This is the place where I lost everything I used to own, everything that used to mean something. I wanted time upstairs to look around, to take in the chairs, the stools, to shake loose the memories that are bucking against the gates of my new brain.
And what I want most of all is to sit in that dark booth in the corner, maybe have a drink, and if I could make it last long enough, or maybe if the right song came on or the right mix of people were standing there, he’d come out of the shadows…
“Move!” Trevor shouts behind me as we head up the stairs.
He’d melt out of the darkness, approach the booth and sit. He’d put his hand on my knee, and even though it was fake, he wouldn’t pull back. He’d take my face in his hands, not in any form of grotesque fascination, but in genuine love. He would cry at the loss of the face he knew, but he would draw close to me, and draw me out of myself. The world would be ours again.
And for him, I’d have the patience to speak, or write, or do whatever it is that would let me communicate with him. I know he’d listen. He’d pretend not to see me drool, he’d find an imaginary spot to examine on his pant leg when my face got too contorted as I tried to form those three clichéd words I most want to tell him. Then I could tell him I’m sorry, that we should have a second chance. Sometimes, you can never apologize enough…
“Sticklegs, we got to go!”
Trevor yanks at my collar. He passes me and pulls me up, over the bodies of the concubines, all of them too dazed to notice us. I waddle as fast as I can, but my feet are dragging. Somehow, I’m catching each of these girls, looking at them eye to eye, seeing inside of them. What brought them to this point was just a long string of mistakes and wrong turns. And what’s going to kill them is me.
What killed him is me.
They’re going to die here in the sub-basement and it’s my fault.
He died here, in the alley, and it’s my fault.
I want answers for them, answers for me, and before my brain can sink into any of it, I’m lifted up and away. Trevor kicks and elbows his way up the stairs, through the crowd, rushing us out the door. He sets me down in the alleyway. We stare at each other for just a second.
I feel the beginning of a laugh coming, the sheer lack of understanding finally just pushing me too far. I look down the alley, the intersection just a dark shadowy patch with a thin light wavering above. I remember his shadow there. And something else, another person, the last person I expected to see, and then flames erased it all. Huge flames and pain and all of it my fault.
And now I’m crying, even as Trevor tugs me towards the mouth of the alley, where a shadow really does lurk, a figure so much like his that I can’t bear to get closer.
The ground beneath us buckles. Then we hear the screams begin in the basement as secondary pops go up. Flames burst through the windows. Cracks form in the alley floor. People are clambering over each other, killing each other to escape certain death in the club.
Trevor lets out a war whoop as he drags me towards that shadow, the tall man, and his face slowly resolves. It’s just the punk whose nose I squashed earlier. His chicky friend waves us towards my van, our only route of escape.
We jump in as all of the sound briefly drains out of the alley. Then we’re hit by a shockwave like I’ve only felt one other time. The van slams against the alley wall and my hearing disappears. Everyone else in the van is screaming, but I don’t hear it. I lip-read Trevor asking “what the fuck?” and looking out the window as the entire building is rocked by charge after charge of Joe’s C4.
The building above the basement bar folds in on itself, the screams slowly diminishing as each floor falls—whuff, whuff, whuff—on the one below it. A land grab. A re-zoning project. My vengeance has been co-opted into a suburban expansion plan.
Trevor has me pinned in the seat, a knife to my throat, and I lip read: “Who did this? Did you set us up, you fucking bitch? Who did this?”
As the smoke rises from the alley, we pull into traffic, and right on cue, right as the another tear leaves my eye, the sky breaks and the rain comes down.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I’m led back to the underground crypt, where Delia is waiting with two more blotter squares and two huge cups of tea. I said nothing in the van. Trevor pushed the knife against my cheek hard enough to draw blood. He pulled the bully act on Delia’s kids in the van too. Pointing fingers at everyone, trying to find the traitor in his midst. He’s bursting at the seams to throw some accusations in front of the boss lady. Delia sees the look of concern on his face, but he’s still respectful enough not to speak until spoken to.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asks me.
I say nothing, only meet her eyes, something like jealousy and anger and resentment and thanks bubbling inside of me. She motions me to sit, and I do.
“Did it feel good? Do you remember now?”
Trevor leans forward like a second grader urging pick me, pick me. Delia takes no notice of him. She opens a small wooden box and draws out another Sweet Death cigarette.
“Trevor, I can see you’re dying to tell me all about the bar exploding. Believe me, I’m aware. Everyone in the city is aware. The Puerto Rican families in Corazon Negro are organizing. We’ve got gangs ready to push in here that haven’t been interested in Red Light for years. Did I not ask for restraint?”
His face goes slack. “You think I did that? I knew what I was doing. I built IEDs for the fuckin’ Navy for—”
“Mrs. Robinson, what the fuck happened?” She pushes one cup of tea closer to me. “Drink.”
What the hell, it’s been a long night, and this tea smells pretty good. Delia smiles warmly.
“You’re dismissed, Trevor.”
He opens his mouth, then stops. He’s boiling. I think he genuinely wants to kill me. He leaves, kicking over several candles on the way out. “Goddamn clusterfuck! I followed orders…”
“He’s quite passionate. I admire that in him.” Delia shakes her head. “It’s a city of wonders we live in, Mrs. Robinson. It is simply impossible to think that something can’t happen here. You think there couldn’t be a civil war. There will be. You think it wouldn’t be because of a cripple. But I do wonder. I do much wonder if a cripple didn’t bring down the house of Caligula.”
She pauses, sips her tea and raises her eyebrows at me. This is worse than outright anger. This is the kind of treatment only a furious mother could give to her child. I actually want her to punish me at this point. I hate this waiting.
“We came across a list while you were in the bar. Found it in the back of your van. Care to explain?”
She hands me the battered piece of light blue paper. It was the sheet just underneath the one I wrote on. My heavy-handed penmanship left a perfect indentation on this page, an invisible carbon copy. She taps at her name with a pen. I’ll be damned.
“Number five?” she asks, but I barely hear her.
I snatch the pen and paper from her hand. The room goes dark for me. There’s only me and the list, and order from chaos. I scribble some notes on auto pilot, fixing the mistakes, filling in the blanks, trying to make it all look right again. My book of names, in ink, indelible.
Now my list looks like this:
10. Vasili
9. Susan Schrader
8. Grace Brooks – need camo webbing and paper bags. SLOPPY BITCH!
7. Shakes – maybe sooner overboard, but fun.
6. Caligula – Familiar address? sicksicksicksick
5. Delia Sugar – I’M NOT SORRY. I’LL FIND A WAY
4. Hooded Jack
3. Dr. Robert Fortescu – took her heart. I want his in return.
2. Veronica Madden –
1. Fuck if I know.
Really fucked this one up, didn’t you?
Shut up.
Look at Delia there. You have a pen in your hand, a pen can stab. She knows something.
You’ll figure it out on your own.
Shut up!
<
br /> I feel Delia’s hand gently stop my pen and the room comes back into focus. She takes the list back and reads it over, clucking slightly.
“Hooded Jack. He’s had it in for Caligula for a long time. Are you working for him? You seem like his type.”
I shrug.
“This needs to finish, Mrs. Robinson. I’m only telling you this because I care.”
I start to write on the paper—I’ve been trying to fig—
Her hand stops me again. Her fingers guide my chin up until our eyes meet.
“Time is all I have. Speak to me.”
I shake my head. Of all the things she could ask.
“You won’t leave this room until you do.”
Fine with me, I stare at her.
“You won’t get any further answers,” she says, holding the blotters.
Good, throw them away. I don’t care.
Then she has a match in one hand and the scrapbook in the other. Her rough thumbnail digs into the match head, ready to flick down and blaze it. And the book is open in the other hand, and there’s a picture of me attached to a long news article. I think it’s me. It’s a fuzzy shot of a lady in a hospital bed. And on the facing page, there’s me in what must be an older picture, walking, a hand reaching into the frame from the right side to hold my hand. A slender arm, young, graceful, it has to be her, it has to be…And she flicks the page back and forth ever so briefly, holding the match close, too close.
“Speak.”
I look at her again. I don’t want to drool, I don’t want to look soft and useless. She moves the scrapbook, and underneath is my small tape recorder.
“And what about this gem?”
She hits play, and here comes Frances.
“…Delia. She’s angry. She’s going to eat you alive, and I think I’ll let her. Unless you start doing things for me. You want to go to war? Fine, let’s go to war! But you won’t be able to take it! No chance. It’s her or me, what’s your decision? Tell me what you know about Jack. And Delia. Now! What, you want coffee? Coffee, Gavin? Yeah, you think. You know…I. I tried to. You know. Gavin, motherfucker!”
Frances is going way over the top, in a way that would make the most zealous community college actor tell him to back off a bit. Hearing his voice gives me a twinge of pain.
Delia hits the stop button. She lowers the matchstick, dead and black now, but I can’t relax. She looks at me like a toy collector gazing on her prize possession.
“You wrote that?”
I nod.
“Amazing,” she says. “Say the name. Gavin.” She pauses, her thumb working the cover of the matchbook open and closed.
“Nnng…mm…nnngagddn.”
“Mmm,” she smiles. “That’s what I thought. It’s why I love theater, Mrs. Robinson. What is said in between the lines, what is shown without speaking. Why did you choose that name? Do you know?”
I shake my head.
“Speak!” she barks, raising another matchstick up. Her thumbnail makes a quick snak sound, followed by the sputter of flame.
“Nno!” I say, and she lowers the match. Telegraph it. Just say the important words, breathe deep, stop to swallow when the saliva builds up. I’ve done this before.
“Mrs. Robinson, you made a concerted effort to implicate me in a gang war. I must say it’s hurt me tremendously. I want to know who you’re working for now. It has to be someone you’ve known for a while.”
She smiles, her teeth so bright in here, her eyes so grey, swimming in dull yellow seas.
“Did you write what’s on this tape? Did you tell someone what to say?”
“Bofe.”
“Why that name?”
“Nnngmmaaggvvn? Don’ know why. Ffffrrgggeddn egryshing. Annn jssst let me rrrrrriiite. Let me rrrrr—”
“No.”
Damn, she’s enjoying this too much.
“I rrrremmber splloshun. N dee arlley. Mann in ny deams, res is a buur—bluur. Msff Robnnhhon—no culoo. Why you caww ne tha’.”
“Well, what a wonderful place to start.”
She opens the book and turns the pages until she settles on something she likes. She holds it out for me. A newspaper article, just a small page-six kind of thing. Violence in this town is not front-page news until it’s spectacular or widespread. There’s that fuzzy shot, me on a gurney by an ambulance. I think it’s me. It’s distant, three paramedics looking nervously over their shoulders, expecting some random lunatic to shoot them. EMTs in this city have a very high mortality rate. Junkies love to kill them. Their wagons are a treasure trove. There’s my leg dangling.
I laugh. Just a little. God bless me please. This is like opening a photo album to some long-forgotten memory of childhood, something so cherished that when you see it your heart leaps and your mind curses you for ever having forgotten. I was Mrs. Robinson. I had a fake name.
“Let’s call it the Firebomb Funeral. You were there to lay your husband in the ground. Do you remember?”
The Firebomb Funeral. The picture jumps into my head, clear as day.
“Your husband’s last rites…” she continues. “Put into the ground, murdered by thugs. You were the only surviving witness…do you remember? Tell me.” And she offers me paper and pen, so I write, and I tell her, and each blank page I fill in makes me feel more whole than the last.
I remember crying so much I had to sit on the edge of the grave, my legs dangling in. And as I stooped to add a flower, my face still freshly scarred from the bar fight, the whole coffin turned white, buckling and bubbling and exploding into shrapnel that seared my face, cut my arms, removed most of my chin and cheek, cut my legs. No, not cut. Destroyed.
There’s a feeling inside of me now that’s worse than pain and vengeance. It’s knowledge. I’m scared to know more, but I have to.
Delia is all sympathy. “I know it hurts to remember these things…but we must. Because the more you see, the more you’ll understand. I’m your friend. I’m on your side, and always have been. You know your real name, don’t you?”
No, I shake my head. And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell her. “Onee geemns whahn nee—ree maim. Fa powrr.”
I write it for her: Only demons want your real name. For power.
“Bet you wish you’d have thought about all of that long before you met the Doctor.”
I stare at her, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I’m going to give it all back to you.”
Break my head open like a piggy bank, pick out the pieces you need. Give me something, anything.
“You’ll want the Doctor dead. Hooded Jack dead. And more than anything, you’ll want Veronica Madden dead. But you won’t want to kill me. I’m giving you everything you want. I’m your friend. Always have been…”
The bottle hisses in my ear, words cold as an icepick. No. You came down off the mountain and bore that list to the people of this city, and its word is law.
The bottle is fighting for control over me now, when I’m this close to remembering, this close to sanity. So we’ll bend the rules, Mrs. Robinson and I. We’ll start to find side exits, doors, ways out. Because the truth is, I want to take that blotter. I want Sweet Death. There are answers in there. She could kill me while I’m high and I wouldn’t care. She could be lying to me, and I wouldn’t care if I had something resembling a truth. Knowing my name, or anyone in my family, well that would be a peach. As long as I died with details.
So I put on a show for her. A little shaky hand, some more tears, a couple of moosey howls thrown in. I’m too frail. Too, too frail. I pat the book, making my fingers too weak to even grasp a page. I need the book, I need the knowledge.
“We’ll just have to bury that nasty person you’ve become and get some answers. Hold out your tongue.”
I push my tongue out, noticing the slight way she recoils at the sight of the mangled red lump. Thinking of it, what it must look like, all of the concerns about Shakes and Big C wash out of me. The Firebomb Funeral. I couldn’t have been
the only one there. Look at what they did to me, in public. I want to hear more.
She sets the little square down, gently, like a snowflake on my tongue. I feel it start to dissolve, making my lips go salty and cold. Her fingers race towards my mouth, a lit cigarette between them, and I take a pull, a huge pull, rushing into the darkness, running towards my former self.
And then I disappear.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Welcome back to the show.
Freefalling inside of that big, black, empty silken tent, the floor swims in purple light, rippling and shiny. Then I’m ankle deep in it, whatever it is. It’s cool on my feet. And if I can feel that, then I have legs in this dream. Whatever Delia refined in Sweet Death, it’s some good shit.
“Where did we leave off last time? You remembered your tragic night at the bar, you remember the Firebomb Funeral…How do you feel?”
I lay down in the coolness of the water, float in it, stare at the ceiling as it pulses and sags and drips. It flips and bends and then I see the bar again. Nice third-person perspective. There I am, leggy me, and there’s Caligula grabbing my arm. My eyes are locked onto my husband, sitting there in the booth with other people, and he’s not moving. He’s humiliated that I’m here, and he won’t acknowledge me. He’s not even brave enough to approach.
Then the picture starts moving in slow motion. Caligula’s grip tightens. My hands drive into his chest. Clarabelle, the skinny boy who was sitting next to my husband, is up and coming at me with the bottle. His hand drags across a seat top and there’s a little brown shimmer as the bottle breaks in half.
And there’s me, staring at the bottle for a split second before I realize he intends to cut me. Me, just looking at my husband. Our marriage had to count for something. Surely he didn’t want me to get hurt. He should protect me—he’s a cop. My husband was a cop?
“Your husband taught you so much. How to throw a punch. How to fire a gun, a rifle, a semi-automatic. Where else would you learn such things? I know these things because I was your friend before, and I still am. You used to go to the gun club together. It was your little romantic getaway, every weekend that he was free…free from what, Mrs. Robinson, do you remember?”
Miss Massacre's Guide to Murder and Vengeance Page 16
