Chasing The Dragon (3 page)

Georgia stepped on the gas and pulled away just as the girl shouted, “Stupid bitch!”

These were the people she risked her life to protect?
You’re welcome
, she thought bitterly, then immediately felt guilty. It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t know.

She needed some rest, that was all. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept. Little Rock maybe, or Wichita Falls. It was hard to tell. One place was the same as any other when all you did was blow through on the Dragon’s trail and hope this wouldn’t be the place you died. But after the fight at the diner, what she wanted more than anything was a long hot shower, a nice meal and a comfortable bed. Unfortunately, she would have to make do with a vending machine and a cheap motel with a rock-hard mattress and sandpaper sheets, as usual. At least they usually had showers.

She found a motel on the far side of town, the Buckshot Motor Inn according to the rotating neon sign, though the placard on the office door said BUCKSHOT MOTORIN’. The office was a small room with a pickup truck calendar thumbtacked to the wall, a mostly empty spinning rack of brochures for local tourist attractions, and an empty aquarium that bubbled and churned despite the lack of fish. A boy who couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old sat behind the counter, watching a small TV. The boy’s face still bore the ravages of teenage acne, his brown hair oily and uncombed. On the TV, a man with a thick moustache and black hat called someone in a saloon a “cocksucker” and pulled a knife. The boy looked up at Georgia and grinned sheepishly, revealing metal braces wired across his teeth.

“Didn’t hear you come in,” he said, turning down the volume. “My dad doesn’t let me watch this show normally, on account of all the swearing and ti . . . uh, nudity, but whenever I get the chance while he’s out . . .” He shrugged. “Anyway, what can I do for you, miss? You looking for a room? Guess you must be. No one comes here just to hang out, right?” He smiled again, then closed his mouth quickly, as if suddenly embarrassed by his braces.

“I guess they don’t,” Georgia said. “I need a room for one night, maybe two. Something with a hot shower and privacy.”

“No problem,” the boy said. He stood up and walked over to a row of keys hanging on pegs. “All the rooms got hot water, and they all got curtains and locks so no one disturbs you. You, uh, here with someone?” The acne on his cheeks disappeared in a deep blush. “Sorry, I just mean . . .” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Focus, Wilbur. Do it like Dad taught you.” He opened his eyes again. “Single occupancy or double?”

“Single,” Georgia said, trying not to laugh. It was hard keeping it inside. She hadn’t laughed in a long time. “Any bags?”

“One in the car. I can handle it.”

Wilbur took a key off its peg and returned to the counter.

“That’s thirty-five a night, including tax, and we need the first night’s up front,” he said. Georgia handed him two twenties still greasy from the diner’s cash register. He handed her a five in return and asked her to sign the guest ledger. When she was done, he swung the ledger around to look at her name. “Georgia, huh? Like the state. You from there?” She shook her head. “No, I guess no one from Georgia would be named Georgia. It would just sound silly, wouldn’t it? Like, ‘I’m Georgia from Georgia,’ you know?” He handed her the key, his face burning red with the realization that he was babbling again. “I can show you to your room if you want.”

“I can manage. You don’t want to miss the rest of your show.”

Wilbur nodded. “All right. Room nineteen, like it says on the key chain. Just hit zero on the phone if you need anything. It’s just me tonight, but I can, you know,” he shrugged, “whatever.” He grinned, keeping his lips together this time, but he seemed a little deflated. Poor kid, she thought. She could tell he liked her, even if she had a good decade on him. She could also tell he was shy around girls. She felt bad for him and threw him a smile as she walked out of the office, but he was already engrossed in his TV show again.

She found her room nearly all the way down the long porch from the office. The door had the metal numerals 1 and 9 bolted to the wood, but the 1 was chipped in half and looked more like an apostrophe. She dragged her suitcase into the pitch-black room and switched on the bedside lamp. The bulb flared, flickered and went out. She tapped it lightly, and it flickered again before blowing out for good. Georgia sighed. Sometimes it seemed like the whole world was falling apart around her.

The lamp on the other side of the bed worked, though, and in its light she saw a motel room depressingly similar to every other one she’d stayed at. There was the usual double bed with a floral bedspread way too chipper for the run-down surroundings, a TV whose rabbit ears probably wouldn’t pick up anything but static, a dresser with a single drawer and, in the rear, a bathroom whose toilet was so close to the shower stall she wasn’t sure she’d be able to sit without banging her knees. But the water was hot and the pressure was good, and as she stood under the shower nozzle and let the spray run through her hair and down her back, she reached for that elusive blanket peace again. She let her mind go blank so that there was only the hot water and the pores of her skin opening like receptive flowers. She tried to imagine what her life would be like if there were no Dragon, if she were just a normal girl sitting outside an ice cream shop and holding someone’s hand without a care in the world.

The fantasy didn’t last long. As soon she stepped out of the shower and wiped the steam off the mirror, her reflection was there to remind her of the truth. She’d grown thinner. Too thin, her mother would say if she were still alive, and she would be right. Georgia thought she looked as bony as something out of the dinosaur wing of a museum. She could count her ribs through her skin. Her chest, never that big to begin with, now looked positively boyish. Worst of all was the ugly gash in her left hip. She twisted around to get a closer look, touching the skin around it where the rosy pink was tinged with grey.

The Dragon had taken a chunk out of her months ago, the last time they’d met. Mauled her and, for reasons Georgia still didn’t understand, ran off instead of finishing the job. She stared at the scar. It had already healed over, no longer the red gaping maw it once had been, but the ragged concavity in her side repulsed and frightened her each time she saw it. She bit back the tears welling in her eyes. The life she’d been born to had already taken whatever hope she had for happiness, cut away everything she’d loved and left her with nothing but the Dragon. Sometimes she wished she had died that day. Then she could have blanket peace forever.

Georgia tied her hair back in a ponytail, put on a t-shirt and sweat shorts, and left the motel room. Outside, the temperature had dropped and the air felt dry and cool. Two vending machines stood on the porch just outside her room, one selling candy bars and bags of nuts, the other selling Coke and bottled water. She bought herself a big bag of cashews and was dropping coins in the second machine for a can of Diet Coke when the door to the adjacent room opened. A pudgy, middle-aged man in a dress shirt and slacks stepped out. A moustache brushed his upper lip, and a ring of tightly curled black hair circled a bald pate the colour of dark chocolate. He closed the door behind him gently and tugged at the open collar of his shirt as if he was used to loosening a tie that wasn’t there now. He pulled a cigarette from his breast pocket, then turned to her and gasped.

“Oh, Lord,” he said, stepping back with a chuckle. “I didn’t see you there, girl. You gave me quite a start.”

“Sorry,” Georgia said. She pulled the Diet Coke out of the tray at the bottom of the vending machine, popped open the can and, suddenly aware of how thirsty she was, drained half of it in a single go. Her throat complained, still sore from the meat puppet’s grasp, but she didn’t care. It felt good to drink something. It felt normal.

The man stuck out his hand and said, “Marcus Townsend.”

She shook it. “Georgia Quincey.”

Marcus nodded, lit his cigarette and gazed at the stars twinkling just above the forest across the street. “Bad night,” he said. “Did you hear the news? Terrible.”

“Hear what?” Georgia’s empty stomach rumbled. She tore open the bag of cashews and popped a handful into her mouth.

“It’s all over the news tonight. Something went down at a diner a few miles outside town, back toward the Interstate. The place was robbed, but whoever did it were a bunch of maniacs. A lot of people are dead. Must have been a whole gang of ’em with shotguns and, I don’t know, machetes by the sound of it. It was a bloodbath. Must’ve been on a real rampage because they said even the building was so damaged it was falling apart when the police got there.” He shook his head, still staring off into the distance, and muttered, “White people.” Then he turned to her and smiled. “No offense. I’m just saying. We don’t get this kind of crazy in Detroit. I hope the cops catch the sons of bitches that did it.”

They won’t
, Georgia thought. They wouldn’t even know where to start looking. The Dragon kept to the shadows and avoided major population areas. She struck too infrequently, and rarely twice in the same vicinity, to develop a clear MO the authorities could work from. In fact, after Georgia collected her shells, the only solid constants at each scene were her own tire tracks, and it was only by the grace of jurisdictional rivalry and good old-fashioned bureaucratic incompetence that no one had pieced it together yet and put out an APB on her car. Still, her luck had to run out sooner or later. Someone would connect the dots, and then there would be questions, accusations, explanations the police would never believe. And all the while, the Dragon would keep killing.

She shook the thought from her head and figured it was time to change the subject. “What brings you to New Mexico?”

“Business,” Marcus said. He sucked on his cigarette and blew smoke up over his head. “I’m in textiles. Artificial fibres, mostly. Polyester, acrylic. I’m heading out to Albuquerque, go there every year for the trade shows, but I brought my boy with me this time ’round. He’s old enough now that I thought I’d make a vacation out of it, show him some of the country so he doesn’t think it’s all high rises and housing projects, you know?” He looked back at the door to his room. “He’s sleeping now. Tomorrow we’re going to see a rodeo or some shit.” He chuckled softly. “What about you?”

“Business,” she said, nodding.

He looked her up and down and arched an eyebrow. “Business? You’re too young to be going on business trips, girl. What are you, right out of college? Hell, you should be living in a loft in New York with eight other kids trying to figure out what to do with your life, not travelling all over the damn place on business. That’s not what being young’s about.” She didn’t say anything, and Marcus looked away. He nodded at her car parked in the spot before her door. “That yours?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a Chevy Impala, right? What is it, an ’80, ’81?”

“I think so,” she said. “It used to belong to my dad.”

“What was it, his
first
car?” Marcus laughed.

“He liked it,” Georgia said. She took another swig from the can, finishing it off. “It runs all right, never gave him any problems. He drove it right up to the day he died.”

He frowned. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize he’d passed.”

“It was a while ago now.”

He took a deep breath and looked at the car again. “I’m a car nut. I love the damn things. I guess everyone in Detroit is born loving ’em. But I never saw an ’81 Impala that still ran. No disrespect to your father, but please tell me you inherited more than this old box of bolts.”

More than I could possibly explain
, she thought.

Georgia tossed the soda can and the empty bag of cashews into a garbage pail next to the vending machines, and nearly doubled over with a sudden cramp like a fist in her gut.
Not now
, she thought,
please.
Her hands trembled. She felt a twinge in her scarred hip, cold and sharp as a knife. Sweat broke out on her forehead, under her arms, rolled down her back. She glanced anxiously at the door to her room.

Sluggish and heavy, she itched everywhere, like fire ants swarming over her skin. She scratched at her arms. The muscles of her back and legs twitched. The cramp in her stomach twisted harder.

Why did it have to be now?

Marcus was looking at her. He’d been talking the whole time and she hadn’t heard a word. He said, “You okay?”

She fought down an eruption of panic. Did he know what was happening to her? Would he call the police? She had to get inside. She pictured the brown leather pack sitting in her purse, could already see herself undoing the strap and rolling it open. She backed toward the door.

“I have to go,” Georgia said. She chewed her lip. The cramp in her gut was unbearable.

“You sure you’re feeling okay? You don’t look so good.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted. She felt the sweat on her forehead rolling toward her eyes and was sure Marcus could see it too, glistening in the porch lights like a beacon. He would know and he would call the police and for years he’d tell the story to his shocked friends and family, his voice thick with disdain,
“I was standing right there with her and didn’t even know she was a junkie until she started jonesing. White people.”
But instead, he shrugged and said, “You have a good night.”

She grunted something — maybe it was “thanks” or “night” — and opened her door a crack. She slid inside like a draft, then slammed it closed again and locked it. Her purse sat on the bed, a smear of dirt scuffing the side where it had fallen on the ground. Georgia attacked it, yanking it open and dumping everything out until the brown leather pack fell into her lap.

She undid the strap, unrolled the pack on the bedspread and did a quick inventory of the contents: an old, rusty spoon, flame-blackened on the bottom; the remains of a jumbo-sized cotton ball that had been picked at for weeks; a pocket lighter; a yellowing plastic syringe, its needle sheathed in a blue cap; and a small zip-locked plastic baggie with a small amount of light brown powder inside.
Less than a quarter of what there used to be
, she thought.