Silk - Caitlin R. Kiernan [66]
“FUCK OFF!” she screamed, vague word shapes pounded from the howl, and L.J. dove off the side of the platform, yelping and cursing, stomping his feet and slapping madly at his clothes. Some of the other men moved in cautiously to help put him out.
And from the smoking barrel litter Daria seized a charred stub of wood, broken fruit-crate slat, held it high like a burning tomahawk and turned back to Keith Barry. He stood up slowly, moving as if invisible lead hung from his limbs, one hand out like a traffic cop or safety guard, the guitar hanging limp from the other. Upright, he was at least a foot taller than Daria.
“Man, you have got to get a grip on yourself,” he said, and Niki kept waiting for him to flinch, take a step backward, for Mort to intercede. But no one moved.
“You listen to me, Keith Barry,” she said. “I am sick and goddamn tired of this shit.”
“Mort. You better tell her to back off, man.”
“We have a show tomorrow night at Jekyll’s, Keith, and you will be there, and you will be as straight as you are still capable of being. Are you listening to me?”
She held the brand a little higher, bright cinders dripping to the concrete at her feet.
“What the hell is your problem?”
“I said, you will be there. All you have to do is say, ‘Yes, Dar, I’ll be there and, no, I won’t be too fucked-up to even take a piss.’”
“Mort?” he asked, the name uttered almost like a prayer.
But Mort was insensible granite beside Niki, immovable.
“Last chance,” Daria said. “You gonna be there or not? ’Cause if you’re not, I have absolutely no reason not to go ahead and shove this board up your ass right now.”
“Tell the woman you’re gonna be there, asshole,” said the man who’d told L. J. to shut up.
“Yeah,” Keith said, and Niki felt a little of the white-blue tension, the crackling threat, drain out of the air. “You know I’m gonna fucking be there.”
“And you’re gonna be straight,” she said.
“Yeah, straight,” and he sat back down, the guitar held out like a shield of wood and strings. “I ain’t gonna fuck up this show.”
Daria sighed, seemed to let out a breath she might have held a hundred years, dropped the glowing slat and ground it out with the toe of her boot. Niki felt herself breathing again, pulled her hand back from Mort’s shoulder.
“Sound check’s at eight o’clock,” she said. “Don’t be late.” And she stepped past him, then, down from the platform without looking back.
“Come on,” she said as she passed Niki and Mort. “This place smells like rat piss.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Stiff Kitten, and How Shrikes Fly
1.
This end of Morris, down past the parking decks and the Peanut Depot and the loft apartments that rent for small fortunes and have neon sculptures in their windows. Where the cobblestones are more uneven and the warehouses are still warehouses, caverns of bulk and shadow that feed the ass ends of trucks all day long and whisper rat-feet patters at night. Where the tracks are closer and the trains rattle windows. Past Daria’s building, where no one bothers with the broken glass or weeds that grow through asphalt and concrete, the kudzu that seems to grow from nowhere and creeps like hungry mutant ivy. Dr. Jekyll’s, brick front washed matte black and one door the color of something royal or orchids that could grow underground. The old marquee that sags dangerously, although this never was a theater; another warehouse once, before the seventies, before the sixties, and maybe before that. Crooked red letters, plastic messages that no one can read after dark, that fall off if a strong wind blows.
Daria and the guys were already inside, and Niki had spent the last hour down the street in the Fidgety Bean with Theo, waiting out sound check, watching the cold night through steamy windows, bright clouds, orange with city light, rushing by overhead, drinking a Cubano and then another. Too much caffeine,