Christa Faust - Fringe The Zodiac Paradox

“Yeah,” Bell said, elbowing Walter in the ribs. “Smile. Laugh. Act like you don’t have a care in the world.”

Walter cringed away from Bell’s prodding and then tried on a tentative smile for size. It seemed way too small, and tight in the corners.

“I just...” He started to look back over his shoulder again, but stopped himself. “It just feels creepy to know that someone is watching me.”

“Remember,” Nina said. “We want him to watch us.”

“If he’s not watching us,” Bell said, “then our whole plan goes right down the crapper.”

“Of course,” Walter said. “I understand. I just...”

They were passing an open-air newsstand, when all of a sudden, there was a loud rumble that shook the magazine racks. A spill of lurid men’s adventure and nudie magazines tumbled down and scattered across Walter’s path. He nearly jumped out of his skin, clinging to Bell’s arm like a scared little boy.

“My God!” he cried. “Is this some kind of residual telekinetic manifestation from the opening of the gate?”

Nina smiled and put a calming hand on Walter’s back.

“No, silly,” she said. “That’s just a garden variety earthquake. Nice one, probably about a four-point-oh. Welcome to California, boys.”

A pair of tall, broad-shouldered women in extremely high heels had been teetering toward Walter arm in arm when the tremor had hit. They’d paused for a moment, steadying each other against the concrete shimmy. When it was over, they exchanged knowing glances with Nina and the news vendor, an unspoken understanding shared between native San Franciscans and earthquake veterans, and then sashayed away down the street.

Nina and Bell both bent down to help the news vendor clean up his spilled inventory, but Walter had his hands full trying to slow his own panicked heartbeat. He’d never experienced an earthquake before, and couldn’t imagine that it was the kind of thing that he could ever get used to.

He looked up and down the block at the other denizens of the city. They all seemed utterly blasé about the whole thing. It was as if he was the only one who’d been the slightest bit scared.

He couldn’t help but wonder how the Zodiac felt about the quake.

* * *

Back at Nina’s place, Walter was playing with Cat-Mandu, dangling a piece of red and green yarn, when Nina came over to him carrying a shirt on a hanger and a pair of pants folded over one arm. The shirt had brown and purple stripes, big blousy sleeves and a large pointy collar. The pants were brown corduroy with a wale so wide he could have played with Matchbox cars in the grooves.

“You and Roscoe are about the same size,” Nina said. “He won’t mind if you borrow some of his threads for the concert tonight.”

“Oh,” Walter said, frowning at the flamboyant shirt. “Gee, thanks, but I’m okay like this.”

Bell appeared behind her in an entirely new outfit, a western-style shirt with red floral stripes and jeans that were a little too loose in the waist and a little too short in the leg.

“Walter,” Bell said, “she’s just too polite to tell you that you stink. Take the clean clothes and go have a shower, will you? And wash that hair of yours while you’re in there.”

Walter frowned, pulled a pinch of his sweater up to his face and sniffed it. It smelled fine to him, but he figured he’d better humor their hostess.

“I’m still going to wear my own jacket,” Walter warned, accepting the clothes. “It’s lucky.”

Bell rolled his eyes dramatically.

“Trust me,” he said to Nina. “I’ve been trying to get Walter out of that jacket for ten years. It’s a lost cause.”

27

The Downward Dog was a tiny hole-in-the-wall that was barely visible from the street, and made even less visible by the massive throng of brightly clad men and women waiting to get into the crowded disco next door.

Nina led Walter and Bell down a long, narrow stairway and into the basement club where Violet Sedan Chair would be playing. The powerful funk of old beer and smoke—both legal and otherwise—was as thick as the San Francisco fog in the low-ceilinged venue. A long bar ran the length of the right-hand side, a rococo, turn-of-the-century relic that might have been billed as “antique” if it wasn’t in such sorry condition. Its once sleek wooden hide was now scarred and patchy, disfigured with cigarette burns and scratched-in initials.

Behind it, the bartender looked just as old and just as badly treated.

All four walls and even the tin ceiling were covered by layer after layer of old posters advertising bands like Country Joe and the Fish, Captain Beefheart, Moby Grape, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the Mothers of Invention. The posters were nicotine stained and curling at the edges, and the most recent of them was dated five years earlier.

There was something sad about the place, as if it had been shoved aside by its gaudy, more popular neighbor. The disco music from next door thumped through the walls, rubbing it in.

There was a small but devoted crowd waiting for Violet Sedan Chair to go on stage. Primarily single men, but a few couples and one large group of boisterous women who seemed to have come together. The men all had beards and granny glasses and colorful headbands. The women all had ironed hair, handmade patchwork dresses, and blissed-out expressions. This crowd was clearly immune to disco fever.

Walter fit right in.

Nina spotted Abby sitting on the corner of the stage at the far end of the room, smoking a joint and talking to another pregnant woman, a plump and pretty brunette with pale freckled skin and very pale blue eyes. She wore a white macramé halter-top under a weird, shaggy blue coat that made her look like she had skinned one of the monsters on Sesame Street. There was a peace sign painted on her exposed and swollen belly.

“Oh, hey,” Abby said when she saw them. “So great that you were able to make it. Roscoe will be thrilled.” She leaned in. “You know how he gets if there aren’t enough people at a show.”

She held out the joint. Nina waved it away, but Walter accepted it.

“Thanks,” he said.

“This is my friend Sandy,” Abby said. “We’re both due at the same time, around the end of next month. We were just wondering if we would have Libra babies or Scorpios. I’m hoping little Bobby will be a Libra. Scorpios can be so resentful.”

“Yeah,” Sandy said. “But Scorpios are so brooding and sexy! Charles Bronson is a Scorpio.”

“That just proves my point,” Abby replied. “Look how he went and killed all those criminals after his wife was murdered. That’s such a total Scorpio thing to do.”

“So,” Nina interrupted, looking vaguely annoyed. “Is the band set to go on soon?”

“They should be,” Abby said. “Chick is late again.”

All this talk about astrology was making Walter think of the Zodiac Killer, and how desperately they needed their crazy plan to work. It seemed like the marijuana was making him feel more edgy, and not less. He passed the joint to Bell.

Bell took a hit off of it and passed it back to Abby.

“You ladies want anything from the bar?” Bell asked.

“No, thanks,” Abby said.

“You should have a beer,” Sandy said. “The hops are supposed to help you produce more nutritious breast milk.”

“Really?” Abby said. She turned back to Bell. “Well, then, we’ll take two beers.”

“Nina?” Bell asked.

“Whisky sour,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Want a beer, Walt?”

Walter shook his head.

“No thanks, Belly,” he said. “I’m fine.”

Bell headed over to the bar to get the drinks while Abby wet her fingers, put out what was left of the joint and dropped the roach into her tiny beaded purse.