Basilisk

mystery, but why the sheriff was idling his gold and brown official car in front of our happy yellow house wasn’t one. The blobby tourist was in the back pointing at me, his mouth moving a mile a minute.

Sheriff Simmons turned off the car and stepped out, giving that same automatic hitch to his belt that all lawgivers in every movie or every TV show did. He had the Stetson, the shades; it was like one of those hyperrealistic video games. Was the Law here to kick ass and take names? No. They didn’t need any names—just more ass to kick. I’d learned a lot of slang and cursing from certain games. But when I’d earned points from accidentally backing over a prostitute, I decided to take all of the experience with a grain of salt.

When we’d first come to town, Stefan had laid down certain rules and sayings for keeping me safe. One of them had been regarding the cops, two total, in Cascade Falls. He told me, “No matter what you do, Misha, no matter absolutely fucking what. . . .” I’d waited for the epic brotherly promise, Dead or alive, I will come for you. I will save you. If I have to claw myself out of my own grave, I will save you. Something like that. I watched a lot of movies, owned a lot of movies. Hundreds. Maybe that was too many, but they did give me great expectations.

What Stefan had actually said had been, “No matter what you do, Misha, no matter absolutely fucking what . . . we can always get bail in this podunk town. So don’t sweat it.”

It was good advice, straight from his mob days.

I’d been a little disappointed. There was a certain lack of No matter what, I will find you! or They can take our land, but they can never take our liberty! Movies do leave you with certain anticipations in some instances. He’d more than made up for it back in Bolivia when he’d told me that if anyone in a uniform grabbed me, I was to kill every last motherfucker wearing one and run for my life. He’d been less concerned with the consequences to my morals than to the consequences to my physical body I carried them around in. And logically he’d been right.

But I wouldn’t have done it, and he knew that too. That was the reason it was a long time before I was able to go anywhere by myself. He’d been my shadow until Cascade Falls, which he eventually deemed safe enough for me.

My background checks on every citizen and the homeless man who lived down by the river with his dog helped. I also got a background on the dog, whom I took a can of Alpo to every day. He was a nice dog. His name was Ralphy, obtained at the pound two counties over—mixed breed, neutered, approximately five years old, and he smelled, but none of us are perfect. This was true of background checks too—they were effective when it came to dogs but useless when it came to tourists. There were too many, too little warning, and not enough time.

Now, here we were . . . about to find out if he’d been right about that bail.

Stefan stayed sitting, and I stood, looking innocent as a lamb—I knew I did as I’d practiced that expression in the mirror many times too. I’d had to. Innocence hadn’t come as easily as the coffeehouse employee-of-the-month expression. Innocence took a great deal of work; it was something no student from the Institute could ever claim. The tourist got out of the car behind the sheriff, his mouth moving. “It had to be that punk. He put something in my coffee. He’s been giving me attitude the whole week. Little bastard probably tried to poison me.”

People—always jumping to the wrong conclusions. Okay, jumping to the wrong methods. And I hadn’t hurt him. I hadn’t. I had inconvenienced him, but I hadn’t hurt him. It was an important distinction. I . . . had . . . not . . . hurt . . . him.

Whether he deserved it or not.

Sheriff Simmons hefted his belt again with one hand and rubbed his mustache with the other. He was young for a sheriff. The mustache, skimpy at best, was overcompensation. He didn’t appear that concerned, however, which was good. I could all but see the thought running through his mind: Of course mild-mannered, well-behaved Parker Alonzo hadn’t poisoned this whiny-ass tourist and if I had, maybe I deserved a medal. But he had a job to do or at least go through the motions of doing.

“This fella—excuse me, sir—Mr. Mitchell says he became violently ill after drinking the coffee you served him, Parker.” The sheriff yawned and continued to question me in a tone more bored than any that could be found in the world. “That’s not so, is it, Parker? You trying to poison this fella? Mr. Mitchell, I mean.”

“No, Sheriff, sir,” I said, shocked—terribly shocked. Goodhearted Parker whom every parent in town knew and wished their kids were like? Never. “I was walking down the sidewalk to take Stefan his lunch when this guy started yelling at me. I didn’t want to get into trouble, and I was kind of worried, you know. Sort of. He’s twice my size.” Three times was more like it, but I was playing nice, although too little, too late. That slippery slope had me now, but I kept the teenage talk flowing. “I kept going, but, like, I could smell the alcohol on him. I hate to say it . . . er . . . sir,” I added earnestly. Hand to God and light a candle for the tourist’s alcoholic soul, I was that earnest. “But I did. He smelled like Old Bob down at the river.”

“Bullshit.” Mitchell, the tourist—with vomit fumes instead of alcohol now, snarled. “I wasn’t drunk.” Which could be true. He could’ve only been buzzed? . . . Yes, buzzed was what they called it. “And I grabbed the spiteful little shit. Shook him good. You be rude to me, that’s what you get. And then he told me —”

Stefan cut him off. “You touched my brother?” The sheriff’s car hadn’t gotten him standing, but that did. “You grabbed him? You shook him?” I slanted a glance to see Stefan’s eyes go that wolf amber . . . slits of pale brutal brown. “You called him names that I’ll bet your mother should’ve put on your birth certificate? Is that what you did, shithead?” He seemed to get bigger somehow. “Well? Is it?”

Before the sheriff’s sunglasses had a chance to slide down his nose more than a fraction at “Harry’s” sudden change of temperament, Stefan was punching the tourist in the nose, which resulted in an explosion of blood. He then aimed the same fist at the man’s oversized gut, causing yet another episode of vomiting, which he had to be tired of by now—before waiting until the man dropped to the ground and following up with a hard, solid kick to the ribs.

I looked up to see Sheriff Simmons peering over the top of his reflective glasses, his eyebrows raised. He didn’t reach for his gun or move. He didn’t look wary . . . but he should have. He was seeing Stefan, the real Stefan for the first time. Harry, the gingerbread-painting, fence-repairing, gutter-cleaning, toss-back-a-beer-on-Friday- nights-at-the-local-bar-and-talk- football, all-around laid-back guy, had just added ass kicking to his resume. And not ordinary ass kicking. In the split second of speed and very purposeful brutality, the sheriff had seen Stefan Korsak of the Mafiya. He’d seen the man who hadn’t wanted to choose a life of violence, but when he had, he’d made sure he was extremely good at it.

What he’d done in that second was only a fraction of what he could do. But then he remembered he wasn’t Stefan here. He blinked, and the bared teeth and wolf eyes were gone and he was Happy Harry again—the gingerbread man. “My old man was in the marines.” He gave a sheepish shrug but didn’t back down. “He taught me a thing or two. He also taught me you don’t pick on kids or family. This guy did both.”

“And I think he’ll regret that—once he stops puking.” The sheriff pushed up his sunglasses and let it go—what he’d seen and what he had to suspect, because it had turned out a few weeks ago that Stefan was right.

In Cascade Falls you could get bail for anything.

Two weeks ago, Stefan had gotten in a bar fight on his usual have-to-be-ordinary-to-fit-in-Friday routine. I’d told him that wasn’t the way to avoid notice, the same thing he was always telling me to do. But he’d shrugged and said, “It was the whole damn bar going at it. If I hadn’t swung back when that guy punched me, I would’ve stood out. Exception that proves the rule.” The bail had been only five hundred dollars. When I’d paid it and picked him up, he’d shrugged, wadded up the receipt, and tossed it in the backseat. “ ‘Harry Alonzo’ now has a record. Actually, that’s my first time behind bars, believe it or not, which means no worry about comparing fingerprints,” he’d said.

This time there was no bail. The folks of Cascade Falls liked their tourists for the most part. But they didn’t like ones that messed with their citizens. The sheriff waited until the one on the ground stopped puking, handcuffed him, and shoved him into the back of the car. “Assaulting a minor is no way to spend your vacation, son.” Before he pushed his sunglasses back up, he winked at me to let me know it was a good time to pretend to be as young as I looked—seventeen instead of the twenty I almost was. “You call us next time you have some out-of-towner giving you trouble, Parker. Harry,” he said, tipping his hat, “nice moves. You done your daddy proud.” Then he was in the car and gone.

Maybe he’d recognized one of his own—a soldier of sorts. Although, from the premature beer belly on Sheriff Simmons, it’d been a long time since he’d kicked anyone in the ribs, which was, if you thought about it, great cardiovascular exercise. I’d have to look into the sheriff again. I’d underestimated him and his skills, former or not. I