Bones and Bagger (Waldlust Series Book 1) Read online

  Her sweet smell was as faint as it was indescribable. I’ve used many languages through the years and can assure you there’s no combination of words to adequately relay that agonizingly thin wisp of heaven she exuded. As far as the tobacco odor radiating off her body? Easier. I’d call that Essence of Humid, Smoky Wheelhouse in a Greek Fishing Boat. Not entirely appealing. Yes, our mysterious and beautiful Sarah Arias smoked more in a day than an entire NASCAR pit crew. As the hair-band Poison once pointed out: “Every rose has its thorn.”

  The smoking thing represented one of those lyrical thorns and certainly the most visible. Experience told me relationships weave whole nests of thorns. Did I really care to search for those hidden beneath the surface? Let me think. Heck yes. She didn’t step back at my approach—like most women do lately—but instead glanced away for a second and then back at me. Was she gathering courage to speak? I wish.

  Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I stopped just outside arm’s reach and said: “Would you like to…”

  “No,” she said, and she looked hard into my eyes for a second, and then turned to walk away. I could swear that look said she could read me like a comic book.

  “Go out for a beer with the gang?” I continued as Our Lady of 3-Packs a Day turned her back on us and walked through the automatic doors. First came the literal knife in the back, and next a virtual knife in the heart. Perfect symmetry. What else could happen in the last thirty minutes of my shift? I didn’t want to know.

  The automatic doors swished shut with Sarah Arias on the other side. That broke the spell for J-Rod and he managed to close his mouth. We both stood for a second and watched as she pulled a cigarette from behind her ear and lit it up with a weather-proof lighter of some sort. I think she knew we were both staring because she turned her back in what seemed a very intentional way. But maybe all the literal and metaphorical knives flying around made me a bit over-sensitive.

  “You asked her out?” J-Rod asked.

  I couldn’t tell for sure whether it was admiration or horror I saw on his face. Ok. I admit. He was smiling a little. No. He was smiling big time.

  “No,” I said. “I thought maybe she’d like to know about our Friday night team event.”

  Did I mention I’m a terrible liar?

  “You ask her out, dude.” An accusation in the fake gang-banger accent.

  “Did not.” I said. And then, “think we could just keep this between us?”

  Total waste of breath.

  “Hey y’all,” J-Rod announced as we returned to the gang. West Texas again.

  “Gare just asked out Sarah.”

  Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared. I could have sworn I heard Pops break his rhythm with the electronic checkout beeps. Great. Oh and yes, you heard him correctly. Gare.

  I try to stay as close to my original name, Gaius Teutoberg, as I can. I purchased Gay Teutoberg from a mafia identity guy in 1947 Chicago. By 1977, I realized it was a colossal mistake. I would hit a nice downtown Chicago bar looking for the company of a pretty face. Invariably, Sparky would pick the high-tide mark of a loaded happy-hour to walk in and yell, “Hi there, Gay Tooter.” Needless to say, my sex life suffered. I happily killed off the Gay Teutoberg identify in 1982.

  The police hauled me in for questioning when my idiot landlord reported Gay Teutoberg missing. Lucky for me that Sparky found an interim identity for me as my own nephew. Double lucky I’d let myself age from the 1940’s, so when I did cellular repair back to a 20-year-old body and nobody recognized me, though I think that Snoopy Sally landlord had her doubts.

  My latest identity: Garrett Teutoberg. Hence Gare. That’s what J-Rod called me and that’s who our little bagger clique wanted to hear from. Schadenfreude tendrils floated so thickly that I felt I needed to part them like bamboo curtains.

  “I only told her about Friday beers.”

  “Like hell,” J-Rod drawled in full Texas mode.

  My humiliation came out sounding like this: “LACK HALE.” Ricardo Montalban’s great-great-grandson as played by Goober Pyle. I reconsidered my aversion to feeding on people.

  Three sets of eyes belonging to people I haven’t introduced—Vince McDonald, David Smith, and Sister Christian—stared back at me. It warmed my heart to see the disbelief, like I couldn’t sink to such depths of buffoonery. I thought I caught the bald back of Pops’ head staring too. But that might have been scabs from where he cut himself shaving.

  Defending yourself to this crowd is admitting guilt. I had Sparky waiting outside with whatever scheme I would regret participating in percolating between his clever ears. Not saying I was anxious to dive into Sparky’s plots, just saying I had things to do and this pimple on the face of my personal vanity would not go away until I pinched all the poison out of it.

  “OK,” I said. “Guilty. Don’t know what got into me.”

  The faces went from disbelief to momentary grins. I should have left it there. I’ve already mentioned my tendency toward baroque lies. “Friday night with Sarah Arias.” The grins faded into that general disinterested look you see in people ready to punch out at the clock and begin a weekend. I’d defused the embarrassment bomb. Popped the vanity zit. Even Pops was back in rhythm with the scans.

  All it took was a little humility. That’s what made it so difficult. But I persevered. So why didn’t I just shut my mouth?

  “Friday night with me,” I said. The other baggers weren’t even pretending to pay attention. “and she’d have popped the question.”

  “Like,” said a voice behind me that sounded like a choir of Swedish tanning beauties, “why you are such a pig?”

  Uh oh. Sarah Arias. Behind me.

  Snuck up and not one of my supposed friends gave me as much as a silent head-nod warning. And they’d returned to staring. Come to think of it, my highly-enhanced senses should have picked her up. Even if she could tiptoe softly as a butterfly, the Porter Wagoner concert-ashtray smell should have alerted me.

  “Don’t you have somewhere to light?”

  Oops. I think I meant either “don’t you have somewhere to be” or “don’t you have something to light?” One was a tired cliché and the other doesn’t make sense. Again, that hard look from Sarah Arias. I didn’t have long to consider what I really intended with my stupid comment because Sarah Arias walked away. Out the door and into the night she went. For the second time.

  Did I mention three sets of eyes I hadn’t introduced?

  Sister Christian. We all call her that. Been hauling groceries at the commissary beyond the memory of everyone except Pops. Some of the baggers say they used to know her real name, but it’s lost. You know that 80’s song by Night Ranger? ”Motorin’, what’s your price for flight?” That’s where she gets her name. According to Pops. He always has more urgent matters to attend to when you press him for more.

  Sister Christian is the oldest of our group—considering I look twenty despite my centuries. She’s also the kind of lady you’d consider letting yourself age for. Brown hair cut short like Olivia Newton-John in her Let’s Get Physical video and perpetually in hip-hugging jeans. Always an oversized sweatshirt of some sort with the neck torn so it hangs over one shoulder or the other. Thin leather headband to hold back her hair.

  I got a slight grin from Sister Christian and maybe I detected a wink. Perhaps she understood my hiccup with Sarah Arias. What exactly did Sister Christian understand? No clue because I couldn’t begin to guess why Sarah Arias misled J-Rod about the bloody jacket. And why the sudden idiocy on my part after months of silently lusting after Sarah from afar? Again, not a clue, other than I can be a moron at times.

  That’s two of my bagger friends: Jesus “J-Rod” Rodriguez and Sister Christian. I’ll save Dave and Vince for later. Thoughts of cold beer overcame their shock-infused inertia caused by Sarah Arias deboning my manly pride on center stage. To put it another way: shock or no shock, they left as soon as the big hand hit quitting time. Nobody left to introduce.

  I s
aid my good-byes to J-Rod. Sister Christian gave us both a hug before she left. She always did that. The cynical might just call it her shtick, kind of like her Flashdance taste in clothes. It’s more than that with Sister Christian, more than just habit. A hug from her transmits love from one human to another. Elegance in simplicity. And I’m not talking motherly any more than I’m talking sex. It’s the kind of love that lights up all the cold places on another person’s soul. It doesn’t hurt that she’s really hot for a half-century girl.

  I’d delayed the Sparky thing for about as long as I could. I waved to Pops and high-fived a couple of the stock boys and girls as they came in to fill the empty shelves so that we could do it all over again in the morning. Almost. I did have Saturday—the next day—off.

  You know that saying about how houseguests and fish begin to stink after three days? Sparky reeks from the first moment and he’ll stay longer than it takes a plastic milk jug to decompose. I’d need to guard against my grumpiness. Nellie speaking in my head again.

  I headed for the door. The automatic opening part shuts down after closing so we handle the task manually. I did the ritual while humming the Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover tune and changing out the lyrics with my own version. Sixty Ways to Choke Sparky with my Bare Hands. Kind of catchy. I didn’t even make it to the rack of the returned—the shopping basket collection area—when it hit me.

  Chapter 5

  Well, it didn’t hit me as much as I walked into it. A tobacco-reeking smoky haze originating at the lips of Sarah Arias. I stopped the inane humming. It was the third time Sarah Arias surprised me in a single day. We’d worked in the same store for the better part of a year, though I wouldn’t say we worked together…and I’m certain the other baggers would back me up on that one. As far as I knew, Sarah Arias didn’t hang out with any of her fellow hourly workers at the Commissary.

  Consider the following word problem. Take all the times Sarah Arias spoke to me before that night and add it to the three times she said something in my direction that last half hour. How many conversations would that be? Answer: Three.

  She didn’t say anything at first. Just stood there and stared. Kept her eyes on me while she dropped and stamped her current butt and lit up a fresh stick. Looks and talent.

  Thing is, I wasn’t surprised to see her. I didn’t know how I knew she had been waiting for me. I just knew that she had. It seemed a little creepy and I have to admit her good looks intimidated me. I can do a silent stare-down with the best of them. She was better though, because I wilted under those clear green eyes. Sarah nodded her head in acknowledgment of what we both knew. I was going to cave. I hate sophomoric games. Or more accurately, I hate sophomoric games when I lose.

  When I’m not building up a fib I tend towards brevity in my communications.

  “Why?” I asked.

  The question sounded simple, but I think Sarah Arias understood the waves of complexity beneath the surface of that single word. Hey, I can be a sophisticated guy, depending on the situation. That time when she nodded I detected a hint of appreciation. Then again, there’s the chance it wasn’t a nod at all but rather some kind of nicotine-influenced tick.

  What exactly did I want out of Sarah Arias? Several things. For one, I wanted to know why she concocted a cover story for my bloody jacket. After she filled me in on that one, I’d like to know how come the blood didn’t surprise her. Perhaps that path might lead to answers I wouldn’t like. Still, I needed to know.

  On a more personal level, why did she pick that rather awkward moment to begin interacting with the rest of the bagging team? Read that to mean why she picked that moment to begin interacting with me. And finally, why was she waiting by the rack of the returned? Why hadn’t she just faded away to wherever she goes every other night after work? I had one more question, but I didn’t ask because it was for myself. Why were all those unknowns starting to make me mad?

  Maybe the anger thing had a little—or a lot—to do with Sparky waiting for me in his car. His visits always make me grumpy. But then, maybe my anger had nothing at all to do with Sparky and everything to do with this arrogant chick standing in front of me.

  Sarah Arias never so much as treated any of us baggers as colleagues. Not as friends either…or even as fellow human beings. And now here she was putting the skunk eye on me. Only Sister Christian didn’t feel either plain contempt or raw desire for Sarah Arias. Speaking of desire, my ever-present lust machine began working its way through the thin veneer of the maybe righteous and maybe justified anger.

  My brain implored me to disengage with Sarah Arias before anything got started. Sometimes I hate my brain. Truth is, I was more than willing to overlook a smoking habit so vast that the net tax revenue off the packs she bought in a year could balance the federal budget. I was not willing to risk…to risk what? I wasn’t sure. So why did I get that overwhelming feeling this new-found interest Sarah Arias had in me was not a good thing?

  Dude willpower is a fragile thing, so I needed to end the whacky conversation soon or I’d end up just another dude zombie wrapped around her nicotine-stained finger. Lucky for me I’m an oak. I began a step away from Sarah Arias and toward the dark and, with the exception of Sparky’s jag, empty parking spaces.

  Sound stupid? I guess people don’t begin to step but rather they get the whole thing done at once. More truth? I guess I only thought about taking a step away from her. Before the command traversed the path from by brain—either one—to my leg muscles, Sarah Arias spoke. What she said reminded me why I appreciate women most when they’re asleep.

  “Vampire.”

  Uh-oh. Sarah Arias’s one word response made my brilliant “why” sound as complex as a belch. If ever the moment existed where I didn’t want someone else to know I didn’t understand, that was it. Yeah, I’m talking personal pride here, but so what. Beautiful, in a tobacco-smelling sort of way, babe with a sixth sense about me that hinted at something akin to witchcraft. A little frightening. Even more sexy. For sure I didn’t want Sarah Arias to know that I didn’t understand. So I said,

  “What do you mean?”

  She took a long drag on her cigarette and closed her eyes during the exhale. The girl really enjoyed her smokes. When she opened them they were back on me and I found the experience unsettling.

  “What do you think it means?” she said.

  Answering a question with a question. Finally a girl both Mom and Dad would have liked. As in, “Dad, can I borrow your ox-bone war club?” “And what did you do with yours, Son? By the way, young man, did you wash the chariot?” And on and on it used to go until either of my parents could have me admitting to anything. Even stuff I’d never done. I had enough of this sort of thing about the time Jesus walked the earth…as in GEE-sus, not HAY-Zeus.

  “Vampire, huh,” I said. “Asking me to a movie?”

  She didn’t reply with words though her expression indicated all disappointment, no interest. I can spot that one when I see it because I’d seen the same expression on more than one chick over the years. My sarcasm needed a tune-up.

  “We’re watching,” she said, and I didn’t think she meant “we” as in her and me and watching as in watching a Friday movie at the post theater.

  Rats.

  On the positive side I wouldn’t have to worry about a coal factory’s worth of second hand smoke snuggling next to me for the evening.

  “Can you be a little more specific about the ‘we’ and the ‘are watching’?” I said. “I mean, you’d do well to know some things about me before you start with the ‘we are watching,’ stalker jazz.”

  I hoped my response might cause her to reveal more than she intended—or was allowed to say. That was something else I needed to consider. Sarah Arias as someone’s foot soldier. It wouldn’t be the first time someone used a beautiful woman against me. Those other chicks? As dangerous as they were hot.

  “We are watching” was a bit on the existential side. I wanted more. Like who made up “we,” fo
r starters. And also why. I’d already asked for that much. Sarah Arias lit another cigarette while I stood there trying to figure out which pose might show off my muscles. Sometimes I can be a goober.

  Sarah Arias finally answered the question, and what she said gave me a real knock to the metaphorical jaw.

  “You and the fool.”

  Had I heard her correctly? Me and the fool? Because if I had, it meant she didn’t think I was a fool. Great news, but something told me I was focusing on the wrong thing. No way she knew about Sparky—though the fool thing pretty much hit the nail on the head.

  “Hear these words, Gaius of the Teutoberg, Prince of the Forest.”

  The Weird Chick Warning sign flashed in mental neon stars when I heard that 2,000 year-old name coming from those nicotine-bathed lips.

  “For they come not from me, a messenger, but from one whose words are as steel.”

  OK. I’m interested.

  “The choice is yours.”

  Good news.

  “As are the consequences.”

  Why are there always consequences?

  She might have been as hot as Vesuvius and twice as smoky, but I’d had a butt full of the mumbo jumbo.

  “Now you listen to me,” I started.

  A soft finger over my lips in the timeless shush signal interrupted whatever I was going to say. And no ordinary finger. In case you’re wondering, I don’t say that kind of thing to all the girls. In retrospect I’m glad she only brushed my lips because any more than the slight tingle she sent through my body could have vibrated my molecules into a billion separate pieces. And we all know the importance of good molecule hygiene.

  Given what came later, I also think it’s a good thing she didn’t let my smart mouth go any further and make things I didn’t yet know about worse for me. Also, it was good to shut my gob because I’m not great at extemporizing. Especially when the clue bird’s left the nest.