Silk - Caitlin R. Kiernan [145]
4.
Half an hour later, or an hour, outside Keith’s building, locking the door and feeling like crap. Sick and drunk and bruised. Mort and Theo hadn’t wanted to leave her, had offered to give her a lift back over to Morris, demanded finally, but she’d said the walk would do her good, that the air would help clear her head. And they’d gone reluctantly, leaving her to stuff the bottles of booze scattered around the apartment, the cans of beer, into a paper bag, leaving her to turn off the lights one last time and lock the door behind her. She’d stuck a couple of other things in the bag, too full, ready to tear and spill everything, grocery-brown paper, just some guitar picks from the floor, a t-shirt and a couple of his cassette tapes. Random souvenirs.
The key made a sound like ice or a camera click.
And when she’d turned around, he’d been standing across the alley watching her; she’d thought it was Keith for an instant, impossible, dizzy instant, had almost dropped the clinking bag. But it wasn’t him, wasn’t anyone she’d recognized at first.
“What the hell do you want,” she’d said, sounding as drunk as she was, sounding like a drunken old whore, and he’d looked both ways, nervous, up and down the alley, before crossing to stand closer to Daria. Tall, lanky boy with brown hair and a Bauhaus shirt showing under his leather jacket. Someone she’d seen with Spyder from time to time at Dr. Jekyll’s, one of the shrikes.
“Before,” he said. “When I called, I didn’t know,” and then she’d recognized the voice, too, shaky and scared, cartoon scaredy-cat voice from the phone. “I’m sorry.”
“Whatever,” she said.
“I needed to talk to him.”
“Too late for that,” and she’d handed him the bag. “Did Spyder send you around to kick my ass?”
He looked down at the bag, back at Daria, drawing a perfect blank with his eyes. “What?”
“Do you have a name?”
“Walter,” he’d said, shifted the bag in his arms, “Walter Ayers. I used to be a friend of Spyder Baxter’s…”
“‘Used to be’?” and she’d started walking, him following a few steps behind, the bag noisier than their footfalls in the long empty alleyway.
“I think that’s what she’d say, if you asked her,” he said, walking faster to catch up. “I’m pretty sure that’s what she’d say.”
“Spyder seems to have her little heart set on burning bridges these days,” and she’d touched her swollen lip, but the pain couldn’t quite reach through the boozy haze, far-off sensation, like the cold all around.
“She thinks I had something to do with what happened to Robin,” he said.
“Robin? Spyder’s girlfriend?” Daria stopped, and the shrike stopped, too.
“Yeah,” and he’d looked back the way they’d come, anxious eyes, anxious tired face.
“Did you?” but he hadn’t answered, just stared back down the alley like he thought they were being followed.
“Why’d you want to talk to Keith?” and that hurt, his name out loud, from her lips, little cattle-prod jolt of pain right to the fruitbruise soft spot inside her, the place the wine and beer couldn’t numb.
Walter shrugged and hadn’t looked at her.
“I thought maybe he would help, because of that night in the parking lot, when he stuck up for Spyder and Robin. I thought he might know what to do.”
“You’re losin’ me, Walter.”
“Who was the girl that left with Spyder tonight?” he’d asked, changing the subject, starting to piss her off. “The Japanese girl?”
“Her name’s Niki, and she’s not Japanese. She’s Vietnamese and she’s Spyder’s new girl. She moved in with Spyder a couple of weeks ago.”
“Is she a friend of yours?”
Daria had thought about that a second, thought about all the shit that had gone down in the weeks since Niki Ky walked into the Bean, almost a month now, and if she were superstitious…
“Yeah, she’s a friend of mine,” she answered.
“Then you ought to know that she