Which made equally little sense. “How come you’re not with Nightmare? I saw him this morning, with his gang. Dragon Lady wasn’t with him.”
“Naw,” Pepper said. “Naw, she ain’t gonna be with him now. They had a fight, see. Oh, Jesus, was that one bloody garden party!” This time Pepper’s “pain” was memory.
“What was it about?” Kid asked.
Pepper’s head came forward, his hair strings swinging. “You see those scars on Nightmare’s shoulder? You seen them scars?” He tried to nod. “Oh, I guess it’s blown over now, and they almost friendly. But she got her own nest again, somewhere over in Jackson I heard. And they ain’t gonna be together too much anymore, I don’t think.” His head fell back, and he repeated: “I ain’t feeling too well.”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“I dunno. Maybe I ate something bad. Or I got a cold maybe.”
“Well, does it hurt in your stomach, or is your head stopped up?”
“I told you, I don’t know why.”
“What hurts?”
Pepper shook back hair and sat up again. “How can I tell you what hurts till I know what’s wrong?”
“How can anybody know what’s wrong till you say what—”
Pepper lurched upright.
Kid started to catch him.
But Pepper didn’t fall. Scrubbing at his face with his fist and snuffling, he said, “I been staying with Bunny, but I think she threw me out. Maybe we better go back there and find out, huh?” He let go of the side of the stall. “I think I’m feeling a little better. You know Bunny?”
“I don’t think so.”
“She dances over in that freak joint, Teddy’s.”
“You mean the little silver-haired guy?”
“She’s pretty together. A nut. But together.” Pepper lurched forward. “I wish I had a God-damn drink of water.”
“Come on around to the sink.”
Pepper passed unsteadily, staggered around the partition.
Kid followed.
Pepper spun one of the taps and jerked his hand back when the pipes began their complaint.“…nothing’s coming out,” he ventured.
“Give it a second.”
When the trickle had gone on half a minute, Pepper grimaced. “Shit, that ain’t big enough to drink.” He turned again and staggered for the door. “God damn I wish I had some water.”
Kid, in amused frustration, turned off the tap and went out. Pepper was wandering up the slope.
Kid watched for a few steps, then turned down toward the commune.
“Hey!”
He looked back. “What?”
“Ain’t you coming with me?”
His amusement diminished to minuscule. “No.” Minuscule, it still made him wait Pepper’s reaction.
“Hey, then.” Pepper returned, his stagger now loosened to a bow-legged jounce. “Maybe I better come on with you, huh?”
Kid started walking: Not the reaction he’d wanted.
Pepper caught up. “Look, we go where you going, then we go where I’m going, huh? That’s fair.”
“There’s a water fountain.”
“Naw, naw, man! You’re in a rush. I don’t wanna hold you up none.”
Kid sighed, came to a decision, and bellowed: “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!”
Pepper stopped, blinking.
Kid took a breath and walked on, shaking his head. I don’t like to yell at people, he thought. And then, smiling: That isn’t true—I just don’t get much chance.
He came to the trees at the edge of the clearing.
The cinder blocks on the near side of the fireplace had been pushed over. Smoke dribbled into the air. Ashes greyed the grass.
There were no people.
Ten feet from the picnic table lay the torn sleeping bag that nobody used because somebody had been sick in it one night and fouled it with puke and diarrhea.
Puzzled, he walked to the furnace, between tin cans and package wrappers. (On the picnic bench, someone had overturned a carton of garbage.) With his sandal, he scraped away cinders. Half a dozen coals turned up red spots, which pulsed, wavered, and went out.
“Lanya?”
He turned, waiting, for her answer, uncomfortable at any noise in this ringed, misty clearing. Even at the height of the project period, there were usually half a dozen people at the fire. A torn blanket lay under the bench—but it had been there all week. The sleeping bags and blanket rolls usually piled haphazard by trees and behind firewood were gone.
“Lanya!”
A decision to move? But she would have known about that and told him. Save for the overturned cinder blocks of the furnace wall, there were no marks of violence; only junk and disorder. He had come here with her to eat…how many times? He had been quiet and observed his own measured politeness. Momentarily he fantasized that his reserve and preoccupation had been so unbearable to them that they had all, with Lanya cooperating, schemed to abandon him, suddenly and silently. He would have pondered it more than a moment had the idea not urged him to giggle; frowning still seemed more appropriate.
“Lanya?”
He turned to squint among the trees.
When the figure hiding in the brush realized it had been seen, it—it was Pepper—stepped hesitantly forward. “You’re looking for somebody down here, hey?” Pepper craned to look left, then right. “I guess they all gone away, you know?”
Kid sucked his teeth and scanned the clearing again, while Pepper judged distances.
“I wonder why they all went away, huh?” Pepper stepped nearer.
Kid’s annoyance with Pepper’s presence was absorbed in his discomfort at Lanya’s absence. He hadn’t been that long washing. Wouldn’t she have waited—?
“Where you think they all went?” Pepper advanced another step.
“Well if you don’t know, you’re no use.”
Pepper’s laugh was hoarse, light, and infirm as his cough. “Why don’t you come on with me to Bunny’s? She lives right behind the bar. I mean, if you can’t find your friend down here. Get something to eat. She don’t mind none if I bring friends over. She says she likes them long as they’re nice, you know? You ever seen Bunny dance?”
“A couple of times.” Kid thought: She might have gone over to that bar.
“I never have. But she’s supposed to be good, huh? All sorts of weird people hang out in that place. I’m scared to go in.”
“Come on.” Kid looked once more: And she was not there. “Let’s go.”
“You coming? Good!” Pepper followed him for a dozen steps. Then he said, “Hey.”
“What?”
“It’s shorter if we go this way.”
Kid stopped. “You say Bunny lives right behind Teddy’s?”
“Uh-huh.” Pepper nodded. “This way, through here.”
“Okay. If you say so.”
“It’s a lot shorter,” Pepper said. “A whole lot. It really is.” He started, still stiff-legged, into the trees.
Kid followed, doubtful.
He was surprised how soon they reached the park wall; it was just over a hill of trees. The path down to the lion gate must have been more curvy than he’d thought.
Pepper scrambled up the wall, wheezing and grimacing. “You know,” he panted from the far side as Kid crouched to vault, “Bunny is a guy. You know? But she likes to be called ‘she’.”
Kid sprang, one hand on the stone. “Yeah, yeah, I know all about it.”
Pepper stepped back as Kid landed on the pavement. “You know,” he repeated, as Kid bounced upright, “you’re like Nightmare.”
“How?”
“He yells a lot. But he don’t mean it.”
“I’m not gonna yell at you again,” Kid said. “I may break your head. But I’m not gonna yell.”