So Nude, So Dead (14 page)

“Take him,” Hank said.

Ray turned his head quickly. His eyes opened as he saw the gun butt reaching out for him. There was an explosion alongside his left ear, a fiery display of screaming stars. He struggled to keep his head up, felt the next solid blow crush into the base of his skull. He stopped struggling then.

Chapter Thirteen

He was no longer in the chair. They had taken him out of the chair, had kicked him, had held him against the wall and pounded his stomach, on and on, over and over again, always repeating the same words, the same tiring words.

He lay huddled against the wall now, too weak to move. They were gone. It was over.

He lay against the wall and stared into the darkness, the blood caked on his face, his clothes torn and filthy. This is how it ends, he thought. Something like this. A filthy room, or a garbage-strewn alley, or a city ward full of bums.

He knew pain now, real pain. It flashed through his body like unleashed lightning, ripping at his groin, tearing at his muscles, splitting the marrow of his bones. No stomach ache this time. Hell, that was easy. That was pain an addict got used to. But this was different. This was a constant, pressing pain that drained all his strength.

They had beaten him, all right; they had promised to knock his silly brains out, and they’d done it.

He tried to stand, collapsed down into the corner as his legs gave way under him.

This is the way it ends, he thought again. Jeannie was right all along.

He stared into the blackness, the bones in his face feeling bruised and raw. He could feel the puffed swelling of his lips, the lump that threatened to close one of his eyes. The darkness was soothing, and he lay there, allowing his thoughts to roam, thinking of anything but the pain.

* * *

There was a breeze on the roof that night long ago. It skirted over the chimney tops, whipped up over the slanting tiles, flattened Jeannie’s dress against her legs.

There were stars, too, and a slender moon that glistened in the auburn of her hair, touched her uplifted face with a yellow tint. The hair streamed back over her shoulders and she held her chin high, her dress flapping against her thighs. She was silent for a long time, and then she turned, leaned against the high brick barrier. “Ray, what is it?”

“What is what?”

“With us? What’s happening?”

“Nothing’s happening,” he mumbled. “That’s the trouble!”

“You’re so—so restless. I feel as if—as if something were constantly eating at you. What is it, Ray?”

He felt like telling her. He felt like saying, “Heroin, that’s what! Do you know what heroin is, darling?”

“Nothing,” he said, “nothing at all. Not a damned thing.”

He looked at her again, at the high rise of her breasts, the white line above the browned skin, where the dress ended and the sun had not touched her.

“I know there’s something wrong,” she insisted. “I can feel it.”

“There’s nothing wrong.”

“What is it, Ray?”

“Oh, shut up!” he shouted.

“Ray!”

“You want to know? You really want to know?” He was ready to tell her. By God, he was ready to tell her.

“Yes, please. What?”

“You’d better hold your breath, sweetie,” he taunted, bursting with his power now.

“Tell me, Ray.” Her voice was soft.

“Sure. There’s a monkey on my back, a fifteen-pound monkey and his name is Horse.”

A confused flicker crossed her eyes. “I don’t under—”

“Horse is his nickname. His real name is Heroin.”

“Hero—”

“Sure, Jeannie, heroin. Heroin, Jeannie. You know, that nasty old drug.”

“But what—”

“I’ve been taking heroin. For a long time now. Does that explain my restlessness? Been shooting it into my arms.” He paused, then added triumphantly, “Want to see my needle? Addicts always carry one, you know. A needle and a spoon—our working tools.”

Her hand had gone up to her throat. “Ray—you’re kidding.”

“Hell, no, I’m not. I’m an addict, sweetheart. What’s more, I like it. I like it a lot.”

“Ray—”

“Oh, come off it, Jeannie. I’m an addict, so what? That’s the way it is. That’s my habit. Some guys bite their nails—”

“Stop it!”

“Or bet the horses. I’m an addict. My habit is heroin. Everybody has a—”

“Ray, stop it!”

“Everybody has a habit,” he said, a little louder this time. “Your habit is virginity.” That amused him somehow, and he chuckled lightly.

He was surprised to find her in his arms. She buried her face in his chest, and he felt the hot tears stain the front of his T-shirt. He suddenly felt clumsy and big, as if he were holding a fragile china doll in his hands, unable to put it down, yet afraid he’d crush it.

“Jeannie,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

She moved closer and he felt the lines of her body through her dress, taut and firm, slender as a willow.

“Ray,” she murmured, “Ray baby, poor baby, poor baby.”

A look crossed her face then, and he stared at her curiously. It was an age-old look, the look of the eternal woman, a look of possession and desire, of submission and triumph.

“I want you to give up the drug,” she said. Her voice was strangely harsh. “Do you understand?”

He didn’t answer.

“You’re my man, Ray,” she said. “You’ve been mine for a long time now, and nothing’s going to take you away from me.”

“Jeannie,” he said, unsure of himself now, not knowing what to say, “I didn’t want you to cry, honest. It’s nothing to cry about. I know lots of guys who use—”

“No, I shouldn’t have cried,” she said, her voice still oddly hard and brittle. “It’s not something to cry about. It’s something to stop.” She paused and eyed him steadily. “I want you to stop, Ray. You won’t need it anymore.”

“Jeannie, I—”

“You won’t need the drug, Ray,” she said more firmly. Her voice carried to the dark corners of the roof, seemed to echo hollowly back at them, strengthening their aloneness.

He looked at her, puzzled. Her voice was flat and calm. There were tear stains on her cheeks, but her face presented a coldly rigid mask of determination, the mouth drawn into a hard, almost cruel line, the eyes bright with purpose, the nostrils wide and flaring.

Mechanically, with the cold precision of a prostitute, she slid down the zipper at the side of her dress, and then stepped out of it.

“Jeannie,” he started, “what—”

“Touch me,” she said. There was no warmth in her voice. She was issuing a command, and there was something strangely compelling about her now, so that he moved toward her as if he were hypnotized.

“Give me your hands,” she said.

The moon slithered from behind a cloud, touching the cones of her bra and the sloping flesh of her breasts. She took his hands and guided them over her body, moving against him. The moon was gone again, and in the darkness he felt her lips on the side of his neck, felt the deliberate, mechanical, methodical writhing of her body against his. And because she was so coldly cruel, and because she was so purposefully intent, and because there was an almost savage fervor in her, he took her wildly and roughly until she could only shriek his name again and again and again to the blackness of the night.

* * *

The darkness was all around him now, filling every corner of the room. He propped himself up on one elbow, blinked his eyes.

A body for a drug: fair trade. Except that Jeannie had got the dirty end of the stick. Nineteen years is a long time to keep a habit. She’d given herself to keep him away from the drug.

That’s where she’d been cheated. He’d kept his habit.

He rolled over, got his knees under him, struggled to keep from blacking out. Slowly, painfully, he dragged himself to his feet, braced himself against the wall while he got used to the new pain of standing. He walked then, a step at a time, slowly, dragging his feet, groping for a light switch.

His aching fingers found one on the wall. The sudden glare seared his eyeballs, and he closed his eyes tightly for a few moments. He looked around, tried to find a bathroom.

Drunkenly, he weaved across the room, staggered through a doorway, flicked on another light. He stood over the bathroom sink and looked into the mirror.

Horror-struck, he pulled back, his mouth open with a voiceless cry of terror.

That face of his. That grotesquely puffed eye belonged to him, the swollen lips, the cut forehead, the raw flesh on both cheeks, the blood dripping down the side of the nose, caked in the seams of the mouth. They were all his.

He bent to the faucets and a throbbing started under his eye. He grimaced in pain and began washing the blood from his face. The cold water stung its way into the countless cuts. He clenched his teeth. Gingerly, he touched the area around his battered eye.

He let the water drain out of the sink, daubed at his face with some toilet paper. He walked back into the large room again, his eyes noticing the blood stains on the floor.

And then he saw something else.

The metal glittered, and the glass reflected light dully. The syringe! They’d left the syringe.

He ran to it, his muscles and bones protesting. He stooped and picked it up in trembling fingers. He held it up to the light, examined the glass cylinder carefully.

A little, maybe; maybe just a little.

The craving was back. Under the other pains the craving welled up inside him.

Clinging to the sides of the glass, maybe, not much, but a little, not a hell of a lot, but maybe enough, no, never enough but maybe just a little bit, just a drop, just something.

He clutched the syringe tightly, rushed it into the bathroom. He clawed at the door of the medicine cabinet, flung it open, his eyes rapidly scanning the labels.

Iodine. Boric Acid. Vitamin
B
-1. Epsom Salts, Cotton Bal—

Wait, wait. Vitamin
B
-1. Sure, why not? Sure, that would do it. Sure, sure.

His heart sang in his chest as he melted two of the vitamin capsules.

He rolled up his sleeve and deftly, swiftly, plunged the needle into his skin.

He was covered with sweat. He swallowed heavily and waited. Nothing happened.

He waited, tonguing the oily taste of the vitamins as his blood stream carried the fluid to his taste buds. But no charge, no lift, no soaring. Nothing!

He stared at the syringe on the open palm of his hand. Then, furiously, he threw it at the wall, the glass shattering into a hundred flying pieces.

* * *

He stood on the road for a long time, his thumb cocked, trying to keep his face in the shadows. A vegetable truck stopped at last, and he hopped in. The driver looked at his face once, then turned back to the road. Neither man spoke during the long ride into the city. Ray kept staring out at the trees flashing by, at the white ribbon of road that curved through the Connecticut countryside. He thought of the beating, and why he had been beaten. He thought of the dead Eileen, and Massine, and Scat Lewis, and Tony Sanders, and Dale Kramer. He thought of Babs and the warmth of her, and how her body felt lying beside his.

“I’m goin’ all the way down to the market,” the driver said suddenly. “You wanna go that far?”

“Huh?”

“I said I’m—”

“Well, where are we now?” Ray asked.

“We’ll be in the city soon.”

“Oh. Well, just drop me where it’s convenient.”

“Sure.”

They rode a little while longer in silence, entering the Bronx.

“Been in a scrap?” the driver asked. His voice wasn’t prying. He sounded interested.

“Yes,” Ray said.

“Thought so.”

The driver didn’t ask any more questions. He kept his eyes on the road, his big, brown hands steady on the wheel.

“I’m going to Eighty-second and Park,” Ray said. “Anywhere near there will be fine.”

The driver nodded. “Drop you on Eighty-sixth and York,” he said. “You can get a crosstown bus from there.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Hate to make the long run alone anyway.”

They drove deeper into the city, heading downtown. The streetlights clicked against nonexistent traffic. The city slept.

On Eighty-sixth, the driver pulled over to the curb. Ray hopped out and stood on the sidewalk for a moment.

“Thanks again,” he said.

“Better take care of that eye,” the driver answered.

The little truck coughed and pulled away from the curb. Ray stood watching it as it traveled down the empty street. He started walking up toward First Avenue then.

* * *

He held his finger on the buzzer. Within the apartment, the chimes sounded again and again, melodious, loud in the stillness of the early morning.

He heard the snap of the lock, and then the door opened a tiny crack. A brown eye appeared in the crack, and then the door swung wide. He stepped in quickly, and the door closed behind him. He turned to face the door again.

She was leaning back against it, her eyes closed tightly in thankfulness. She wore a pajama top, nothing more, and her legs curved out beneath it.

“Thank God,” she murmured. “Oh, thank God.” She pushed herself off the door then, came into his arms, her eyes still closed tightly. Ray held her close, drowned himself in the scent of her, drank in the sleepy warmth of her. Her body was vibrantly alive beneath the silk pajama top. He held her away from him and looked at her closely, studied the wild disarray of her black hair, the oval loveliness of her face, pale now without makeup, her lips swollen and ripe.

“Come,” she said. She slipped out of his arms and took his hand, walking into the bedroom.

She sat down on the bed, and he sat down beside her. She reached for the lamp on the end table and snapped it on.

She turned, and her eyes opened wide in shock. “Ray! Good God, what did they do to you?”

She reached out with a slim, cool, hand and he flinched. The pain shot into his eye again. He winced and she took his head in her hands, brought him close to the warmth of her body.

“Darling, darling,” she said. “Tell me what happened.”

“I got a working over. But good. I think I know now why Eileen was killed.”