Murder Of Angels Part 10

Her mother said nothing else, didn't move from where she sat at the foot of the bed, and Niki eventually drifted back into uneasy dreams, sleep so shallow that the sound of the thunder and the rain came right through. The next morning, her mother said nothing, never brought it up, that night, the things she'd said, and Niki knew better than to 86 ever mention it. But afterwards, on very stormy nights, she would lie awake, and sometimes she heard her mother moving around in the kitchen, restless utensil sounds, or the dry scuff of her slippers on the hallway floor outside Niki's door.

And years later, not long before she finally dropped out of high school, she heard a song by R.E.M. on the radio-"Fall on Me"-bought the alb.u.m even though she'd never particularly liked the band, and played that one track over and over again, thinking of her mother and that night and the storm. By that time, she'd read and seen enough to guess at her mother's nightmares, had understood enough of jellied gasoline and mortars and hauntings to glimpse the bright edges of that insomnia. Finally, twenty or thirty times through, having picked most of the lyrics from the tangled weave of voice and music, singer and song, she put the record away and never listened to it again.

If New Orleans taught Niki Ky nothing else, it taught her the respect due to ghosts, proper respect for pain so deep it transcended flesh and blood, and scarred time.

If her father had bad dreams, they'd never shown.

"Is that the way it was, Nicolan? Are you certain?" and Dr. Dalby watched her, watches her, is always watching her. Looking for the careless expression to expose a lie, the unguarded turn of a hand, flutter of eyelids, her teeth closing tightly on her lower lip. Every uncalculated act become her traitor, all unconscious Judases to give away the things she wants no one else to ever see.

"That's what I remember."

"But you understand, those may not be the same thing, what you remember and what actually happened. We've talked about that-"

"I just said it's what I remember."

"The night of the storm," he says, not quite changing the subject. "Did you ever tell Spyder about that night? What your mother said to you about the sky falling? The way that song affected you?"

87.

"Spyder hated R.E.M."

A pause while he scribbles something in his notes, then the psychologist stares at her across the rims of his spectacles.

"Do you realize what you just said, Nicolan?"

"Spyder hated R.E.M.?"

"Yes. Her nightmares, her insomnia, the medication she took so she could sleep-"

"I'm not in the mood for word games today, Dr. Dalby.

Can we table that one for next week?" and then she stares at her feet, wondering what meaning he'll read into the invisible dashed line between her eyes and the tips of her shoes.

"I don't think of it as a game. There's meaning in every word we use, whether we choose to acknowledge that meaning, whether or not we intend it, whether or not we're even aware of it."

"When I use a word," Niki said, trying not to sound as angry as she was beginning to feel, "it means just what I choose it to mean-neither more nor less."

And Dr. Dalby sits silently a moment, chewing at the eraser tip of his pencil and staring at her, staring at Niki staring at her shoes, the purple paisley Docs that Daria brought her all the way from London.

"Yes, well, the question is," he said at last, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

Niki looks up at him, glaring, wishing her eyes could bleed fire, and "They've a temper, some of them," she says, and then stops herself, because she realizes these aren't her words, that they aren't even Dr. Dalby's words-Alice and Humpty Dumpty, something she read ages ago, lines from a little girl's nonsense book she thought she'd forgotten.

"There is always sense in a thing," the psychologist says, "whether or not we choose to acknowledge it."

"Yeah," Niki replies, looking back down at the toes of her purple boots. "I've figured that much out."

"That puts you well ahead of the curve, Nicolan."

And she opens her eyes, pulling free of the dream as eas-88 ily as she slipped into it, slipping away from the pipe-smoke and old-book smells of Dr. Dalby's office, and the world stinks like Marvin's musty old Volkswagen again.

"Hey, you okay?" he asks, and she nods her head sleepily.

"I just dozed off. Are we almost there?"

"Yeah, we're almost there. Kaiser's just up ahead," and so Niki shuts her eyes and decides she'll wait until they're all the way there to open them again.

Niki Ky met Danny Boudreaux their freshman year of high school, but they didn't start sleeping together until years later; one summer night after a rave, sweaty warehouse district chaos and both of them f.u.c.ked up on ecstasy and, finally, there were no inhibitions left to stand in the way. It wasn't an embarra.s.sment the next morning, but had seemed natural, something that should have happened, even though Danny had always gone mainly for boys. He worked drag at a couple of bars in the Quarter, was good enough that sometimes he talked about going to Vegas and making real money. A tall and pretty boy with only the barest trace of a Cajun accent, and he used a lot of foam rubber padding for his shows so no one would see the way his hip bones jutted beneath the sequins.

And then, late July and she met Danny for a beer at Coop's after work, early Sat.u.r.day morning and it was after work for both of them, the bar crammed full of punks and tourists. They went back to his place on the Ursulines because it was closer, raced sunrise together across the cobblestones, racing the stifling heat of morning, running drunk and sleepy, laughing like a couple of tardy vampires.

Before bed, they had cold cereal and cartoons. And Danny started talking.

The frail, pretty boy dropped the bomb he'd carried all his life, waiting for the right moment or the right ear, or simply the day he couldn't carry it any longer. More than drag, a lot more than that, and she sat still and listened, stared silently down at the Trix going soggy in her bowl

89.

while s...o...b.. Doo blared from Danny's little black-and-white television.

"I've been seeing a doctor," he said. "I started taking hormones a couple of months ago, Niki."

And when he was done there was still nothing for her to say, nothing to make it real enough to answer, and finally he broke the silence for her and asked, "Niki? Are you all right? I'm sorry-"

"No, I'm fine," she said, not even looking at him, speaking to the safety of the TV instead, its senseless phosphor security, and she smiled and shrugged like it was no big s.h.i.t, like he'd just asked if she wanted to go to a movie tonight or if she wanted another cup of coffee.

"I'm f.u.c.king wasted, Danny," she said. "We'll talk about it after I get some sleep, okay?"

"Yeah," he replied and then offered another apology that she hadn't asked for before they crawled off to bed.

She lay awake beside him, staring out at the summer day blazing away behind the curtains, only one bright slice getting into the apartment. Concentrating on the clunking, rheumy noises coming from his old air conditioner, the uneven rhythm of his breath, until she was sure he was asleep, and Danny Boudreaux always slept like the dead.

She got dressed and wrote a note to leave beside the bed- Danny, I have to figure this out. I just don't know. Love, Niki-before she walked back across the Quarter to her own apartment, sweat-drenched and sun-dazed by the time she reached the other end of Decatur Street.

They've been waiting for almost two hours, and Marvin's throwing angry words at a male nurse with a clipboard and a shaved head; but it's too late already, too late to make the airport and the nine P.M. flight, so she really doesn't think it matters much whether or not they sit here the rest of the f.u.c.king night. Except that her hand has started bleeding again, and the pain is worse, and no one seems to care but Marvin. And the stark fluorescent lights shining down on her from the ceiling are making her nervous, light so 90 empty, so bleak, that she can hardly imagine anything that could seem more unhealthy. Bleached and antiseptic light to forbid even the barest rind of a shadow, to gradually pick her apart, molecule by molecule.

"Do you even know how long she's been sitting there?"

"Yes sir," the nurse says, frowning, looking at his clipboard instead of Marvin. "You just told me."

"She's f.u.c.king bleeding all over your G.o.dd.a.m.n floor."

"We'll try to get her in with the next available-"

"You'll try?"

"Sir, we're doing all we can with what we have," and then Niki tunes them out again, already enough on her mind, enough to keep her busy-her confusion and the pain and the sound of her blood dripping to the floor- without their bickering.

Part of her is still stuck fast in the dream of Dr. Dalby.

Niki hadn't meant to fall asleep, but she was so exhausted after Marvin led her back down Divisadero Street to the car, promising her that everything would be fine and there were no dragons hiding in the stoplights, no ghosts whispering over her shoulder. She's trying to remember what he wanted to know about Spyder, why it seems to matter so much now, but the ache in her hand is making it hard to think of anything else. Blue-white fire across her palm, something cold enough or hot enough or corrosive enough to burn straight through to the bone and keep on burning.

They've a temper, some of them.

There is always sense in a thing, whether or not we choose to acknowledge it.

The blood seeping slowly, steadily, through the gauze bandage Marvin wrapped around her hand is dark, and she wonders if that's worse than if it wasn't. Wonders what's going on beneath the dressing, what the doctors will find when they finally have time for her and one of them unwraps it. Maybe something coiled up snug inside the wound, something the watery color of jellyfish, her medusa hand, and she glances back up at Marvin and the nurse.

91.

"I have to pee," she says to Marvin, but the nurse answers her.

"Down that hall," and he points the way. "Just past the water fountain."

"I really don't think you should go alone," Marvin says, and when he turns towards her, the bald nurse takes the opportunity to make his escape, disappearing quickly into one of the examination rooms.

"f.u.c.ker," Marvin growls under his breath. "You could be sitting here bleeding to death for all he cares."

"I think that's the problem," Niki says. "I'm not bleeding to death, and you're acting like I am."

Marvin checks his watch again, then glances at the clock hung on the wall above the nurses' station.

"You know we're going to miss the flight. We couldn't make it if we left right this minute."

"Then I guess we'll leave in the morning. Coming here was your idea, not mine. Now, I really do have to pee, Marvin," and she stands up, surprised to find she's a little dizzy, and Niki wonders if she could have possibly lost that much blood. She blinks at the fluorescent lights overhead and tries not to act like she's dizzy.

"I should go with you," Marvin says.

"I'm not going to have you watching me take a p.i.s.s, Marvin."

"You don't look well."

"That's why you brought me to the hospital."

"I just don't think you should be alone, that's all. Not after what happened on the way over here."

And then, because she's about to wet herself and there'll be blood and p.i.s.s on the floor, she sighs and nods her head.

"You can walk me as far the restroom door, but I'm going in alone," and all the resolve she has left inside her put into that last word, rolled into that last syllable; Marvin shakes his head the way he does whenever he realizes that he's lost a round.

"Don't you dare touch anything in there with your right hand," he says. "There's no telling what sort of 92 disease-resistant, flesh-eating bugs are breeding in this place."

"That would be kind of ironic," Niki says and sets off in the direction the nurse pointed, hoping that it isn't far.

She's not so crazy that she wouldn't be embarra.s.sed as h.e.l.l if she ended up p.i.s.sing herself in public.

"That's not funny, Niki. I mean it. Use your left hand and wash it when you're done, with hot water and soap."

"I'm twenty-six years old, Marvin. I think I can wash my hands without step-by-step instructions," and now she can see the water fountain and the restroom door just beyond.

The dizziness is a lot worse than when she first stood up, so she's walking close enough to the wall that she can catch herself if necessary.

"Do you think Daria's in Atlanta yet?" she asks Marvin, because she needs to think about something besides being dizzy and needing to p.i.s.s. He checks his watch again.

"Yeah. She should be. Do you want me to call her? I didn't know if I should or-"

"No, I was just wondering, that's all. I just like to know where she is," and then they've reached the restroom door, painted matte brown like chocolate milk. "I can take it from here," she says.

"If you need me, just shout, okay? And I'll hear you."

Niki pushes at the door, opening it just enough that she gets a sudden, cloying whiff of toilet cakes and Lysol, flower-scented liquid soap, and part of her wishes Marvin would go somewhere and find another nurse to yell at, but another part wishes just as hard that she weren't too embarra.s.sed and stubborn to let him follow her inside. She'd gone into the restroom at Cafe Alhazred alone, hadn't she?

And isn't that where and when things really began to fall apart?

No, it was a long time before that.

A long, long time before that.

"I'll be fine," she says. "I'll wash my hands, just like you said."

"Just your left hand," Marvin reminds her quickly.

93.

"How the h.e.l.l am I supposed to wash my left hand and not touch anything with my right hand?" she asks him, and he sighs and makes a tight furrow of his eyebrows and the smooth patch of skin in between.