Dead and Gone

“I didn’t want to slow you down. If you needed to get back inside in a hurry …”

“Oh.”

I didn’t say anything. I wanted to strip off her dress, check her for bruises. But I settled for watching her eyes.

“That was very considerate,” she finally said.

I didn’t like everything I could see in her eyes, but I didn’t want to ask about it. So I tried another question: “You want something to eat?”

“Yes!” she said, smile flashing. “I have to take a bath, first. Can you order …?”

“Sure,” I promised. And reached for the phone.

It took about half an hour for the food to arrive. Another few minutes for the sharply dressed room-service waiter to set everything up. I scrawled something on the bill for the signature, added 20 percent for the tip. Took the guy another couple of minutes to say thanks.

Soon as he was gone, I tapped lightly on the door to Gem’s room. Nothing. It was closed, but not shut, so my next taps opened it.

The door to her bathroom was ajar. “Gem?” I called out, softly. No answer. Something skipped in my chest. I stepped over to the bathroom door, pushed it all the way open. Gem was lying in the tub, her head on a couple of rolled-up towels, eyes closed. I touched the water. Still warm. Realized I was deliberately avoiding looking at her wrists. I put my hand behind her neck, pulled her toward me. Her eyes blinked open. “Burke.…”

“Yeah. You okay?”

“Yes. I am fine. I was just so … tired, I guess.”

She reached up, slipped both hands behind my neck. I stood up slowly, pulling her along with me.

“I got you all wet,” she said, her face buried.

“Ssshh,” I said, slapping her bottom lightly.

She made a noise I didn’t understand.

I walked her over to where the towels were racked. Found a big white fluffy one and wrapped it around her. Then I scooped her up and carried her over to the bed.

“You can eat when you wake up.”

“Little girl.”

“Huh?”

“ ‘You can eat when you wake up, little girl,’ that was the entire sentence, yes?”

“I—”

“I know what it means now. All right?”

“Yes,” I said, patting her dry.

She was asleep before I finished.

It was a little past nine when Gem came into the living room. And started in on the food like it had been served a minute ago.

She was still chewing away when the phone rang.

“What?” I answered.

“Cop come. Same one. Say, find bone hand.”

“Whose hand?”

“Not hand, bone of hand. Chop off at wrist. With ax, maybe.”

“The hand was chopped off with an ax?”

“Maybe. Look like, he say.”

“Whose hand, Mama?” I asked again.

“Cop say your hand. No flesh on hand. Just bones. But same place, find pistol, too. With thumbprint. Yours. Cop say, you leave hospital, people find you, kill you, cut off head, cut off hands, nobody trace. But cops find hand and pistol in big garbage can in Brooklyn. Way at bottom. Cop say, probably, they miss it when come to collect, stay there long time.”

“Big garbage can” was Mama’s term for a Dumpster. “Is it going to be official?” I asked her.

“Cop say you dead now. On record.”

“Thanks,” I said. Meaning: Tell him thanks. If she ever saw him again. Morales had owed me—big-time and long-time. And he’d just squared the debt.

I went to my bedroom a little after midnight. Gem said “Good night, Burke,” absently, absorbed in some footage of Russia’s pitiful invasion of Chechnya.

I took a long shower. Used some of the fancy shampoo the hotel supplied. Shaved slowly. Nothing worked. I stayed tired, but not sleepy. I had to let it come when it would.

The sound of a wooden match cracking into fire woke me. I was on my back—must have finally drifted off. The room was dark except for the candle Gem had just lit, a stubby thing in a little glass holder. It smelled like citrus and blood.

“You must own the images, or the images will own you,” she said softly, standing next to the bed, looking down at me.