Daniella

The bar was just some dank hole for lonely people to drink until they couldn’t anymore. Always dark and smoke-filled, it was a grim and unpleasant place with an overly friendly bartender and five or six regulars clustered around him like penitents in prayer. The aging jukebox by the doors to the restrooms pumped out stale, flat music from speakers that hadn’t worked properly in years. The walls were stained with tobacco smoke, the ceiling dusty and lined with cobwebs. The floor was sticky with substances best left unidentified while the bar itself was clean and polished, if a little gouged and timeworn. These men were very careful about where their alcohol went, and a drop was never wasted anywhere but their mouths.

Rarely did anyone say a word, even to order a drink. Occasionally someone shared a joke or complained about their lives, but never to anyone other than the bartender. He prided himself on being everyone’s best friend. In some cases, he was their only friend. This wasn’t the kind of place where you went to meet people and certainly wasn’t the kind of place where out-of-towners or friendly young newcomers wandered in. But as Gavin leaned on the bar laughing at a dirty joke (Don’t ask. It really was filthy.) one of the greasy, tired-looking drunks was sharing, the heavy wooden door under the flickering red Exit sign swung open. A warm, heavy wind blew in scented with flowers and herbs. It was surprisingly pungent and certainly noticeable against the mildew-tainted, air-conditioned atmosphere of the smoky bar.

Everyone turned to stare at the petite woman silhouetted in the doorway but jumped as the jukebox suddenly began blaring out honky-tonk louder than it had been in twenty years. The speaker that had been blown suddenly wasn’t and the resulting cacophony sent the bartender scrabbling for the volume controls housed behind the bar. As the noise quieted somewhat the woman stalked gracefully to the bar, her cool gaze quickly assessing every man in the bar and, just as quickly, dismissing each in turn.

The first time he actually looked at the woman he felt his face go slack and his jaw drop. This expression was mirrored on the face of every man in the room. He’d never seen a more beautiful girl, or one who put off such a “don’t fuck with me” vibe without ever opening her mouth. The eyes of every man in the bar were on her as she sat on an empty barstool, as far away from the other men as she could get. She checked the time on a dainty silver wristwatch, wincing faintly.

Finally making eye contact with Gavin, she said “Have you seen a big guy come in here today?” Her voice was hushed and hurried but was otherwise soft, feminine and attractive, accompanied by a quick, warm smile. “From out of town? Real friendly, real ugly, lots of money?”

Gavin smile in return was falsely sympathetic. “No,” he said loudly. For the first time since he could remember, he had to speak up to be heard over the jukebox. “Sorry. And I’d remember somebody like that, that’s for sure. We don’t get many walk-ins here.” Trying not to stare at her tits (while she was looking at him, anyway), he said “Can I get you a drink?”

“Whiskey,” she said softly. “Double.” She sounded very self-confident, especially for such a pretty little girl alone in a hole-in-the-wall bar surrounded by strange men in the middle of the night. Boyfriend trouble, thought Gavin as he looked her up and down. She’s latched on to some rich bastard and she’s following him out here to make sure he don’t do nothing stupid. Sure, that could work. Only she didn’t really seem like the type to be with a guy like that; a guy that needed watching. A cowed, faggy doctor or something, yeah, but not a cheating gambler. Gavin chewed his lip and thought some more. She was an exotic beauty, thin and only five three or five four, with perfect pale skin and dark, curly hair that was unfashionably long.

“Hey,” she said suddenly. She gave a smile that was somehow both intriguing and mocking, startling Gavin from his distracted thought process. “I know it sounds complicated but really all you need to do is fill a glass with whiskey.” Smiling or not, she sounded irritated and Gavin realized he’d been staring.

“Yeah, miss. Right away. I’m sorry, I…” He couldn’t think of anything to say to her. He pulled the whiskey from the mirrored shelf behind him and, smiling, grabbed a double shot glass. He glanced down at the tall bottle and his eyes widened in surprise. As he poured, the rich, amber liquid caught the light and sparkled merrily. It hit the bottom of the glass, swirled gracefully and clung to the rim. He checked the label suspiciously, making sure he hadn’t slipped her the top-shelf by mistake. He hadn’t. This was the same bottom of the barrel swill he served everyone, but tonight it looked… good.

She quickly snatched it from him as it touched the counter, threw her head back and poured the whiskey down her throat. Gavin lost any chance to be witty and amusing when he gasped out in shock “Shit, girl!”

“Another,” she said, sighing in satisfaction and curling the glass gracefully in her fingers and holding her hand out to him.

He filled the glass again, saying “So what brings you to Vegas?”

“Business,” she said. She smiled darkly and continued, “I’m meeting a customer.” She tipped back her head again and drank her whiskey, then slid the glass to him with a finger on the rim. She looked at her watch again and bit her lower lip prettily.

“Running a little late, is he?” Gavin asked, trying to be disarming.

“No,” she said absently. Taking a small, hinged metal box from inside her coat, she opened it and took out a cigarette. Putting it to her lips, she drew forth a lighter the same deep black metal as her cigarette case. Gavin was briefly mesmerized by the quick flash of her fingers, the nails painted a deep, dark red, and almost missed her saying “I just want to get out of here before the rush.”

“Well, sure. That makes sense,” he said agreeably before he realized what she had said.
“Wait. Rush?” He repeated stupidly. He glanced at the clock on the wall and confirmed his count of people in the room. “I don’t think you need to worry about a rush in here. When your customer shows up he’ll be the last person to come in.”

“No,” she said. “Tonight you’ll be busy.” As she lit the end and sighed out a fragrant puff of smoke, he realized it was more than just tobacco she was smoking.

“Hey,” he began, apologetic. “You can’t smoke that in here.”

She ignored him and, delicate plumes of smoke curling around her words, asked “How much do I owe you for the drinks?”

“Ten dollars, lady. And you really can’t smoke that in here.” He had both palms flat on the bar and was leaning forward with his annoyance evident in both his face and his voice. She was pretty, all right. Gorgeous, even. But I'll be damned if I'm going to break the rules for her just because she thinks she's a fucking model or something.

She slipped her hand inside her leather coat, rolling her eyes. The fluorescent lights flickered as she pulled out a thick stack of rubber-banded bills and slapped a hundred dollar bill on the counter. “Keep the change,” she said “leave the bottle.”

Well, he amended, maybe I’ll let her break them just a little.

He raised his eyebrows, surprised, but did as she asked. He rang up the sale and slid the bill under the sectional drawer which mostly had ones and fives. From the corner of his eye he saw her lift the bottle and bring it to her mouth. He, along with every man in the bar, turned to watch her (not that any of the barflies had ever stopped looking) while she chugged the mostly full half-gallon of whiskey without choking, coughing or slowing. She ran her tongue wetly over her full, red lips and, still apparently completely sober, held the empty bottle toward Gavin.

He couldn’t think of what to say. He just stood staring, incredulous. He didn’t even move when the door opened and he was always the first (and only) to greet anyone who came in. The girl, on the other hand, straightened her back and glared over her shoulder while she slipped her right hand into her coat pocket. The lights buzzed and flickered again and Gavin wondered absent-mindedly if it was storming or if the stupid shit-hole of a bar was showing signs of electrical problems.

The young couple that stumbled in, screaming with laughter, looked even more out of place than the girl with the whiskey. The man had one arm held against his body, clutching a large suitcase with a golden logo, and the other wrapped around the shoulder of his companion. Their laughter died off as they stood there, swaying only slightly (in tandem, like they were absent-mindedly dancing).

Trying to suppress a grin, the man released his companion and hefted his suitcase. Lifting it high, he called out to Gavin, “Bartender! A round for everybody on me!”

The first girl, the hot one in the leather coat, had turned around almost as soon as the couple had come inside. She took a long drag and muttered something under her breath. It sounded like “Thanks a lot, Dad” to Gavin, but he couldn’t be sure.

Gavin put on his most welcoming expression and gestured to two of the many empty stools. “Have a seat,” he said cheerfully. “What are you drinking?”

The man, who introduced himself as Bobby, ordered a drink and insisted everyone else do the same. His tone was that of a man with a spoiled punch line about to spill from his mouth like bile. Humor went flat in this man’s presence. “Me and my wife,” he told Gavin, “are here on our honeymoon, right? And we had decided that we would spend an hour gambling.” He swallowed some beer and said with a huge grin “Didn’t want to lose a bunch of money. We were about to call it quits. We’d tried a few different slot machines and some games and figured we’d spent enough money.” His head bobbed up and down with every word like couldn’t stop agreeing with himself. He grew visibly more excited as he spoke.

Gavin was only halfway paying attention, just nodding and pretending to listen. He was watching the wife, who had wandered over to the jukebox and started feeding it quarters. Her ass looked great in her tight jeans when she bent over and lined up a block of hard rock songs. He poured drinks for everybody (a tall glass of vodka for the leather-coat girl, beer for everyone else) at Bobby’s urging while Bobby kept talking and his wife did something with her cell phone. She was nice enough to keep her body moving to the music, and Gavin was nice enough to appreciate how good she looked. “…and the like floor boss or whatever came over and gave us this suitcase. A million freaking dollars! Can you believe it?”

Gavin expressed that he could not, in fact, believe it. “You’re walkin’ around with a million dollars in cash?”

“Yeah,” said Bobby proudly. “I mean, talk about lucky!”

Talk about stupid, thought Gavin, while Bobby laughed (a great, crowing guffaw) and continued.

“So anyway we decided to leave the casino and go somewhere quieter. We walked around for a while and saw this place.”

His wife broke in, her voice was squeaky with excitement. Gavin hoped she didn’t sound like that all the time. “It’s perfect! There’s a bar just like it back home. I love it.” (Gavin’s eyes roamed around the room. The dull, yellowish cast of the lights gave everything and everyone a sallow, unhealthy look. He noted the water stains on the ceiling, the patched and wobbly barstools, the TV in the corner that didn’t even work and finally the grimy and ancient peanut shells, popcorn kernels and unknowable filth embedded in the baseboard.)

“Bobby,” she said loudly, her chipmunk voice hard to hear over the thumping bass and screaming vocals of her chosen music (which still seemed much louder than it should be). “I texted those guys from the casino so they know where to find us.”

Gavin leaned forward on the bar, his mind on what he had been talking about with- I can’t believe I didn’t get her name! he thinks suddenly. She’s been in here for ten minutes and I don’t know a thing about her. “Did you say you got more people coming?” Even he has to shout to be heard. Bobby’s wife (Hers either, thinks Gavin, but it doesn’t bother him as much.) nods happily at him.

“Yeah, like twenty people who were partying with us at the casino. They were at the table when we won! Isn’t that cool?”

Why’d you leave, then? Gavin grins at her and agrees, hoping for some big tips tonight.

Thirty minutes later and the bar had seen more of a profit than it had in the last month.

Thirty minutes after that and Gavin had more money in tips than he had in his bank account. Bobby, who seemed to be in a big hurry to rid himself of his million dollars, was a big part of it. New people just kept coming in and buying alcohol, though, at a rate this place had never seen. Gavin was hard-pressed to keep their drinks filled and had given up on conversation with anybody. The girl in the coat still turned around whenever the door opened, and Gavin only noticed that because he couldn’t imagine how she could possibly hear it.

It all went downhill at three, Gavin would tell people later. He happened to be glancing at the clock when the door opened.

The guy who sauntered in looked more like the regulars than she did. He was unshaven, heavyset, scarred and tattooed. The overhead lights buzzed and went out for two, three, almost four heartbeats while the man stood staring into the room. He had to be the guy, the cheating boyfriend or whatever, that the weird chick was looking for. She watched him over her shoulder with one hand tucked inside her coat. There was something about her, something freaky and not right, only obvious as she sat there motionless in the dark illuminated faintly in the hot, vaguely sinister glow of the neon sign over the door. Gavin surreptitiously took a step back from her, not knowing why even as he did it. She slid her hand from her coat as the lights came on, turned her back to the door and put her hand on her leg.

Swaggering like he owned the place, the rough-looking man shouldered his way to the bar, seeming a little surprised at the crowd. Gavin noticed he didn’t seem to recognize the hot chick in the black coat. He took a seat at the bar just next to her. She gave him a warm smile and watched him through half-lidded eyes. Gavin asked “What’ll you have, buddy?” Before the guy could order, she interrupted.

“What’s your name, big guy?” She sat staring happily at the man and ran her forefinger over the rim of her empty shot glass.

“Me?” He looked at her suspiciously. “Dirk.” His voice was deep, slurred. Gavin knew what a drunk sounded like and this guy had been hitting the bottle a fair amount all day. Great. His instincts, honed for years learning how to stop bar-fights before they started, were warning him that something bad was about to happen.

“My buddy Dirk here is going to have wine.” She smiled softly at Dirk, not even looking at the bartender. “My treat.” She slid another hundred dollar bill to Gavin and said “He’ll need a glass. You can leave the bottle with me”

What the fuck is going on here, thought Gavin. Keeping his eyes on them he grabbed a dusty bottle of wine (unopened and ancient, almost five years old) and set it on the counter.

Dirk watched her dumbly for a moment and then said “What? I will?” Staring at her suspiciously but taking the time to ogle her and nod appreciatively, he suddenly threw back his head and laughed. “You stupid bitch, you’re in the wrong fuckin’ bar. I don’t think I can afford you, girly.”

One of the other men at the bar coughed his drink back in to his glass. Gavin jumped- he’d forgotten about his other customers. He quickly set a thick wineglass in front of the two new people and hurried to the coughing man with a rag.

Her nostrils flaring, the girl coldly said, “Have a glass of wine, Mr. Singer.” She pushed the bottle to him.

Shrugging, Dirk poured himself a generous helping and lifted the glass. Saluting her with it, he then raised it to his lips. He swallowed it in one gulp and lowered his glass, smacking his lips. “Wait a minute,” he said. “How’d you know my-”, stopping mid-sentence when he saw her with her head tilted back as she drank down the entire bottle.

What happened next occurred too quickly for anyone to follow. One moment, burly Dirk was staring open-mouthed at the girl as she finished the wine, the next he was on the floor bleeding and the bottle was on the counter. Every conversation in the room stopped. Even the blaring jukebox hesitated and died, the brief vacuum of noise leaving everyone’s ears ringing.

The girl stepped away from the bar and grabbed Dirk by the shirt collar and pulled him back a couple feet. Ignoring everyone in the bar and the sudden shouted exclamations as everyone’s brains caught up with their eyes, she rolled him over like he weighed nothing and produced a pair of gleaming handcuffs and fastened them around his wrists. With his arms twisted awkwardly behind him, she kicked him sharply in the ribs and said angrily “Get up, you worthless piece of shit. You’re wanted for skipping bail.” She wasn’t even breathing heavily as she went on. “I’m placing you under arrest to be transported back to Logan County. Fuck with me and I’ll fuck you over. It’s a long drive so it’ll give me something to do.” She hauled him to his feet, something she shouldn’t have been able to do. He groaned, blood dripping slowly into his right eye from the gash on his brow. Looking over her shoulder, she saw something at the bar that made her say “Oh, shit.”

She tripped Dirk, hooking her ankle around his left leg and sending him crashing to the floor. He cried out in pain and there was a crunching noise as his head hit the floor. She ignored him entirely as she walked back to the bar. The bartender, his eyes wide, backed away and skirted around the edge of the bar. She ignored him along with everyone else who was moving toward the door, and did something so strange and out-of-place it would have warranted comment had anyone been paying attention. She grabbed Dirk’s squat glass and, whispering quietly to it, threw it to the ground. It shattered, sending shards of glass spinning lazily in all directions. They caught the light and flung it, prismatic, across the sticky dust that clung to the floor like a filthy carpet. Then she looked over her shoulder at Gavin and one of the patrons, who were helping Dirk to his feet. “You keep your hands off him, you pathetic son of a bitch!” The barfly backed off right away, holding up his hands and wobbling backwards in a drunken gesture of surrender. Gavin eyed her nervously for a moment, then steadied the man on his knees and stood back.

“You get the fuck out of my bar, lady. And don’t come back,” he said coldly.

“You don’t want to do that,” she said. “Not because of this stupid bastard.” She waved a hand Dirk, kneeling on the floor, who still hadn’t said anything. “You want to know what he did?” She walked slowly toward him, watching him all the while. He was facing the door, his back to her. “Why he was arrested, why he was released on bail and why I’ve been following him all week?” She reached him and savagely kicked him in the middle of his back, causing him to fall on his face again. Gavin almost protested, but shut his mouth at a look from her. “He beat his wife on a weekly basis. Everything she did, he made her bleed for it. They were married for three years and not a day went by she wasn’t bruised and hurting.” She still stared directly at Dirk, trying to roll on his back and find his footing. “She called the police, finally, when she was scared he’d come after their daughter too. He got locked up for a whole two days, then found her at her mother’s house.

“He put his wife in the hospital for that, along with her mother. His daughter, on the other hand…” Her eyes were so cold and her face so forbidding Gavin decided he didn’t want to hear what had happened to the little girl. He wanted these two out of his bar forever. “He picked her up and held her tight, after she’d just seen what he did to her mom and her grandma, both of them lying still on the floor, bloody and broken. He held that screaming little girl tight and he forced her tiny hand down on the stovetop. He held it there long enough that she’ll never be able to use it again. There were patches of her skin blackened and burned, stuck to her grandmother’s stove.”

Gavin thought he was going to be sick.

She glared down at the groaning man on the floor, who had vomited when he fell on his broken nose. “And you’re throwing me out of your bar for being a little rough with him? I don’t think so. Take it back unless you’re in the mood for me to ruin your life.”
Gavin stuttered an apology. He couldn’t do anything else with her eyes back on him and after hearing that story. She pulled Dirk to his feet again and shoved him at the door, which swung open when he hit it.


In the fresh, warm flower-scented air, strange for slummy downtown Vegas, the woman pointed the sullen and bloodied Dirk to her car and said “Start walking, shit-head. I dare you to do something to piss me off.”

=-=-=-=-=

Twenty-four hours later an unassuming, dusty 1980-something four-door Chevy pulled into the gravel parking lot of a seedy, run-down motel. The car rocked slightly on the uneven surface and trailed tired-looking clouds of dust. Dirk was sitting in the front seat, his hands cuffed together. The man looked exhausted. Bruises radiated outward from his broken nose and curled under his eyes, which were red and watery. The woman, who had cheerfully introduced herself as Daniella a few minutes into their long drive, opened her door and walked briskly around the car to do the same for Dirk. She seemed relaxed, cheerful and entirely too presentable for someone who had driven more than two hundred miles without stopping for a nap, a trip to a rest stop, food or even fuel.

She opened the passenger door gently, smiling down at the car like a proud parent and running her hand along the side-arm mirror. With the door swung open wide her arm shot forward and she curled her fingers roughly, balling up Dirk’s collar. She dragged him out of the car and to his feet as if he were a recalcitrant child. When he had his balance, she loosed her hold on his collar and grasped his face firmly, her thumb and forefinger in a V-shape at his chin.

“Listen to me,” she said sternly. “We are going inside and I am renting a room. You will stay in the room for the night and obey me in all things. We will leave at dawn. You will not be left alone for any amount of time.” His harsh breathing was accompanied by an audible clicking sound in his dry throat. She gently closed the door. She ignored the desperation in his eyes and continued in a cold, authoritative voice. “Your best chance to escape, as I’m sure you have already decided, is inside while I speak with the dried-up old boozehound behind the desk while he drools and fantasizes about me without my clothes. I expect you to take advantage of this and attempt to escape.”

Baffled, Dirk tried to speak, coughed and started again. “Wh- Why are you telling me this?” He was not thinking clearly and he hurt everywhere. She had not allowed him a moment’s rest since she shoved him into the car and positioned him uncomfortably with his cuffed hands behind him. The car had no seat belts and she drove like she was being chased. She had kept a small cooler filled with ice and corked, glass bottles of water at his feet but had never allowed him a drink. He didn’t think he’d ever wanted a swallow of water more in his life.

“Because we have two more days before I deliver you to the police. You’re worth more to them alive than dead.” She released her hold on his face and turned to the dingy building at her back. “And if you succeed in escaping from me I will kill you.”

“You’ll kill me if I succeed,” said Dirk. “But you want me to try when we get inside?” His slow, rasping baritone was querulous; incredulous but respectful. The few times he’d spoken harshly to her she had lashed out immediately, striking with bruising forces at his body’s most vulnerable points without ever taking her eyes off the road. He had, he was sure, at least one cracked rib and a dozen sick pools of dying blood collecting under his skin to form a garish tattoo all over the left side of his body. He had no idea who or what this woman really was but he had no intention of pissing her off ever again. He even hoped for the sanctuary of a police station, safe from her and behind bars… with a cool drink of water.

“I want you to know it’s hopeless. You will not escape me. You will pay for what you did to your little girl and you will go to prison where you will be raped and beaten on a regular basis. You will suffer every day for the rest of your life and you will deserve it.” Her fists were clenched and her words were clipped and tinted with suppressed rage. She pointed stiffly at the opaque glass door of the motel, framed with out-of-place flowering plants in great numbers, and said “Inside. Now.”

He swallowed compulsively and hurried, trying to ignore the stabbing, burning pains in his arms. Even after he’d constantly shifted position to ease the weight of his body on his arms they were cold and numb but for the awful tingling sensation like a scarf writhing seductively, twining about his limbs and twisting but made of pins. His captor was behind him at the car, busily putting up the roof.

She was finished before he reached the door and passed him to pull it open. She said to him as she held the door (somehow managing to be helpful but mocking at the same time), “Left ear. Lobe.” She pushed him inside and then shouldered him into the wall.

He stared blankly at her. He didn’t have to think too hard about not vomiting from the pain of his many bruises being shoved, even casually, against the rudely unyielding unpainted brick wall because he hadn’t eaten anything since before he’d gone into that bar and Daniella had happened to him.

When his ears stopped ringing and his head cleared he heard Daniella’s clear firm voice. She was talking to the skinny unwashed man leaning on the counter, who was sneaking glances down her front. The counter, like the rest of the room, featured more plants than bare space, lending the room a dichotomous appearance that was something of a cross between a sleazy truck-stop and a florist.

“-man is my unwilling prisoner. He will be handcuffed to a stationary fixture in the room and I will guard the door until dawn. I have beaten him and caused him a great deal of pain. He bears me animosity and I have no qualms about ending his life…”

The motel employee, a dishonest-looking old man who did indeed smell of alcohol (not to Dirk, who couldn’t smell anything or think past the urgent immediate pain wrapped like a coat around his body) amicably fulfilled Daniella’s prophecy and stole glances at her breasts while she talked.

Nice tits, he thought, while she talked to him about… something. He didn’t usually pay attention until they got out their money. Little small for me, thought Russell, dirty and drunken connoisseur of porn, keeper of the room keys and cleaning supplies. But they fit her nice. She ought to be a lingerie model or something. The guy she was with was under arrest or something, she had said. He looked pretty beat up and kept his hands behind his back. Russell noticed him backing toward the door, warily watching the chick that’d brought him in until his back touched the glass. He lost track of what happened next; everything seemed to happen at once. The bell over the door rang and he briefly made eye contact with the woman. He was moments away from dropping his gaze again to its customary position when she whirled and flung out her arm at the man behind her. There was a deafening explosion and the lights were extinguished.

=-=-=-=-=

Lost in thought, Daniella stared out the window with her back to the small motel room. Regret and genuine worry were plainly visible on her strong but delicate features. One hand held another of her hand-rolled cigarettes (of questionable origin). It was unusual for her- the thing had burned almost to ash. She had plainly been standing there, in front of the small locking glass doors to the patio, for some time. Her other hand was tightly gripping the handle of a large, sleek black gun.

The gun was a heavy, sophisticated thing that looked all the bigger in her small hand. A deep black, it didn’t shine in the soft light from the bedside lamp Daniella had turned on after staggering in with Dirk slumped against her. The handle was ornately carved from a single black stone inlaid with glass that traced along the stone in complex geometric designs. It looked like it was made for someone else, maybe someone with a bigger grip. Every so often as the single light bulb dimmed and died her hand tightened on the gun.

Behind her, face-down on the neatly made bed and shivering gently from the cool air after a full day and night of travel lay Dirk. A steady trickle of blood from the torn mess of his left ear was staining the bedspread. Her eyes would occasionally slide to the reflection of the beaten and exhausted man and threaten to brim with what could only be tears.

How could I do that to him? It’s never been this bad before. I thought I had it under control… Suddenly, decisively she turned away from the mirror and walked past the bed to the bathroom. She retrieved her black duffel traveling bag from the smooth faux-marble countertop and slung it over her shoulder like an overlarge purse. She walked past the unconscious man again, her gaze focused carefully on the sliding glass patio door.

Once outside, she casually dropped the bag to the ground a few feet from the large pool. She knelt and unzipped it, then dragged out a well-made, hand-stitched quilt. The squares were sections of retired clothing for a small girl and were mostly pink and violet with a border of grapes and leafy vines. She carefully spread the blanket on the ground, the edges scant inches from the water, her expression one of careful concentration. The next item she removed from the bag (after lifting the bag and kneeling again in the center of the quilt) was a long pipe and a Ziploc baggie.

After loading the pipe, lighting it and inhaling, she sat for several long moments with her eyes closed and the smoke held in her lungs. Finally she exhaled, breathing a cloud of thick, choking smoke out and over the water. It hung, sinuous and perpetually in motion, and stubbornly refused to dissipate. A minute went by, then two, as she sat motionless staring at the pool. The bright spotlights underwater were the only source of illumination out here, the overhead lights having been turned out long ago. She leaned forward, peering intently into the pool as if looking for something, but then sighed and took a deep drag on the pipe again. She held the smoke inside, immediately and visibly relaxing. She exhaled with a satisfied, lazy smile. Again, she was careful to direct the smoke over the pool where it joined the first. As soon as she did so, the water rippled under the undulating clouds of smoke. There was something moving under the water.