Deja Dead Page 0,128
had lived no more than fifteen years. Its color could be described only in shades of gray. The pallid skin, the cracked lips, the vacant, recessed eyes with their somber underlining looked like those of someone long deprived of sunlight.
Julie stared at us without expression, as if our images were slow in forming in her brain, or recognition a complex exercise. Then.
“Can I have one, Jewel?” English. She reached a trembling hand across the table. The inside of her elbow looked purple in the room’s muted glow. Slender gray worms crawled across the veins on her inner wrist.
Jewel lit a Player and handed it to her. Julie pulled the smoke deep into her lungs, held it, then blew it upward in a Jewel pantomime.
“Yeah. Oh yeah,” she said. A tiny scrap of cigarette paper stuck to her lower lip.
She drew again, eyes closed, completely absorbed by the smoking ritual. We waited. Double tasking was not within Julie’s capacity.
Jewel looked at me, eyes unreadable. I let her lead.
“Julie, darlin’, you been workin’?”
“Some.” The girl sucked another long drag, blew two streams of smoke from her nose. We watched them dissolve, silvery clouds in the reddish light.
Jewel and I were silent while Julie smoked. She didn’t seem to question our being there. I doubted she questioned much of anything.
After a while she finished, stubbed out the butt, and looked at us. She seemed to consider what benefit our presence might hold.
“I haven’t eaten today,” she said. Like her eyes, her voice was flat and empty.
I glanced at Jewel. She shrugged and reached for another cigarette. I looked around. No menus. No blackboards.
“They got burgers.”
“Would you like one?” How much cash did I bring?
“Banco does them.”
“Okay.”
She leaned from the booth and called to the bartender.
“Banco. Can I get a burger? With cheese?” She sounded six years old.
“You’ve got a tab, Jules.”
“I’ll get it,” I said, sticking my head out of the booth.
Banco was leaning against the bar sink, arms folded across his chest. They looked like baobab branches.
“One?” He pushed off.
I looked at Jewel. She shook her head.
“One.”
I turned back to the booth. Julie had slumped into the corner, her drink held loosely in two hands. Her jaw hung slack, leaving her mouth partially open. The paper still rode her lower lip. I wanted to pick it off, but she seemed unaware. A microwave beeped, then hummed. Jewel smoked.
Shortly, the microwave gave four beeps, and Banco appeared with the burger, steaming in its plastic wrapper. He placed it in front of Julie and looked from Jewel to me. I ordered club soda. Jewel shook her head.
Julie tore the cellophane, then lifted the top to inspect the contents of the bun. Satisfied, she took a bite. When Banco brought my drink, I stole a peek at my watch. Three-twenty. I began to think Jewel would never speak again.
“Where you been workin’, sugar?”
“Nowheres special.” Through a mouthful of bun and burger.
“Haven’t seen you lately.”
“I was sick.”
“You feelin’ better now?”
“Mm.”
“Working the Main?”
“Some.”
“You still doing that little creep with the nightie?” Casual.
“Who?” She ran her tongue around the edge of the burger, like a child with an ice cream cone.
“Guy with the knife.”
“Knife?” Absently.
“You know, chère, little man likes to stroke his tallywacker while you model his mama’s sleepwear?”
Julie’s chewing slowed then stopped, but she didn’t answer. Her face looked like putty, smooth, gray, and without expression.
Jewel’s nails clicked against the tabletop. “Come on, sugar, let’s turn it up a notch. You know who I’m talking about?”
Julie swallowed, glanced up, then returned her attention to the burger.
“What about him?” She took a bite.
“Just wonderin’ if he’s still around.”
“Who’s she?” Garbled.
“Tempe Brennan. She’s a friend of Dr. Macaulay. You know her, don’t you, chère?”
“Something wrong with this guy, Jewel? He got the gon or AIDS or something? Why you asking about him?”
It was like interrogating a magic eight ball. If answers floated up at all they were random, not tied to specific questions.
“No, honey, I just wondered if he’s still comin’ around.”
Julie’s eyes met mine. They looked uninhabited.
“You work with her?” she asked me, her chin glistening with grease.
“Something like that,” Jewel answered for me. “She’d like to talk to this nightie guy.”
“‘Bout what?”
“Usual stuff,” said Jewel.
“She a deaf-mute or something? Why can’t she talk for herself?”
I started to speak, but Jewel wagged me silent.
Julie didn’t seem to expect an answer. She finished the last of the burger and licked her fingers, one by one. Finally.
“What’s with this guy? Jesus, he was talking about her, too.”
Fear surged through