Silk - Caitlin R. Kiernan [88]
“Christ, Dar! Fuck you!” and she looked to Mort for defense.
“Just lay off for a little while,” he said, frown deepening, exhaustion and weary annoyance in his eyes and voice. “You know it’s not gonna kill you.”
“Christ,” Theo hissed, “You’re all a bunch of crazy fucking assholes,” rubbing her arm, as she kneeled and began scooping everything back into her purse.
Daria and Niki helped Spyder to one of the chairs. She was limping, still bleeding some from a deep gash above her left eye; dried and congealed blood caked her dreads, crusted and sticky red-brown masking the left side of her face.
“It looks a lot worse than it is, probably,” Keith said again, seventh or eighth time since the parking lot. And for the seventh or eighth time, Spyder nodded, sluggish agreement.
“Can we at least turn the heat up a little?” Niki asked. Spyder had started to shiver, and Niki wondered if she could be going into shock, wondered if she could have lost that much blood, if maybe she was also bleeding somewhere inside.
“Would gladly,” Keith said, dull and jovial grin, “if there was any.” But he pulled a lemon-yellow sleeping bag off the scary mattress and handed it to Niki; there was a dark smear down one side that she hoped was only motor oil.
“Thanks, man,” Spyder mumbled around her swelling lips.
“Don’t mention it,” and he shrugged once, walked back to the mattress and sat down.
Niki unzipped the sleeping bag, wrapped it around Spyder’s black leather shoulders.
“Thanks,” Spyder mumbled.
“We should have taken her to a hospital,” Niki said, and Keith shrugged again.
“Hey, man, it was her call,” and he pulled a pint of Thunderbird from beneath one corner of the mattress, unscrewed the cap and drank deeply from the green bottle.
And there was nothing else left for Niki to say. In the van, Mort had asked Spyder if she wanted a doctor, if they should just drive straight to the UAB emergency room, and Spyder had flatly refused, had insisted she was fine. So Theo had driven them here, instead, had parked the van in the narrow alley around back, had hidden it poorly behind a big blue Dumpster.
Keith offered the bottle to Mort, and he accepted.
“Man, you’re as happy about that whole stupid mess as a pig in piss-warm mud,” Mort said, tilted the bottle of wine at the ceiling and traded a little air for its sweet buzz.
“Did you see the look on that dumb fucker’s face?” and Keith stopped unlacing his boots, twisted his own face into a grotesque and exaggerated mask of anger and surprise, chuckled. “You really laid some heavy juju on that asshole, Spydie. Put the bite on him,” and he took the bottle back from Mort, half-empty now, half-full. Spyder smiled weakly, wan and guarded pride beneath the clotting scars of battle.
“And you got your ass-kicking fix for a few days, didn’t you?” Daria said, vacant reproach, from the room’s only window where she stood alone, watching the snow falling outside.
“Just doin’ my part to keep the blindfolded lady with the scales honest, babe.”
Niki sighed loudly, loud to derail the conversation, loud enough to get everyone’s attention.
“Is there at least someplace I can get some water to clean the blood off her face?” And she could hear the tightness wound around her words, hoped that she sounded as fed up as she felt.
“Down the hall,” Daria said. “There’s a john down the hall. Jesus, it’s really coming down out there.”
“I guess a washcloth or a towel would be too much to hope for,” Niki said.
“I’ve got a handkerchief.” Theo had stuffed everything back into her purse, sat on the ugly carpet beneath a tattered Nirvana poster stuck up with tacks; someone had drawn graceful angel wings, black Magic Marker plumage from Kurt Cobain’s shoulder blades, a cheesy halo over his head. Theo found the handkerchief, actually clean except for a couple of lipstick smudges, and tossed it to Niki.
Niki tucked the sleeping bag tighter around Spyder and went alone to find the john.
The sickly light from Keith’s room petered out on her about halfway down the long hall, and at the very end,