All the Devil's Creatures (41 page)

“Garage is about done, then I think it can officially lose its designation as a fixer-upper.”

Tony raised his glass—bourbon on the rocks, as always. “
Salud
to that.”

“
Salud
.”

They sat and sipped in silence for a bit. Tony chewed on a little plastic cocktail sword. “Then what?” he asked.

“You mean after the home repairs are done?”

“Yeah—you selling out? Staying put? Hanging it up? Travelling the world? What’s the next chapter in the marvelous adventure that is Geoff Waltz’s life?”

Geoff shook his head and pondered. He had done a lot of pondering over the long Texas summer. He felt adrift—but also at peace. As if the vastness of the world had opened up to him, and he only needed to set his course. But he felt no need to hurry.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m thinking about selling the house and getting a condo uptown. And expanding my practice—you know, a real office, a staff. Maybe bring on a couple of associates. There’s plenty of work.” He took a sip of beer. “Or maybe I’ll move to New Orleans and set up shop. I still know people there. Lots of opportunities to do good work in that city.”

Muttering
fuck it
, Tony pulled the mangled plastic pick from his mouth, dropped it in an ash tray, and motioned for the bartender to sell him a pack of cigarettes. Then he smirked at Geoff. “‘Good work,’ eh? So you’ve become a do-gooder? Representing those greenie types has gotten to you. Maybe you should move to San Fran with the rest of the nuts and flakes.” Tony lit a cigarette. “Or at least fucking Austin.”

Geoff chuckled at Tony’s ball-busting—the national sport of the fat man’s native New Jersey, he figured. “I’m not licensed in California, and I don’t want to take another exam. And Austin was great in college, but I don’t think I’d fit in anymore. I’m not twenty-five, and I’m not interested in pretending to be twenty-five for the rest of my life.”

As Tony guffawed and nodded and smoked, Geoff thought about his practice, his emerging specialty representing private citizens against the corporate polluters in their midst. It wasn’t a bad gig.

Then he said, “Speaking of my cases, I’m going down to the lake tomorrow. Big fish fry with Willie Kincaid and family.”

“Kincaid? Your client in that Texronco case? Is that all wrapped up now?”

Geoff nodded. “All wrapped up. After Duchamp got shot and the feds dropped their criminal investigation, we resumed the lawsuit. Texronco settled real fast then—they’re cleaning up the pollution.”

That’s the official version of the story, anyway
. They did not speak of Geoff’s day beneath the bayou with Willie. He had told Tony once in passing that the trip had been a bust—nothing to see but the source of the pollution: corroding drums half-sunk into the murk at the refinery site’s edge, which he already knew about. He and Marisol had decided it was best to keep the incredible, and unprovable, truth to themselves.

But Texronco did settle the lawsuit—on pretty much the same generous terms their lawyer Rick White had relayed to Geoff way back before he had a clue what was really going on at the refinery. It was as if the corporation, freed from the Duchamp family and the legacy of Operation Moth Wing, from the puppeteering Doctor running the project from his lair, had decided to act rationally and dispose of its mess once and for all. Or so Geoff surmised. But Texronco was doing more than just cleaning up the contamination Eileen and Dalia had identified at the site. The company had entered agreement with the EPA and walled off the entire area. China Island, too. And the nearest Geoff could figure, the Feds and the corporation had teamed up to excavate millions of tons of swampland, down God knew how many feet, and send it all by rail to a federal hazardous waste dump in New Mexico. Along with any evidence of Moth Wing or the Doctor’s extracurricular projects.

But Geoff and his people had put a stop to it. That’s what mattered. They had vindicated the deaths of Eileen and Dalia. Plus the garage attendant in New Orleans.

And Joey—somehow we saved the soul of that odd, beautiful
(magical?)
boy. Still not sure how.
For the more time passed, the more the boy’s—
what? His choice? Had it been
Joey
who had saved
us
?
—at the moment of the Doctor’s death beneath the lake had come to seem like a dream.

“By the way,” Geoff said. “Have you seen Marisol Solis? I was hoping she would be here—wanted to invite her to Willie’s thing tomorrow.”

“Haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks. Did you try her office?”

“Nah, maybe I’ll give her a call.” But he knew he wouldn’t. In the weeks after their adventures, he had wanted to call, to see if the connection he felt they had made could exist outside a difficult and perplexing case to puzzle through together. But he never worked up the nerve. He hadn’t dated in years. Then he had spent a few weeks in Colorado, escaping the heat. On returning, he had dedicated himself to his work and his house. Come September, it seemed that too much time had passed to call her out of the blue.

It almost made him want to take another case so messed up that he would have to retain her services again.

•

Geoff arrived at the Kincaids’ little frame house on the bayou in the hour before sunset. The season’s first real cool snap had blown through the night before, bringing rain and ushering in a day clear and crisp, the cloudless sky a blue so rich it appeared almost violet through the forest’s thick green canopy. And though the deciduous trees that stood amid the pines in those East Texas woods would hold their green for another month, the air already smelled of autumn.

He headed straight for the back yard and waved to Willie, who stood over a giant fryer, preparing it for the catfish. Tiki torches stood at the ready around the long picnic table, and Geoff spotted Joey gathering wood for the fire pit.

As Geoff approached, Sheriff Seastrunk and Bobby Henderson rose from the table’s bench seat to greet him.

“Sheriff, Bobby. Good to see y’all.”

“And you, Waltz.” They shook hands, and Geoff could see the light scars crisscrossing the deputy’s arms. To Geoff, Bobby’s gaze did not seem as open as before, as if the young man had aged many years in the six months since they had first met.

“Did you bring your guitar, Sheriff?”

“Shoot, I reckon. We’ll play a few tunes after supper.”

Willie walked up with Joey at his side and put a gnarled hand on Geoff’s shoulder.

“I want to thank you for coming. I just ask that you eat your fill, cause we got plenty.”

Geoff smiled down at the little man. “Don’t you worry, Willie. I brought my appetite.”

And then Geoff looked to the boy, who smiled back. He had spent a week in a coma following their subterranean ordeal, but now he looked … normal. Really normal. His eyes were as blue as the sky, but they did not shimmer. And when they shook hands, Geoff saw minor scabs on Joey’s knuckles—typical markings of boyhood. He still felt an inscrutable warmth toward the boy but no longer the fierce protectiveness that had haunted his dreams last spring. As if the act of saving each other (and yes, that is what had happened, Geoff now knew as he met the child’s gaze—they had somehow saved each other’s souls) had broken a bond forged by a shared terror.

Around the table, amid the whippoorwills’ cries in the setting sun, they spoke very little of the case that had brought them together. Geoff did ask, as Willie dumped the corn-mealed fish into the vat of hot oil: “How did things shake out in the DA’s office?”

“Ol’ Hargrave decided not to stand for reelection this fall,” the sheriff said. “Reckon he decided he’d had enough.”

“And Tasha Carter moved to Austin last month,” Bobby said. “Took a job in the Governor’s office. She’ll go far.”

Bobby did not sound bitter to Geoff; only maybe a little rueful.

Later, Willie leaned in close to Geoff. “Come with me to the water, counselor, before things get busy around here.”

Leaving Seastrunk, Bobby, and Sally to commune among themselves, Geoff followed the old man down to the bayou’s edge. They stood there in the setting sun, and Willie took a dip of snuff before speaking.

“Geoff, I just wanted to give you an honest apology to your face. Hadn’t had the opportunity yet. So here it is. I’m sorry.”

Geoff nodded into the coming gloom, considering. Then he said, “You don’t have to apologize, Willie. I don’t know that anybody would have done anything any different.”

“Well. I don’t know. I’m just happy it’s finished.” He spat a stream of tobacco juice.

“Joey seems good.”

“Yeah, little joker came out all right.” He paused. “I wonder if I ought to worry. That he might grow up … you know.”

“To be a psychotic Nazi madman? No. You don’t have to worry. Just raise him right, like I know y’all are. Joey has a good heart, regardless of where his genes came from. You can tell by the choice he made.”

Looking out over that still water, admiring the beauty of the sunset over the bayou, Geoff thought about the evil they had seen—an evil that seemed too great to reside in any genetic code and so must come from some place or some force much larger. The Tatum twins, the Doctor—in the twins, that evil feasted on ignorance and stupidly; in the doctor, a soulless and rotten sophistication, a malicious application of brilliant science, nourished it. But the end result was the same, whether marked by a swastika carved in flesh or hanging from a flag pole: race hatred, death lust.

He did not think he had spoken any of this aloud, but maybe he had, because Willie said: “Just like ol’ Zeus said to Prometheus.”

Geoff snapped his head to Willie and almost asked the little old man where he had learned mythology until saw the wisdom in his client’s eyes. When Willie spoke, he spoke not in the twanged staccato of the swamp rat but with an ancient power: “When Prometheus stole fire, Zeus said now you need two things: justice and reverence. We’ve done some amazing things with our fire. Problem is, we’re still lagging behind on the other two.”

Geoff did not respond but thought he understood Willie’s meaning. The Doctor’s crimes, like all the greatest crimes in the recent history of humanity, had resulted from awesome technology utilized unjustly, irreverently—detached from the old ethical constructs. He realized now that all the irrational, unscientific beliefs and practices he had long derided as mere superstitions served a purpose: vessels for those constructs, imparting justice and reverence.

And then he thought about New Orleans and the people there who seemed to sense the growing and spreading malfeasance, the near culmination of the Doctor’s nefarious work. T-Jacques Rubell. The women who had rescued Marisol. They did not know the truth of this place—of Texronco and Duchamp and Operation Moth Wing. But they had felt that gathering villainy like a change in pressure, as if the rending of their city had sensitized them.

Willie spat and rubbed his face. “Anyway, Joey’s changing. He’s still special. He heals awful fast, but he does bleed. And I get the feeling—I can’t explain it—but I know he can’t do those things with his mind like he used to. At least not as much. It’s like he’s growing out of it.”

Like he’s molting
, Geoff thought. He could think of no scientific reason why the boy’s genetically engineered mind, and the nanorobotics infusing his body, would fade as he approached puberty. But then again, he had begun to question whether all they had seen at this place the previous spring had been mere science. He remained silent.

After a moment, Willie said, “Anyway, we haven’t been seeing our beasties like before, either. A crazy dragonfly from time to time, but the regular ones outnumber them. No orange lizards or rat-monkey things.”

“The excavation must be degrading their habitat. I wouldn’t be surprised if Texronco and the EPA don’t make sure those creatures get wiped out, come to think of it.”

Geoff heard a car door slam back by the house, and Willie said, “That’ll be more guests.”

They walked up to the yard and saw that Joey had gotten the fire going and the torches lit. As Willie worked the grease, and the fire kept the evening’s chill at bay, more cars arrived carrying guests to partake this great tradition, the Saturday night fish fry. Mr. and Mrs. Hargrave, the district attorney and his wife, arrived in their Cadillac and contributed a homemade pie to the feast, made from the peaches of their family orchard. At some point Bubba McGee the roadhouse owner showed up—a friendly man Geoff knew by reputation but whom he had not met in person before that night. Then the fish sizzled and popped in the oil and they ate them whole, cleaning the meat off the bones with their teeth. They ate them with homemade tomato relish, pickled okra, sliced raw onion, white bread, and black-eyed peas. And the gentle nocturnal animal sounds of the woods and the lake serenaded them.

After the group had dined and laughed and told many tales of growing up in that verdant place, the sheriff retrieved his guitar, and Bubba revealed his gift to the evening: a bottle of fine Kentucky bourbon.

“This here’s special reserve. Just got a case in this week.”

They all sipped whiskey, Geoff’s first sip of hard liquor since the horrible night he learned of Eileen’s murder, and it tasted good; it tasted right, as if his mind and his spirit had healed enough to not only withstand but to draw strength from the tonic. They sat by the fire and sang along to Seastrunk’s guitar picking. Joey tacitly stoked the flames with a hickory branch, and Geoff read in the boy’s wry expression bemusement at the uproarious grown-up party he had the privilege of observing. Then he looked into the gloom that surrounded them, and he did not feel at home in that secluded place. But with stars as bright as he had ever seen piercing the sky through the trees, with the guitar playing tunes born of the many cultures that had occupied that land, with the scent of the pines cutting through the lingering homey smell of fried catfish, and with good liquor imbibed in the spirit of community, Geoff did feel at ease.

The End