Chapter 20
Nina Sheds Her Burden
He pushed the spoon toward her mouth. “Come on, you need to get some food in you.”
She didn’t want it. Her lips and tongue hurt, and the memory of why turned her stomach, but she sipped what was there so he would get it out of her face.
“Enough,” she muttered, sitting up and pulling the blanket to her chest. She just wanted to sleep, but she gazed out the back window at the flat empty fields already asleep for the winter. She could go anywhere in the world, but the Midwest would never be able to disguise itself. “We’re getting close.”
Ramón put the lid back on the carton of soup. “Yeah. We’ll be in Illinois soon. I’d say another six hours total, and you’ll be home. Then I’ll help you find a doctor.” He’d stopped trying to convince her to go to the hospital. The thought of lying in another bed with tubes going into her while some stranger poked and prodded her was enough to make her throat close up. But eventually she would have to go. There was a baby to consider, if there even was a baby anymore. She didn’t tell Ramón that part. It would have only made him more insistent.
“Your mom said she had a bed waiting. I think she’s looking forward to caring for you.”
Nina rolled her eyes. Janie Quick was looking forward to having someone to control again. The woman had been holding roost in her head for so long it felt like no time had passed since she left the dingy old trailer for bigger and better things. She’d found bigger things. The better had been elusive.
Ramón stepped out of the backseat and moved back behind the wheel and started the car. Soon they were back on the highway heading due west toward the setting sun. She didn’t think she could see enough yellow, pink, and orange. When she got home, she intended to paint the trailer in all those colors, damn Janie’s protests.
She tried in vain to sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, she was certain she would wake up bathed in blue light, Junior looking down on her with his strange black eyes. Finally, she sat up. Ramón her driver again, this time across half the country to deliver her to another tyrant. A loving tyrant, but a tyrant nonetheless, with invisible strings instead of literal ones. She wondered if she would ever be free of them.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
He didn’t answer for a while, but she saw his eyes in the rearview mirror and knew he was thinking about it. She had only learned a few things about where he went after he left her with the freak, but she’d been in and out of consciousness a lot the first couple days. She remembered him mentioning Atlantic City and someone named Jessie.
“It’s a big country,” he said. “I guess I’ll keep going until a place feels right.”
“That’s what I should have done. I should have taken one look at New York City and kept on moving. It never felt right.”
“How do you feel about where we’re going now?”
“Safe. For the moment. I guess at some point, I’ll start remembering all the reasons I left in the first place. My mother has that effect on people.”
“You can never go home again. Isn’t that how the saying goes?”
“I guess. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been there.” She leaned back again, stretching her legs across the long backseat. Sleep finally took her, at least for a little while.
***
She awoke with a start. It was dark, except for a dim blue light, and her heart squeezed painfully in her chest. Then the beams from passing headlights briefly illuminated her surroundings and she breathed again.
“You okay?” Ramón asked.
“How close are we?”
“We’re in Iowa. Maybe an hour or two left to go.”
“Can we stop somewhere for the night?”
“Seriously?”
How could she tell him she didn’t want to see her mom’s old rustbucket trailer at night? It would be surrounded by fallen leaves and dead grass. Janie Quick’s voice would fill her head in the dark, the way it did all those nights she lay strapped to Ballas’ bed. Too much, too soon.
“I’m not ready,” she said. “Just one more night. We’ll go first thing in the morning. I promise.”
“All right. I’ll pull off at the next exit and find a place. Then we’ll call your mom and let her know.”
“Thank you.”
Twenty minutes later, they were checked into an Econolodge an hour outside Des Moines. Ramón had asked her if she wanted her own room, but seeing the look of stricken terror on her face, he told the clerk behind the counter a double queen would be fine. She stood in the room and watched him bring their bags in. There wasn’t much. A duffel for her filled with some clothes they picked up at a Wal-Mart in Connecticut, his own bag, and the black suitcases that made her heart lurch just looking at them. She didn’t want the money, but want didn’t really have anything to do with it. They needed it, and it had been there for the taking. Ramón had said that there were a lot of cases in that special hidden room, and they were still there. Would be until someone finally discovered the horrors inside the Ballas Manor and knew where to look, but they took only what they could carry in one trip. They were going to divide it up evenly. She guessed there was close to a million bucks there. “At least you won’t have to worry about going to work right away. It’ll help pay your medical bills. Maybe buy your mom a new trailer,” he’d said, and she couldn’t really argue with that, though she didn’t think she’d tell Janie about it right away. The woman was nothing if not greedy.
After he had the bags in, he closed the door and locked it. “Which bed do you want?” he asked.
“Take your pick.” Truth was, she didn’t want either of them. Would be fine for the rest of her life if she didn’t have to lie in another bed again. She wondered if she could learn how to sleep standing up. He sat down on the bed closest to the bathroom and took off his shoes.
“Do you need to use the restroom at all? Shower?” he asked.
She did need to use the bathroom. Had been holding it for a while, in fact. She wasn’t very good at it. The muscles down there were ruined, and leaking urine had become a fact of her life for a while now. She wore big bulky pads to catch it and they made her feel like an old woman.
“Maybe I’ll take a shower,” she said, picking up her bag and carrying it to the bathroom.
Sterile light bathed the tiny space, consisting of nothing more than a white toilet and a matching shower. Stiff white towels sat in a stack on the metal shelf. Everything was white and clean. Her stomach cramped, and she slowly pulled down her pants to check the pad in her underwear. It was soaked with blood. Not a lot. It was like having her period. Her stomach cramped again and she began to shake.
It’s okay. This is good, she thought. All for the best.
She would not look at herself down there, and probably never would for the rest of her life. She knew she was ruined. The wounds may have healed over, but the damage was done. But her body seemed to be doing her one final solid, expelling whatever might be living in there so she wouldn’t have to suffer the indignity of having someone else do it for her. Another cramp, this time strong enough to make her lean against the wall. When it passed, she drew herself a shower as hot as she could make it and climbed into the tub.
The water fell over her, its cleansing heat carrying her away from her thoughts for a while as her body did its work. She watched the red stream swirl with eddies of water flowing between her legs, turning pink as it raced for the drain. After one more cramp, this one enough to make her cry out, she expelled a large clot, this one the size of a small fist. She stared at it and thought she could see its form amid the congealed mass. It was translucent. Nubs for arms and legs. But maybe her mind was making her see things.
It was too heavy to move with the current, and it wouldn’t fit down the drain. She reached out and pulled a large wad of toilet paper off the roll and used it to pick up what was there. Into the toilet it went. She flushed and watched the whirlpool carry it away. There was a knock on the door
.
“Yeah. I’m fine,” she said. And that was sort of true. Or it would be.
Eventually the bleeding slowed to a trickle, the cramps subsided to a dull ache. She stepped out of the shower and dried off. The towel came away pink where she dared blot between her legs.
***
The next morning, Ramón divided the money and put her half into the duffle bag among her clothes and things. It was a lot heavier now, but she thought she could manage it. They ate breakfast at a greasy spoon and then hit the road. The sun was behind them this time, and she lost herself in the pink and orange streaks signaling the coming day. An hour later, they pulled into the packed dirt driveway of Janie Quick’s trailer. Nothing changed but the blooms of rust on the old and dirty aluminum. Those had grown bigger.
“Do you want me to help you inside?” he asked.
“I’ve got it.” She didn’t want Janie to see Ramón and judge. She always judged.
“You’re going to be okay. One day at a time.”
Until she wasn’t going to be okay. No one stayed okay for long. At some point, they had to move on to keep from losing their minds. “Maybe so,” she said. An easy enough lie.
She opened the door and felt his hand on her shoulder. She turned to look at him. His eyes were big and watery and sad. Old. “I’m sorry, Nina. If I’d listened when you first said—”
She put her hand on his mouth. “Don’t. You said all I ever needed to hear. You probably have a lot to be sorry for. We all do. I think we’ll all live longer if we pretend the sorrys make it to the people we send them out to every night, when we lay in bed regretting every bad thing we ever did.” She leaned over and kissed his rough cheek before getting out of the car. He sat there, the engine of the old Buick idling, before she waved him on.
For what would probably be the last time in her life, she watched him drive away.
***
Janie glanced away from the tiny TV for a second when Nina walked in. No hug, no tearful reunion. It seemed like everything, from the perpetual talk shows to the old appliances and the dishes in the sink, had been frozen in time since Nina fled in the dead of night to catch a bus to Manhattan an eon ago. Janie herself looked fatter, though. Arthritis had turned her fingers into sausages.
“Bed’s all made up for ya. After you get settled in, help yourself to a frozen pizza or something.”
“Thanks.”
“You look terrible. Like the wide world bit ya right in the ass and came back for seconds.”
“Back atcha, Janie.”
Nina headed down the narrow hallway to her old bedroom as Janie called after her. “Welcome to adulthood, dearie. You start work on Monday.”
With the door mercifully shut behind her, Nina gazed at the tiny square of space she once covered in posters of her favorite singers. All of those were gone, save for the corner where one still stuck to the wall under its original strip of tape. The Cure. She sure could use one right about now. The place where her books used to be was replaced by stacks of boxes carelessly pushed aside to make room for a cot. There wasn’t even a place to put her bags.
This won’t do, you know. None of you is left in here.
Not Janie Quick’s voice this time, but someone else’s. The Madam’s. The last time she saw the woman was outside the house. The two of them had little to say to one another. Nina was incapable of speaking much at all, but the Madam looked drained of all life. The Ballas house had turned her mute like it had to all the women who’d crossed its threshold. But Nina wanted to give her something she’d taken before Ramón herded both of them out. The stiletto hair pin had pulled easily enough out of Kali’s eye socket. Nina wiped the gore off on her nightgown and handed it over.
“This is yours. You want it back?”
The Madam had regarded it silently for a moment and then shook her head. “Keep it. I have no use for those anymore.” Then she pulled the remaining one out of her hair and handed it to her. “They work better in pairs.”
Now Nina pulled the hairpins out of her duffel bag and clutched them in her hand. The cold metal made her feel more in control. I killed someone with this. I can do it again if I have to.
Janie called out from the living room. “You gonna hibernate in there all damn night, or are ya gonna come out here and make us some lunch? It ain’t a flophouse, sweetheart.”
Nina eyeballed the bag of money. A half-million bucks, all hers. She could go anywhere on that money. Do anything. She’d never have to take anyone’s orders ever again. Nina placed the pin in her hair, just as the Madam had worn it in hers. Within easy reach to deal with anyone who fucked with her. She wouldn’t bother unpacking her things. Des Moines always felt like a pit stop in her life, and that would never change.
Chapter 21
Ramón in the Meadows
Nina’s last words replayed in his mind long after he pulled back onto the interstate heading west. No particular reason why, other than it would take him farther away from where he’d come. He hoped the girl would make it, but he got one look at the place he’d left her and knew she wouldn’t be long for it. But maybe that was okay. Maybe she’d head in the right direction this time. East had done her no good, but there were other directions on the compass, and the money would take her far. He could only hope it would take her somewhere better this time.
The Madam remained true to her convictions and didn’t take a dime of the Ballas money. After she helped get Nina to his car, she went to her own and drove off, direction unknown. He couldn’t imagine she got very far on what she had, but she wasn’t his problem anymore.
He drove until the cheap coffee couldn’t hold his eyes open anymore and then would stop at the nearest rest area, just long enough to sleep a few hours behind the wheel, doors locked, hands wrapped around the handle of the pistol he’d used to kill the thing now rotting some fifteen hundred miles behind him. Then he would wake up and keep driving, waiting until he heard a voice telling him where to go. The corn gave way to wheat. The wheat gave way to desert scrub. Then the voice came. First as a whisper, and then as a steady, predictable chant he couldn’t ignore, calling to the monster inside him that wouldn’t die until he did.
What did it matter? He was about as free as a man could get in this world, which is all he’d really ever wanted.
Las Vegas had changed a lot since he’d last visited back in the eighties, back before Maria had met the real man she married, when cards were just cards and chips were just novel pieces of plastic. Families now walked the strip in droves, taking pictures of themselves in front of replicas of famous world landmarks they would probably never venture to see in person. False dreams constructed with cheap steel. But that was good enough for him.
He stopped first at a men’s clothing store and bought himself a suit and a new pair of shoes. Nothing too fancy, but still nice. Something that made him feel new and would signal to everyone else that he wasn’t a nobody. He chose a deep purple shirt and a tie with modern print. The store clerk said it made him look ten years younger, for whatever that was worth. His hair was coming back in, but he decided to let it grow. He’d been bald long enough. The desert got cold at night this time of year, and he might be here for a little while.
He checked into the MGM Grand and asked for a suite. The young receptionist didn’t blink when he paid for a week upfront with cash. High rollers were a dime a dozen in this town. So were fools parting too soon with their ill-gotten riches, but if things worked out, he would see about finding a place that would let him stretch his dollars a little more. After settling into his room, he took the Magnum out of the duffel bag and spun the cylinder. Plenty of bullets, but he would only need one when the time came. Depending on his luck, it could be tomorrow or a month from now. He didn’t so much care when, really. He was riding the wind. After pushing the cylinder back in, liking the little click it made when it snapped into place, he put it back into the bottom of his bag and left.
He rode the elevator down to the ground floor and wen
t where his nose led him, like a dog straight to fresh meat. The sentinels he’d long ago placed at the gates to contain the hungry monster in his soul were growing sleepy, and he didn’t bother to wake them this time. Maybe they would die there, and that would be okay too.
Blind three-card poker sounded like a good way to get his feet wet. He liked the idea of throwing it all to fate. The croupier was a young man, about Alejandro’s age. Then again, he thought all men were like his son. Ramón sat down next to a pretty brunette in a red dress. A pink cocktail sat off to the side with lipstick on the rim. She glanced at him and smiled. He returned it, already formulating the story in his mind of who he was, in case she asked. And he hoped she would. He was back in his true element, ready to play.
“Good evening, sir,” said the young dealer in the black vest behind the table.
“Same to you,” said Ramón. Or maybe he would be Lionel from now on. It was a nice name. Strong. He placed five hundred dollars on the green felt and watched the magician turn them into plastic coins.
Chapter 22
Madam in the Boathouse
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in a department store, at least the kind where people pushed plastic carts with screaming babies up and down wide aisles stuffed with cheap Chinese crap. But the place comforted her in a way she never would have expected. It felt normal here. Safe. After cleaning herself up in the mercifully deserted bathroom, she wandered up and down each aisle, touching everything as she went by, absorbing the ambient sounds of footsteps, rolling wheels, beeps, and murmurs. There were linens and dishes on closeout, twenty dollar toasters, slacks on sale for $14.99, DVDs of movies she’d never seen, five bucks each. She hadn’t come here for any of it. Couldn’t afford it, anyway. She was a pauper now, one small step away from a life of soup kitchens.
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