by K. W. Jeter
He was in a room, someplace inside: he could tell that much. Stiffly, he pulled his arm, the left one that he could still move, out from under the blankets swaddled around him. A curtain dangled to the floor beside him. He clutched at it, and the white rotten stuff came away in his hand. The dust from it drifted in the faint blue light.
He managed to rise up on his elbow. The room tilted around him, blurring and doubling. The pain binding his chest sang, rolling up his spine and battering at the pivot of his skull.
The window behind the curtain was boarded over. There was only a small gap through which he could see outside: night, and the darker hills blotting out the stars; blackness layered on top of itself.
Something moved out there, or inside his head; it was hard to tell which. He thought he saw two red points, set close as though they were eyes. And then others like them, moving at a slow pace in the unseen footing of the hills and turning their gaze toward him, sensing him in his frail shelter, the scent of his blood carried to them in the dark air.
The red points blurred, becoming gaseous and cloudlike, overlapping each other. The pain and dizziness sucked the strength from his arm, and he collapsed back to the floor and the nest of blankets.
He tried to listen as the soft darkness welled over him, but he could hear only the laboring step of his own pulse. Then nothing, as he fell and kept falling.
THREE
They hadn't gone back to the apartment-Aitch's place, though Charlie lived there, too-when they returned from dumping Mike off. Which bugged Charlie; he was hungry and tired, tired from all the driving in this goddamn Detroit gunboat that Aitch had latched onto. Next week, or tomorrow, it'd be something different, but just as big. Right now, though, he felt as if he were drowning in the soft world of the Cadillac, or whatever it was, that Aitch had made his own with all that fucking boo music on the stereo.
Aitch lounged back in the passenger seat, one arm thrown along the top, his fingers almost touching Charlie's shoulder. Slumped down behind the steering wheel, Charlie watched-what the hell else was there to do?-the apartment building across the street and a little way down the block.
They were parked somewhere over in the northwest section of the city. He knew vaguely his way around here. There was a health food co-op a couple blocks away, he remembered, which had been full of hippie types with hair straggling down to their asses years ago, and which was now considerably more upscale. He'd had a girlfriend, off and on, back when he'd been taking classes at the campus downtown, who'd make him drive out here so she could buy huge sacks of whole grains that'd looked to him like the stuff you'd feed to horses. She was probably still out here, schlumpfing around in her Indian print skirts, getting maybe some grey streaks in her hair, living in some Lesbian poetry-writing commune in one of the funkier old houses-he didn't want to know. A huge crock of lentils soaking, and a dozen cats. This whole area, he knew (Aitch had told him; info some of Aitch's customers had passed on), all these ratty houses with sagging porches and peeling fish-scale shingles-it was all slated for being bulldozed and replaced with skinny packs of row houses. What's-her-name would have to migrate, with her cats and lentils, down the I-5, to Eugene maybe.
Those were the kinds of thoughts that came drifting by-thoughts about old girlfriends-hanging around late at night in a pilfered Caddy. At least Aitch had burned out finally on those goddamn cassettes; now they had the graveyard shift on the classical station oozing out of the speakers. That was okay-he just had to be careful not to nod out to all that Mozart shit. All this driving back and forth-you figured it up, it was like ten, twelve hours of driving-along with all that pounding away on Mike beforehand… no wonder he was tired. Plus-he rotated his hands on the steering wheel to look at them-he had a really nasty cut across the back of his left hand, deep enough to have drawn blood and scabbed over by now. He'd gotten it from one of Mike's teeth, he supposed, from giving him a crack in the mouth when he'd still been trying to fight and yell.
What he really wanted to do-besides go back to Aitch's apartment and get something to eat and go to sleep-was to wash out that cut with some kind of disinfectant, even just that raw isopropyl that Aitch always had lying around. Something like that could get really infected. Christ, a dog's mouth was supposed to be cleaner than a human's. And a dog would eat its own shit if you let it. So you had to figure this was a lot worse…
But instead, they were hanging out here, waiting for Mike's girlfriend to show up. Some other horseshit idea of Aitch's. He took his hand off the wheel and pumped his fist, brooding over the cut on its back.
"Hey, there she is." Aitch raised his head, peering out through the windshield. "Here she comes."
Charlie followed Aitch's gaze and spotted the Corvette heading up the street toward them. A red number, a convertible; some flashy piece of shit, as far as he was concerned. A teenager's idea of a neat car. Good for blowing off old ladies in Plymouths at the stop lights, and that was about it. It figured Mike's girlfriend-Charlie had met her before-would have something like that.
He tried to rouse himself, bracing his arms against the wheel and flexing his shoulder blades to work the stiffness out. "She's got a big surprise coming," he said, getting with Aitch's sense of humor, "when she finds out her boyfriend's gone bye-bye on her."
Aitch made a little laughing, snorting sound and nodded. They both watched the Corvette pull up to the curb in front of the apartment building. It was easy to spot the girl's blonde hair and the big sunglasses from here.
The girl matched the 'Vette; Charlie looked at her, those high-heeled fuck-me shoes clicking up the cement path to the building's front door. Maybe it had been Mike's idea to get her the car, so he'd have some kind of matched, Barbie-Gone-Bad ensemble on his hands; it had certainly been his money. It was nice enough, if that's what you liked: bubble butt just covered by an elastic-looking black skirt. She got a can like that from spending three days a week pumping a Nautilus machine. Same with her hard little tits shot forward by her winged-back shoulders-that's what the butterfly machine did for girls, gave them that arched back like the invisible man was trying to snap their spines with the point of his knee.
Tough little face, though he couldn't see it from this angle; she was already fiddling with her key at the front door's lock. He'd just remembered what she'd looked like when he'd met her at Mike's place. One of those doll faces with a mean red mouth. Figure a flat 100 IQ points, fifty of them given to shopping, the rest to the kind of sex that left marks.
If that was what Mike had wanted to spend his money on-everything was past tense with Mike from now on-then fine. Except anyone could've seen it, like a cancer on an X-ray, as though it were fated-that he'd wind up getting greedy and stupid. Just to keep up with her. You sleep with greedy and stupid little twats, it rubs off.
These little rock-and-roll numbers, with the big hair-the ones that Charlie always figured were supposed to look like they'd just gotten out of bed, where they'd been fucking their brains out-they weren't anything he himself went for. What he liked was to sit in the coffee house at Powell's, maybe while he was waiting to connect with Aitch for some kind of business, sit right up close by the big windows that faced on the sidewalk on Burnside, sit there with a decaf latte and gaze at the windows of the ballet studio, up on the third floor of the building across the street. Like on a real rainy night. And catch quick heartbreaker glimpses of those little dance student types, with their sweet faces and their hair pulled back into those little crocheted bun things-chignons, they were; he'd asked somebody once about it. The dancers knocked him out, and they didn't even know it. And he wasn't likely to meet one in his line of work. Though he'd read about some famous ones, like back in New York, who'd been all strung out on shit. He would've had mixed feelings about supplying somebody like that, getting to know them on that basis. That would really suck, he decided. In the meantime, if he caught any lowlifes from the transient hotel hanging around in the doorway of the ballet studio's building, littering the place up w
ith their cigarette butts and dog bottles, he'd lean on them and tell them to take a hike.
"Jesus," said Aitch. "Look at this airhead."
Mike's girlfriend hadn't noticed them watching her. She was having a hard time getting into the apartment building. Probably already blitzed, Charlie figured, coming home from some party with her equally mindless little friends. Carrying the refreshments with her in her little spangly purse. Something else that she'd gotten from Mike. She finally managed to get the building's front door open-she was really fucked up; Charlie glanced back to the Corvette at the curb and saw a sideswipe scrape along the right front fender, looking like a fresh wound-and dropped the key into the metallic bag. Dumb shit-Charlie shook his head-she'd have to go through the whole routine of digging it out again when she got upstairs.
The apartment was in the front of the building. The two of them sat in the Cadillac, watching and waiting, until they saw the light go on in the window.
Charlie looked from the corner of his eye, without turning his head. Aitch sat there, gazing up at the square of light, one of his little smiles on his face.
***
She stood in the doorway, with her hand still on the light switch. Just standing and looking, her bright red mouth coming open, the strap of her purse sliding off the shoulder of the white acrylic fur jacket. She blinked, her forehead creasing into lines. Trying to figure it out, what she was seeing. Or even to see it all. It was as if the messages coming up her optic nerves had to slog through a chemical bog to get into her brain.
The place was trashed. Totally fucking ruined-that one word ping-ponged around inside her head. The furniture was overturned, except for the big Italian leather sofa she and Mike had had to go all the way up to Seattle to find, and that had been slashed open with a knife; the butter-soft cushions had mouths now, grinning and vomiting up white cotton stuffing.
One of the torcheres had been bent double, as though somebody had snapped it across his knee, then thrown it out into the middle of the floor, its cord trailing behind it. On the far wall, by the dining room doorway, the Warhol Mao, and the Liz, that Mike had had before she had hooked up with him, had the glass smashed from the chrome frames and the prints cut into dangling ribbons.
She took a step into the apartment, looking at the rubble strewn across the floor, the sparkling shards of glass, the books broken-backed and flopped onto their faces.
"Mike…?" she called.
There was no answer from the bedroom or from anywhere else in the empty apartment.
"Shit…" A whisper, her eyes grown wide. The edge of panic had cut through the fog. Her heart sped inside her.
Then she turned and saw on the wall behind her, near the door, the caved-in place in the plaster, just the size of a man's face. A wash of dried blood smeared down the wall, broken by a red handprint.
***
It was kind of funny to picture her up there, stumbling into the middle of their handiwork.
"Hey-what do you think?" Charlie smiled and nodded toward the windshield, and beyond to the lit window in the apartment building. He nudged Aitch with the point of his elbow. "Think I should pick up on that action? Little Miss Bimbo up there? She's going to be awfully lonely now."
Aitch gave him a disgusted look. He shook his head, as if he couldn't believe he'd heard what Charlie had said. "Come on. Let's get out of here."
Now he wanted to go. Just when things were getting good. Who knew, maybe Mike's girlfriend-what was her name? Something with an L-maybe she was about to come running out of the building, all freaked out. That'd be funny, too.
He turned the key in the ignition. Still, it'd be worth remembering this address. He wasn't so hung up on those ballet types that he couldn't try a hit of something else.
FOUR
Something had happened, and he could move. He could walk.
This is dreaming-the thought slid through Mike's head, the whisper of his own voice inside himself. The space around him had become suffused with blue light, as though the roof and the floors above had melted away, letting the moon wash up against the walls. He lifted his head and looked, but didn't see the night sky. Instead, he saw a ceiling of carved beams intersecting with one another, forming squares and triangles and the shape of a six-pointed star right in the center. The white plaster between, stencilled with vines, shone luminous. From the center star hung a chandelier, unlit; the dark pieces of glass chimed like small bells as a current of air touched them.
He looked down at his hands, turning them over to see the palms. They seemed almost translucent, as though he could discern the veins and tendons, the perfect, undamaged workings inside. There was a smear of blood across his right palm; he rubbed it with the thumb of his other hand, then closed both hands tight, the lingers curling into the fists.
The right hand and arm had healed; and the walking, the dream light… He didn't care. Maybe I'm not dreaming. Maybe I'm dead. He knew he'd been hurt badly enough, by Aitch and Charlie. His fingers touched the side of his head, feeling for the place where the steel bar had struck, bearing him with its eclipsing weight down to the angle of his apartment's wall. Nothing; he took his hand away.
He looked down to the nest of blankets on the floor. He half expected to see himself curled up there, his real body, the hurt one, the blood and life having slowly leaked away. But he wasn't there. He squeezed his fists again, feeling the blood coursing around the bones inside.
This place was different, too. Its silence held him deep, the blue light an ocean pressing against him. He looked up from his hands and saw the curtains, not torn rotting stuff, but white gleaming rivers, billowing with the night wind sliding through the uncovered windows.
He stepped over the blankets and looked out, the window glass cold against his fingertips. The black hills were etched with the blue light, the stars slowly turning behind them. The red specks of fire, the watching eyes, drifted with the other, blacker shapes ranged against the hills. He let go of the curtain, and its silky weightlessness flowed past his gaze.
He turned back to the room. The walls receded, opening the space they enclosed to empty miles, He knew he could walk, hand reaching out, and in the motion of dreams never reach the far door that opened onto the columned entranceway. He was inside; he wasn't meant to leave. He knew that. Not until he'd been shown everything: the circular reception desk, with its mahogany panels buffed to dead mirrors, its marble top etched in silver and black-he rested his hands flat upon it, the stone the same chill temperature as his flesh-the rack of room keys behind it, the grid of mail slots for the guests; a switchboard, an antique, with its headpiece dangling from a hook, a curved black flower to speak into; the black cords snaked from one hole to another.
That wasn't it. There was something else. The blue light lapped against his chest, drawing him as though it were an ebbing tide.
A dining room. Tables with cloths draped to the floor, candles in silver holders. High-backed chairs. A grand piano beside a little stage at the far end. He stood in the wide doorway, his gaze searching across the empty space.
He went back to the lobby and stood at the foot of the wide staircase that curved up to the next floor. The light spilled down the steps and pooled at his feet.
His hand gripped the banister, just past the carved wooden post at the end, an eagle's claw holding a polished globe. He pulled himself onto the first step, looking upward at all the ones to follow.
Dreaming… He told himself that again, as he took another step, his hand sliding along the smooth surface of the rail.
A landing halfway up, with a window; he pressed his face close against the glass. Another section of hills circling in the distance outside the building. The red points were there as well, watching him, as if they had tracked his progress from the space below.
The last step; he let go and stood in the middle of a hallway, with numbered doorways down either direction. A window, curtainless, at the far end; through it, he heard the distant sound of voices and laughter. He walke
d toward the sound.
They were down there, the others. The window overlooked the gardens in front of the building, a white-gravelled drive circling through manicured lawns. The moonlight tinted everything white and blue, leaching away all other colors. The people down there moved in the pale light, touching one another, their voices sounding like crystal glasses breaking.
The women laughed, a chime of small bells. Dressed in long gowns, with lace collars that clung to their throats like the petals of flowers. High-waisted dresses, with more lace across their breasts and sleeves that puffed big at the shoulders, then tapered to rows of pearl buttons at the wrists. Their hair upswept, a few feathers left loose to drift along their swan necks.
A costume party, in the dead of night. He spread his hands against the frame of the window, bracing himself as he leaned toward the darkness and the chill night air. But that was what it looked like. Gibson Girls, the turn of the century. A long time ago.
The scent of flowers that bloomed in summer nights, jasmine and something sweeter, thickened the air. And mingled with that, the smell of money. This was what rich women had looked like, back then.
There were two of them, younger ones, with drawn-in waists a man could circle with his hands. They had little skinny racquets in their hands, and a net between them, set up right on the groomed lawn. Badminton; he saw the shuttlecock, held by the feathers in the delicate hand of one of them, as she laughed and said something to her friend on the other side.
Men also, in old-type fussy suits, with high, stiff collars, one in something with bright checks, knickers showing plaid stockings. Mustaches and muttonchops. They talked in low voices, their laughter, rarer than the women's, barking out suddenly.
Some of the people were in wheelchairs. The old kind, with high wicker backs and wooden arms. Pushed by nurses with starched white caps, bigger than those nurses wore now. They looked like pictures of Florence Nightingale, with those short blue capes just covering their shoulders.
