Silk - Caitlin R. Kiernan [72]
“Shit, it’s cold out here,” Mort said, pulling Theo close to cop what little body heat she might have to spare.
“That’s ’cause it’s gonna snow, dumbass,” she said, and Niki let the door slam shut, sealing them all outside.
Mort grumbled something rude and unintelligible through his steaming breath. And then, one thunder-crack backfire, shotgun loud in the brittle air, and Niki jumped, felt her heart lurch and skip inside her chest. The van rumbled around the corner of Dr. Jekyll’s, pulled out of the side lot and bounced down onto the cobblestones, cough and blat of a muffler shot like a coal miner’s lungs. Keith pulled in too close and the right front wheel scrunched against the curb; the wind caught white puffs of the Ford’s exhaust, blew acrid warm and choking gusts into their faces. The van idled, and Keith stepped around the side, unlocked the rear doors and opened them like the wings of a giant albino scarab.
“Okay, boys and girls. Time to feed the shitmobile,” Mort said, mock glee, and Niki stepped back, out of the way, feeling useless and uncertain, feeling outside. They moved like this chore, too, had been choreographed and rehearsed, performed a thousand times, as practiced as their music. They filled the caged-in back of the van while she watched, attentive, just in case someone asked for her help.
When they were done, Keith bummed a cigarette from Mort, bummed a light, spoke around the Camel’s filter, “Did y’all settle up with Bert?”
“Oh yeah. And he said we could have the second week in December if we wanted it. Dar has your split.”
“You mean you got cash out of him?”
“Twenty-five each,” Daria said. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”
From across the street, the gravelly, coarse rumble of male laughter, threatening and primal as the warning growl in a bad dog’s throat; Keith turned to see, and Niki followed his gray eyes back to where the goths had gathered around Spyder and the cruddy brown car. Except now there were three big guys, almost everyone else had gone, and Spyder sat alone on the hood, head down as if she were praying or straining under an invisible weight.
“Assholes,” Keith muttered. “Christ, I hate those fuckers,” and Niki heard the threat there, too.
Daria had opened the panel door, crouched inside, almost out of the wind, trying to tease a spark from her lighter. She glanced up at Niki. “What’s he talking about?”
“Some guys’re messin’ with Spyder and the shrikes,” Mort said.
“Skins?” asked Daria, and the lighter flickered, framing her face for a yellow-orange instant before the flame guttered and died again.
“Nah,” Mort answered. “Just some assholes.”
“Well, you stay the hell out of it, Keith,” Daria said. “You hear me?”
“Yeah, Dar. I hear you.”
The laughter again, smug and hateful chuckle, and whatever the guy closest to Spyder said was spoken almost loud enough for Niki to hear. Spyder raised her head slowly, and Niki imagined she could clearly see the anger glistening in her eyes. The guy leaned closer, seemed to whisper something in her ear, and then his friends sniggered.
“I fucking mean it, man.” Daria gave up on the lighter, exasperated, tossed it out of the van and disposable pink plastic clattered across the pavement. “We don’t need you getting your ass kicked tonight by a pack of bulletheads.”
But Keith was already moving, quick around the driver’s side, the door jerked open, and he pulled a dented aluminum baseball bat from behind the seat, black tape strapped around the handle.
“There he goes,” Theo said, both hands up, helpless, furious gesture, and Niki knew this was something else practiced, something else played over and over, something else she had no part in.
“Stop him, Mort!”
“Oh yeah, right. Fuck you, Dar. You stop him.”
“Goddammit,” and