Crashed (19 page)

Thistle removed her arm from Doc’s shoulder, wobbled once, grabbed my hand to steady herself, and turned her body slightly toward me. Her head came up slowly and the hair fell away from her face.

I bit my tongue.

Drug-battered, stoned, muzzy-eyed, exhausted, debilitated, undernourished, Thistle Downing was still fundamentally ravishing. The elfin qualities in her face, the tilted eyes, the high cheekbones, the puckish mouth with its surprisingly full lower
lip—they were all still there, older and more blended, and maybe even more beautiful than before. Clean up her system, feed her, put her to bed for six weeks, give her a haircut and a reason to live, and she’d be stunning.

She smiled at me, and the whole awful room brightened.

“You’re funny,” she said, and then her eyes rolled to the ceiling and she went down like a stone.

“Okay,” Doc said. He took in a deep breath and blew it out. The flask made another appearance. “Shower time.”

She squealed when the cold water hit her and then fought back with startling strength, kicking and sputtering. Soaking wet, the thick terrycloth bathrobe must have weighed twenty pounds, and it was a good thing it did because she came at both of us with her claws out. Dragged down by the robe, she didn’t have the strength to step over the edge of the tub, and Doc pushed her down onto the bottom and aimed the shower straight at her. Over his shoulder, he said to me, “Better call the studio and tell them where we are. Talk to Tatiana. She’s the only one with any sense. Oh, and see if there’s any coffee around.”

I went back into the living room and made the call.

“This is not going to make Trey happy,” Tatiana said.

“She’s probably dealt with bigger issues.”

“Why don’t you just haul her over here? We’ll get a bunch of coffee going and bring her around. She might be more comfortable with girls.”

“The street is full of cops,” I said. “Some sort of investigation. I don’t think it’s a great idea to drag a semi-conscious woman into a car when half the badges in Hollywood are looking. We’re going to get her walking first.”

“How’s she look?”

“Pretty good. I was expecting Miss Havisham or whoever
it was when they took her out of Shangri-La, but she’s still beautiful.”

“Give her a couple more years and she’ll wear holes in her skin. What about the sore on her lip?

“I didn’t notice.”

“Uh-oh,” Tatiana said. “Don’t get interested.”

“Don’t be silly. But I have to say, now that I’ve seen her, I think for the first time that Trey’s not crazy to be doing this movie.”

“No, she’s not crazy,” Tatiana said. “Inhuman maybe, but not crazy. I’ll tell everybody it’ll be another hour or so.”

I closed the phone, thinking, no one hangs up phones any more. Another linguistic artifact, like dialing a number. From the noises coming out of the bathroom, Doc had his hands full. I decided he was better qualified than I to deal with it. A quick check for coffee revealed none, which wasn’t surprising since there was no stove in the kitchen, not even a hotplate—just an expanse of greasy wall and some closed-off gas lines where a range had once stood. I did find five open and partly consumed bags of cookies, four of which were Oreos, which I took to mean that Thistle had company from time to time. No single person would open all those bags without finishing at least one first. This was the detritus of multiple cases of the munchies.

There were also two half-empty, screw-top bottles of three-buck red wine, and—next to the end of the couch that faced away from the door—three chipped glasses with dried red wine dregs in the bottoms. Definitely company. I tried for a moment to imagine red wine and Oreos together and gave up. Maybe that was why she drugged: it killed her taste buds. I went into the bedroom to find some clothes Thistle could get into once she had fully rejoined us.

It was too dim in there, so I turned on the second lamp and looked around. The place couldn’t have been more anonymous if she’d only been there an hour. There was absolutely
nothing in the room to indicate who she was or who she had been. No photos, no albums, no clippings—nothing to suggest that the young woman who lived here had been the most famous twelve-year-old in the country. In the absence of a chest of drawers, some waxy cardboard produce cartons had been lined up against one wall. They still stank of cabbage and broccoli, and I realized that was what I had smelled when we came through the front door. A stack of journals almost filled one of the boxes, identical hardcover books of blue-lined paper, bound in a faded sky blue, cheap, and probably purchased in a university student bookstore. There was nothing on the front covers except dates, and there seemed to be a new one every two or three months, so she was writing a lot. Or maybe drawing, or cutting out pages to create abstract origami, or diagramming the neural pathways blazed by illegal chemicals. Another box was filled with all the stuff no one knows where to keep: eyeglasses; old, empty cases for eyeglasses; keys; flashlights and loose batteries; candles; two unmatched shoes; a few paperback books. The title of the book on top was
Finding the True You
, and that discouraged me so much I didn’t look at the others. The books triggered a train of thought that straightened me up for a moment, and I took a short walk through the rooms to see whether I’d missed it, but I hadn’t; there was no television set in the apartment.

Back in the bedroom, I dug into the third box and managed to find a couple of clean T-shirts and one pair of jeans that didn’t look like it could walk by itself, and I folded the items over my left arm. I was turning to go when I saw something pink wedged between the mattress and the wall.

It was a small box, about three inches square and an inch deep. A bright yellow bow, amateurishly made from cheap gift-wrap ribbon, had been glued to the top, along with some sparkly stuff, the kind of glitter that bad magicians scatter in the air to distract the audience. Someone had written
FOR THISTLE WITH
LOVE
on the top in metallic gold ink. The “i” in
Thistle
was dotted with a heart.

I opened it and found myself looking at six rectangular tablets, olive-green in color. When I picked one up, I saw a number incised into the flat surface: 542. The tablets had been laid on a fluffy piece of cotton, pristine white. The bow, the heart, the cotton: It all looked so harmless.

I went into the living room and listened. No screams, no water running.

“You both alive in there?”

“More or less,” Doc called. “Don’t open the door. She’s drying her hair.”

“Tell me about green tablets with 542 written on them.”

“Rohypnol,” Doc said. “Roofies. The ever-popular date rape drug. Where’d you find them?”

I told him, and he opened the door a crack and stuck out a hand. I handed the box through, and I heard Thistle say, “
Mine
.”

“You’ll get it back, sweetie,” Doc said. “How many did you take?”

“Don’t know.” She sounded sullen, but the words weren’t too badly slurred.

“Look, it’s a present. Got a pretty bow and everything. Who gave it to you?”

“Don’t know,” she said again. “Sommuddy nodded, uh,
knocked
on my … my door. You know? And when I went to, uh, to look, those were there.”

“Last night?”

“Ummmm … maybe.”

“And you have no idea who would have left them?”

“Uh-uh. Gimme one.”

“Not yet. Do you always take stuff, even when you don’t know where it came from?”

A pause as Thistle processed the question, as if looking for a trap somewhere. Then she said, “Sure.”

“It’s a miracle you’re not dead. Honey, if you’re going to take stuff like this, you’ve got to tell me, and I won’t give you all that other stuff.”

“But I
like
it,” she said. She sounded ten years old.

“And I like to give it to you.” A certain amount of exasperation was peeking through Doc’s Milburn Stone affability. “But I need to know what else you’re taking.”

“I won’t, any more,” she said. “Can I have it now?”

“Tell you what,” Doc said. “We’ll leave them right here, and you can take some when you get home tonight, okay?”

“No.” I heard a slapping sound that might have been a wet bare foot being stamped.

“Well, that’s what we’re doing. I’ll put them in this drawer before we leave, and tonight you can have a party, all by yourself.”

“I want it now.”

“Junior,” Doc called through the door. “Can you get Thistle some clothes?”

“Get my own clothes,” Thistle said.

“Here,” I said, and I reached through with the arm that had the clothes folded over it.

“Don’t want,” Thistle said.

“Young lady,” Doc said. “You’re going to shut up and put these clothes on, and then we’ll see about some medicine for you. But I’m telling you, until you’re dressed and ready to go, you are going to meet the world as God made you, with no help at all. Not a shot, not a pill, not even a pair of sunglasses. So right now I’m going to leave you here to get dressed, and I’ll take this little box with me, and then we’ll talk about it when you come out. Got it?”

The door opened, and Doc came through it. He was soaking wet. He had the gift box in his hand, clenched hard enough to buckle the sides. “Get used to it,” he said. “This is what it’s going to be like until we’re finished. If we ever finish.”

“What about the pills? How bad could it have been?”

He shook his head. “There’s only one real question, and that’s whether whoever left them knew they could kill her. What I don’t understand is why there are any left. That’s not like her. All I can figure is that she passed out before she could take them all, which was a break for us. If she’d gotten them all down, she’d be on her way to the morgue.”

“What else is she going to need when we leave?” I asked.

“Other than a good friend and a complete blood change, nothing except what’s in my bag,” he said. “Unless you saw a purse in there. Women always want their purse.”

“I’ll look.” As I started to turn, the bathroom door opened and Thistle came out. Her walk was hesitant but acceptable. The pale wet hair had been combed back from her face, exposing the fine, undamaged bone structure. The sore everyone had been talking about was on her lower lip. Her eyes went to Doc. “I’m out,” she said. “I got dressed, see? Give me something.” Then she brought the green eyes toward me and squinted as though I was reflecting too much light.

“Who the hell are you?” she said.

For the first five or six minutes, she might as well have been a pile of leaves. She sat slumped over, her forehead practically touching the dashboard. Every now and then she let out a syllable or two, but nothing I could translate into words.

This was a surprise, because she’d been almost lively, at least relatively speaking, when Doc had driven the two of us into the parking lot of the Hillsider so I could get my car. I’d climbed out of Doc’s car and started to close the door, but a squeal had stopped me, and I’d turned to see Thistle with one leg on the asphalt, holding the door open with an extended hand.

“Jeez,” she’d said, wincing in the sunlight. “
Careful
, you know?”

“Where are you going?” Doc had asked her.

“Wanna … wanna ride with
him
,” she said. “Tired of you.”

“Aww,” Doc said. “You’re going to break my heart.”

Thistle snickered. “
Your
heart? Don’t think so. Hard. Your heart, it’s hard.” And then she’d pulled herself out of Doc’s car, steadied herself with both hands, and said to me, “Where?”

“The white one,” I said. “Right there.”

“ ‘Kay,” she said, and she lowered her head, leaned in the direction of the car, and staggered in its general direction until she bumped into it. “
See?
” she said, leaning all her weight against it, “I’m fine.”

I’d opened the door for her and prevented her from bumping her head when she got in. I glanced back over at Doc, and he rubbed thumb and forefinger together in the universal sign for
money
and shook his head. A moment later, both cars managed the left onto Highland and slammed straight into rush hour.