Steve Cash - The Meq

He visited three saloons, the first two for only minutes and the third for over an hour. He played cards with his cronies and I only lost sight of him once, for a few minutes, while he was in the men’s room. After that, he and two men walked the short distance to Sportsman’s Park to watch the Browns play Cincinnati. The sky was still blue, but the temperature was dropping.

I stayed close to him in the park, closer than I had before, so I could hear him talk. Mostly, he drank beer and yelled at the manager of the Browns, Harry Diddlebock. He was loud and the drunker he got the more he yelled and bragged to his cronies about women and money; but that was Corsair Bogy all over and such behavior was nothing unusual.

About the seventh inning, a low bank of clouds appeared to the southwest. Gusts of wind blew loose paper and debris around the stands. I felt something else — a presence. I glanced around quickly through the crowd and thought I caught a glimpse of something or someone familiar. I wasn’t sure.

I made my way to one of the exits, where I could scan the whole crowd, and turned in a slow, full circle. Nothing.

Suddenly I heard Carolina’s voice. “Z!” I heard her scream. She came running toward me, through the crowd. “He’s here,” she said. “He came to the house, the one with green eyes, and he wanted to know where you were.”

“Did he hurt you?” I asked and looked her up and down.

“No, no. It was strange. He just wanted to know where you were. I didn’t say a word and he took off running — fast.”

It was Ray all right. That proved it. “Why did you come here?” I said. “You should stay with Georgia and Mrs. Bennings.”

“I had to do something. I had to warn you.”

Then a thought struck me. If Ray was hired by Corsair and Corsair didn’t know I was around, why would Ray ask about me and show himself at the same time? It didn’t make sense.

The wind was blowing harder and fat drops of rain began to fall. I could hear Corsair’s voice yelling over the crowd at an umpire. Then I heard something else — a haunting, bitter laugh I hadn’t heard in years. I turned and saw him, standing with his legs spread in baggy black trousers, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a black bowler hat, staring at me.

“You’re lookin’ the same, Z,” he said and laughed again. “Ain’t that odd?”

I stared back at him. If he was running one of his games on me, I couldn’t tell. “How are you, Ray?”

“About the same. How ’bout you?”

He took a step toward me, holding on to his bowler hat. The wind was blowing much harder and hail was starting to fall. Carolina came closer, never taking her eyes off Ray.

“Why are you here, Ray?”

“I was in Cincinnati and I had one of my ’forecasts’ come to me. I thought about you, Z, so I thought I’d come and save your ass, if you were still around. I hitched a ride with the ball club and I been lookin’ for you ever since.”

“When did you get here?” I asked and glanced at Carolina.

“This morning,” he said. “Look, Z, I don’t know how much time we got.” He put both his hands over his eyes and looked at the sky. “You mean, you weren’t here last night?”

“No. Hey, Z, let’s get out of here. Now.”

I was confused. If it wasn’t Ray, then who.

“Now, Z, now!” Ray yelled.

“What? Why?” I looked at him dumbfounded. He pointed to the sky.

“A tornado’s comin’. A big one. I saw it three days ago.”

I looked at Carolina. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She didn’t know Ray, she didn’t know the “Weatherman,” but I did. She probably thought he was crazy, but I knew he was never wrong about the weather, and he was no assassin. I kept looking at her and her face seemed to change. I was in my dream again and her head was floating, only it wasn’t her head and her face. it was Georgia’s.

“Let’s get to the house!” I shouted.

We turned and headed out of the exit, but everyone else was doing the same. The storm came in so fast that the umpires had no time to call off the game. All the players and four thousand fans were trying to leave at once. It was chaos. We squeezed, pushed, and ran through the crowd, finally making it to Grand Avenue, where we ran straight into Corsair Bogy. He looked at me. He looked at Ray. Something about us stunned and shocked him, then he saw Carolina.

“You bitch, you’re supposed to be at the house!” he screamed.

“Come on!” I yelled and we took off, leaving Bogy in the driving rain and hail.

The streets were filled with people running for shelter. Streetcars with bells clanging were racing to make it back to their stations. Some fences were already falling down and the blooms of the dogwoods and redbuds were being blown through the air like snowflakes in a blizzard.

A block from Mrs. Bennings’s House, Carolina stopped in her tracks from a dead run. She was gasping for air and so was I. Ray wasn’t even out of breath. She put her hands over her ears and her eyes seemed to be staring into some unknown hell. “Georgia!” she screamed and tears poured down her cheeks.

I took her hand away and dragged her toward the house. She was no longer herself. She had fallen somewhere dark and deep inside. I knew the place. Solomon had caught me falling there.

Suddenly the rain and hail and wind stopped. There was a strange, eerie calm. I glanced at the sky and it was green and black.

“It’s comin’!” Ray said.

We made our way around back and I saw the “girls” running from the kitchen to the cellar door. I told Ray to take Carolina down into the cellar with the others. I stopped one of them and asked her where Mrs. Bennings and Georgia were. She said they were still in Mrs. Bennings’s room, the door was locked, and they wouldn’t come out or answer. She ran on toward the cellar and I looked at Ray.

“Someone is in there or he’s been there, Ray. He was hired to kill and he’s one of us. He’s got green eyes, like you.”

“There’s only one like that,” Ray said. “He’s somehow related to me on my old lady’s side.”

“Who is it?” I asked.

“The Fleur-du-Mal.”

I stared back at Ray. I reached inside my shirt and pulled out the Stones; holding them, showing them to him. “What about these?”

“They won’t make any difference,” he said, “not on the Meq, not on him.”

I turned to go inside and glanced back at Carolina. “Watch out for her,” I said.

He nodded once. “You’d better hurry. You ain’t got much time.”

I walked through the kitchen and into the large room that was the parlor. A few gas lamps were lit, but the room was empty and silent. The piano stool was on its side, as if someone had stood up suddenly and kicked it over. I reached the stairs and started climbing the steps one at a time, trying to stay close to the wall. Outside, I could hear a faint but distinct sound, like a distant train.

I got to the top of the stairs and saw Mrs. Bennings’s door wide open. The girl had said it was locked. I started to call out, then stopped myself. I took a step toward the door, then another. It was then that I heard the laugh. Inside the room, someone was laughing; a low, mean laugh, like Ray’s, only. different. older.

I ran to the open door. I looked inside and saw Mrs. Bennings slumped on a couch, her dress split open from the back, blood covering her chest and her throat slit from ear to ear. Next to her, Georgia sat with her head held back by the hair, screaming in silence, a knife blade at her throat. She saw me and her eyes grew even wider. Behind her, holding her, laughing, was the Fleur-du-Mal.

He looked up at me and smiled. His teeth were a brilliant white. He had deep green eyes, a short ponytail tied with a green ribbon, and two red ruby earrings. He was slightly taller than I was but that was the only other difference.