I straddled Mikimoto, pinning him facedown against the filthy glass-strewn floor. He was raging, babbling incoherently in some language I didn’t understand.
“You’re under arrest,” I said, wishing to God I had a pair of cuffs. “You have the right to remain silent. If you choose to waive that right-”
Mikimoto swung around with a speed that caught me by surprise. He had a small switchblade in his hand.
Now that pissed me off.
I twisted his arm at the socket, breaking it. The knife clattered to the floor. I wrenched his hand back, pinching it in the soft fleshy part between the thumb and forefinger. He screamed. With his slicked-back hair in my fist, I pounded his head against the floor.
“Goddamn drug dealer,” I muttered. “Preying on kids. Pulling a knife on me.” I shoved his face down again, hard, and then repeated it, again and again and again.
I felt someone pulling on my shoulders, trying to interfere. Another accomplice?
No. It was Harry, the old guy who worked behind the bar.
“Susan!” He’d been shouting, but for some reason it hadn’t registered until now. “Stop it! Stop it!”
“Keep cool,” I said as I let Mikimoto’s limp head flop to the floor. “This creep’s the worst scum in Vegas. Pushes hard drugs to schoolchildren.”
“Who the hell are you trying to kid?”
I didn’t understand him, didn’t get it at all. But as I stared at Mikimoto’s face, it seemed to, I don’t know, sort of shimmer. Like a shape-shifter in a science fiction movie.
“This is police work, Harry,” I growled, still staring at the face on the floor. “I’m doing my job.”
“You’re drunk off your ass is what you are. Did you bloody that kid up just ’cause he was trying to make time with you?”
I kept watching as the face changed, the whole body changed, and instead of a slick black T there was a pink Polo. How had the drug scum pulled this off? I wondered. Disguising himself as some preppy creep!
I pushed up to my feet. All at once, I realized how wobbly I was. The room began to spin, so I sat down again. The problem with that was, my eyes went back to the face, that kid’s face, and I saw all the splattered blood and swollen flesh surrounding it. That finely chiseled face was like a pound of ground round.
Strong hands rummaged under my coat, taking my flask, and I didn’t resist. “I told you to lay off the sauce an hour ago,” Harry said. “Didn’t know you had a private stash, damn you. How the hell am I going to explain this?”
The room was still spinning, even though I was sitting. I felt like I might rip my stomach out with a dull knife if I could. Then I noticed that I was bleeding, too, that I was sitting in a pool of glass, and that there was an especially large shard right in front of me, and I recall thinking someone should do something about that because it could hurt someone, and then I grabbed it and jabbed it into my left wrist. Blood spewed everywhere.
I fell over onto the floor, head first, and the rest of the world went away. After that, I don’t remember anything. I assumed I was dead.
“Am I dead?” the young girl asked.
He stared down at her, stretched out on the table before him, a luminescent tableau so full of innocence and youthful curiosity. Her lengthy stay in the basement, so far from the bright lights of the city, had caused her skin to etiolate, but rather than detracting from her natural splendor, it seemed to enhance it. The primordial was strong with her, he sensed. He had chosen well.
“Of course you’re not dead, my darling. You can see, can’t you? Hear, smell, taste, and touch?”
“I can’t move. Not at all. Nothing below my neck.”
“I know.”
“I think I’ve wet myself, but I’m not sure.”
“You have.”
“Even talking is hard.”
He brushed a hand gently across her forehead, straightening her bangs. “I’m so sorry.”
“And I’m scared. Really scared. You’re not going to hurt me, are you, mister?”
He was short of stature, but he liked to think he had a certain presence just the same. Did his accent thicken as he spoke to the offering? He suspected that it did. The genteel Southern gentleman rose to the surface.
He turned and gazed out the window, just above ground level. The sky was clear as glass; the air was pungently sweet. And oh, the stars-! The stars seemed to go on forever, traveling from his private retreat all the way to Dream-Land. Heaven was real here, far removed from the decay of the city, the fiberglass façades and organic stench. He did not look down but across, outward, into the desert, the vast untouched expanse, the low-lying Spring Mountains, feeling the arid warmth as it bathed and reassured him.
“Mister?” Her voice was slow and stuporous.
“Yes?”
“Am I-am I-” Her hair was caught in her mouth. She tried to blow it away, but it was sticky and wet and wouldn’t go and there was nothing she could do. She was like a rag doll, unable to help herself.
He reached down and brushed the hair out of her mouth. “Is that better, my dear?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“And your question?”
Her eyes were swollen and red from the anger phase. Screaming, shouting, threatening. Testing the waters, learning the abject futility of it all. Now she was more subdued, acquiescent. “Am I naked?”
“Yes, love. You’re just as God made you.”
“W-Why?”
“Because I wanted to see you as you truly are.”
“Did you… do anything to me? While I was out?”
He pressed a hand against his black cotton vest. “What manner of monster do you take me for, madam?”
“Well… I didn’t know.”
“There has been no physical impropriety, I can assure you of that.”
“Well… that’s… good, I guess. So… could I have my clothes back?”
“I’m afraid not.” He reached down and brushed another strand of hair out of her mouth. He held it for a moment, staring at the root. “ ‘The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes…’ ” He looked at her with opprobrium. “You’re not a natural blonde.”
“No.”
“But your-your-” His face flushed.
“Dyed that, too.”
“Oh, my. Oh, my.” He assumed a stern expression. “My dear girl, this will never do. I mean, it simply isn’t done.”
“All the girls at my high school were doing it.”