Deaths of Jocasta (46 page)

“Danny,” Cordelia said, “don’t.”

Danny got up to leave.

“Don’t call me a whore,” I said.

“I wouldn’t if you weren’t,” Danny replied.

Elly returned. Danny immediately grabbed her arm and stalked away from us.

“Don’t…” But Danny was too far away to hear me. “…call me a…”

I stared at the amber liquid in my glass, unable to look at Cordelia. She put her hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off, then finished my Scotch.

“Let’s go,” Cordelia said.

I started to take some money out of my wallet, but she threw several twenties on the table.

“Don’t,” she said. “It’s covered.”

“Don’t buy me.”

“I’m not. I just paid for Danny and Elly; I might as well get you, too. Let’s go.”

I stood up and pushed my chair away. She followed, taking my elbow as I stumbled. I wasn’t drunk, I hadn’t had enough to get drunk.

Cordelia steered me out of the bar.

Oh, yeah, I’m going home with her, I suddenly thought, as she led me to her car. I automatically got in. But something wasn’t right. If you go home with a woman, you win the game. Why did I feel like I’d lost?

“Are you okay?” Cordelia asked me, as she put the keys in the ignition.

“Me? I’m fine.”

“Sure?”

I nodded yes, drumming my fingers on my thigh.

“Danny went too far,” she said.

I looked at her, then quickly glanced away. What the hell was she talking about? I was the one who had gone too far. Danny was…being Danny.

“Let’s go,” I said, suddenly not wanting to think anymore.

She started the car.

“Micky, maybe we should talk,” Cordelia said, reaching over and taking my drumming hand.

“Let’s not. I’m not…in a talkative mood.”

“Are you sure? It might be—”

“Yes!” I snapped. Maybe I was drunk. I wasn’t doing anything right.

“Okay,” she answered tersely, withdrawing her hand.

I grabbed it and placed it between my legs.

Cordelia looked at me, but didn’t say anything. For a moment, she didn’t move, then I felt her hand pressing into me.

I didn’t speak, didn’t even look at her, just felt the physical presence of her hand.

She withdrew it to pull out into the street, then put it back between my legs.

“What do you want from me?” I suddenly burst out, unable to get the scene in the bar out of my head. After that, what could she want of me?

Cordelia gave me an odd look.

“I want to…sleep with you,” she said. “What do you think I want?”

“If you weren’t, I wouldn’t.” Danny’s words echoed.

“Cordelia,” I said, taking her hand away. “Tell Danny it’s not true. Tell her…I never faked it with her. I never even thought of it.”

“I will, if you want. But, Micky…what’s going on here?” She stopped for a stop sign. “Do you…?”

“I’m sorry,” I interrupted. “I can’t…not right now. I shouldn’t have led you on.”

“It’s okay. I’ll live,” she said. “Why don’t we go somewhere and talk?”

But that was the last thing I wanted to do. It would be so much easier to have sex with her. And I couldn’t even do that.

I looked at her and said very carefully, “I can’t not have been a whore, but I can stop being one.”

Then I got out of the car.

“Micky! Wait,” she called after me. “Micky!”

I kept walking. There were other cars behind her. One started honking.

I glanced back and watched her turn right. She would circle the block. I turned and headed rapidly back toward the corner, turning left when I got there, then walking down a block before making another left onto a one-way street.

I entered the first bar I came to, a neighborhood dive from the looks of it. After ordering a Scotch, I sat down at a small table in a dim corner.

I hoped Cordelia didn’t spend too much time looking for me. Or worrying. That hadn’t been my intention. I just had to get away from her. Like I’d had to get away from Danny when she held me too closely.

I threw down my Scotch and got another one.

I had a few more drinks, giving Cordelia time to search the neighborhood, then left. The sultry air of the streets hit me. I had to stop and think for a few moments before I could remember where my car was. Sweat was running down my back when I finally got to it. My stomach was slightly uneasy. Probably the heat.

I got in my car and drove home. The light on my answering machine was on. I ran the tape back.

“I don’t know what you said,” it was Elly, her voice harsh, “but you either apologize and take it back or stay away, just stay away. I will not tolerate you hurting Danny any—”

I picked up the answering machine and threw it as hard as I could. The power cord jerked it up short and it crashed to the floor, pulling my phone with it. Then I kicked it, sending it spinning across the floor and into a wall. I had trashed my answering machine.

Why was I so angry? I wondered as I stooped to pick up the pieces.

If there had been any message other than Elly’s, there was no way of telling. I dropped the pieces back on the floor. I’d clean it up later.

I went to my kitchen, for a minute prowling distractedly through cabinets. Then I went for the cabinet that had in it the bottle of bourbon Joanne had left.

I took the bourbon and a shot glass and sat at my desk. I threw back a shot in one swift gulp. Oh, yes, the liquor felt good as it burned down my throat.

After a few more shots, nothing seemed so tragic. Danny would survive. If she didn’t, well, fuck her. Cordelia was a good-looking doctor; she shouldn’t have any trouble getting women to sleep with her. Besides, she’d probably prefer someone…someone who wasn’t trash that anyone could have. Elly could listen to Danny’s stories of how I’d fucked her over and nod her head sympathetically and feel she’d done the right thing by yelling at me. Protecting her woman.

Joanne had Alex. I wondered if she’d meant any of the things she’d said. Maybe just taking kindness lessons from Cordelia. So I’d forgotten I’d slept with Alex. There probably wasn’t much to remember.

I downed another shot.

“Cheers, girls. I had a great time. All those women. Forgotten and not. I had a fucking great time.”

I laid my head on my desk. Just let me close my eyes for a bit, I thought. Close my eyes and don’t think. Just me and my bottle of bourbon. Nothing else counted.

I jerked awake. Early dawn light was filtering through my windows and the frosted glass on my door. I was still sitting at my desk. I had passed out. My left arm was numb. My head had been resting on it. The rest of me wished I were numb. My head was pounding and my stomach was decidedly undecided.

I looked at the bottle of bourbon. There wasn’t much left.

I slowly sat up, trying not to jar my head too much. Get to bed and sleep it off. I tried to stand up, but sat down again when I realized that I was still very drunk. The bottle was almost empty.

I sat still for several minutes, breathing gently, hoping to calm my queasy stomach. I wanted to either go to sleep or throw up, but the two canceled each other out. I sat, hoping for the balance to tip one way or the other without any undue effort on my part. I glanced at my watch. A little before six in the morning.

Then I heard footsteps on the stairs. Odd, but I assumed that they were going elsewhere, until they passed the second floor and I could hear them coming up the third flight. The outline of a person appeared through the glass in my door.

What the hell? I wondered, as I shakily stood up.

The figure bent down for a second, then stood up and turned away. I heard footsteps again on the stairs.

I stumbled to my door and yanked it open, in time to catch a glimpse of whoever it was. A young man, maybe early twenties, still with the rounded cheeks of youth, perfect skin, straight brown hair. He was oddly familiar, but perhaps because he looked like the image of a perfect young man, a choirboy.

Except for what he’d left at my doorstep.

I looked at it stupidly for a few seconds, the stubby sticks of dynamite with a crude timer attached. Any second I expected the explosion, my body to be flung apart.

No! Think! I commanded. Trying to balance haste with care, I picked up the bomb. I had to get it out of the building. Nothing else would save me. Or the people living on the other floors.

I descended half a flight, then kicked out the window, thankful that I’d been too drunk to bother taking off my shoes or change my jeans to shorts. I started to pick out the glass shards still clinging to the bottom of the window.

No time, Micky. Carefully holding the bomb in one hand, I stuck my feet through the window, wiggling out on my stomach, avoiding the glass as best I could. Holding onto the sill with my free hand, I gingerly dropped onto the roof of the next building.

Then I ran, holding the dynamite at arm’s length, as if the extra distance might be some protection.

I raced to the far end of the roof, then hurled the bomb, aiming for the center of an adjacent empty lot.

I watched it arc through the pale dawn, curving toward the earth. Its graceful flight ended with a jarring blast, the bright light of the explosion immediately obscured by the dusty swirl of debris. It had exploded before it hit the ground, I was sure of that.

I fell back, landing heavily on the sticky tar. It might have been the blast of the bomb that threw me back or perhaps the shock of the explosion and how little time the bomb had been out of my hands before it blew up. A second? Less? Or maybe I fell because I was drunk.

For the minute or so it had taken me to pick up the dynamite and hurl it into the morning, I had been sober. But that was gone now, drunkenness held at bay only by extreme necessity.

I slowly sat up and peered over the edge of the roof. Whoever would build on that lot had their foundation already dug.

I hauled myself to my feet and walked back across the roof. Off somewhere in the distance I could hear a siren. Even if that one wasn’t headed here, others would soon arrive. Already I could hear voices in the street.

Why? Why kill me? Try to, I amended. O’Connor was wrong. Frankenstein was real and he had an accomplice.

Get back inside and get to a phone, I told myself. The broken window was a foot or two above my head.

I took a running start to be able to grab the sill.

And slammed into the wall, totally misjudging the distance. The thud I heard was my landing back on the sticky roof. I looked up at the window, disoriented and defeated by the wall.

What the fuck are you going to do? Lie here until you sober up?

I got up, but didn’t try another running start. On the fourth attempt I got a decent enough handhold to haul myself up and through.

I flopped awkwardly onto the landing, hands first, some of the pieces of glass nicking at my bare arms. After brushing off the glass as best I could, I stumbled up the stairs. My momentary sobriety had deserted me with a vengeance.

It took me several minutes to find my phone, still on the floor where it had landed last night, the receiver off the hook. I had to crawl to locate it.

I tried to remember phone numbers. Only one surfaced.

“Goddamn it!” I suddenly yelled, angry at my clumsy impotence. “Damn it.” Then it sunk in that someone had tried to murder me, and had come close to succeeding. Less than a second.

I punched in the one number I could remember.

“Hello?” she answered, obviously awake.

“Thanks for firing me,” I yelled. “Next time tell the men trying to kill me. If you’re really interested in my safety.”

“Micky. Where are…?”

I slammed the receiver down. My hands were shaking, from anger or drunkenness, I wasn’t sure. Blood was running down one of my arms.

Think, I demanded my fogged brain, suddenly aware of my open door and how helpless I was sitting here on the floor. What if he came back?

I dialed a number that I hoped was Joanne’s.

“Yeah? Hello?” Alex’s sleepy voice answered.

“Joanne? I need to talk to Joanne,” I told her.

“Who is this?” Alex asked, then tentatively, “Micky?”

“Yeah.”

“Joanne,” Alex said off somewhere. “Micky.” I heard the phone being handed over.

“Micky? What is it?”

I almost started crying at the sound of her voice.

“Micky? Are you okay?” Joanne asked at my silence.

“Yeah…uh…yeah. So far. Someone…someone tried to blow me up.”

“What?” Joanne exclaimed. “You mean a bomb?”

“Yeah. A bomb.”

“Where are you?”

“My place.”

“I’ll be right over.”

“Thanks. Joanne?”

“Yes?”

“I’m…drunk.”

She hesitated for a second, then said. “It’s okay. I’ll be right there.”