He sighed. “I don’t want to be the one to tell him about Aphrodite, but I guess I’ll have to.”
“Were they still close?”
“No. But I think that makes it worse. Gryffin—”
He fell silent and looked away.
“We better keep moving,” he said at last.
He left. I hurried to a nightstand, rifling the drawers till I located a piece of stationery. Then I got out John Stone’s pen and my film canister with the stolen pills and removed four Percocets.
proud to serve read the pen, and it did. I rolled it back and forth on top of the pills, pressing with the heel of my hand to crush them to a powder. When I was done, I scraped the powder into the slip of folded paper and stowed it carefully in my pocket.
I was almost to the door when I saw a bookshelf nearly hidden behind a metal bureau. Its oversized art and photography books were organized by size, not artist, but I knew where I’d find Dead Girls, lined up neatly between Untitled Film Stills and Roberta Bayley’s Blank Generation. I pulled it out and looked at the title page.
For Lucien
A shot in the eye! This one’s the REAL THING.
Denny
I left without looking at Denny’s photos again. I didn’t want to get any closer to them than I already was.
23
Toby was in the kitchen, putting away his tools. I sidled toward the counter.
“You mind if I give that rum and Moxie thing another try?”
“Go ahead.” He smiled wearily. “Help yourself.”
“You want one too?”
“Thanks, yeah. Not too much rum.” He rubbed his forehead. “I’m going out to have a cigarette. Lucien doesn’t like me smoking in the house. Right back.”
I found a glass in a cupboard and tipped the crushed pills into it. I could see Toby through the window, smoking on the stone steps. I poured a shot of rum into the glass then filled it with Moxie.
I sniffed and took a tiny sip. The stuff tasted so foul to begin with, I couldn’t tell any difference with the Percocet chaser. To be on the safe side I added more rum.
I needed this to work fast if it was going to work at all, but I didn’t want to kill him. Toby was a decent guy. He was also my only ticket back to Burnt Harbor.
Someone told me once that there’s no such thing as luck. You make decisions all the time without being conscious of it—like, you move before you realize you’re darting to avoid an oncoming truck. Or you walk toward a car before you realize the voice you hear is a stranger’s, and it isn’t whispering your name.
So maybe these things aren’t accidents at all. Maybe they’re just the beginning of a long chain of events that you set in motion yourself. Maybe you set it in motion before you were even old enough to remember. Playing in the car while your mother’s driving. Hearing what happened next. Opening your eyes when they should have remained closed. Seeing something you should never have seen. Moving when you should have stood still. Standing still when you should have run.
I watched Toby through the window. When he put out his cigarette I grabbed another glass and sloshed some Moxie into it.
“Hey,” I said as he walked back in. “Here—”
I handed him the doped glass. He looked approvingly at my nearly empty one.
“See? It grows on you.” He took a sip. “You know, it’s going to be an hour or two till I get back from Denny’s. If I’d thought this through better I wouldn’t have drained the hot water tank. You could’ve taken a shower.”
“That bad?”
He smiled and drank some more. “No, no. I just thought, you must be tired. I know you’re cold.”
“I’m better now.” I looked around and tried to determine which piece of barbed-wire furniture would be the most comfortable for someone to pass out on. I decided on a chaise that looked like a head-on collision, pulled a chair beside it and sat. “So where does ol’ Denny live?’
Toby settled on the chaise. “Other side of the island, past the little quarries. His place is by the biggest one. Maybe a mile. There’s an old road where they used to haul granite down to the harbor.”
He pointed toward the empty beach. “Hard to believe now.”
“Mmm.”
I waited impatiently. I was so wired I felt like smashing through those nice big windows. That would fit right in with Ryel’s aesthetic. I choked back a mouthful of Moxie and poured myself some Jack Daniel’s.
“Cheers,” I said, drinking. “I’m reverting to type.”
Toby finished his cocktail. “You sure you don’t want to take a nap?”
“Toby,” I said. “Listen to me: I don’t want to take a fucking nap.”
I prayed those Percocet weren’t controlled-release. Best-case scenario, Toby would start feeling drowsy within a few minutes. I banked on the alcohol boosting that.
“You’re the one doing all the work,” I said. “Rowing and stuff. Why don’t you chill out for a few minutes? I’ll wake you.”
Toby leaned back on the chaise. “Too much to do, if we’re going to get back to Paswegas tonight.” He yawned.
“Go on, rest for five minutes,” I urged. “I will if you will.”
“Yeah, okay, maybe. But…”
He looked at me, dazed. Faint comprehension crossed his face. “Hey. This is kinda…”
He tried to stand then sank back, staring at me with glazed eyes. “You.”
“It’s okay, Toby.” I poured myself some more Jack Daniel’s. “I can wait.”
He closed his eyes. I waited.
It didn’t take that long. When I thought he was out, I crouched at his side.
“Hey, Toby,” I whispered then raised my voice. “Toby, man, wake up.”
I shook him gently. He snorted, and I lowered him onto the chaise.
Down for the count. I folded my anorak and slid it under his head. His eyes fluttered open. He gazed at me blankly then began to snore.
I looked outside. It was almost three o’clock. The sun would set in an hour. I had ninety minutes before nightfall, tops. I went into the kitchen and yanked open drawers and cabinets until I found a flashlight. I pocketed it, got some water and swallowed one more Adderall. I only had two left.
My instinct was to bring the Konica. But I didn’t want to risk losing it. If I made it back safely I could retrieve it then. If not…
I stood and zipped my leather jacket. I pulled on the orange watch cap, grabbed the boat hook, and headed for the door. As I did, I caught a glimpse of myself in a dark window: a gaunt Valkyrie holding a spear taller than I was, teeth bared in a drunken grimace and eyes bloodshot from some redneck teenager’s ADD medication.
“Hey ho, let’s go,” I said, and went.
24
Christine once showed me a quote from Nietzsche: “Terrible experiences give one cause to speculate whether the one who experiences them may not be something terrible.”
“That’s you.” She shoved the book at me. “What happened to you in the Bowery that night—”
“Shut up,” I said.
“I’m right! You know I’m right! You can’t let go of it, you can’t even think of letting go of it or grieving or doing any goddam thing that might help! So you better just hope nothing else bad ever happens to you. Because you know what, Cass?”
She stabbed a finger at my portfolio on the table: Hard To Be Human Again. “You’ve got so much rage in you, you’re hardly even human now.”
I walked until I found the road Toby had spoken of, an earthen track covered with chunks of stone. Far below, the wind roared off the gray Atlantic; to either side, cat spruce thrashed and moaned like something alive.