Bottled Abyss (32 page)

The Fury leans over me—“Do you know the
song—?” it asks again, breath like rotting chicken guts—

“His apartment number—?”

“I don’t know—! Two hundred something—”

The woman lifted an eyebrow—

“Two-eleven—!”

Notice my voice is raised, but not by much, I’m whisper-shouting, room is getting dizzy, feel like I just chased the dragon or something, haven’t had Horse in so long, only did it twice, was lucky, scared of it, quit when Mamacita found out, so ashamed, so very sad she saw me like that, could never let her think I was dirt like my cousin Jessy—

The Fury gasps for air—see a mouth move deep in its throat—“Justice, served—”

The woman had been waiting, goddamn her, not lifting a fuckin’ finger to get rid of this thing like she said, but now she’s trying to open my fingers— she’s wearing gloves and the leather burns my skin, she’s never gettin’ my fingers open though, wouldn’t happen, not opening them, never, not losing the coin, my coin, its mine, belongs to me now—my strength is giving though, fingers are coming undone, Christ I feel so loose, so high—the coin dissolves in my hand and grows inside my mouth, can taste its metal on my tongue, I’m still frightened, hear something click in my mind, the memory of a sound, like the hammer of a gun cocking—something smacks into my head hard and I watch blackness clot on the ceiling and cover everything.

3

Janet stared at the wide flourish of blood across the back wall and across Ramirez’s IV stand. The back of his head had blown apart in big and small pieces alike, leaving an enormous crater of an exit wound, but there was no visible hole in the wall behind him. There hadn’t even been a sound. His head just snapped back, blood misted over his pillow and a penny-sized wound revealed itself over his left eye. It was as though the idea of a bullet had killed him, not an actual slug.

That homeless man hadn’t been in danger of overdosing after all…

Janet stripped off her gloves and put them in her purse, then hurried over to the door and moved the chair. She stepped out into the small vestibule and peeked around the blue curtain. The coast looked clear. Looked like, anyway.

She glanced back through the door into the room. The Fury had vanished.

A jolt went through Janet as she felt the passing. This one entered her body more violently and rambled through like a ghost clothed in hot needles. She could taste blood in her mouth and her muscles became sore and watery.

She processed it, sucking a breath of air between her teeth.
So be it
.

Entire body trembling, Janet took another peek out the curtain. The nurses didn’t have their attention this way. She was about to move out when the lobby door opened.

Officer Davis accompanied a tall bald man dressed in a shirt and tie and a lean, white haired man in a suit.

Janet looked helplessly back into the hospital room, now a gory aftermath. Instinct called for her to hide but her mind shouted at the stupidity of such a move.

Davis and the bald man spoke to a nurse at the far end of the station. She pointed to Ramirez’s room. All heads turned as she pointed. Janet fell back behind the curtain.

She tapped her teeth and peered out the other side of the curtain in hopes to catch another glimpse before they came in. Davis and the man walked around the bend of the nurse’s station. Janet could see them coming closer and the more they did, the less she knew what to do. Her bladder felt about to give. She was going to piss herself, right there, on the floor, in the hospital. Davis and the bald man spoke together casually, as though on the way to lunch. They didn’t know what waited for them in this room. Or who.

The lobby door opened swiftly and two contract guards rushed in. One was the young guard from earlier, another radio on his hip, and his companion was a larger, thick-necked man pushing fifty.

“Detectives,” hollered the older guard.

Davis and her companion turned around. The white haired man took his briefcase’s handle in both hands, looking anxious. All backs turned, he shielded her from view. Janet took the opportunity, slipping outside the curtain. She walked down the other side of the loop around the nurse’s station. They were so close she could hear their voices.

“There’s no post? What’re we paying you guys for?”

“I’m so sorry, but I got food poisoning—I’m better now.”

“So very glad to hear it. And why didn’t you radio for a man change?”

“Well, I went downstairs for that, sir.”

“Good grief, I don’t have time for this kind of stuff today.”

Janet kept walking, keeping a normal pace and holding her purse against her hip. The bottle hardly made a sound and that made her both grateful and suspicious. She reached the electronic door and pushed through it. The lobby, which she’d earlier dreaded, suddenly became a haven, each chair and gloomy face a welcomed sight. She kept going, face down, hopefully not being filmed by a hidden camera. She made it to the elevators and as much as she wanted to head right for the stairs, she decided it might prompt someone to remember the lady in the revealing black dress, especially when five others stood waiting.

Janet waited with the others, keeping an eye on the lobby. She expected
Davis
or that detective friend of hers to come barging through, gun drawn like in the movies. The elevator doors opened though and she got onto the elevator without any dramatic action scene playing out.

Goodbye Josue. Next stop, Vincent Baker.

There was no ground level option on this elevator, so she picked floor two. Everybody else got out on floor three, and Janet was alone again.

Floor Two was mostly abandoned, as it had been when she and Stacy walked through. Janet kept toward the main corridor. Three security guards rushed down a perpendicular hall, the sounds of their equipment thumping and jangling even at a great distance. It dawned on her that leaving right now, though enticing, might not be the smartest thing to do if there were security cameras outside.

Besides, there was already a place to hide out for a while.

“There you are!” cried Stacy, hair beads clicking as she moved. “What on earth happened to you?”

“I went down an employee hall or something. I tried to turn back but all the halls looked the same, and this floor is so dead! I couldn’t find anybody to help me. I think something’s up. There were security guards running all over the place.”

“Uh-oh,” said Stacy, looking somewhat unconcerned.

“Glad I made here.”

Janet tried to sound normally vexed, not
I’m a murderer on the run
vexed. Everything in her mind questioned her tone, her stance, her possible complexion. How had she been so lucky?
I got into the ward.
The guard left his post. The cops turned their backs on me at just the right moment.

The bottle bubbled in response.

“Hungry?” Stacy raised her eyebrows.

Janet patted her stomach. “Indigestion.”

“There’s Rolaids in the vending machines.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“Come on in, I’ll show you around. My mentor’s not here anymore. She had to go home for lunch.”

“Oh, darn it.”

“There’s a bunch of cute, cuddly kids though.”

“Good, they’re much better than mentors.”

“I think so,” Stacy said with a chipper grin.

The room was wall-to-wall toys and children’s books. It was a chaotic arrangement at best; the temporary nature of the
Learning
Center
’s location was all too apparent with the stacks of Dr. Seuss books against the walls and the plastic crates of toys throughout. Next to a dusty chalkboard, a group of five kids sat in a circle on a play carpet and studied the two women. Janet noted they were around three or four years old.

“Hi!”

“Say, ‘Hi Janet!’” Stacy instructed.

“Hi Janet,” the group said softly.

Stacy turned to her. “You want to read them a story?”

A lump twisted in Janet’s throat. “Yeah, sure. Yes, I… I would really enjoy that actually.”

“Great.” Stacy patted her on the shoulder. “Want to pick the book?”

“You go ahead.”

Janet made her way over to the children and said hello again.

“Are you going to read us the train story?” asked a little boy. His flesh was damp and pale, his hairline receded.

“I don’t know,” answered Janet truthfully. She pulled up the front of her blouse to cover her cleavage and then chose a little chair from one of the tables and sat it before them. She set her purse close to her feet. As she waited for Stacy to sort through a column of books at the other end of the room, Janet folded her hands in her lap and regarded each child. “What are your names?”

They all started talking and Janet cut them off. She pointed to the boy at the far right and went from there.
Nathan. Gloria. Jennifer. Francine. Johnny.

“Nice to meet you, kids.”

The children looked at each other with perplexed smiles. They all had the pallor of the severely sick. She didn’t know if they had cancer or leukemia or what, and frankly, she really didn’t want to think about it.

Stacy approached with a
Thomas the Train
book. “They like this one.”

“The train book!” yelled Nathan.

Janet took the book, opened it and began to read, her voice immediately getting into story time mode, formed from her days as an instructional aide. The children were a wonderful audience, not speaking to each other or misbehaving. They appreciated the small bits of happiness afforded to them.

Just halfway through the book, Stacy tapped Janet on the shoulder and whispered in her ear, “Sorry, I just need to run to the restroom next door and then get the food cart. Want whatever snack they’re having?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

Stacy went off to a door midway through the room that Janet hadn’t noticed before. A round faced lady sat at a nearby desk, writing something onto a notepad. She hadn’t made a comment to anybody since Janet’s arrival and she didn’t look to be coming out of her work-related trance any time soon.

As much as she hadn’t wanted to think about the five deadly ailments sitting before her, Janet could not tear her mind away from it for even a second. She set down the book and several of the children frowned.

“Do you like magic tricks kids? Have you seen the coin out of the ear trick? This is the coin out of the
mouth
trick!”

She reached into her Mary Poppins bag and put on her gloves. She glanced over her shoulder. The woman at the desk hadn’t lifted her rheumy eyes off her note-taking.

Janet brought out the bottle.

Brought out the coin purse.

“Wow!” said Gloria. Johnny and Jennifer clapped like organ grinder monkeys.

“Yes,” Janet answered with a smile. “
Wow
is right.”