Veronica buttoned her rumpled silk blouse and brushed at the creases in her skirt. "I got to go."
"I've got three o'clock set aside for you. If you want to talk some more."
"Just talk? Or do you fuck all your patients?"
There was a short, hurt silence. "You're the first. I suppose I should feel like I've pissed away all my ethics, but I don't."
Veronica opened the door. "I'll think about it," she said. Then she belted on her coat and ran down the stairs.
Jerry was waiting for her when she got back to the brownstone.
"Melanie said you were sick," he said. "I wanted to see if I could help."
"No, Jerry. It's sweet of you and all, but no."
"Where were you? Did you go out on another date?"
Veronica shook her head. "I've been to the doctor, that's all."
Jerry looked her up and down. obviously made the decision not to call her out. He sat on the sofa and looked at the flowers he'd sent her the day before, still on the desk by the phone, the card unopened. "I'm wasting my time, aren't I?"
"Jerry. What do you want me to say? You shouldn't have fallen in love with a hooker. I mean, what were you thinking about? Did you think I was available on a Rentto-Own plan?" She sat down next to him, touched his face. "You're a sweet kid, Jerry. Women should go nuts for you. Real women. That's what you deserve. Not some half-breed Puerto Rican junkie hooker."
Junkie, she thought. She'd actually said it.
"You're the one I want," Jerry said, looking at the floor.
"You don't even know me. You've got no idea. You're trying to catch up on twenty years overnight, and you see me as some kind of shortcut. Nothing happens that fast. Give yourself some time."
"Can I see you tonight?"
"No. Not tonight." She paused, got up her nerve. "Not ever. Not anymore."
"Why? I love you."
"You don't know what love is. You don't know what you're talking about. You've got some kind of stupid romantic ideas from all those movies you watch and they don't have anything to do with real life. I can't stand it. I don't want to be the only thing propping up this makebelieve world of yours. I'm not strong enough."
She stood up. "Veronica, please!"
She couldn't look at him. His face was all twisted, like he was trying not to cry. "I'm sorry, Jerry" she said. "You'll find somebody. You'll see." She ran upstairs.
It wasn't even noon, but she was wide-awake, her head clear. It made her nervous to feel as good as she did. She showered and put on jeans and a sweater and went downtown for her methadone. Okay, she thought, standing in line, feeling the November sun warm her hair. You can admit you're a junkie. You can admit you're tired of iturning tricks. What does that leave you?
All the girls had savings accounts in Ichiko's name. Half their earnings went into the fund every month, carefully monitored by the new computer. If Veronica gave up the Life, she could collect the money. It would keep her alive for at least a couple of years. Then what? Find some poor sap like Jerry and settle down to have kids?
She got to the head of the line. A boy in a white lab coat behind the window glanced at her card and gave her the dose. She drank it and threw the cup at an overflowing trash can. It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough not to hurt, not to have the need. Heroin was more than that, more than an end to pain. It was the rush, the joy, the way the cool fire went through her like God's love.
She took a battered list of phone numbers out of her purse and started dialing. Twice she left messages on phone machines and the third time she got lucky. "Croyd?" she said.
"Himself. Where are you, darlin'?" His words ended with muffled clicks. She hadn't seen him in three months. He'd obviously slept, and woken in a distorted body. That was okay. Veronica could see past the surface.
"Chelsea," she said. "Want to get high?"
He was near the East River, in the waterfront apartment where she'd first spent the night with him, two years before. That was Wild Card Day, when the Astronomer had killed Caroline, and Fortunato had left for Japan.
When she was high, those memories never bothered her.
Croyd answered the door and Veronica stood and stared at him for a long moment. "I'd kiss you," Croyd said, "but I'm afraid I might hurt you."
"That's okay, I'll pass." The clicking she'd heard on the phone came when he shut his beak at the end of a word. He was over seven feet tall and covered with feathers. A thin membrane linked his arms to his sides. "Can you fly?"
He shook his head. "Too heavy. Shame, isn't it? I can glide a little, dive out of a second-story window. So it's not a complete loss."
His eyes were shiny black and the wrinkled feathers above them gave him a look of fierce intelligence. "I may be wasting my time," she said.
The beak opened into a smile. "The wings may not be functional, but the rest of me is."
Veronica shook her head. "I'm in trouble, Croyd. Have you got any coke?"
They sat at his kitchen table, a slab of pine with cigarette burns and peeling varnish. Veronica did two lines then passed the straw to Croyd. He snorted his into the small black holes at the base of his beak. Veronica wiped the mirror down with her index finger and rubbed it into her gums. "Better," she said.
"You sure you don't want to finish this conversation in bed?"
She shook her head. "I need a friend right now. Weird shit is happening to me. I can't get a handle." She told him about Hannah, about nearly throwing up after her last "date."
Croyd listened intently. At least he looked intent. When she finished he said, "It's probably stupid for me to say this. I mean, this is not in my best interest. But you can't go against what you feel. You need to see this woman again, in the light of day, and make up your mind about her. Maybe you are gay. So what? Do you really care what a bunch of square assholes think about your sex life?"
"I feel like I'm fourteen," Veronica said. "All these emotional roller coasters. I can't keep up."
"You want my advice, don't even try. Let it happen. And if you get in trouble, you can call me." It sounded like they were finished, but Croyd hesitated, like there was something else he had to say. "There's nothing else happened, right? I mean, no… no symptoms."
He was talking about that whole Typhoid Croyd business. She shook her head. "No. No sudden ace powers, no flippers on the ends of my legs. I don't think it did anything to me at all."
"It's just-I feel responsible, that's all."
"Don't worry about it."
He walked her to the door and she hugged him tight, despite the peculiar acid smell of his feathers. His hands rested flat against her back. "I have to be careful," he said.
"If I bend my fingers too much, these claws come out." He showed her the claws. There was a light of pleasure in his eyes when he looked at them.
"So long, Croyd," she said. "Thanks for everything."
She got to Hannah's office just before four. "I'm late," she said.
Hannah held the door for her. "It doesn't matter. There's nobody else scheduled for this afternoon." Then she said, "I'm glad you came."
Veronica was giddy from cocaine and nerves and couldn't sit down. Hannah took her usual position, in the chair across the table from the couch.
"How's the methadone working out?" Hannah asked. "Fine," Veronica said. "It's great." She walked behind the couch, turned around, leaned into the back of it. "No, it's not great. It's not enough. I still want to get high. I need it."
"Why?"
"Why? What a stupid fucking question. Because I like to feel good. Because when you're high, you don't care about wading through all the world's shit-"
"What shit?" Hannah said. "What shit are you living in that you didn't put yourself into? You've got everything backward. You think you can control your drug habit and you can't control your life. It's the other way around, you just don't know it. You have no control over heroin. It owns you. They call it horse, but it's really riding you. That's step one of what they call the Twelve-Step Plan. You have to admit you are powerless to control your addiction. And then, later on, you can learn to take responsibility for the rest of your life. As in 'the ability to respond.' Not blame, not control, but responsibility. Something you can live with."