"No. But can't it wait?" she said, arching up to be kissed, lips open this time.
Monks imagined that he could feel the heat rising from her, a shimmer of delicious sensation seeking to enfold him. He held her, entranced by this ritual of human beings exploring each other's mouths with their tongues. It was very strange. But it was good. He remembered feebly that he had been thinking about something that had seemed important. But yes, that could wait.
"I feel like getting wet," she announced.
Feel like getting wet. The words spun disjointedly in his head. That was a strange way to put things. How could a person feel like getting wet?
She led him back the way they had come. Monks inhaled deeply, feeling the scents of the night cut into him in a heady rush, the eucalyptus, her perfume, smoke that he identified as marijuana. Bits of the conversations they passed joined feel like getting wet in his mind, swirling and reverberating with hidden importance.
told her I'd never ever
he came around with
five thousand? bullshit maybe twenty
There were more swimmers now, fluid shapes moving through the water or hanging on the sides. Monks was close enough now to see that the underwater lights revealed bare feet, legs, asses. He looked at Gwen in astonishment.
"No suits in the pool," she said, with a slight smile. 'That's the rule."
pool that's the rule
The marijuana smoke was thicker here, with glowing red dots traveling through the darkness a few feet at a time, pausing, traveling on. He had been catching more whiffs of the deep acrid smoke of harder drugs, too.
"It gives the young people a chance to get looked over," she said. "Arrangements get made."
Monks realized that almost all the swimmers were from the younger set. The older guests stood on the deck with drinks in hand, chatting or just watching.
He remembered what Gwen had said on the phone – like parties, but more focused.
Then he saw that one of the watchers was Julia D' Anton. She was alone, a little way apart from the crowd, wearing a long black dress and heavy dark eye shadow – another mourner for Eden. But she was gazing intently at the swimmers.
The term chickenhawk came into his mind.
As if he had spoken it aloud, Julia raised her gaze and met his. Her eyes seemed as dark and empty as a skull's. He looked away quickly.
He became aware of a couple clinging to the wall in a dark far corner of the pool, face-to-face, their steady underwater motions creating an eddy that rippled out across the water's surface and right through his skin, penetrating him in a whoosh as if his body was gone and only his raw nerves were left to feel.
And he saw, as he had seen the heartbreak glow from the statue of Eden Hale, but with an intensity so heightened it was almost unbearable, that this was a marketplace – that some commodity was being bartered away by the young to the old, in return for money, drugs, the hope of fame. It was not sex, or pleasure – that was only the medium of exchange. It cut far deeper, into the vitality of youth.
Coffee Trenette. Used up.
Focused.
Monks moved onward, lurching a little. Gwen walked patiently beside him. They came around the grotto's rock cornice, and he found himself staring at another tableau. A man was leaning against the wall, relaxed, complacent-looking. Monks recognized the satyrlike older man who had accosted Gwen earlier. He was clothed, but his trousers were open and his chubby member protruding, gripped in the hand of a pretty young woman. She was nude, her skin glistening with water, apparently just out of the pool. One of her knees was slightly bent, as if she was about to kneel.
But when she saw Monks and Gwen, she let go of him and stepped away, head turning aside and gaze going downcast, arms moving automatically across her body. Monks had once read somewhere that a Western woman, if caught unclothed by a strange man, would cover her vulva and breasts, but in other parts of the world, she would cover her face. There was a certain logic to that.
The satyr grinned at Gwen. "I keep telling you, baby, I got the power," he said.
"You got Viagra," Monks suggested distantly.
The grin dissolved into a hostile stare.
"Why don't you go back where you came from?"
"Impossible," Monks pointed out, frowning. "No space-time continuum can ever be repeated."
"You're a fucking wacko, you know that?"
"Not my fault. Schroedinger's."
"Get outta here!"
Monks backed away, shaking his head, trying to clear it. His brain seemed to bounce inside his skull.
Gwen came beside him again, catching his arm, steadying him. "Ivan likes to make sure everyone knows he's still virile."
"Poor girl."
"Don't worry, she's getting hers," Gwen said. "He owns a modeling agency."
Monks was starting to hyperventilate. Waves of pure sensation were washing through him. They were not unpleasant, but they were frightening.
Then he was aware that Julia D'Anton was standing in front of him. Her arms were folded imperiously.
"I see you found a date," she said coolly to Gwen, but her gaze stayed on Monks.
"I see you're looking for one," Gwen retorted.
Julia ignored her. "So you think someone murdered Eden, Dr. Monks? And that they might be here tonight?"
Things had gotten far more complicated than that, Monks thought, but the right words would not come.
"If thou hast blood on thy hands and shed more blood, wherewith shall ye cleanse it?" he asked, trying earnestly to explain. "For how shall ye wash off blood with blood?"
Both women looked startled.
Gwen murmured, "You'd better excuse us," to Julia, and helped Monks to a chair. He sat heavily.
"Something – is happening to me," he said.
"What kind of something?" Her fingers massaged his neck and shoulders.
"In my brain," he tried to explain. "The universe is getting scrambled."
She inhaled sharply. "Oh, my god. It sounds like ecstasy."
"Like what?"
"Ecstasy," Gwen said. "XTC."
Monks raised his head and stared at her.
"I wonder if someone slipped some in your drink," she said. "Sometimes they do that, to newcomers. It's supposed to be a joke, but this is awful." Her fists went to her hips in outrage. "If I find out who did it, they'll never come here again."
The import hit him with numbing impact. "I can't believe," he said. "Can't believe – I need to get someplace." He tried to heave himself to his feet. Her hand held him down with surprising strength.
"But darling, you are someplace," she said. "Just sit still a minute. You'll calm down." She crouched beside him, her face close. Her eyes were luminous with passion. "I'll predict the future. A beautiful woman wearing black will fulfill all your desires. Soon."
"Black?" he said stupidly. Her blouse was white. The only thing black she was wearing, that he could see, at least, was the top underneath it.
"Come on. We'll go where we can be safe and alone."
"My car," he objected.
"Don't be silly, you can't drive. Let yourself go, Carroll. I'll take care of you."
This time, she helped him get to his feet. He stumbled along, holding her hand like a child.
She led him away from the pool and party, around the base of the cliff that abutted the house, and up a stairway of flat stones that had been set into the earth. It was quiet here, and dark except for the gibbous moon, topping the coastal mountains to throw its cold fire across the land.
Monks became aware of the musical sound of trickling water, growing louder as they climbed. They came to a plateau, a hundred yards behind the house and a bit higher than its roof. The water was running down a rock face in a little fall, into a natural pool, about twenty feet across.