He struggled forward and leaned over the front seat. “But we ain’t found Joe yet.”
“‘Haven’t found Joe yet.’ What’s the matter, do you just nod out in English class?”
He giggled. “Yeah. Don’t everyone?”
“Maybe. I can’t be hauling your ass all over with me. There’s no end-of-class bell around here. You’re on your own.” I took another look at him as he hung over the seat, grinning at me like God’s own fool. “You don’t know that, do you?”
“Know what.” He ruffled my hair clumsily.
“Quit that. You don’t know that you’re on your own.”
“Shit, I got lots of friends.”
“You’ve got junkies is what you’ve got. Don’t confuse them with friends.”
“Yeah?” He ruffled my hair again and I slapped his hand away. “So why are you so hot to find Joe?”
“Joe isn’t my friend, he’s my brother.”
“Jeez, no kidding? I thought you were like his old lady or something.”
How quickly they forget, junkies. I was about to answer him when I saw it, gleaming like fresh snow in the afternoon sunlight, impossibly clean, illegally parked right at the curb at Foster Circle. George had been right—it was a Caddy after all. I looked for a place to pull over and found one in front of a fire hydrant.
“Wait here,” I said, killing the engine. “If I’m not back in ten minutes, you’re free to go.”
“Unh-unh,” the kid said, falling back and fumbling for the door handle. “I’m coming with you.”
“Fuck off.” I jumped out of the car and darted across two lanes of oncoming traffic, hoping the kid would pass out again before he solved the mystery of the door handle. The Caddy was unoccupied; I stepped over the low thorny bushes the ex-mayor had chosen for their red summer blooms and look around wildly.
At the time, it didn’t seem strange that I almost didn’t see her. She was sitting on a bench fifty feet away looking as immaculate as her car in a thick brown coat and spike-heeled boots. Her pale blonde hair curved over her scarf in a simple, classy pageboy, like a fashion model. More like an ex-fashion model, from the careful, composed way she was sitting with her ankles crossed and her tidy purse resting on her knees, except the guy on the bench next to her wasn’t material for the Brut ad campaign. It was Farmer. He still looked pretty bleary but he raised one arm and pointed at me. She turned to look and her elegantly made-up face broke into that sort of cheery smile some stewardesses reserve for men who drink heavily in First Class.
She beckoned with a gloved hand and I went over to them.
“Hello,” she said in a warm contralto. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Oh, yeah?” I said casually. “Seems like there’s always someone waiting for me these days. Right, Farmer?” He was too busy staring at the woman to answer. “I thought you didn’t know how to find her.”
“I don’t,” Farmer said and smiled moonily at the woman, which pissed me off. “She found me. Kind of.”
“At Streep’s?” I didn’t look right at her but I could see she was following the exchange with that same cheery smile, completely unoffended that we were talking about her in the third person.
“Nah. After you left us off, I left everybody at Streep’s and came down here, figuring maybe I could find somebody who’d get in touch with Joe for you.”
“Sure. Except Priscilla told me Joe was at her place. Only he wasn’t. What about that, Farmer? You wanna talk about that a little? Like how you were there last night?”
Farmer could have cared less, though it was hard to see how. “Yeah, we was there. She wouldn’t let us in, said she’d meet us today like we planned.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I came down here and there was her car going down the street, so I flagged her down and told her you were looking for Joe. So then we came here. I figured you’d look here sooner or later because this was there I told you I saw her and Joe. And, you know, Streep’s, shit, it’s not a good place.”
Sure wasn’t, especially if you thought you could make your own connection and not have to let the rest of your junkie pals in on it directly. “So you decided to sit out in the cold instead.” I blew out a short, disgusted breath. “I’d have gone back to Streep’s eventually.”
“Well, if it got too cold, we was gonna get in the car.” Farmer looked uncomfortable. “Hey, what are you bitching at me for? I found her, didn’t I?”
I turned to the woman. “Where’s Joe?”
Her eyes were deep blue, almost navy. “He’s at my place. I understand you’re his sister, China?” She tilted her head like game show women do when they’re showing you the year’s supply of Turtle Wax behind the door number three. “I had no idea Joe had a sister in college. But I see the resemblance, you have the same eyes, the same mouth. You’re very close to Joe?”
“I’d like to see him.”
She spread her hands. “Then we’ll go see him. All of us.” She smiled past me and I turned around. The kid was standing several feet behind me, still doped up and a little unsteady but looking eager and interested in that way junkies have when they smell a possibility of more heroin. Fuck the two weeks; he’d been a junkie all his life, just like Joe.
I turned back to the woman, intending to tell her the kid was only fifteen and surely she didn’t want that kind of trouble but she was already on her feet, helping Farmer up, her expensive gloves shining incongruously against his worn, dirty denim jacket.
But then again, she didn’t have to touch him with her bare hands.
She made no objection when I got into the front seat with her and jerked my thumb over my shoulder instead of moving over so Farmer could get in next to me. He piled into the back with the kid and we drove off just as a meter maid pulled up next to George’s car. I looked over my shoulder at the Cushman.
“Looks like we’re leaving just in time,” I said.
“They never ticket my car.” She pushed a Grateful Dead eight-track into the tape deck and adjusted the volume on the rear speakers.
“That’s funny,” I said, “you don’t seem like the Grateful Dead type. I’d have thought you were more of a Sinatra fan. Or maybe Tony Bennett.”
“Actually, my own taste runs to chamber music,” she said smoothly. “But it has a very limited appeal with most of our clients. The Grateful Dead have a certain rough charm, especially in their ballads, though I will never have the appreciation for them that so many young people do. I understand they’re quite popular among college students.”
“Yeah, St. Stephen with a rose,” I said. “Have another hit and all that. Except that’s Quicksilver Messenger Service.”
“I have one of their tapes, too, if you’d prefer to hear that instead.”
“No, the Dead will do.”
She almost looked at me. Then Farmer called out, “This is such a great car!” and she turned up the volume slightly.
“They can’t hear us,” she said.
“They sure can’t.”
Her face should have been tired from smiling so much but she was a true professional. Don’t try this at home. Suddenly I wished I hadn’t. My father was right; cocky snot-nosed college know-it-all. I hadn’t had the first idea of what I’d gotten into here with this white Cadillac and this ex-fashion model who referred to junkies as clients, but I was beginning to get a clue. We were heading for the toll bridge over the river. The thing to do was jump out as soon as she stopped, jump out and run like hell and hope that would be fast enough.
There was soft, metallic click. Power locks.
“Such a bad area,” she said. “Must always keep the doors secure when you drive through.”
And then, of course, she blinked. Even with her in profile, I could see her lower eyelid rise to meet the upper one.
She used the exact change lane, barely slowing as she lowered the window and reached toward the basket. For my benefit only, I guessed; her hand was empty.
She took us to a warehouse just on the other side of the river,
one of several in an industrial cluster. Some seemed to be abandoned, some not. It wasn’t quite evening yet but the place was shadowy. Still, I was willing to make a run for it as soon as we stopped and fuck whatever was in the shadows, I’d take my chances that I’d be able to get away, maybe come back with the cops. After I’d given them a blink test. But she had some arrangement; no stops. While the Dead kept on trucking, she drove us right up a ramp to a garage door, which automatically rumbled upward. We drove onto a platform that had chicken wire fencing on either side. Two bright lamps hanging on the chicken wire went on. After a moment, there was a jerk and the platform began to lift slowly. Really some arrangement.
“Such a bad area,” she said. “You take your life in your hands if you get out of the car.”
Yeah, I thought, I just bet you did.
After a long minute, the elevator thumped to a stop and the doors in front of us slid open. We were looking into a huge, elegantly furnished living room. House and Garden conquers the universe.
“This is it,” she said gaily, killing the engine and the Dead. “Everybody out. Careful when you open the door, don’t scratch the paint. Such a pain getting it touched up.”
I waited for her to release the locks and then I banged my door loudly against the chicken wire. What the hell, I figured; I’d had it anyway. Only a cocky snot-nosed college know-it-all would think like that.
But she didn’t say anything to me about it, or even give me a look. She led the way into the living room and gestured at the long beige sofa facing the elevator doors, which slid closed just as Farmer and the kid staggered across the threshold.
“Make yourselves, comfortable,” she said. “Plenty of refreshments on the table.”
“Oh, man,” said Farmer, plumping down on the couch. “Can we play some more music, maybe some more Dead?”
“Patience, Farmer,” she said as she took of her coat and laid it on one of the stools in front of a large mahogany wet bar. It had a mirror behind it and, above that, an old-fashioned picture of a plump woman in bloomers and corset lounging on her side eating chocolates from a box. It was like a stage set. She watched me staring at it.
“Drink?” she said. “I didn’t think people your age partook in that very much nowadays but we have a complete stock for those who can appreciate vats and vintages and whatnot.”
“I’ll take a shot of twenty-year-old Scotch right after you show me where Joe is.”
The woman chuckled indulgently. “Wouldn’t you prefer a nice cognac?”
“Whatever you think is best,” I said.
“I’ll be right back.” She didn’t move her hips much when she walked, but in that cream-colored cashmere dress, she didn’t have to. This was real refinement, real class and taste. Smiling at me over her shoulder one more time, she slipped through a heavy wooden door at the far end of the room next to an enormous antique secretary.
I looked at Farmer and the kid, who were collapsed on the sofa like junkie versions of Raggedy Andy.
“Oh, man,” said Farmer, “this is such a great place! I never been in such a great place!”
“Yeah,” said the kid, “it’s so far out.”
There were three silver boxes on the coffee table in front of them. I went over and opened one; there were several syringes in it, all clean and new. The box next to it held teaspoons and the one next to that, white powder. That one was next to the table lighter. I picked it up. It was an elaborately carved silver dragon coiled around a rock or a monolith or something, its wings pulled in close to its scaly body. You flicked the wheel in the middle of its back and the flame came out of its mouth. All I needed was a can of aerosol deodorant and I’d have had a flame-thrower. Maybe I’d have been able to get out with a flame-thrower. I doubted it.
“Jeez, will you look at that!” said the kid, sitting up in delayed reaction to the boxes. “What a setup!”
“This is such a great place!” Farmer said, picking up the box of heroin.
“Yeah, a real junkie heaven,” I said. “It’s been nice knowing you.”
Farmer squinted up at me. “You going?”
“We’re all going.”
He sat back, still holding the box while the kid eyed him nervously. “You go ahead. I mean, this isn’t exactly your scene anyway. But I’m hanging in.”
“You just don’t get it, do you? You think Blondie is just going to let you wander back out across the river with all the horse you can carry?”
Farmer smiled. “Shit, maybe she wants me to move in. I think she likes me. I get that very definite feeling.”
“Yeah, and the two of you could adopt Tadpole here, and Stacey and Priscilla and George can come over for Sunday roast.”
The kid shot me a dirty look. Farmer shrugged. “Hey, somebody’s got to be out there, takin’ care of the distribution.”
“And she throws out Joe to make room for you, right?” I said.
“Oh, yeah, Joe.” Farmer tried to think. “Well, hell, this is a big place. There’s room for three. More, even.” He giggled again.
“Farmer. I don’t think many people see this place and live.”
He yawned widely, showing his coated tongue. “Hey, ain’t we all lucky, then.”
“No. We’re not lucky.”
Farmer stared at me for a long moment. Then he laughed. “Shit. You’re crazy.”
The door at the far end of the room opened again and the woman came out. “Here he is!” she announced cheerfully and pulled Joe into the room.
My brother Joe, the original lost boy, the disposable man in an ankle-length bathrobe knotting loosely at the waist, showing his bony chest. The curly brown hair was cleaner than it had been the last time I’d seen him but duller and thinner, too. His eyes seemed to be sunk deep in the sockets and his skin looked dry and flaky. But he was steady on his bare feet as he came toward me.
“Joe,” I said. “It’s me, Chi—”
“I know, babe, I know.” He didn’t even change expression. “What the fuck?”
“I got your card.”
“Shit. I told you, it was for the last time.”
I blinked at him. “I came home because I thought—” I stopped, looking at the woman who was still smiling as she moved behind the bar and poured a little cognac into a glass.
“Well, go on,” she said. “Tell him what you thought. And have your cognac. You should warm the bowl between your hands.”
I shook my head slightly, looking down at the plush carpet. It was also beige. Not much foot traffic around here. “I thought you needed me to do something. Help you or something.”
“I was saying goodbye, babe. That’s all. I thought I should, you know, after everything you’ve seen me through. I figured, what the hell, one person in the world who ever cared what happened to me, I’d say goodbye. Fucking parents don’t care if they never see me again. Rose, Aurelia—like, forget it.”
I looked up at him. He still hadn’t changed expression. He might have been telling me it was going to snow again this winter.
“Have your cognac,” the woman said to me again. “You warm the bowl between your hands like this.” She demonstrated and then held the glass out to me. When I didn’t move to take it, she put it down on the bar. “Perhaps you’ll feel like it later.” She hurried over to the couch where Farmer and the kid were rifling the syringes and the spoons. Joe took a deep breath and let it out in a not-quite sigh.
“I can tell her to let you go,” he said. “She’ll probably do it.”
“Probably?” I said.
He made a helpless, impotent gesture with one hand. “What the fuck did you come here for?”
“For you, asshole. What the fuck did you come here for?”
Bending over the coffee table, the woman looked back at us. “Are you going to answer that, Joe? Or shall I?”
Joe turned toward her slightly and gave a little shrug. “Will you let her go?”
That smile. “Probably.”
Farmer was holding up a syring
e. “Hey, I need some water. And a cooker. You got a spoon? And some cloth.”
“Little early for your next fix, isn’t it?” I said.
“Why wait?” He patted the box of junk cuddled in his lap.
The woman took the syringe from him and set it on the table. “You won’t need any of that. We kept it around for those who have to be elsewhere—say, if you had an appointment to keep or if Joe were running an errand—but here we do it differently.”
“Snort?” Farmer was disgusted. “Lady, I’m way past the snort stage.”
She gave a refined little laugh and moved around the coffee table to sit down beside him. “Snort. How revolting. There’s no snorting here. Take off your jacket.”
Farmer obeyed, tossing his jacket over the back of the couch. She pushed up his left shirtsleeve and studied his arm.
“Hey, China,” Farmer said, watching the woman with junkie avidity, “gimme your belt.”
“No belt,” said the woman. “Sit back, relax. I’ll take care of everything.” She touched the inside of his elbow with two fingers and then ran her hand up to his neck. “Here is actually a lot better.”
Farmer looked nervous. “In the neck? You sure you know what you’re doing? Nobody does it in the neck.”
“It’s not an easy technique to master but it’s far superior to your present methods. Not to mention faster and far more potent.”
“Well, hey.” Farmer laughed, still nervous. “More potent, sure, I’m for that.”
“Relax,” the woman said, pushing his head back against the couch. “Joe’s done it this way a lot of times, haven’t you, Joe?”
I looked at his neck but I didn’t see anything, not even dirt.
The woman loosened Farmer’s collar and pushed his hair back, ignoring the fact that it was badly in need of washing. She stroked his skin with her fingertips, making a low, crooning noise, the kind of sound you’d use to calm a scared puppy. “There, now,” she murmured, close to Farmer’s neck. “There it is, there’s our baby. All nice and strong. That’s a good one.”
The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women Page 61