The long doors of the elevator opened, from bottom to top. And his first step into the garden would tell Ritcher everything about the time he would have. Rather, by stepping into the garden and realizing nothing came at him, that his caution was undeserved, told him what kind of mentality Salome was. She was gentile, sitting in her rocking chair with her long sun hat, in the center of the garden. He came through, checking his footprints. There was blood pooled on the bottom. He took them off, then the large Kevlar chest piece, so all that he had to him was the black shirt stretched by his large figure, his pants, and his cane. He walked. Every footstep he left had in its crated small piles of black sand.

He did not go with wild stride. Rather, he went slowly, admiring the primroses and honeysuckle and the persimmons and the apples. His bare feet touched soft grass, it was all transplanted but was so serene, so nice to walk through that anyone may have confused Salome’s little greenhouse for the very garden of eve.

He tried to touch a purple flower. The water system sprayed his hand as if to slap it away.

Salome did not turn. Did not watch him come, she just sat rocking with her bottle of wine at her feet.

"I always thought a heart attack would take me, considering all the work I do."

“You sound disappointed,” Ritcher said. “If it’s a consolidation, you didn’t make it easy for me.”

She offered the bottle to him. He turned it away.

“Lovely garden,” Ritcher said.

“I thought you were blind?”

“And these blind eyes can see many things,” Ritcher said. “It’s one of my gifts, I suppose you could say.”

She drank from a glass cup, resting the crown on her lips to contemplate the drink. Closing her eyes, she drank it all and started pouring herself another. Ritcher could tell, by the quickness, by the heat of her body, how deep into the stupor she was.

“This is the last thing that was built when this tower was made.” She said. “I made this. All of it. Your father never had the strength of will to do anything.”

“There, I agree.” He said. “My father was many things, but ambitious was not one of them. Holy man. Disciplinary-”

“Drunkard.” She took another gulp. “You forgot that one.”

“Father knew how to handle the Bible and the bottle, yes.”

He walked opposite of her. She turned her body away, instead opting to stare at the horizon of flowers and past the vines and green tendrils, the high view of the city below.

“My father used to catch crabs in Louisiana.” She laughed, it was slow and minute. Almost like a mice squeak. “Every morning he would go down to the docks on his little boat and start the rotor. And he would go off so far god-damn into the river that he’d just disappear, like a blip falling off the globe. But he didn’t go anywhere special, anywhere even close to the edge of the earth. He’d just go to his damn cages. And his damn crabs. And he’d do this all day and he’d either come home with nothing or come home with arms so cut up by his rope and wire pulling that all he could do was ice them and go to sleep. And he did this. Every. Day.”

She gulped.

“It scared me. Seeing something so repetitive scared me, how simple a man can be when he’s comfortable in his misfortune. I hated him for that, for not having it in him the way I did.”

He could not talk or interrupt a dead woman’s words, that was the privilege he had given her. The podium, his ears. He laid down his cane and found a nice stone bench to sit down at and felt the grass underneath his feet and the air that came from the perforated ceiling above. He heard a bird. There were birds here too?

“Well one day, God decided to play a game and flooded the docks, our boat, our home, and…our crabs away.” She said. “And you know what dad does the morning after the storm? Well, he goes to the edge of the overflowed river and looks for his damn cages. And his damn crabs. It’s like the flood didn’t even happen to him as if it was an inconvenience rather than the end all be all of our future. That was about the time I had enough. I ran away. I hitched rides. I did things…whatever…things were necessary to head west.”

“There’s still time to repent-”

“Stop your arrogance,” Salome said. “I am Salome Irene Lafayette-Wolfe, and I ask for no one's forgiveness.”

The birds quit their playfulness, he heard them flap and go away. The disturbed branches reverberated a bit before succumbing to the stillness and tension.

“I met some black girls along the way, shared a room with them when we were out bargaining with truckers the way poor women do.” She said. “They told me I was going to marry the kind of the desert. Funny, huh? Voodoo bitches, they were. And they were as far away from the truth as could be.”

“Father is the kind of the desert. Was.”

“Your father was an idiot.” She nearly leaped out of her seat. She used her hands to propel herself but fell back down. “I met that fool when I was out prostituting. And I only slept with him once he started bragging - as men do when their bellies are full of fire - bragging, about some damn inn he owned.”

“I was raised there,” Ritcher said.

“Yeah? Well, I sold the dump. I did.” She said. “Tom didn’t do shit-all with his money. With his talents. With his future.”

“I made him go west.” She threw her glass at his direction, it broke in front of his feet. “I told him to start the foundry. I told him to make a casino. Me. And no one else. I built everything-”

“You built a monument for your fear. So desperate to carve your name into the world, to mark the height of your pride that you changed father into a man he was never meant to be.”

“I made him give up the book and the bottle. As habits often come together, don’t they?” She said. “And he was better off for it! Happier, too! You know how many beatings it took for me to take? I couldn’t fight back, I just was so damn tenacious his arm got tired one day. I was good at what I did.”

“Being a manipulator?” He asked.

“Being a king.” She said.

“So here we are.” He opened his hands and kicked his cane up to catch it.

“Here we are.” She drank from the bottle.

“Your last moments will be spent drunk?”

“I can barely stay conscious.” She swirved in her seat. “I’ve already done half the work for you.”

“Embarrassing. You have no words for Luanne?”

“Tell her and Ritcher-”

“Ritcher is dead.” He rubbed the tattoo across his arm and the new ink that grew towards his palms. “I don’t know who killed him, but I’m certain he’s dead.”

She laughed. “Right.”

“You won’t mourn for him?”

“You want me to be honest?” She threw the bottle past him. “The only person I liked was Junior. The rest were too embarrassing. Too flawed.”

“Too perverted.” He said.

“That stupid little bitch always was the instigator. I blame her for rotting Floyd.” She said. “Parents despise their children more often than should be allowed. But you know that, don’t you?”

He rubbed the scars across his eyes.

“Like you ruined father.” He mumbled.

“You never loved him. You’re just obsessed with him.” She said. “Do you hate me for changing that man? For taking him from you?”

He approached her and put a hand on hers. She tried to take it away, but he gripped it.

“Do you hate me for killing your precious son, Junior?”

Her eyes widened, before they narrowed. She tried pulling harder.

“Of course it’d be you.” She slapped him. His face kept approaching hers.

“I’m going to take this casino from your corpse. I’m going to level it. You’ll pay for enabling the degeneracy of this city.” He said. “I’ll kill everything you’ve worked for.”

“You arrogant.” She slapped him. “Murdering.” She punched him. “Bastard.”

She spat at his face. He wiped it off with one hand, the one holding his cane. His iron grip tightened around her wrist.

"I must do my part as a missionary." He said. "Like the pilgrims before me. Or the conquistadors. Or the Jews. I am here to rebuild, rebuild a faith lost. And like all revolutions, a cleansing of the old must be had.”

“You’re a psychopath? You have no idea how crazy you are, do you?” She screamed. The heat emanated from her cheeks dispersed, the color faded. Her bony hands slipped away from his grip. She stood and walked backwards, far from him. Midway, she slipped on her heel. Her Achilles heel swelled, but she was too petrified to shout.

She stood upright, his shadow enveloping her. The birds fluttered away, out the top of the dome-shaped greenhouse.

“I’m the fate you feared.” He walked up, cane in hand. “I am the flood.”

“You’ll get yours!” Fear and anger rose in her voice. “They’ll get you, narcissist. I don’t know who, but they will!”

He approached her, smacking his cane against his palm.

“You don’t scare me!” She screamed.

“You shouldn’t be afraid of me,” He rose his cane high above her. “You should be afraid of what comes after.”

She yelled. It was as much a warrior’s cry as a death rally. And he let it down once. Her teeth collapsed into her throat, she coughed and struggled to speak.

He raised it again, the wheezing almost sounding like a symphony to him.

Cleansing was never always a job, he just happened to love his work.

He rose the bloody cane once more. Smiling, though he didn’t realize it.

“It’s been a pleasure, Salome.”

And she didn't even have enough time to scream.