“Some sort of murderer? Maybe the prickly surprise is a deadly poisonous puffer fish.”
“See,” said Nathan, “you say you don’t want a bodyguard, but then you have theories like that. I’m here to take that puffer fish hit for you.”
I started walking, lugging Undine along with me. Jesus, she was heavy. If I ever was going to become a parent—years from now, reader, years and years from now, if that happens at all—I was going to need to start working out. Mommy better get swole.
Nathan tagged after me, not offering to carry this thousand-pound baby.
“The thing is, Nathan, there is no deadly puffer fish. You’re the puffer fish.”
“Are you angry about it?” asked Nathan.
And it struck me, suddenly, that perhaps I was. My mood wasn’t being improved by the fact that I was holding a baby carrier that was apparently made of lead, or yttrium, or some other impossibly heavy metal. But I sort of was, actually.
“It was a little thoughtless of you to jerk me around like that. Why not just say: ‘Hey, it’s Nathan. See you tomorrow,’ like people do.”
“Well,” said Nathan. “I suppose that’s fair.” Although he was using the tone of voice of someone who did not think that it was fair. He was using the tone of voice of someone who thought it was not fair at all.
“As long as we don’t want to ‘jerk each other around,’” said Nathan, “how about not telling me that you’re exhausted and aren’t up for anything, and then stay up and stream for three hours immediately after I leave.”
“You watched my stream?” I asked.
“I got an alert that you started streaming before I even made it out of your building. I was still in the elevator! Which is fine. You could just say, ‘Hey, Nathan, I’m planning on streaming some tonight.’ You know, like people do.”
We had made it to the theater, which was great on the one hand, but also a little awkward, because it meant that my discussion with Nathan was ending on a very unresolved note. But it was definitely ending because Daniel leaped out of his chair—still wearing his scary mask and claws—and grabbed Nathan in a hug.
Yeah, Daniel knew exactly how scary he was looking. This was not Charice’s fella by accident.
“What is happening?” asked Nathan.
“It’s me, Daniel!”
“This is your bodyguard?”
“Yes,” I said. “He has claws for stabbing. And he can double-jump off walls. You know, in case that’s relevant.”
Why I was wasting Street Fighter humor on Nathan, I’ll never know.
“Thank God you’re back. We’re going to win again!” said Daniel.
“I didn’t realize you guys played this game,” said Nathan.
“Our opponents have gone missing again,” I said. “I don’t even see Swan anymore.”
“We’re like the Bermuda Triangle of fighting-game players,” said Daniel, who was back to emitting deadly radiation levels of happiness. How long was the half-life on this thing?
But Daniel and Nathan were having a dialogue of their own.
“Do you mean that entirely natural, explainable weather patterns that exist around the two of you have been exaggerated by the media in a sensationalistic way?”
“No, I mean we have hoodoo,” said Daniel. “Voodoo, even. Possibly juju.”
Nathan’s response was classically him—he was definitely the Scully in our relationship, although I’m not actually Fox. Maybe a contestant on The Bachelor. One of those fodder girls who inexplicably seem to be on the show despite obviously never having seen it. That’s me! But I digress. Nathan had a point. It was an accidental point, but even so, he was right about the media. I could see it on the face of the organizer. Our opponents were dropping like flies. It was suspicious.
“We can compare notes on magic rhyming words later,” I told the guys. “Let’s get this round settled first.”
“Sure,” said Daniel. “And why do you have a baby?”
I explained the business with Undine to Daniel, who took her presence with good grace, although he didn’t go in for cooing. Nor did Swan, who showed up looking frazzled and tired and completely without his partner.
“Is he here? Did you see him?” asked Swan.
“No,” I told him. “But he was on the boat earlier.”
Swan’s face scrunched up at me suspiciously. “How do you know that?” Any goodwill he had had toward me for busting him out of that utility closet yesterday had completely faded.
“I checked the ship’s registry. He’s here. Or he was.”
“I can’t fucking believe this,” said Swan. “Am I cursed? Is this a freaking curse?”
“Maybe it’s us that’s cursed,” offered Daniel. I wouldn’t have suggested this, given that Swan seemed suspicious of us already, but maybe it was the right thing to say, because he looked relaxed by the idea.
“Do you know how much my plane ticket out here was? It’s just all thrown away.”
I had a few thoughts on this topic, none of which I shared with Swan, but I’ll mention to you now. First of all, if least importantly, a trip to St. Louis is never a waste of time. It’s a great town! Have fun here! And besides which, dude, you’re on a steamboat. How much more picturesque do you want to be?
“Don’t be sad,” I told him. “Look, cheer up! Here’s a baby!”
Swan looked at the baby skeptically, as though he were regarding a rival. “Hello, Undine,” he said, coolly. “We meet again.”
This is a ridiculous way to greet a twelve-day-old—I’m sorry, thirteen-day-old person, but Swan was cornering the market on ridiculous behavior. I couldn’t help but notice that although he seemed angry, he didn’t seem angry at Chul-Moo, which I thought was very curious. He was angry at me, or the situation, or Undine, whom I suppose he had met yesterday sometime, but he wasn’t cursing out his partner. I’d probably curse at Daniel plenty if he stood me up, and I didn’t even want to win. “So what do you think happened to Chul-Moo?” I asked, venturing for the direct approach.
“What do you think happened to him?” asked Swan, vaguely accusatory. I took this neutrally, perhaps because I still had a baby, which tends to make you not sweat the small things.
“Well,” I said carefully, surprised by how much audience I was being given by Daniel and Nathan. They were giving me the sort of looks reserved for the moment when the detective puts everything together. I appreciated the vote of confidence, but I wasn’t quite there yet, fellas. “I’m wondering if he isn’t naked in a utility closet somewhere.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Swan. “I wouldn’t put him in a broom closet.”
And that was a very weird response.
“I wouldn’t think you did,” I told him. “I would have guessed that it was your lady of the night. Maybe she also works mornings.”
Swan seemed to recognize that he had made a gaffe, but he didn’t acknowledge it any way other than to talk faster.
“Chul-Moo’s just not that kind of guy,” said Swan. “He wouldn’t go in for that. Anyway, I’m going to go look for him. Maybe I’ll take your advice about the closets, though.”
And he shot out of there like a rocket. He didn’t even speak to the organizer to explain what was going on.
“Have you figured out the case?” asked Nathan after he left. “You’re making a really great ‘I’ve solved the case’ face.”
“I haven’t,” I told him. “But I’m starting to get some ideas.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Since Swan hightailed it, I took it upon myself to explain to the organizer what was happening, because we couldn’t all ignore him. I was glad that yesterday’s redhead was not on hand to admonish us for our progress through the tournament, because I was feeling bogus enough about it already. The guy on hand was very formal, displaying not the slightest reaction, favorable or unfavorable, as he entered us as the round winners into the logbook. However, we were in a crowded room this time, and the audience was none too pleased. I could
hear the rumblings. For one, they had hoped to watch a match—and this news meant no match—and for another, well, this was the kind of rumor that gamers love to spread. Rookie female fighter wins tournament when all of her opponents mysteriously disappear? One more match of this and I was going to be on the front page of reddit.
Daniel, however, was as buoyed at ever. He’d probably love to be on the front page of reddit, actually. He was definitely someone who knew how to make the most of an opportunity. I had expected him to say something else congratulatory to me, because he had a smug look on his face, but he said quite the opposite:
“You know, this rash of winning is becoming a little inconvenient.”
“Yes,” I said, glancing out at the sea of frowns in the stadium seating before us. “I know what you mean.”
“I was planning to retreat with Charice for the rest of the day,” said Daniel, “but now we’ve got another engagement.”
“What do you mean engagement?”
“We’re scheduled for another match in forty minutes. I’m actually thinking about blowing this one off. Would you hate me terribly?”
This was a surprising thing for Daniel to want, given my interactions with him so far, which had had an improbable sort of Blue Dragon “I will not be defeated!” quality to them.
“I wish you’d been this willing to walk away yesterday,” I said. “What’s changed?”
“Charice is here today,” said Daniel. “Plans are afoot.”
“Daniel is going to propose,” I told Nathan, who seemed to have a question lodged in his forehead.
“Ah,” said Nathan. “Congratulations!”
“No congratulations, not yet,” said Daniel. “Not until after she says yes.”
“She’ll say yes,” Nathan said. “She’s all over you.”
“We’ll see,” said Daniel. “I’ve lured her into a broom closet, but I know that she won’t stay in one place for long.”
And Daniel dashed off. I didn’t want to stay in a room of gamers that appeared to be grumbling about me, and so I decided we should follow after him, albeit slowly. Nathan tagged along with me, and I realized that he was basically going to be hanging around me for the rest of the day. Which wasn’t bad, just unexpected.
“Why is Charice in a broom closet?” asked Nathan, who had a talent for asking reasonable questions and not letting the insane pass by without comment.
“She doesn’t know that Daniel is cosplaying, and he wants to get the jump on her.”
“I see,” he said, although I wasn’t sure that he entirely did. “So what are we doing now? What’s the next step in solving the case?”
I did not know what the next step in solving the case was. I wasn’t entirely sure there was a case. Someone murdered Karou, sure, and someone sent me a mysterious message. There wasn’t a case; there was an asshole. I surely didn’t need to go around unmasking every possible asshole in the world.
“I don’t know what the next step in solving the case is,” I told Nathan. “But I know what the next step in life is.”
“Ooh,” said Nathan. “That sounds even more inviting. What’s the next step in life?”
“We have to get rid of this baby.”
Jeez, when I type it out like that, it looks a little sinister. “We have to get rid of this baby.” Like I’m going to drown her in a sink. I just want it to go on record here and now that this is not the plan. This ain’t Gillian Flynn, folks. I just mean give Undine back to Tricia or Kyle, or if they are not available, a responsible-looking adult. Like a wandering nanny with a magical umbrella, should that come along.
Anyway, I walked along the deck, which had a lovely view of East St. Louis, which sounds like it should be a joke, but actually wasn’t. The view would have been lovelier, undoubtedly, if there were magical nannies filling the sky, but it wasn’t half-bad.
“Whose baby is this?” asked Nathan. Ah, Nathan, with the logical questions.
“There’s a woman named Tricia who had a bathroom emergency.”
“Do you know this woman?”
I did not, in all honesty, know Tricia. I actually wasn’t sure what her last name was, which really ought to be a thing one knows about a woman whose baby you are carrying around. I mentioned this to Nathan.
“I think that’s very, very odd,” said Nathan. “It’s practically suspicious.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said. I felt I ought to stand up for Tricia, for some reason, although Nathan was probably right. I probably wouldn’t have given my baby to Tricia, had our roles been reversed, and of course I somehow had a baby.
“I would pee with the baby,” said Nathan.
“Maybe it’s more dire than that.”
“How dire can it be? It’s a baby. All she does is poop and pee, really. It’s not like you’re going to offend Undine’s delicate sensibilities.”
“Maybe Tricia’s gone into the bathroom to snort a line of cocaine.”
“Eh,” said Nathan. “You could still bring the baby for that.”
It’s comments like this that undoubtedly make Nathan Willing seem like a great candidate for fatherhood. I envisioned him dragging a small infant into a poop-smeared men’s room, peeing with one hand, holding a baby with the other, and snorting a line of cocaine off the top of the urinal while ducking his head. It could be worse—at least he could multitask.
Finding Tricia, however, was slightly harder than I had imagined. I checked the bar, and there was no sign of her. I went to the women’s restroom, perhaps a bit improbably, and she also was not there, although I did just yell out her name, as opposed to looking under every stall. This disquieted me, not because I thought she had been murdered—although, lately that is becoming my go-to thought for a missing person—but because I was fairly certain that she was on the other side of the ship, looking for me, and probably getting increasingly angry and/or anxious about the disappearance of her child.
“You look troubled,” said Nathan, and this was putting a fine face on it. There was something basically thunderous about Tricia, and I’m not just talking about her bulk and size, but something fundamental. She was one of those people who were cheerful and affable up until they weren’t.
“We’ve got to get this woman her baby back,” I said, “before she goes Mama Grizzly.”
“You told her that you had to go play,” said Nathan.
This was both a reasonable and profoundly unhelpful thing to say, although I didn’t have time to process it. Probably I was overreacting. But I didn’t dwell on that either, much because it became apparent to me that the boat was in motion. The Major Redding was on the move.
“Are we taking off? Is that supposed to be happening?”
“Of course it’s supposed to be happening. Why do you think the tickets were seventy-five dollars and there was a strict occupancy limit?”
I suppose I was more concerned about the murder and the multiple people threatening to meet with me. “Where are we going?” I asked Nathan.
“Just down a town and back,” said Nathan. “Enjoy the ride. It’ll be great for Daniel’s plan.”
“It seems so wasteful,” I said. “Gamers aren’t going to care about this.”
“Some of them might,” said Nathan. “Besides, they have to do it. It was a Kickstarter stretch goal when they crowdfunded the game. I bet they never imagined that wealthy benefactors would call their bluff.”
It was all very vacation-like, but I found it unnerving that Nathan, who hadn’t really been paying very much attention to the case, seemed to have a better idea of what was going on than I did.
“Enjoy the view, Dahlia. Let the calming currents of the Mississippi relax you.”
It did relax me, improbably enough. Of course, part of the relaxation was the idea that Tricia would be calmed by the idea that Undine and I had to be on the boat, and so if she couldn’t find us in the moment, what’s the big deal? And I don’t know why I was quite so prepossessed with the idea that Tricia was going to be a
ngry with me—she practically forced this baby on me. I was probably thinking of my own mother, who was the sort of person who might pick up and throw a car to save one of her children. I did not want anyone throwing cars at me.
And then, all of a sudden, there was Charice. And the relaxation, such as it was, was over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Dahlia,” said Charice. “You won’t believe what just happened to me!”
“You were lured into a broom closet, and then stood up?”
Charice’s jaw dropped, and, man, she could do a good jaw drop. Snakes who can eat their prey whole could take a lesson from her. But it wasn’t something you saw much of, because she was tough to surprise.
“How on earth did you come up with that?”
“I have a good idea who sent you that message.”
Charice, in contrast to Nathan, Daniel, and any sensible person, did not ask me why I was walking around with a baby; although, she noticed the baby, because she bent down and started cooing at her. She stopped being shocked and focused her efforts on Undine, whom she had entirely failed to notice in line with Kyle and Tricia. Boy, she was making up for it now. Charice and babies. There was a thought I wanted to put out of my head.
“Who is this angel you have with you?” she asked.
I was disappointed by this turn, because I wanted to bask in my powers of detection. But no one was having it.
“It’s a baby Dahlia kidnapped,” said Nathan.
“I didn’t,” I said. “She was thrust into my arms.”
“It was a Moses situation,” continued Nathan. “She came drifting down the river. Dahlia is protecting her from angry pharaohs.”
“Nothing Nathan says is true.”
“Hyperbole!” shouted Nathan.
He was so over-the-top about it that I nearly missed the phone alert I had set up earlier, which was a nice little chip-tune melody that was challenging to hear over his yelling.
“Wait,” I said. “Do you know what that sound means?”
“Commissioner Gordon is calling?” asked Charice.
The Astonishing Mistakes of Dahlia Moss Page 16
