Highfire

by Eoin Colfer

  “Could be,” admitted Hooke. “There was a camera involved. I’m pretty sure it’s blown to pieces, but they make these things rugged nowadays.”

  “Did you happen to mention Ivory’s name while you were conducting business?”

  “Now that is a pertinent question,” said Hooke. “I might have relayed a message from Mister Conti—‘This is from Ivory’ kind of thing.”

  “Well, that’s just fucking great,” said G-Hop. “Just fucking dandy. I should just do you, Hooke. Seriously.”

  Hooke actually laughed at this death threat. “You best not talk trash, son, or you’ll go the way of your brother, know what I mean?”

  “Goddamn,” swore G-Hop. “Look at this for a clusterfuck. I put you on this, Hooke, because you assured me you were talented and discreet. ‘Talented and discreet,’ your very words.”

  “I am discreet,” argued Hooke, feeling a tightness in his chest. “I was discreet—but so was the asshole in the bushes.”

  “And you thought I sent a spotter?” said Rossano Roque. “To keep you on a leash.”

  “Crossed my mind.”

  G-Hop took a moment to assess before speaking. “Okay. Here’s my take on it, cop. Maybe I did send the spotter, in which case Ivory owns you. But then he already owns you, and a lot more like you. But I’m saying that I didn’t send a spotter, in which case you got a problem running around Honey Island Swamp. If I was you, I’d be assuming that I didn’t send that spotter and start looking for him on your end, ’cause even if I did send him, there ain’t dick you can do about it anyways.”

  It made sense, Hooke had to admit, if only to himself. If Ivory had the video, then it was now locked in the famous super-safe in his office, which Hooke was not getting into without a specialist. If Ivory didn’t have the video, then someone in Regence’s own parish did, and he’d better go and sort that shit out before the clip made it back to Ivory.

  “The kid who filmed you,” said G-Hop. “If not sent by Ivory, then local, yeah?”

  “Correct,” said Hooke.

  More sense from Roque. “Is there a local kid who might like you gone? Some kid who knows the bayou?”

  “Shit, Colonel, there’s maybe two dozen. But I know who’s top of the list.”

  Squib Moreau, thought Hooke, and immediately felt the rightness of it. That little prick hates me on account of my future relationship with his momma. If it was him, then it’s only a matter of time before the video winds up being played for a jury of my peers, or even worse.

  “And here, Your Honor, is where Constable Hooke guts the drug smuggler with his knife. We can see the intestines clearly.”

  And the judge would say, “Turn that shit off. I just ate a burrito.”

  G-Hop was waiting for his take. “Well,” said the self-styled ninja, “you got any thoughts on the subject?”

  Hooke took his time. “I tell you one thing, G-Hop,” he said finally, “I ain’t about to talk burritos with no judge.”

  Which confused the hell out of Rossano Roque.

  Just the way I like him, thought Hooke, and hung up without another word.

  Squib Moreau, thought Hooke, his heart beating almost hard enough to crack ribs.

  Squib fucking Moreau, thought Hooke, and the sight faded from his eyes.

  Chapter 8

  SQUIB TOLD HIS MOMMA THAT WEIRD OLD WAXMAN ACROSS THE river had offered him a little work during the summer, same kind of thing he did for Bodi, and what’s more, old Waxman wasn’t so weird really, and in fact he wasn’t even so old. Elodie asked Bodi’s opinion, and they both reckoned it was okay so long as Squib turned in fifty percent of his wages and was in bed by midnight, which Squib promised he would be even as he knew he wouldn’t.

  Thing is, Momma, I got to run errands for Vern the dragon, else he’ll barbecue my Cajun ass.

  Wasn’t no way he could break that sort of news.

  Oh, and I oughta tell you, your boyfriend is a stone-cold killer.

  Another fact that would have to be dealt with.

  Dragon first, dirty cop later.

  But knowing what he knew now, Squib vowed that he could never again allow Regence Hooke into their house.

  Waxman WhatsApp’d him to bring meat lovers’ pizzas, so Squib stopped by the Pearl Bar and Grill for a couple of extra-large pies before motoring across the river. The Pearl was quiet at this time of the evening, and Squib’s own outboard made the biggest fuss, apart from a party cruiser downriver somewhere that was cranking out a bass line that thrummed across the sound.

  Squib liked the evening with the molasses of Louisiana sun pouring across the back of his neck and arms. He liked the water, too, on account of how it changed color so quick, like one second it was copper green, and then it became sheet steel with silver curlicues edging the catspaws, and then finally sky blue. A fella could be out here in his own boat, and in between the banks was a sanctuary where there wasn’t nothing but river: a few minutes of time-out from the world. Squib spent most of his holiday hours out here when he wasn’t hustling or putting in his shifts. He tended his crawfish nets, or he went after old catfish in their holes. And he thought that maybe, when the time came and he was an old man, he would fix himself up a shack in the deep swamp where tourists never poked their noses and just exist out there permanent like. That was if he didn’t fall in love, which was a possibility, he supposed. Charles Jr. fell in love once a fortnight, but it never stuck. Squib figured he himself was too far on the wrong side of the tracks for those girls to ever seriously consider him any kind of material.

  Squib’s father was another subject for thought. Momma couldn’t even talk about him. She had tried a couple of times, made a real effort to communicate on the subject, but every time Elodie opened her mouth to say his name, her throat closed up and the tears fell like they might never stop. It got so Squib couldn’t broach the subject because if he tried to focus in on any Daddy-centric memories, he felt a lurch in his stomach that was like to make him hurl. Could be his insides remembered something his outside had forgot.

  Tonight Squib had no time for aimless ponderings. He had pizzas to deliver to nonhumans.

  And beignets.

  Waxman had asked for a sack of Bodi’s spiced beignets.

  I forgot the goddamn beignets.

  Way to make a first impression, dumbass.

  It was too late to turn back. Waxman was expecting him at nightfall, and that was just about right now. He could always nip back across once the pizzas were divvied up.

  Squib had tied off at Waxman’s landing maybe a hundred times, but tonight was different. Tonight he was brimful of trepidation. The smell of the pizzas suddenly turned his stomach, and he thought he might experience his very first water heave.

  Burned meat, he thought. It could be me in that box presently.

  But Squib was a sailor at heart, and he swallowed down the bile and stepped neatly to the planking, doing this thing he did where he flicked the bow loop over a decking pole with the toe of one sneaker. Didn’t work everywhere, but Waxman’s dock was made for it, and it heartened Squib some that he could pull off the little stunt even with the nerves gnawing at him.

  I could be a good runner for old Vern, he thought. The best.

  It looked like old Vern was gone, for it was Waxman alone waiting for him under the striped veranda with the oak copse at his back and a longneck dangling from his fingers.

  “You done forgot the beignets, ain’t you?” he said from his deck chair. “I can smell pizza, but there ain’t no beignets within half a mile.”

  Squib allowed that he had. “I did forget, but I can zip back over. Ain’t a problem.”

  Waxman grinned. “Considering the alternative, I imagine not. But no, I guess the pizza will do.”

  Squib relaxed a little, allowing his shoulders to slump. “Where’s the boss?”

  “Vern lit out. He don’t like spending two nights this close to civilization. Anyways, he ain’t my boss. Seems like you got yourself four bosses at
least. Maybe five, counting Hooke.”

  “Five, huh,” said Squib. “No wonder I don’t sleep good.”

  Waxman finished his beer and placed the empty in a recycling crate. “Maybe I can help straighten out a few things. Give you an induction, so to speak.”

  Squib delivered one of the pizzas into Waxman’s waiting hands. “A training day?”

  “Easy, Denzel,” said Waxman. “We ain’t got ourselves a day. Alls we got is how long it takes you to bury me.”

  “Bury you?”

  Waxman laughed. “Sure, bury me. What the hell you think all that dragon shit is for?”

  THE LAY OF the land was as follows. The mogwai went into hibernation once in a while to recharge the batteries. Some ancestor of Waxman’s had discovered God knows how that the best dirt for a mogwai to lie in was dragon crap. Apparently it’s chock-full of vitamins and nutrients: a superfood, so to speak. The more fresh shit went in, the better a mogwai came out of it.

  Waxman directed Squib to excavate a section of his fruit and vegetable patch, which he had already cleared of bananas, squash, and potatoes.

  “Hell, boy,” said Waxman, as Squib put his back into digging a mogwai-sized pit through the soft loam and coffee grinds, “three months of shut-eye and I’ll be good as new. All the aches and pains straightened out. Especially with a good fella like yourself topping me up.”

  Squib hacked at a root with the blade of his spade. “Are you sure about this, Waxman? It feels an awful lot like I’m digging a grave here. I don’t wanna go down for murder in the first ’cause of some eagle-eyed fisherman getting a load of this.”

  Waxman gestured with a folded slice of pizza. “I got you covered, Squib. There’s two letters inside on the table. One is a shopping list for your first delivery to His Dragon Highness, and the other is for my attorney in Slidell. Says I’m gone traveling up to Alaska and you are legal caretaker while I’m gone. Plus the house is yours if’n I don’t come back. I am coming back, mind, so don’t you go getting no ideas.”

  Squib severed the root and dragged the tentacle from the suck of wet earth. “I ain’t got time for ideas,” he said. “Five bosses, remember?”

  “I suppose not,” said Waxman. “We best get to it then.”

  “I’d appreciate that, sir,” said Squib. “Is there a lot to it? Running for Vern?”

  Waxman chewed thoughtfully, thinking back. “Yeah, I guess. He can be a grumpy old lizard—though he ain’t a lizard, technically. I call him Lord Highfire, ironic-like, ’cause he ain’t no lord no more, but there’s times he flashes back to those days and starts shooting off orders, which I ignore, but you gots to take heed, I guess, if you want your scale.”

  Squib tossed a sloppy swamp divot from the hole. “What kind of orders?”

  “Oh, you know, old-lady stuff. Like he has a yearning for breakfast cereal or new clothes at four A.M. and shoots off a message, something like: ‘I need a dozen Flashdance T-shirts ASAP.’ Shit like that.”

  “He likes Flashdance, huh?”

  “Oh, hell yeah. That is one Flashdance-obsessed dragon.”

  “No problem. I got an Amazon account. Whatever Vern needs is here in two days.”

  Waxman devoured another slice of pizza, making no attempt to hide his scything rows of teeth. His mastications made a noise like frogs going through a blender might. Squib had to make a real effort not to wince.

  Waxman swallowed. “No. Use my account. Details in the bureau, along with further instructions. The Amazon is set up on a debit card, so just get whatever you need. Bodi has the same card on file, and the general store does, too. I’ll be poring over the statements when I get back, though, so no treating yourself to rubber sex dolls or whatever you teenagers waste your money on these days.”

  “No wasting money,” promised Squib. “Flashdance T-shirts only.”

  Waxman squinted at him. “You sassing me, boy?”

  “Sorry,” said Squib. “Habit. I forgot how our thing has changed, you being not human and all.”

  “Yeah, I ain’t no good old swamp boy, that’s for sure. I ate a couple of those guys, though, when they started coming around here poking about, looking for my gold. I ain’t even got no gold—Vern’s got the gold from that submarine.”

  Squib kept his eyes in the hole. “You ate ’em?”

  “Not all of them,” said Waxman. “Just the flesh.”

  “Come on, Waxman,” said Squib, feeling a touch nauseated again. He sincerely hoped it was just the subject and not the dragon’s breath eating his insides. “You got to talk like that? It’s too much.”

  Waxman closed the lid on one empty pizza box. “Sorry, kid. It’s just nice to be myself around you after all this time.”

  “I ain’t got a problem with that,” said Squib, stepping down farther into the pit. “Just the eating-folks stuff. Anything else is much appreciated.”

  “I can fill you in on the rest in a few months’ time, though by then you’ll be up to speed or dead your own self.”

  This opened the door for the question Squib had been leading up to. “You think Vern would torch me now?”

  Waxman hung his jacket carefully on the chair. “He could, kid. No doubt about that. Humans butchered Vern’s entire family, wore their skin as armor. Hell, humans killed Vern’s entire goddamn race save for his own self. And Vern has his own fair share of scalps, so to speak. But you have a window here to make yourself indispensable. Don’t be late, don’t mouth off, and don’t tell a goddamn soul, because everyone you tell is a loose end, and Vern don’t suffer loose ends to live.” Waxman stripped off his shirt, revealing a torso rippled with waxy folds of skin and fringed slits that might have been gills. “Vern has strayed off the hermit’s path these last fifty years. Likes his comforts a little too much. Cable and such. You gotta keep that pipeline running real slick. His wish is your command.”

  “Got it,” said Squib. “He says, ‘Jump,’ I say, ‘How high, boss?’”

  “That’s it exactly. How are the nights in your schedule?”

  “Good,” said Squib. “Momma is on the late shift till October, so I’m my own man from eight P.M. onwards.”

  “That might work out real well. Vern won’t need you before sundown any night starting tomorrow.”

  Squib knew he shouldn’t ask, but he was a businessman at the end of the day. “You think Vern might toss a few bucks my way once in a while?”

  Waxman threw back his head and laughed, teeth buzzing like an electric razor. “You’re a one, Moreau, damned if you ain’t. A few bucks, you say. Don’t you get it, boy? Vern hates humans, hates them big-time. It’s not a casual hatred either, like a guy might hate chicken. This is the real deal. If I come back and you’re still breathing, then that will be a win for mankind.” Waxman snorted. “A few bucks? Shit, boy. You best get digging and stop asking fool questions.”

  Squib did as he was told.

  SQUIB WENT DOWN about five feet, give or take, and was beyond tuckered by the time Waxman called a halt.

  “That should do her, boy,” said the mogwai. “Why don’t we swap places? Unless you want to go down for the dirt nap?”

  Squib reckoned that he didn’t fancy no dirt nap and hopped smartly from the pit, though it was up to his shoulders at this point. He was surprised to find Waxman buck-ass naked apart from a slice of pizza, which he used to preserve his modesty.

  “You gonna eat that?” asked Squib, trying to lighten his own mood, which was pretty grim on account of being in thrall to a dragon and having to bury old Waxman alive.

  “Nah,” said Waxman, “I’m gonna absorb it over the weeks. Lay it all over me. Pizza number two. There are a few steaks in the refrigerator. I’ll have those, too. And half a dozen bottles of Baby Bio plant food. Pour ’em all in.”

  Waxman hopped eagerly down into the pit like he was off to Disneyland—and not the crappy Disneyland in Europe either, but the primo one in Orlando. The mogwai’s shoulders were a mite broad for the grave, but he wriggled himself fla
t and said gleefully, “Come on, boy, pile that shit on.”

  It was a weird and horrific tableau: an elderly fairy-type fella down there with the bugs and snails already squelching toward his pizza jockstrap. Squib had one question. “Waxman, you ain’t crazy, are you?”

  Waxman grinned. “Crazy? Tired is what I am. Why you asking me that?”

  “Well, sir,” said Squib, “if you’re crazy, then all I’m doing is burying you alive.”

  “Shit, son,” said Waxman, “all the shit you seen in the last day, if anybody’s crazy, it’s you.”

  “Yup,” said Squib, “makes sense as much as anything makes sense.”

  “Well, all right, Squib boy. Then you best get to it. Once that dragon shit dehydrates, you ain’t gonna shift it with a lump hammer.”

  “Yessir, Waxman,” said Squib. “Sleep well, I guess.”

  Waxman closed his eyes. “Hell, kid. I’m already halfway there.” The mogwai smiled beatifically, and the expression never left his face even as Squib Moreau filled his grave with maybe a quarter ton of dragon crap.

  Squib distracted himself by making observations on the properties of the dragon shit.

  Don’t smell too bad. Kinda nutty.

  And as for texture, I’d say frozen yogurt.

  “Hey,” called Waxman then, his hand clawing through the dung, “one last thing.”

  Squib near to crapped himself and dropped the shovel. “Yeah? You change your mind?”

  Waxman wiggled his head clear. “Nah, boy, I’m committed. Just take my suit to the cleaners. Dry-clean, mind. Not a drop of water touches my velvet.”

  “Yeah,” said Squib. “Dry-clean only.”

  “I’ll stop jabbering now,” said Waxman. “Might make it a deal easier for you to bury me if I stop issuing orders.”

  It might, thought Squib, but it didn’t really.

  VERN HAD A feeling in the pit of his gut, like a live thing was coiled in there, gnawing at him.

  Dread was the thing’s name. Simple as pie. One of those extreme emotions: fear plus anticipation.

  I cannot believe it, Highfire, he thought. You’re trusting a goddamn human. When you gonna learn?