“Me first?” she asked hopefully.
Priscilla turned around and stared down her nose at her, junkie aristocracy surveying the rabble. “I understand I’m not the only one in this car with works?”
George was patting himself down awkwardly as he drove, muttering, “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Asshole,” said Farmer. “I knew you didn’t have any.”
“I had some, but I don’t know where they are now.”
“Try looking up your ass. Priscilla?”
Priscilla let out a noisy sigh. “I’m not going to do this anymore. Someday we’re all going to get hep and die.”
“Well, I’m clean,” the kid announced proudly.
“Keep borrowing works, you’ll get a nice case of hepatitis,” I said. “Joe got the clap once, using someone else’s.”
“Bullshit.”
“Tell him whose spike it was, Stacey,” I said, feeling mean. Stacey flushed.
“And you want to go first?” Priscilla said. “No way.”
“That was last year. I’m cured now, honest. I don’t even have a cold.” She glared at me. “Please, Priscilla. Please.”
Priscilla sighed again and passed her a small square of foil and a plastic syringe. “You give me anything and I’ll fucking kill you, I swear.”
“Here, hold this.” Stacey dumped everything in the kid’s lap and took the water from Farmer. “Who’s got a belt?”
Somehow, everyone looked at everyone else and ended up looking at me.
“Shit,” I said and slipped it off. Stacey reached for it and I held it back. “Somebody tell me where Joe is or I’ll throw this out the window right now.”
“China, don’t be like that. You’re holding things up,” said Priscilla chidingly, as though I were a bratty younger sister.
“I just want to know where Joe is.”
“Just let us fix first, okay? Now give Stacey your belt.”
Stacey snatched the belt away from me before I could say anything else and shoved her shirt and sweater sleeves high up on her arm. “Wrap it on me,” she said to the kid. Her voice was getting shaky. The kid got the belt around her upper arm and pulled it snug. He had to pour a little water into the bowl of the spoon for her, too, and shake the heroin out of the foil. Someone had a ragged piece of something that had to pass for cheesecloth. Stacey fidgeted with it while the kid held a match under the spoon. When the mix in the bowl started to bubble, Stacey laid the cloth over the surface and drew some solution into the syringe. Her hands were very steady now. She held the syringe up and flicked it with her finger.
“Will you hurry it up?” Farmer snapped. “There’s other people besides you.”
“Keep your shirt on, I’m trying to lose some bubbles. Help me,” Stacey said. “Tighten that belt.”
The kid pulled the belt tighter for her as she straightened her arm. She felt in the fold of her elbow with her pinky. “There he is. Old Faithful. He shoulda collapsed long ago but he just keeps on truckin’. I heard about this guy, you know? Who shot an air bubble and he saw it in his vein just as he was nodding out, you know?” She probed with the needle, drew back the plunger and found blood. “That poor guy just kept stroking it down and stroking it down and would you believe—” Her eyelids fluttered. I reached over the kid to loosen the belt on her arm. “He actually got rid of it. He’s still shooting.” She started to say something else and passed out.
“Jesus, Priscilla.” I took the needle out of Stacey’s arm. “What kind of stuff have you got?”
“Only the best. Joe’s new connection. You next?” she asked the kid.
“He’s not an addict yet,” I said. “He can pass this time.”
“Who asked you?” said the kid. “You’re not my fucking mother.”
“You have to mainline for two weeks straight to get a habit,” I said. “Take the day off.”
But he already had the belt around his arm. “No. Give me the needle.”
I plunged the syringe into the cup he was holding. “You have to clean it first, jerk-off.” I cranked down the window and squirted a thin stream of water into the air. “If you’re going to do this anyway, you might as well do it right.”
Suddenly he looked unsure of himself. “I never shot myself up before. Stacey always did me.”
I looked at her, sprawled out on his other side. “She’s a big help, that girl. Looks like you’re on your own. I don’t give injections.”
But I flicked the bubbles out of the syringe for him. It was better than watching him shoot an air bubble. He had veins like power cables.
Priscilla went next. I barely had time to clean the needle and spoon for her. Farmer fixed after her. The spoon was looking bad. I was scrubbing the mess out of it with a corner of my shirt when I noticed it was real silver. The kid’s spoon. Probably stolen out of his mother’s service for eight. Or maybe it was the one they’d found lodged in his mouth when he’d been born. I looked at him slumped next to Stacey, eyes half-closed, too ecstatic to smile. Was this part of the new element moving in that my father had mentioned, a pampered high school kid?
“Priscilla, are you awake?” I asked, squirting water from the needle out the window while Farmer cooked his load.
“Mmm,” she said, lazily.
“Do you really know where Joe is?”
She didn’t answer. I dipped the needle into the water one last time and squirted a stream out the window again. It arched gracefully into the air and splattered against the passenger side window of the police car that had pulled up even with us. I froze, still holding the needle up in plain sight. Farmer was telling me to hand him the fucking spike but his voice seemed to be coming through miles of cotton batting. I was back in the buzz of the night before, the world doing a slow-motion underwater ballet of the macabre while I watched my future dribble down the window along with the water. The cop at the wheel turned his head for a year before his eyes met mine. Riding all alone, must be budget-cutting time, my mind babbled. His face was flat and I could see through the dirty glass that his skin was rough and leathery. His tongue flicked out and ran over his lips as we stared at each other. He blinked once, in a funny way, as though the lower lids of his colorless eyes had risen to meet the upper ones. A kind of recognition passed between us. Then he turned away and the police car accelerated, passing us.
“Did you see that?” I gave the needle to Farmer, who was calling me nine kinds of bastard.
“Nope,” George said grimly. “And he didn’t see us, neither.”
I tried to laugh, as though I were in on the joke. “Oh, man. I thought for sure we were all busted.”
“Times are changing.”
“Don’t tell me the junkies are pooling their money to buy off the cops.”
Priscilla came to and sighed happily. “Somebody is. We got all the conveniences. Good dope, bad cops. Things ain’t so bad around here these days.”
The kid was pulling himself up on me. I sat him up without thinking about it. “Priscilla? Do you know where Joe is? Priscilla?”
“Joe? Oh, yeah. He’s at my place.”
“I thought he was going around with his connection.”
“He’s at my place. Or he was.”
George pulled the car over again as Farmer woozily began cooking his shot for him. “Let me fix and I’ll drive you over there, okay?” he said, smiling thinly over his shoulder at me.
The kid threw himself over my lap and fumbled the car door open. “Wanna go for a walk,” he mumbled, crawling over my legs and hauling himself upright on the door. He stood swaying and tried a few tentative steps. “Can’t make it. Too loaded.” I caught him and pulled him back in, shoving him over next to Stacey. He smiled at me. “You’re a real nice girl, you know that? You’re a real nice girl.”
“Shit!” George slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “It broke, the fucking needle broke!”
“Did you fix?” asked Farmer.
“Yeah, just in time. Sorry, Priscilla.” George turne
d to look at her and nearly fell across Farmer. “I’ll find mine and give it to you. Never been used, I swear.”
Priscilla made a disgusted noise.
“Hey, if everybody’s happy, let’s go over to Priscilla’s place now,” I said.
George wagged his head. “Not yet. Can’t get that far, stuff was too strong. I gotta let it wear off some first. Where are we?” He opened his door and nearly fell out. “Hey, we’re back near Streep’s. Go there for a while, okay?” No one answered. “Okay? Go to Streep’s, get some coffee, listen to some music. Okay?” He nudged Farmer. “Okay?”
“Shit.” I got out, hauled the kid out after me and left him leaning on the door while I dragged Stacey out. She woke up enough to smile at me. Farmer and Priscilla found their way around the car, stumbling over each other. I looked around. A few cars passed, no one paying any attention. Here we are in scenic Junk City in the Land of Nod, where five loaded hopheads can attract no interest. What’s wrong with this picture?
George reeled past me and I grabbed him, patting his pants pockets.
“What?” he said dreamily.
“Let me borrow your car.”
“It’s not my car. It’s—” His voice trailed off as head drooped.
“That’s okay,” I said, shaking him, “just give me the keys.” I dug them out of his right pants pocket, giving him a thrill he was too far gone to appreciate. George wasn’t wearing any underwear. “Priscilla.”
She had managed to go nearly half a block unassisted. At the sound of her name, she swiveled around, hugging herself against a cold she probably wasn’t really feeling.
“Is Joe really at your place?”
She shrugged elaborately. “Hurry, you might catch him.” Farmer went by and yanked her along with him. I watched them all weaving and staggering away from me, a ragged little group minus one, who was still leaning against the car.
“My name’s Tad,” he said. Probably short for tadpole, I thought. “Take me with you.”
I went to call out to Farmer and the rest of them but they had already turned the corner. I was stuck with their new friend unless I chose to leave him in some doorway. He was grinning at me as he swayed from side to side. The coat was dirty now but it was still pretty nice. His gloves looked like kidskin and the boots were brand new. If I left him, I’d come back and find him up on blocks, nude. I shoved him into the back seat.
“Lie down, pass out, and don’t give me any trouble.”
“You’re a real nice girl,” he mumbled.
“Yeah, we could go to the prom together in a couple of years.”
The front seat was too far back for me and wouldn’t move up. I perched on the edge of the broken-down cushion and just managed to reach the pedals. I got the car started but pulling out was the tricky part. I’d never learned to drive. The car itself wasn’t in terrific running condition—it wanted either to stall or race. I eased it down the street in half a dozen jerks that pushed me against the steering wheel and sent the kid in back off the seat and onto the floor. He didn’t complain.
Priscilla had an apartment in one of the tenements near the railroad yard. The buildings looked abandoned at first glance; at second glance, they still looked abandoned. I steered the car off the road into an unpaved area that served as a parking lot and pulled up in front of the building nearest to the tracks. In the back, my companion pulled himself up on the seat, rubbing his eyes. “Where are we?”
“Wait here,” I said, getting out of the car.
He shook his head emphatically. “No, I was here last night. This is Priscilla’s. It ain’t safe. I should go with you.” He stumbled out of the car and leaned against it, trying to look sober. “I’m okay now. I’m just high.”
“I’m not going to wait for you.” I headed toward the building with him staggering after me. The heroin in his system had stabilized somewhat and he fell only three times. I kept going.
He gave up on the first flight. I left him hanging on the railing muttering to himself while I trotted up to Priscilla’s place on the second floor. The door was unlocked, I knew—the lock had been broken ages ago and Priscilla wasn’t about to spend good junk money on getting it fixed—but the sagging screen door was latched. I found a torn place in the screen and reached in to unhook it.
“Joe?” I called, stepping into the filthy kitchen. An odor of something long dead hit me square in the face, making me gag. “Joe?” I tiptoed across the room. On the sink was a package of hamburger Priscilla had probably left out to thaw then forgotten about, three weeks before, it seemed like. I wondered how she could stand it and then remembered how she liked to brag that coke had destroyed her nose. The rest of them wouldn’t care as long as they could get fixed. My stomach leaped and I heaved on the floor. It was just a bit of bile in spite of the breakfast I’d eaten but I couldn’t take any more and headed for the porch.
“Whaddaya want?”
I whirled, holding my hand over my mouth and nose as my gag reflex went into action again. A large black man wearing only a pair of pajama bottoms was standing in the doorway to the bedroom. We stared at each other curiously.
“Whaddaya want?” he asked me again.
“I’m looking for Joe,” I said from behind my hand.
“I’m Joe.” He scratched his face and I saw a thin line of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
“Wrong Joe,” I said, cursing Priscilla. She knew goddamn well, the con artist. What did she think, that I’d forget about finding Joe and curl up with this guy instead? Yeah, that was Priscilla all over. A Joe for a Joe, fair deal. “The Joe I’m looking for is my brother.”
“I’m a brother.”
“Yeah. You’re bleeding.”
He touched his mouth and looked dully at his fingers. “I’m blood.”
I nodded. “Well, if you see a white guy named Joe, he’s my brother. Tell him China was looking for him.”
“China.”
“Right. China.”
“China’s something real fragile. Could break.” His expression altered slightly and that same kind of recognition that had passed between me and the cop in the patrol car seemed to pass between us now in Priscilla’s stinking kitchen.
I glanced at the rotting hamburger on the counter and suddenly it didn’t look like rotting meat any more than the man standing in the doorway of Priscilla’s bedroom looked like another junkie, or even a human being. He tilted his head and studied me, his eyes narrowing, and it all seemed to be going in slow motion, that underwater feeling again.
“If you ain’t in some kinda big hurry, why don’t you hang around,” he said. “Here all by myself. Not too interesting, nobody to rap with. Bet you got a lot of stuff you could rap about.”
Yeah, he was probably craving to find out if I’d read any good books lately. I opened my mouth to say something and the stink hit me again in the back of the throat.
“Whaddaya say, you stick around here for a while. I don’t bite. ‘Less I’m invited to.”
I wanted to ask him what he’d bitten just recently. He touched his lip as though he’d been reading my mind and shrugged. I took a step back. He didn’t seem too awfully junked up anymore and it occurred to me that it was strange that he wasn’t with Priscilla instead of here, all by himself.
Maybe, I thought suddenly, he was waiting for someone. Maybe Joe was supposed to be here after all, maybe he was supposed to come here for some reason and I’d just arrived ahead of him.
I swallowed against the stink, almost choked again, and said, “He, did Priscilla tell you she had a friend coming by, a guy named Joe, or just a guy maybe? I mean, have you been waiting for someone?”
“Just you, babe.”
I’d heard that line once or twice but it never sounded so true as it did just then. The kid’s words suddenly came back to me. This is Priscilla’s. I was here last night. Farmer must have run right over after I’d seen him, to tell her I was looking g for Joe. So she decided to send me on a trip to nowhere, with F
armer and the rest of them in on it, playing out the little charade of meeting her today so I could ask her about Joe and she could run this ramadoola on me. But why? What was the point?
“No, man,” I said, taking another step back. “Not me.”
“You sure about that?” The voice was smooth enough to slip on, like glare ice. Ice. It was chilly in the apartment, but he didn’t seem to feel it. “Must be something I can … help you with.”
Outside there was the sound of a train approaching in the distance. In a few moments, you wouldn’t be able to hear anything for the roar of the train passing.
I turned and fled out to the porch. The dead-meat smell seemed to follow me as I galloped back down the stairs and woke the kid still hanging in the banister. “Let’s go, let’s get out of here.”
The train was thundering past as I shoved him back into the car and pulled out.
“You find Joe?” he shouted as we bounced across the parking lot.
“Yeah, I found him. I found the wrong fucking Joe.”
The kid giggled a little. “There’s lots of guys named Joe.”
“Thanks for the information, I’ll keep it in mind.” I steered the car onto the street again, unsure of what to do next. Maybe just cruise around, stopping random junkies and asking them if they’d seen Joe, or look for the white Caddy or whatever it was. A white luxury car would stand out, especially if a pretty blonde woman were driving it.
The junkies were starting to come out in force now, appearing on the sidewalks and street corners. A few of them waved at the car and then looked confused when they me at the wheel. It seemed to me there were more new faces among the familiar ones, people I didn’t even know by sight. But that would figure, I thought—had I really expected the junkie population to go into some kind of stasis while I was away at college. Every junkie’s got a friend and eventually the friend’s got a habit. Like the jailbait in the back seat.
I glanced in the rearview mirror at him. He was sitting up with his head thrown back, almost conscious. If I were going to find Joe or at least his lady friend, I’d have to dump the kid.
“Wake up,” I said, making a right turn onto the street that would take me past Foster Circle and down to Streep’s. “I’m going to leave you off at the restaurant with everyone else. Can you handle that?”
The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women Page 60
