Page 36 of Shadow Ticket
“There’s a lot of activity on the job,” Hicks explains, “…what a hat goes through out there a dozen times a day, sat on, hit with snowballs, set on fire, checked in and out of a number of different classes of joint by careless tomatoes with long, sharp nails—”
“Don’t forget natural disasters, good morning, Jimmy,” to a hide sellerwho just stepped in, whose Ojibwe name means He Who Watches in Secret, but who goes by Jimmy when he’s in town.
Catching sight of Hicks, “Hey, it’s ’at speedboat captain again, ain’t it.”
Nodding, “Well. How’s the Airmont broad been keepin?”
“Only what I see in the papers.”
“If I’m not bein too nosy, how’d she ever get connected up with you folks?”
“You know how once you’re bit by a werewolf, you turn into one yourself?”
“You tellin me ol’ Daphne—”
“No, no, Ojibwe, see, instead of the werewolf, we have the Windigo. Maybe human, maybe not, nobody ever likes to look too close…turns out to have a human flesh habit for one thing, which fifty, sixty years ago began to create a dilemma for the white man, whose normal policy up till then had been whenever possible just shoot the Indian, except that Wisconsin back at that moment happens to be going through one of these bleeding-heart reform situations, loony bins state and county being constructed by the dozen at public expense, taking the ‘humane’ approach that whenever any member of any tribe even so much as thinks about nibbling on a gingerbread man, this should right away be labeled early-onset cannibalistic ‘Windigo Psychosis’ and the offending redskin locked up for mental treatment and preferably for good.”
“And…Miss Airmont…”
“Oh. Apparently in one of these childhood loony bins she was in and out of, Daphne crossed paths with some Ojibwe Dawn Society brother being railroaded in on just such a phony cannibal rap. One thing must’ve led to another and first chance she got she was off on her Spirit Quest, somebody runs her out into the deep North Woods, leaves her there to do what she has to to make her way back, in hopes that somewhere in the logistics of return, she’ll pick up a spirit guide.”
“And…” Hicks flashing back to those first few minutes after he’d set her back on land, stepping off the rumrunner’s special and already on her way to becoming the darling of scandal sheets includingModern Peeper,Yikes!, andLowlife Gazette, featuring photos of her sporting a range of luridgetups and a loose smile she may not by that time of the evening have been in full control of, surrounded by a prize selection of merry loophounds gazing at her like chorus boys in a musical number, under headlines likeDairy Deb Sin Spree.
“You know you saved her life, bringing her up to the rez when you did.”
“This again, thanks, heard it before, just giving a hitchhiker a lift was all.”
“Fact remains that once you put so much as a toe into the flow that is the life journey of another…”
“Wait, you’re tellin me, one helpful act—not even that, justtryingto bepolite—has dumped me into a washday radio drama that can go on now for, what, years?”
“Back in Pozzuoli we have this all the time,” Vito puts in, “it’s calledla vendetta, what’s the commotion?”
“And if I say thanks but no thanks, what happens, I get an arrow through my head?”
“You don’t have to be all that way about it either, white man.”
15
For days now Hicks has been noticing, even in the daylight and out on the street, the return, from somewhere back in deeper Prohibition times, all across his body and over his face, light as delusional bugs, the ghostly crawl of professional finger-eye coordination, somewhere above and in the distance, tightening in on whatever is centered in its crosshairs, which at the moment happens to be Hicks’s head.
To a concertina rendition of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” half a block away, Hicks is handed a parcel wrapped in festive red-and-green paper whose design features Xmas trees, reindeer, candy canes, so forth. Ribbon tied in a big bow. Something to do with Christmas.
“This is for you.”
“Not me.”
Shrug. “We’re only the delivery guys.”
Hicks takes a close, doubtful look. “Which would be…”
“We’re Santa’s elves.”
“Uh huh, but…”
“You know Billie the Brownie down at Schuster’s, right? OK, we’re relatives.”
“Cousins.”
