big white torpedoes on a regular basis.
Leda came back and sat down again.
'If he calls and says he's coming back,' she told Billy calmly, 'I'm going to our place on Captiva. It will be beastly hot this time of year, but if I have enough gin, I find I barely notice the temperature. I don't think I could stand to be alone with him anymore. I still love him - yes, in my way, I do - but I don't think I could stand it. Thinking of him in the next bed ... thinking he might ... might touch me . . .' She shivered. Some of her drink spilled. She drank the rest all at once and then made a thick blowing sound, like a thirsty horse that has just drunk its fill.
'Leda, what's wrong with him? What's happened?'
'Happened? Happened? Why, Billy dear, I thought I'd told you, or that you knew somehow.'
Billy shook his head. He was starting to believe he didn't know anything.
'He's growing scales. Cary is growing scales.'
Billy gaped at her.
Leda offered a dry, amused, horrified smile, and shook her head a little.
'No - that's not quite right. His skin is turning into scales. He has become a case of reverse evolution, a sideshow freak. He's turning into a fish or a reptile.'
She laughed suddenly, a harsh, cawing shriek that made Halleck's blood run cold: She's tottering on the brink of madness, he thought - the revelation made him colder still. I think she'll probably go to Captiva no matter what happens. She'll have to get out of Fairview if she wants to save her sanity. Yes.
Leda clapped both hands over her mouth and then excused herself as if she had burped - or perhaps vomited - instead of laughed. Billy, incapable of speaking just then, only nodded and got up to make himself a fresh drink after all. She seemed to find it easier to talk now that he wasn't looking at her, now that he was at the bar with his back turned, and Billy purposely lingered there.
Chapter Eleven
The Scales of Justice
Cary had been furious - utterly furious - at being touched by the old Gypsy. He had gone to see the Raintree chief of police, Allen Chalker, the following day. Chalker was a poker-buddy, and he had been sympathetic. The Gypsies had come to Raintree directly from Fairview, he told Cary. Chalker said he kept expecting them to leave on their own. They had already been in Raintree for five days, and usually three days was about right - just time enough for all the town's interested teenagers to have their fortunes told and for a few desperately impotent men and a like number of desperately menopausal women to creep out to the encampment under cover of darkness and buy potions and nostrums and strange, oily creams. After three days the town's interest in the strangers always waned. Chalker had finally decided they were waiting for the flea market on Sunday. It was an annual event in Raintree, and drew crowds from all four of the surrounding towns. Rather than make an issue of their continuing presence - Gypsies, he told Cary, could be as ugly as ground wasps if you poked them too hard - he decided to let them work the departing flea-market crowds. But if they weren't gone come Monday morning, he would move them along.
But there had been no need. Come Monday morning, the farm field where the Gypsies had camped was empty except for wheel ruts, empty beer and soda cans (the Gypsies apparently had no interest in Connecticut's new bottle-and-can-deposit law), the blackened remains of several small cookfires, and three or four blankets so lousy that the deputy Chalker sent out to investigate would only
poke at them with a stick - a long stick. Sometime between sundown and sunup, the Gypsies had left the field, left Raintree, left Patchin County ... had, Chalker told his old poker buddy Cary Rossington, left the planet as far as he either knew or cared. And good riddance.
On Sunday afternoon the old Gypsy man had touched Cary's face; on Sunday night they had left; on Monday morning Cary had gone to Chalker to lodge a complaint (just what the legal
Leda came back and sat down again.
'If he calls and says he's coming back,' she told Billy calmly, 'I'm going to our place on Captiva. It will be beastly hot this time of year, but if I have enough gin, I find I barely notice the temperature. I don't think I could stand to be alone with him anymore. I still love him - yes, in my way, I do - but I don't think I could stand it. Thinking of him in the next bed ... thinking he might ... might touch me . . .' She shivered. Some of her drink spilled. She drank the rest all at once and then made a thick blowing sound, like a thirsty horse that has just drunk its fill.
'Leda, what's wrong with him? What's happened?'
'Happened? Happened? Why, Billy dear, I thought I'd told you, or that you knew somehow.'
Billy shook his head. He was starting to believe he didn't know anything.
'He's growing scales. Cary is growing scales.'
Billy gaped at her.
Leda offered a dry, amused, horrified smile, and shook her head a little.
'No - that's not quite right. His skin is turning into scales. He has become a case of reverse evolution, a sideshow freak. He's turning into a fish or a reptile.'
She laughed suddenly, a harsh, cawing shriek that made Halleck's blood run cold: She's tottering on the brink of madness, he thought - the revelation made him colder still. I think she'll probably go to Captiva no matter what happens. She'll have to get out of Fairview if she wants to save her sanity. Yes.
Leda clapped both hands over her mouth and then excused herself as if she had burped - or perhaps vomited - instead of laughed. Billy, incapable of speaking just then, only nodded and got up to make himself a fresh drink after all. She seemed to find it easier to talk now that he wasn't looking at her, now that he was at the bar with his back turned, and Billy purposely lingered there.
Chapter Eleven
The Scales of Justice
Cary had been furious - utterly furious - at being touched by the old Gypsy. He had gone to see the Raintree chief of police, Allen Chalker, the following day. Chalker was a poker-buddy, and he had been sympathetic. The Gypsies had come to Raintree directly from Fairview, he told Cary. Chalker said he kept expecting them to leave on their own. They had already been in Raintree for five days, and usually three days was about right - just time enough for all the town's interested teenagers to have their fortunes told and for a few desperately impotent men and a like number of desperately menopausal women to creep out to the encampment under cover of darkness and buy potions and nostrums and strange, oily creams. After three days the town's interest in the strangers always waned. Chalker had finally decided they were waiting for the flea market on Sunday. It was an annual event in Raintree, and drew crowds from all four of the surrounding towns. Rather than make an issue of their continuing presence - Gypsies, he told Cary, could be as ugly as ground wasps if you poked them too hard - he decided to let them work the departing flea-market crowds. But if they weren't gone come Monday morning, he would move them along.
But there had been no need. Come Monday morning, the farm field where the Gypsies had camped was empty except for wheel ruts, empty beer and soda cans (the Gypsies apparently had no interest in Connecticut's new bottle-and-can-deposit law), the blackened remains of several small cookfires, and three or four blankets so lousy that the deputy Chalker sent out to investigate would only
poke at them with a stick - a long stick. Sometime between sundown and sunup, the Gypsies had left the field, left Raintree, left Patchin County ... had, Chalker told his old poker buddy Cary Rossington, left the planet as far as he either knew or cared. And good riddance.
On Sunday afternoon the old Gypsy man had touched Cary's face; on Sunday night they had left; on Monday morning Cary had gone to Chalker to lodge a complaint (just what the legal
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