Through the half-open window, he could see Lulu in her old orange robe, passed out on the couch. Pushing open the window the rest of the way, Spyder stepped inside. There were little packets of foil on the coffee table, along with burnt spoons, medical tubing and a syringe with a white, crusted tip. Spyder shouted angrily at Lulu.
“Wake up, asshole. Move. Look at me.”
Lulu was limp, but she made a feeble attempt to push him away. Spyder knew that was a good sign. “Look at me, girl. It’s Spyder. Open your eyes.” He stopped shaking her for a moment when he remembered that she didn’t have eyes to open. It didn’t matter, she was rousing herself by then, holding on to his sleeve and pulling herself up.
“Spyder? That you?”
“Yeah, it’s me. What the hell’ve you been doing?”
Lulu was sitting up shakily, staring in his direction with the little pieces of paper over her hollow eyes. She began to cry quietly and punched him hard in the chest. “Where you been? I thought you’d gone. Run off ’cause I’m a—monster.”
“You’re no monster, Lulu. And I was only gone a day.”
“A week!” yelled Lulu. “You’ve been gone a goddam week and no word at all!”
“Oh, baby.” Lulu grabbed him and cried against him, holding onto his jacket like a child. “I went away to get help for us,” Spyder said. “It didn’t seem like a week, but we went some funny places where the clocks run—different.”
“They burned down the shop, Spyder.”
“Who did it?”
“A bunch of people. Friends!” Lulu wiped her nose on the sleeve of her robe. Spyder handed her a bloody Kleenex from the table where her works were scattered. “They were crazy. Neighbors from Haight Street. People from the Bardo Lounge. They came in saying all kinds of insane shit. You’re a murderer or some shit. And, like, we kidnap kids and do things to ’em in the back. They started tearing the place up and someone had a gas can. I thought they were going to burn me, too.” She was crying again. When Lulu blew her nose, Spyder saw fresh scars on her wrists. Deep and running along the inner length of her arm, the scars were dry, like ruts dug into hard-packed sand. Spyder touched the scars and Lulu laughed.
“Funny, huh? I can’t even off myself. There ain’t enough of me left to suicide.”
While he’d been gone, Lulu had done other things to herself. She’d inserted slivers of glass and rusty nails through her skin, like parodies of her piercing jewelry. Spyder opened her robe and Lulu didn’t resist. Her bare body was decorated with stingray quills and surgical needles. She’d pulled the rubber insulation off wire and laced the bare copper through her skin, ringing the shark’s teeth she’d set above her bare pussy. It was mad. But Spyder had seen it before. It was anger mixed with ritual—Lulu’s fury at her body and an attempt to reclaim her desiccated flesh through pain and action. Spyder closed Lulu’s robe and said, “You’re coming with me.”
“Get away from her!” Spyder hit the deck as someone slammed into him from behind. He managed to get his boots flat on the floor and roll on top of his attacker, pinning their arms down. It was Rubi. She was screaming at him.
“Get out of here, you freak! Killer! You child-molesting fuck!”
“Rubi, calm down,” said Spyder, not daring to let go. When it was clear he wasn’t going to release her, Rubi stopped struggling.
“You going to rape me, too, asshole? Everyone’s on to you. Such a big man. What you do to children, you sick fuck…”
“Rubi, whatever you think you know about me, it’s not true.”
“Don’t you hurt my Lulu!”
From the couch Lulu said, “This is what everyone’s like when they talk about you. What did you do? You’re like Charlie Manson all of a sudden.”
“I killed a demon’s best friend,” Spyder said. “Lulu, put some stuff in a bag. You’re coming with me.”
“No, she’s not!” screamed Rubi. “I won’t let him hurt you, baby.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere, Spyder. I’m scared.”
“And you’re stoned, too. Listen, it’s not safe for you. If this curse or spell or whatever made people think I’m a killer, it means sooner or later, some of that’s going to land on you. If they can’t get to me, you’re next on the menu.”
“No! Don’t listen to him, Lulu. He’s sick. He’s a murderer!”
“I’m so sorry, Rubi. I like you. I really do.” Spyder held the bartender down and punched her as hard as he could across the jaw. Rubi was unconscious immediately.
“Rubi? Oh shit, Spyder.”
“Lulu, don’t fade on me now. We have to get you out of here.” He held up the dirty syringe. “If these deluded assholes don’t kill you, you’re going to do it yourself.”
He pulled her from the sofa and walked Lulu to the bedroom closet. “Get dressed,” he told her and grabbed the small leather backpack that Rubi always carried. Spyder dumped the contents on the bed and pulled shirts, underwear and socks from Lulu’s dresser, shoving them in the pack until it was full.
When he was done, Lulu was sitting quietly, dressed in a scuffed pair of Doc Martens, black jeans with ripped knees and a pink Hello Kitty T-shirt. Spyder put Lulu’s favorite 50s gas station attendant jacket on her and led her to back to the living room. Rubi hadn’t moved. Spyder knelt and listened to make sure she was breathing all right. She was. He got some ice from the freezer, wrapped it in a washcloth and laid it on Rubi’s jaw. He dialed 911. When the operator came on, Spyder said, “There’s been an accident. A woman’s hurt,” and gave the address.
“Bye Rubi,” said Lulu as Spyder led her out of the building. “Hold on to me,” he told her as they got on the bike. Lulu wrapper her arms around his waist and leaned heavily on his back. Spyder kicked the Dead Man’s Ducati into gear and took back streets across town to a twenty-four-hour diner he knew down by the waterfront.
For all her scars and mad despair, Lulu seemed better after a second cup of coffee. She took a long breath and even smiled the now familiar raw flesh smile.
“Aren’t we a pair? A couple of real desperadoes. Like those kids in Badlands. Kit and…who was his girlfriend?”
“Sissy Spacek.”
“Even though she was Carrie and had that crazy mind zap thing going, I think I’d rather be Martin Sheen. That okay with you, Sissy?”
“A man likes feeling pretty sometimes.”
“You sure got a purty mouth,” Lulu said, in her best Deliverance hillbilly drawl.
They drank coffee, ate pie and french fries, and Spyder watched the clock over the counter creep ever so slowly toward dawn.
“So, Sissy…”
“Holly. Her character’s name was Holly.”
“So, Ms. Holly, what happens to a couple of outlaws like us, hopped up on caffeine and sugar, and on the lam?”
“I figure it’s a lot like the movie, really,” said Spyder. “We leave here, catch a ride and head straight to Hell.”
TWENTY ONE
Jubilee
At the far end of Fisherman’s Wharf, past the eager early morning tourists and their bleary children, a jeweled airship hung in the air.
The balloon portion resembled an enormous, ruby-colored seahorse. Below this was a comfortable looking gondola of a dark, lacquered wood with gold filigree. Spyder saw the seahorse blocks away, but wasn’t worried. By now he knew that no one else could see the thing or would remember it for more than a few seconds if they did.