– What about my dad, you talk to him?
– Yeah.
She huffs.
– Aaand?
I think about my meeting with Dr. Dale Horde, the way he casually put me in my place like it's something he does ten times a day. The way he mickeyed me so Predo's spook could rob my stash.
– Said he wanted me to find you.
– Yeah, right.
She's peeled about half the chocolate off her second bar, leaving the coconut underneath untouched.
– Mom says he wants to fuck me. Least that'd be something. Looks at me all the time like he can't figure out where I came from. Only time he pays any attention is when one of my girlfriends comes over. Then he tries to be all supercooldad so he can impress them. Lame.
– That why you split?
Knowing I'm a fool for asking, knowing I don't need to know any of this stuff, knowing this stuff just makes the job harder.
– I don't know. Maybe because my mom gets drunk all the time. Maybe because she told me my dad wants to fuck me. Maybe because I think that makes her jealous. Maybe because my dad is creepy with my girlfriends. Maybe because I stole a pair of my mom's earrings and to punish me she took my computer away and I snuck in my dad's office to use his computer and I found all this porn on it that Whitney did and that grossed me out. Not that she did it, because I knew about that, but because my dad was looking at it. Maybe because I looked in his drawers and found pictures of him fucking Whitney. Maybe because I was pissed at Whitney and came down here to kick her ass. I don't know. I just ran away.
She folds the torn ends of the wrapper around the mutilated bar and shoves it back in her bag.
– God. Hate it when I do that. Just eating 'cause I'm bored. Whitney says that's how you get fat.
She pulls up the bottom of her Che Guevara T-shirt, looks at her flat stomach and pinches a quarter inch of skin.
– Fat.
I look the other way, not wanting to see her healthy tanned skin and the flush of blood that rises as she pinches herself.
– So she call you after Whitney got… whatever? That freak her out?
– If it did, she didn't say anything.
– She wouldn't. Was she drunk when you saw her?
– Couldn't say.
– Yeah, most people can't. I can. If she's awake, she's drunk. She make a pass at you?
– No.
She looks at me.
– Uh-huh. As if. So'd you fuck her?
– No.
She looks at me some more.
– You'd be the first, then.
– Not according to your mom.
She laughs. But not like anything is funny.
– So.
– Yeah?
– You know what happened to Whitney?
– I heard.
– That for real? That Satanist guy did it?
– That's what they say.
– Yeah. Right.
She reaches in her bag and pulls out the partially eaten diet bar and starts picking at the chocolate again. I watch her. I try not to ask. I fail.
– What?
Fool.
– Nothing.
– You think different?
You fool.
– No.
She picks a piece of chocolate, eats it, picks another and drops it on the floor; then goes on like that, alternating a bite for a drop.
– Just.
– Yeah?
– I got the idea that, maybe. I don't know. That maybe she was blackmailing my dad.
She scrapes off a last bit of chocolate with her front teeth, looks the bar over to see if she missed any, then tosses the coconut remnant into a corner.
It doesn't make any difference.
Say she was. Say Whitney took those pictures of them fucking and threatened him; threatened to show them to his wife, who was looking for some kind of leverage to get Amanda away from him; threatened to take them to the papers and smear his rep. Hell, she might have threatened to just post them for anyone who wanted to gape at Dr. Dale Edward Horde, founder, president, chairman and CEO of Horde Bio Tech, as he fucked an Internet porn star. So say she was blackmailing him. So what?
I know what the kid doesn't. I know her dad and Whitney crossed paths down here, right in this room, right on that square of cardboard not ten feet away from us. But by the time they did, she had already crossed paths with something much creepier than Amanda's pederast father. By the time he found her the carrier had already taken a bite out of the back of her neck. Did he even know?
Figure it this way. He comes down here with some muscle, the same muscle that probably killed Dobbs for him, and they found Whitney. Couple days after being infected, her brain would still be pretty much intact. Her speech centers, even some of her short-term memory might work. She might even have been fighting her new impulses, trying not to become what she already was. Figure Horde and his goons confront her somewhere. She won't answer any questions. They think she's being tough, but she's just having holes bored through her brain by the bacteria. Doesn't matter, they find the pictures and whatever else she has on Horde. But he's not done, wants to teach her a lesson, but wants to do it somewhere private. Figure he remembers the place Dobbs found his daughter last year. Maybe that makes it better for him, having her on the floor in here, makes it easier to think about Amanda, makes it closer to what he really wants. Whitney wouldn't have been easy. The smell of his living flesh so close would have made her crazy. His guys would have had to hold her down while he raped her. And when he was done? What the fuck did he care. He has the evidence now and if she talks to anyone it's just the word of a teenage runaway slut against his. No contest. So he left her there. And the next people to see her were probably the two fashion junkies who came looking for a safe place to fix.
But it doesn't matter. It doesn't change anything for me, just fills in a couple gaps. It doesn't make my job any easier. It doesn't make me any less hungry. It doesn't help me forget the little girl lying on her side next to me taking a nap. It doesn't make my cold hand feel less of the warmth of her body as she curls tighter, pulling my chained arm close to her. It doesn't make me any less aware of the cardboard sheet on the other side of the room where I smelled the rank sweat of Horde fucking a still-breathing dead girl.
It makes no difference to me at all. I still have to get her home. I still have to find the carrier. I still have to do the job.
I tell myself this.
But all the while I see pictures of Horde's neck in my hands, my thumbs digging a hole through his skin and ripping open the throbbing artery. And I feel the hot blood splash against my lips and chin as I fit my mouth over the hole. As if that will make the world a better place.
Fool.
I am such a fool.
– You really allergic to the sun?
– It's called solar urticaria.
– Sounds like VD.
– It's not.
– So what happens if you go to the beach or something?
– What happens if you stick your hand under the broiler?
– No shit?
– No shit.
– That's so wrong.
– Yep.
– Were you born with it?
– Not really.
– So when was the last time you were out in the sun?
– Long time ago. You got any change?
We're on the corner of 10th and A, standing in front of a pay phone. I wiped most of the gore from my face and hands before we came up and have my jacket buttoned to hide the blood on my shirt. The holes in my hands have scabbed, but aren't healing nearly as quickly as they would if I was straight. They ache and throb like my face and ankle. But the needles keep me too occupied to worry about things like that. All my hurts will be healed when I get some blood, but I'm running out of time.