Water to Burn

by Katharine Kerr

  “Good grief,” I said, “are there twins in there?”

  “No, only one,” Mira said. “I bet it’s a boy. I wouldn’t let them tell me, after the sonogram, you know, but I’d bet anything it’s some hulking brute of a boy child.”

  “I heard you and David got married last year, but I didn’t know you guys had already decided to reproduce.”

  “I blame my husband. All his idea. I had nothing to do with it, nothing, I tell you!”

  We shared a laugh. Mira paused to swig from the bottle of mineral water she was carrying. “Kathleen told me you were back,” she said. “What’s this about a steady boyfriend?”

  “He’s around here somewhere.” I paused to survey the crowd and saw Ari talking with the bartender over at the portable bar. When Caleb came up beside him, Ari walked away.

  “Over there.” I pointed. “The dark-haired one. We just got a place together.”

  “Ooh. Good-looking! But I bet he’s got issues.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The way he moves, like he’s ready to spring on his prey. And a cop, Kathleen says?”

  “With Interpol, yeah.” I wished that Kathleen had kept her mouth shut about that aspect of Ari’s personality. I didn’t want Caleb putting up his guard. “So what’s going on with you besides the baby? Are you going to go back to work?”

  “You bet. I didn’t suffer to get that damned degree for nothing. I’ve got an arrangement with another therapist. He’ll be on emergency call for my clients for three months, and I’ll do the same for his when he goes to Europe this summer.” She made a wry face. “I’m thinking of going back for the doctorate, though. I really want to work with autistic adults.”

  “Why the adults?”

  “Because that’s where the challenge is. These days a lot of people are working with the children. I’ve heard fellow professionals tell me that if you don’t get them young, there’s no hope. I don’t give up on people that easy, thank you very much.”

  “I’ve never known you to, that’s for sure.”

  “You know, that kind of work is something you’d be real good at.”

  “Oh, come on, I don’t think so.”

  “Consider your family. You grew up learning how to take care of really annoying people.”

  We shared another laugh.

  “It won’t be an easy job, of course, but I like that aspect of it.” Mira had another swig of mineral water. “What are you doing these days?”

  “Well, uh, not much. I just lost my job, thanks to the recession. I was working for a marketing firm, and it went belly up.”

  “As they all deserve to do. Nola! Marketing? With your brains?”

  With that, I came up against one of the drawbacks to working for the Agency; namely, the need to lie to people you’d rather treat honestly. I forced out a smile. “Why is it,” I said, “that everyone feels they get to tell me what I should do?”

  “I can’t help it. I went to college to be a busybody. But okay, I hear you. I’ll shut up.”

  “But let’s get together, okay? When you can, anyway. You’re living in Marin now?”

  “Yeah, not far from here, or I wouldn’t have been able to come at all.” Mira glowered at her enormous midsection. “Once this creature deigns to make his appearance, I’ll give you a call.”

  “I don’t have anything to write my number on, but Kathleen can give it to you.”

  “She already did. Do me a favor. Look at my ankles and tell me if they’re swollen. I can’t see them.”

  I looked. “Yeah, they are.”

  “Time to go. I’ll round up David before he gets his paws on a margarita. I can’t drive like this.”

  I walked with her until she spotted her husband, blamelessly free of margaritas, talking with a couple I didn’t know. We said good-bye, and I went looking for Ari. I finally met up with him near the back of the house. He was carrying an open cardboard box that had once held a bottle of Drambuie. I pointed to it and made a questioning noise.

  “It’s not got liquor in it,” Ari said. “Something more interesting. Diego gave me the box to keep it clean. I’m going to go put this in the car for safekeeping.”

  I noticed that he’d draped the contents with a white napkin.

  “Okay. How will you get through the fence?”

  “Jack told me he hired a parking valet to handle the cars and the gate. And no, I won’t let the cats out.”

  Ari strode on toward the back door, since the best route to the street lay through the house. Over by the side of the party area stood a pair of wooden benches in front of a dormant bed of annuals and right near one of the big patio heaters. I sat down to survey the party in comfort. I’d barely settled myself when Caleb appeared, carrying a drink in one hand. He plunked himself down next to me with a smile. The drink smelled like scotch and water. So did he.

  “I was thinking,” Caleb said, “how much I’d like to get to know you better.”

  “Uh, really?”

  “Really.” He took a sip of his drink. “And I’d like to talk to you about our business venture, too.”

  “Ah. We’re back to Drake’s treasure, huh?”

  “Yeah yeah. This is going to sound crazy, but look, everyone in your family has talents, don’t they? Psychic talents? Jack’s always teasing Kathleen about them.” He smiled at me over the rim of his glass.

  I should have known, but I sent an inward curse Jack’s way. “Well,” I said, “if you believe in that stuff.”

  “Oh, I do, and I’ll bet you do, too. Look, Kathleen mentioned that you were out of work. What about joining our venture? A psychic would be a handy person to have around. When it comes to locating the goods, the hard data’s minimal, and the sources are real old.”

  “So you think I could help you find it?”

  “Just that. Gold has psychic vibrations, you know. It’s the archetypal form of the element of earth. Don’t tell me you don’t know what I mean by elemental earth.”

  “I do know, sure. This isn’t the kind of place where I want to discuss things like that, however.”

  “You’re right.” He looked down in contrition. “I tend to have a big mouth. Sorry.”

  I considered. Discussing the alleged business venture, playing along with him in his scheme—I saw the chance to learn more about him in safe circumstances.

  “We could have lunch,” I said, “over in the city, and discuss your offer.”

  “That sounds good. Pick a restaurant you like, pick a day, I’ll be there.” He reached into his shirt pocket and brought out a business card, black lettering on white, and handed it to me.

  “Caleb Sumner,” it read, “Oceanography Degree, Sidereal Navigation Certificate.”

  “Impressive.” I put the card into my beaded bag. “Is there much call for sidereal navigators these days?”

  “No.” His expression turned sour. “Thanks to the goddamn GPS systems. I used to get work as yacht crew all the time. Not so much anymore.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  Caleb nodded and had another gulp of scotch and water. The nearby patio heater hissed loudly, then returned to its steady hum, but not before Caleb flinched and muttered at the sound.

  “Lousy weather this year, isn’t it?” Caleb said. “I’m not used to pool parties that need heaters.”

  “Yeah, sure is, but we need the rain.”

  “That’s what everyone says.” He smiled. “I’m still not used to California, period. Drought’s never an issue back home in New England. Everything stays green in the summer.”

  “Yeah, but you pay for it with all that snow in winter. Of course, not all of our weather’s perfect.” I paused for effect. “Lately we’ve had to worry about rogue waves, for example.”

  Caleb went very still. He stared at me over the rim of his glass. I pretended not to notice.

  “You’ve got that degree in Oceanography,” I went on. “So I bet you know the answer to this. I’ve been wondering lately, what caus
es them, the rogue waves, I mean?”

  Caleb’s hands began to shake so badly that the scotch sloshed in his glass. He set it down on the ground, then pretended to cough.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Down the wrong pipe.” He slapped both hands over his mouth, so that they covered part of his face. Sweat broke out on his forehead.

  “Heavens!” I grabbed a tissue from my bag and held it out. “Are you choking? Need help?”

  He shook his head no and continued his fake cough. Eventually he took the tissue and wiped his mouth.

  “Guess I’d better not finish that drink,” he said. “Diego makes them pretty strong.”

  “I’d say so, yeah.”

  I looked away while he composed himself. For a couple of minutes we sat in silence. I watched the guests swirling around the buffet in case I saw someone else I knew. I didn’t.

  “You know,” Caleb said, “your sister’s very beautiful, but it’s a beauty like a work of art, museum worthy, kind of distant and cool. Jack’s built her a museum here, really. It sets his art treasure off perfectly.”

  I thought of all the cat boxes in the house but managed a polite smile. Caleb smiled back while Qi oozed from his aura. I perceived it as long wisps like tendrils of fog, reaching for me, but my own aura held steady, and my own Qi stayed where it belonged, inside my magnetic field.

  “You have a much more interesting kind of beauty.” He edged a little closer to me on the bench. “Fiery, and no museum could ever contain it.”

  At fifteen, I would have swooned over this line. Unfortunately for Caleb, I was twenty-six. “Yeah?” I said. “My boyfriend says something like that, too.”

  Caleb’s smile froze. The tendrils of Qi snapped back to his aura. Over his shoulder, I saw the boyfriend in question approaching.

  “Here’s Ari now,” I said. “I’ll introduce you.”

  At his first sight of Ari, Caleb slid back to his original position on the bench. Ari stood a bit less than six feet tall, but he could loom over people when he wanted to. He strode over and turned, looming, to Caleb, who suddenly did look short and pudgy. He didn’t smell bad, however, to my normal nose, though Kathleen would have sniffed fear in the air.

  “Ari,” I said, “this is Caleb Sumner. He’s been telling me about a possible job.”

  “Hi,” Caleb said. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “How do you do?” Ari looked him over briefly and turned back to me. “Do you want to eat here, or should we just go home?”

  “We could leave soon,” I said. “If you’d like.”

  Caleb picked up his glass, then finished the drink in one long swallow. As we walked away, I glanced back and saw him heading to the bar.

  Kathleen had gravitated to the buffet, where she was helping Maria Elena put out rows of paper bowls containing little flans, each swimming in a thin clear caramel sauce. A lot of calories per, I figured, but they did look delicious.

  “We’re thinking of leaving,” I said to Kathleen. “We’ve had a long day, and Ari wants to get home to get some work done.”

  Kathleen smiled at the hint in that “work.” “But you haven’t eaten anything,” she said to me.

  “I will at home, I promise. I’ve got salad stuff—

  “No, no,” Maria Elena said. “I have an empty box right here. Let me make you up a care package.”

  “Good name for it,” Ari said. “She looks like a refugee.”

  Since we were in public view, I couldn’t kick him, but I thought about it. He stepped back fast, as if he felt it coming. The caterer moved up and down the long buffet, stuffing a big white cardboard box with miniature tacos, baggies of guacamole, rice, a bowl of chicken in salsa verde, and the like. My traitorous stomach growled.

  “I saw you talking with Mira,” Kathleen said. “I’m real glad you connected.”

  “So am I. It’s great seeing her again. She wants to move into working with autistics, she told me.”

  “God, she’s so motivated! I guess it’s a real problem, lots of kids born with autism.”

  “It is, yeah. No one’s sure why, either.”

  “I think it’s because they’re actually dinosaur souls.”

  I stared.

  “Well, look,” Kathleen continued. “Everyone talks about overpopulation, right? And how there’s more people on earth now than there ever were before. Even if you add up all the people that lived before, ever, there’s still more people now. So that means everyone human’s been reborn already, so where are all these kids coming from? They must have souls. And so I figure it’s the dinosaurs incarnating again. After all, we did take over their planet.”

  Ari dropped to one knee and pretended to be tying his shoelace. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his shoulders trembling.

  “That’s a really interesting theory,” I said. “I’ll have to think about that.”

  Maria Elena popped the box of food into a plastic bag and handed it to me with a straight face. An amazing woman, she was. Ari stood up again and took the box.

  “I’ll carry,” he said. “Thank you so much.”

  As we walked out, we passed Caleb, who rushed over to say good-bye. Although Ari loomed, Caleb spoke only to me.

  “Let’s make that business lunch date soon.” He stressed the word “business.” “Jack and I would both like to have you onboard.”

  “I’ll do that, for sure,” I said. “I could use a new job.”

  Ari said nothing as we walked away, but he appeared to be in a pleasant enough mood. Once we got into the car, I left the interior light on and put the keys into the ignition.

  “Caleb really was sounding me out about working with him and Jack,” I said. “If I go to lunch with him, I’ll have a good chance to size him up.”

  I waited for a reaction. Ari merely nodded his agreement.

  “Well,” I went on, “I wasn’t flirting with him or anything.”

  “I never thought you were.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  Ari grinned at me. “What’s this? Disappointed I’m not making a scene?”

  “Bastard.” I switched off the light. “Let’s go home.”

  He chuckled in his usual grudging way and buckled his seat belt.

  We drove back to the apartment without encountering any traffic slowdowns, a good thing, because the smell of the food Maria Elena had given us tormented me the whole way. I decided that I really could eat some of it, since I’d skipped both breakfast and lunch. Eventually, we found a parking place. Before I locked the car, Ari retrieved the Drambuie box from the trunk, and I took Maria Elena’s bounty.

  “What’s in that box, anyway?” I said. “I take it that it’s got Caleb’s prints on it.”

  “A sherry glass. I thought about various ways to get the prints, but the bartender seemed like the reliable sort. So I explained that I was a police officer and showed him my ID and all that. He agreed to help.”

  “That was good of him.”

  “Well, he was reluctant until he found out whose prints I wanted. He remarked that Mrs. Donovan had had some trouble with Caleb at the last party. Apparently, Caleb knocks back the scotch and gets obnoxious.”

  “He was working on it already tonight.”

  “I thought so, yes. So, when Caleb went to the bar, Diego put out a bowl of nuts. They’re oily. Caleb took a few, as anyone would. Diego then asked Caleb if he’d like to try a new brand of sherry and poured him a little, which our mark sampled. Then, of course, Diego gave Caleb a clean glass for his next drink.”

  “And you’ve got the old one.”

  “Just that. I hope the ride home hasn’t smudged or smeared the prints, is all. I’ll bring them up while you eat.”

  Since Ari had no desk of his own, he ended up spreading his equipment over the kitchen table. I went into the bedroom and changed out of my party clothes into jeans and a Giants T-shirt, then leaned against the refrigerator and ate a couple of minature tacos and some guacamole while I watched him work. Before he’d put the glass i
nto the box, Diego had made a little cage of soda straws around it, which had kept the napkin wrap at a safe distance.

  “He did a good job,” Ari said. “I get the impression he’s been asked to gather evidence before.”

  “Maybe that’s because he’s a bartender,” I said. “Are you sure those aren’t his prints, though?”

  “He wiped the glass before he handed it to Caleb, and he held it by the base. Caleb took the barrel between thumb and forefinger. I was watching from the shrubbery.”

  “Say what? On your hands and knees?”

  “I was standing over by the shrubbery, not crawling around in it.”

  On the table Ari had spread out a newspaper and laid out a couple of brushes, a packet of index cards, and a box of something that looked like bits of tape on paper backing. He had a fine black powder in a container similar to an old-fashioned compact for makeup. He dipped a fat kolinski hair brush in the powder, tapped off the excess, and delicately began powdering the glass. When I squatted down to eye level, I could see the thin black lines where the powder stuck to Caleb’s oily fingerprints.

  “Brilliant,” Ari said. “Let me get some pictures of these.”

  I stood up again and decided that I could have a few bites of that seductive chicken in salsa verde. When I got a fork out of the drawer beside the sink, Ari looked up from his work.

  “That’s the ticket,” he said with just a hint of a joke in his voice. “Dig in. Have lots. Do it for America!”

  “Oh, shut up!”

  He smiled and did so, then picked up his tiny digital camera.

  “It’s best to snap them, if you can, before you try to lift them,” he said. “In case something goes wrong.”

  He grabbed a paper towel, tore off part of it, and stuffed it into the inside of the glass to provide a background. For some minutes he fussed with the light, the camera, and the sherry glass until he managed to get some snaps that weren’t ruined by reflections.

  “The computer can work from digital images as well as it can from scanned paper,” he remarked. “Maybe better.”