Slash-slash and the black kid is on his knees, trying to put his face back on.
“Oh hell no.”
The two remaining men step over Moni, the one in front reaching into his pocket.
She keeps expecting the tall man to retreat, or at least step back, make some effort to protect himself, but he just stands there, letting them come.
The next swipe happens so fast, she only sees the blade for a fleeting second.
Then a wet, gurgling sound, the dealer staggering back and grasping his neck as blood gushes out of a gaping tear.
As he falls back into the brick wall and sinks down onto the concrete to die, Moni looks back at the tall man and sees that he’s already brought the third man to his knees, in the process of carving a canyon through his chest, feathers from the down jacket billowing around them in a cloud that quickly turns from white to red.
When he hits the ground, Moni pounces upon the dealer, snaking a hand into his baggy jeans. Her fingers grasp what feel like warm grapes, and she makes a fist and pulls them out, her heart jumping, her eyes widening, an incredulous smile exploding across her face.
Balloons. Six of them. Each filled with H.
Moni glances up as the tall man walks toward her. She thinks about offering him half the drugs. He saved her life, after all. It’s the motherload of scores, and more than enough to share.
He squats down in front of her, and she notices for the first time in the firelight that he has one of the palest faces she’s ever seen.
And long black hair.
“Oh, God, thank you,” she says. “Thank you so, so much.”
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Moni.”
The man smiles a mouthful of awful, rotting teeth and spits a white piece of candy onto the ground—smells like…lemons.
Then Moni notices his eyes.
Black as tar.
Unfeeling.
Freak eyes.
“Hi, Moni, I’m Luther,” he says. “Do you know what an artificial leech is?”
A Schizophrenia of Hawks
The Plains of Central Illinois, 2008
The road to the Heathrow Facility for the Criminally Insane is a two-lane blacktop that cuts a straight line through the prairie west of Peoria. On a clear day, you can see the stone quadrangle and its various spurs from four miles away, like some prehistoric monument abandoned to erode upon the plain.
Only it isn’t abandoned. Heathrow is home to four hundred thirteen of the most violent and mentally damaged human beings in the tri-state area.
And this wasn’t a clear day.
Lightning slashed across the night sky as Doctor Carmichael drove down the narrow road to the asylum.
Rain drumming hard against the windshield.
Wipers barely keeping up.
Another explosion of lightning revealed the facade of Heathrow in the distance—four stories of crumbling granite masonry, the glass behind the barred windows reflecting the electricity.
Carmichael pulled his black Mercedes S-Class under the covered entryway and killed the engine. Lingered for a moment longer, enjoying the heated leather as it warmed his back through his woolen jacket.
Eventually, he grabbed his briefcase and stepped out of the car into the raw, damp night. The sound of rain hammering the drive and the roof over his head nearly drowned out the deeper booms of thunder, which he could feel in his backbone.
Everything smelled of Heathrow’s cold, wet stone.
Inside, it was still as a tomb, and the air reeked of disinfectant, which barely masked the odor of urine, desperation, and crazy.
Crazy had a distinct smell. It was medicinal, metallic, like an open bottle of pills. Almost human, but not quite.
The good doctor walked to the reception desk where a nurse in burgundy scrubs was filling out an intake form.
“Good evening,” he said. “I have an appointment with one of your patients.”
The nurse looked up from her paperwork, gave a tired smile. She was young, might have been pretty, but her face was scrubbed free of any trace of makeup, and her hair was tied up in a tight knot against the back of her head.
“Your name?”
He said it slowly, patiently. “Doctor Vincent Carmichael.”
“Who’s the patient you’re here to see?”
“Alexandra Kork.”
He registered some reaction in the nurse’s face at the utterance of that name. Disgust or horror or some mix of the two.
The nurse rolled her chair over to a computer, whose monitor Carmichael could just barely see. She was studying a calendar.
“Yes, I see you’re on here for 9:15.”
“It’s a late appointment, but I wanted to see her after a full day. When she’s tired. More compliant.”
“Yeah. Sure. Let me know how that works out for you.” The nurse lifted a phone and punched in a three-digit extension. “Hey, Jonas, Dr. Carmichael is here to see Little Miss Sunshine. You want to come up and take him back?”
“Have you examined Ms. Kork before?” asked Jonas, head orderly of D-Wing. He was a large, bearded man who might have played guard or tackle at a small college. He reminded Carmichael of a combat orderly—white uniform, white tennis shoes, and a belt outfitted with a radio, pepper spray, zip-ties, and an assortment of other restraint tools.
“This is my first time,” Carmichael said.
They were walking down a long, dark corridor that linked the quadrangle to its most outlying, most secure wing.
Lightning spiderwebbed across the sky, flashing through the tall windows on either side of them, casting the checkered floor in a burst of electric blue.
“She is, without a doubt, our most violent, most dangerous patient.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“In your email, you mentioned you wanted to meet with her in a private room.”
“That’s correct.”
Thunder shook the windowglass all around them.
“I would strongly advise against that,” Jonas said. “Our preference would be to have you meet in separate rooms connected by a Plexiglas window. You would be able to see her and speak to her through a telephone.”
“Unacceptable.”
“If she decides to kill you, you’ll be dead before we get to you. Ms. Kork has tremendous physical strength.”
“But her ankles and wrists will be chained, correct?”
“They haven’t stopped her before.”
Carmichael quit walking and faced the orderly.
“Jonas, everything I do, any progress I make with Ms. Kork, will be based upon a foundation of trust.”
“I under—”
“And that foundation is not built by speaking to someone through reinforced Plexiglas on a telephone. It’s by sharing the same space, breathing the same air.”
“You know that Ms. Kork killed two of her previous psychiatrists.”
“I am aware.”
“The first was a two-hundred fifteen pound man who insisted on the same conditions you’re requesting. Seventy-four minutes into their third session, Alex went into convulsions. When Dr. Andrews attempted to help her, she shoved a sharpened, plastic toothbrush through his right eye socket. It went all the way in, right up to the bristles.”
“I’ll watch out for the convulsion trick.”
“The second shrink, she snapped her neck when the poor woman reached out to shake her hand. They hadn’t even said two words. Alex blamed it on her period.”
“Periods can be rough.”
Jonas eyed Dr. Carmichael oddly.
“So I won’t shake hands with her,” Carmichael said.
Jonas nodded, apparently satisfied. He lifted his radio to his mouth and said, “Move Kork to Interview One.”
They continued walking toward a pair of double doors in the distance.
“What is it you hope to achieve here?” Jonas asked.
“I want to learn from her,” Carmichael said.