The Devil in Silver

by Victor Lavalle

  Scotch Tape stayed silent. The patients watched both of them. Everywhere you go, someone is vying for power! Nurse Washburn, a white woman who wanted to assert the hard-won dignity of her position. Scotch Tape, a black man who loathed public disrespect. Somehow leaving a pizza parlor had turned into a war of the oppressed.

  The stalemate was broken by Sal. He walked into the dining area, waving a slip of paper.

  “Who’s going to take the check?” he asked.

  That worked like a bell signaling the end of a round. Nurse Washburn walked off to pay the bill, shoulders pulled back proudly as she was the one entrusted with the hospital’s card. Scotch Tape wolfed down his crusts (which he hated), then sprang up and clapped for all the patients to get in line as if that had been his idea. Everyone was happy.

  Pepper and Loochie stood side by side. Mr. Mack was in front of them, alone. He turned back and looked at the pair, up and down.

  “You two sure got close,” he said, leering at them.

  “Close?” Pepper asked, sounding thrown. To him it was like Mr. Mack had suggested he was sleeping with his niece.

  Loochie grabbed Pepper’s arm. “Close like Bethlehem and Nazareth.”

  Mr. Mack leaned back, surprised. Loochie batted her eyelashes at Pepper and smiled. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Most definitely,” Pepper said.

  He knew she was just fucking with Mr. Mack, but Loochie had also spoken the truth. To his great surprise, and hers, Loochie was now his closest friend.

  They expected this would be enough to shoo Mr. Mack away, but like a fruit fly, the man kept hovering. “Put out your hand,” he said.

  Pepper did. If Mr. Mack spat into his palm, he realized, he was going to crack the guy in the chest.

  As Nurse Washburn returned from paying the bill, Mr. Mack dropped a white envelope into Pepper’s open hand. As soon as it landed, it curled into a tube.

  “Dorry gave that to you,” Mr. Mack said. “But you left it on a table.”

  Pepper had totally forgotten about it. Loochie went on her toes then so she could see it better.

  “You opened it,” Pepper said. The top of the envelope showed the tear.

  “You left it there, so I picked it up,” Mr. Mack said. “Caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware.”

  Pepper sighed. “That’s not what that means.”

  “Carpe diem,” he tried.

  “That’s better,” Pepper said.

  “What was in it?” Loochie asked.

  At the front of the line, Nurse Washburn and Scotch Tape were both trying to assert their place of leadership. Until they made peace, the group couldn’t even walk out of Sal’s, let alone march back to the hospital.

  Mr. Mack cut his eyes at Loochie. “A map and a …”

  “Come on now!” Sal shouted from behind the counter. “You’re blocking my door!”

  Food served, prayers shared, bill paid. Now get the fuck outta here.

  So Scotch Tape and Nurse Washburn tried to walk through the doorway simultaneously. They crunched each other. Then Scotch Tape held the door and Nurse Washburn waved the patients through. The group moved.

  “A map of what?” Pepper asked.

  Mr. Mack didn’t answer until they were outside. “The whole building,” he said. “First floor and second floor. Including the exit.”

  “An escape?” Loochie asked.

  Mr. Mack tapped his temple. “That’s the idea.”

  Pepper grabbed at Mr. Mack’s small shoulder. It was like seeing a teenager maul a toddler. But Mr. Mack had more vinegar than a one-year-old. Pepper grabbed him and Mr. Mack smacked the big man’s hand off. And it hurt.

  “Let me see it,” Pepper said.

  Mr. Mack broke formation and walked alongside Loochie, the three of them in a row. “That idea is void,” Mr. Mack said. “Everything stays with me.”

  “Dorry gave it to me.”

  Mr. Mack looked ahead of him and behind.

  “You think I’m going to let you run the show,” Mr. Mack whispered. “And get myself killed like Coffee did? No. That’s void.”

  “Stop saying that,” Loochie told him.

  “We’re going for the change-up this time,” Mr. Mack continued in full voice, so the nearest patients would hear him. “You don’t lead, you follow. I’ve already studied Dorry’s map. There’s a way to get from our rooms up to that second floor. From the second floor we can slip out without notice.”

  “Fine,” Pepper huffed, wishing he’d been smart enough to just grab the envelope when Dorry offered it. “Who’s going?”

  “Mr. Mack!” Nurse Washburn pointed at him as they reached the corner. “Lines of two.”

  The old man nodded and waved at her. He slipped in front of Pepper, marching next to Yuckmouth. “All of us are going, because all of us are at risk if we stay. But first, we’ll find that thing,” Mr. Mack promised. “Instead of being trampled, we’re going to do some trampling.”

  “And what about when we’re out?” Pepper asked. “Have you thought that far?”

  Mr. Mack sighed. “We get out and we’re free. Every man and woman can do whatever the hell they want to. First thing I’m going to do is sneak back into the parking lot and piss on the doctor’s car. I know which one it is.”

  They walked, and Pepper let Mr. Mack gloat over his imagined victory to come. A piss-stained tire. Dream big! Pepper had a feeling that Mr. Mack’s plans didn’t go any further than that. He finally had a little power and what did he want to do with it? Ruin shit. Nothing more.

  Pepper could still see the sign for the bus stop two stores down from Sal’s. Even if the bus was slow, it would, eventually, come. A six-block sprint. If they ran in the street instead of the sidewalk, they could avoid doing something stupid like tripping and spraining an ankle, a bad scene from a horror movie. If they really could slip out unnoticed by the staff, he and Loochie could wait for that bus as calmly as they pleased. They’d be off long before any alerts were raised. The other patients, if they wanted to, could spend their time relieving themselves all over New Hyde’s parking lot. He’d be gone. And he was taking Loochie with him.

  “When?” Pepper asked.

  Mr. Mack spoke without turning back, so Pepper and Loochie had to lean forward to hear him. From a distance, you would’ve mistaken them for subjects bowing to an emperor.

  “When I’m ready,” Mr. Mack said. “Until then, you just sit tight.”

  Loochie opened her mouth to protest, but Pepper touched her arm and shook his head. “You see this path we’re taking? Back to New Hyde?” he whispered. “I want you to memorize it.”

  It might seem unnecessary to commit a six-block walk to memory. Compare that with stories of people who marched from one country to another to escape the ravages of some hellacious war. (Like the Von Trapps.) But imagine it’s nighttime and you’re zonked on pharmaceutical drugs. A walk to the damn bathroom might turn you around. Both Pepper and Loochie knew this personally, so they whispered the street names to themselves. Noted little landmarks.

  “What’s the signal going to be?” Pepper asked.

  “Keep your mouth shut,” Mr. Mack said. “That’s the signal.”

  Loochie noted the enormous tree that actually tilted so far over that some of its leaves caressed the roof of a one-family house. You’d remember something like that, night or day.

  “You got cut off before,” Loochie said to Mr. Mack. “There were two things in that envelope, right? The map and what else?”

  But Mr. Mack didn’t turn his head, didn’t break his stride, and he sure as hell didn’t deign to answer her.

  37

  SO THEY WAITED.

  Pepper thought this might mean hanging back until dinnertime. When he reached the television lounge that evening, he felt a charge seeing Mr. Mack going from table to table, whispering in the ear of each patient gathered there. Pepper had taken his meds but was expert enough by now to know his drowsiness would pass in about twenty minutes. He went to the orderl
y and took his tray. When he scanned the tables he realized all the patients sat with their backs to the courtyard.

  The police had set out a tarp right over the patch of concrete where Dorry had bled out. The crime scene. The tarp was weighed down with fist-sized stones so it wouldn’t blow away. But when the wind slipped underneath, the plastic tarp rose and fell, rose and fell. In the dark it looked like Dorry’s body might still be under there breathing.

  Pepper sat with his back to the smokers’ court, just like everybody else. He took a seat with Redhead Kingpin and Still Waters. Back inside the unit, they were a team again. He was surprised to see them. It was only seven p.m.

  “You all are up early,” Pepper said.

  Redhead Kingpin poked at her macaroni salad with her spoon. “Haven’t gone to sleep since Xiu left.”

  Pepper looked to Still Waters, who could barely lift her head, but this time it wasn’t out of shyness.

  “You look like you’ve been crying,” Pepper told her, trying to be playful.

  She stared at her tray. “I’m all cried out.”

  Then Mr. Mack came to their table. He stood across from Pepper. He didn’t even have to lean down to look Pepper in the eye. He held Pepper’s gaze. “Tonight …” Mr. Mack began.

  He looked over his shoulder at the orderly who had his now-hospital-approved cell phone out and was texting away.

  Mr. Mack looked back at Pepper, who was nodding so enthusiastically that he felt like a mutt.

  “… is not the night,” Mr. Mack finished.

  Then he bowed slightly and turned away. He walked to the edge of the television lounge and raised one arm. They all looked to him. Mr. Mack twirled his hand, haughty as an aristocrat. After that, he left the lounge.

  “He’s enjoying himself,” Redhead Kingpin said.

  Pepper scooped up his dollop of macaroni salad in three bites. It felt terrible to have to wait on a man like that. Even worse to imagine Dorry really was still out there in the courtyard, lying under the plastic, suffocating. He could almost hear the flapping of that tarp as it rose and fell.

  Redhead Kingpin pushed her chair back and said, “Wait here.”

  Still Waters left with her.

  On the television they were playing a whole lot of nothing, which was pleasing just now. People talk badly about mindless television, but the shit has its purposes. For instance, it stopped Pepper from tearing the keys off the orderly’s wrist and opening the glass door out to the courtyard and pulling back the tarp so poor Dorry could get some air.

  Redhead Kingpin returned to the lounge, Still Waters trailing only inches behind her. Each of them carried an accordion folder. They took their seats again. One folder blue, the other manila.

  “Those are Sue’s,” Pepper said.

  Still Waters turned the manila folder, so Pepper could see the two words: “No Name.” Still Waters curled her left arm around the bottom of the folder like a boa constrictor.

  “We’re keeping that one,” Redhead Kingpin said. She slid the blue folder between him and his dinner tray. “But she wanted you to have this.”

  Pepper looked down at the blue folder. He saw two words written in black ink on the side: “Nice Dream.”

  “Have you heard anything from her?” he asked. “About her?”

  Both women pinched their mouths and shut their reddened eyes. That was their only answer.

  He undid the elastic string that held the blue cover down. He opened the folder and saw all those pages from all those magazines. Reykjavik, Accra, Fiji, Wichita, Holland.

  “She’ll never get to visit those places,” Redhead Kingpin said. “But it would make her happy if you ever saw even one of them.”

  Pepper leafed through the pages. There were hundreds of them.

  “How’s that ever going to happen?” Pepper whispered. “I’m stuck in here like everyone else.”

  Still Waters leaned forward, pulling Sue’s No Name folder even closer to her chest. She concentrated on the tabletop when she spoke. “You be patient,” she whispered. “Let Mr. Mack enjoy his little games.”

  “Then you escape,” Redhead Kingpin added. “Just like the rest of us.”

  A nice dream, but Sue’s file had a nightmarish effect on Pepper. Holding the glossy pages, knowing she’d left without them, only made him grim. Why not hold on to these beautiful photos at least? Unless Sue had left New Hyde in the deepest pit of despair imaginable. A place where even fantasies must be abandoned. And because Pepper loved her, this thought filled him with anguish.

  By the time he returned to his room after dinner, he’d decided to wait up for the Devil.

  He didn’t know if it would come tonight, but let it come tonight.

  He sat on the windowsill, his back to the two giant panes. He held the blue folder in his lap. He watched the ceiling. Let it come.

  But the Devil didn’t show up.

  Both it and Mr. Mack were going to make him wait.

  Three more days and nothing going. Mr. Mack made the rounds each night, letting people know he’d decided to push the date back. He claimed he was giving people a chance to get their houses in order, but what did that mean exactly? Who fucking knew?

  And over these three days Pepper disintegrated. He spent his mornings and afternoons sorting Sue’s magazine clippings by continent or climate or even just by how far away they were. And at night he sat in the windowsill and waited for the Devil. Three nights like that and the man wasn’t doing well. He hadn’t showered. He’d hardly eaten.

  On the fourth morning, April 20, Scotch Tape visited Pepper’s room. The big man had been tardy for his morning meds. Scotch Tape found him lying on his double bed, clutching at a blue accordion folder.

  “You got to get up,” Scotch Tape said. “Come on, Pepper.”

  It was the first time Scotch Tape had said the name without a little salt in it.

  “And you’re going to have to take these beds apart.”

  Pepper sat up. He’d been sleeping on Sue’s side.

  “You’re getting a new roommate,” Scotch Tape said.

  “Today?”

  “Soon.”

  Scotch Tape watched as Pepper got out of bed. Pepper wore the blue pajama top and bottom. He had a little trouble getting out of bed because he wouldn’t put the folder down. Scotch Tape had believed this man was fine, mentally, only sixty-two days ago. But now?

  “Let’s go,” Scotch Tape said brusquely, just to stop thinking.

  Pepper walked with Scotch Tape to the nurses’ station. He took his meds. As he swallowed, he heard all this conversation coming from the television lounge.

  “What’s going on?” Pepper asked, pointing to Northwest 5.

  Scotch Tape was back inside the nurses’ station already. A stack of files sat next to the computer. Pepper could read the name on the tabs. “Doris Walczak.” There were fifty-two different files. The records of Doris Walczak’s entire stay at New Hyde. Ready to be logged.

  Pepper decided he had no questions about what her files were doing there. He decided to forget them. Instead, he pointed at the lounge and asked again. “What’s going on?”

  Scotch Tape sat down in front of the computer. “It’s visiting day,” he said. “And it looks like everybody’s family decided to come.”

  Pepper nodded. He didn’t say, Not everyone’s.

  He went to the lounge anyway. If only because it spared him a little time before he’d have to pull apart his double bed. Before another body filled the mattress that had carried Sue’s.

  Every table was full, and there were still so many folks that many had to stand around. The lounge looked like a cocktail party thrown on a New York City subway train.

  Doris Roberts and her extended family. Mr. Mack and his. Heatmiser had a sister there and a fucking girlfriend! Yuckmouth and his peoples. Wally Gambino had a whole damn crew. (How did that happen? Each patient was only allowed two visitors at a time but Wally had ten; they’d probably just bum rushed the door.) The Haint sat w
ith two members of her church. Sandra Day O’Connor sat with an old man, her husband. Redhead Kingpin and Still Waters had pulled two tables together and were introducing their family members to one another. Frank Waverly stood outside in the courtyard, alone, smoking.

  “Well, shit,” Pepper said to himself. He was practically caressing the blue accordion folder just to have contact with something.

  “Pepper.”

  He heard his name but he ignored it. You know the only person he wanted to speak with right then. Not Sue. Not Mari. It’s almost too embarrassing to share.

  His mother.

  He wanted to hear his mom’s voice.

  “Pepper!”

  But of course that wasn’t his mother.

  It was Loochie.

  At a table with her mother and brother.

  The same mother and brother he’d sworn he’d apologize to.

  Loochie waved Pepper over. If there’s one person who wouldn’t forget her promise, it was definitely Loochie.

  Pepper lumbered to the table. His feet slapped on the cool floor.

  There were three white cartons of Chinese food set out at the Gardners’ table and a game that all three were playing. The game was called That’s So Raven Girl Talk Game. There was a small circular board, and in the middle was a little electronic device meant to look like a purple crystal ball sitting on a golden stand. Cards and little round chips were spread all around the table. A note on the side of the box recommended the game for children eight and up.

  “Come say hi to my mom,” Loochie said.

  He got close and pointed at Loochie’s head. There was something quite different about it. No more knit cap, no more towel. Loochie wore a wig.

  “You’ve got a new look,” Pepper said.

  Loochie touched the wig tentatively. “I told my mother what happened. She brought me one of her wigs until my hair grows back.”

  Pepper could tell it was her mother’s. A fifty-year-old woman’s style. Jet-black and shaped into a poof that screamed “legal secretary!” No doubt it suited Loochie’s mother at her job, but it had a different effect on the daughter. Not entirely negative. A fifty-year-old woman’s wig on a nineteen-year-old, it served to age Loochie by about ten years. That might sound flattering—and Pepper certainly wouldn’t say that to the kid—but it matured Loochie in a way that seemed fitting. All she’d experienced, just in the time Pepper had known her, she sure as hell wasn’t your average American nineteen. Better this way. She looked like a woman. Herself, but wiser.