Yes.
She rolled the crystal between her palms. It was rather like a bullet, in shape. Interesting that this should occur to her. Her mouth became dry, and there was a moment of fear, of a palpitating heart. She had become more and more aware of her heart over the last few years, more conscious of its strength and weakness. She would probably know before it gave out, which might be good or bad. It wasn't about to give out now.
She got dressed slowly, her mind racing, her thoughts unfocused. In her left earlobe she put two thin silver hoops, in her right she put three smaller ones. A skull ring went over her little finger because she had worn it the first time she'd seen him. About her neck she fastened a lapis lazuli on a gold chain. Her dress was conservative and pale yellow, with alight blue shawl. She studied herself in the mirror,looking for traces of the future and finding none. At last she called for a cab.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON
What is your desire?
Fame. or love. or gold?
It's there in your hand, my friend.
But answer if you can, my friend
What are you reaching out to hold?
"THE FAIR LADY"
"So what? So at least I did it, didn't I?" Laurie tossed the check her dad had sent her on the dresser. Thirty dollars! More money than she'd ever asked for at once in her whole life. And her dad had sent it, right away,but now they said it wasn't enough. She walked past that stuck-up Sue girl and flopped down on her pink bedspread. Strawberry Shortcake. She'd had it since she was nine, but now she hated it, especially because of the way Chrissy's older friend was looking at it. She was beginning to wish this Sue would just leave. Where did Chrissy get off, anyway, just bringing some stranger over to her house? Anymore, all Chrissy talked about were her "older" friends, and how mass cool they were. She made Laurie feel like a baby. And her mom would be home soon. She wouldn't be cool about Laurie having a guest that she hadn't met yet. Especially someone like Sue. She must have been at least sixteen, maybe eighteen. And she acted so rad,it was like she was even older. Like now, lighting a cigarette, like it was no big deal.
Sue exhaled smoke at Laurie. "So, really, you blew it. Getting twenty or thirty bucks, that's easy. I told you, we need fifty. And you coulda got it if you'd done it like I told you."
"But I don't really need shoes." Laurie protested.
"Shit!" Sue blew smoke out her nose in long thin streams. "I know that. You don't need a blouse either. All you had to say was, like, 'My old shoes pinch my feet a little when I dance, but Mom says they'll do until the next paycheck.' He'd a been in such a hurry to show up your mom, he'd probably express the money to you."
"No, he'd probably have called my mom and asked about it," Laurie said. She was getting tired of this older girl pushing on her, acting like she knew everything. Look at her now, blowing smoke out her mouth and inhaling it up her nose. Gross. Laurie was beginning to think she didn't like Chrissy's new friend at all.
"I betcha he wouldn't have called your mom. Hell,your dad hardly ever calls you, let alone your mom."Chrissy jumped in.
Great! Now her best friend was siding against her.Laurie wished they'd both leave. The cigarette was stinking up her whole room. Sue saw her looking at it. She flicked it, sending ashes all over the rug.
"Hey!" Laurie objected, but Chrissy just giggled,"Use this for an ashtray, okay?" Laurie added, taking the saucer out from under one of her African violets.Sue took it from her like it was a big favor. No one said anything for a while. Sue just sat there smoking and looking around her room and smirking.
"Look!" Laurie began fiercely. "You might think you know it all, but you don't know my folks. They might be divorced, but when it comes to us kids,they're still together. He'd phone her. Besides, a cop doesn't make that much. My dad probably couldn't send me fifty bucks if he wanted to."
"Shit!" Sue said again, and Chrissy giggled. "Cops make all the money they want. Half of them are on the take. I oughta know, I seen enough of them.There's this one old fart, down in juvie, said if I'd come across, he wouldn't write up my probation violation. Don't talk to me about cops."
"They're not all like that!" Laurie's heart was beating really fast. She knew her face was getting red,like it always did when she was mad.
"Bullshit!" Sue drawled, and looked sideways at Chrissy, cracking her up. It suddenly dawned on Laurie that she was being baited, that Sue was getting her worked up and sharing the joke with Chrissy.Her eyes hurt like she was going to cry, but she didn't let the tears out. Her old bear was still on the bed,and she picked him up and squeezed him tight.Chrissy seemed to see how upset she really was, because she sat up suddenly and changed the subject.
"So. What now?" she asked brightly, sending Laurie a brief look that said sorry. But she didn't say it out loud, Laurie thought bitterly. Not in front of her new friend.
"What now?" Sue echoed. She leaned over and deliberately stubbed her cigarette out against the soft furry leaves of the violet instead of on the saucer.Laurie gritted her teeth, trying not to show her anger,but the little smile on Sue's mouth showed she knew she had scored. "Now nothing, Chrissy. Your little friend blew it. If I take you to meet the Lady and Her friends with less than fifty bucks, they'll laugh in my face. The Lady expects presents from Her friends. You wanta be Her friend and be in with Her, you gotta bring Her presents. Money and jewelry and stuff."
"Well, maybe I don't wanna be Her friend!" Laurie broke in.
"Fine with me. Miss Piggy," Sue said, and Chrissy cracked up. It took a few seconds for Laurie to catch the joke. Then, "Get the hell out of my house!" she cried out.
"Fine with me," Sue said slowly. She got up lazily,looked around the room in disdain. "I'm a little tired of sitting around in the nursery, anyway. You coming, Chrissy, or you want to stay here and play Barbies?"
Chrissy looked trapped. "I'll be along, I guess,"she said lamely. "In a little while. I gotta get my stuff."
"Yeah. Sure. Well, better hurry, kid, cause I ain't waiting. I got other things to do. See ya around. Miss Piggy." Sue drifted out of the room, and a few seconds later Laurie heard the front door slam,
"Great, Laurie, you really blew it for us!" Chrissy huffed as she grabbed up her bookbag and coat.
"I blew it? What do you want to go around with someone like that for? She's awful!"
"Not usually. She was just pissed because you didn't get the money- Usually she's really cool, and you should see her boyfriend's car! Talk about rad!On the freeway, night before last, he got it up to a hundred and twenty! And then he turned off the headlights! It was like flying in the dark. Oh, Laurie,you got to get that money, so you can come with us.You should see the stuff that Lady gives her. Jewelry like you wouldn't believe, and this scarf, it looks black, but when you shake it, it's silver! And…Look! I gotta go, because she won't wait for me. But I'll tell her you were sorry, that you were feeling sick or something. And I'll try to get the rest of the money,'cause we've just got to meet this Lady. Usually, you got to be at least a senior to be invited, so we're really lucky."
Motormouth Chrissy was still talking as she wrapped her scarf around her neck and left the bedroom. Laurie didn't bother walking her to the door;
Chrissy didn't notice. Some best friend. Ever since she met that Sue, she'd been acting like a jerk. As soon as Laurie heard the door shut, she got up and took the cigarette butt out of her plant. It was the new one, too, the one that was supposed to have double blossoms. A burnt hole gaped angrily in the soft green leaf. Laurie carefully pinched it off, and carried both cigarette butt and leaf into the bathroom, where she flushed them down the toilet.
NOVEMBER ELEVENTH, LATE AFTERNOON
Old woman, it's only
A false joy you bring,
Old woman upon your hand
I see a death's-head ring.
Old woman, it's our winter.
We'll never see a spring.
Old woman, it's time to cry.
Why must you still sing?
"BLACKENED FACE
"
The cab driver was a fat man who reminded her of Jackie Gleason, which made his deep, gravelly voice quite startling. When she told him where she wanted to be taken he didn't say anything, but gave her a quick, speculative look in the rearview mirror as he pulled away from the curb. During the ride, which,because of the Veterans' Day traffic, took half an hour,she paid little attention to the area they were passing through. She let her mind drift, free associating, finding melodies in the whine of passing cars and patterns in the cracks along the streets.
He let her off at a comer where an old black mans old newspapers and shoeshines in front of a grocer whose green and yellow produce lay in bushel baskets below the barred storefront. The thought of trying to connive her way out of paying the fare popped up unbidden from her childhood, and she tipped the driver lavishly by way of putting the thought back where it belonged. She wondered at it, though- Was it a sign of age, or was there significance to this unexpected recurrence of the old ways?
The cab roared off; she sniffed, as if hoping to catch a scent, and began walking east down the block, because it seemed to be slightly downhill. She knew that what she sought was around here somewhere,and she would find it more quickly and easily on her feet, slow as they were. They hadn't always been slow. Once she had danced. Once she had danced well enough to earn-
Stop now, she told herself firmly. Fools live in the past, as saints live in the future. It was her lot to feel the waves from one-she couldn't afford to let her mind remain in the other.
Children played in the street, and didn't see her,because she had nothing to do with their world. She passed men and women her own age, all of whom were so wrapped up in their dreams that they never looked outside themselves. She came to the place she had Seen, and the excitement of a true Seeing was far back in her mind. The scene before her held a promise and a threat, and she could almost taste them both on her tongue, sour and juicy as lemon, fear and pleasure.
She identified the hotel by its neon sign, which was mostly burned out, then looked around briefly. It was on a hill, and the side she could see was done in peeling red paint. It had a single door, also red, that was no bigger than the door to a house and had no window. She felt almost young again as she pushed it open and entered the lobby.
TWO
The Wolf and the Gypsy
11 NOV 13:22
The city is a cesspool,
my apartment is a mess.
You say you got a problem,
just give me your address.
STEPDOWN
"Hell of a thing," said the hotel manager. He wiped his shining forehead with a dirty hanky, dragging it roughly across two ripely swollen pimples. He shifted around, glancing at the body, and away, shying like a nervous horse. Guy was too young to be managing a flop house. Stepovich could tell the kid felt ill, but that being here made him feel so important he couldn't stand to leave. This poor old woman leaking blood onto the hotel's cheap carpeting was probably the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him.
"Think they raped her?" The kid scrubbed at his forehead again, scratched at one of the zits, then absently squeezed it. Stepovich looked away. He'd rather look at the body.
"Sure," Durand said, heavily sarcastic. "What man wouldn't get it up for her? I mean, the streets are crawling with granny bangers, aren't they?"
"Shut up." They made him tired, both of them.
Someday, when Durand had seen what elderly women looked like after they'd been raped, he wouldn't joke about it anymore. "Leave the kid, uh,witness alone. Homicide will want him first."
"Yeah. They'll have a lot of questions for you. And they like their meat fresh. Hope you don't have any plans for the next twelve hours or so," Durand said cruelly.
The kid stared at him, not sure if Durand was serious or not. Durand cop-stared at him. "I, uh, I should be down where I can answer the phone, shit like that," the kid muttered uneasily. "If I'm not right at that desk, you'd be surprised how many people try to sneak out without paying."
"Probably not," Durand said.
"No, really, they do," the kid insisted righteously."They…"
"No. I mean I wouldn't be surprised. Go ahead,get back to your phone, kid. We want you, we'll call you." Then, "Try not to touch the door as you leave,okay?"
Stepovich wondered why Durand bothered. The kid had already smeared it up once, coming in here,and then again when he led them up here. Besides,it wasn't like homicide was going to get all worked up and dust the whole place. The department's funds were limited; right now all of them were going toward that child mutilation case and the Exxon Basher. Media loved those. Some old gypsy woman getting herself killed wasn't exactly the Manson murders. What was it Durand had said as they came in?"Mighta known. A gypsy. They're always killing each other."
He'd already phoned it in. Now there wasn't much to do except wait until homicide arrived to take over.He and Durand had taken the call as a domestic violence. Well, maybe it had been. But the kid manager hadn't seen anything, and wasn't even sure who the room had been let to. Stepovich glanced back to the body. It pissed him off. Dying bloody in a cheap hotel room, that was something to happen to a pimp or a pusher, not to an old woman. Anybody who'd lived that long deserved a better death.
She'd fought it. He had to say that for her. There would be skin under her fingernails, he'd bet, and it was obvious it had taken more than one blow from the knife to take her down. The last one had been as she lay there, a driving jab into her back and out, to make sure of her. Her legs were flung wide, one shoe half off. An intricately patterned blue shawl led from her body to the door. Had it snagged on her killer's watch? No one would ever know. Her face was turned away from him but her hair, thick as a young girl's,though grey, had come half undone. A pink edge of ear and a silver hoop earring peeked out of it.
Durand was crouched over her, staring at her face. His head was cocked, like a puppy staring into a stereo speaker at a recording of wolves howling. Puzzled.
"What?" Stepovich demanded.
"Gypsy told my fortune, once. I was wondering if it might have been her."
Stepovich frowned. "You saying we should call bunko, that she's been working scams lately?"
"No. Naw," Durand seemed embarrassed. "It was a long time ago, at a fair when I was a kid. In a little white trailer covered with dust, hooked to a battered old Caddy. She said that thirty-two was my number,and that foxgloves would be important to me."
"Foxgloves?"
"You know, kind of a pinkish flower, grows by the roads some places."
Stepovich stared at his partner, waiting.
Durand stood. "So." He cleared his throat, folded his arms. "Maybe we should call bunko, maybe they'd recognize her."
"Maybe. And maybe we should let homicide do it,so we don't have to repeat everything bunko says to us to them." Most homicide cops Stepovich knew got bent out of shape if they thought a regular cop was trying to muscle in on their work. No, it was better to just take it easy and wait here, protect the scene until the homicide dicks got here and took over. Then it would be time for their afternoon break, and then there'd be another couple of hours of riding around,and then he could go home. He walked to the room's single window and stared down at the street, wondering how long it would take for homicide to arrive.And how many questions they'd ask, and how long they'd keep him and Durand here. It seemed to Stepovich that time had stopped, and wouldn't start again until they got here. It would never start again for the old woman. But when the detectives got here, it would be the end of the "waiting by a body" time and the beginning of the "waiting for the shift to be over" time. He wanted to go home. And then he could get rid of that knife. The thing was sticking in his brain, bugging him.He wished he'd never seen the damn thing. Just touching it made him feel crawly. He should have left it on the sidewalk, he should have gone ahead and booked the gypsy for concealed weapon. He thought of all the times he'd leaned switchblades up against the curb and stomped them so he wouldn't have to book
a kid for concealed weapon. Well, the gypsy's knife wouldn't have yielded to that sort of treatment.Thick blade, at least two inches across at the hilt. And a weird hilt. On the surface of the hilt, toward the blade, there were these three little pins or pegs,shaped like stars. All three stars were enclosed in an engraving of a crescent moon. He'd never seen anything like it. He had it at home, in the bottom drawer,with his socks. It had been there since that night he'd gone to the tank and the gypsy hadn't been there. No one had sorted that out yet; all the paperwork said he should still have been there. What the hell. Stepovich was betting he wouldn't see the gypsy again.
So maybe the best thing to do was to take the knife back to the cemetery gates where they'd rattled the gypsy. Dump it there, kick it under the bushes. He sure as hell didn't want to keep it. He'd thought about tossing it into a dumpster or slipping it down a sewer. But those solutions didn't feel right either. No, he'd take it to the cemetery, and toss it in the bushes,where it would have ended up if they'd overlooked it when they shook the gypsy down.
"Step?"
"Yeah?" He didn't look away from the street. He was kind of watching their car, and kind of watching the loungers in front of the motorcycle shop down the street. Were they lounging, or were they watching?Looking out for what? Protecting what? And was it worth his while to make an effort to find out?
"Step. you think maybe this dead gypsy's got anything to do with the one we booked last week?"
He shrugged. "City's full of gypsies this time of year. Come in from God knows where, renting old storefronts, selling cheap tapestries from Japan in rundown bars, making up futures for people who don't have any. A week or a month from now,whoosh, they're all gone to God knows where. Makes you wonder if they were really here in the first place. And that's why we'll never know who killed this one,or where the other one went."
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