by Karen Tucker
“Kimmie!” a guy said to Wednesday. “Some girl fell out. You better get down here.”
He was dressed as the Joker—purple suit, green wig—but despite the smile carved into his face he looked pretty panicked, as if this wasn’t your basic nodding and someone had gotten herself in real trouble. An icy chill went straight through me.
Already I knew it was Luce.
By the time I got downstairs a crowd had gathered around her. She was lying in the dim little corridor that ran between the first-floor apartments. Her eyes were rolled way back in her head and her bandage dress was hiked up so far you could see her Hello Kitty undies. I pushed my way through, yanked her dress down, leaned over, and put my ear to her chest. She was breathing, but so shallow it barely counted.
“Call 911,” I heard myself say.
After that, a woman holding a baby hollered for someone to go find some Narcan, but everyone just stared at her, mouths hanging open. A man dressed as the grim reaper asked if anyone knew CPR. Nogales would know what to do, or even Wilky, but they must have been off planning big moves to Florida and chatting up nurses. I glimpsed a dude at the far end of the hall, looking a little green around the edges. Lars Ulrich, I realized. He met my eyes and then he turned and slipped out the rear exit.
“I want whatever she ate,” a man’s voice said.
It wasn’t until the whine of an approaching siren rose up in the distance that the crowd sprang into action. Quick as a flash everyone scattered into various apartments, locks clicking, bolts sliding.
The woman with the baby told me I’d better get a move on. “You don’t want to be here when they show up. Good Samaritan laws don’t work so great in Ribbins.”
I told her I wasn’t leaving no matter what happened. No way, forget it.
“Okay okay, stop crying,” the woman said. “Then you better check if she’s holding. Go on, hurry.”
I went through Luce’s coat pockets, hands shaking so bad I could hardly control them.
“And if the cops show, keep your mouth shut.” The woman looked at her baby as if she was giving it advice. “You can’t ever trust them, no matter what they say.”
At last I found the baggie of pills tucked in the waistband of Luce’s fishnets. When I held it up to show her, the woman backed away like I was going to fling fent all over her and her kid. “You crazy? Hide that shit in your underwear or something.” She turned and hurried up the stairwell.
“Can you at least stay till EMS gets here?” I called after her.
Somewhere above me a door slammed, leaving me and Luce alone in that hall, life dribbling out of her body with no way for me to get it back inside or even slow down the process. I shook her so hard her head bobbled all over. “Come on, come on,” I chanted.
No response.
And then Wilky was flying down the hall toward us. He one-armed me away, tilted Luce’s head back, pinched her nostrils, and gave her mouth-to-mouth the way he’d been trained in the army. Soon she was awake and gazing around in sleepy wonder.
“Where,” she said.
“It was those pills that guy gave you,” said Wilky. “I knew he was trouble.”
“No pills,” she said thickly.
“Luce,” he said. “Hand them over. We’re flushing the rest down the toilet.”
“Don’t have any.” With effort, she pulled herself up to a sitting position. “Promise.”
“It’s true,” I said, my mind scrabbling to come up with a believable answer. “We already tossed them. One look and we knew they were total fakes. This was just an asthma attack, plain and simple. Probably tons of mold in this building.”
“Asthma,” said Wilky. You could tell he didn’t believe me, but at the same time he didn’t want to call me out. “Where’s Nogales? Did he see what happened?”
Before I could answer, two paramedics hurried through the front door. “Couldn’t find the right building,” said the first one. He leaned over and aimed a penlight into Luce’s eyes. “Yep. You called it.”
His partner set her kit on the floor with a hostile thunk and squatted next to Luce. “All right, what did you take? Be honest.”
“Baby aspirin,” Luce said, her voice groggy.
“Yeah?” The woman pulled some latex gloves out of her jacket and put them on with two harsh snaps. “Okay then, I’m going to check your pockets. Any sharps I should be aware of?”
“Hold on,” Wilky said. “You can’t search her, not without her permission.”
At last Nogales came charging through the rear exit. He must have sprinted from a few buildings over because he was having a hard time catching his breath. “Heard the sirens.”
“Look who’s here,” I said. “We missed you.”
He ignored me and bent over Luce. “You okay? What happened?”
“No searching,” Luce said to the paramedics.
The woman sat back on her heels in annoyance. For someone as amped-up as she was, she looked pretty worn out. Her skin had the same gray waxy look that mine always got when Luce and I pulled an all-nighter and her right hand kept twitching. She tucked it behind her back and turned to her partner. “You want to tell her or should I?”
Her partner, an older dude with a Bicced scalp and JUST FOR TODAY inked on his forearm, explained there had been a rash of ODs that week due to a spike in bad presses. They needed to know what she’d eaten and what it looked like. “Don’t worry, we’re not required to report you. Good Samaritan laws and all that. We’re trying to track this stuff so we can warn people. You don’t want anyone else getting hurt, now do you?”
Nogales pulled his wallet out of his scrubs, showed his badge. “Anklewood PD. Here to help if you need it.”
“Thanks,” said Mr. Clean. “Hope we don’t have to take you up on your offer.”
“Fine,” Luce said. “Feel me up if you’re that desperate.”
Thank god I’d gotten to the pills in time.
It was the woman who searched Luce’s coat pockets, the lining, the zip-off collar. Ran her fingers along the seams of Luce’s dress, made her remove her shoes, and still all she scored was a tube of Wet n Wild lipstick and a half-eaten pack of chocolate tarantulas. You’d think not finding any drugs would have satisfied the woman, cheered her up even, but it only seemed to annoy her further. Made you wonder what she did with all the pills she confiscated.
After that, Mr. Clean wanted to check Luce’s vitals. I reminded Luce she didn’t have to let EMS do anything, but once she found out their services were covered by her stepdad’s insurance, she relented.
“I thought you and your family didn’t speak to each other,” said Nogales.
Wilky motioned me and Nogales back toward the stairwell so the paramedics couldn’t hear. In a low voice he told us Luce and her mom still weren’t talking, but her stepdad had recently come back into the picture. He was trying to convince her to go rehab. She’d get a full ride with his Blue Cross policy.
I looked at Luce and back at Wilky. Neither of them had ever mentioned rehab before. “She’s not going, is she?”
“Won’t even discuss it,” Wilky said. “But after tonight? I’d say it’s back on the table.”
Nogales reached for my hand and held it gently. A comforting gesture, but it only made me feel trapped and anxious, and after a few seconds I pulled away.
The exam didn’t take long. Luce’s pulse was irregular and her breathing was sluggish—I think they said she was only hitting eleven or twelve breaths a minute. Whatever had put her down earlier wasn’t done with her yet. Luce drew the line when they suggested taking her in for bloodwork, saying all she wanted was to go home, lie on the couch, and eat a big stack of toaster waffles.
“I hear you,” said Mr. Clean. He pulled a silver thermos out of his kit and took a weary swallow. “Been a long night already.”
The woman scooped up her kit and strode to the front door. “From the looks of things, it’s only getting longer.” She gave a final accusing glance in Luce’s direction.
“Sorry to be such a letdown,” Luce said. “I can hook you up with some blow if it’ll help any. Addy, if you’d rather stick with something familiar.”
The woman’s face blotched into a telling shade of red.
We waited until we heard their van drive away and then Wilky announced he was going to get the Subaru and pull it up front so Luce didn’t have to walk all the way to visitor parking.
“I think I’m ready to head out too,” I said to Nogales. “I’ll catch a ride home with them so you can hang with your nurse friend a while longer.”
“It’s not like that,” he said, flushing. “I’ll explain in the car.”
Nogales went on to suggest we all finish the night together at me and Luce’s. “Wind down a little, maybe watch a movie. I bet one of the Freddy or Jason ones is on. Luce, you like slasher stuff don’t you?”
“More bodies the better.” You could tell she was trying to act normal, but her voice sounded sludgy and she kept blinking in scary slow motion. From the concentrated look on her face, her breathing had switched from automatic to manual. I glanced at Nogales and Wilky but they didn’t appear to notice anything unusual and instead they headed outside discussing Jamie Lee Curtis and her yogurt commercials as if there had never been any real danger at all.
Soon it was Luce and me again in the hallway. While she focused on getting enough oxygen into her system, I tried to figure out a way to bring up Florida. I couldn’t imagine her leaving. The whole thing felt unreal. Maybe she was just letting Wilky believe what he wanted to keep him happy. I did the same thing with Nogales and even her on occasion. It’s not a hustle if it’s someone you love. I was debating whether to ask her straight up or go at it sideways when she looked at me and held her hand out.
“Take some if you want,” she said, “but give me the rest.”
I told her I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Dude. Don’t fuck with me,” she said.
If she hadn’t been in energy-saver mode I’d never have been able to change her mind about getting her pills back, but as it was I convinced her without too much trouble that it was best if I held on to them a little while longer. “You know they always set up checkpoints on Halloween. Wilky gets stopped, it could turn into a whole situation.”
“Right,” she said. “This is about Wilky.”
“Come on, don’t be like that. Point is Nogales only has to flash his badge and we’re back driving in no time.”
She thought this over. “Makes sense I guess. Besides, if Wilky finds my stash he’ll toss it. Sometimes he acts like such a normie. It’s embarrassing.”
“You’re not really moving to Florida with him, are you?” I said.
At first she denied it. Said she hated hot weather and Disney was bullshit and of everywhere in the whole entire universe, Florida was the last place she’d ever want to live. “Can you see me in a beach house somewhere, wearing nothing but bikinis and stinking of coconuts?”
“Look me in the eye and tell me you’re not moving,” I said. Even though Luce had an incredible talent for pulling off hustles, she was one of the worst liars ever.
A long moment passed between us. At last she admitted that she and Wilky might have talked about relocating a couple of times. “But who knows what’ll happen! You know how life is.”
My heart was beating so fast I had to chew up another Norco right there in the hall.
Both of us probably wanted to get up and leave at that point, but seeing as we didn’t have much of an option, we sat there waiting for Wilky and Nogales, trying to make small talk. Our GM at work and the giant packages of meat we’d seen him loading into his car after hours. The bodybuilder hostess and what you had to take to get that kind of definition—and how she might have some connections worth looking into. That went all right for a while, but when I asked if she’d thought about a timeline for moving, Luce announced she was sick of the entire subject. When I said all I wanted was for her to be happy, she told me to mind my own business for once in my life. By the time Wilky arrived, she’d already pulled herself up off the floor and was standing wobbly-legged by the mailboxes, giving me the silent treatment.
He held the door open. “You ready?”
She didn’t answer, just went and kissed him on the mouth right in front of me, before heading out to the car.
Nogales didn’t show up for another ten minutes, maybe longer. Turned out he’d gotten to his minivan only to find a tow-truck driver already doing the hookup. Had to do some serious talking to get her to unchain it and even then she made him give her fifty bucks cash and the rest of my watermelon gummies. I probably shouldn’t have laughed when he told me, since it only cranked his anger up to eleven, but I couldn’t help it. The extra Norco was kicking in hard. A few minutes later when we got turned around trying to find our way out of the complex, I had to angle my face to the window to keep from busting out in dopey giggles. Nogales glanced over. “I don’t know what you think is so funny. They could at least put up some exit signage.”
“Maybe you should give them a citation.”
“Maybe I should,” Nogales said.
Between that and getting lost yet again on the all the unmarked mountain roads, we were at least fifteen minutes behind Luce and Wilky. Ordinarily I would have decided this was a good excuse to pick a fight, but I was feeling pretty loose and I wanted to enjoy it. When he tried to explain about the slutty ginger-ale nurse and how it was nothing, I told him I didn’t care and to please shut up already. Deep down I knew he wasn’t cheating. Luce might have been a terrible liar, but Nogales was the only truly honest one of us all.
He put on some of his sappy shoegazer music, pausing the mix every so often to explain some lyrics or fill me in on a little band trivia. It was kind of nice hearing him droning on and on. Soothing even. By the time we reached the sign announcing the Anklewood exit, I decided maybe I wasn’t in such a hurry to get home after all. I pointed out to Nogales it was early enough we could still make Bojangles’ if he wanted, and he got so happy you’d have thought he was the one doing combos. He loved their all-day breakfast more than just about anything.
We were discussing if we wanted seasoned fries or Bo-Tato Rounds when we saw lights flashing up ahead in the distance. Some poor fool had gotten themselves pulled over.
I told Nogales they could handle a stupid DUI without him.
“My thoughts exactly,” he said. “I vote we get both the fries and the Rounds, along with one of their jumbo family dinners. That way there’ll be plenty to share with Luce and Wilky. She needs more than frozen waffles on her stomach.”
He really was a good guy.
But as we got closer, something in Nogales’s face shifted. He turned off the music. “Looks like we might need to pull over.”
“Hope it’s not another deer. That makes three since Monday.”
“Hard to tell, but I think a car’s upside down on the shoulder.” He put on his blinkers, started braking. All at once the scene went from blurry to clear. I threw my door open while we were still moving.
“Whoa!” Nogales lunged for my elbow.
“Luce!” I said, jumping out.
WHAT HAPPENED WAS THIS: LUCE FELL OUT again on the way home, slumping forward in her seat belt. When Wilky tried to pull over he was in such a panic he almost slammed into a station wagon full of trick-or-treaters and though he was able to swerve away at the last moment, he ended up skidding off into a ditch and flipping the Outback. It being Halloween the roads were thick with cops. Two highway patrol cars came roaring onto the scene and soon a whole new set of paramedics joined them. At least the adrenaline jolt of the accident woke Luce up enough so she didn’t need to get Narcanned. Even better, both she and Wilky came out of the wreckage with nothing worse than matching seat belt–shaped bruises that didn’t emerge until the next morning.
By the time I sprinted over, Wilky was standing with two state troopers, blowing a cool zero on his BAC field test. Luce was sitting on
the rear bumper of the EMS van, insisting the whole thing was nothing and that she’d had messed-up lungs since she was a little kid. You could tell the paramedics didn’t believe her, but if she refused treatment they didn’t have much say in the matter. After recommending she see a doctor for a physical, they excused themselves for a quick vape. Even from where I was standing, you could smell the young chunky chick’s Froot-Loops-and-milk e-juice, while the old skinny one with three silver rings in her eyebrow had what I swear was watermelon-gummy-bear flavor, which told me all I needed to know about her.
Nogales went right to the senior trooper, a petite dark-haired woman with a sly-looking expression. He showed his badge and volunteered his assistance, saying he happened to know the involved parties. After a doubtful glance at his scrubs, she steered him off to the side where they could talk in private, saying maybe he could clear a couple things up for her. Clearing things up for people was one of Nogales’s most cherished pastimes and though his back was to me, I could tell by the look on the trooper’s face that he was doing a pretty good job. When she turned away to speak into her radio, I sidled up beside him and said we probably ought to get going.
Nogales rested a hand on my shoulder. “We’re about done, don’t worry.”
I went and sat on the van’s bumper next to Luce.
Soon a flatbed truck had arrived and two bearded guys in reflective yellow vests tried to get the Subaru flipped back over. It took a while for them to wrangle it and there was one tricky moment when they almost sent the whole thing careening down the side of the mountain. At last they got the wheels on the ground. The senior trooper put her arm in the air. “Don’t load her up yet, boys. We got K-9 coming.”
Luce and I exchanged uneasy glances.
“You good?” I said.
Within seconds she was making a clumsy beeline for the Subaru. She was almost there when the junior trooper, a guy who looked to be about the same age as Nogales, stepped between her and the car. “Can’t let you do that.”
“Sir, I just want to get my chapstick. It’s so dry out, my lips are about to start bleeding.”