by Paula Cox
And then Dawn begins to cry. Hope wraps her arms around her sister and holds her close, singing a lullaby.
I take out my cell and dial Gunny.
Hope is muttering fiercely to Dawn, quick whispers I only catch snippets of. “You can do this . . . you’re okay . . . strong . . . fight . . . please . . .”
I pace up and down at the other side of the room, the phone ringing in my ear, the plastic bag pressing into my thigh through my pants—the needles pointed away from me. Gunny answers after half a minute.
“Boss,” he says. “Something wrong?”
“I need you to rent me a house on Sapphire Lake,” I tell him. “It needs to be big, and peaceful. The kind of house they show on those billboards to attract tourists. You know the kind I mean?”
“Yeah, Boss, sure, but why?”
“Don’t worry about why, Gunny, just do it.”
“Yes, Boss. On it now.”
“I don’t care if the landlord or whoever is asleep. If you have to, ride over there and wake him up. I need it ready for tomorrow morning at sunrise. When you’ve booked it, you need to buy me a few things for it. Got a pen?”
“Yeah, wait a sec.” Gunny rustles around and then returns to the phone. “Okay, Boss, ready.”
“Okay, good. I need seven days’ worth of bottled water. Lots of clear soda. Ginger ale, Sprite, whatever . . . something you’d drink after throwing up. Energy drinks—find something that has electrolyte on the label. And survival food, fatty food and sugary food. White bread, peanut butter, crackers, eggs, yogurt, soup, bananas, stuff like that.”
“Anything else?” Gunny asks. The sound of his pen scratching the paper stops. I see him there, poised in a chair with the pen looking tiny in his huge hand, waiting for me to go on.
“Yeah. After that, go to the pharmacy. I need Imodium, Tagament, NyQuil, DayQuil, some allergy medicine . . . doesn’t matter which one but make sure it’s strong. Ask the guy what the strongest is. If he tells you it’s only for prescription or something foolish like that, let him know who you are.”
Gunny grunts out a chuckle. “That’s not a problem, Boss.”
“Okay, get some anti-diarrhea meds, anti-nausea capsules, and then get some painkillers. A fair amount of painkillers. Then all we need is some antibiotic cream, something you’d rub into a cut. Think we might have some of that hanging around the club. Ask Declan, the old man’s got his nose into everything.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Lastly, some vitamin tablets. Make sure they’ve got vitamin E in them. Oh, and cough drops.”
“Alright, Boss, do you want me to read it back to you?”
“Yes.”
I wait while he reads it back. He hasn’t missed a thing.
“Get the house, go shopping,” Gunny says. I can see him nodding to himself. “I’ll handle it, Boss.”
“Good man. Gunny, you’ll be paid well for this. Very well. You’re a good man.”
Gunny laughs. “None of us are good men, Boss, but we do our best, don’t we?”
“That we do.”
I’m about to hang up when I sense that Gunny has more to say. He hovers on the other end of the line, breathing down it.
“Something wrong?” I ask.
“I know these meds, Boss,” Gunny sighs. “I know what they mean. Is it one of ours?”
“No,” I tell him. “We’re clean. It’s someone else. But I have to help her.”
I’m glad he doesn’t ask me why, because then I’d have to explain. And what reason is there other than I feel something for Hope? I feel something for her which is not just lust or animal attraction? I feel something for her which might be—
But I won’t think about that now.
I walk back across the room to where Hope and Dawn kneel.
“That was quite the list,” Hope says, continually stroking Dawn’s head.
Dawn’s eyes are half-closed, only the whites showing, and her lips are pursed. She lolls in her sister’s arms, drooping herself like a sleepy child. Every so often she lets out a wordless murmur. She’s far gone, floating somewhere in her own head, seeing things we can’t even guess at. She’s high, damn high, flying high.
“It has to be,” I reply, kneeling down next to them and look at Hope, her elfin face red, her eyes watery, but her eyebrows lowered and her lips set into a straight line. She’s a fighter, make no mistake. “She’s going to ride this out, Hope. She’ll be okay.”
“She’s tried going cold turkey before,” Hope whispers. “It didn’t go so well. She ended up stealing a car so she could drive to her dealer’s house and get some drugs. Right now she’s manageable, but what about when she wakes up and she wants more?”
“She won’t be able to do anything like that for the rest of the night. I know that look. She’s gone. And tomorrow morning she’ll be in the house.”
Hope shakes her head slowly. “Ever since Mom and Dad died, I’ve taken care of her. A family of addicts, Killian, and I’m the only one who’s never touched drugs.”
I reach out and touch her face, touch her soft cheek with my rough biker’s finger. “You’re a great woman, Hope. A fine woman. You can get through this.”
“I know I can, but can she?”
I look down at Dawn, sweat sticking to every part of her, her lips trembling, eyelids fluttering. “Is she strong?”
“Yes, she’s strong,” Hope replies.
“Then she’ll get through it.” I stand up and roll my head from side to side, stretching my neck out. “Tomorrow morning, you’ll drive her to the house. Wait, do you have a car?”
“No,” Hope says. “Too expensive.”
“Okay, okay, in the morning there will be a car waiting outside for you. The keys will be in your mailbox.” I’ll call Craig or one of the others and get them to sort it, I think. “I’ll text you the address of the house once I know it. We’ll work in shifts, me and you and some of the Numb. We’ll get her through it. Your job tonight is to stay with her and make sure she’s okay. You need to make sure she doesn’t choke on her vomit or—”
“I know all about that,” Hope says tiredly. “I understand it all.”
“Okay, good.”
I swagger to the door.
“Wait, where are you going?” Hope calls after me.
“I have a meeting,” I grunt back.
I sit in the car park opposite the Gourmet, where I first waited for Hope. Man, that seems like a long time ago now. I feel closer to her, much closer. I feel like we’re much more than just casual fuck buddies, much more than the women I’ve been with before.
Focus, I tell myself.
I take out my cell and dial in Shane the Dealer’s phone number. It rings three times, and then he answers. Music blares in the background, club music thumping, pounding through the cell’s speakers.
“Who is this?” Shane the Dealer shouts. “Hello?”
The only nightclub near the Cove is called The Loft, a converted warehouse two miles south. “You in the Loft?” I shout, making my voice casual.
“Yeah, who are you? You a customer, man?”
I hang up the phone, kick away the stand on my bike, and rev it into life.
Soon I’m going south, toward The Loft and the man who sold my woman’s sister drugs.
My woman, I think forcefully. My goddamn woman.
It’s a quiet night at The Loft.
Ten or so people mill around on the dance floor and a scattering of men and women stand at the bar. They’re mostly teenagers or college kids, which makes finding Shane the Dealer no problem at all.
He stands next to the toilets, one hand in his pocket, the other fiddling with a clear plastic bag. As I watch, a kid no older than seventeen hands him a note, and Shane hands back one of those plastic bags. Weed, coke, heroine—I don’t care.
Rage fills me, boiling hot lava filling every part of me.
Shane is a tall, wide man. His arms are muscular beneath his shirt. A chain dangles from his jeans and I see th
e outline of a pistol bulging from his shirtfront. He’s wearing an armpit holster.
I don’t care.
I pace across the dance floor, clenching my fists, clenching my jaw, my body trembling with rage.
Give my woman’s sister drugs?
Make my woman’s life more difficult?
Make my woman cry?
Shane looks up at the last moment.
“The fuck is your problem?” he shouts over the music.
“You are,” I growl.
Then I hook him across the cheek. He stumbles, cracks his head on the wall, and falls to the ground. His hand darts into his shirt, for the pistol. I step on his wrist and lay into him. Punch, punch, punch. Until his face is a bloody patchwork.
Then I lean into his, my lips near his ear. “Sell to Dawn Jackson again, the whole goddamn Numb will be with me next time. We’ll leave you for fucking dead.”
I punch him once more in the belly. Tears spring to his eyes.
“Do you hear me?” I grunt.
“I hear you, man!” he weeps. “I hear you! I hear you!”
“Good boy.” I reach into his shirt and take out his pistol. “I’ll keep this.”
Then I stand up, put the pistol into the inner pocket of my vest, and walk out of the club, around thirty people gawping at me.
Now I get to spend a few days with Hope at a lakeside house. Is that really so bad?
Chapter Eleven
Hope
Detox again, I think, as I lead Dawn downstairs, a bag slung over my shoulder: clothes, makeup, a few books and DVDs.
“I’m tired,” Dawn grunts, clinging to my hand.
“I know. You’ll be able to sleep soon.”
“I’m really tired,” she states.
“I know,” I sigh.
We get to the bottom floor of the apartment building and I go to my mailbox, unlock it, and look inside. On top of the letters from gas companies and electricity companies there is a set of keys on a key ring. I take them and drop them into my pocket, and then close the box.
“What’re they?” Dawn asks.
“Car keys.”
“Whose?”
“Ours, I guess.”
We go out into the street. It’s a brisk autumn day, the sky a solid grey, the air cold. Dawn shivers and rubs her arms, and then hugs herself, standing next to the door. “Can’t I just go upstairs and sleep? I’ll be okay after a sleep.”
I ignore her. It’s not true and we both know it. She’ll sleep and then she’ll get up and want more drugs. She’ll be a nightmare then. She’ll do anything it takes. She’ll fight me if she has to. I’ve been with Dawn while she detoxes before. Hell, I was with her a few weeks ago when she kicked it for the hundredth time. She screamed at me, raged at me, blamed me for Mom and Dad’s death and told me I was a whore. That’s just how it goes with addicts when they don’t get what they want.
A car I’ve never seen before sits outside of the building: a hot pink Mustang.
“Wow,” I mutter, going to it and sliding the key into the lock. Sure enough, it unlocks and the door opens. “Wow,” I repeat. When Killian said a car, I expected a beat-up junk vehicle, not a factory-new Mustang.
Dawn stands near my shoulder. “Wow,” she agrees. “This is pretty cool.”
I’m about to reply when Dawn swivels away from me, hunches over, and vomits violently on the pavement.
“Ah,” she grunts, as the sick spews from between her lips. “That was . . . unexpected.”
“Come on,” I say, taking her by the elbow and leading her to the passenger side. “Let’s get going.”
This is my chance to make it right.
That’s what I tell myself, over and over, as I drive the Mustang towards Sapphire Lake. Dawn has quit dozens of times, but it’s never stuck. But before now I’ve been on my own. I’ve had to leave the house. I’ve had to leave Dawn on her own. Now, with help, Dawn won’t be able to trick me. She’ll be watched nonstop. There will be shifts. Despite how many times I’ve been through this—despite how many times I’ve been let down—I feel hope. Foolish hope, perhaps, but hope all the same.
Killian’s text told me the house overlooked the lake from the northern side, sitting on a small hill and staring down at the water. When I get there, I drive around until I find the dirt road, and then drive up it. It is bumpy and the car bounces up and down.
“Do you have to do that?” Dawn snaps.
“Yes,” I reply. “I have to.”
“This is a joke,” she mutters under her breath. “This is a joke. A joke. Since when did we need anybody else to help with our business? Since when did that happen, Hope? Tell me that.”
“I can’t do it by myself anymore. Killian’s trying to help.”
“Oh, yeah, of course he is. Help himself into your pants.”
“Well that’s already happened, so how does that work?” I shoot back, my voice meaner than I intended.
“Wow, way to have self-respect, Hope. Give it to a man after knowing him for—what? Knowing him for five minutes?”
I ignore her and drive up the hill toward the house. She’s always like this when she’s coming off the drugs. She’s always mean and vindictive. Hateful. When she’s coming off the drugs it’s like a different person emerges, a person who is usually deep down in her.
The house is a large wooden cabin built on bricks. The front faces the road, one side faces the lake with a balcony on the second floor, one side faces the other incline of the hill, and the back of it faces a large swimming pool and hot tub. Killian has really pulled all the stops out. There’s no way I could’ve afforded to rent this place on my own, especially on the spur of the moment.
I wonder what he wants in return, I think idly.
But then I push the thought from my mind. After all, whatever he wants, it’s not like I’m unwilling, is it?
I stop the car on the gravel parking space, open the door, and walk around to Dawn’s side.
Opening the door, I take her by the elbow and help her to her feet.
“I need something,” Dawn whispers. “Just a little something.”
So it’s started.
“No, come on, follow me.”
Killian opens the door, Patrick standing behind him.
“Everything is ready,” Killian tells me, as Dawn and I walk into a wide entranceway. The floors and walls are wood, and on the walls paintings hang, along with a mounted deer’s head. “Dawn, your room is upstairs. Come on everybody, follow me.”
We follow him to a double staircase, wide and leading both left and right at an intersection. On the large wall above the staircase hangs a portrait of an old man in a suit. “Some fancy family owned this place,” Patrick explains. “But I think the Satan’s Martyrs can make better use of it.”
Dawn’s room is at the back of the house, overlooking the lake. The bed is well-made and clean. The whole room, in fact, smells of cleaning product. It is pristine. There are no pictures on the walls. There’s just the single bed, a bookstand, and a TV. Next to the bed sits a jug of water, potato chips, and fruit.
“This is you,” Patrick tells Dawn, smiling at her with more kindness than I would’ve given him credit for.
“What am I supposed to do?”
Dawn lets go of my arm and paces into the bedroom, looking around at it.
“Rest. Let the heroin out of your system.”
“I didn’t do any heroin—”
“You did,” Killian says calmly. “I was there. I saw it all. But it’s all gone now. The needles and the baggies, all of it. And your dealer, Shane, isn’t going to sell to you anytime soon.”
“Jesus,” Dawn sighs, and then slumps onto the bed. “This is just great, isn’t it?”
And it starts just like that, with a simple sarcastic comment.
After the drugs leave her completely, she hunches in a ball on the bed, her knees to her chest, sweating madly.
“I always hated you!” she shrieks at me, as I dab her forehead and offer
her water.
“You were always ugly and mean! You were always stupid! I hate you! Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!”
I let the words ricochet off of me. I’ve heard them before.
Hours pass like this, Dawn sweating and screaming and raging, me beside the bed, Patrick and Killian standing opposite, watching.