Walk on the Wild Side - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,90
bought at Frederick’s of Hollywood. And Navonna was really too tall for Niane’s size. It wasn’t fair.
It was almost an accident. Niane’s hands were sweaty as she filled a carafe from the coffee urn, but she deliberately let it spill onto her hand as it tipped. She screamed. She hadn’t known it would hurt this much.
The staff made a fuss. The manager was upset. Navonna sat with her in the employees’ rest room and wondered if she might not need to see a doctor for the scald. Niane said there was no need for that, but she could use some Demerol for the pain. Navonna took her back to their dressing room and gave Niane her packet of Demerols. She would look in on Niane in a few minutes.
Marti, a blonde from Crossville, finished her striptease and came in not long after to exchange her G-string for her surplus Bunny corselet. She asked Niane to help her into it. At first she thought Niane was just having a nap. Niane was barely breathing. The Demerols were gone. Marti screamed for help.
Navonna didn’t wait for the ambulance. She picked Niane up in her arms, rushed out to one of the taxis that cruised Kim’s Klub, and had the driver rush to the nearest hospital emergency room. She performed CPR as best she could as they drove.
The driver had heard many stories of cabbies with women having babies in the back seat on the way to the hospital, but never one of two bimbos in frayed Bunny costumes going at it in a cab. Despite the distraction, he made it to the hospital in time.
Navonna was carrying her in her arms. They were both wearing only their G-strings, but that was OK, as the leaves were stripping from the trees and fluttering down about them. Niane wanted to say something, but Navonna just said, “Hush now, baby,” and pressed her breast into Niane’s mouth as she carried her along. It was a pathway through wooded mountains—the mountains of Niane’s childhood home. She sucked at Navonna’s breast, tasting her warm, rich milk.
The fluttering leaves. They weren’t leaves. Only made to look like leaves. Camouflage. They were more like tiny flying manta rays of some sort.
Beneath their leaf camouflage they had gills, or gill slits, and tiny sharp teeth in rows within wide mouths. Their bellies were white; their eyes coldly rapacious.
They began to land upon her, biting. Niane tried to warn Navonna, but Navonna only pressed Niane’s mouth harder against her breast, walking steadfastly through the attacking flurry of flying creatures. The leaf-mantas were settling all over both of their nude bodies—biting, sucking.
“She’s coming around now,” Dr Greenfeld told a frightened Navonna. They had given her a white lab coat to cover her costume and told her to wait in the lobby of the ER. Two patients had mistaken her for a doctor.
Dr Greenfeld was a stout, fortyish, very efficient, very much overworked woman. She was a little too aggressive for Navonna’s liking.
“Thank God,” murmured Navonna.
“Got her here not a minute too soon. Must have been fifty Demerol we pumped from her stomach. Where did she get them? “I have no idea. I do know she has prescriptions for Methadone, Valium and Xanax.”
“What sort of fool would prescribe that witch’s brew!”
“I can’t say,” Navonna stammered. She hated hospitals. “It was in Los Angeles. She was raped and beaten, left for dead. I think she had been on drugs before that.”
Dr Greenfeld’s tone softened, but remained brisk. “I see.” She glanced at her chart. “And you, Ms Calloway What is your relationship to Ms Liddell?”
“We’re co-workers and share an apartment.”
Dr Greenfeld had seen their costumes and did not comment. “Next of kin?”
“None that I know of. She’s from somewhere in Campbell County. I met her in Nashville when we both had stars in our eyes. Look, I can help cover her bill.”
“That’s a job for accounting. Just now we’ll keep her here under observation until I’m certain that the overdose has cleared her system. After that, I’m signing commitment papers, in as much as she is clearly a danger to herself, if not to others.”
“But she scalded her hand, that was all!”
“We’ll see that she receives treatment for her substance abuse problems. If she responds well to therapy, I don’t expect her to be an in-patient very long. What idiot prescribed her medications! Oh, and we’ll need your signature on this.”
“Hello, Ms Liddell. I’m Dr Ashford. But please feel free to call me Keith,