A talented actress, the caption said.
What else about you, Amber? What else could I know about you? I found her purse and rummaged through it. Driving license, credit cards. A notebook with all the pages blank. More to know but too late now.
Too late now. I was shivering. I put the box away. I went back to her. Breathing. Lovely. I needed a hit. I couldn’t bear to look at her without a hit.
I threw the used needle in the garbage. I cleaned the vessel in the bathroom sink. I cleaned the spoon, let it air-dry. Waited, patient. I took the ketch, I boiled it, I found a vein. Alcohol and heroin do not mix, I thought as I injected myself. I stowed my kit back in my jacket, I lay down with her on the bed.
I climbed on top of her, I touched her belly, breasts. She could barely respond, but I had to have her.
I eased my way inside….
Early morning. Sunlight the color of her hair, filtering through the wooden slat blinds. She’s awake, looking at me. She smiles when she sees me wake.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hi. You look great,” I reply.
“Really? I don’t feel well at all,” she says.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m just a bit under the weather, groggy.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, and look at her.
She seems a little yellow. I kiss her and touch her legs and incidentally check out her left heel. If you miss the vein you can leave a big blister, but I didn’t miss the vein and it seems fine down there.
“I don’t feel a hundred percent but I know what will help. Let’s make love,” she says.
“Ok.”
I kiss her and climb on top and we make love, but I’m still under the influence of the smack and I let her be on top and her back arches and her big breasts heave and drip sweat, and we come together and we’re happy.
I laugh and she laughs.
“Well, that’s position twenty-one in the Kama Sutra knocked off,” I say in an Indian accent.
“What did you say?” she asks, suddenly sitting up.
“I said that that’s position twenty-one of the Kama Sutra knocked off.”
She wraps the blanket around herself and rubs her eyes. Her leg moves in such a way that it is no longer touching mine. She shivers. She looks at me in the half-light with those cat blue eyes. She turns away. I’ve screwed up somehow. She yawns.
“You better go, Charles might be back soon.”
I stretch lazily and nod.
“Gosh, yes, it’s seven o’clock, you better go, we have a maid service that comes,” Amber says.
“I’ll see you this afternoon?” I ask.
“Yes. Come here, Alex, kiss me,” she says.
I lean over, kiss her. Thinking: She’s beautiful, she’s frightened, but she’s basically good, and somehow, somehow, it’s all going to be ok, it’s all going to work out for the best, for her and for me and for everyone.
Of course it is.
10: THE REMOVER OF OBSTACLES
Denver already up. Dollars being made in oil, high tech, commerce, land spec, tourism, and the like. I noted the cars, counted the SUVs, the Jesus fish and the odd “God Hates Gays” or “Abortion = Murder” bumper sticker. At Einstein Brothers I bought a mixed bag of bagels. Carried them to the building, walked up the five flights.
“Alex, what about you?” John asked.
“Not too bad, mate,” I told him.
Areea smiled at me. She was always here now. Before her job, after her job.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Hi,” I said.
John took the bag of bagels, split it open, and toasted three of them.
“Where’s Pat?” I asked.
“He’s putting his face on.”
Pat always spent at least an hour getting his appearance into some kind of shape for the day ahead. There were sores to be covered, a beard to be shaved extremely carefully, there was rubbing alcohol and pancake to be applied to his skin.
“I’ll just take a half, John,” I said as I went into the bedroom to boil my heroin and shoot up.
“Ok, pal,” he said. He didn’t ask where I’d been all night, or what was going on. This was one of John’s good qualities.
I found a clear track of vein, injected myself, lay down on the bed.
“Did you fall asleep?” Areea asked a couple of hours later.
“Yeah,” I said.
John gave me a look and shook his head. “You’re running late,” he said, “and your bagel’s freezing.”
“Where’s Pat now?” I asked him.
“He’s not feeling well,” John said.
“No?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll go visit him.”
I walked down the hall to Pat’s. I was a bit late, but I had to ask him something.
He was wrapped in a blanket in the living room, sipping raw gin from a pint glass. His face drawn, tired.
“Get you anything, mate?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Listen, I’ve got a question. It can wait if you’re not up to it,” I said.
“Fire away. I’m better than I look.”
“Where does Cherry Creek go?”
“The river or the shopping mall?” he asked, stroking his stubble, his dead cheeks.
“The river. How could a shopping mall go anywhere?”
“It meets the South Platte at Confluence Park.”
“And then what?” I asked.
“Platte, Missouri, Mississippi, Gulf of Mexico.”
“Shit, ok, I see.”
“Why you wanna know?”
“Oh, nothing, just curious.”
“You wanna know anything else, sip of gin or a martini?”
“Nah, I have to go, actually.”
“Don’t think of fishing there or anything, just a couple of feet deep, best of times.”
“Ok, Pat, I have to head. Are you sure I can’t get you anything?”
“No.”
“Gotta go to work,” I said apologetically.
“Sure,” he said. “Oh, nearly forgot, last night I got a call about you.”
“What?”
“Yeah, some Native American dude from the Denver Police Department called up, wanted to know if I had anyone stay over with me on the night of June twenty-second. Maybe two Mexican, Australian, or Irish guys.”
“Shit, and what did you say?”
“I said nope, said I used to take paying guests but it wasn’t worth the hassle anymore.”
“And what did he do?”
“He thanked me, said it was just a routine inquiry, and hung up.”
“His name was Redhorse, right?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Pat said.
“Did the right thing, Pat, he’s looking for us since—”
Pat put up his hand to stop me. His eyes cold, certain.
“I don’t want to know,” he said. “The best thing is if I know nothing.”
“Ok. Probably best if you don’t tell John, either,” I said.
Pat’s eyes widened, but then he nodded and I said goodbye. I’d forgotten all about Redhorse. Or, if not forgotten, I had put him out of my mind. If I had any sense at all, I’d see that now was the time to quit, to get out of town. But I was so close. So close. And the hook was deeper than ever. She was deeper….
Incredibly, at the CAW offices Charles was there, looking a bit bleary-eyed but showered, his hair gelled back, wearing a fresh linen suit, white shirt, and tie.
“Alexander,” he said with a big grin, “you like cigars?”