"We're going to have to stop for a while," she told Raul, aware that she was slurring as she spoke. "Or I'm going to end up killing us both."
"You want to sleep?"
"I don't know," she said, afraid that to sleep would invite as many problems as it would solve. "At least rest. Get some coffee inside me, and put my mind in order."
"Here?" said Raul.
"Here what?"
"We stop here?"
"No," she said. "We'll go back to my apartment. It's half an hour from here. That's if we fly—"
You already are, baby, her mind said, and you'll probably never stop. You're a resurrected woman. What do you expect? That life should simply fumble on as though nothing had happened? Forget it. Things'll never be the same again.
But West Hollywood hadn't changed; still Boy's Town prettified: the bars, the style stores where she bought her jewelry. She took a left off Santa Monica on to North Huntley Drive, where she'd lived for the five years she'd been in L.A. It was almost noon now, and the smog was burning off the city. She parked the car in the garage below the building, and took Raul up to Apartment V. The windows of her downstairs neighbor, a sour, repressed little man with whom she'd exchanged no more than three sentences in half a decade, and two of those invective, were open, and he doubtless saw her passing. She estimated it would take him twenty minutes at the most to inform the block that Miss Lonelyhearts, as she'd heard he called her, was back in town—looking like shit, and accompanied by Quasimodo. So be it. She had other things to worry about, like how to align her key with the lock, a trick which repeatedly defeated her confounded senses. Raul came to the rescue, taking the key from her trembling fingers and letting them both in. The apartment, as usual, was a disaster area. She left the door wide and opened the windows to let in some less stale air, then played her messages. Her agent had called twice, both times to report that there was no further news on the castaway screenplay; Saralyn had called, asking if she knew where Grillo was. Following Saralyn, Tesla's mother: her contribution more a litany of sins than a message—crimes committed by the world in general, and her father in particular. Finally there was a message from Mickey de Falco, who made spare bucks providing orgasmic grunts for fuck films, and needed a partner for a gig. In the background, a barking dog. "And as soon as you're back," he said in signing off, "come and get this fucking dog before it eats me outta house and home." She caught Raul watching her as she listened to the calls, his bemusement unconcealed.
"My peer group," she said when Mickey had said his farewells. "Aren't they a gas? Look, I'm going to have a little nap. It's obvious where everything is, right? Refrigerator; TV; toilet. Wake me in an hour, yeah?"
"An hour."
"I'd like tea, but we don't have the time." She stared at him, staring at her. "Am I making any sense?"
"Yes..." he replied doubtfully.
"Slurring my words?"
"Yes."
"Thought so. OK. The apartment's yours. Don't answer the phone. See you in an hour."
She stumbled through to the bathroom without waiting for further confirmation, stripped down completely, contemplated a shower, settled for a splash of cold water on her face, breasts and arms, then went through to the bedroom. The room was hot, but she knew better than to open the window. When her immediate neighbor Ron woke, which was around now, he would start to play opera. It was either the heat of the room or Lucia di Lammermoor. She chose to sweat.
Left to his own devices Raul found a selection of edibles in the refrigerator, took them to the open window, sat down, and shook. He could not remember being so afraid, back since the day Fletcher's madness had begun. Now, as then, the rules of the world had suddenly changed without warning, and he no longer knew what his purpose was to be. In his heart of hearts he'd given up hoping to see Fletcher again. The shrine he'd kept at the Mission, which had been a beacon at the start, had become a memorial. He'd expected to die there, alone, humored to the last as a half-wit, which in many ways he was. He could scarcely write, except to scrawl his own name. He couldn't read. Most of the objects in the woman's room were a total mystery to him. He was lost.
A cry from the next room stirred him from self-pity.
"Tesla?" he called.
There was no coherent reply: only further muted cries. He got up and followed the sound. The door to her bedroom was closed. He hesitated, hand on handle, nervous of entering without invitation. Then another round of cries reached him. He pushed the door open.
He'd never in his life seen a woman so exposed. The sight of Tesla sprawled on the bed transfixed him. Her arms were at her sides, gripping the sheet, her head rolled from side to side. But there was a fogginess about her body that reminded him of what had happened on the road below the Mission. She was moving away from him again. Back towards the Loop. Her shouts had become moans now. They were not of pleasure. She was going unwillingly.
He called her name again, very loudly. She suddenly sat bolt upright, eyes wide and staring at him.
"Jesus!" she said. She was panting, as though she'd just run a race. "Jesus. Jesus. Jesus."
"You were shouting..." he said, trying to begin to explain his presence in the room.
Only now did she seem to realize their situation: her nakedness, his embarrassed fascination. She reached for a sheet and started to haul it over her, but her intention was distracted by what she'd just experienced.
"I was there," she said.
"I know."
"Trinity. Kissoon's Loop."
As they'd driven back up the coast she'd done her best to explain to him the vision she'd had while the Nuncio had been healing her, both as a way to fix its details in her head and to keep a recurrence at bay by coaxing the memories out of the sealed cell of her inner life and into shared experience. She painted a repulsive picture of Kissoon.
"You saw him?" Raul said.
"I didn't get to the hut," she replied. "But he wants me there. I can feel him pulling. " She put her hand on her stomach. "I can feel him now, Raul."
"I'm here," he said. "I won't let you go."
"I know, and I'm glad."
She reached out. "Take hold of my hand, huh?" He tentatively approached the bed. "Please," she said. He did so. "I saw that town again," she went on. "It seems so real, except there's nobody there, nobody at all. It's...it's like a stage...like something's going to be performed there."
"Performed."
"This is making no sense, I know, but I'm just telling you what I feel. Something terrible's going to happen there, Raul. The worst thing imaginable."
"You don't know what?"
"Or maybe it already happened?" she said. "Maybe that's why there's nobody in the town. No. No. That's not it. It's not over, it's just about to happen."
She tried to make sense of her confusions the best way she knew. If she were setting a scene in that town, for a movie, what would it be? A gun-fight on Main Street? The citizens locked up behind their doors while the White Hats and the Black Hats shot it out? Possibly. Or a town vacated as some stomping behemoth appeared on the horizon? The classic fifties monster scenario: a creature woken by nuclear tests—