Vida Nocturna Part 13

"Just ... to manage my consumption." She smiled. "This new eight ball is three and a half grams, right? So I want to separate it into half-gram bags. Then I'll just go through a half gram bag a day."

He rubbed his eyes. "It doesn't work. There's always an excuse to tap in to the other bags."

"Maybe it just doesn't work for you." His eyes touched hers as he c.o.c.ked his head. His eyebrows went up. A beat of silence pa.s.sed before she cleared her throat. "So can I use your scale or not?"

He disappeared into his room so fast she thought he might slam the door behind him. Then he was back, plunking the scale down onto the coffee table. "Go ahead," he said. "Good luck."

She sat down on the couch and tried to estimate one-seventh of her baggie's contents. He came over with his mirror and the other paraphernalia.

"If you're gonna do it, you should do it right," he said, pus.h.i.+ng her hands away from the scale. "You have to zero the scale, so the scale knows what nothing weighs. After that, it'll know the weight of what you put on it." He gestured at the yellow box of sandwich bags. "Here, gimme a baggie."

She handed it over. "If you put the baggie on before you zero, you can just measure right into it. You don't have to try and sc.r.a.pe every last grain off the tray when you bag it that way."

"Oh. Why don't you do that with Neil?"

"'Cause Neil's so f.u.c.king paranoid he thinks I'm cheating him when I do it." He fiddled with some k.n.o.bs until the tray and baggie balanced at zero. "Now you set it for what you want ..." He turned the dial until it was halfway to the gram line. "... And you scoop in your stuff."

She spooned a little of her eight-ball into the baggie. "Thanks, Alexander."

"I gotta go," he said. "I'll see you there."

"Uh-huh."

He shuffled around a little, gathering up his things, and then slipped out the door. Sara never looked up.

She added a little, and a little more, and the scale started to balance. When it finally stopped bouncing up and down, she had to take a little out of the baggie. Then it was right on. She'd bagged her first half gram. And she wouldn't have that except for the money her grandparents- "s.h.i.+t."

Had she said that out loud?

No point in putting it off. At least I can think about bagging when I'm on the phone.

She dialed the number and stretched the cord over to the couch.

"Hi, Grandma. It's Sara."

"Well, Sara! It's nice to hear from you. We were wondering if we ever would."

"I ... I just wanted to say thanks for the check you sent. It really helped me out."

"Oh? Well, I'm glad the money can help you, Sara. Of course your father told us you don't even seem to want money- you haven't even sent him a tuition bill."

"Yeah ... my interns.h.i.+p was with a really great company and ... they took care of my tuition for me. But you know, I'm running low on spending money, so I just wanted to say thanks ..."

Her grandfather must have picked up another extension. "So what firm was that, Sara?"

s.h.i.+t!

"It's a small investment firm. Sidwell-Jones," she said, using the first name she could think of. Julie, the waitress at work, was a Sidwell, and Jones just popped into her head after that.

"Hmm. I've never heard of it. I'll ask your cousin Ken when I talk to him. Now there's a finance guy for 'ya. Did you know he just bought himself an airplane?"

"No, I don't think I knew that, Grandpa-"

"Just a little one, you know. Not a jet. But hey, a guy just a few years out, with his own plane. That's saying something."

"And what are you up to these days, Sara?" her grandmother said, her tone somewhere between challenging and accusing.

"Oh, just working hard. School, work, school ... you know." She laughed. It sounded too fake. "In fact," she said, "my ... my study group is coming over. I should probably get going."

She'd bagged three more half grams! She was getting good at this. And the razor blade made nice, straight lines on the mirror, even when she only used one hand.

"You know Katherine's already finished with college, don't you, Sara?" Her grandfather asked. "She loaded up on credits so she could start medical school early. You remember Katherine, don't you Sara? You two used to play together so well."

"Yep. Of course I remember, Grandpa. I've really got to go ... "

"What was that, Sara? Are you getting sick?"

Yeah, sick of you and your judgmental bulls.h.i.+t, you witch. Go ahead and pretend you could give a s.h.i.+t. I'm gonna wrap this phone cord around your neck and keep going around and around and watch you turn purple and see your puffy crepe-paper neck skin squis.h.i.+ng out between the coils- "Oh, maybe a little, Grandma. But I think it's just the sniffles."

She set the straw down. The other lines could wait.

"Well, maybe that's the problem, Sara. Maybe you're not taking good enough care of your health. We're all very worried about you. You just don't seem to be living up to your potential. Call Katherine and tell her you're feeling under the weather, dear. She'll get you all fixed up, I'm sure."

"Okay, Grandma. You're right. I'd better get back to work if I'm going to make something of myself. Bye." She rolled over the back of the couch and slammed the phone down like a basketball star, grabbing a bottle of vodka on her way back to the couch. A couple more lines made her jittery so she made her way back to Joe's room.

The lizard eyed her suspiciously. "Renfield, ol' buddy," she said, "you need new water." She moved the red light and popped the screen off the top of the cage. "I don't know why Joe gave you such a big water bowl," she said. "This one's for dogs." Something s.h.i.+fted as she pulled it out.

It gleamed dully in the red light. A gun. A black revolver with wooden grips. And a plastic bag with a handful of bullets. The gun was cold and smooth and heavy.

She caressed every inch of it, eventually sliding back the lever to release the little wheel holding the bullets. It rotated out to reveal that it was fully loaded with five of them. Strange, since in cowboy movies and cop shows they always had six. She dumped them out into her hand, finding them much heavier than she'd expected.

With the bullets out of the gun, she was able to handle it more confidently. She opened and closed it a few times, pulled the hammer back until it locked, and even pulled the trigger. Pulling the trigger without pulling the hammer back first also worked; the trigger c.o.c.ked the gun automatically, but it was harder to pull that way.

One more thing for the cops to find when they follow up on Joe's wallet.

When shaking her head didn't clear it, she reached for her snort bottle.

She sat on the edge of the bed, hefting the cocaine in one hand and the gun in the other. She took a snort. She reloaded the gun. The solid gold circlet resting on raven hair gleamed in the red firelight as she peered down from her golden throne. Wors.h.i.+ppers knelt before her, High Priestess of the Night, praying and silently begging for her mercy.

Icy blue topaz eyes flashed from the closet. She laughed, placing the gun inside a Kleenex box next to her bed. She took some more snorts, emptying the bottle and refilling it. She stuffed the baggies in her Coach bag and headed for the club.

Sara scooted back in her seat and her head instantly jerked up toward the club's dark ceiling. She'd forgotten to sweep her hair back from her b.u.t.t again. It had become so long that she sat on it these days.

A hand clapped her shoulder. Attached to it was one of the club regulars, a guy in a white oxford s.h.i.+rt, with sandy brown hair feathered back from his face. It brushed against her cheek as he leaned closer to shout over the music.

"Hey, babe," he said, squinting as he looked around the bar. "Where's your man?"

Sara sneered at him. "Babe?"

"Yeah, I need to talk to him about, you know, getting hooked up."

"I might be able to help you. What do you need?"

He squinted and gave a patronizing nod. Sara lifted a hand, ready to grab him by his feathered hair if he said anything about "Women's Lib."

He stared at her face for a moment, then lowered his eyes. "I ..." He cleared his throat. "I just need a gram."

She retrieved two half-gram baggies from her purse and handed them over, holding out her palm. He put a roll of twenties in it and disappeared with his tail between his legs.

That's right, you little pipsqueak. Treat me right, you get what you need. p.i.s.s me off, I'll crush your skull. Yield or be destroyed. We've all got to learn it sometime.

She scanned the room for Alexander but couldn't find him. Neil caught her eye instead. His face was slack as he stared at her, flicking his cigarette ash to the floor. He shook his head without breaking eye contact.

Joe's lifeless eyes stare up from the Dumpster. She bites again. Dry.

She gives up, jumps out. A few other corpses lean against walls or lie half-buried under the alley's rotting garbage, but there is no blood here.

Out on the street it's more of the same. Death. Arid starvation. Random, bloodless cadavers ... Something moves!

She springs toward it, salivating, antic.i.p.ating the salty, metallic essence of the victim, the feeling of warmth and satisfaction as she absorbs the other life. After she feeds, some vampire will surely be willing to bite and make her closer to whole.

Brian stood next to her, leaning on his plastic dish tub, singing along with the radio. "...Everybody's got a bomb, we could all die any day..."

Sara loaded another rack of dishes. Maybe the roaring dishwasher would shut him up.

"You know how the zombie movies always have 'em pop up out of the ground after they're exposed to radiation?" Brian asked. "That'll probably be how it's like after the bomb drops. Just radioactive zombies everywhere. We'll have to fight 'em with machetes and shotguns and s.h.i.+t."

Sara leaned on the sprayer, trying to focus.

"That'll be f.u.c.kin' awesome," Brian said, flipping his long tail of hair over his shoulder. "I'll be living on kimchee and other Korean stuff, you know, 'cause it's made for keeping a long time. You an' the other whiteys'll have to live on those fallout shelter rations, like crackers an' s.h.i.+t. Ha! Crackers living on crackers. That's funny."

Miguel appeared next to Brian. Brian shrugged, leaning his dish tub up against the wall. "I'll be back. Gotta take a s.h.i.+t. I save my s.h.i.+ts so I can come in here an' get paid to s.h.i.+t."

Miguel watched him go, shaking his head, then turned to Sara. "Take a break with me," he said. His accent made Sara think of margaritas.

She didn't look up. "Can't. Look at all this." She was attacking dirty pans with the giant sprayer that hung down on some kind of spring, but she'd stretched it as far as it would go into the sink, leaning on it. "I don't know how you keep up, Miguel."

"Well, how about I help you catch up ... After we take a break?"

She nodded, releasing the spring and forcing herself to stand up straight again, shuffling behind Miguel toward the back door. He held it open for her and she stepped out, her hand automatically grabbing for the pack of Salems in the prison-blue dishwasher uniform s.h.i.+rt pocket. He lit hers and then his with the same match.

Usually he asked how she was doing. Tonight he just stared at her. She blew smoke off to the side, making a sound halfway between a sigh and a moan. "I feel like s.h.i.+t tonight, Miguel."

He nodded. "I can see that."

"Maybe I got the flu or something. My whole body feels like a car that just lost power steering. I'm achy and dizzy and sick ... it's probably the flu."

Or it might have something to do with not sleeping in the last two days.

"Mmmm. I know some guys, they had flu like that. But then they cash their paychecks and they disappear a little while, and then they feel all better again. They come back looking just like vampires." He raised his eyebrows.

The vampire thing again. Miguel had the look, even the feel. But he was different from the others like that. He was truly nice, even to Sara.

She looked away. "I just haven't been sleeping right lately."

"Yeah, that's the worst. Can't sleep. Sometime you get little tablets, they help you sleep, you know? But then you stop taking them, maybe you ... maybe you miss them? Maybe you feel like you got the flu."

"Or maybe capsules," she said. "Some Tylenol capsules with a little cyanide. I'd sleep pretty good then, huh?"

He squinted at her. She sighed.

"I'm just really tired lately, that's all." She rubbed her eyes. "Sometimes it feels like I'm slipping into the abyss ..."

"Abyss? Wha's that?"

"It's like ... do you know what a black hole is? Like, just a kind of nothingness that you can't escape?"

"Yeah, I know that. I got some friends who live there, I think."

She nodded. "Sometimes I think I live there."

He pulled a pen from his s.h.i.+rt pocket, writing inside the matchbook and handing it to her. "Listen," he said. "I know you are having a hard time now. Maybe it's the hardest ever. If you need someone to talk with sometime, just let me know. Sometime having a friend to talk to - it really help a lot when you are ... in a black hole."

"Thanks, Miguel," she said, sighing and looking up past the street light. "You know, I think people only learn how far gone they are when they find they can't turn back."

She thought he'd make some little joke, or squint at her again, or maybe ask what she meant. Instead he returned her blank expression with one of his own. "People always think they went as far as they could go, right before they go further."

Sara stood nervously at the edge of the crowd. The compet.i.tion was over and the attendees were milling around in the country club's banquet hall. A man at the table next to them had his face hidden behind a newspaper. His balding head showed above the Chicago Tribune lettering and the headline "NATO might fire nuclear warning shot in war." Sara shuffled a little farther away from him.

"You never wanted to be in this stupid contest, anyway," Angie said. "Who cares what the trophy says?"

Sara ran her fingers over the little bra.s.s tag on the trophy's base. Glencoe Garden Club, Third Annual Flower Arranging Compet.i.tion, 1981. Third Place. She sniffed. "My dad cares. He'll say something mean."

"So don't tell him." Angie rubbed her eyes. "And why flower arranging? Even your mom doesn't give a flying f.u.c.k about this s.h.i.+t. Why not ..." She shook her head. "I don't know ... Why didn't she put you in one of those beauty pageants she used to be in?"

Sara sniffed. "She told me it'd be a waste of effort."

Angie laced her fingers through her hair, squeezing her scalp as if it was about to explode. "Ugh! Your family drives me insane! You don't give a s.h.i.+t about flowers so your mom hires somebody to make this f.u.c.king thing ... " She sighed. "They just ... all this s.h.i.+t, it's so draining. They suck the life out of you all the time. And you don't even stand up for yourself ..."

Sara's eyes stayed on the trophy. It was a little ceramic bowl mounted on a wooden base, slightly smaller than the first-place and second-place ones. "Yeah ... Well, thanks for coming to get me, anyway."