Procession of the Dead (10 page)

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you. Thank you. I knew you were a good guy. Lovely and kind. I used to think Ferdy was like that but he wasn’t.”

“Who’s Ferdy?” I asked softly. She’d mentioned the name three or four times. I thought he must have been her father.

“Ferdy’s my… he used to be my protector. He’s gone now. Will you be my protector instead? I thought I was all alone and would be forever, nobody to look out for me when nights are dark and cold. Will
you
protect me, Capac?”

“Yes,” I said, patting the back of her head. “I’ll protect you. I promise.” I stroked the back of her poor diseased neck, not really knowing what I was saying, aware only that a small, fragile girl had asked for help. I was in a vicious business but that didn’t mean I had to be a vicious man. Not all the time anyway.

Afterward, when the tears dried, we cemented our friendship by going into the bathroom to play the
Singin’ in the Rain
game. We stood in front of the mirror, one concealed behind the other, and performed. First up, I sang “Blueberry Hill” while she mimed it. Then I took to the stage and mouthed “Great Balls of Fire” while she sang behind me. I didn’t know all the words but neither did she, so it evened out over the course.

“What do you want to be?” she asked as we sat down to
The Wizard of Oz
later. “More than anything else in the world, what do you really want to be?”

“A gangster,” I smiled.

“You mean like Marlon Brando and Al Pacino in
The Godfather
? ”

“Maybe more like Cagney, a villain with a heart of gold.” I stuck my hands out and did a rotten Jimmy Cagney impression. “I liked Cagney the best. He always made good right at the end of the movie.”

“He didn’t in
White Heat
,” she said.

“True.”

A lull in the conversation for a while. Then she said, “That’s a funny thing to want. It’s not nice. Ferdy was a gangster. Then he said he wasn’t, but he was really. Why do you want to be a gangster, Capac?”

I shrugged. “You earn respect,” I tried to explain. “You get power, privilege, a say in the running of the world. People look up to you.”

“Is that so important?”

“Yes,” I said fiercely. “I’ve been a nobody. I’ve known what it’s like to be one of the walking dead and I didn’t enjoy it.” I was thinking of that night in the warehouse when death kissed my cheeks and let me go on a whim. “I want power. I want the protection, comfort and safety that it brings. Without power you’re nothing, a corpse waiting to be reaped.”

“Capac?
I
respect you.” She looked at me with sorrowful eyes, a lot like the young Judy Garland who was singing of life beyond the rainbow. “Isn’t that enough?”

I shifted uneasily and wished she’d drop this and get back to watching the movie. You were safe with movies. They can’t hurt you. Not like reality can.

“You have to hurt people when you’re a gangster,” she said. “To get your power you have to take theirs. Isn’t that right, Capac?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Would
you
hurt someone?” Her voice was low, steady.

“If I had to,” I answered truthfully.

“I don’t think you could,” she said. “You’re too nice.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“What’s your job at the moment?” she asked.

“I’m an insurance agent.”

“Ah,” she said, nodding. “In that case, I suppose becoming a gangster is the next logical step.”

“Funny,” I said drily.

“Were you always an insurance agent?” she asked.

“No.”

“What were you before?”

“I…” My mind flew back and I found myself facing a wall I’d been trying not to confront, though it grew in size every day. It was a wall I’d first noticed when Adrian asked me about my past.

What
had
I done before coming to the city? I couldn’t remember. It sounded crazy but my past was a blank. I could recall every step since alighting from the train but not a single one before. I hadn’t mentioned this to anybody, barely even to myself. I’d been hoping the memories would return if I didn’t worry about them.

“Capac?” She tapped my shoulder. “Are you OK?”

“Fine.” I coughed. “Anyway, enough about me. What about Conchita Kubekik? What do
you
want to be when you grow up? A lawyer, actress, model?”

“I want to be a ballerina. They’re so beautiful and graceful. There are no ugly ballerinas, not like…” She didn’t finish. Didn’t have to. I felt my heart lurch with sympathy. “I used to go to the ballet a lot, maybe four nights a week, watching them spin and glide like angels. Yes, I’ll be a ballerina. I’ll dance all night, men will throw themselves at my feet and Ferdy will come and weep with joy. He’ll see that there’s more to life than…”

She stopped, blushed and looked to see what Judy was up to.

“You’d make a lovely ballerina,” I said softly.

“No,” she smiled flatly. “I can’t dance for shit.”

At one in the morning Conchita reluctantly said she had to return to her apartment. “They come looking for me if I stay away too long,” she said petulantly. “They like me to get out and about, but only if they’re there to look over my shoulder. Not that I blame them. Ferdy would punish them if they disobeyed his commands.”

“Who are
they
, Conchita?” I asked.

“Doctors and nurses. My guardians.” She smiled. “But I won’t need them now that I have you. And you’re so much better looking than those grumpy old men with their needles and stethoscopes.”

“Are you making this up?” I frowned.

“I’m a sick person, Capac.” She rolled up one of her sleeves and revealed the withered flesh again. “They help… they stop me from killing myself. I’ve tried a few times. Lots of times. I don’t want to die but I get so scared sometimes, I just can’t bear to live.” She smiled. “But that’ll change now that I have a friend like you.”

I didn’t like it when she talked like that. We’d only known each other a few hours, yet she’d made up her mind I was some kind of Prince Charming. I recalled the promise I’d rashly made. I had been honest when I said I wanted to protect her, but could I keep my word?

“Can I come and visit you again?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said.

“Every night? Can I come and sit on your bed, watch movies and play games, laugh and be happy and not have to worry about my looks? You can tell me what’s happening in the city. I’ve been in here so long, sometimes I believe the Earth was built with a pane of glass in front of it. I’ll go whenever you’re tired or want to be alone, because people get like that sometimes, I know.”

“You can come anytime,” I told her softly. “I’ll get an extra card for you and you can let yourself in whenever you like. How’s that?”

“Great!” She rushed out. Stopped and came back slowly. “You’re not a dream, are you, Capac? I’ve known dream people before. Here one day, gone the next. I knew dream people even before I got sick. You’re not one of those, are you?”

“I’m not a dream person,” I assured her. “I’m real.” She grinned, then her face lit up with a new idea. “Walk me home!” she begged.

“What?”

“Escort me to my room and drop me off at the door with a kiss, like they do in the movies. You can even come in and meet my doctors. They can see how nice you are and not nag me about coming to see you in the future.”

“Is that a good idea? They might be suspicious of my intentions. A grown man and a young girl, alone in a hotel room…”

She laughed. “I told you I’m fifty-eight. A woman that age can do as she likes.”

She led the way to the elevator and pressed the button for the top. A sign lit up over the panel, asking for a code. She pressed five buttons. I thought she was playing games but the light blinked and we rose. I’d never been to the top floor before. I expected Troops but it was the same as any other hall, unguarded, ordinary.

Conchita walked ahead of me. I hesitated, not sure we should be up here, then followed. There might be trouble when we were found, but I was sure we could wriggle out of it. I had contacts.

Conchita moved with confidence, not put off by the glass ceiling and the black sky above. I paused a few times to look down on the city. All I could see were tiny lights like stars reflecting in a dark pond.

We went down two long corridors. I was starting to feel itchy under the collar when she put her hand out, shoved open a door and entered a seemingly random room. I rushed forward to catch her, thinking the game had gone far enough, only to miss, stumble in after her and find myself in a huge room where all the furniture was covered with white sheets and robes. Long curtains obscured the walls and more had been draped across the glass roof to blot out the sky. The entire room was smothered in wraps, just like Conchita.

There were four people present, a man and three women, clad in white. The man stepped forward angrily. “Where have you been?” he snapped. “We were about to call security and you know how awkward we feel when we have to do that.” He eyed me suspiciously. “Who’s this?”

“My friend,” she said loftily, breezing past without a care in the world. His hands tightened and I guessed he would have loved to strangle her if he dared.

“Friend? ”
he barked. “I wasn’t aware you had any friends. Where did—”

She snapped her fingers and he shut up. “That’s enough, Mervyn. I’m allowed to have friends, am I not? I thought you’d be delighted.”

“Miss Kubekik, of course I’m happy that you—”

“In that case, please apologize to Mr. Raimi.”

“Apologize for what?” he exploded.

“For being rude,” she growled. There was steel in her voice which I hadn’t heard earlier. It sobered the doctor immediately.

“I apologize profusely, Mr. Raimi,” he said, bowing to me, no sarcasm.

“In that case I’m off to bed,” she said. “I’ll see you again tomorrow, Capac?”

“Sure,” I smiled. “Good night, Conchita.”

“Good night… protector.”

Then she was gone.

“One minute,” the doctor said stiffly as I tried to sneak out. “You and I have a few things to discuss.” He gestured to one of the covered chairs. I sighed and sat. “What happened downstairs?”

“Nothing,” I told him honestly.

He snorted. “My charge spends hours away, comes back with a man I’ve never seen, calmly announces he’s her friend and waltzes off to bed as merrily as you please. This from a woman who’s hardly spoken for five years. Cut the bullshit and tell me everything.”

When I did, he couldn’t believe it. “She showed you her arm,” he sighed.

“Is that such a big deal?” I frowned.

He laughed curtly. “She hasn’t let anybody look at her skin as long as I’ve been here. When we want to examine her, we have to sedate her. You must be a fakir, Mr. Raimi. What’s your secret?”

“I don’t have one,” I said. “We just clicked. She was lonely, I felt sorry for her and we became friends.”

“Just like that!” He shook his head and chuckled wryly.

“Where do we go from here?” I asked. “She wants to visit me every night. I told her she could, but…”

“You don’t want her disrupting your life?”

“It’s not that. I don’t mind her coming. I’m just worried it may not be the best thing. She might be better off with friends her own age.”

His eyes narrowed. “Do you know what’s wrong with Conchita?” he asked.

“I’ve read about it. The body grows old before its time and—”

“No, Mr. Raimi,” he interrupted. “You are thinking of progeria. This is not the same. There’s nothing wrong with Conchita’s body. The fault is in her face.”

“I don’t understand. There’s nothing wrong with her face.”

“She looks like any other teenager,” he agreed, then paused dramatically. “But Miss Kubekik is fifty-eight years old.”

I did a double take, then grimaced. “She told me. I thought she was joking. But that means her body…”

“…Is that of a normal woman her age,” he finished.

“How?”

“We don’t know,” he said. “We’ve been studying her for a quarter of a century and still don’t know what’s wrong. She was a beautiful young woman. In her late twenties she found she wasn’t aging facially. For a while she was delighted, but as the years passed the implications seeped home. She wasn’t growing older. In fact she was actually getting younger. She was a woman in her thirties but with the face of a teenager. She was cursed to never look her age.

“She lost her mind. She cut her face, thinking to scar herself beyond recognition. It didn’t work. The skin healed in a matter of days. It has something to do with her unique DNA structure. I don’t know all the ins and outs—I tend to her mind, not her form. She had a breakdown, the first of many. Later she painted her face to look her age. But she couldn’t maintain the pretense. After several hard years, she left her face alone and went the other way. She looked like a teenager, so she
became
one. She bought youthful clothes, discarded her adult raiments, and began to act like a child. She convinced herself she was a girl, gave up her old life, her friends, her husband, her—”

“Husband? ”
I stared at him. “She’s married?”

“Yes.”

“But you call her
Miss
Kubekik.”

“Part of the pretense. There could be no place in her fantasy for a husband. To become a teenager she had to discard and forget him. She blanked him out, denied his existence, refused to look at him when he tried to see her. She took her maiden name and acted like she’d never lost it.”

“Christ.” I was glad I was sitting down. “She mentioned him to me. Ferdy. That’s him, isn’t it?”

“Yes. She hasn’t been able to wipe him from her thoughts as completely as she wanted. The memories return, remind her of the truth and plunge her into fits of despair. She’s not exactly happy as a child but she’s content. But when the fantasy breaks down and she remembers…” He shrugged helplessly.

We were quiet for a while, reflecting. Then a thought struck me. “She wasn’t desperate tonight,” I said. “She talked about him, discussed him openly. She told me her age. She was sad but calm, in control of herself.”

“Yes.” He rubbed his chin slowly. “That would seem to suggest a new phase. Perhaps she is coming to terms with her disease at last. She didn’t actually tell you she was married, did she? Just mentioned his name. Still, it’s a step forward. And admitting her real age. We weren’t sure she still knew. We’ll have to examine this carefully. I’ll need to consult with my colleagues.”