Spares - Michael Marshall Smith [6]
“Is it nice? Is Ratchet here?” Nanune asked, and I shook my head.
“No and no, I’m afraid,” I said, winking at Mal. “But at least it’s not raining.”
I introduced Mal to the spares by name. Suej and David shook his hand, and I caught him noticing David’s missing fingers. Then Mal stood to one side and gestured them into his apartment. They trooped in, Mr. Two ducking his head to get under the lintel.
Mal’s apartment was pretty much as I remembered it. In other words, I knew what to expect. The spares didn’t. Ten years ago he’d knocked down most of the internal walls, so that from anywhere in the apartment you could see the huge window he’d put in. This gave a view straight onto New Richmond. Mal had chosen to live outside New Richmond proper. He claimed he liked to get away from it every now and then, from the dark fizz and spark of the life inside—yet he’d deconstructed his apartment so he could see the building from wherever he stood. The interior decor of his apartment was about what you’d expect from a single man who spent half his time drunk and the rest painfully sober. It was a mess, to be honest: baroque chaos overlaid with the smell of countless noodle-based meals.
Nanune actually started crying. Mal scowled at her and started kicking piles of stuff toward the walls.
“Do you still have your display up?” I asked quietly. Mal looked at me and nodded. “You couldn’t, like, drape something over it?”
Mal grunted and trudged down the end, toward the window, and pulled a rope that ran down the wall. A sheet dropped from the ceiling, covering what was pinned on the walls—pictures of people who had been murdered in New Richmond. The sheet covered them only briefly, unfortunately, because it kept on falling to the ground. Mal swore softly, grabbed a chair, and set about repairing the setup.
Meantime, I led the spares into the area that served as his sitting room. I shoved huge piles of crap out of the way until there was enough space for them to sit fairly comfortably. Jenny’s arms were wrapped tightly around herself, and her eyes were far away. In a nimbus of light from some partially hidden lamp, she looked beautiful and frail. Nanune still looked terrified, but Suej sat close to her, murmuring something. There were no words in what she was saying, but even I could feel the comfort in it. It was tunnel talk, I guess. Mr. Two looked like he would withstand a direct hit by a tactical missile, and so I guess the spare on his lap was all right too. Considering the current circumstances.
“How long are we going to be here?” David asked me. I realized he looked tired, though like a child trying to prove it was worthy of staying up late, his eyes were still wide open.
“Not long,” I said. “A couple hours. Just enough for me to go get some money. Then we’re going to buy a truck and get out of here.”
“To where?” This had been David’s constant refrain for the last twenty-four hours.
“I still don’t know,” I said. “Somewhere safe.” Jenny looked up at me and I winked at her. A ghost of a smile was my reward.
“Florida?” Suej asked hopefully.
“Maybe,” I said. A long time ago I’d told her about a place I knew there, and it had become fixed in her mind as a kind of nirvana. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was very unlikely we’d make it halfway there before we were caught.
I turned to Mal. “What’s your water like these days? And don’t say ‘wet.’”
“There’ll be enough if they don’t all stay in too long.” Mal had always known what I meant, especially when I was asking favors. I nodded to Suej, who understood, and she started drawing up a washing schedule for the spares. They weren’t used to being dirty, and I knew that the one thing I could provide that would increase their short-term standard of living was a shower. It’s good that there was that one thing, because there wasn’t a lot of everything else, and wasn’t likely to be in the foreseeable future.
“We’ll get your clothes washed… later,” I said, vaguely,