She felt a surge of panic. She had no idea what the power was or how it worked. What if she couldn't use it again right away? What if she needed something that had been in the pawnshop as a catalyst?
"Lady, I told you, this is a restricted area. Now, are you going to get out of here or do I got to call somebody?" Panic turned to helplessness, helplessness to anger. What good was this power if she couldn't use it to help Hannah? And with the anger it came. The lights flickered and the music from a TV inside the lockup dissolved in static. Suddenly she could hear the prisoners screaming. The man staggered, leaned forward to support himself on his desk. "Jesus Christ," the man said. "Jesus Christ."
"Where's the keys?"
"What'd you do to me, lady? I can't lift my fuckin' arms."
"The keys."
The man slumped into his chair, unsnapped the keys from his belt, and slid them across the desk. Behind Veronica a man's voice said, "Charlie?"
Veronica concentrated on the voice without turning around and heard the man slump to the floor. The third key she tried fit a control panel next to the steel lockup door. A motor wheezed and the door bucked but didn't open. She realized she was still disrupting the electricity and forced herself to relax.
The door slid back. There were four cells inside. Three of them held drunks and addicts and derelicts. In the fourth were four black prostitutes, and Hannah. All of them but Hannah were screaming for help.
Hannah hung from a pipe in the ceiling by her trousers. Her face was swollen and purple and her tongue stuck straight out of her slack mouth. Her eyes bulged. A patch of hair had been ripped out by the zipper in her pants and a drop of dried blood still clung to her scalp. Veronica threw herself at the bars, her screams lost in the voices around her. She felt the keys tugged out of her hand and one of the hookers opened the cell from inside. Veronica ran to Hannah and held her with one arm around her waist, the other hand tugging at the knotted pant leg around her neck.
She refused to think. Not yet. Not while there was still something left to try. She laid Hannah's body out on the sticky gray floor of the cell. She pushed the swollen tongue aside and dug vomit out of Hannah's throat with her fingers. She blew air into her lungs until she lost all breath herself.
One of the prostitutes had stayed behind. She looked at Veronica and said, "She a wild woman before she die. Bitch went completely crazy. Never saw anything like it. We couldn't get near to her."
Veronica nodded.
"I tried to stop her, but there weren't no way. Girl was crazy, that's all."
"Thank you," Veronica said.
Then the cell was full of police, guns drawn, and there was nothing she could do but raise her hands and go along with them.
She waited until she was alone with two detectives before she used her power again. She left the two of them barely conscious on the floor of the interrogation room and walked out into the night.
The street was headlights and horns honking, blaring jam boxes and shouting voices, all of it too bright, too loud, too overwhelming. Inside her it was the same. Her mind would not shut up. Hannah was her life, the only thing that mattered. If Hannah was dead, how could she still be alive?
The thought was white-hot, too painful to touch. Better, she thought, to just think of herself as already dead. She watched a bus roar past her and wondered what it would feel like to go under its wheels.
Then she remembered the look on Hannah's face as she lay on the floor of the bank, as her consciousness came back into her. She remembered the prostitute in the cell. Crazy, wild woman, the prostitute had said.
Someone had done this to Hannah. Somewhere in the city there was someone who knew what had happened, and why.
Not dead, Veronica thought. Hannah is dead, and I'm not. Someone knows why.
It turned into a refrain, a mantra. It brought her back to Hannah's apartment, took her inside. She lay down in Hannah's bed and held one of Hannah's shirts to her face and breathed the smell. Liz crawled up onto the bed next to her and started to purr. Together they lay there and waited to, see if the sun would ever rise.
Mr. Nobody Goes to Town by Walton Simons
Jerry pushed the intercom button and stared up at the closed-circuit TV A cold wind whipped at him, stinging his-face and ears. Overeating at Thanksgiving dinner hadn't given him much in the way of winter fat. But it was only early December, he could keep working on it. "Who is it?" said a polite female voice over the intercom.
Jerry recognized Ichiko. "Jerry Strauss. I'd like to come up and talk to you about Veronica. Or, at least, get warm."
There was a buzz and the automatic door bolt clicked open. Jerry pushed his way in and walked into the sitting room, rubbing his hands. A woman sat on the low couch. She was tall, with long brown hair, distant eyes, and soft features. She stared past Jerry toward the street. Jerry walked to the door of Ichiko's office and knocked. "Come in."
Jerry slipped in and sat down in the chair opposite Ichiko's desk. The office was more high tech than Jerry had expected. There was a computer on her credenza and a bank of TV screens showing the outside of the building and the sitting room. Jerry had only seen the one camera; the rest must be hidden. Ichiko was wearing a dark blue dress. Her eyes looked tired, but she managed a smile. "Thanks for seeing me," Jerry said. "I was just wondering if you had any idea how I could find Veronica, or even contact her."
Ichiko shook her head. "She moved all her belongings out a few weeks ago. She didn't tell me about her future plans."
"Do you have any ideas at all?"
"No." Ichiko pressed her fingertips together. "Really. Would you like to try someone else as a companion?"
"No. I don't know how I got into this situation in the first place. It's not really like me. Veronica was special, I guess."
All women are special. Men as well, I suppose.' Ichiko stood. "I'm sorry I've been unable to help you, Mr. Strauss."
"It was just a shot," Jerry said, standing and taking a step toward the door.
Ichiko looked up at the monitors. A red light was flashing under one of them. Two young Oriental men were staring up at the screen. One of them pulled out a can of spray paint. He held it up to the camera. The screen went dark. "Damn," Ichiko said. She pushed the intercom to the sitting room. "Diane, get in here now."
Jerry heard footfalls outside and the door swung open, almost hitting him. The young woman shut the door behind her. Her already pale complexion had gone white. "They're at the outside door," she said. "Two Egrets."
"What's going on?" Jerry backed away from the door and stood behind the desk with Ichiko and Diane. "Immaculate Egrets. Street thugs," Ichiko said. "We've refused to pay them protection money. I used to be able to threaten them with the return of my son, but it's been so long."
"Fortunato?" Jerry asked.
"No, Santa Claus." Diane's voice was trembling, but she managed a quick stare that made Jerry feel like a six-year-old.
Jerry looked at Ichiko's desktop. There was a picture of Fortunato. He picked it up and sat in the chair, studying the photograph.
"What are you doing?" Ichiko's voice was calm and curious.
"The best I can," said Jerry. "Either one of you got a mirror?"
Diane fumbled in her purse and handed him a compact. Jerry stared into it and started changing his features and skin tone.
"Jesus," said Diane. "No wonder Veronica was spooked by you."
Jerry ignored the comment and handed her back the compact. He turned to Ichiko. "How do I look?"
"A little more forehead," she said.
There was a pounding at the office door, then laughter. "Diane, let them in," Jerry said, trying to force authority into his voice.
The girl opened the door and stood back. The two Egrets walked into the room like foxes entering the henhouse. They saw Jerry and stopped.