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  Way past the houses, out in the distance, the black jagged line of the mountains… Except they didn't look so far away now; they looked as if they were bumped right up against the town, almost in his face, as though he could stick out his hand and touch them. Real close, but still big, too big to get over and escape. They made a fence around the town, a little world. If the mountains came in any closer, any tighter, he wouldn't be able to breathe. He could barely pull the air in now.

  Screw it. He shoved his hands behind his back and pushed himself up off the trash can. He was going to go in there and tell Garza and his beer-hog buddies to take a hike. At least he could do that much.

  The perky teenage girl with the beret and the dorky knee pants was gone from the TV screen. Now there was some flash bimbo with big blond hair and some kind of chain mail over her tits. When she wasn't singing, her red mouth pooched open as though she couldn't wait to get fucked.

  "Okay, guys"-Doot's voice rose over the grind of the music-"come on, party's over. Let's go. I got all kinds of shit to do today."

  "Wuh?" Garza rolled his neck on the recliner's headrest so he could see Doot standing behind the couch. "Like what?"

  He'd come back into the house so pissed off that he hadn't worked out any lines beyond his first ones. He stared back at Garza and at the two other slack faces from the couch.

  "Hey-you know-like shit." Doot spread his hands, palms up. "Like I gotta get this place cleaned up, and… you know…" His voice trailed away.

  Garza waved him off, arm flopping against the recliner's padding. "Aw, man…" He sounded annoyed. "Don't be such a fuckin' dweeb." He went back to gazing at the blonde on the screen.

  "Yeah, Doot"-one of the guys on the couch said the name like a joke-"why don't you just cool out for a while, okay? Don't sweat the housecleaning-you can do your fuckin' dusting some other time."

  His buddy beside him giggled. "Yeah, man, you can borrow my mom's vacuum, you're so hot to clean house." They both got a laugh out of that.

  There were still too many to deal with. One would have been too many. Doot looked over at Garza and saw the heavy-lidded gaze, like some kind of reptile, slyly checking him out from the corner of one eye. Garza didn't even have to do anything to win; he just had to lie sprawled out there, like some kind of black hole that soaked up the whole universe and everything in it, and he won.

  That was what the look in Garza's eye meant. I'm a fuckin' dweeb, thought Doot. What was it, that somebody just thinking something like that made it so?

  "Oh, man; this chick's o-kay." One of the couch guys nodded at the TV. Doot knew he had ceased to exist for them-again-but they were still revved up from yanking his chain. "She sits on your face, got a snatch on her you could pull down over your whole fuckin' head, walk around with her like a fuckin' hat."

  Shit, thought Doot; he'd heard that one before. It was this yo-yo's standard line. Talking as if he weren't the biggest jerk-off artist in town. He gazed moodily at the blond singer. Her breasts glistened with sweat, or else the whole chain-mail and leather outfit-what there was of it-had been doused with a bucket while he hadn't been watching. Smoke rolled past the hard angles of her bared hipbones. She looked out and knew he was a dweeb, too.

  Garza's eyes narrowed at the screen. "Ooh, yeah. You kiddin'? She can use my tongue for her tampax, any of time." He and the guys on the couch were still yukking it up when a voice came from the floor.

  "Holy Christ!" Their buddy on the floor sounded awestruck. He pushed himself up on one elbow. He wasn't looking at the TV. His hand shaking, he pointed to the screen door and the bright morning world outside. "Check this out."

  Doot had retreated a couple yards behind the couch, almost to the kitchen doorway. His head turned a couple of degrees, tracking with everybody else's away from the TV and toward the screen door. The throaty sound of a big-bore engine floated in through the mesh, undercutting the bass line pounding from the TV.

  A red Corvette had pulled up at the curb in front of the house. The machine looked glossy and expensive even under its coat of road dust-a convertible, with its top down. Doot could see the driver as she reached forward and switched off the engine. Her blond hair looked like a gold explosion in the sun, streaked back and tangled as though the wind were still in it.

  "Jee-zuss…" The guys on the couch pushed against the seat cushions with their hands, trying to bury themselves spine first in the upholstery behind them.

  The woman had gotten out of the 'Vette-the street seemed dead silent with the machine at rest-and was coming up the cracked concrete walkway to the front door. Garza's eyes had gone wide open; his stare flicked back to the TV for a moment, then to the vision out the screen door, as though he couldn't figure out which was reality. Or if either of them was.

  She wasn't the same woman that was on the TV. But she looked like a different model from the same assembly line. Instead of the chain mail and raggedy leather getup, she had painted-on jeans, the kind with the little zippers to snug them up tight around the calves, and a fur jacket thing, incongruous in the too-warm sunshine, that just came past her shoulder blades. Under the jacket was a tank top cut so skimpy that it not only showed the top curves of her breasts, but around on the sides as well. The little shoes with no backs to them clicked on the walk, tiny bullets that shot right into the house.

  Marching right up to the door, she didn't have the TV girl's fuck-me look; the red mouth was set and determined.

  The woman rapped on the screen door's aluminum frame. The clatter bounced against the walls. She pushed her sunglasses up above her brow, into the thicket of her golden hair. Shading her eyes with one hand, she leaned close to the door's mesh.

  "Hey-"

  Garza and the others shrank back from the apparition.

  She could see them in there. "I'm looking for somebody." She dug a piece of paper out of the small purse slung over her shoulder. She looked at the paper, then back into the house. "Somebody named-Doot?"

  A moment passed, the name falling like a leaf through the house's still air. Then, slowly, four faces turned, necks swiveling, and stared at him. From the floor and the re-cliner and across the back of the couch. They stared at him in amazement, their mouths falling open. Like cartoons of dumbfoundedness.

  Doot didn't know what it meant, who she was. He just knew that already it was the greatest fucking moment of his life.

  ELEVEN

  She followed the kid-this Doot, or whatever his name was-on his motorbike, sputtering and coughing away on the road in front of her. It felt as though she were crawling along in the 'Vette, after having floored it all the way out here from the city.

  The sun had risen up above the mountains, flooding the barren miles with light. Brown weeds and rusty-looking railroad tracks ran beside the highway. This was really nowhere-Mike's buddies, his ex-business partners, had really done a number in disposing of him.

  Ahead of her, the kid had taken one hand off the bike's bars and was signaling something to her. She squinted behind her sunglasses to see. The kid pointed off to the side of the road, to something in the distance. She turned her head and saw the building, some big ramshackle thing with a sign up on top of it-from this angle, she couldn't tell what it spelled out. It looked like a hotel, or something, that had gotten plucked up from where it was supposed to be, like what's-her-name with the little dog in that old movie, and dropped down on some other planet. The whole landscape around it looked like goddamn Mars to her. Who the hell would build a hotel out here?

  The red taillight on the bike's rear fender came on; the kid slowed down to make the turn off the road. She downshifted the 'Vette, slowing with him. The bike bumped over the railroad tracks and then down a lane bordered with weeds.

  The smell hit her as she followed the bike toward the building. A dead-looking pond lay past the weeds on the right. The smell came from there. Her lip curled involuntarily; it was strong enough to taste on her tongue. Like rotten eggs, or as if everybody in that pokey little town came all
the way out here on a regular basis to take a piss. Maybe that was what the whole lake was; maybe they'd managed to fill the low spot in the ground that way.

  In front of the building-the hotel, or whatever it was-the kid turned the bike around and brought it to a halt, his long skinny legs straddling out to the sides. She brought the 'Vette up behind him and killed the engine.

  As the dust settled, she could see the building more closely. The dilapidated appearance it had given from out on the road past the tracks was even worse this much nearer: sagging boards, gaps in the roof and walls that showed the beams underneath; boarded-up windows on the ground floor, and broken glass up above. And worse: a whole wing that stretched away from the main section had been gutted by fire, reduced to blackened timbers collapsed onto each other like jackstraws. It looked as if the fire had happened a long time ago. Weeds had sprouted up through the charred wood.

  "Come on." Doot hopped off the motorbike. He tilted his head toward the building. "He's in there."

  The front door was boarded over, but the kid pulled back the planks far enough for her to squeeze through. He swung in behind her, then drew the barrier back into place.

  Inside, it smelled like dust and ancient, sun-baked air. Thin ribbons of light slid through the boards on the windows, motes drifting into brightness and then invisible again.

  "Over here." The kid brushed past her, walking quickly to something darker on the floor. Her eyes adjusted, and she saw the figure lying on its back, a rumpled blanket spread beneath.

  She ran to him and knelt down. "Mike…" He turned his head toward her, his face catching one of the thin sheets of light. A gasp broke from her throat. "Oh, Mike"-she ran her hand over his brow, looking at his battered flesh in dismay-"what happened? What did they do to you?"

  His lips were dry and cracked. The unfocused gaze drifted past her face. He shook his head, a slight roll to either side, teeth clenched. "Did…"

  She had to lean close to hear his whisper.

  "Did you bring… everything… everything I told you to…" His eyes closed. He had started to pant for breath.

  She turned to the kid standing behind her. "In the car," she snapped. "Behind the seats."

  The kid sprinted to the door. She turned back to Mike, lifting his head and cradling it in her lap.

  In less than a minute, the kid was back with the case. She took it from him and opened it up on the floor beside Mike. With a sudden lurch, he rolled onto his side and reached past her, pawing through the case's contents. He dug out a hypodermic and one of the glass vials, then fell back, clutching them with one hand to his chest.

  His breath laboring, he fumbled with the needle. She saw that he couldn't use his other hand; the arm flopped loose at his side. She pulled the needle from his fingers and quickly loaded it, pushing the point through the vial's plastic seal. She found the vein in the crook of his arm-he had never shot there, always somewhere else that could be hidden under his clothes-and pressed the needle into it. A drop of blood welled up around the point.

  She felt the change under her fingers, the skin of his arm loosening, as though the fine tremor in the muscles beneath had drawn it up tight as a snare drum before. His face changed; color flowed into the dead white flesh under the bruises. Back from the grave. She pulled the needle out and laid her fingertip on the tiny hole, to keep any more life from leaking out of him. His breath slowed, becoming strong and deep. Even a little smile, turning at the corners of his mouth.

  Mike raised his chin, stretching the tendons in his neck, rubbing the back of his head against the angle of her lap and stomach. "Lindy," he murmured. "I was… waiting for you…" His voice slurred, the words slow and heavy. "I knew you'd get here…"

  "I'm here, baby." She leaned over him, a bit of her blond hair trailing across his cheek. "You know I am."

  They were silent for a moment, his hand finding hers and tightening upon it.

  "Mike-" With her other hand, she wiped her eyes. "You're in bad shape, Mike."

  He smiled up at her. "Think I don't know that?" A quick laugh jerked in his chest. "I'm all fucked up. What we're looking at… I figure some kind of cerebral hematoma; epidural if I'm lucky." His hand let go of hers and touched the bandages at the side of his head. The cloth was soiled and darkened with blood. "I think the fracture's pretty much just linear… bleeding's mostly from where the scalp got torn. If it's subdural… the hematoma… that's not so good."

  She didn't know what he was talking about. All that medical stuff. But to hear him reciting it, in his dry, weakened voice-reciting it about himself, and not some body-on a table-that scared her even more than just seeing the bruises and the battered flesh.

  He went on, the words dragging under narcotic weight. "I think… some kind of spinal injury… I don't remember, I was already down on the floor… Brown-Sequard's syndrome… maybe… can't move that arm… they were kicking me, I think…" His voice had started to fade, then he pulled himself back. "Plus the usual… contusions, cracked ribs… shit like that. They did a good job on me. Maybe some renal trauma… I keep pissing blood…" The smile came back, rueful this time. "Those guys really worked me over…"

  "Aitch did this?"

  Mike nodded, slowly. "Him and Charlie… I guess… they didn't appreciate being cut out of their business…"

  She saw him falling again, away from her. "Mike… we gotta get you to a hospital."

  "No!" His eyes jerked open. "I know how he works… Aitch's friends; he's told them all about me… I know he has. The cops… they'd be on me before I got out of the emergency room. He's got friends… I don't." He shook his head, the same slight roll from side to side. "Don't worry… I can pull through. As long as you're here."

  He reached and took her hand, bringing it close to the side of his face. Squeezing it tight, with all the strength left in him.

  ***

  The fire crackled, sparks drifting upward with the smoke. Doot squatted by the shallow hole he'd scooped out of the rocks and dirt, and pushed a few more twigs into the flames. He hadn't built a big fire; they didn't need it. The evening air was only starting to cool, the ground beneath them still warm from soaking up the day's heat.

  He and Lindy-he knew her name now; the guy had said it-had carried Mike outside, his arms slung over both their shoulders. Now he knew that name, too; knew for sure that was it. He had hung back and listened, and watched, like somebody who was invisible, somebody who wasn't there at all. Until they needed him.

  They needed him to do all kinds of stuff. This Lindy hadn't even been able to figure how to work the little can opener he'd brought out before with the other stuff. So he'd opened up the cans of chili, and built the fire, and put together the stick and string contraption for holding the cans over the fire until the contents were hot enough to eat. The chili got a little burned black on the cans' bottoms, but that hadn't seemed to bother Mike; he'd wolfed the stuff down like he was starving. Well, he probably was. His girlfriend Lindy held the can, with a corner of one of the blankets wrapped around the hot metal, and spooned it up for him.

  His girlfriend-that's who she was. Anybody could see that. Doot didn't care one way or the other. He'd just wanted to know, and now he did. The flames licked at his fingertips, and he dropped the last half inch of the twig.

  They'd gone several yards away from the old clinic building, far enough to find a skeletal tree that Mike could prop his back up against. The other blanket was spread underneath him, as though he were out on a picnic. Lindy sat cross-legged next to him, tilting her head back to drink straight from the Pepsi bottle.

  "Hey, Doot."

  He looked up from the fire and over to Mike by the tree. The guy didn't look so bad now, but not by much. As if he'd been beat to hell, all right, but not like he was going to die, at least not this minute. Whatever had been in the needle-and Doot had a pretty good suspicion what kind of stuff it had been-had fixed him up to a degree. At least he was functioning.

  Doot stood up, stretching a crick o
ut of his knee. "What?"

  "Is there somebody else around here?" Mike used his chin to point to the building and the shadowed landscape around it. "I mean… somebody that hangs out here?"

  Some of the lethargy that had flowed over him had dissipated. His words came faster.

  Doot shrugged. "There's some old guy, least I think he's still around. Named… Nelder; something like that. He's kinda like the caretaker or something. He's got like a shack up in the hills. But you don't have to worry about him." Doot glanced at the uneven line that marked off the stars, then back to Mike. "He's just some old fart. If he's not dead by now."

  Mike turned his head, scanning across the building's silhouette. "Who owns this place, anyway?"

  Another shrug. "I dunno. My dad always told me it was some folks back East."

  Leaning back against the tree, Mike nodded. He lapsed into silence for a moment, then looked over at Lindy. "You know," he said slowly. "I could use another…"

  She knew what he meant. Doot watched as she got up and went into the building, squeezing past the boards over the front door. When she came back, she had the needle and another one of the glass vials in her hand.

  Doot looked away as she knelt down beside Mike, picking up his arm and turning its pale underside toward her.

  ***

  The lobby was filled with light. Not just from the sun pouring through the crystalline windows, the curtains stirred by a caressing breeze. Everything glowed, lit from within. Mike stood in the center of the room, hands outstretched, bathed in opiate bliss.

  Everything made new again, the past revoked, as though it were the dream and not this. The wood polished to mirrors, the marble top of the reception desk unbroken; pieces of brass, the rings of the curtains and the bits on the switchboard, all burning bright as fire.