"Scylla, Charybdis, and the Bird on the Sea"
Philadelphia – 1984
I.
Ikey Boggs' office was surprisingly spacious, given the modest size of the curios shop out in front. Penance guessed most of his real 'business' took place back here, anyway. Most of the room was dominated with filing cabinets and safes. A massive wooden desk rested near the far wall, its surface illuminated with the pale light of a banker's lamp. Beneath it a battered and grimy scale creaked and groaned, its weights set into motion by the current of an air vent far above the desk.
The man himself sat at the desk, hunched over the top with his hands clasped together. Ikey Boggs was a short man— maybe 5' 6" at most— and he had a squat, boxy frame. His doughy body contrasted with his face, which had a certain chiseled quality to it— square-jaw, well-defined brow and an attractively proportional nose. Penance guessed the man had Caribbean blood in him. When Boggs spoke to him this was confirmed, as he bore a faint accent underneath his American English: a small staccato to his consonants, and a Creole bent to all his words. He was trying to hide it, but not doing a very good job. If Penance had to guess, he'd put money on the man being from Haiti, originally.
"So," Boggs said. "This is the little man who wants to be a ghost, is he?" He flashed the boy a toothy grin; two of those teeth were girded in gold.
Subtle he ain't, Penance thought. All the guy needed was a cigar sticking out of his mouth and the picture would be complete.
Boggs reached into his desk and pulled out a cigar box; he stuck one in his mouth and lit it up.
Penance did his best not to crack up. He stood with his hands behind his back, teeth grit, feeling very much like a schoolboy called into the principal's office on account of some hilarious prank. He knew from experience that laughing in that situation was also not a good idea.
"What say you then, little man?" Boggs asked.
"Whip said you can help me get out of Philly," Penance said. "That's really all I'm looking for."
Boggs smiled, exhaling a massive plume of smoke. He motioned to Whip, standing beside the boy, and nodded:
"Ah, yes. Our little whippoorwill (weep-a-weeeeel) is most concerned with your plight. Aren't you, my pretty baby birdie?"
The girl cleared her throat and nodded. She had that same nervous demeanor as he did, Penance thought.
"Indeed," Boggs said, "I'm so in debt to our dear little birdie that I got to thinking: well, Ikey, one day she'd be able to up and take ownership of this shop right from under you. Imagine!" He chuckled, one hand to his belly. "But you, little man, appear to be worth a fortune in favors to her, don't you?"
Boggs scanned Penance with his shrewd, brown eyes. They seemed to glimmer with a dark fire, and his brow furrowed with effort, as if the man were turning cold calculations over in his head.
"Can it be done?" Penance asked. "Can you get me out of the city?"
Boggs shrugged.
"I can, of course. But then there are complications, aren't there? See, you're quite the mystery, aren't you, little man? And mysteries can be very complicated things..."
Penance narrowed his brow:
"Whip told me that you don't ask questions—"
Boggs quickly waved one hand through the air and shook his head:
"Oh, don't get me wrong, my child. Personally I could care less about all your W's—"
"My what?"
Boggs smiled:
"Your W's: 'who, what, when, where and why'. Doesn't interest me for nothing, little man. That's the Lord's honest truth. I do not hide what I am, you see." He gestured to Whip again. "Our little birdie tell you what they call me, around here?"
Penance nodded:
"'Babysplitter' Boggs," he said.
"Mmm. Only a mild exaggeration, too. No, I haven't a care at all for your story, but if you want out of the city, well, it'd be easier to arrange that if I knew more than nothing about the heat that is on you."
"There's heat on me," Penance crossed his arms. "That's enough to know."
Boggs again chomped on his cigar, still scanning the boy with those shrewd brown eyes. Suddenly Penance felt very naked in the room, as if the man's gaze were burning right through his clothes.
"You have any idea why the FBI would be interested in you, my little man?"
Penance blinked. He looked over at Whip, who didn't meet his gaze for a moment. When she did she merely nodded.
"I didn't know they were," Penance said.
"Oh, yes, indeed. They are interested in you something fierce, I would say."
"Who cares about them? Whip told me you were supposed to be good," Penance said. "That kinda thing shouldn't matter to you."
"It shouldn't complicate things, you mean?" Boggs' smile widened.
Penance nodded.
"Oh, it doesn't," Boggs said. "No. If anything, it rather simplifies them..."
The man reached for a small carafe filled with water sitting on the far side of his desk. He filled a small plastic cup with the stuff and scooted it to the front of the desk, right in front Penance.
"You must be thirsty, little man. Have yourself a cool swig of water. Then we'll discuss all the particulars about your daring escape from the City of Brotherly Love..."
Penance nodded at the man respectfully, but he declined the drink:
"I already gotta pee, a little bit," he explained.
Boggs shrugged and nodded.
"Very well," he said. "Now, for the time being I'm thinking you should stay here, in the office. For a few days, at least. There is a cot in here, you see, and while you may not be particularly comfortable, you will be safe."
Penance scrunched his lips, looking around the dingy place. When he looked back at Boggs he was met with that cold, calculating look, as if the man were sizing up a piece of meat at market.
"I'm kinda looking for the express route out of the city, Mister Boggs. I need you to get me out fast."
The man spread his hands:
"Well, there's the fast way to do things, little man, and there's the right way to do things."
Penance met the man's gaze for a time, and then he sighed:
"If that's the case, then I don't think you're the right person to help me." The boy shook his head. "Sorry, Mister Boggs, but you're gonna have to pay off your debt to Whip some other way."
Boggs smiled gently. He puffed on his cigar for a few seconds before casting a brief look at the other two boys in the room, who were standing to either side of Penance and Whip. He returned Penance's gaze and shrugged:
"Too bad you wouldn't go along with the plan, little man. It'd have been better for you, I think."
"Sorry, but—"
"But," Boggs held up one finger, "you should keep in mind one thing about me. I'm a businessman, you see, and the thing about being a good businessman is this, child..."
Boggs leaned forward, leering at Penance with those gaudy golden teeth:
"...I don't go into debt to anyone."
Penance barely got the whole sentence. His head exploded with color and sound, and he went limp from head to toe, crashing down on the ground. When he looked up he saw the older boy standing over him, wielding a piece of rotted wood in his hands like a baseball bat. He distantly heard Whip's voice:
"What're you doing!" She barked. "There ain't no need for that!"
The girl tried rushing to Penance's side, but the squat boy got in the way, keeping her at bay. When Penance tried moving again he got another wallop to the head for his trouble. The older boy rolled Penance onto his belly, flipping him like a piece of trout in the frying pan. He felt the boy reach into his back pocket and retrieve Penance's little knife, tossing it on the desk. Penance again tried struggling to his knees and the boy again raised the wooden stick over his head:
"That's enough!" Boggs barked. "We're lookin' to catch 'im, not kill 'im!"
He probably wouldn't exactly have 'died' from this treatment. But it was a pretty close call. Penance's head swam, and his mind struggled through a deep, murky fog. He couldn't even keep his eyes focused on any one thing in particular.
Boggs reached under his desk and retrieved two bright yellow cable ties. He threw them to the older boy:
"Zip him up," he growled.
Penance felt his arms being pulled back behind his back, and the older boy wrapped one set of ties around his wrists, cinching them up tightly. When he was done he turned his attention to the boy's ankles, crossing them before lashing them together with the tie. When he was done he flipped Penance over on his back. The harsh ceiling light burned his eyes.
For a very brief moment he thought he saw another figure helping to roll him onto his back: a woman dressed in white, with her slender hands on his shoulders, and a brilliant white mantilla draped over her head. Almost as soon as she appeared she disappeared, though, about the same time the ringing in his ears stopped and his eyes adjusted.
Instead of a woman in white there was only Whip at his side, inspecting his aching head. She looked frightened— startled, at least— and when she looked back up at Ikey Boggs she was snarling like a beast:
"There was no cause for that!" She spat.
Boggs shrugged. He sauntered around his desk and absently picked up Penance's little knife. He inspected the blade with disinterest.
"Shut it, baby bird," he growled. "You tell me that this little prick likes playin' with knives? Well I don't care his age: a stab is a stab, no matter the hand doin' it. Can't blame a man for taking precautions, can you?"
Whip motioned to the supine boy:
"That wasn't part of the deal, Ikey!"
"Hey: he didn't buy it, alright? If the little bastard'd only drunk his medicine then he could've had a nice little nap, waiting for that fed to come and collect 'im. He wanted to play it the hard way, so we can oblige!"
Boggs looked down at Penance, who glared at the man with an unholy sneer. The boy opened his mouth, but Boggs held up one finger:
"Save it, punk," he said. "You start getting fresh, now, and I'll wrap those lips of yours so tight in packing tape that it'll take days to get it all off. You got that?"
Penance grudgingly closed his mouth. He didn't lose the sneer, though.
Boggs snapped his fingers at the two boys:
"Let's lock up the shop. I think we can afford to close early, today. I'll get a call out to that FBI guy, and everyone can just sit back and wait for 'im to come and get his prize." Boggs nudged Penance with one foot, chuckling. "Now, why they'd want fifty grand for you, little man, is beyond me. Seems to me they're getting the short end of the deal. But then I'm a business man, and I know a good deal when I see one!"
Boggs motioned to Whip as he and the boys headed out the door:
"Bind up any wounds he got on his head. And make sure he doesn't die."
"I'll do my best," Whip muttered.
Once the two of them were alone Penance looked away from the girl, staring at a random stain on a filing cabinet across the room. Whip slowly got to her feet and rooted around in her pocket.
"Listen... you want a cigarette? Or—"
"Can't smoke it," the boy growled. "I'm a little tied up, at the moment."
"I can hold it for you, if you—"
"Don't." Penance shook his head, closing his eyes. "Don't try to be nice. And don't pretend you're my friend. You don't have to, anymore. You got what you wanted—"
"What I want is for you to be safe, white bread. You go with the feds and nobody can touch you, right?"
Penance looked over his shoulder at the girl, and his seawater eyes smoldered:
"So that's why you did it, huh? That the only reason?"
Whip said nothing, looking away.
"You wanna insult my intelligence, Whip? Go ahead." The boy again looked away, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter anymore, does it?"
The girl got to one knee and sighed:
"There's a grand in it for me," she said. "A grand that I'll probably never see, honestly."
"You mean you get nothing? Not even thirty pieces of—"
"There's other things involved, kid. It's... complicated. And what the hell're you complaining about, anyway? Like I said: you'll be safe with—"
Penance shook his head, scoffing:
"I'm not gonna be 'safe' with anyone who comes to collect me, Whip. Whoever your boss is calling right now, as soon as they walk through that door I'm gonna be dead."
"That's ridiculous—"
Penance faced the girl again, snarling:
"Why would an FBI agent be looking for someone like me, Whip? How could they have such a great description of me, too? And Fifty thousand bucks? Are you kidding me? That's not a regular 'ol government reward for information. That's straight-up ridiculous! Who would throw that kinda money around looking for me?"
"They just wanna talk to you about Kenaz," Whip said. "Someone must've seen us leaving the library—"
"No one did. I was looking. Even if they were, that's a ridiculous amount of money to spend on such a flimsy lead."
"Then who's looking for you?"
"Duh," Penance growled.
Whip arched her brow. She made a rolling motion with one hand. Penance sighed in frustration:
"It's another Immortal. Must've followed me out of Baltimore. They were probably just waiting for something like this to happen..."
Whip's face, until now as hard as stone, slowly sagged down into a dreadful grimace.
"I don't care why you betrayed me, Whip." Penance shook his head and rolled over, avoiding the girl's gaze. "But, for whatever reason, you also just killed me, too." He sighed, shaking his head. "Congratulations..."
Whip said nothing for a time. Finally she got to her feet and drew a slow breath:
"You don't know that, Pen. You don't know for sure about that other Immortal—"
"I have been doing this for a very long time, Whip. I know the smell of another Immortal when I sniff it—"
"You didn't know about Kenaz."
That stilled Penance's tongue. The boy raised his head, as if he'd say something else, but instead he let it plop back down on the cold concrete floor.
"You don't know what's best for you," Whip said. "I won't pretend I'm bein' unselfish, here, but you just think about this, and you'll realize it isn't such a bad thing."
The girl moved for the office door. Penance called after her:
"Way, way back in the past this feeling was easier to handle, you know."
The girl stopped and turned around:
"What do you mean? What feeling?"
"If you give me to the feds, Whip, even if there's no other Immortal waiting to take my head, they'll still find out what I am. And that idea was easier to stomach— it was a lot less scary— a long time ago. Back in the day it was easy; people found out about you then they'd just drown you in a river, or else burn you at the stake." He looked over his shoulder, making brief eye-contact with the girl. "You wanna know what it's like, being burned at the stake?"
Whip broke eye contact with Penance; that made the boy smirk.
"Anyway, they'd be all about 'black magic' and 'witchcraft', and that was simple, since everyone only wanted to make people like me dead. You would wash-up downstream in the river, later, or climb up out of the ash pile when the crowds who came to watch your burn finally went away."
"Actually, that's horrifying—"
"Uh-uh," Penance shook his head. "People who're afraid of witches and magic? They're simple to deal with. Easy peasy. What's really horrifying is 'science'. Today they wouldn't just look at someone like me and want me dead. No, it'd be the opposite. They'd wanna know everything there is to know about me, and they'd keep me very alive to do it all. There're no answers there, either. I really believe that. Whatever the Source of Immortality is, or whatever it does to people like me to make us what we are, I can guarantee you it wouldn't let some government scientists learn its secrets. I bet you a billion bucks." He looked at Whip, and he waited for the girl to make eye-contact with him. When she finally did he let that cold sneer drop away, and in its place was a simple and wounded look, like a child who'd been given a scolding:
"But I also think they'd never stop 'working' on me until they found the answer, and they'd cut me up until the end of time, if they needed to. Getting killed by another Immortal never bothered me as much as that thought, Whip." Penance again rolled over, facing away from the girl. "So, you see, no matter who comes walking through that door in the next few minutes, I'm screwed either way."
Whip faced away from Penance, staring at the office door. She put her hand to the doorknob, and Penance called after her one last time:
"But I guess I owe you my life, too, don't I? So, in a way, I guess we're even-steven, aren't we?"
The girl quickly pushed through the door and slammed it behind her.
X
X
X
Boggs sent Russell and Tyrone back into the office to keep Penance 'company' while he waited out in the shop for the FBI agent to return his phone call. The man paced before the telephone, absently nibbling on a toothpick. Whip sat on one of the shelves, toying with a snow globe.
"You sure this fed is good for the money, Ikey?" She asked. "I mean, this whole thing smells fishy to me, you know?"
Boggs stopped pacing. He looked at the girl with a knowing smirk and drummed his fingers on the countertop.
"The green smells fine to me, baby bird. Only thing I smell that's 'fishy' around here is you."
Whip scrunched her lips and looked away from the man, scowling:
"Don't be like that, Ikey—"
The man pointed at the girl:
"I think," he said, "you're a little too 'tight' with that boy." He smiled, and then he laughed. "And here I didn't think you liked to 'butter' the white bread—"
"Come on, Ikey. The kid's 12, for God's sake. And it's not right, what we're doin' to him—"
"What am I doing, hmm?" Boggs circled around the counter and stood before the girl. "Am I sellin' him to some slave caravan, baby bird? Nope. Am I giving him over to a slave driver to work in a salt mine, somewhere? Well, nope!"
"Only 'cause you wouldn't get the same amount of money for him."
Boggs laughed, nodding:
"Well, now, you might be right about that," he admitted.
"Ikey, the kid's scared out of his wits. An' odds are something's really rotten with this deal—"
Boggs' demeanor changed. His friendly face contorted into an ebony slab of stone, and he reached up and gripped Whip's shoulders tight:
"Rotten or not, girl, the mere possibility of 50K is worth the aggravation. Worth it to me, and to you." He leaned over and whispered seductively into the girl's ear. "Now, I thought we were clear, here, my little whippoorwill (weep-a-weeeeel)..."
"W— we are," the girl nodded.
"Are we?" He chuckled. "'Cause I remember tellin' you you were comin' of age, didn't I? Didn't I tell you we couldn't run the risk of you pulling the thieving jobs, anymore?"
Whip nodded.
"Didn't I tell you," Boggs said, "you'd go down as an adult the next time you slipped up on them? And then, fearing your hard time in the slammer, you might just roll on me..."
"I never would," Whip swallowed, lips trembling. "Remember: I said I never would—"
"But," Boggs cooed, "didn't I tell you that this was too big a risk to me, baby bird? And then didn't I hear, somewhere, that Marquez was looking for another girl to round-out his little... 'operation'? What did you tell me, then, my little baby bird?"
Whip's shoulders trembled. The girl tried to keep them still:
"I... I said I didn't want to do that, Ikey. I... I..."
Boggs ran one finger along Whip's cheek, tracing a line along her delicate constellation of freckles.
"You are growing into a fine young woman, Willa. And fine young women have their place, in an operation—"
Whip recoiled from the man, crossing her arms over her midsection:
"Ikey, no," she shook her head.
The man's cold face didn't change. He jabbed the girl on the sternum three times in a row, scowling:
"Only fine young women who deliver on the thieving side of things get to keep on that side of things. Otherwise? Well, they get put to better use. So what are you, Whip: are you a thief, or are you a—"
"Thief," the girl nodded, drawing a halting breath. "Yes. I am, Ikey! Really!"
The man smiled and crossed his arms, raising his head in the air and looking down his nose at the girl:
"Then you will keep helping me steal, baby bird. We'll start with the reward money for that little prick. The good Lord knows: if that isn't stealing, I don't know what is!" He laughed and slapped Whip's knee, but then that cold scowl returned to his face. "And, after we cash in on this job, we'll see how useful you can still be to me, alright?"
The girl nodded emphatically.
"Good girl," he gripped Whip's cheek and playfully tugged it. She tried not to cringe. Boggs motioned to the phone. "I must go see a man about a dog; keep an ear out for that agent, will you?"
Whip nodded.
After Ikey left her alone in the store she slumped down to the floor, drawing a halting breath. She ran her hands through her hair, wagging her head to and fro. She didn't know how she could possibly feel more terrified than she did at that very moment, or any worse for what she'd done to Penance.
Fate had an idea, however: the telephone suddenly rang.
Whip got up slowly and stared down at the phone on the counter. It pealed once, twice, three times, and then four. The girl's heart must've beaten about ten times between each ring. She felt paralyzed, frozen in place, so smothered she couldn't even breathe. Before she passed out, however, she decided to act.
She lifted the receiver to her head.
"This is Special Agent Connall Noirbarret, FBI," the voice on the line said. "I'm returning a call about our missing Jonnie Doe."
"Jonnie Doe?" She asked.
An exasperated sigh met her ears:
"It's a fancy term for a boy whose name we don't know," Noirbarret said. "A boy we're trying to find. Where's the guy who left the message, kid?"
"In the crapper."
An even more exasperated sigh met her ears:
"Do you have information about this boy, or not?" Noirbarret growled.
"Uh... information?"
"Are you dense, brat? Yes, information!"
Again Whip found herself breathing hard. The girl's lips trembled.
"Uh... information... uh, no, we don't..."
"Then why in the hell did you call me?"
A dirty mirror hung on a wall across the counter. It was a cheap thing Ikey found at a garage sale that he'd tried passing off as a valuable antique. The thing was scuffed to hell and covered in dust, but Whip could still see her reflection, just barely peeking out of the gloom.
She looked down at her feet immediately, before she could lock eyes with it:
"We called you 'cause we got the kid, himself, agent. He's here with us, right now."
Silence on other end.
"And for that fifty grand he's all yours, agent. That was the deal, right?"
Again, only silence on the other end.
"You there, fed?" Whip snapped. "I said we've got your kid—"
"What's your address?" Noirbarret asked.
She told him.
"I'll be there in thirty minutes."
The phone clicked on the other end; a cold dial tone met Whip's ear. She slowly set the receiver down, and then looked back up across the counter. She and her reflection locked eyes.
And then she threw the telephone at the mirror, shattering it into dozens of pieces.
X
X
X
His eyes fluttered. He lay on his side in the brush, wrists and legs lashed together tightly. All around him gnarled trees plunged into a black abyss. That was where he belonged: in the cold maze of the woodland darkness. Instead he lay in a warm and happy clearing, with lovely white light beaming down on his naked body like the kiss of angelic rays.
And it terrified him.
This was not happiness: he was exposed— in more ways than one— and he was in trouble.
Four paws tromped out of the black woods. The fox stopped beside the boy, staring down at him with a quizzical expression.
Penance didn't know foxes could have 'quizzical expressions'.
"We are collared?" The fox said. "Pity, that, to see such a majestic animal tamed."
"I'm not tamed," Penance slurred his words. "I'm caught. There's a difference."
"Meaningless, I'm sure." The fox lay down, resting its head on its paws.
"I'm surprised that I managed to fall asleep—"
"We are not asleep, are we?" The fox said.
Penance blinked, and then he buried his forehead against the cool soil beneath him, groaning.
"Oh, yeah. I tried to stand up one too many times, didn't I? They hit me hard, didn't they?"
"Overly-vigorously," the fox said. "We are... not entirely ourselves."
The boy scoffed and tried stretching out; his bonds had no give, however, and when his strength gave out he was forced to relax. He asked a question he often needed reminding of, when he came out of a troubled sleep:
"What year is it, again?"
"Does it matter?" The fox asked. "History seems to repeat itself, does it not?"
Penance looked over at the fox:
"What do you mean?"
The fox motioned to Penance's face with its snout:
"We have been crying—"
"No I haven't—"
"Our face is covered in dirt, and there are tearstains on our cheeks..."
The boy scowled, grunting indifferently.
"One runs the risk of crying a bit," the fox observed, "if one allows oneself to be tamed—"
"I'm not tame!"
"Imagine a fox being led on a leash by a bird. No: we tamed ourselves to her quite nicely," the fox disagreed, "at least as much as we tamed ourselves to him. Do we not remember?"
Again Penance returned his attention to the dirt beneath him.
"To him," the fox said, "we were unique in all the world. Were we not? And to us, he was unique in all the world. Was he not?"
"I trusted him, too," Penance mumbled.
"Do we not remember where that trust took us?" The fox asked.
Penance closed his eyes and rolled onto his back.
"Do we not remember," the fox said, "how it all ended?"
Slowly Penance nodded. He looked over at the fox, eyes blinking unsteadily, and he sighed.
"Yeah," he said. "I remember."
"How did it end?" The fox asked.
"It ended... with her."
He closed his eyes tightly.
And he remembered.
