The Four-Night Run (14 page)

If maybe Scrbacek’s own father hadn’t up and croaked on him, he might have shrugged off the abuse like any other student and headed for the rich green meadows of corporate law for which he thought he was destined. But Scrbacek’s father had died when Scrbacek was ten, and now DeLoatch was there, sheathed in his shabby suits and his air of authority, showering Scrbacek with not just attention, but attention of the most sarcastic and humiliating sort. For the whole of that first year, Scrbacek had hated Professor DeLoatch with an intensity that was akin to a son’s hatred for his domineering father, but at the end of the year, to his strange dismay, Scrbacek found he wanted nothing so much professionally as to practice criminal law—and not as a prosecutor but as a defense attorney.

Just like DeLoatch. Just like dear old DeLoatch.

He also dreamed of fucking DeLoatch’s wife till her nose bled, but then she was actually DeLoatch’s third wife, blonde and bouncy, thirty years younger than her husband, and so we shouldn’t read too deeply into that nasty little fantasy, should we?

Or should we?

DeLoatch.

So maybe it was DeLoatch who had sent him scurrying to the criminal bar, but was that the choice the Contessa’s cards had spoken of? Was the mere practice of criminal law enough to put anyone at risk to be hunted unmercifully through the slums of Crapstown?

He was still considering it all, the water turning tepid as it pounded at his neck, when the bathroom door opened.

Scrbacek’s body seized in alarm. Through the opaque curtain, he could see the bare flicker of a shadow. Visions of Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins in a wig, black ink swirling down the drain—twisted visions flitted through his consciousness. He backed into the corner of the stall and called out, “Is that you, Jen?”

No answer.

“Jen?”

Still no answer.

Three days ago he might have stayed in the corner of the stall, cowering, but Scrbacek had learned fast and hard that cowering didn’t work, that cowering only made you an easier target for the sadistic thugs bent on taking you apart. His shoulder still hurt from bounding into the Worm, but he remained alive while others were dead. So instead of cowering he tensed his body, stepped toward the opaque curtain, flexed his knees, and, in a violent thrust, twisted the curtain aside and yelled so as to get the jump on whoever the hell was coming for him.

At first he saw no one, and then he realized that his sight line was too high. He stopped his war cry and lowered his gaze. There, sitting on the toilet, with his pants down around his Velcro sneakers, facing this naked yelling man, was a boy. A young boy with shiny black hair and tawny skin, a boy with the sharp dark eyes of his mother.

The boy stared impassively up at Scrbacek from the toilet, as if finding a naked man dripping wet and shouting in the shower was nothing more unusual than finding there a bottle of shampoo.

“Who are you?” said the boy.

A fair question, thought Scrbacek, fair indeed. But also he knew, with some primordial instinct, that the bigger question in that little room foggy with steam was not who the hell was Scrbacek, but who the hell was that little boy?

23

N
EWCOME

Scrbacek yanked closed the curtain, turned off the water, reached from behind the curtain for a towel, and wrapped it around his waist. When he again opened the curtain, the boy was still sitting on the pot.

“Who are you?” repeated the boy.

“A friend of your mother’s.”

“What kind of friend?”

Scrbacek tilted his head in bemusement at the question.

“Are you a friend friend,” said the boy, “or are you a stay-over, use-the-bathroom, make-me-stupid-breakfasts-in-the-morning-while-my-mom-is-sleeping kind of friend.”

“A friend friend.”

“When did you come?”

“This morning.”

The boy looked up and down at Scrbacek in the shower. “When are you leaving?”

“This afternoon.”

“For good?”

“Yes.”

The boy stared at Scrbacek for a moment more and then nodded his head as if everything now was satisfactory. Scrbacek found another towel and wiped himself dry. His heap of clothes, filthy and bloodied from his race through the tunnel and the fight behind Ed’s Eats, was gone. Only the boots were standing side by side on the bathroom floor. A terrycloth robe was hanging from a hook on the door.

“What happened to your arm?” said the boy.

“I tripped on a rock,” said Scrbacek, putting on the robe.

“Must have been a big rock,” said the boy, still on the toilet. “Must have been like a boulder. I saw this huge flaming boulder fly through the air once. It went as high as an airplane and then came down right next to me and missed me by about an inch.”

“A huge flaming boulder?”

“Well, maybe it wasn’t on fire or so big, but it came down right next to me, like I said. My friend Connor from school threw it.”

“What’s your name?”

“Sean Ling.”

“And how old are you, Sean Ling?”

“Five. Can you wipe me?”

Scrbacek took a step back.

“Sometimes,” said the boy, “I don’t do it so good.”

“Well, first of all, you don’t do it so well. And second of all, I think you should wipe yourself, Sean.”

“Yeah,” said Sean as he unrolled a long line of toilet paper and wadded it together into an unwieldy clump. “That’s what my mommy tells me all the time.”

“Where does your father live?”

“In California.”

“Really? Does he visit much?”

“All the time. He comes all the time and takes me to the movies and stuff. When he can. He lives in California, and it’s a long drive. And he’s important there, but still he comes all the time.”

“What’s his name?”

“Newcome. Newcome Ling.”

The boy finished wiping himself and then pulled up his pants, flushed the toilet, headed for the door.

“Bye,” he said with a quick wave of his hand.

“Don’t forget to wash your hands.”

“My mommy says I don’t have to.”

“I don’t think so,” said Scrbacek.

The boy stopped, looked at Scrbacek for a moment, went to the sink, stood on a stool, turned on the water, pumped soap on his hands, washed until the long sleeves of his shirt were soaked, and then, without turning off the water, stepped down, touched a towel, and left, closing the door behind him.

Scrbacek had stuffed the pills Squirrel had given him and the remaining money from the casino in his boot before he showered. Now the bottles of pills stood beside the sink, their labels read and insides examined, no doubt, with utter care by Jenny. She had always been suspicious by nature, but completely honest, so there was no need to check that the money was still there.

He opened the bottles and downed the prescribed amount of antibiotics and double the prescription of pain reliever with codeine. Jenny had left a box of Band-Aids, a new toothbrush, still in its plastic box, and a disposable razor beside the sink. Carefully he gripped the tabs of a Band-Aid and pressed it over the deep slice in the bridge of his nose. He brushed his teeth long and hard, until the foam in his mouth turned pink. He lathered his face with shaving cream. One side was already clear-cut to the bruises when Jenny poked her head in the door.

“I have to go to work. You can sleep in my bed, if you want.”

“Thanks,” he said, still shaving, looking only at her reflection in the mirror. “And thanks for the robe and the toothbrush.”

“I’m cleaning your clothes. They needed it. And I put out the food like you asked. The charges for everything will show up on your bill. Local calls are seventy-five cents.”

“I’m not planning on using the phone.”

“Good idea. I didn’t see any cigarettes. You still don’t smoke?”

“Disgusting habit.”

“So at least our time together wasn’t a total waste.”

“No, not a total waste.” He stopped shaving. “I met Sean.”

“Oh, did you?”

“Good-looking kid.”

“Thanks. I have to get him to school.”

“How old is he?”

She waited a moment before answering. “Four.”

“He said his father was in California.”

“Is that what he said?”

“Said his father’s name was Newcome.”

“He did, did he? I have to go, or he’ll be late. Sleep tight.”

She closed the door, leaving Scrbacek staring at his own face—half-covered
in white, with the corner of the foam mouth gaily turned up, half-clean-shaven, bruised and scowling—a face like one of those drama masks, half-comedy, half-tragedy.

24

A P
ATCH OF
S
KIN

Her bedroom was their old bedroom. Her bed was their old bed. The walls were a different color, and the duvet pattern was frillier, but the room was furnished with memories.

He needed to think about the men out to kill him and the big money behind them. He needed to think about the man out to indict him for murder and the evidence that was building against him. He needed to think about where he was and to where he ought to run. He needed to think about the boy, about the boy, oh Christ, the boy. He needed to think, but he was too tired to think. So instead he lay on her bed, still in his robe, his head resting on her pillows, surrounded by the fragrance of her shampoo, and let his mind drift to a small patch of flesh.

There was a spot on Jenny Ling’s body, a small patch of skin on her side, just beside the bottom curve of her right breast, where she was extraordinarily sensitive. He had discovered the patch on their first night together, after all the hesitations and false starts, the earnest discussions in dive bars where he tried to convince her of his earnestness, the secret late-night hand-in-hand walks after study group so their friends wouldn’t know. That night, when they finally grew sick of talking about it and fell into doing it, after a quick bout of pent-up screwing that was silvery and magical, he had endeavored to gently kiss his way up the lovely course of her body, starting with the curves of her feet and moving to the line of muscle on her calf, to the hollow beneath her knee, to the soft of her thigh, gently working his tongue, tugging at her skin with his teeth. He was atop her like a predatory cat, held aloft by his arms as he bowed his head to her flesh. She wrapped his body with her legs in slow constant motion, and stroked with her soft hands his neck and ears and hair, and let out light contented moans that rose and fell with every breath. He was waylaid for a time too long to remember by the richness of her scent and the very taste of her, the combination driving him to roar out loud, but then he gained control enough to continue on, to the thin and willowy stomach, the hard curves of her ribs, the taut line of skin at the base of her breasts, first one, then the other, then the ambrosial space between. He licked the flavor from her areolas, dark as cinnamon; he played her nipples, soft like taffy, between his lips. But when he reached that spot on Jenny Ling’s body, that small patch of skin beside the bottom curve of her right breast, her legs squeezed his waist, her grip on his hair tightened, her back arched, and the contented moans were trapped along with her breath in the back of her throat.

“You want a cigarette?”

“God, no. Disgusting things.”

“There’s nothing better after sex than a cigarette. Try it.”

“Take a look at yourself, Scrbacek. Your clothes, your aspirations, even your postcoital cigarette. You’re a walking cliché.”

“I thought I was profoundly original.”

“Sorry.”

“Even that thing with my tongue?”

“Well, maybe that. But to be frank, you have an utter lack of originality. I think that’s why I find you attractive. You balance out my sparkling inimitability.”

“Let’s not be so frank. Frankness is, frankly, overrated.”

“Don’t get pouty.”

“I’m going to have a cigarette.”

“Not in my bed you’re not.”

“Oh, come on.”

“No, no, no. It’s filthy, it smells, it leaves ashes all over the place.”

“But see, if it was reefer, you’d be all for it. If it was reefer, it would be, ‘Fire it up, big boy. Let’s get mellow.’”

“You have reefer?”

“No. Never.”

“Why not? Because it’s against the law?”

“Because when I do reefer, I end up curled in the corner, thinking every person in the world is laughing at me, and that’s a very hard position from which to pick up chicks. What’s wrong with my aspirations, anyway?”

“‘Oh, I’m going to work for some big firm and make lots of money and spend my life doing corporate debentures for really rich people so they get even richer.’”

“Yeah? So?”

“It doesn’t seem to you a little . . . shallow?”

“Absolutely. But I’m a shallow guy.”

“You only wish you were.”

“All your public interest friends think I’m shallow. What do they call me? The Republican?”

“The Republican Asshole, to be precise.”

“But you just watch. I bet all of you end up at big firms, representing R.J. Reynolds and the NRA, blaming it on your student loans.”

“Not me.”

“We’ll see.”

“Go to hell.”

“Okay, you won’t. Instead, you’ll work for legal aid and help feed the multitudes and be beatified by future generations for all your good works.”

“Now you have it.”

“But that’s after you pay off your student loans.”

“What’s a corporate debenture anyway?”

“You’ll be finding out soon enough.”

He found himself consumed by that small patch of skin, entranced by the smoothness of the flesh, by the swell and sag of the breast, by the subtle striae of the ribs.

She was a hard woman to know, tight within herself, shielded by her sarcasm and mocking laughter, but he imagined somehow that by discovering that point of sensitivity he had discovered a way beneath her protections. It was a passageway, that patch of flesh, to a place secret within her, that edge of existence only reached in the richest moments, when everything held tight is thrown loose, a passageway waiting to be unlocked by his caress. He would stroke it with his hand, swirl it with his tongue. In the bath they would lie together, interlocked left legs casually resting on the edge of the tub, his arms covering her breasts, his lips on the lobe of her ear, on the hollow of her neck, and then down, down, stretching his neck as he lowered his lips to that soft plot of skin, her chin suddenly rising as if on a string.

At night, sometimes while she slept, he would lie awake and stare at that very point as it swelled and contracted with the working of her lungs.

“What’s that, there?”

“Where?”

“There.”

“Stop. It tickles. No, really. Jen. Stop.”

“There.”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. What is it?”

“My third nipple.”

“God, that’s disgusting.”

“The Druids used to think it a mark of the anointed. They’d walk leagues and leagues just to rub one for good luck.”

“Leagues?”

“And leagues. Go ahead.”

“No. Please. Yuck.”

“Go ahead. Don’t be afraid. It doesn’t have any teeth. Make a wish first.”

“A wish?”

“Yes, like the Druids.”

“Those wacky Druids. All right, here goes. How does that feel?”

“Fine. Really fine. You know they used to rub something else for good luck, the Druids.”

“That?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“You’re making it all up, about the Druids.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Yes, yes.”

“A big liar.”

“I admit it, yes. And getting bigger all the time. No, don’t stop. Don’t. What happened?”

“You’re nothing but a fraud.”

“So?”

“I don’t choose to consort with big firm frauds.”

“Consort? That sounds suspiciously mercantile. Anyway, about the whole big firm thing, I’ve been thinking.”

“Well, there you go, Scrbacek, screwing up everything.”

“I’m serious.”

“Roll over onto your side, and it’ll pass. You were made for a big firm. You already have your white shirts and khakis for casual Fridays.”

“But I think I want to do trial work.”

“So you’ll be a corporate litigator.”

“I wasn’t thinking of corporate litigation. I was thinking maybe of criminal law.”

“No way.”

“Hey, I need that arm. I’m thinking defense work.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Really.”

“That son of a bitch, he got to you, didn’t he?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Yes, he did. He treated you like shit all year, and now you’re going to be DeLoatch’s bitch.”

At the beginning, when they had finally fallen into it, they had sex constantly, obsessively—nothing new there with young lovers—their bouts interspersed with gossip and their grand hopes for their futures in the law.

But even after the beginning, when the sex was not as constant, not as obsessive, and then later, when the sex became far rarer than the arguments and when his drive was slaked by other matter, inanimate and animate both, even then the progression was always the same. Whatever the position, whatever the length of their efforts or lack of efforts, whatever their moods or their emotions or even the disdain they felt one for the other, whatever, it would always come down to his lips against that spot, her letting go of whatever was holding her back, the feel of her skin, the musk sweat beneath her arm, the taste, the rush of blood, the anger and passion and love, yes, love, spreading over everything, washing it clean.

All coming alive for the two of them from that magic patch of flesh.

“DeLoatch has got nothing to do with it.”

“Don’t be stupid, Scrbacek. He’s got everything to do with it. He hooked you. The more he abused you, the more he had you hooked.”

“I have a theory that he humiliated me regularly and used me as the butt of his jokes out of some fiercely sublimated homoerotic attraction.”