“Cole?”
“He belongs to Fliess,” Chick said. “He was waiting to grab us. As soon as the crowd was gone.”
“How does he know?” Bruno asked and when Chick failed to answer, he turned his head to look at the boy. “How does Fliess know where we are?”
They had rolled onto the two-laner now and were picking up speed. Chick looked at Bruno, matched his stare for just a second, then looked back to the road and screamed. Bruno brought his eyes forward just in time to see Dr. Lazarus Cole standing in the middle of the road, pointing straight ahead at them. He was lit up by the truck’s high beams and both driver and passenger could see the horrible, furious expression on his face.
And then they hit him. The body was sent sailing, bouncing off the hood and pinwheeling into the dark field to their left. The noise was loud and blunt. A starburst of blood covered part of the windshield.
Bruno hesitated only a second before turning on the wipers and simultaneously pressing down on the accelerator. And Chick didn’t say a word.
20
At some point while reading, Sweeney fell into a heavy sleep. And sometime after that, he came awake, slowly and partially, into what he thought, for just an instant, was a dream. But when he opened his eyes, he saw a figure perched above him, sitting on top of him with its head thrown back so far that he couldn’t see a face. He was still out of breath and he could feel his heart racing. He blinked and tried to sit up and the figure came forward and its arms pushed him down and he was too weak to fight. In that moment, sinking back into the bed, he realized he was fucking someone. That he’d been fucking someone for some time and that he was about to come. And the brain shut down and his buttocks and thighs tightened and he drove upward. And the person on top of him responded perfectly, speeded up the pace of her own rocking, began to gallop, short, hard slaps down onto his cock, her own noises increasing. In the midst of it, she drew one arm up to her throat and then used a hand to push her mane back behind an ear. And in the orange light, he saw that it was Nadia Rey.
She looked down at him, understood that he was fully awake and that he knew what was happening and who it was happening with. He put a hand on either side of her waist and adjusted their rhythm. They were grinding up against each other now. He could see the sweat on her forehead and cheeks. She was wearing her nurse’s uniform, the skirt hiked up. She sat back for a second, rested her ass on his legs, and he heard her take a deep breath. And then she came forward again, put her hands on his shoulders, pinning him against the bed. She began to ride him faster and her mouth formed itself into an oval and she looked as if she could blow a smoke ring. Her nails went into his shoulders. He bore upward, felt her tighten, and saw her start to shake her head in little seizurelike motions.
He began to pump as fast as he could. Within seconds she came and reared up and back and then crumpled down on top of him. When he felt her full weight on his chest, felt her hair against his mouth, he let himself go and bit down on his bottom lip to keep from crying out.
The intensity ran to the edge of catastrophic. He felt as if his body would collapse through the mattress and the steel frame, fall through the whole of the bed to the floor below and fall through the floor into the basement, into the bed in his apartment and then through that bed as well and into the dirt and rock of this mistake of a city. And then he fell back into a dreamless sleep.
He was out for at least as long as it took for the drool around his mouth and the jism on his legs to dry. He was woken by a tap — and then a slap across his cheek. He reached up before his eyes opened, still stupid with sleep, and touched Nadia’s face and felt the stubble of a new beard. This brought him to full consciousness at once and his head jerked off the pillow and his eyes opened. And he looked up at Buzz Cote, who was grinning and nodding and biting in on both of his lips. He pinched Sweeney’s cheek until it bruised but his voice was low and excited when he said, “Well, we’re brothers now, kimosabe.”
That combination of friendly tone and rough physicality set the pattern for their exit from the Clinic. Buzz stood, grabbed Sweeney’s shirt and pulled him into a seated position. And then he punched Sweeney, this quick jab that landed where the shoulder hinged under the breastbone. It connected perfectly and Sweeney felt as if the bone had chipped. But then it was another round of backslapping and arms locked as if to promenade.
“Nadia will meet up with us later,” Buzz said. “You ready for your initiation ride?”
Sweeney didn’t answer, but it didn’t seem to matter. Buzz threw an arm across his back and gripped the bruised shoulder on the other side. Then he proceeded to waltz Sweeney out the front door of the Peck, past the delighted eyes of Romeo the janitor, who was dusting in the reception area.
In the predawn quiet, their steps crunched on the driveway gravel. Buzz was moving quickly, spieling something about Nadia being one in a million, yes sir, and all the Abominations agreed about that and you haven’t known a jones till you’ve had a piece of that honey there. The words mattered less than their speed, their charged tone and the way they jumped from Buzz’s mouth. Sweeney had known a neighborhood speed freak in high school and had studied the symptomology in college. So he felt fairly certain that while he’d been dream-fucking Nadia, Buzz had spent the night injecting some high-test crystal meth.
They circled the west wing of the building and climbed the hill that led to the rear parking lot where Buzz’s hog was waiting.
They came to a stop before the bike and Buzz said, “The boys are pleased, I can tell you that. The boys are very excited about this.”
Sweeney didn’t try to escape the embrace but he said, “Fuck you,” in a clear, emotion-free voice.
“We’ll see about that later,” Buzz said without any smile or hesitation. “Right now, we got to get you initiated. And seeing how you don’t have a bike, there’s only one way that can happen.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Sweeney said.
Buzz rubbed and picked a bit at a nostril with his free hand and said, “The thing is, Sweeney, you are. And you’re not stupid. So you know you are. I can kick your ass from one end of this lot to the other and tie you to the back of this thing like a bitch. But neither one of us wants that. So just get on. You’ll be glad you did. At some point, you’re going to have to trust me.”
Sweeney looked back to the Clinic.
“I can start screaming.”
Buzz nodded. “You can. That’s true. You could get a scream out. But two things, okay? First off, nobody in there likes you very much and they’re not going to do shit to help you out. Okay? And second, I’d bust you in the throat as soon as you squealed and you’d end up puking and maybe passing out. I know you, Sweeney. You don’t want Nadia to see that. She’s watching you right now.”
His eyes scanned the windows on the back of the building but he didn’t see any shadows.
“So just get on,” Buzz continued. “And let’s run this fucker the way she’s meant to be run.”
Sweeney thought about bolting and then stepped up to the bike and mounted it. Buzz was delighted.
“You’ve made me happy,” Buzz said. “It’s gonna be much better this way.”
Buzz mounted in front, kicked over the engine and throttled up a few times. Sweeney wrapped his arms around the driver’s trunk and yelled, “What about helmets?”
Buzz thought this hysterical. He yelled, “You are the shit, man,” put the bike in gear, and sprayed gravel to either side as they rode out of the lot and down to Route 16.