"Oh. Right." His back to her, Jack unbuttoned his shirt. Careless of her suit, Bagabond sat down on the dirty tile floor. After he had stripped, Jack looked dubiously at her. He held the bundle of clothes in front of him.
"Lie down."
Jack swallowed and prostrated himself in front of Bagabond. In the limited space, his feet extended under the green wooden partition dividing off the stall. She reached out and set his clothing safely aside. Holding his head in her hands, she began to send her consciousness inside his mind, searching for the key to his transformation.
"Let go of the pain. Stop trying to control it." Bagabond stopped using the rough voice she had adopted years before. Now she spoke in the rhythm she used when she calmed her animals. She synchronized her breathing with that rhythm and stroked Jack's head.
She knew the way. It was not the first time she had worked with Jack, although it was the first time she had sought to release the beast rather than contain it.
Jack relaxed under her hands. In his mind, he led her down through the levels of his consciousness. She dodged the barriers there and respected the private self which stood behind them. The cats had always urged her to pry. Out of friendship and because of her own near-pathological desire for privacy, Bagabond resisted that severe temptation.
Journeying through Jack's mind was a trip defined by smell. The city, its people, Bagabond herself, were all denoted by their individual scents, not by sight or words. Those came much later in the chain of consciousness.
Coming to a smell of swamp, rotting death and decay, and darkness, Jack stopped. Bagabond met his fear of never returning from the swamp with her reassuring consciousness. She was there. She would not abandon him. But it was the strength of her will that forced him back through the dark space and smell that lay at the core of his reptile self. As Jack's conscious mind was subsumed into the other, Bagabond fled back through his brain as it imploded into the reptile consciousness. The miasma of the swamp and the bellowing challenge of a bull alligator followed her like a riptide.
As she returned to her own body, the reaction flung Bagabond's head back against the side of the porcelain sink and jerked her hands away from the alligator whose head lay heavily in her lap. The reptile flipped over onto his feet again and roared the challenge Bagabond had just heard. Gasping quick, deep lungfuls of air, she entered the creature's mind and calmed him. Tail-tip twitching, he backed slightly away from her, cramped for space in the small rest room.
Bagabond looked up when she heard Rosemary's voice raised outside. The rest room door opened sufficiently to reveal the worried face of the Vietnamese maitre d'. His eyes widened and his hand rose to his mouth before slamming the door on the impossible scene.
She looked back down at the alligator and began to search through his mind for the trigger to force him to vomit up the books. Bagabond directed the alligator toward the stall as she uncovered the memory of poisoned meat.
The psychic feedback almost did the trick for her too. The alligator vomited the contents of his gullet onto the floor and into the stool. The stench of half-digested food shook even Bagabond, inured to most aspects of life and death. Calming the agitated reptile, she got up and gingerly fished for the plastic-wrapped books. Thankfully, it didn't take long. She rinsed off the package in the sink. The alligator whipped his tail, smashing the stall partition into kindling. He growled deep in his throat, a discontented, hungry rumbling. Reaching out to the alligator brain, Bagabond began the process of separating Jack's humanity from the reptile mind. In little more than a minute, Jack lay shivering on the cold tile floor where the gator had been. She handed him his clothes as he curled up fetally against the smell and the memory.
"It had to be done." She moistened a paper towel and gently wiped his forehead.
"Each time, I think I will never be human again." Jack stared at the wall. "When that finally happens, perhaps it will be for the best."
"Not for Cordelia." Nor for herself, but that thought remained unspoken.
"Cordelia. Yeah. Okay." His voice was flat. "Let's get this thing done." Dressed now, he pushed open the door. Bagabond followed him. Across the room, Rosemary stood with two older men who had joined the group.
"Rosa Maria, we have only the greatest respect for your late father, but we cannot allow you to interfere with the business of the Family." The taller man spread his hands and regarded her paternally.
"The Family business is my business." Rosemary glanced over at the approaching Bagabond and Jack. "I am a Gambione." She took the slightly damp packet that Bagabond handed her. The two older Mafiosi exchanged exasperated looks. It was obvious to Bagabond that this conversation had been going on for some time while she'd been in the rest room.
"I have a proposition for the Family," said Rosemary. She held the books upright on the table, leaning on them slightly as she spoke. "All the capos should hear me."
The taller man said, "You are a woman."
"Roberto, let her speak. We must make decisions and this is delaying us." The smaller, heavyset capo touched his companion's arm. Resignedly, the other man nodded.
Morelli opened the door. Rosemary started in, followed by Bagabond and Jack. Morelli held out his hand to bar Rosemary's companions. She stared at the capos until they nodded. Morelli dropped his hand in a gesture for them to enter.
The private dining room was long and narrow, almost filled by the single table surrounded by the capos of the Family. They were angrily debating the proper method of exacting retribution for Don Frederico's death. The black crepe bands were ubiquitous.
Halfway down the white-linened table, one man stood listening to the discussion around him. He raised his eyes as Rosemary, Bagabond, and Jack entered. "These are the people with the notebooks?"
"Yes, Don Tomaso," said the tall capo who had questioned them outside. Rosemary moved to the near end of the table. Without releasing the books, she placed them on the tablecloth. Bagabond stood beside her. Jack wandered to the far end of the room and peered out the window at the dark alley. "Thank you, Rosa-Maria." Don Tomaso's voice held an oily, unctuous tone. "Thank you for bringing these to us." Bagabond tensed and narrowed her eyes. This was one human she knew she especially did not like. Should it become necessary, his throat would be the one she'd spring at. She wrinkled her nose. The aroma of fish sauce made her realize she was hungry too.
"Signorina Gambione, if you please, Don Tomaso." Rosemary's fingers tightened on the books. She met his gaze across the table. Bagabond sensed the growing tension on both sides and felt her muscles echo the tautness. A garbage truck's hvdraulic whine and the crash of an upturned dumpster came from outside. The moment of silence in the dining room stretched. It was Don Tomaso who finally inclined his head in acquiescence.
"The books are not a gift," said Rosemary. "They are mine. I decide who has access to their information."
"Then you speak as one outside the Family." Don Tomaso shifted his eyes toward a man to his right. Bagabond followed the slight motion. She again wished she had the claws and teeth of the cats.
"I speak as one who has seen the near destruction of the Gambione Family. We are threatened on all sides, yet you sit here debating revenge upon an enemy you cannot even name." Rosemary surveyed the room angrily and shook the books at Tomaso. "If you follow the ways of the Butcher, the Gambiones are doomed!"
Behind them, there was a cry of pain and the door crashed open.
"Uh oh," said Jack.
As Bagabond reached for Rosemary, she was shoved to the floor by the thin diner who'd burst into the room. He was fast. The gaunt man grabbed the books from Rosemary, tripping her as he sped past.