Dead Souls (28 page)

I take a deep breath. He smells like old Justin—clean, healthy, just a touch of sweat. I look at his face, and his eyes hold a wall between us. We regard ourselves as these new creatures, capable of unspeakable acts, of treachery.

“I really loved you,” I say. “Even when it didn't look like it, I loved you.”

“I know,” he says. “I've always known.”

He opens the door. A waft of Opal's perfume escapes.

“But it is what it is.”

I could run; I could try to ghost one last time. But I'm tired of running, and tired of being a living ghost. I can't imagine how Alejandro endured living in this shadow world all that time.

I step into my apartment. He follows.

And shuts the door behind him.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE

O
PAL IS STANDING
in the kitchen area, cooking something on the stove. Not hiding how at home she is. Something meaty in the oven, a roast maybe. Justin hasn't been able to digest that kind of protein in months.

There's been a shift too in the arrangement of furniture. The couch now faces the window, not the TV, which does create a nice buffer between the door and living space, and draws the eyes to the fire escape and a peek of the lake view. I wish I'd thought of it.

Opal looks up, sees the state of me, and takes the spoon out of a pot—
Beans? He hates beans
—and places it on a spoon rest I didn't know we had.

“Oh my God,” she says.

“I found her like this,” says Justin. He doesn't mention shooting anyone. “I thought it was better to bring her back here until the hospitals clear up.”

It feels practiced, what they're saying. Scripted. And her skin—I'd recognize that dark shadow anywhere. She must see mine too. But Justin doesn't have one. There's some small comfort in that.

My teeth chatter. My body is actually going into shock.

Opal walks toward me with an affectation of concern. “We need to get her into the bathtub. Clean her wounds.”

Here they are, talking about me in third person. I'm the child now.

“That's what I thought.”

“I'll get the kit.”

What kit, I don't know; we never had a kit. Still, I let Justin lead me to the bedroom, which has been restored to order, except for the mangled bedside lamp, which sticks out of my modern trash can, looking like it's trying to eat it. Subtle changes here too. My papers, for instance, are missing. Trashed too or simply stored in the closet?

Justin turns the light on in the bathroom, goes in. I hear him turn on the faucet, the rush of water into the tub. I take off his peacoat jacket, drop it on the bed—the coverlet with the bloodstains is gone, replaced by a simple white sheet over the feather comforter. I think for a moment.
Yes. Just in case
.

I reach into the peacoat, pull out the gun, slide it under the mattress where I kept my scissors. My fingertips leave a slight smudge of dust on the white sheet.

“Do you think you can take it hot?” Justin calls out.

“No, medium warm.”

Creak
as he turns on the other faucet. I reach down for my purse, placed on the floor next to my bedside table. Grab my wallet, and pull out my card. It doesn't even concern me in some strange way; I feel beyond worry or care at this point. It's more a distant sense of curiosity.

FAVOR:
blank.

No, Scratch has some other plan for me in mind for sure. I slip the card back in my wallet, the wallet back into my purse. I want to sit on the bed, but my bloody, dusty self would cause more work for Opal for sure. I almost feel like a guest here. Not in my own room.

“I think we're set,” says Justin. He comes out of the bathroom to retrieve me. My heart aches for the concern in his eyes to be real.

He smiles gently, pushes the priest's smock off my shoulders—loose anyway it simply falls away into a heap on the floor. I see I'm cut and scraped and bruised in more places. A really nasty gash just below my rib cage that I hadn't even noticed.

“Jesus. Maybe I should've taken you to the hospital.” An unscripted thought, which seems to create a wavering confusion.

“Oh, we'll fix her right up,” says Opal brightly.

She stands in the doorway with a crowbar in her hand. He sees it, and for just a few seconds I think he's going to charge her, take her down, but then he just takes a step away instead.

“I'm sorry,” he says, not looking at me—he can't. Reaches down for the coat on the bed, then into the pocket where the gun was supposed to be.

Opal smiles. Something glitters on her hand, and then I see it—the engagement ring Justin had kept in his sock drawer.

I thought I'd known the worst pain, experienced the worst horrors.

Once again, I was wrong.

EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS
next happens fast, but in slow motion too—I am inside myself, my consciousness, but outside it as well, an observer. There is the surprise in Justin's face when he finds the pocket empty, followed by his shock when I disappear, not entirely from view because my form covered in dust is still visible.

I see Opal lift the crowbar over her head, start running for me—her face is contorted, her dark shadow radiating out like a poisonous gas cloud—but I'm too fast, I slip my hand under the mattress, pull out the gun—Justin is still trying to process what's happening, trying to understand—when I shoot Opal in her right shoulder. Blood spatters and she doubles over with pain, dropping the crowbar. It falls to the floor with a clatter. Justin takes a step back, runs his hand through his hair, now a few centimeters thick.

He makes a sound, but I'm not sure if it's a word exactly. I shoot her again, in the stomach. Smoke drifts lazily from the barrel, smell of burning cordite.

She's not going to die of course. She won't be eligible for that gift until Scratch calls her favor in.

Unless this
is
him calling his favor in.

She crumples to the floor, kneeling, hand reaching out to the floor. Justin rushes to her side.

“Holy shit!” he yells. “Holy shit!”

He's frantic, looks at her the way he used to look at me. How and when did I lose him so completely? But then it's obvious what she traded for—his health to return. Who wouldn't fall in love with someone who'd sell her soul to save your life?

When he turns to me, he's all rage and desperate fury, a side I'd never have thought him capable of. Not
my
Justin, a man
who slowed down for pigeons that landed in the street, who kept the fridge stocked with my favorite sodas, who watched TV while I read my focus group reports, my head resting on his lap. Who would stroke my hair gently, idly, loving me even when I was absorbed in other things.

He grabs the crowbar.

I shoot him in the leg. Raise the gun and put his head in my sights.

But no.
No
,
no, no, no
. Never.

Maybe the apple can fall a little farther from the tree.

EVEN WITH ALL THE POLICE
and SWAT and Army Reserves headed deep into the city, I'm sure that three gun blasts reported in a building known for peace and quiet will draw the appropriate law enforcement agencies. Sooner than later, if Scratch's threat of a digital trail is real.

God, I could use a Guinness.

I shut the bedroom door behind me, ignoring the moans. I'm not as worried about Opal tied and gagged on the bed—frankly I don't give a shit if she's suffering—but Justin looked pale, and even though I tied a tourniquet around his leg, he
is
just recovering from cancer. I'm hoping that whatever deal Opal made extends to other conditions.

I still love him. This surprises me. I didn't know I'd loved him so much.

I tie the belt of my terry-cloth robe a little tighter and head for the fridge. The six-pack of Guinness is still missing, but there's some cooking sherry, an oloroso. What the hell. I pull out the bottle, take a few sips from it, and remember why I
hate sherry. But the alcoholic buzz, that I like. I tuck it under my arm. My stomach grumbles. Might be eating prison food for a while. So I put the sherry on the table, then go to the sink to wash the blood off my hands—it
does
wash off, something Alejandro was right about—and take the roast out of the oven. Pork, nicely browned. Baked beans in the pot Opal had been stirring, and I also discover some freshly baked corn bread on top of the fridge. I pull out a carving knife, a plate, forks and the butter. I set myself a place at the table, using a real placemat from a set Justin had bought from QVC.

A knock at the door. Not an authoritative,
we've got you surrounded!
kind of knock, not a Gloria imperative knock; it's more a question, mildly inquisitive. But of course I know who it is.

I cross over to the door, unlatch the chain lock, open it.

Scratch, my faceless friend, stands in the doorway, fingers hooked through plastic six-pack rings, although I note there're only four cans of Guinness left. But then we'd drank the other two at Alejandro's house. Among other things we did.

“Something smells good,” he says. “Mind if I join you?”

And really, at this point, why the hell not?

SCRATCH TAKES OVER
the hosting duties, retrieving the roast from the kitchen counter, placing it on a cutting board, which he then places on the table. His movements are neat, direct, like a professional waiter. He gets himself a placemat, plate, even brings the salt and pepper, a loaf of bread from the cabinet. He's good with the carving knife too—perfect slabs of meat fall away—but then given the expert flaying I've recently seen displayed, it shouldn't seem that remarkable.

A muffled yell from the bedroom—Opal hearing another voice, trying to catch his attention, inviting rescue. But he either doesn't hear or doesn't care.

“Nothing I like better than a home-cooked meal,” he says. He pops open the tab to the Guinness, pours as much as he can into a glass. It's nicely cold—instantly, condensation starts to form. He places it in front of me.

I pick up the glass, take a deep, appreciative sip.

He sits in the chair opposite me. “Strange as it might seem, not many like to eat with the devil.”

“You could force them to.” I pick up a knife to start into the pork on my plate. It smells divine. “Call it in as a favor.”

“But then it's not the same, is it? It's not an act of genuine affection.”

I take a bite. Wish I hadn't shot Opal before she'd started the gravy. “Is that what you want, genuine affection? Does that even exist?”

“Ha!” he says, pointing his knife at me. “People say so. All the time.
Please, spare my child, take me instead
. Blah, blah, feckin' blah. When it comes time to collect my favor though, you'd be surprised at who people offer instead of themselves. Other considerations kick in.”

I reach for a piece of corn bread and slather a good amount of butter on it.

“Take you, for example,” he says.

“Me.” The corn bread has actual corn in it. A nice touch.

“Yes,
you
. So hot and bothered for a double deal, you fail to see the obvious right in front of you.”

“Which is . . .”

“Your very pursuit of it undermined the relationship you
were desperate to preserve. Created an opening for someone else to step through. Ms. Opal. Sold her soul to get Justin to love her instead.”

I take a swig of Guinness to wash the corn bread down. “But his tumor. It's gone, or almost all gone now. I thought she'd have traded—”

“No.
He
traded his soul to save his life.”

Why am I even having this conversation, breaking bread with him? Where will this ever lead except to unhappy places? But the thought prickles.