Robert Gregory Browne
Whisper in the Dark
For Leila
ONE
The Woman Who Wasn’t Quite Myra
1
It was a pretty uneventful night until the naked lady tried to kill him.
Dubosky was just coming off a twenty-hour shift, had just dropped off a couple of Latino kids who had gotten frisky on his backseat, when he decided to forgo the usual last lap around the neighborhood and head straight for the cab shack.
His dispatcher, Freddy, a waste of space if there ever was one, was on the radio trying to get him to respond.
“Hey, numbnuts, I got another pickup for you.”
Dubosky ignored him.
He couldn’t count the number of times he’d heard that phlegm-throttled voice telling him to get his ass in gear, telling him he was one step away from the unemployment line, telling him if he put even a single dent in his rig, it was coming out of his own pocket.
Numbnuts, huh?
Fuck him. And fuck this job, too.
Dubosky didn’t know whether it was age or sheer exhaustion that made him feel this way, but after eighteen years on what seemed like an endless circling of the city, he was ready to crash this friggin’ rig, grab a shotgun, and start blasting away.
Freddy was first on his list.
Dubosky had been working twelve-, sixteen-, twenty-hour shifts for the better part of his life. He couldn’t pick his kids out of a high school yearbook, and if his poor wife hadn’t taken on a lover by now, it was a miracle, because he didn’t have the energy to eat, let alone screw. Even half a dozen hits of extra-strength Levitra wouldn’t get Old Rusty to stir.
There comes a point in your life, he told himself, you gotta ignore all good sense, forget about doing the right thing, and think about one person: you.
Which was exactly what he planned to do the moment he got back to the cab shack. Tell Freddy to shove this job up his stinky little bunghole, then get out into the world and breathe some free friggin’ air. Fill his lungs and keep filling ’em and never look back.
By the time he turned onto The Avenue, he was already lost in a daydream about a weeklong cruise in the Greek Islands, Judy hooked on one arm, sipping a piña colada, as they headed back to their cabin to put Old Rusty to the test.
He was pretty deep into it when a shadow flashed under a nearby street lamp. Before he knew Christ from Hosea, a figure darted in front of his windshield.
Dubosky slammed the brakes, his rear end fishtailing, his tires making a sick squeal beneath him. Squeezing his eyes shut, he waited for the inevitable thud of bumper against bone.
But it didn’t come.
Instead, he skidded to an unimpeded stop in the middle of the street and looked out to see nothing, nothing but the streetlights and the parked cars and the stark empty blacktop with its newly painted lines.
What the hell?
Instinct drew his attention to a space on his left. Huddled between two parked cars, trembling in the cold night air, was a street hag — this one more street than hag — about thirty or so from the looks of her, and as naked as a two-year-old at bath time.
Except for the blood all over her hands and face.
Jesus. Had he hit her?
Dubosky cranked the parking brake, then threw open his door and took a tentative step toward her. “You okay, lady?”
It was a ridiculous question. She was, after all, crouched there in her birthday suit, covered with about a year’s worth of grime and fresh blood, a skinny little thing looking what could generously be described as disoriented. As he approached her, he realized it didn’t much matter what he said. She was tuned to another frequency.
He was about three feet away from her, trying not to stare at her tits — which were, admittedly, pretty remarkable despite the circumstances — when she suddenly looked up at him with fierce, untamed eyes.
Then she pounced.
It was only then that Dubosky realized she was holding a pair of scissors. They arced high in the air — the windup before the pitch. Halfway through the pounce, Dubosky did the instinctive thing again and put a fist in her face.
The woman went down with a whimper, scissors clattering on the blacktop, and stopped moving.
Friggin’ nutcase.
Dubosky crouched beside her and winced. She smelled like roadkill. But she was still breathing. And despite the blood, he couldn’t see any major damage.
Was it even hers?
Glancing at the scissors, which also had a fair amount of blood on them, he wondered if this was the first time she’d tried to use them.
The radio squawked behind him. “Where the hell are you, you goddamn potato chugger?”
Dubosky grabbed a blanket from the trunk, then got on the radio and told Fuckhead Freddy to shut his cake eater and call the cops.
Solomon St. fort was coming up on the Dumpster behind The Burger Basket, looking to score a late-night snack, when he heard someone crying. It came from inside the alleyway, the deep, wracking sobs of a soul in pain.
Solomon hesitated, listening to the sound, torn between hunger and curiosity.
His gaze drifted to the Dumpster. The Burger Basket routinely dumped their leftovers, filling the bin with stuff they couldn’t unload before closing time. Solomon could smell the chili dogs from ten yards away.
But the Dumpster wasn’t going anywhere, and the sobbing intrigued him. Moving into the alley, he headed toward the source of the sound, stopping short when he saw a man in a ratty overcoat sitting in the narrow space between two overflowing trash cans, knees to his chest, head in his hands, crying like a lost child.
Solomon immediately recognized him. “Clarence?”
The man looked up sharply, tears streaming, ragged tracks on a dirty face. The sobs grew louder when he saw Solomon. “She’s dead, man. She’s dead.”
Solomon frowned. “Who’s dead? Who you talkin’ about?”
“Who you think? Myra, that’s who.”
Myra was a stone-cold junkie who had hooked up with Clarence about six months ago. Fine-looking white woman who used to be a swimsuit model, although she didn’t have much meat on her bones these days. Solomon had just seen her this afternoon, over at the Brotherhood of Christ soup kitchen, thinking she didn’t look quite right.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I told you she was sick, man. Coughin’ up all that shit. Then she goes and puts the needle in her arm and bugs out right there in front of me, eyes rolling up inside her head. Next thing I know she’s on the ground and she ain’t movin’.”
Solomon felt gut-punched. He hadn’t known Myra very long, but he liked her. Had a kind of fatherly affection for her. “How long ago was this?”
“I don’t know. Couple hours.”
“And you just left her?”
“She’s dead, man. What am I supposed to do?”
“Don’t you know nothin’ about junkies?” Solomon said. “Just ’cause they stop movin’ don’t mean they’re dead. You shoulda got some help.”
“From who?” Clarence cried. “The cops? They ain’t interested in some hopped-up street whore.”
“Bullshit. You got scared, so you run away.”
Solomon remembered how Myra had once shown him a picture from a magazine. Kept it folded up in the back pocket of those ratty jeans she wore. It was an old ad for men’s cologne, a younger Myra staring out at the camera with pouty lips and fuck-me eyes.
He heaved a weary sigh. “If she wasn’t dead then,” he said, “she probably is now. Where’d you leave her?”
Clarence wiped his face with the sleeve of his overcoat. “Over at our place, under the lean-to.”