Talking Heads (10 page)

He seemed so utterly relaxed. Streetcorner. Not till a particularly desperate howl from the inspectors did Kit notice the murderer's feet. Both were bleeding from the instep, from the heel. The escape had left tarry prints on the floor. Junior rested one foot on top of the other, and Kit could see a strip of ruined seeping skin against the pink underside. Cradling his wounds.

“Din hurt so bad,” the con said.

Kit realized he'd been staring at Junior's feet with his pad in front of his face. Dumbshow fright. The other doors had picked up something and fallen silent.

“They try to scare you,” Junior said. “They try to make it sound like you be pushin over a mothafuckin old statue or somethin. Shoo.”

“What—” Kit exhaled hard—“what have you done?”

The younger man shifted his stance, setting both torn feet on the floor. The pain changed his face. His looks turned triangular. Kit noticed the Indian cheekbones, some red in their color. And beyond Junior, beyond that face, the news was all bad. The police bar sat snug in its housing.

“Just had to hit on that sucker till the chain broke,” the murderer said. “Just had to hump up and jump on that bed some. Din hurt so bad at all.”

“Jesus,” Kit said. “How did you, how'd you ever …”

Never mind. There were the drugs, there was Junior's blood-frenzy. Enough. Already Kit was sizing the man up. He figured he had the edge: three-four inches in height, two free hands unslowed by downers, a cattleman's upper body as opposed to the balsa-wood lankness of a street thief. And yet Junior's looks—Kit, trembling, had to blink and make sure—were much like his own. Those prominent cheekbones, baby lips, hollow cheeks. The Nazi movie in sepia.

Talk to him, Viddich.

“Junior.” His throat was sandpaper. “I know you.”

“Yeah.” The con shuffled forward, winced again. “I heard what you told the guys. You the one been talkin' to my Mama.”

“You heard?” Kit wrung his notepad like a rag. “Junior, listen to me. I know this—”

“You don't know
shit
!”

Kit's hands worked on their own, stashing the pad. Junior's wail had brought the other cells to life. Worse noise than before, worse even than upstairs. Everybody started screaming bloody murder. Grease the motherfucker,
grease
him Junior, rip out his faggot balls.

Junior waved his cuffed fists, swamp conductor.

“You just want the story,” he shouted. “You want to take your fuckin' story and get
outta
here!”

Kit had no answer. Down in Monsod, the meanest things ever said about the news business had come true. He was the parasite, the fake. Every gesture came off empty and two-dimensional.

Junior kept up the insults, half audible in this noise. He swayed but remained where he was.

Was it the stink that made Kit's eyes water? He took stock of the foyer, the cells. The locks on the bolts across the doors were the size of a fist, too much even for Junior's supernatural strength. But the foundation had shifted, a couple of doors rattled. He saw a nut wobble on the nearest frame.

“Sweet butt,” Junior said more quietly. “Pretty boy. Now whyn't you give me the belt?”

Kit stepped away from the doors, from the one wobbling door. He splashed into the room's center.

“Aw now where you gon' run to, sweet boy? Huh. I'm the worst thing you ever seen in your life, you know?”

“Can't get away from the
worst
thing,” one of the doors called. “Sooner or later, you bound to run smack face to
face.
”

He was aware of his boots, L.L. Beans. Bette was a master at catalogue shopping.

“I'm murderer and a rapist and a junkie superfreak,” Junior crooned. “Worst nightmare you ever had in your life, and ain't no help comin.”

He remained out of reach, at puddle's edge. “Ain't nothin comin, believe me. I can see what's goin down upstairs.”

All Kit could think of was the conventional wisdom about rape. Keep talking. Don't let fantasy take over.

“Junior, I know you, I'm with you. Think about it. Junior, the drugs, talk to me about the drugs. Tell—”

Junior whipped his cuffed hands to his crotch. “
Here's
the drug.” He squeezed till the basket bulged. “Right here.”

“Yah, whup that faggot asshole, Junior.”

“Grease the fuck and let us out!”

Junior grinned. He raised his hands as if taking a bead with a samurai sword. But still he hung back. Blood ran between his untrimmed toes into the water's edge.

“Snuff him,” another door said. “Then we gon turn this stinkin rathole inside out.”

“Aw, please.” Kit looked left, right, behind him, trying to catch someone's eyes at a slot. “Think about it.”

The blow caught him in the neck. It got him where he ached, dead on, and the near doorways bulged with fisheye pain. Kit moved without thinking, splashing and scrabbling as he dragged himself away from Junior's follow-up. A wild follow-up—his attacker couldn't stand straight and his swings were off-angle, whereas Kit had fallen in cold water and the shock had woken him. It had soaked him to armpit and crotch. It allowed him to spot the half-protected corner behind the bar of the police lock. Plowing the water's scum with his freezing spread hands, Kit made towards the corner before the staggering con could get a decent hold on the tool belt. Before the screams from the other cells made it impossible to think. Screams, cattlecalls, the howls of a funky singer prompting the beat.
Showtime, Junior
, someone bellowed.
Showtime
! Another minute and they'd screech themselves right through their doors. Kit lurched to his feet.

Find a corner. Back to the wall. Get a weapon.

Kit fumbled at his belt, undoing the snap on the wrench's holster. He put his back against the utility closet, inside the police lock's extended bar. Behind him the inspectors were audible again, banging more than shouting. They had the better weapons, hammer and pliers and flashlight.

Junior lagged behind, his feet leaking red ribbons across the seepage. He winced with every step, but kept his cuffed fists extended. His knuckles were tight, pink.

Kit pulled out the wrench.

Junior stopped at the base of the lock bar, out of reach again. The con tottered, his chin kept dropping, and though Kit had the wrench in both hands now, he let it relax against his unsteady ribs. “Let's talk,” he said. Junior leapt and belted Kit his worst yet. A clout across the temple with the sound of a belly flop and a red whip to it, slapping Kit sideways into the closet door. The lock's fitting reeled like a stone in a toilet. Kit came back with the wrench on instinct, shortarm. He fought for something soft. The pain went into his breathing, he grunted for air, and when he faced round again, faced his attacker, it was a movement inside a sandbag. But Junior's hands were bleeding worse than his feet. He was going for the wrench-head, spidering after it with pink fingers, and Kit could at last see the damage the cuffs had done, a dripping saw-toothed bracelet round each knobby wrist. The con couldn't get a decent grip. Kit found himself in a crouch and jabbed more efficiently, aiming for the face, the whites. At last he got his arms up for a clear shot.

Junior cuffed the wrench-head aside and backed off. He and Kit were left facing weapon to weapon.

“Heyyy,” Junior said.

“Keep away, Rebes.”

The inspectors went on hammering behind the locked closet door. The clamor went up his spine and threw red halos wherever he looked. Or was that it the cons who did that, their screaming? There were dizzy effects, outcries from people that weren't even in the building. Kit heard the voice of a ghost at Bette's seance, the rough talk of Leo Mirini on the phone. He and Junior seemed the center, the hinge.

“This is crazy,” Kit said. “Talk to me.”

“Can't talk if you be gettin so excited, sweet butt. Gettin excited, they always tellin me, that's symptoms paranoia. You know? They tellin me I got a history. But if you just give me that iron, man, we won't have no history.”

“Junior, Junior listen.” He was freezing, soaked. “I can still help you. We can put this behind us.”

The con limped a step nearer, fists bobbing.

“Back off!”

“How you gonna help me?” Junior's eyes were lemon wedges. “You don't know. I been through all my symptoms paranoia, been down to the end of every line. You know what a man can go through, when he's alone in his own place? I been scratchin them walls, writin. Takes me right to the end of every line there
is.
”

“And where's that?”

“Don't try no sweet talk, pretty boy. I'm here to tell you, ain't nobody out on the street knows what's the shit like the man at the end of the line.”

“I want to hear it, Junior. Everything you know.”

“Oh yeah?” Junior's mouth flattened. “That why you din say nothin when Garrison was crackin me upside the head?”

Nowhere else for Kit to look.

“I know what's the shit,” Junior said.

“I came down here, Junior. I tried.”

“You tried. That's the
shit
, the oldest most stinkin ofay tourist dogshit ever. Man, your story bout me din even use my real name.”

He might still have been inching closer, his chin over his claws, a yellow mantis. Or was it only the effort of listening? Kit bent more defensively, his butt against the door. “I guess you did a lot of thinking.”

“I did me so much thinkin I learned I didn have to think. Thinkin's like Tinkertoys, nowadays you get a computer. I'm way past thinkin, man. The world's worst nightmare.”

“But you want people to know, don't you? You want them to know the truth.”

“Aw, man. Still just thinkin. Oh this poor victim of society, thinkin Tinkertoys, clickety-click. Oh this poor child, picked himself the wrong way to get a pretty piece of butt. I'm way out free from all that, my man. I'm everywhere.”

Junior smiled, and his battered complexion gave him a natural eye shadow. “I'm way out there scattered all over naked and free. A rapist and murderin superfreak, floatin free at the end of every line.”

Kit kept the iron bar angled up.

“Like see, you ask me, where's the drug? Use to think it was the drugs they givin me too, you know, use to think the drugs takin me away. But the drugs, they make you weak. You gotta be strong to make it out where I am, gotta be strong and do like I did with that chain. Whomp on it, whomp on it
some
!” For a moment, arms pumping, it looked as if Junior had Houdini handcuffs. Punch a button somewhere and they'd come apart. “You want to be everyone's nightmare, man, you got to do somethin
unreal
. You got to whomp, you know what I sayin? Then you Superfly. Whomp, whomp. Everybody can see you ain't no faggot victim of society.

“But the drugs, man, those drugs.” His eyes shrinking once more, Junior shook his head. “They make you weak. Garrison and the guy on Monday-Wednesday, tryin to make me weak.”

“That's something people need to hear,” Kit said. “The truth about the drugs, Junior, that's—”

“Aww, honky dogshit. Drugs ain't nothin to tell. My Mama's had the drugs all her life, you know. It ain't a Saturday night for her less she's got her wine.”

The word
Mama
sounded wildly out of place.

“Useto watch my mama down at that church,” Junior said. “That wine all in her eyes. Wine stay in her eyes for days, after some Saturday nights. She screamin about Jesus. I see my Jesus up there, see the face of my Lord Jesus lookin down! Man, Jesus is the drug. Some big old Jesus face lookin down makin things right—
that's
the drug. That church my mama got, only way to get the dogshit out of that place be to burn it down and piss all over the ashes.”

Junior spoke as if they were alone, almost a gossip's side-of-the-mouth. Yet by now, the inspectors weren't the only ones banging. The other cons were at it, using God knows what. Food trays, knuckles, the rubber bottoms of their institutional shoes. Kit's wooze grew worse, stickum between his ears. It was all he could do just to keep a good grip on the wrench.

“I know you,” he tried again.

“Big ol Jesus face lookin down.” Junior showed his teeth, he spat. “Jesus nothin against your worst nightmare.”

“Nothing compared to what's at the end of the line.”

The boy met his eyes. “My mama's reverend you know, he say, ‘Keep movin on up. Brother, keep movin on up.' On up to
what
, man? We nothin and we always be nothin.”

“Junior, Junior. Let me help.”

“We nothin, ofay. Nothin unless we floatin
free and fuckin naked everywhere
, pissin all over the ashes.”

“Yah, Junior!” one of the other cons screamed. “Showtime!”

“I'm trying,” Kit said. “I think I can do some good.”

“Aw you messed-up lyin tourist asshole. You don even like havin me this close.”

The cuffed fists nearly touched the wrench head. Yet Kit had leaned forward, his face exposed. Junior was right—he'd been a coward and a liar, and now it was time to do better. Time to act.

A slam from the stairwell, a shock in spite of everything.

A blood-colored can sailed into the center of the room. Had one of the others gotten loose? But what would they be doing with a tear-gas canister? The cylinder splashed down and boiled across the puddle, coils of greasy air hissing from each end. Finally, the security officer:

“Ad? Amby? What
the fuck
?”

The canister worked fast, a bad ‘60s memory on top of everything else. It stung Kit's eyes, it turned the room to smoke, and he couldn't answer. The inspectors hammered, it got to his knees, he couldn't answer. Now came the first hot shock in his lungs as the canister squirmed and boiled.

“
Smart boy
?”