Dead and Gone (17 page)

“Why would you say—?”

“Revenge is only for small things,” she said, her voice a thin strand of white-hot wire. “For my country, for my people, there can be no revenge.”

“So you forgive the Khmer Rouge?”

“So
you
mock me? What do you know of our … suffering?” she said, something deeper than anger in her tone. I figured she never finished the first time she talked about it, so I just shut up and listened. “What revenge could you imagine for such a scale of evil?” she went on. “Could there be revenge for what Hitler did to the Jews? Or Stalin to his people? For Idi Amin? In Cambodia, it was not one tribe against another. It was not Rwanda. Or Bosnia. Or Northern Ireland. It was not even the ‘class struggle’ so beloved of Marxists, although Pol Pot claimed to be one. What happened was that the monster was set free. The monster in men that kills, and tortures, and rapes for … for the pure evil joy of it. Revenge? For true revenge, we would have to kill the Devil.”

“There is no Devil. There is no ‘evil’ that gets loose. It’s all inside humans. Some humans. And it’s those humans who have to pay.”

“Which
humans? The ten-year-old boy who bashed in babies’ skulls with a shovel because his leaders told him the babies were the seeds of the privileged class? The people who made moral decisions
not
to kill died for their choice. Would you
cleanse
all Cambodia to be certain none of the guilty escaped?”

“No. But they can be found if only—”

“Found? Perhaps. Some of them. Some few of them. But even South Africa has a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. They are trying to heal their country, not exterminate all those who committed atrocities. Rwanda is going to have trials. They will take
decades
, and only a handful of people will be punished. Only zealots want revenge. Most people, what they want is food. They want safety. And they want a future. Revenge will provide none of that.”

“That’s their choice.”

“But not yours.”

“Not mine.”

“People have hurt you. In your life, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Were you always able to have your revenge?”

“No. Some of them … I could never find them. Others died before I could.”

“But you still hate?”

“I don’t think I do. I don’t hate the dead—I hate what they did.”

“So … now? Why do you hate now?”

“Could you come here?” I asked her.

She walked slowly over to where I was sitting, turned her back, cocked one hip, and perched on the arm of the chair.

“I want to tell you something,” I said.

I
t took a long time to tell her. I didn’t start out to do that—just wanted to explain how Pansy had died, loyal past death. But I kept going backwards, all the way to when Pansy was a pup. How you were supposed to wrap an old alarm clock in a towel and let the puppy sleep next to it—it would sound like a heartbeat from her mother, and comfort her. I let her sleep on my own heart instead.

When I stopped talking, she stayed quiet. I could barely see her in the darkness that had dropped like a lazy curtain.

“Who pays?” she whispered.

“Whoever was there. Whoever sent them.”

“And then you are finished?”

“Yes.”

“I do not believe you,” is all she replied.

T
he next morning, she was gone, the door to her room standing open. I was up by five-thirty, so she must have taken off when it was pitch-dark outside. I flicked on the light in the hall. It threw off enough to show me that her suitcase was still there. The living room held no note. Her laptop was missing.

I showered and shaved, aimless, taking my time. Went out and ate a slow breakfast: a toasted bagel with cream cheese and pineapple juice. The cream cheese had little bits of chive, sharp and clean. The juice tasted like they’d just taken a machete to a fresh batch of pineapples that morning. But the bagel was a flop—mealy, flabby, and with no real crust. I guess what they say is true.

I found an OTB a few blocks from the hotel. But even though it took plays on out-of-town tracks, all the action was on thoroughbreds or the dogs. I only bet the trotters. And I fucking
hate
greyhound racing—I know what happens to the dogs as soon as they lose a step or two.

Back to learning the streets. I spotted a poolroom, but shrugged off the temptation—the fewer people who got a close-up of me before the meet, the better. Traffic was often clogged, especially where they were building a trolley line through town, but the drivers seemed either resigned to it or more polite than I believed people in cities could get.

By midday, I’d found a giant Borders on Southwest Third. Turned out the place took up the whole corner. I saw more gorgeous women in their coffee shop than you’d see in an L.A. restaurant. But these girls were all reading books, not waiting on tables, so I never talked to any of them.

I just strolled, looking around. I kept seeing signs that said Portland was the “Rose City,” but I didn’t see any roses.

After a whole day, I decided that the Northwest sector looked most like places I was used to operating in. And that the Horse was loose in Portland’s streets, riding a lot of young kids, its weight too much for them to carry. I knew the end of that script.

Gem didn’t come back that night. I watched television until narcolepsy set in. Didn’t take long.

O
n waiting-day number three, it rained. I continued my learning on foot, London-cabdriver-style, getting the nuances I’d miss behind the wheel. Couldn’t cover a lot of ground, but whatever I covered, I covered tight, working my way around and behind O’Bryant Square.

It was one block square: ground-level at one end, full-width terraced at the other, the steps perfect for sitting. No fences or gates, so it had easy access to all four of the streets that made up its borders.

I never found it empty, no matter what time I went past. Homeless nomads with clear plastic sacks of recyclables they’d rescued from the trash, students with their backpacks and attitudes, burnt-out runaways. A guy in a business suit was meeting a woman who couldn’t have been his wife from the way he kept eye-sweeping for anybody he might know, a young girl was drawing something in a large tablet, two men in their thirties openly shared a joint. And pigeons. Plenty of pigeons.

When I got back, Gem was there, perched on the arm of the easy chair like she’d been when I told her about Pansy. She didn’t turn around when I came in.

“Why don’t you sit in the chair?” I asked her.

“I was saving it for you,” she said, almost formally.

“Thank you,” I replied, in the same tone.

I sat down.

“Do you want something to eat?” I asked her.

She flashed a smile, nodded her head.

“Anything in particular?”

“No. Just—”

“—a lot, right?”

“Yes.”

I
t was the first time I’d tried room service since I’d been at the hotel. No risk, as I saw it. A hotshot studio exec like me, who’d look twice at an exotic dinner companion in his room? I ordered as if there were three people eating, and came up only a little short … which I cured when I told Gem I didn’t want my dessert.

She took three chunky white pills with her meal, not making any big deal about it. I didn’t ask, so I was surprised when she said, “Monocal. It’s the only way to get fluoride bonded with calcium.”

“Why would you need that?”

“Osteoporosis,” she said, unsmiling.

“But you’re not old enough to—”

“Malnutrition can induce it very early, especially if there’s any bone-marrow exposure.”

I didn’t say anything. Thinking about Biafra again. All that marrow exposed.

“It’s not a difficult regimen,” Gem said. “Heavy on the calcium, fluoride to bond it home, no brown sodas …”

“Brown sodas?”

“Coke, Pepsi, root beer.…”

“That’s bad for you? If you have …?”

“Osteoporosis? Yes.”

“I didn’t know.”

“It is of no consequence,” she said. “A man like you will never die of osteoporosis.”

W
e watched the late news together. They replayed part of an interview with the human who’d watched his friend snatch a little girl inside a two-bit casino. Watched him drag the child into a bathroom and start to work on her. When he was done watching, he walked out. Maybe played with the slot machines. His friend came out about twenty minutes later, his work done. The human never said a word. They found the little girl’s body in that bathroom, raped and murdered.

The casino’s videocams had most of it—right up to where the killer chased her into the bathroom. He got nabbed a few days later. His friend was telling the interviewer
he
hadn’t done anything wrong; he just did what he thought was best for himself. That human’s at a fancy college now, studying engineering.

“Fucking maggot,” I said, half to myself.

“Most people do what he did,” Gem said.

“What do you mean?”

“Most people, when they observe the worst things that are done, they only watch. Or turn away. Because they fear if they were to do something the evil would turn on them, too.”

She got to her feet and walked into her own room.

I
took a shower. Washed my hair. Brushed my teeth. Shaved. I Killing time. I knew I wasn’t going to sleep. It happens sometimes, no point in arguing with it.

The living room was all shadows except for a small, dark-shaded lamp on an end table by the couch. I didn’t want to turn on the TV or the radio, and there was nothing to read but yesterday’s newspaper. I started making charts in my head, putting the players on it like chess pieces.

The shadows shifted. Gem stepped into the faint light. Her hair was free and loose, face calm. She was nude, her slim body catching the shadowy light in her own shadows.

“Yes?” she said, just above a whisper.

I stood up. She turned and walked down the hall, a willow in a gentle breeze.

S
he sat with her back against the bedboard, hands clasped around her knees, watching me take my clothes off. When I came closer, she made a
click-click
sound with her tongue.

The only light was spillover from the living room, but it didn’t matter—I was too close to her for my eye to focus anyway.

Her hands were exploratory. Unpracticed. I took a handful of her lustrous hair, pulled her face toward mine. She moved so that her face was in my neck, made some sound I’d never heard before.

Her skin was velvety, faintly coated with moisturizer. I slowly traced the inside curve of her thigh toward its apex. Halfway up, my hand snagged on a spot of raised, gnarled flesh. I moved past it. As soon as I did, Gem made another noise. I moved my hand back down to the scarred patch of flesh, put my thumb on it lightly, and rubbed it in little circles. She twisted her hips, slid one leg over me.

“Yes?” she said again.

I put my hands on her waist, moved her more upright, so she was straddling me. I could feel her wet heat, and I slipped inside like a fox into a thicket. A fox with the hounds close and coming.

She grunted, thrust her hips against me, opening, taking me in so deep that our pelvic bones hit.

I fell into a gentle rhythm, no urgency. She threw back her head, the cords on her neck standing out.

I reached back to her small, tight bottom and pulled her even closer. It was as smooth and languid as underwater swimming. She …

 … was on her knees next to me, bending all the way forward, her lips against my face. “What did you see in your window?” she whispered.

I shook my head. Hard. To clear it. The last thing I remembered, I was inside her. What had—?

“I don’t …”

“A window opened, yes?”

I didn’t say anything, trying to go back—what? A minute? Ten minutes? To when I’d lost … I was underwater with … with the shark. The shark coming for me again.

“What’s a window?” I asked her.

“An intrusive image. Unbidden. Sometimes, when a person concentrates very hard on something, the brain’s safeguards slip. And … other things come in.”

“But …”

“It happens to me, too,” she said. “My mind is like a computer screen—I see whatever is happening before me, in real time. But, sometimes, a little window opens inside that screen. A window of memory. It widens and widens until it
is
the whole screen.”

“What do you do, then?”

“I used to scream. Now I just let it come. Because I know it will go if I … let it. The window’s power comes from resistance. I do not resist.”

“But I wasn’t seeing … anything. Just you.”

“And then it opened up, yes? Tell me.”

I closed my eyes. The window was gone. I reached for her. She came close, cheek against my chest. I held her there while I told her about the shark. And how I still keep seeing Pansy cut down. Again and again.

I
t was a long time before we fell asleep. My cock stayed small and soft. But it didn’t feel useless, nestled in her cupped hand. I drifted away to an unbroken black screen.

G
em was gone when I woke on Friday. I heard the shower running. Then it stopped. She opened the door to her bathroom, looked at me in her bed, and said, “Did your room come with a bathrobe?”

“It did. But I … It’s not clean—I used it last night.”

“Good,” she said, walking past me, dripping, her hair wrapped in a turban of towel.

I
ordered a pair of three-egg omelettes—ham, cheese, mushrooms, and onions—with sides of sausage links, home fries, and three large glasses of apple juice.

Ordered something for myself, too.

“Is Gem the way your name is pronounced?”

She smiled. “You mean,
not
how it is spelled, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you ask?”

“If I had to write your name …”

“Oh. Do you not use e-mail?”

“No. I don’t even have a computer.”

“Oh,” she said. And went back to her food.

S
he never did get dressed, shucking my bathrobe when the place got warm enough for her. All she had on her body was a thick black PVC band on her wrist, one of those ultra-chic new watches, I guessed.