Strickland stashes the gun in his armpit so that he can pinch the two dead fingers.
“And then? He breaks them.”
Strickland tears off the fingers. They detach as if perforated, with a series of light pops—just like snapping beans, Zelda thinks before screaming. She hears a thud, Brewster dropping his beer, and a zing, the Barcalounger springing to starting position. Strickland’s eyebrows lift in surprise at the brown fluid that geysers two inches from the finger holes before dribbling down his hand like slopped gravy. He considers the two black sausages he’s still holding, and drops them on the kitchen floor. From one of the fingers pops a wedding band.
“It’s Elisa,” Brewster blurts. “Elisa what’s-her-name. The mute. She’s the one that has it.”
The only sounds are the rustle of rain coming through the open door, the yammer of the television, and the soft glug of beer emptying onto the carpet. Strickland turns. Zelda reaches for the stove to keep herself upright, then shakes her head at her husband.
“Brewster, don’t—”
“She lives over a movie theater,” he continues. “That’s what Zelda says. The Arcade. Just a few blocks north of the river. Easy trip from here. Five minutes, I bet.”
The weight of the gun appears to double. Zelda watches it hitch downward until it points at the floor.
“Elisa?” Strickland whispers. “Elisa did this?”
He stares at Zelda, face drawn in shocked betrayal, arms shaking slightly as if in search of a hug to keep him aloft. Zelda doesn’t know what to say or do, and so makes no sound or move. Strickland’s face falls. He pouts at the finger smudged across the linoleum, as if longing to have it back. He breathes for a minute, shallow at first, then more deeply, before raising his head and squaring his shoulders. Military bearing, Zelda guesses, is all this wrecked man has left.
He plods across the carpet, shoes dragging through the mud. He lifts the telephone as if it, too, is of cinder block weight, and dials as if through clay. Zelda stares at Brewster. Brewster stares at Strickland. Zelda hears the pip-squeak report of a man picking up on the other end.
“Fleming.” Strickland’s voice is so lifeless that Zelda shudders. “I was… I was wrong. It’s the other one. Elisa Esposito. She’s got the asset above the Arcade. Yes, the movie theater. Reroute the containment unit. I’ll meet it there.”
Strickland gingerly replaces the receiver into its cradle and turns around. He surveys the glass, the porcelain, the ceramic, the china, the paper, the flesh—so much detritus generated so quickly. His comatose manner suggests to Zelda that he’ll never leave this spot, will become a fixture in her home that she’ll have to glue back together along with the rest of the ruin. But Strickland is a wound watch. Cogs inside of him turn and he moves, shuffling between Brewster and the television and out the open door.
One more lurch and he’s gone, melted into the rain.
Zelda bursts forward and reaches for the phone. Brewster, though, is out of his chair at last, and moves more rapidly than she’s ever seen. The Barcalounger rocks and yowls, abruptly empty, and Zelda finds her husband’s arm held crosswise over the phone.
“Brewster. Please move.”
“You can’t get involved. We can’t get involved.”
“He’s going to her home. Because of you, Brewster! I need to warn her. He has a gun!”
“Because of me we saved our skins. They don’t get your friend, who do you think they blame next? You think they’re just going to forget? Forget the black folks who stuck their noses in? We’re going to repair that door and we’re going to pick up those… things he left on the floor, and we’re going to sit down and watch TV. Just like normal people.”
“I never should’ve told you. I never should’ve said a word—”
“You finish dinner; I’ll find some seltzer to scrub the rug—”
“They love each other. Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember what that was like?”
Brewster’s arm sags. But he does not abdicate the phone.
“I do remember,” he says. “That’s why I can’t let you make that call.”
His brown eyes, so often half-shut and glazed by television strobes, are wide and clear, and in them she can see the reflection of debris left behind by Strickland. In truth, she can see a lot more than that. She can see Brewster’s own history of battling and losing, always losing but never quite quitting, not even when Zelda spins her risky fantasies of quitting Occam and starting her own business. In that way, Brewster is brave. He has survived. He’s still here, surviving. He’s a good man.
But she’s a good woman, or wants to be, and that particular achievement is measured by the distance between the change bowl, where Brewster’s car keys rest, and the gaping front door, and beyond that, the distance between the front door and Brewster’s Ford snoozing in the rain. She knows she can make it; Brewster will be too stunned to follow. She knows she can make it to Elisa’s, too, even in this Old Testament tempest. What she doesn’t know is what good she can do once she gets there, or what will be the aftermath. But such things are always unknowable, aren’t they? The world changes, or doesn’t. You fight for the right things and be glad you did. That, at least, is the plan, the best one Zelda D. Fuller’s got.
22
ELISA KNOWS EVERY leaf of her jungle, every vine, every stone, and detects no malice in the shadow that slides over her. She opens her warm, wet eyes, enjoying the playful resistance of droplets trying to keep individual eyelashes mated. They peel apart, one by one, reluctant and languorous. It is Giles, backlit by living-room light, standing over the tub, smiling gently, and she wonders if the hothouse mugginess of the room is to blame for the tears filling his eyes.
“It’s time, dear,” he says.
She winds her drowsy arms around the dozing creature, unwilling to recall, but unable to stop herself, either, how several hours ago, possibly several millennia, she’d knocked on Giles’s door to beg of him the greatest, most terrible favor. She’d signed her request briskly so that the grief wouldn’t prolong: unlock her apartment before midnight, rouse her from the tub, and ignore any protests she might make. The bathwater she lies in, she notices, has gone cold, yet she has no desire to leave it. It can’t be that late already. It can’t be. She’s had all day, all night to say good-bye to him and she hasn’t even begun.
Giles plants his hands to his knees in order to hunker down, but halts halfway. He’s holding a long, thin paintbrush, fine-tipped for detail, and seems to have forgotten it. Now there’s green paint all over one knee of his trousers. He chuckles, stows the brush into his breast pocket.
“I finished.” He can’t keep the pride from his voice, and Elisa is glad he doesn’t. “It won’t be the same thing as having him. Not even close. But I believe it’s the closest anyone could ever come. And it’s for you, Elisa. You’ll have it to remember him by. Let me show it to you on our way out—show it to both of you. Now, please, sweetheart. It’s late. Won’t you take my hand?”
Elisa smiles, lost in awe over her friend’s head of hair, his face’s boyish brio, his skin’s healthful hue. His aspect is tender, but resolute. She looks at his outstretched hand, the knuckle hair clotted with paint, the fingernails swathed in paint, the cuff of his sweater ringed in paint. She raises a hand from the water. The instant it leaves the creature’s back, he bristles, holds her more tightly. Elisa hesitates, her hand occupying the midworld between her watery wedding bed and Giles’s solid ground, and she doesn’t know if she can bridge the gap.
There is a crash. Down on the street. It’s close, against the building itself. And loud. Metal, glass, plastic, steam. Elisa feels the brunt in her body, a concussion in her lungs, and she knows, she knows she has lingered too long. Giles knows it, too: He reaches across worlds and snatches her wrist. Even the creature knows it: His claws protrude, scratching like a lover’s fingernails across her naked back. They move in concert. Water sloshes over the tub rim. Plants topple from the sink. Cardboard trees swing from the walls. They have been found.