Silk - Caitlin R. Kiernan [43]
Daria had staggered to her knees again, and people had begun to back away from the stage, clearing out a small, irregular circle of the warehouse’s concrete floor where Carlton was busy slamming his fists repeatedly into Pablo’s face. The Gibson had lain a few feet away from them, trampled, broken, irrelevant.
She stood up, hands out cautious like a tightrope walker, purple-white blotches dancing in her eyes. Jonesy in a limp heap, unconscious amid the jumble of brass cymbals and aluminum tripod stalks. Abruptly, the lights had stopped strobing, and she’d seen the dark trickle of blood at each corner of his mouth. For all she’d known, Pablo had killed him, and Carlton was in the process of killing Pablo. Because of her, because she’d tried to steal something that wasn’t hers to take. Because for once in her grubby life something had felt right. Daria used the rig the bass had been plugged into to brace herself, had taken one step toward Jonesy.
And then the pain had gone off like a grenade lodged somewhere deep inside her skull, perfect agony filling in the place where her brain should have been, drowning body and mind in its searing electric gush. And the last thing she’d seen on the way down to merciful blackout was Carlton, climbing back onto the stage, nose squashed and bloodied grimace, and the shattered Gibson clasped triumphantly in one hand.
4.
Niki set the receiver back into its black cradle and sighed, a loud exasperated sound, and Daria could see that she was really having to work at the half smile, only a weak droop at the corners of her perfect lips.
“That bad?” she asked, and Niki shrugged, stared down at her feet. Her toenails were painted a dark and pearly blue.
“Yeah,” Niki said. “Or worse.”
“Can they fix it?” Daria was sitting at the edge of the bed now, her own feet dangling over the side, not bare, but hidden inside tube socks with mismatched colored bands around the tops. Left, orange. Right, maroon.
“Yeah, if I want to hand over every penny I have.”
“You should get a second opinion,” Claude said from the kitchen sink; washing the breakfast dishes, three cups and three saucers and Ivory liquid suds up to his elbows. “Most of those guys are crooked as the letter M.”
“Yeah,” Niki said, and then, “I don’t know.”
“Dar knows mechanics, don’t you, Dar? The big guy that plays guitar for Vanilla Domination, and that other guy, the one who looks like Nick Cave, except not so ugly.”
Daria was still looking down at her own feet, homely twins and a big hole in one heel so she could see the scar where she stepped on a broken 7Up bottle last summer.
“Yeah, I’m sure I can find someone to take at look at it, if you want.”
Niki stood and stretched, and Robert Smith, white face, blackened eyes, fright-wig do, stared back at Daria from Niki’s belly.
“Thanks, guys, but I’m afraid I’d only be delaying the inevitable. It’s either my bank account or the junkyard. I just have to decide which.”
“It certainly couldn’t hurt,” Claude said, setting a coffee cup down to dry. “Just to be sure.”
Niki shrugged again and then sniffed cautiously at one underarm, wrinkled her nose, and to Daria, even that seemed somehow graceful.
“God, I stink. Would it be okay if I used the shower?”
“Go right ahead,” Daria said and reached for another Marlboro, looking away before Niki Ky did anything else to make her feel awkward, dumpy, like a gorilla at charm school.
“You guys are wonderful,” Niki said. “I just hope you don’t get sick of me before I can get my ass back on the road,” and she picked up the pink gym bag and stepped into the tiny bathroom, pulling the door shut behind her;