The Dead Have A Thousand Dreams (10 page)

“Jesus,” said Wooly, “do
you
ever
put the
lights on in here?” Fair question, I guess. Georgiana’s study, as
before, was lit only by that single stained glass lamp, bathing
everything in a frail underwater light. We were looking at a limbo
aura, in which our hostess—hunched at her desk in her overalls and
the unstrung bale of cotton she called hair—sat half
dematerializing.

“No,” she said after some
hesitation, “I allow very little light in here. Please,
sit.”

Wooly, Nickie and I took
the chairs around the desk.

“You don’t look so good,”
said Wooly. “You should get out more.”

Again, fair point.
Georgiana seemed more worn down today, more frayed around the
edges.

“I’m fine,” she
said.

“Good, good, excellent,”
said Wooly. “Well, I appreciate you inviting us here, you know? The
house, the, the gallery out there? It’s a wonderful place you got
here. I always liked coming here.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s always been a treat.
And, uh, and your assistant out there? Marco? He’s always been very
helpful. I like him. His breath’s always been very
fresh.”

Georgiana blinked twice.
“Is that important

to you?”

“No, I’m just saying, I
know other Asian people. I know this guy Jay Chan? He does work for
me sometimes? It was a big discovery to me that he had bad breath.
I never imagined it before, Asian people’re always so
clean.”

“So,” I said, “we’re here
to talk.”

“Right, talk,” said Wooly.
“We’re here to talk, talk things out, right? We’re here to patch
things up. I mean, why let the circle go broken, right?”

“I agree,” said
Georgiana.

“Okay, so, me, I may have
been acting like some fucking fool, I admit that. I may have been
acting like a real nitidiot—I can get that way. And if I was, I
don’t know, pushing the
boundary
a bit…?

“You were.”

“Well then I’m sorry for
that. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to keep coming back to you
for investment tips. It’s just that, you know, what you were giving
me, it was just so damn good.”

“Well, thank you for
that.”

“And the
photos
, Jesus. I
would
hate
to
lose access to the photos. The one I bought from you? It’s hanging
in my living room. I tell everybody, this woman is
blind
, can you believe
it? I’m thinking, you know, what do I know, but I think you’re a
great artist. I think you’re a very fine artist.”

“Thank you.”

“Okay, so, we come to
what’re we gonna do? What’re we gonna do here? Are we gonna walk
the talk? Are we gonna forgive and forget?”

“I’m willing to do
that.”

“Good. That’s good, cause
if we can both be open and honest, if we can both lay our cards on
the table, we can both get moving with our lives.”

Georgiana looked puzzled.
“Cards? What cards?”

“You know. The
cards
—all the cards.
The
truth
. I
don’t mind, I really don’t, just tell me the truth.”

“What truth is
that?”

“That it was
you.”

“Wooly,” I
said.

“That
what
was me?”

“That is was
you
. All this shooting
at me, just admit it was you. All I’m asking.”

“This is
insane
.”

“You know what I’m talking
about, though, don’t you?”

“I know because your
friend here came and told me. And as I very clearly told him I had
absolutely nothing to do with it.”

Wooly got to his feet.
Nickie went to stop him but he shrugged her off.

“I just want you to know,”
he said. “I just want you to know that I
know
.”

“Know
what
?” said Georgiana. “I made a
prediction.”

“Right.”

“And then someone started
making attempts on your life.”

“Right.”

“So you assume it was me.
Isn’t that just a little
reductive
?”

He moved to the desk.
Nickie and I stood up. Georgiana could sense the movement. Her face
tightened, throwing the veins on her forehead into
relief.

“Who’d you hire to do it?”
Wooly said. “Your assistant out there, Marco? He drive a
Fusion?”

“What do you think you’re
doing?” Georgiana said. “Are you
interrogating
me?”

“Yes I’m
interrogating
you! What
the fuck does it
sound
like I’m doing?”

He rammed his body into
the desk. Nickie and I grabbed his arms and yanked him away.
Definitely a pepper spray moment. Georgiana reached into a pocket
of her overalls and pulled out a cell.

“Leave my house
now
,” she said, “or I’m
calling the police.”

We pulled him back from
the desk. “What the
hell’re
you doing?” I said.

“I’m sorry, I’m
sorry.”

“This is just wrong,” said
Nickie.”

“I’m sorry. I got carried
away.”

“Enough
of this,” I said. “Just
enough
. This is not what we came
for.”

I looked at Georgiana. She
dropped the phone back in her pocket.

“Look,” said Wooly,
catching his breath, “look, I didn’t come here with unreasonable
expectations. I didn’t think we’d end up dancing the ha-cha-cha
together. But I thought at least we could get all the
pretenses
dropped.”

“There’s no
pretense
,” said
Georgiana. “Why do you think it was me?
Anybody
could be trying to take your
life.”

“Like
who
?”

“Everybody.
Everybody
hates you.”

“Go fuck
yourself.”

“Every
body
hates you.
Every
thing
hates
you. The trees hate you. The bushes hate you. The
air
hates
you!”

“Tell this blind
skinny-ass bitch to go fuck herself! And she can keep her bog-heap
paintings!”

“Fine, just get
out
of my house. I
am
not
trying to
kill you.

“Oh okay, okay, you’re
right. No, you’re right—I can see that now. You’re not trying to
kill me. You’re trying to
crush
me, you’re trying to
obliterate
me. You’re trying
to
eat
my death
and
sleep
my
death.”

He moved closer back to
the desk, fevered out of his mind.

“You’re trying to grind me
and pulverize me till my dust gets carried away by the winds of the
fucking world. You’re trying to butcher me and slaughter me and
crawl in the pool of my blood, crawl in the filthy
pool
of my
fucking
blood!”

He body slammed the desk.
Georgiana flinched and reached into her pocket again. Wooly
split-second reacted by reaching into
his
voluminous pants pocket, only
what he pulled out wasn’t a cell but his fucking Berretta—a
purple
Berretta for
God’s sake—which he swung across the desk until it was a foot away
from Georgiana’s face.

“Put it
down!”
I
yelled.

“Wooly,
Jesus!”
Nickie
yelled.

“I have to do this,” he
said.

“What’s happening?” said
Georgiana.

“He’s got a gun on you,”
said Nickie.

“A
purple
gun,” I said.

“Purple?”

“I had it custom
finished,” said Wooly, “all right?”

“Fine.” A second later I
had my Glock pointed at his head. “Now put it down.”

“Quinn,
don’t
,” said
Nickie.

Wooly cocked his head,
noticed the muzzle of the Glock staring straight into his eyes.
“What’re you doing?”

“What’re
you
doing?”

“Don’t fuck with
me.”

“Don’t fuck with
me
. Put it down now or I
put a bullet in your head.”

“Oh God,” said Nickie,
“what’s
she
doing?”

Good question.

Georgiana had already gone
into convulsions. She was still sitting but the earthquake tremors
were nearly thrashing her out of the chair. Rapid electric jerks
were shooting through the right side of her body—only the right
side, from the cheek twitching in spasms on down.

“This shit again?” said
Wooly.

True—it was just like
before, just like the time before. Same symptoms, and what I
believed was the same cause: Whenever she faced stress, her body
would explode in a psychic episode. And having a big murderous
asshole pointing a purple Berretta at you certainly qualified as
stress.

Now her hands were
stabbing for the desk, trying to get a hold. In that pale green
light she looked like a drowning woman flailing for the edge of a
pool.

Wooly, in sheer alarm,
lowered his gun. “I hate this shit.”

“Is she having a fit?”
said Nickie.

“A bleed-through,” I said.
“It’s like an internal eruption.”

“She could be bullshitting
this time,” said Wooly. “She could be putting this on.”

“Yeah? You
think?”

The convulsions suddenly
stopped, just like the last time. Georgiana was still now, only her
hands moving, rubbing the desk again. She was calm except for her
eyes—you could light something 100 yards away on fire with those
eyes.

“You all right?” I
said.

“Of
course
she’s all right,” Wooly
answered. “You can’t see she’s acting?”

“I know she’s not
threatening anybody. Put the gun away.”

“It’s all right,”
Georgiana said. “Don’t worry. He won’t hurt me.”

“The
fuck
I won’t. Start telling me the
truth.”

“Wooly,” said Nickie,
“just put the gun away.”

“It’s all right,” said
Georgiana. “It doesn’t matter. The gun…it doesn’t matter.” Her tone
matched his words—matter of fact, casual, like she couldn’t care
less. There was almost a smile on her face.

“It
will
matter,” said Wooly, “you don’t
stop fucking with me.”

“No…no, you won’t hurt
me.”

“Don’t tempt
me.”

“I’m not.”

“Well it
sounds
like
it.”

Georgiana’s lips turned
outward. She
was
actually smiling now. “I just know. I just know…you’re not
going to hurt me.”

“Are you goddamn
daring
me?”

Georgiana shook her head
no, but without any emotion, without any real interest. Her mind
was somewhere else. “I’m just telling you what is,” she said, hands
rubbing the edge of the desk, moving in a steady, hypnotic
back-and-forth. “I’m just telling you…you can’t hurt
me.”

“I
can’t
?”

“No.

“Fuck
you
!”

I couldn’t take my eyes
off Georgiana’s hands—I couldn’t help it. I was too busy watching
them to catch Wooly’s move. By the time I realized he’d raised the
Berretta, it was too late.

He just stuck the gun in
Georgiana’s face, point-blank distance, and fired.

Click.

“Wooly!”
yelled Nickie.

I shoved my Glock in his
ear. “Drop it!
Now
!”

He ignored me and squeezed
again.

Click.

“Drop it or you’re
dead!”

He just stared at the gun
with a stupid expression. “This never happened before.”

“Drop
it
!”

But he didn’t. He pumped
the trigger three angry-maniac times.

Click, click,
click.

Nothing but a triplet of
empty tubular echoes. The room was suddenly silent. I could feel a
buzzing running over my body.