Bug whimpered, and her whole body trembled.
Rain got her phone, plugged it into the charger, lay back with her body curled around Bug’s. The plan was to close her eyes for five minutes, reset her brain and get her act together, and then get up and make some soup for lunch. It was a good plan. Simple and practical.
She closed her eyes and was gone within seconds.
INTERLUDE THIRTEEN
THE MONSTERS AND THE BOY
The monsters took the boy on trips.
They went to a hospital emergency room, and the boy sat in a chair and watched the nurse and the doctor talk to people who came hurrying in behind gurneys that were heavy with blood and pain. The actual doctors at the hospital never saw Doctor Nine, the boy was sure of that. Doctor Nine was a shadow in the room, a shadow in the eyes of the person on each gurney. The nurse was there, though. Sometimes she was dressed as a nurse, sometimes she was an EMT, sometimes a cop. Other times she was other things. She was always there, though. When no one was looking, the nurse would turn to the boy and smile. Sometimes she had blood on her lips and she would lick it off, very slowly and deliberately.
Doctor Nine followed the gurneys, and he always carried a clock with him. It was the only time the boy saw that particular clock. It was a pocket watch with big Roman numerals and a dozen hands that did not tell the time in any way the boy understood. Each hand had a wickedly sharp point.
Once, when he asked what those extra hands were for, Doctor Nine surprised him by answering.
“They are my scalpels.”
“Scalpels for telling time?” asked the boy, confused.
“Oh, no, scalpels for taking time. For slicing it, cutting it off, and letting it fall. One slick—snikt!—and a moment falls to the floor. Another cut—snikt!—and a second is gone, or a minute. Snikt-snikt-snieckty-snikt! A moment of resolution. A kindly thought. A flicker of optimism or a better choice. Snikt-snikt-snikt. Thinking better of something, or pausing to consider, or—my favorite of all—counting your blessings. No, no, we can’t have that. Snikt! And the moments fall, and my nurse gathers them up and we take them home. Pay attention and you’ll see how it works. Think of it like a tree as autumn sets its leaves ablaze. It is most beautiful before it enters symbolic death. That is beauty. It is like hope—it is at its most delicious when it is about to die.”
The boy paid very close attention.
He watched and he learned how it worked.
Every time after that, when they went to cancer wards and hospice houses and homeless shelters and lonely rooms where people waited through the last ticks of the clock, the boy watched Doctor Nine capture moments and store them in his watch. Sometimes they were just that—moments, a fleeting half a heartbeat of time; on other days he would capture whole hours as people sat by deathbeds and realized that prayers were as hopeless a cure as drugs or surgery.
Doctor Nine and his nurse captured all of that time.
In the dark, the little boy worked on the clocks and thought about stolen time.
Night after night after night after night.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Monk drove back to the brownstone in Brooklyn where he’d met Rain Thomas. He had Joe Pass playing jazz guitar on the CD player, but he barely heard a note of it. He kept trying to understand what had happened today. Rain Thomas and the dead kid did not seem to fit together in any way that made sense. He knew she was keeping a lot of details from him, but he couldn’t get a handle on what they were. He could tell a lot about her—from observing her and picking details out of the things she said. She had a junkie vibe, but not actively so. She had a grifter’s vibe, too, but he didn’t think she was working a con.
The storm had slowed to an intermittent drizzle, and people were starting to poke their heads out into the early evening gloom. He parked behind a car that was up on blocks, its wheels gone, engine stripped and dashboard torn out. It hadn’t been there a few hours ago. The gangbangers around here worked fast. Monk was impressed.
He got out and looked up and down the street. Saw a few folks, studied them, watched them turn their heads and look away. People did that when he looked at them. Not always, but people with some kind of dirt they wanted to hide. Not that Monk looked like a cop; it was that people could tell he saw them. Saw and knew; saw and understood.
Fair enough.
He dug his hands in his pockets and braced for a moment against the cold wind. A rustling sound made him look up, and he saw a line of thirty or forty black birds on the rooftop above the building where the kid died. He couldn’t tell if they were crows, ravens, or some kind of overgrown and underfed starlings. Ugly, whatever they were, and they were almost invisible against the dark sky. He stood there for a moment, watching and being watched. Hating and being hated.
“And fuck you, too,” he said and went inside.
The foyer and stairs were empty, and the building seemed to sag under the weight of its own disappointment. As if it had tried to be a home to the people who lived there and had finally accepted its own comprehensive failure. Monk would not have been surprised to find that suicides were common in a place like this.
As he climbed the stairs, his skin twitched and itched, as if the faces tattooed on his flesh were wincing or trying to turn away. It was not the first time he’d felt that, or had the same thought about what the feeling meant. He was pretty sure he was right about it, too.
They know, he thought. They see more than I do.
Monk stopped on the third-floor landing. Everything was as he’d left it when he and Rain went to see the body. Same pipes, same ladder, same carpet. He stood there, wondering what it was he expected to find, or to see differently. He cocked his head and tried to listen to the hallway as if it could whisper something to him.
There was nothing.
Nothing he could see, at least.
After ten long minutes, he shook his head, turned, and left.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Rain knew where she was.
The Fire Zone.
She’d always known, though it was nice to have the name. Better to have it. Safer.
Safer? Was that truly the right word? As Rain walked along the darkened streets, she chewed on it, tasted it, swallowed it. No. Not safer. Correct. That was the word, though she did not yet understand why that was the right way to think about it. What mattered most, she thought, was that she knew where she was.
The Fire Zone.
Rain looked behind her—down the hill to the dense shadows of Boundary Street.
“That’s where I live,” she said.
It’s where you belong, whispered her parasite. You’re not supposed to be up here.
“Kiss my ass.”
Rain turned again and regarded what lay before her. She was nearly at the top of the hill, and the whole of the Fire Zone was spread out before her. Up ahead was a nightclub. The façade was rough-textured and painted a mottled white, towering above the waves of light that lapped at its base. It soared twenty stories upward into the sky and was crowned by a massive rotating laser cannon that fired a barrage of bright red and blue light into the night. At ground level, the revelers were bathed in the sanguine glow of a pulsing neon hand that was fifteen feet high and the color of arterial blood. Mounted to the left of the massive doors, the hand throbbed with the insistent rhythm of a passionate heart, the fingers splayed wide as if in pain, or in ecstasy.
Rain stopped in front of the club and looked dubiously up at the pulsating red hand and was suddenly jabbed by a splinter of memory from another Fire Zone dream. She had a vague image of people dancing. Not just club dancing but really dancing. With heart and passion, with art and insight. Moving together and alone, giving themselves over to a connection to the rhythm that went far deeper than talent and drilled all the way down into instinct. She closed her eyes for a moment to try to capture the image and bring it into clarity, and for a moment—a single, sweet, delicious moment—she saw the bodies. None at rest; all in motion. Sh
e saw the way they encountered the Music. Met it, accepted it, fought it, wrestled with it, flung themselves into it, absorbed it, drank it, and became it. It was too beautiful to be primitive, but it was nonetheless primal. Essential. She knew that she did not have the vocabulary to describe it to herself, though at the same time she knew that no one did. This was something undefinable and yet knowable. Like true art. Like love and passion. Like peace.
You’re a dancer, whispered a voice. Her own? Her son’s? Go in and dance.
“I can’t,” she said.
You must. Dance for your life.
“I’m broken,” said Rain.
Everybody’s broken. Everything is broken. Look closely, you can see the cracks in everything. That’s how the light gets in.
She opened her eyes and realized that the voice had not come from inside her head. A man stood there. He was tall and lithe and nearly naked. Brown skinned and beautiful, with cat-yellow eyes and a smile that could melt chains and break hearts. Every inch of him that she could see was covered with intricate tattoos that flowed around each curve of muscle. The skin art seemed to move, but always out of the corner of her eye, never when she was looking directly at it. Rain realized that she knew this man’s name.
“Snakedancer,” she murmured.
He laughed to hear her speak his name, and he laughed when colors exploded without cause in the air around him. Dozens of other people came out of the night and began moving with him; dancing with him but without imitating his steps. It was like watching smoke—always changing and yet always smoke. Waves were like that, she thought, and fire. Always moving, never the same, and yet constant in important ways.
“Dance, little bird,” said Snakedancer. He had an accent that she could not place. Some island, maybe. Or Africa. Or paradise. He seemed to be from a place where they understand joy. It was a country she had not visited for a long time.
She looked at Snakedancer and past him to the big translucent glass doors. Shadows of the people inside moved and swayed to the beat and the bass notes made the pavement beneath her feet shudder. She could feel it like a slow heart attack, pulsing inside her chest, but feeling wrong, hurting because she was not part of this.
The tall dance master reached out and tried to touch her face. Sadness flickered through his smile. “You need to dance,” he said.
“I … can’t,” she said, fighting tears. “I used to, but not anymore.”
“The dance never stops,” he said. “Dance for your life.”
And then he turned and gathered his flock, and they all swept through the doors of the club. For a moment, when the doors were open, she caught a glimpse of a massive room crowded with hundreds of dancers. Laser lights whipped and swept and stabbed, and the Music held sway over everything. Then the doors closed and Rain sagged back, feeling stupid and dirty and abandoned.
Brokenhearted, Rain turned and walked away as fast as she could. Across the street and along the broad avenue. Not back toward Boundary Street, but parallel to it. There was a park ahead, and she hurried toward it, avoiding the couples who walked hand in hand toward the sounds of Music.
At the near corner of the park was a tall metal pole wreathed in wrought iron ivy and roses, atop which was an antique clock. The glass cover hung open, and an old man stood on a stepladder as he studied the exposed gears. Rain stopped to look up at him. The clock was old, but the man looked so much older. Ancient. His skin was dusty brown gray, and she couldn’t tell if he was Middle Eastern or black or Native American. His features seemed to be a little bit of everything. His hair had long since turned to a white frosting. He was dressed in denim coveralls, with tool belts crisscrossed like the gun belts of a western quick-draw hero. A red toolbox was perched on the top of the stepladder and rattled as he twisted and turned his arms to try to reach some awkward gear. There was a clunk, and the man leaned back, lips pursed in concern as he studied the broken clock. He tapped a wrench against one calloused palm.
“Well, that’s not good,” he said; then he seemed to sense her watching, and he turned to look down at Rain. “Hello, missy.”
“Hi,” she said. “Having trouble?”
The old man smiled. He had a wonderful smile. The kind of smile Rain wanted to stand closer to.
You could be near that smile, but the nightbirds could not. Doctor Nine could not abide the light of that smile. Not him, or his nurse, or any of the shadows he traveled with. Rain cocked her head as if to listen to that thought. It was a realization that came with no actual explanation, and yet she knew that it was the truth.
The repairman studied her, lips pursed. “You’re asleep, aren’t you?”
She blinked. “I … I think so…?”
He nodded. “It’s okay. A lot of people are asleep. Even some of my best friends. Some people having been sleeping for a long time now.”
“This is a dream?” she asked.
“Well, sure, I suppose that’s one of the things this is,” said the repairman. He took a cloth from his pocket and began cleaning his wrench. There was a burst of laughter and noise as someone else opened the door to the club and went inside. The old man glanced at the club and then at her, nodding as he did so. Then he glanced at her and nodded again. “Ah.”
“What?”
“You didn’t go into Torquemada’s.” Torquemada’s. Sticks had mentioned that name.
“How did you know?”
“Dream, remember?” he said. “Stuff like this happens in dreams. And people like me know all kinds of mysterious stuff. Isn’t that how dreams are supposed to work?”
“I guess.”
“Sure they are. All sorts of things like this happens in dreams. It’s weird and it’s strange, but ‘weird and strange’ are what grease the wheels of dreams.”
Rain had no idea how to respond to that. The old man got down off the stepladder and placed the wrench with great care in the toolbox. There was a reverence in the way he handled the tool.
“Here’s another thing about dreams,” he said as he began folding his cloth. “I know your name. It’s Lorraine, but you prefer to be called Rain. That’s fine. Rain’s a good name.”
“I—”
“My name’s Caster Bootey,” he said. “And don’t make jokes. I’ve had that name longer than people been using it to talk about sneaking into each other’s lives late at night. And, besides, it has an e. Bootey. That’s me.”
The name sounded familiar, but at the moment, Rain could not remember if she’d dreamed it before or if Sticks had mentioned it. Either way, it was okay.
“Hi, Mr. Bootey,” she said.
“Caster will do.”
“Caster,” she said. “I like that. Do you, um, work here?” she asked.
He laughed, and he had a deep, rich laugh. Not a Santa Claus laugh or anything that comical. His laugh was more knowing than that. More grown up. Grown up and grown old. “Sure,” he said, “I guess I do some odd jobs around the place. Fix the lights and suchlike. Been trying to fix this clock, but it’s got some problems. Keeps losing time.”
“Oh.”
He gave her a sly glance. “You’ve been losing time, too, haven’t you?”
“How’d you…?”
“Dream,” he reminded her.
“Oh. Right.”
“You have, though, haven’t you?”
She took a breath. “Someone stole Friday from me.”
He nodded. “And what do you think about that?”
“I don’t understand it,” she said. “I don’t know what to think about it. How can someone steal a whole day?”
“Happens a lot more than you think,” said Caster, “though really people tend to lose their own time. Takes a bit of doing to steal someone else’s day. That takes a bit of doing. It takes some knowing how.”
“I lost a job because of it,” she complained.
“Ah, well, there are always little sacrifices when these things happen.”
Rain pointed in what she thought was the direction of
Boundary Street. “Why’d he do it?”
“Why’d who do it?”
She began to say the name, but stopped and shook her head. “Him.”
Caster made tsk-tsk noises. “You’re afraid to say his name. Well … here’s a secret. It’s a big one and a good one, but it’s free. This is the Fire Zone, Rain. If you can’t say his name here, you can’t say it anywhere.”
“I—”
“Give it a try.”
“If I do, he’d hurt you. That’s what he does. He punishes me for saying his name.”
Caster grinned and lowered his arms. “I’ll take my chances.”
She shook her head. “I … can’t.”
“Ah, well.” He took a screwdriver from his back pocket, held the handle up as if it were a microphone, and yelled into it. “Doctor Nine!” It came out enormously amplified, and echoes bounced and crashed against all the walls and then fled over the treetops until the winds tore them to silence. Caster chuckled. “Doctor Nine’s got no tricks to play on me. Not on you, either, missy. Not unless you allow it. People will always try to tell you different, but don’t listen to anyone.”
She gaped at him.
“You’re going to catch flies like that, Miss Rain.”
She closed her mouth.
Caster put the screwdriver away. “This is only a dream, so a lot of this isn’t going to make sense. Right now, I mean. It’s all going to make sense later. Your part, my part, Doctor Nine’s part. All of it.”
“My life is falling apart,” said Rain. “Nothing makes sense.”
“Actually,” he said, “everything makes sense. Everything’s part of everything. That’s how it works, you know. That’s the secret. Nothing and no one exists entirely in their own universe. Our lives overlap and touch and blend and merge and infuse. We share the same air. We share the same stars. Sometimes we share the same dreams—more than people realize. We share the same angels and, unfortunately, we share our devils. We infect each other with good and bad germs, you might say. Your mother gave you a bad dose—oh, yes, she did. You have the bug now. Your friends have it, too, and you’re going to think they caught it from you. They didn’t. Not really. And you didn’t catch it from your mom. Not really. Not in the way you think. Not in the way she thinks. It more complicated than that, but also less complicated than that.”
Glimpse Page 20
