boat. She searched the storage areas above the bunks but didn't find anything of particular interest. She flipped open the lid of the trunk where the life vests were stored. But instead of life vests she found a square box. She lifted it out and opened it and drew in her breath.

It was a moment before she could move. And when she did, her hands trembled so much she nearly dropped the frog as she lifted it out of its nest of tissue paper and a piece of orchid colored velvet fabric. She set it down on the floor, whipped out the patch of velvet, and quickly returned the square box to the trunk and closed the lid. She picked it up and carried it into the galley, where Kincaid was just closing the doors of the overhead cabinet.

"You owe me a commission," she said, and set the frog on the table.

"Goddamn," he whispered, turning the flashlight on it.

Aline let her fingers glide over its surface. She peered into the emerald eyes. She examined it from every angle. She touched it again. Its beauty was incomparable. But more than this, the figure possessed an enigmatic aura that seemed to radiate from within, as though the centuries had infused it with life—and a soul pulsed within the shell of gold.

Kincaid removed his knapsack from his back and pulled out an old towel. He wrapped the frog inside the velvet, then placed it inside the terry cloth, rolling it up. He fitted it carefully into the knapsack and slipped it back on again. "Now we wait for Eve to show," he said.

They left the boat and climbed the ladder to a loft piled high with hay, up near the windows. The glass was filthy, but from here they could see down into the field between the barn and the farmhouse. Fuliginous light filled it, and against it shadows grew darker and longer.

They settled in the hay to wait. They ate the snack Aline had prepared and talked quietly when they talked at all, but not about why they were here. It was as if to do so would break the roll of good fortune that had led them to the frog.

When it was finally dark, Aline raised up and peered out the window once more. No change, except that now she could see the first dusting of stars in the sky. Kincaid moved up beside her. They looked at each other. "Well?" he said.

"Let's go look."

He leaned toward her, touched her chin, kissed her. "For luck," he said.

They descended the ladder from the loft. As she reached to floor of the barn, she thought she heard something—not a car, not the noise she'd been expecting to hear, but a rustling, a skittering, something near the pile of hay under the loft. She shone her flashlight in that direction, saw nothing. "Did you hear that?" she whispered.

Kincaid, who was at the doors, glanced back, shook his head. "C'mon."

The door moaned as he opened it a sliver and squeezed out. There was enough light in the clearing to see the long, needle-thin shadows that shot off across the ground. A breeze riffled through the trees, carrying the scents of the woods, bird songs, and, more distant, the deep whistle of a tug somewhere out in the Gulf. But behind the breeze she sensed a pervasive stillness that brought the familiar sharp burning to the center of her chest and a chill that fanned out across her back. It was as if, somewhere, an unnamable god was yawning, then sucking the breeze and the dark into itself.

They moved quickly along the border of trees to the right of the driveway, then across it to the other side. Kincaid was slightly ahead of her, and perhaps it was the weak light or nothing more than the way he held himself, but she could barely see him. All six foot three of him seemed to be fading, thinning out, melting into the dusk. Aline trotted after him. They hesitated at the border of the trees and gazed at the old farmhouse.