Skinner Luce

by Patricia Ward

  When the van pulls up to her building, Lucy struggles to open the door. Something’s wrong with her arm, she realizes. The sentry gets out without saying a word and rams the door open. Sunlight stings her eyes, and she closes them for a moment to adjust. It’s late morning, she can feel it in the angle of light and the brightness, the steady frozen air and the empty streets, everyone already where they’re supposed to be. She steps out gingerly, gripping the sentry’s shoulder. “Epsom salts bath,” he advises as he helps her onto the curb. When he climbs back in and slams the door, she feels unaccountably abandoned. She watches the van drive away.

  She turns around. Distantly hears the thunk of a car door, then becomes aware of Bedrosian limping towards her. She tries to head up the steps more quickly, but she trips and then his hand is under her elbow, helping her up to the landing. “Don’t touch me,” she tries to shout, but her voice comes out a cracked whisper.

  He lets go. They stand there in silence, some feet from each other, the locked door a torment, her hand digging in her bag for the keys.

  He says, “I didn’t think you’d make it back.”

  She has no capacity for deception. “Leave me alone,” she whispers. “Please.”

  “You know what your mom said? She said you’ve got a good heart.”

  Lucy’s shoulders crumple inward.

  “That woman loves you, Lucy. Losing you is gonna kill her. You know that, don’t you?”

  She stares woodenly at the door, the keys dug into her fist.

  “You could walk away,” he says. “The sentry I told you about, he’ll make it happen.”

  “What do you mean, walk away?” she whispers.

  He leans in, galvanized by her response. “You won’t be held responsible. It’ll be like you weren’t part of it at all.”

  Her smidgen of hope is extinguished. She thought he meant not having to Serve anymore.

  She hears him breathing, he shifts his weight, coming a little closer. “Do you need a doctor? I can take you. I know the ones that see servs.”

  She shakes her head at this bizarre offer. She withdraws the keys and fumbles to find the right one. He edges even closer and she freezes, but he doesn’t touch her, just bends close, talking urgently. “Look at yourself. You’re a mess. You’re standing here protecting these assholes, whoever they are, and they won’t even get you dupes? They don’t give a shit about you. Or else how can they let you go through this? Huh? Look at me. Look at me,” he insists, turning her by the chin. She refuses to meet his eyes. Focuses on his stubbled jaw. “Lucy,” he jiggles her chin, “You’re not being reasonable. They probably haven’t Served in years. Tell me I’m wrong. What do you get out of this? Nothing. Wake up. Think about it.”

  She shakes her head, a minute motion hampered by his grip on her. He goes still, then, and his hand relaxes, releasing her chin, and she sags into the door, barely able to stay upright. The cold surface feels good against her cheek. She wants to close her eyes and just sink away from him, from all of it.

  “They’re living high off grabs,” he says, “and you’re barely making it. They’re living off him,” he says, patting his coat, where the picture is folded in the pocket. “He was a living, breathing kid, Lucy. Tell me where they are.”

  The blue, blue eyes. The shoulders sharp like pebbles in her hands. Annabelle, screaming. She lets out a sob, catching it in her throat, ball of pain. “There was nothing I could do,” she says.

  “I know, Lucy. Tell me where they are.”

  “Go away,” she whispers, and turns the key. She can’t push the door open, so he does it for her, and in this way, he ends up inside the building, too. He holds her by the elbow and they inch their way across the lobby, start up the stairs. On the third step, she crumples. He slips his arm around her to keep her upright, her head rolling against his shoulder as they climb. A gaping pity wells up for him. He is so earnest with his folded picture of the boy, carrying it around in his pocket. He doesn’t understand anything. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t. Kid servs shouldn’t exist. The arrivals with their stumbling, gangly bodies march through her mind. They tread her doorway, dripping waste and tears. They fall, cracking their slender bones on the floor. They scream, scrambling to hide from the monsters with their abysmal gazes, mouths hanging open like animals.

  He leads her into the corridor, closes the front door. The apartment is flooded with cold sunlight, illuminating the dust, the shabby upholstery, the worn wooden floor scattered with yesterday’s paper. There’s a cut on her thigh that hurts tremendously; the pressure of walking causes blood bubbles to erupt through the congealed parts. She goes into her room, drags off her stained skirt and soaked underwear, stuffs them in the corner. She tugs on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt. She lights a cigarette. Her hands keep shaking, her body convulsing with shudders. Hunger claws deep inside her belly: she didn’t eat, not since the day before.

  Bedrosian is here, she realizes, as if it’s a long-ago memory. She limps back to the living room. He just stands there, watching her. His coat’s draped over the back of the kitchen chair. She is overcome by the acute strangeness of being here at this time of day, with him.

  “I need to check in,” she whispers.

  “Do what you need to do,” he replies.

  She goes to her laptop, tilts the screen away. She plugs in her earbuds so Bedrosian won’t hear.

  “You made it,” Bernie says, amazed.

  “Am I set?” she asks, her voice dry and cracked. “I’m at 184-306. I got a dupe penalty.”

  His expression changes. He looks about as sad as he’s able. He can’t meet her eyes. He says, “I’m sorry, Lucy. You’ve gone toxic. Julian called—” He lifts his shoulders, like he had no say.

  “No,” she begs. “He’s wrong.”

  “You try and get things sorted, you hear? Maybe they’ll let you be.”

  He’s gone before she can say another word, coward that he is, sitting back not lifting a finger. He can’t face her, knowing they’ve marked her good as dead.

  “What was that about?” Bedrosian juts his chin in question.

  She closes the laptop, ignoring him. The machine is blinking. She pushes play. Her agency supervisor’s toneless voice fills the cold room, lecturing her about commitment and professionalism, and how could she promise to call and then fail to, and how they need to meet to resolve issues that have come up, especially regarding the matter of recent police inquiries. Lucy listens to the very end, utterly numb. She presses delete.

  She looks at Bedrosian, who has filled two glasses of water. He hands one to her. She drinks, every swallow a cool slice of relief. When she’s finished, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. She asks, “Do you have seven grand?”

  He is taken aback.

  “You don’t have a wife, you probably don’t have kids. Do you have seven grand?”

  “I have savings, sure. Why?”

  She steels herself. “Buy me out. If you buy me out, I’ll talk.”

  “It’s seven grand to buy you out?” he frowns. “That’s it? Man, that is sad.”

  “Yeah? You can pay off my ma’s loan, too.”

  She can see his jaw working, and it’s gratifying, to have nailed him like that.

  “Fine,” he says. “Talk.”

  She points at the phone. “Buy.”

  He sets down his glass, comes to the couch. He digs in his jacket for his cell phone. “I just tell Aaron, or what?”

  Lucy nods. She’s draining away, overcome by what’s happening.

  “And it’s O.K. if it’s me who pays?”

  “The Gate doesn’t care where they get their money.”

  She tilts her head back, closing her eyes. She’s done it. It’s going to happen. She listens as he talks to the sentry, sorting through the details of how he’ll pay, when, and so forth. She wonders how it all works, when they’ll cut off the tag. How it will feel.

  “O.K,” Bedrosian says. “It’s done.”

  She
looks at him as if from a dream. The words form in her mind, Theo Elander. And then, at last, she speaks them out loud.

  IT TAKES AGES FOR Bedrosian to get through questioning her. He dissects every piece of information, compelling her to dig for the most innocuous bits of memory associated with it. Recounting the story of how she met Julian, then Theo, the visits to the house in Ayer that had so enchanted her, she finds herself getting sick with shame. It’s a whole different thing to tell it all in order, out loud. She’s used to pushing aside memories that crop up, burying them where they can’t torment her. He can tell when she holds back, too: he reads her every hesitation, pushes harder till she yields. She didn’t want to tell him about the summer parties, the way the porch felt warm on her bare feet, or the horse dancing along the fence, but she ends up doing so, because he asks, and asks, and asks. Most especially, she planned to keep Ernesto out of it. But he keeps asking who else was there, as if he’s looking into her mind and can see another shadow farther down the porch, sprawled on the chaise lounge, reading. He warns her about lying, that if it turns out she did, he can’t honor the buyout deal. So she cracks, and then curls up, face to the cushion. He instructs her to look at him, but she can’t. He tells her she’s not the first to go down the wrong road, that she has to hang onto the fact that she’s doing the right thing now.

  “It doesn’t feel right,” she says.

  “It’s a betrayal,” he replies. “Of course it doesn’t feel right.”

  She glares at him over her shoulder. “Like you would know.”

  “I do,” he says, and folds his notebook shut, sticks his pen into the spiral at the top. “You still have my number?”

  She shrugs, just barely.

  “Go home to Hull, then. Keep your head low.”

  The question’s been nagging at her something fierce, and his motions to leave spur her to turn around, face him. “Why does that sentry Aaron even care? Just another dead serv, that’s how they think.”

  “I convinced him.”

  “How?”

  “It takes money to have a house, never mind the equipment for that kind of surgery, or paying employees such as yourself, or leasing apartments such as this one. So I said, where’s the money coming from? How much is there?”

  “And is the Gate getting their cut,” Lucy finishes for him. “God, that’s all they care about.”

  “Yeah. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, the Gate can’t abide servs with too much money.”

  “So you’re on their side.”

  “I’m just doing my job. Someone was murdered. I find who did it, and I make them pay.”

  A whirl of anger fills her limbs. “What about the rest of us getting murdered?”

  “That’s not on me, Lucy.”

  “It’s on nobody, right? It’s just how it is?”

  “It’s not something I myself can stop, is all I meant,” he says. “Although, let’s not forget, I’m getting you out, O.K.? That was my Alaskan cruise right there.”

  “Fuck your cruise.”

  “Agreed,” he says, rising. “My luck, I’d go on my shore visit and walk into a bunch of you lot and a Nafikh. Go home, Lucy. I’ll call when it’s over.”

  She watches him pull on his coat. How does he know so much about servs? It’s mystifying, but she has no energy to ask. She doesn’t really care, she realizes. She’s so terribly exhausted, the need to pass out overwhelms her. She sinks back against the cushion, drawing her knees up to her chest. She hears herself ask, “How long will it take?”

  “They’ll mobilize by tonight, I’ve got no doubt. Hey, wake up.”

  Her eyes won’t stay open. She can barely see the blurred shape of him looming over her.

  “Lucy, a storm’s coming in this afternoon. They’ll stop the ferry.”

  “Three o’clock,” she mumbles.

  There’s a period of quiet when she hovers a little above the vast abyss tugging at her limbs. Then she starts awake, eyes flying open, aware of a presence. It’s Bedrosian, still. He’s draping his coat over the kitchen chair again.

  “Aren’t you leaving?” she asks, confused.

  “I’ll wake you up in a few, take you over to the docks. I’ll make the call from here.”

  She can’t argue. It seems like a good plan. She hears him moving about, the wood floors creaking under his heavy footfall. Then there’s the familiar metallic thunk of the front door bolts driving to, one after the other. More footsteps. He must have gone into her bedroom to make his phone call.

  Silence. Cold. The thrum of his deep voice, from way over there.

  A dislodged, floating tiny part of herself thinks in astonishment, It’s over. And then she allows herself to fall away into the darkness.

  III

  BEDROSIAN WAKES HER AT four thirty. The ferry’s running later after all, so he thought he’d let her sleep some more. There’s drool on the pillow, and her eyelashes are crusty. She feels awkward padding back and forth getting clothes, having a shower, toweling off, all the while acutely aware of the silence beyond the bathroom door. She pictures him sitting at the table drinking the coffee he made to help wake her up. Her whole body hurts, head to toe. The cut on her thigh opens, and she has to spend several minutes compressing it with gauze, and then snipping butterfly band aids because she’s run out. She needs stitches, no doubt, but that’s not happening. She disinfects with iodine, clenching her teeth in a silent scream, then sets the band aids in place, wraps her leg, and gets dressed. In the kitchen, she shakes four Advil into her palm, downs them with water.

  “You O.K.?” Bedrosian asks.

  “It’ll pass.”

  It’s beyond weird that she’s getting used to him being here all the time—at night, in daylight, and now at dusk. He pours her a coffee, stirs in some sugar. He tells her there are several sentries involved now, so it looks like things will go down fast and smooth. Lucy figures he can be as optimistic as he wants, but she’s not counting on anything. She preps herself while she sips her coffee, rehearsing in her head, and then calls Bernie. She lays into him the second he answers.

  “I’ve been thinking, you tell Julian if he believes I said one fucking word, he’s a true bastard! I’m the one who’s been putting up with this since day one, and I get shafted? What the hell am I supposed to do to prove myself? This cop won’t leave me alone, and it’s my fault? How about leaving the body in a car, huh? How about not duping the guy watching over the yard, huh? I mean, could they be any cheaper?”

  “Baby, I hear you, just stop yelling,” Bernie begs.

  “I just need to know someone’s on my side, someone cares,” Lucy says pitifully. “I mean, you understand where I’m coming from, right? Can you just tell him? He’ll listen to you.”

  That’s not true at all, but there’s no harm in stroking his overseer ego.

  “I’ll do what I can, O.K.? You take care of your end.”

  “I swear I am, Bernie. You know that.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “If I could just—”

  He hangs up. It’s irritating, but he could’ve done so a lot sooner, so she can’t complain. Overall, it didn’t go badly. With any luck, he’ll advocate for her, tip the scales in her favor just long enough to see her through to tomorrow.

  “Nice to have an overseer in your camp,” Bedrosian comments.

  Lucy empties her cup and sets it down. “How do you know so much, anyway?”

  “I’ve been around a while.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “A long way back, I stumbled into things, and here I am,” he says. “Important thing is, here you are, and you have a ferry to catch.”

  She ends up on the 6:05. Storm swells rock the harbor, filling the air with eerie clanking sounds. Bedrosian holds up his hand in farewell, walks away into the snowfall, back to his car. There wasn’t anyone tailing them, he reassured her on the way; she’s just glad she made that call to Bernie, her last piece of insurance. Anyway, there’s no o
ther serv on the boat, so that’s that.

  The ride is choppy and takes longer than usual, and by the time she gets off at the terminal, the storm’s picked up something considerable. She opts not to call Sean, however. She slings her backpack over her shoulder and trudges the long walk home, the lone pedestrian on the streets in the blowing wind and snow.

  When Eva opens the door, her face goes blank with surprise, then she cries, “Lucy, what are you doing here?” She ushers Lucy inside, pressing her to remove her boots, her coat, is she cold, how could she not call for a ride, why didn’t she call to say she was coming?

  “It just kind of happened,” Lucy explains. “I didn’t want you to go to any trouble.”

  “I don’t have dinner,” Eva frets. “I’m meant to go to the play with Phyllis. But now there’s this snow. I called Sean so he can take us in the truck, but he didn’t answer.”

  “Call him again.”

  “It’s Friday night,” Eva demurs.

  “Don’t tell me he’s with Janie again?” Lucy groans. “All the more reason to call. Get him away from that stupid cow.”

  “I keep telling him he’s too good of a man,” Eva agrees. She rummages through the fridge, saying, “You were supposed to come tomorrow, so I don’t have anything.”

  “You always say I don’t visit enough, and now you’re complaining,” Lucy points out. “I can have a sandwich. It’s fine.”