For the Dead (13 page)

T
HERE
’
S ONE STAR
that doesn’t move. It’s yellow and dim, but even when her head is spinning, which it does quite a lot, the star stays still. She spins and spins, but it remains fixed, giving her something outside herself, something she can cling to.

Only—

It’s a light bulb.

It’s not a star. It’s a light, high on the wall at the other end of the world.

Her mouth is dry. She’s dizzy. Whatever they’re giving her, it makes her dizzy.

Against the wall beneath the light, on the folding metal chairs, the girl and the ugly boy are asleep. He’s fallen sideways with his head in her lap, and her head is tilted back, against the wall. Her mouth is open.

She doesn’t know how long she’s been here. She can’t tell whether it’s day or night. That light is always on. She slips in and out of sleep all the time.

And they’re always here.

She’s never known people her own age. It was always her father, the maids, the ghost of the woman who used to be her mother, her face half-buried in a glass of something that smelled so sweet that even now the memory of it makes her stomach shrivel.

I’m not hot any more
, she thinks.

She shifts her shoulders against the pillows that prop her up. One door. No windows. One bed, two chairs. That boy and that girl.

The line going into her arm.

She looks down at the steel cuffs that fasten her wrists to the frame on both sides of the bed. Her wrists look very thin.

With her eyes on the boy and the girl, she brings her right wrist closer to her, hearing the grate of the metal cuff as it slides over the rail. The frame rests on an upright, just about where her waist is, so she can’t bring the cuff any closer than that.

But she can sit up.

Slowly, quietly, she pulls herself up until she’s sitting almost vertically. A whirl of dizziness stops her, and she holds still, breathing through her mouth and keeping her eyes on the light, until the dizziness passes. She’s sweating, but it’s not the sour, sick sweat she had before, when she felt like she was on fire.

She’s gotten stronger.

It takes her a minute or two because of her dry mouth, but finally she works up some spit. When she thinks she has enough, she leans forward and spits on her wrist.

The spit feels cool. It’s slick. She pushes her wrist into the cuff to get the metal wet and then, slowly, rotates her arm, trying to spread the wetness over the entire assembly. Then, very deliberately, she pushes her hand forward, brings her fingers tightly together, straight, with her thumb tucked against the center of her palm, and begins to pull it back.

Pulls it all the way to the base of her thumb.

The boy murmurs something, his big front teeth gleaming beneath the light on the wall.

She ignores the pain and pulls very, very slowly. Feels the cuff slide
almost
over the knuckle at the base of her thumb. The widest part.

She can do it.

Just a little more spit, just a little more hurt.

The boy says it again, the same sound, and the girl beside him, without opening her eyes, lets her hand drop on the boy’s shoulder. The hand rests there, thin-fingered and dark against the boy’s T-shirt.

Her hand slides out of the cuff.

The boy moves his head slightly, back and forth, just getting more comfortable on the girl’s lap.

On the bed, not far from her left ankle, is a rectangle of white. There she is, in pencil, looking up out of the page. Beyond the drawing, on the hard metal chairs, the chairs she knows are uncomfortable, are the sleeping girl and the boy with the big teeth. They’ve stayed there. With her.

Without making a sound, she begins to weep. She leans back and lets the tears come, not sobbing, not even sniffling, just weeping with her mouth open and snot running down her upper lip. When whatever it is has cried itself out of her, she pushes her hand back into the cuff.

She leans back and closes her eyes.

“T
URN IT OVER
,” Andrew says in a no-nonsense voice. “The sun will fade it.” He’s in the lead today. He’d taken off at a brisk pace the moment they got out of the cab. Although he’d been tightlipped on the ride over, she thought he’d slow down to walk next to her, but he hadn’t. Saturday morning, she thinks, and he’s not skipping school, so he’s confident.

“It won’t fade,” Miaow says to the back of his head. She likes the way it curves down into his slender neck. “Or did you print it in invisible ink?”

“Ha, ha, ha,” Andrew says. “Why don’t you let me boss you around once in a while?”

“Why should I let you—” She sees his back stiffen and says, “Look, look, I’m turning it over.” She turns the picture over so the image faces down. “The sun
is
pretty bright.”

Andrew says nothing. His shoulders are high and tight, and his neck looks rigid enough to break if he were to turn his head.

Miaow trots to catch up. Andrew’s little bag with his diabetes kit in it hangs from her shoulder, and it slaps against her side. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” The alley is intersected by another, and he turns right. Miaow has already started left, which is the correct direction.

She runs through three or four possible approaches before she asks, “Are you sure it’s that way?”

“I give up,” Andrew says, coming to a stop. “You go the way you want. I’ll just tag along.”

She tries to meet his eyes, but he’s looking past her. “Are you mad at me?”

Andrew’s gaze falters, and he looks down at his feet. “No,” he says. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. I’m just—I feel like—” He screws up his face, relaxes it, and returns her gaze. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

She says, “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Andrew says, “
I’m
sorry.”

The two of them stand in silence for a moment, both of them looking at his feet. Then she says, “We don’t have to do it. We could just give the phone to Poke.”

“I’m not
frightened
,” Andrew says.

“I didn’t mean you were—”

“
We’re
the ones who found it,” he says, as though she’s arguing. “It’s a clue, right? It’s got pictures of the man who was killed last night and, and another man, and pictures of two other guys in a hotel room. If one of the men in that room is the man who sold the phone, then he might be the guy who killed that old cop. We’ll have found a suspect, and
then
you can tell Poke.”

“Okay,” Miaow says, without much force.

“My father,” he says. “My father would never think I could do anything like this. Help the police like this.”

Miaow has no idea what to say.

“I’m not afraid of
him
, either,” Andrew says.

“I know.”

Andrew’s shoulders ease a little. “Okay, you know where it is. You take me there.” Blushing furiously, he holds out his hand.

“Sure,” she says around the hard little stone in her throat. She transfers the photo to her other hand and takes his. It’s very smooth and a little damp, and it feels as delicate as a bird’s nest. She wants to squeeze it, but she knows he’ll grab it back if she does, and anyway it seems too fragile to squeeze.

They go back the way they’d come and start the curve to the left. Miaow can hear Andrew’s breath, and she has a sudden, unexpected urge to lean over and sniff it. The very thought heats her face. She’s thinking about fanning it with her free hand when she hears Andrew gasp. He’s stopped cold.

He says, “Whoa.”

The little shop where they bought the phone looks like a car has been driven through it. The glass in both display cases is smashed. Bits of telephones are everywhere, gleaming among the shards of glass, all afire with sunlight, in the absence of the awning, now ripped down and left to dangle from its poles.

The Sikh, his head sloppily bandaged, is pushing the wreckage around with a broom, creating piles of devastation. The linen wrapped crookedly across his forehead has a red stain on it. The blood hasn’t even had time to dry.

“Okay,” Miaow says. “Let’s go home.”

“No way,” Andrew says. “We came all this way, and—”

“This, uh,
this
.” Miaow says, lifting her chin toward the ruin of the shop. “This has got to have something to do with the guys in the pic—”

“Maybe not,” Andrew interrupts. “Maybe it’s those
farang
who stole the phone when we were here yesterday. Or maybe he cheated somebody and they got mad.” He’s already walking, and once again Miaow has to hurry to catch up to him.

When they’re a few feet away, the shop owner hears them and looks up from his sweeping. His eyes widen in a way that makes Miaow want to turn and run, but Andrew bulldozes forward.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Problem,” the Sikh says. “Small problem.” He shakes his head as though to clear the pain. “You go,” he says. “Come back in three days, four days.” He’s looking past them, scanning the area for someone. She tugs on Andrew’s shirt.

Andrew shrugs her off. “Is this the man—can I have the
picture
, Miaow? Is this the man who sold you the—?”

“Go,” the Sikh says, his eyes all over the place. “Go now, or—” He sees whatever he was looking for, and his teeth click together.

Miaow looks over her shoulder and sees two men in T-shirts and jeans, both of them familiar from the photos in the phone. One is short and dark and heavy, and the other, staring directly at her, is tall and lithe, with golden skin.

His eyes are fixed on her. He has a hand on the back of the smaller man’s neck, the way someone might rein in an attack dog before letting it fly.

Without moving his lips the Sikh says, “Go now, go fast, go.”

“Andrew,” Miaow says, smiling up at the Sikh. “When I say
now
, you are going to run as fast as you can. To our left. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, but why—”

“Do you hear me?”

“Uhh, sure.”

“Yes, child,” the Sikh says, smiling back. “Fast
fast
.”

“Good,” she says to the Sikh. “Thank you. You’ve been very nice and I hope your head feels better soon.” She gives him another big smile and says, “Andrew.
Now
.”

T
HE FIRST SURPRISE
is how quick he is.

He leaves her behind in just a few steps. In a burst of panic, she forgets about the men behind her, focusing only on one terrifying revelation:
He’s abandoning me
. His legs seem to stretch elastically in front of him, and the distance between them lengthens although she’s already running as fast as she can, past a blur of stands and open-air restaurants, through the smells of frying food and spices and exhaust, and a glance behind doesn’t lessen her fear: the shorter man is pounding along behind her, T-shirt flapping, and behind him, loping easily, like a big cat that’s preserving its strength, is the tall golden man.

He’s got
lots
of speed left.

A couple of meters ahead, Andrew risks a look back and slows,
extending a hand to her as though she were on skates, as though he could whip her around in front of him. Then he sees the men behind her and his eyes go wide, and Miaow realizes he was only running because she told him to, and he’s got energy in reserve.
Well
, she thinks,
at least one of us will get away
.

The long curve of the alley comes to an end. To their right is the straightaway, a narrow passage between shopfronts, that leads to traffic and taxis and policemen. Miaow gasps as Andrew takes the wrong turn, a turn that will lead them farther into the maze, and she manages to grab the back of his T-shirt and yank. It almost pulls both of them off their feet, but he turns to her again, a wildfire of confusion in his face, and she points toward the boulevard and takes off.

She hears his sneakers slap the pavement behind her, coming up fast, and then in front of her she sees another short dark man, this one with a brutish, heavy face, standing dead center in the passageway, arms spread and knees bent to lower his center of gravity. At that instant a new, even narrower alley opens up to her right, and she shouts Andrew’s name and makes the turn.

She bangs the top of her head against an umbrella, earning a shout from the vendor, and she sees that this passageway is all umbrellas on both sides, put up to prevent sun-faded merchandise.
We’re short
, she thinks with a thrill of recognition; this is a street-kid tactic—use your pursuers’ height against them. An adult will have to edge his way through. She bends at the waist and motions behind her, patting the air palm down and exaggerating her stoop, and she hears one umbrella go over. When she looks back, she sees Andrew leaning down just enough to clear the umbrellas and gaining on her.

And then one of the short men charges into the alley and knocks over two umbrellas.

The day shimmers and brightens as Miaow realizes that she knows where she is.

Or
used
to know. It’s been six years.

But what’s the alternative?

She risks a look back to find Andrew on her heels, close enough to touch, his eyes tiny and his lips drawn back with effort and fear. Eight or ten yards back, she sees the closer of the short guys trying to hop through a tangle of fallen umbrellas as a couple of shopkeepers grab at him, shouting.

“Up here,” she says to Andrew, “to the right, to the right, follow me.” And she takes off again, part of her looking for the turn and part of her listening for the sound of his shoes.

“Faster,” he gasps behind her. She manages to force out a tiny bit of additional juice, and she almost overruns the alley.

It’s too narrow to be an alley. It’s more like a space between buildings for air conditioners to drip into. Even now, even running for their lives, she’s stunned by how filthy and smelly it is—was it like this before? What will Andrew
think
, her dragging him into a place like—

And there it is, the chain-link fence.

Without even knowing she’s doing it, Miaow looses a yell from deep in her chest and launches herself, arms spread, from five feet away. She lands about a third of the way up, fingers shaped into claws, the toes of her sneakers jammed into the diagonal openings. The strap with Andrew’s insulin kit slips from her shoulder, and as she grabs at it, the fence bounces like a trampoline, nearly shaking her off, announcing Andrew’s arrival. She starts up again and feels the fence shudder as he climbs, and then he’s passing her. His mouth is pulled tight and he’s squinting like someone facing into a sandstorm.