Behind Kit’s back there was a new clatter. Horsetack falling into a truck bed.
“Life, life,” one door was saying. “One mess after another.”
Kit kept his back to Junior’s cell till he heard the inspectors shouting for help.
A muffled shouting, another voice from behind a door. But Kit caught the difference. He came round so fast the wrench handle swung out from his leg. And the long tool hurt him, flopping back against his thigh. It made him flinch. Or was it fright, was it what he saw? Framed by the shut door of the utility closet, his meager shadow lanced by the police lock’s bar — the bar now back in place — Junior Rebes stood easy. Free of the bedchain and out with the door shut behind him. At first it even looked like he was no longer handcuffed. Then Kit realized that the yellow gleam at Junior’s crotch was the reflection off the irons still holding his wrists. The skinny con had slipped his arms under him, the old skin-the-cat.
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.