The Rivers Run Dry

by Sibella Giorello

  She threw ice into the glass, half of it landing on the floor. “My daddy was stationed in Georgia. He made us say ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ all the time. He said it showed respect. If we screwed up, we got the belt. One time he beat me—I’ll never forget it. All I asked was could I go to the bathroom. I was six, about to pee my pants. That buckle had my legs scabbed up for weeks.”

  She plunked down on the bed, scooting herself back against the headboard, holding the remote in one hand, the drink in the other. She channel surfed before settling on a show that switched scenes with a sound like jail doors clanging.

  “I love these crime shows, don’t you?”

  “Not particularly.” I ate the other cheesecake she didn’t want.

  “Yeah, you probably see this stuff in real life, huh. I bet they get it all wrong.”

  “That’s part of it.”

  The other part, the greater part, was that I resented how residents of Hollywood’s gated communities profited from tragic lives—lives like Felicia’s—all the while shaking their heads sadly as though genuine concern was a legitimate part of their commerce. The only learning these shows provided went to the cons who picked up new tricks from prison.

  “Can I ask you something?” she said suddenly.

  “Sure.”

  “They’ll put Bookman away for good. Right?”

  “That depends on you, from what I hear.”

  Bookman, I learned, had been Felicia’s pimp since she was fourteen, luring her out of Portland, taking her away from the nice Christian father who wielded a belt buckle for paternal respect. But Bookman turned out to be worse, far worse, and Felicia worked the streets of Seattle with fresh beatings that made the buckle feel like a feather by comparison. Now twenty-two, Felicia had the face and figure of a middle-aged woman.

  “He’ll kill me,” she said. “You guys know that?”

  “When you see him in court, don’t feel sorry for him. Don’t hold anything back. Put him away for good, Felicia.”

  Rape, extortion, battery, kidnapping a minor, crossing state lines—all the man’s offenses before Felicia described the meth lab inside the house and the back door that rotated junkies through the kitchen.

  On the TV, a pedophile received a long lecture from two inordinately good-looking actors wearing fake badges clipped to designer shirts. Felicia set her glass on the nightstand, bumping the telephone, and stumbled across the room to the luggage rack. She rifled through her duffel bag again, then shambled back to bed holding a plastic picture frame with a photo of two small mulatto boys and a baby girl with blonde hair as fine as corn silk. The baby looked dazed, her green eyes vague. Felicia set the frame on the table, bumping her drink.

  “Cute kids,” I said.

  She climbed under the covers, rolling onto her side away from me. The television program concluded with the sound of cell doors, and another crime show followed featuring sexual assault victims. I glanced over, about to ask if we could please change the channel, when I heard a snore.

  I walked over to the bed. Felicia’s mouth had fallen open and I could see missing teeth among her back molars, small red caves in her gums. Her heart-shaped face looked almost pretty, her eyelashes dark crescents on the white skin. But she had been crying, as silently as she had laughed, and the salty rivulets ran like dry streams down her cheeks.

  I turned down the TV’s volume and walked to the desk, picking up the phone and dialing Aunt Charlotte’s house.

  “Raleigh, where are you?” she said. “It’s past ten o’clock.”

  “I won’t be home until tomorrow.”

  “Are you in danger?”

  “No. I’m on assignment.”

  “You’re in danger—I can hear it in your voice. You need one of my necklaces.”

  “No, really, Aunt Charlotte. I’m fine.”

  She lowered her voice. “What should I tell your mother?”

  When my disciplinary transfer to Seattle became official, I called Aunt Charlotte. She was thrilled we were moving and invited us to live with her. Plenty of room, she insisted. But I explained my caveat: my mother must never know I work for the FBI; she would only worry, become even more paranoid. As far as my mother knew, I was a geologist. Aunt Charlotte promised she wouldn’t slip. “Honey,” she told me at the time, “working for the FBI is not something I’d broadcast around this city anyway. Remember the WTO riots?”

  “Tell Mom I’m out of town. Tell her the geology firm needs a rush study done in Yakima. I should be home tomorrow.”

  There was a long pause. “You’re sure you’re not in any danger?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Where are you? I’ll bring you one of my necklaces. You need protection.”

  “That’s the gun’s job.”

  “That is not funny.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’ll call you if there’s an emergency.”

  I carried the thermal carafe of coffee to the bed, stretching out. I didn’t have pajamas, since Jack pulled me for duty so quickly, and sleep was risky, considering Bookman’s criminal ambitions. I drank two cups of coffee staring at the muted television, then turned it off and switched on the light between our beds. Felicia mumbled incoherently as though waking up, so I draped a white bath towel over the sconce, dimming the light.

  In the nightstand drawer, I found a red Bible courtesy of the Gideons. This copy was dedicated to a woman named Jacqueline Harris from her four children, and when I turned to the book of Luke, the spine crackled as though never opened. I read about the woman at the well and kept reading through the night until a dove-gray dawn spread across the sky outside and the clouds curdled the way they do just before heavy rain.

  chapter five

  Felicia slept like a lobotomized rock. In the morning, she was still facing the photograph of her children on the nightstand. Except for that one brief moment, I had not seen her stir once.

  I cleaned my face with a washcloth, not wanting to risk a shower, then walked to her bed.

  “Felicia.” My voice sounded hoarse from no sleep and too much coffee. “Felicia, time to get up.”

  I called her name a third time. She didn’t react. I walked over to the window and turned on the air-conditioning unit, twisting the plastic knob to the coolest setting. I switched on every light in the room.

  “Felicia.”

  Her skin was the color of the dawn—dark milky gray—and when I yanked back the blanket, her fetal position had the desperate and fearful appearance of human remains excavated from ancient volcanic ash. I shook her shoulder. No response.

  With a stab of panic, I pressed my fingers into her thick neck. Her pulse throbbed against my skin, slow and steady, the yellow Disney pajamas lifting and lowering on her narrow rib cage. I leaned down, speaking directly into her ear. Not even a startle.

  I picked up the clock radio, scanning the stations until a guitar screamed. Cranking the volume, I placed the radio beside her head.

  Not even a flicker across the eyelids.

  I turned on the television, where the early morning news offered a litany of depressing events. I raised the volume until every word from the pretty blonde newscaster shot through my brain like a dull arrow. Felicia didn’t react, but the light on the night-stand phone vibrated red; the phone was ringing. Felicia smacked her lips, uttering a low bovine moan. Her eyelids fluttered.

  “Hello?” I said into the phone.

  “This is the front desk.” The woman’s voice sounded angry. “We have quiet hours.”

  I looked down. Felicia was gone again.

  “Do me a favor,” I said. “Call this room until a woman answers.”

  I hung up, turned down the TV, and walked into the bath-room. When the phone rang, I turned on the sink faucet, soaking a white washcloth under cold water until my fingers numbed. The phone rang and rang, then suddenly stopped. I stepped out, cradling the washcloth in both hands, and saw Felicia still in bed with the telephone receiver pressed against her left ear. Her eyes
were closed, her elbow bent, wavering above her face.

  “Mmmm, who is this?” she mumbled.

  I watched her listen to the aggrieved voice on the other end. Her eyes flew open, enlarged and sightless and fired by interior panic. When she looked at me, standing beside the bed with a dripping washcloth, another flicker of light crossed her face.

  “What—?” She pulled herself up. “What—where am I?”

  I hung up the phone, turned down the radio, and dropped the washcloth into the sink. I tossed Felicia’s duffel bag onto the bed. “Get dressed.”

  She pulled the nylon blanket up to her shoulders, scooting down into the bed. “It’s cold. Why is it so cold in here?”

  “Get up, Felicia.” I yanked off the blanket.

  “What’s your problem?”

  “Get out of that bed now. Or you’ll find out what cold really feels like.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  I walked to the sink, picking up the dripping washcloth, and started back toward her.

  She sat up, holding both hands in front of her. “What is with you?”

  I threw the washcloth back into the sink and yanked jeans and a T-shirt from the duffel. “We’re going to be late.”

  “You should have gotten me up earlier,” she said.

  “Felicia . . .”

  “I’m going!”

  She started with the jeans, one foot creeping as though into a tunnel full of spiders. She rested before the next leg, eyes closing.

  “Felicia!”

  “Lay off!”

  I counted to fifteen—because ten was never long enough—and took several deep breaths. “Jack wants us at the courthouse at seven thirty. If we’re not there, it’s a problem. For both of us.”

  She yawned, smacking her lips. “I got cotton mouth. Can I get a soda?”

  “No.”

  “Reach in that little refrigerator. The soda’s right there.”

  When I didn’t move, she scowled.

  “I got a headache,” she said.

  She shimmied into a red T-shirt with the words “I’m the Princess” spread across the chest in pink glitter. She yawned again and tried to run her fingers through her long hair. Her hand kept missing, combing the air, and my anger evaporated.

  “Do you always sleep like that?” I asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Dead to the world.”

  She bent down for her socks. Red, the heels worn to nothing but threads.

  “Where I come from,” she said, “dead to the world keeps you alive.”

  Thirty minutes later, in the happy plastic seats at the McDonald’s beside the ferry dock, we ate breakfast under fluorescent lights. Felicia’s skin looked sallow, but she ate three hash browns and sucked down a supersized Diet Coke. Her eyes watched the exits.

  “By this afternoon,” I said, “it’ll all be over.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  I drove the Barney Mobile east from the waterfront into Pioneer Square and parked in a lot where the windshields reflected gunmetal clouds like bars of lead. When I climbed out, I had to turn sideways to shrug into the reserve blazer from the hanger in back. It didn’t smell great. I checked my gun and cell phone and watch. We had ten minutes.

  Felicia was still in the passenger seat, staring at a brick wall.

  I leaned down, speaking across the front seat. “You okay?”

  She shook her head. “I ate too many of them hash browns. I think I’m gonna throw up.”

  I raced around the car, squeezing between bumpers, and yanked open her door at the precise moment the hash browns and Diet Coke hurled toward the dashboard, a brown heap of masticated food. It dripped off the blue vinyl and plopped on the plastic floor mat. The sound was like a finger at the back of my throat.

  “Oh, Felicia.”

  She coughed, wept. Then threw up again.

  I opened the back door, grabbing her duffel, tossing the tattered clothes on the seat. At the bottom of her bag, I found the large white towel with Edgewater Hotel embroidered on it.

  “We’d be in a real mess if you didn’t steal this towel,” I said, wiping her face. “That was real planning on your part.”

  “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I was joking, Felicia. It’s not a big deal. We’ll get you cleaned up and ready to go.”

  “I wish I could kill myself.”

  “Felicia, relax. My car already smelled like puke. What’s more of the same?”

  But she didn’t hear me. Or couldn’t. She rocked on the seat, forward and back, her plaintive apology circling into a chant that rose from the car with the sickly smell. I lifted her legs, swiveling her body to wipe vomit from her shoes, and suddenly realized her apologies were not meant for me. They were larger, wider. Messier than early morning vomit in an ugly car. The words continued to search for solace or wisdom or grace, falling from her lips like shattered glass. I eased her from the car and leaned her against the brick wall. She grew quieter, sniffing back tears, but the pink glitter words on her shirt were ringed with dark stains, the word princess mocking her. Despite the possibility of rain, I cracked all four windows, then tossed the towel in a green Dumpster behind the parking lot. Taking her elbow, I walked Felicia to the court-house for a date with justice.

  Jack Stephanson waited inside. He wore a three-button navy suit, a green silk tie the color of weathered copper, and a face creased with fury.

  “What happened to her?” he said.

  “She had breakfast twice. Down and up.”

  Felicia dropped her head. “I’m sorry.”

  Jack stepped forward, then caught a whiff. Revulsion swept across his face. But his voice purred.

  “Felicia, honey, you’re nervous. I’d be nervous too. But we’ll take care of everything. Stay here, don’t move. I’ll be right back.” He placed a shoebox in her hands. “I got you something special for the big day. Brand-new shoes.”

  Felicia wiped her nose with the back of one hand and opened the box.

  “Atta girl,” Jack said.

  He pushed me to the side. “This is how you babysit a witness? No wonder they booted you out of Richmond.”

  “Don’t you dare pin this on me, Jack. You told her to raid the minibar. You told her to have some drunken pajama party. Guess what? She did what you said.”

  “Get her in the bathroom, clean her up. I had the guard hang a dress in the third stall. She wears panty hose too. They’re in the shoe box.”

  I looked at him. “You knew she’d do this.”

  “Clean her up.”

  “You wanted her to do this, on my watch.”

  “I want her looking like Mary Poppins,” he said. “If you can’t handle that, I’ll find somebody who can. Got it?”

  “Oh, I got it, Jack. Believe me, I got it.”

  Bookman Landrow turned out to be a wiry black man, and the blaze orange jumpsuit courtesy of the King County Sheriff’s Department made his long dark arms look like burnt twigs. Indistinct tattoos swirled across his skin, looking more like bruises than ink, and when he turned to look at Felicia, the expression in his almond-shaped eyes iced my spine.

  “He’s going to kill me,” Felicia gasped. “I told you, he’s going to kill me.”

  “Don’t give him the chance. Put him away for good.”

  We sat directly behind the prosecutor’s table, the first wooden bench from the small gate that provided the only barrier between Felicia and the man who wanted to kill her. Bookman’s defense attorney was a compact, intense man named Joe Morrisson who kept pressing a manicured hand to his charcoal pin-striped suit as he conferred with Bookman, whispering asides that Bookman took for opportunities to send Felicia the dead look.

  “Keep your eyes off him,” I told her. “Especially when you get on the stand. If they ask you to identify him, point, but stare at his forehead.”

  Her skin was chalk white and the sores on her face glowed in contrast, aggravated by the scratchy paper tow
els I’d used on her in the bathroom. Combined with the outfit Jack picked out—navy rayon dress with ecru lace collar and blue pumps—Felicia looked lost and depressed, like a polygamous Mormon wife on suicide watch. In an attempt to avoid Bookman’s stares, Felicia opened her purse. It was a fashion detail Jack had overlooked and she pawed through the cracked leather pouch mumbling to herself. I listened in a distracted way, watching Jack finish his conversation with the U.S. attorney on the case. My head felt weighted, the way it did just before a bad cold set in, but each time Felicia’s arm brushed against mine, I felt a jolt of the anxiety coursing through her veins.

  “I’m never drinking again,” she said, still digging. “I’m never having another drink so long as I live. No more drugs neither. I’m gonna get my kids back, get a job. Soon as I’m done here, that’s what I’m doing.”

  “Good girl,” I said. “Way to go.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I.”

  Her head dropped over the purse again, her murmured words falling into the bag. “Me and alcohol, it’s as bad as me and Bookman. Me and everything is bad.” She looked up. “Hey, you want this?”

  I looked over. She held a green plastic disk the size of a quarter, with white lettering embossed around the crimped edges.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a free token. You know that Indian casino, out I-90?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’m never going there again neither. I just go broke out there. The slots. What do they say? If I didn’t have bad luck I’d have no luck at all. That’s me.”

  Before I could tell her there was no such thing as luck, the bailiff told us to rise. Felicia dropped the green disk into my hand.

  chapter six

  Friday morning Allen McLeod called me into his glass box of an office. Jack Stephanson leaned against the cube’s far wall, one ankle crossed over the other. A slender woman with sloe-brown eyes and dark hair like polished tiger’s eye sat in one of the available chairs. I took the seat beside her.

  “Harmon, meet Lucia Lutini.” McLeod dropped into the big chair behind his desk. “Lucia’s our victim support coordinator. You two can talk later. Right now, we’ve got to deal with this other mess.” He clasped his hands, laying them on his stomach. “I don’t want to go barking up a horse’s mouth, but it looks like we’ve got a serious situation here.”