Karina’s shower started, drowning out the rest of their conversation, which David shouldn’t be listening to in any case. Milo emerged from the bedroom in his black-polo-and-jeans bouncer-wear. “Do you want to come drink while I work?”
David shook his head. He knew the subtext was Would you get off our couch so Karina can have some time to herself in the apartment she pays for? but he didn’t have spare money for a drink, and really he was opting out of it all: drinking, the noisy bar, making small talk, or else being one of the weird unsocial guys who clearly didn’t have anything better to do. Better to retreat back into the glorious Fortress of Solitude in the semiprivacy of the couch.
“Suit yourself.”
Milo left. The shower stopped, and five minutes later, Karina walked into the living room in sweatpants and a T-shirt. She looked disappointed but not surprised he hadn’t gone with Milo. Not that he was looking at his best friend’s girl, but she’d obviously put a bra back on after a day at work, a workout, and a shower; he was the asshole here for not taking the obvious hint that he was supposed to go with Milo, and for being so predictable that she had already known he wouldn’t go. She wanted to watch TV, or play a game, or take off her bra and eat dinner. There was only so far her tolerance for him would stretch.
“I was just finishing something,” he said. “Then I’m going out.”
Her relief was evident, and he felt like an ass all over again, but at least he felt like an ass who had made the right decision for once.
He hadn’t showered in at least three days. He couldn’t go to Milo’s bar because he had no car and no money for a ride. It didn’t matter. He needed to give Karina some space. He grabbed his backpack and phone and headed out to no place in particular.
He paused outside the door. The air was cooler than he expected, and he tried to remember when he’d left the apartment last. He had to find a new situation; he didn’t want to lose Milo over this. Quiet would help; he shook a pill from the container and swallowed it.
A woman pulled into the parking lot, but didn’t turn off her car. She was talking to herself, maybe talking to someone on speakerphone, but her eyes were on him. He knew what he looked like: a large guy, unshaven, wrinkled clothes. She clearly didn’t want to walk to her apartment with him standing there. He walked toward the next building and then down through the parking lot, making it clear he wouldn’t get near her car or watch where she went.
He should’ve walked toward the street, though, since he had no car here. Now he was trapped in the parking lot until he was sure she was inside, all because he didn’t want to make a stranger nervous. He walked to the far end and sat on the curb, trying to decide what to do next. He felt eyes on his back, and turned to see the black cat from the night of the party. It met his gaze.
“Here, kitty.” He tried to sound warm, but the cat kept its distance. Smart cat. Something caught its attention in the grass, and it slunk away.
The hunting cat reminded him he wasn’t sure when he’d last re-upped his Quiet. It was obviously out of his system: he’d heard the whole discussion in the bedroom, and he’d noticed the woman looking at him from her car, and he’d felt the cat watching him.
He shook a pill from the mint tin in his pocket and swallowed it dry. Fifteen minutes to start feeling it, half an hour to full effect. He remembered he’d taken one outside the apartment a few minutes before, and it just hadn’t kicked in yet. The action had been automatic. He was a big guy; he’d never taken two at once, but two couldn’t hurt.
A police siren wailed in the distance. He glanced toward the apartments and saw the woman from the car standing on a third-floor balcony, a phone to her ear, watching him.
Time to go. He still hadn’t done any research on the pills in his pocket, still didn’t know what they were, or what the penalties were for holding them, if any. He’d thought ignorance would protect him, give him an excuse to keep taking them as long as he didn’t know what they were doing to him, allow him plausible deniability. It occurred to him now that wasn’t how the world worked.
He should ditch them, in case the police siren was for him, in case the pills were illegal, but he couldn’t afford to buy more. He walked into the woods behind the complex, trying to become as background as the black cat.
The shallow woods weren’t much of a hiding place. They backed onto a high chain-link fence keeping people or deer from wandering onto the light-rail tracks. The complex stood halfway between two stations a few miles apart, which made the light rail useless if you didn’t have a car or at least a bike. He didn’t have either. The sirens had stopped, but blue and red flashing lights bounced off the fence and voices carried across the parking lot.
If the pills were legal, or legally his, he wouldn’t be carrying them in a mint tin. He hated the idea of tossing them, but he knew he should. Well, he could keep one if he swallowed it now. With a sigh, he emptied the container into his hand and threw the rest over the fence and onto the track. They were sugarcoated and didn’t leave a trace on his hands, but he tossed the tin over too, and then rubbed dirt on his hands.
A flashlight arced across his face.
“Hey, buddy, can you come out? We want to chat for a second.”
He debated making a
