Tailed (24 page)

chapter 31

I
t was a few days later, in New York, and I was wearing my grandfather's tux, one of those I narrowly and dramatically saved from Goodwill agents when I was but a lad. Garth in his tux could mean only two things. New Year's Eve or a wedding. It was the fourth week of June.

Nicholas had finally been hooked, not that a total of fourteen other women didn't show up to witness the phenomenon. Or maybe it was to throw the rice? I think it was his fellow snoop and ex-cop Maureen who organized the rice throwing. All fourteen of the women didn't open the little sacks of rice. They kept the little rice sacks intact, and like a phalanx of baseball pitchers, the gang of ex-girlfriends wound up and threw them at Nicholas. A couple rice balls beaned Nicholas right in the head, and he shot them a dirty look as the bride dragged him into the limo for the ride to the reception.

Which was upstairs on the roof at Gravy's Tavern, of course, over on Irving Place. The weather cooperated, which in June these days is a minor miracle. Nice spread, too, plenty of champagne, oysters, cracked crab, steak tartar, and expensive scotch. And beer, just for me, I think. The only thing missing were cheese curds.

The crowd wasn't huge, but it made up for volume in eccentricity. There were a number of lawyers, cops, PIs, insurance investigators, and any number of shifty-looking types who I imagined were reformed art thieves and cat burglars. A little combo thrummed out some jazz in the corner. It could have been a wedding reception for Peter Gunn.

Angie was absolutely glowing, as if she were the bride herself. And not just in the way that certain women do when they become enthralled with the ceremony of matrimonial union. We'd found out the day before that her art jewelry had gotten honorable mention in the
Couture Magazine
show, which meant that it would be pictured in the magazine's next issue. Which, aside from my pride in her as an artisan and artist, was a great relief to me in as much as my most recent escapade—having kept her from attending the show—hadn't thrown a wrench in the works.

Otto was tossing back the Stoli like there was no tomorrow, and chasing it with milk. He was incapable of having a cocktail—hard liquor is only consumed rapidly, no tinkling ice cubes and nuanced tippling. He rarely drinks, but when he does, he removes the bottle cap and throws it away in a ritualistic flourish. And yet he was astoundingly sober for having made his way through two-thirds of a fifth. Nicholas had tried to have me tell Otto he couldn't come, but I said he'd have to try to explain it to him. So Otto came, and was enthusiastically—albeit none too expertly—dancing with every woman he could get his hands on.

Including Gabby. She'd suffered no long-term ill effects from our adventure, and seemed to have chosen to completely ignore any debunking of her supernatural bent during the ordeal. Like many older people, her convictions were unshakable even in the face of contrary indicators.

As best man, I'd already made my toast, the crumpled speech on the table next to me. Sure, I could have written it myself, but why not bring in the best ringer there is? I'd read Shakespeare's “Sonnet 116”:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

When I got to the last lines, Angie burst into tears and threw her arms around me. I think Angie's exuberance was somewhat champagne enhanced. Which illustrates an essential piece of knowledge I would impart to a young male to enhance his understanding of women: they like to cry. Why else do women rent films designed to make them cry?

Anyway, most of the big wedding moments had passed. The city was darkening, candles on the tables were lit, a turquoise glow was framing the western skyline. Little white Christmas lights strung overhead had just popped on, and I was at a table by myself in a corner. A contemplative mood had descended upon me, and I watched Angie and Otto and Gabby and Nicholas and his beaming bride move about the room as though in slow motion. I was conscious that this was one of those occasions that the mind's eye records to be shown again and again. Weddings and funerals usually make the top ten list at the brain's retrospective cinema.

And of course the whole event was made more poignant by the previous week's to-do—which for all intents and purposes had been put to bed. We never did hear what happened to Lanston, but I received a short message from Stella comprised solely of my back wages and my pink slip. I'd decided against lodging a complaint with the Air Force about them trying to kill me. They'd never admit to it anyway, and frankly I didn't want to remind them of my existence. Besides, their beef was with the Missile Defense Agency now.

Fowler had vanished. Either that or he was in the New Mexico ASPCA. CCN reported that the dog that ran out from under the balloon on TV was captured shortly thereafter and sent to the dog pound. Of course, different dogs can look alike, can't they? Needless to say, everybody at the Alien Days festival figured out it was a balloon, though I didn't doubt there would be some skeptics in any event.

All that business about Fowler being a werewolf, about the dog in the half-track not being Wilco…I couldn't accept it and therefore just didn't. I have a certain understanding of how the world works, and I rank the power of coincidence and happenstance way over the numinous realm. I stood at the mound that morning staring at a flying saucer, certain of what I was seeing, and yet I couldn't have been more wrong. It was just a newfangled balloon.

I remember when a pal and I used to frequent a saloon where the bartender could make a cigarette go through a quarter. We'd each watch one of the bartender's hands to make sure he didn't substitute a quarter with a hole in it. And yet, each and every time the bartender did switch quarters, somehow.

Vargas was back in Vargo with Wilco and Amber and all the streusel you could shake a stick at. Everything was put to bed as far as I was concerned.

Almost. I sat there in the corner of the family gala wondering:

How did Fowler become so obsessed with his father's legacy as to start a killing spree?

An old leather document folder landed on the table in front of me, the kind that folds in thirds. The cowhide was dry and cracked.

“It's all in there, Garth,” Gabby said, sitting down next to me.

I glanced at the cracked leather trifold, then back at her.

“What you wouldn't tell me at the Pickle Barrel?”

She nodded. “It was your father's dying wish not to tell you, not to perpetuate this legacy. How could I break that promise?”

“So why now?”

“Because you already know most of it, and the danger has passed.”

I picked up the folder, undid the buckle, and looked inside. It was dated 1948 and began “My Son.” I flipped ahead, spotting words like “vuka” and “evil” and “Tupelca.” It was signed in a great flourish, “Julius Fowler Carson.”

“Fowler?”

“Yes, J. C. Fowler was your uncle, from Julius's second marriage. ‘J.C.' stands for Julius Carson, of course. His mother changed her last name to Fowler, your grandfather's middle name, to keep all this from catching up with them and avoid any connection to the madman who had been her husband. Your uncle J. C. Fowler was married briefly but the woman abandoned him with Nicholas, your cousin. Stuart and I raised him as your brother. All this that just happened, with the vuka and the Tupelca, was your grandfather's obsession. What you have there is the letter he addressed to his son Stuart, your father, asking him to kill you and the five other grandsons at the time of the next white gecko.”

“Kill me? His grandson?” I tried to scan the letter quickly to get to that part but the light was bad and the handwriting worse.

“He wanted the Tupelca to go home to their planet, and wanted one of his sons to fulfill the prophecy at the next coming of the white geckos.”

“Kit Carson put a hit on me, through my father?” I just stared at her.

“Your grandfather passionately believed that whole vuka and Tupelca story. It came to him in a dream on the mound in New Mexico—he felt he'd been charged with finding the next
El Viajero
, the one to collect the vuka and return home. And he left one of these documents for each of his sons. Well, you can imagine…Stuart cut all ties with his family and wanted nothing more to do with them. And wanted it kept that way.”

“But not Fowler. He decided to become
El Viajero
. So if he thinks he has the other four vuka, won't he still come for me?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “The time of the white gecko preceding the summer solstice has passed. Fowler would have to wait another hundred years. If he's still alive.”

“And…” I hesitated, then looked up from the tablecloth into her eyes. “What about my vuka?”

She smiled and patted my hand. “Did it bother you when you didn't know you had it?”

I considered answering that but changed subjects. “Does Nicholas know?” I tilted my head at the trifold.

“Not all of it. I'll tell him before I fly out tomorrow. I didn't want this to overshadow the handfasting.”

“What's going on here? Why are you sitting in the dark?” A little girl with dark eyes and dark bangs stood before us. Mel's precocious daughter, Dottie.

I held out my fist and bumped hers.

“Mai Tai!” we said in unison. That was how Nicholas greeted her, and by association Dottie had started doing the same with me.

Gabby leaned toward her. “We were just talking, mother to son.”

“But Garth is too old to have a mom!” Dottie protested. “Gabby, you must be his grandmom.”

Judy the bartender approached, her long yellow French braid swaying. “As bridesmaid, part of my duties are to keep the party going. Garth, it's your turn to dance with the bride. By order of the groom.”

I stood, the ancient leather folder in my hand.

“So what am I supposed to do with this, Gabby?”

“Do you want it?”

The trifold's crumbling leather felt like the rancorous, toxic handshake of a mummy, his curse palpable and fairly tingling in my grasp.

“No.” I dropped it on the table. “I want to dance with the bride.”

Melanie met me halfway across the dance floor. She was sparkling white and beautiful in the way only brides can be. She had her wedding gown held up in both hands and I could see by the bare feet poking out from under it that she'd kicked off her shoes.

“Sure this is a good idea? I'm liable to step on your toes.”

Mel just smiled and put herself in my hands. I gave her a lively spin while flashbulbs popped, and the heady scent of summer trees and greenery filled me.

“Garv!” Otto grabbed my arm and yanked me away from the bride. “To come!”

I heard someone hitting a glass with silverware, and Angie was suddenly on my other arm.

“Nicholas wants to make a presentation,” she said, and I detected a bit of an impish twinkle to her eye.

The crowd parted as we approached a table next to the bar where Nicholas was standing. A cardboard box was at his feet, and Dottie stood next to it, fidgeting excitedly.

Nicholas raised a glass, and those assembled who weren't holding me in place (or was I holding them up?) raised their glasses.

“To my brother, Garth, my best man today and every day, and to my growing family…”

Maybe it was the scotch he'd been drinking, but for once he looked sincere. Mel trotted up next to him, kneeling down to the box.

“…a family which is about to get just a little bigger.”

I saw Melanie take something nondescript from the box and put it in her daughter's arms.

Dottie enveloped it, being careful not to let it go, and approached me.

I knelt down, and Dottie opened her arms.

The sight of it gave me a start—I thought it was a puppet or something, and I have mixed feelings about puppets. My reaction prompted Dottie to squeal:

“It's a puppy!”

“Awww…” Angie sighed, beginning to emotionally liquefy at my side.

“Eetz very much lookink…Nice doggie, eh?” Otto began to sing:

“What is price this doggie from shop window? (arf! arf!)”

As I gazed down at the squirming ball of black and white fuzz in her arms, with its button eyes, pink tongue, and round belly, I was taken with the fullness of the moment, of being presented with something newly alive, innocent, and full of potential. This animal had no past, only a future.

“Such doggie it is swims with tail.”

The night was filled with warmth, with laughter. The twinkling lights seemed like stars of promise, of all the good stuff there is in life. Family, friends, love. And a drunk little Russian barking like a Pekinese.

“What is price this doggie from shop window? (arf! arf!)”

Like my father, I wanted no part in a haunted past of spirits and death—look what that did to my grandfather and uncle. And to those three idiots in the Pixie dry-cleaning van. I knew then that there was no vuka in me, that such hokum was the only thing that had ever possessed me. That and a fear of my own past.

“Tell to me shopkeeper—is dog on sale?”

I never did read that stupid document.

And the wedding was the last time I saw Gabby.

About the Author

Brian M. Wiprud is a New York City author and outdoor writer for fly-fishing magazines. He won the 2002 Lefty Award for Most Humorous Crime Novel, was a 2003 Barry Award Nominee for Best Paperback Original, had a 2004 Independent Mystery Booksellers Association bestseller and a 2005
Seattle Times
bestseller. Information on his tours and appearances can be found at his website
www.wiprud.com
.

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