Black Light

said in a throaty voice. “Poppies soaked with the sleep of Lethe.” She stooped and gently touched Ali’s lips with her finger. “Opium soaked in honey.”

She held up her hand, the UV bulb making her nails glow like so many lit tapers. “She must have eaten an entire cake of it—yeah, look, there it is—”

She pointed at the floor near my feet, reached to pick up a filmy piece of paper, its surface shiny like aluminum foil. “See? There was enough here to kill someone twice her size. Little slip of a thing like that.”

Precious Bane flicked the paper so that it floated into the shadows. She knelt beside the corpse, lifting one of the arms to study it. “And she was using.”

“She said she wasn’t. She said she was just chipping—”

“Uh-uh. Sorry, honey, but she lied. Lesson Number One: junkies always lie. She was trying to find a vein— see?”

A shining talon tapped at the cluster of star-shaped bruises on Ali’s arm. “But she wasn’t very good at it. Junkies are stupid, too,” she said flatly, and with a soft thud she let the arm drop to the mattress.

Rage and horror bloomed inside of me. I tried to hit Precious Bane, but she was too quick.

“That’s enough—” She grabbed my wrist and I started to cry. Gently she pulled me beside her, smoothing the hair from my forehead. “First time you ever saw one of your friends OD?”

I nodded.

“Yeah. Well, it’s not a pretty sight, even if it doesn’t kill you. Here”— she held out a big, white, man’s handkerchief. —“that’s it. Aw, don’t cry, honey, you’ll rust. God, I hate it when they cry,” she sighed. “C’mon —”

She stood, took me by the shoulder and guided me to the door. “You start shooting that stuff, you’ll be hanging with the Lee sisters—Homely and Ugly. And then you’ll be dead. Ha ha.”

After the ghastly light of that room, the corridor seemed black as a lake-bottom, and as cold. Broken glass was everywhere, along with twisted muntins and powdery chunks of plaster. Every window we passed had been shattered. We sidestepped twisted tree-limbs and branches thick with wet yellowing leaves, and acorns everywhere like marbles tossed across the floor. Precious Bane made little grimaces and grunts of distaste, her platform heels clunking on bare wood. Occasionally she would stop to kick at a twig or piece of bark, nearly losing her balance in the process.

“God, this place. I hate this place—”

I followed her, too exhausted and frightened to fight any more, too horrified by what had happened to Ali. There was no light, save what seeped down from the windows. The few doors we passed were small and invariably shut, with rusted hasps dangling from broken latches. The floorboards were so worn it was like walking over crumpled carpeting, the windows so deeply recessed that looking into one was like gazing into a dark kaleidoscope. All the familiar landmarks looked shrunken and out of place, the lake where the night sky should be, gale-tossed trees moving slowly back and forth, as though they had sunk to the bottom of a river. The fitful rain of early evening had grown to a steady downpour. Now and then voices would abruptly ring out from the surrounding darkness, but they sounded hollow and metallic, fragments from a soundtrack or a television left chattering in an empty room.

“Man, it’s freezing.” I rubbed my arms, grateful for Jamie’s clothes. But then I had a terrible thought.

Had he known Ali was dead?

“She passed out. Hillary took off…”

I stopped, my breath coming way too fast. How could Jamie have left her?

How could I?

“You couldn’t have done anything, even if you’d been there.”

Precious Bane’s voice was gentle, as was the hand she laid on my shoulder; but to me it was the accusation I’d been waiting for.

“But I did leave her! I knew she had no fucking idea what she was doing, and I still left her—I left and she—she—”

“No.” Precious Bane shook her head. In the darkness her face was more masklike than ever. The heavy pancake makeup was faded, her lipstick chalky-looking, so that the masculine lines of her face showed clearly: the strong chin and square cheekbones, wide mouth and bluish unshaven skin. But her eyes were still garishly mascaraed and flecked with glitter, and her cherry-colored hair still flamed around her Medusa-like. “You couldn’t have done a thing. Believe me, honey—I’ve been here before. People get hurt, and it always ends badly—”

“Then why are you here now?” I asked, my voice quivering.

“Why am I here?” Precious Bane smiled, lipstick seaming the cracks in her mouth. “Honey, this is what I do. You think there’s a lot of job opportunities for a girl like me? I make movies for Axel, help to entertain the troops. And I schlep people like you back and forth”— she waved her hand dismissively, but her expression was enigmatic, almost teasing. —“here and there, hither and yon. Look, it’s a living. And when I say it ends badly, that doesn’t mean it ends badly for you, personally. You got spunk,” she said, her Jersey City accent suddenly bursting through. “Plus you can be a real little bitch if the situation demands—hey, don’t look like that, I meant it as a compliment. But you know, honey,” she added, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “let me give you some advice. Lose the hair—”

She flicked at my tangled curls. “It’s all the wrong color for you. And it’s too long. You want my advice?”

“No.” I yanked away. “I want to get the hell out of here.”

Precious Bane laughed. “Well. Just remember, nothing makes a girl feel so good as a new do. Now let’s just look over here and see what Carol has for us behind Door Number Three—”

She took my hand and gestured to where a door was set into a deep alcove. In front of it stagnant water pooled, and blue-white flickers traced the outlines of the doorframe, as though a live electrical current flowed through it. When Precious Bane reached for the knob I stiffened.

“What’s in there?”

“Wonderful things,” she murmured, and opened it.

The flickering light flared, the door creaked inward and thudded against a wall. Before us was a room. Not a large room, but it seemed cavernous after that endless twisting hallway swept with rain and the sound of wind. Shadows flowed along the walls, blood-red, violet. When I followed Precious Bane inside I saw that they were not shadows at all but threadbare velvet drapes hanging from long metal rods. Strands of ivy had been braided around the rods, ivy and grapevines and evergreen boughs heavy with pinecones. The floor was covered with candles, stuck in mason jars and upended terra-cotta masks. The scent of wax mingled with incense, a sharp head-clearing scent of juniper. On one wall glowed the bright square of a film being projected without benefit of a screen, or even a sheet. The projector was on the floor, balanced shakily atop a pile of coffee-table books. The scene juttering on the wall was badly out of focus; it seemed to involve a number of women and a very large animal.

“This is where I leave you.” Precious Bane’s expression was grave but not unkind. “Don’t!” she commanded, and pressed her finger to my lips. “Don’t freak out. You want my advice, pretend you’re in a movie—”

I stared at her, disbelieving, then tried to bolt for the door. But she pulled me back to the center of the room, where a large mattress was set on a low platform, covered with paisley scarves and an old Victorian crazy-quilt. Bottles were arranged around the platform—dozens of them, burgundy and brandy and Southern Comfort, sloe gin and Boone’s Farm Apple Wine—bottles and incense burners, brass trays and vials, decanters and long-stemmed pipes and even a hookah, its tubes spilling onto the floor like entrails.

“A movie? Christ, it looks like a fucking head shop exploded—”

“Name your poison,” advised Precious Bane. “It’ll make it easier for you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I mean it. Have a little drinkie.” She hesitated, head tilted; then leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth. “Good luck,” she said, and crossed to the door.

Despairing, I watched her go. She stopped to look back at me, her oversized frame filling the narrow space; drew one hand to her mouth and blew me a kiss.

“Remember, honey—don’t get even. Get mad.”