The Third Magic (28 page)

DADDY

A
lthough Titus knew that
he was taking a risk by going out with Ginger, it seemed small enough to chance. The fact that she did not know his real name further reduced any danger inherent in the situation. Of course, she may have been a plant, a woman who only vaguely resembled the nubile girl he'd enjoyed twenty years before. But really, he thought, that would take a lot more effort than the FBI was usually willing to expend on something as ephemeral as a police sketch. He was probably safe with her.

And, too, Titus was not made of stone. He had gone without sex for nearly three months. Working under the strict scrutiny of the Libyans during the preparations for the Warren Air Force Base project, he had not dared to jeopardize himself by buying a woman's favors.

Besides, Ginger Ranier had something not even the most experienced prostitute could offer: that sweet willingness to let him hurt her.

He guessed that the sheets on her bed had barely cooled since the exit of their last occupant. Clothing left behind by a number of men still hung in the closet. Titus smiled as he looked through them. A cheap polyester blazer, two Hawaiian print shirts still smelling of sweat. Ginger would never change. And she was still, despite the eighteen years that had passed since they last saw one another, the best thing he'd ever had in bed.

"I'm ready," she said, emerging from the bathroom wearing a chiffon leopard-print peignoir.

Titus tried to suppress a laugh. "How often do you get to wear that in this town?" he asked, stretching languorously on the bed. He had removed the dental appliance. He would be changing his appearance again after he left her, anyway.

"You'd be surprised," she said throatily, moving toward him.

"Take it off," he said. She obliged him, and Titus was surprised that the sight of her was still stunning. Up close, the skin might be a little looser, he speculated, but she'd kept everything that mattered. He took her by her hair. A small comb fell out. "Does that hurt?"

"Yes," she moaned, her fingernails scratching upward on his arm. "Why are you wearing a bandage on your neck?" she asked softly.

"I cut myself shaving," Titus said.

She smiled. "Must have been a while ago." She pulled it off.

"What are you—" He shoved her away from him.

Ginger's face registered shock and hurt. "But it was just hanging loose," she explained. "There's not even a mark under it."

Titus raised his hand to the place where the wound from the spear had been. "Good God," he said. He moved to the mirror. "It must have been the water."

"Oh, at the creek?" She laughed, anxious to get things back on a lighter note.

Titus continued to stare into the mirror.

"I guess the water really does work," she went on. "That is, sometimes. It doesn't work for me, wouldn't you know."

Slowly his gaze traveled in the mirror from the site of his healed wound to Ginger's face. "It doesn't?" he asked mildly. "Why is that?"

She shrugged. "Bad luck, I guess."

He was smiling.

"What's so funny?" she asked flatly.

"The fact that the water didn't heal you. Your bruises, I presume, the places where your lovers kick you and punch you."

"Don't say that, honey. Besides, there really aren't that many—"

"Of course there are, Ginger. You're a masochist. You like being hurt. Naturally you wouldn't heal."

Tears came to Ginger's eyes.

"The question is, how did the water know?" he mused. He looked at her levelly, as if he believed she could give him an answer. "How?"

"Well, it could be just about anything, I guess—"

He never heard her. "Psychologically, I suppose, some people simply don't respond to any sort of help. I wonder if the water would heal you if you had a grievous wound, like a—" He bit his lip. He had almost actually said the word
gunshot
in front of her.

He had been under too much stress. The months in Libya, followed by the aborted attempt to reach Cheyenne, the bizarre encounter with those thugs, then seeing the sketch of his face on the TV news and the two failures to kill the ex-FBI agent... He must not allow himself to unravel just because he smelled a woman.

"Do you think that's a bad thing or something?" Ginger was asking.

He closed his eyes and sighed in relief. At least she was stupid, he thought. Thank God for small blessings.

"I think you could be very bad," he murmured, drawing her toward him. "Why don't you show me?"

T
he phone had been
ringing constantly since the television cameras had lingered lovingly on the image of Gwen and Arthur reaching out to one another in the middle of the highway.

According to the high school crowd, the boy was indisputably King Arthur, and the miracle of his existence was accepted without question. By being linked with him, Gwen's status among her peers rose dramatically, although none of them could figure out why Arthur Blessing, who could have chosen any girl in school—in fact, any girl in any school—had chosen Gwen Ranier.

She talked with the first couple of callers—girls who wouldn't bother to say hello to her in the hall under other circumstances, suddenly friendly and chatty and inviting her to a day at the mall or a trip to the lake. Gwen had listened in silence, muttered a few terse words of rejection, and then hung up. After the third call, she took the phone off the hook. Even the loud and incessant noise the phone made was preferable to the voices of those girls.

Or the sound of her mother having sex. God, she couldn't wait to get out of this house. Out of Dawning Falls. Out, out, out.

She wrapped her arms around her knees. Her dreams had been more frequent lately, and she remembered more of them. They were all about the strange, handsome boy whose portrait she had drawn before ever having seen him. In the dreams he loved her. And she had hurt him. She awoke feeling disoriented, as if she were not quite sure she wanted to finish out the day, and inexplicably sad.

It was probably all the things that were going on, she decided. That man getting shot, and Ms. B's face growing suddenly beautiful... It was just hard to take it all in. She was not experienced in social situations. She had virtually no friends at school. She had never had a boyfriend, much to her mother's dismay. Some of the Goth boys had tried, in their apathetic way, to get close to her, but she had felt no interest in them.

Most of her antipathy was due, she supposed, to watching her mother throw her own life away on a steady stream of worthless men. But there was something else, too, a sense of waiting for someone....

She kicked a book across the room. Waiting for someone. How stupid, she thought. She might as well be waiting for Godot, waiting for Armageddon, waiting for Prince Charming.

Or King Arthur.

T
itus found the empty
tube of what may or may not have been strychnine in his trouser pocket. He dipped it into a fishbowl atop Ginger's television set.

The goldfish in it died instantly.

"What are you doing?" came an incredulous voice. A teenage girl wearing heavy makeup stood in a low doorway. The whole house was low and small and dark, Titus noticed. It was like a rabbit warren, filled with cheap and sentimental souvenirs. He felt suddenly constricted, as if he needed to breathe.

"Who are you?" he drawled.

"You killed our fish," the girl announced.

"Coffee's almost ready," Ginger called from the kitchen.

Titus took out his wallet and threw the girl a twenty-dollar bill.

"Keep your stupid money!" Gwen shouted. "And since you're done screwing my mother, why don't you get out?"

"Now, now, what's this all about?" Ginger came bustling into the room. She was wearing a red kimono over her nightie and carried a plastic tray decorated with watermelons.

Gwen rolled her eyes to keep from crying. "Oh, great. Look at you."

"What is wrong with what I'm wearing?" Ginger demanded. "I'll have you know this is silk."

Gwen turned away. "Fine," she said. "By the way, the stud of the day here just poured poison into the fishtank."

Her mother gasped as she noticed the floating goldfish. "Finny," she said. "He's our pet."

"Was," Gwen corrected.

Titus burst out laughing. "I say, the two of you are better than a West End musicale."

"Are we?" Gwen sneered. "Hey, you know what
I
say?"

"Gwen, now stop it. Stop it this minute," Ginger interrupted. "As it happens. Bob and I are old friends. We knew each other years ago, isn't that right?" She looked to Titus for affirmation.

He folded his arms over his chest as he looked over the girl with an amused but critical eye. "Who is your father?" he asked.

Ginger brought the tray over her chest like a shield. Her mouth opened and closed, but she said nothing.

Gwen's eyes narrowed. "What do you care?"

It was extraordinary. The resemblance was remarkable. "Come here," he said.

"Get lost."

"Now, honey—"

"Why don't you go back to what you were doing in the kitchen. Mom?" Gwen snapped.

"Just hold still," Titus said, walking over to Gwen. He moved her chin.

She slapped his hand away.

Yes. Yes, the resemblance was unmistakable. The same eyebrows, the same mouth.

Gwen's portraitist's eye saw it, too. "Oh, shit." she said. "How many years ago did you two know each other?" she asked warily.

"Well, honey—"

"Don't tell me." She turned a ferocious glare on her mother. "Well, is he? Is this pet-killing bozo my... Shit."

"Your father?" Titus asked, looking at Ginger. "Is that true?"

Ginger stared at the floor. "Finny was just a fish," she waffled. "I mean, 'pet killer' isn't exactly . . ."

Gwen stormed out of the house, slamming the front door so hard that one of the diamond-shaped panes of glass shattered.

After she left, Titus stared at Ginger in silence. "She's right, isn't she?" he asked with mild surprise.

"Didn't know how to reach you to tell you about it," she said coyly. "Besides, I didn't know if you'd want to even know you were going to be a daddy." She put her arms around him. "Hey, I'll bring in the coffee."

Titus extricated himself from her grasp, feeling exceedingly uncomfortable. "Er ... Don't bother, love. I've got to be on my way."

"Oh." She tried not to sound disappointed. "All righty. You going back to Miller's Creek?"

"I hadn't thought about it, no. Do people visit the place all during the night?"

Ginger shrugged. "I guess they could if they wanted to, but it'd be dark. There's no lights or anything."

"But the creek is still running?" Titus asked. "That is, nothing controls the flow of water into the creek, does it?"

She found this amusing. "No. I mean, it's not as if the creek water got turned off and on. You've been living in cities too long."

"I suppose I have," he admitted. "Is there a well at the site, perhaps?"

"I think so," Ginger said. "The creek flows right underneath the house. The guy that bought the place put in a new floor to cover it. There's some that think he put something in the water then. It never used to do this magic stuff."

It seemed to Titus that several minutes went by before he remembered to breathe again. The floor! How simple could it be? Something, the something that created miracles out of ordinary water, was under the floorboards of that shack near the creek... And the whole town knew about it! He could not believe his luck! He was, without a doubt, the first intelligent being ever to set foot in Dawning Falls. And he was going to leave with its treasure.

"I see," he said with desperate nonchalance, and cleared his throat. "Well, I really do have to go along now. I'm very tired."

"Me, too," she said. "Ooh." She flapped her hands, suddenly animated. "Just a sec, okay? I want to do something before you go." She ducked back into the kitchen.

"Ginger..." He sighed. She was already becoming tiresome.

The next moment, she bounded around the corner in a brilliant flash of light. When Titus blinked the spots away from his eyes, he saw her standing in front of him with a disposable camera in her hands. "Now I'll have something to remember you by," she said.

Titus reached her in two steps and batted the camera away. It hit the wall and flew apart on impact.

Ginger was stunned. "Why did you do that?" she asked. "I only wanted—"

"No pictures," he said, his heart still racing. Actually, he hadn't meant to respond so strongly, but a man in his line of work did not want to leave photographs of himself behind. "Please understand."

"Oh. Oh, sure," she said. She picked up the pieces of the camera. It had cost eight dollars. "You always did kind of fly off the handle easy." She did not look at his face as she spoke.

He was panicking. If he killed her, he would have to kill the girl, too. "I'm sorry, Ginger. I really am." He searched his mind for an excuse that would help her to dismiss the incident. "It's just that I hadn't expected your daughter to be here."

"Our daughter," Ginger amended.

"Yes. Well, I'll buy you another camera."

Ginger tried to smile. "Thanks," she said. "Listen, are you in trouble with the police or something?"

He froze. "Of course not," he said mechanically.

"It's just that... well, what you said in the lab about not wanting me to tell anybody about you, and I asked if you were married and you said no, so it's not that...."

She was stupid and talkative, Titus realized. A dangerous combination. He walked over to the place where he had thrown the camera, picked up the pieces, and unrolled the film before putting it into his pocket. "You've seen my face on the telly, haven't you?" he asked quietly.

"Oh, no," she said, obviously lying.

"And you've noticed that I don't look the same as I did when I came into the lab."

"Well..." A thin line of sweat was beginning to form on Ginger's upper lip. It excited him. "I did kind of wonder why you'd want to look different."

"Yes." He moved nearer to her.