Page 82 of The Undead

She nodded and watched him walk away to his car. He moved as if he had a pain in his side, and after he got behind the wheel he sat for a few seconds without doing anything, just staring. When he finally started it up and drove away, she got up and headed for the street. No car, she’d given it to Michael, and she couldn’t ask any of the uniforms for a ride, didn’t dare.

Maggie took turns walking and jogging to the Burger King on the corner. It looked weirdly surrealistic after the dark and pain and blood, all cheerful yellow formica and fresh-faced kids with frozen expressions of fear when they noticed what she looked like. She ducked into the bathroom—deserted, thank God—and her heart sank when she looked in the mirror. No wonder she’d scared the kids. Where she wasn’t pale, she was muddy, bloody, scratched, and scraped. Where she wasn’t any ofthat, she was smeared with ash and soot. Maggie turned on the tap and splashed water over her face, then stuck her whole head under it. A brownish stream ran from the point of her chin down the tap; she kept scrubbing until the water ran clear, then looked again. Better, except for the haunted eyes and red welts. She cleaned the scratches on her breast and thighs with damp paper towels; they were deeper than she’d thought, but they didn’t bleed much.

Her hair stuck to her face, dark brown with moisture. She stripped off her shirt and soaked it under cold running water; Frank’s blood boiled out like red dye. She twisted as much out of it as she could, then put it back on. It clung uncomfortably to her, harsh and rasping, but that was better than the blood. Much better. She dug a quarter out of her pocket and used the pay phone. The kids behind the counter gave her coffee when she ordered it without saying anything about how she looked. At their age, she probably wouldn’t have dared to, either.

Maggie was still sipping her coffee when the car pulled up and parked crookedly over a line. She stirred a little more cream into the brew and blew on it as Nick Gianoulos slammed the door open and scanned the restaurant.

“Sit down, Nicky,” she invited wearily. He stared at her, wild-eyed. “Christ, have some coffee. You look like hell.”

He sank down warily, both hands on the table. His eyes flicked from one place to another so quickly it made her dizzy. She pushed her coffee across to him. He took a big gulp.

“He’s alive,” Nick said hoarsely. She rested her chin on her hand.

“Yeah. He’s alive.” Never mind the details; she couldn’t think about the goddamn details or she’d go crazy. She wasn’t sure she hadn’t arrived there already, but if she had, then Nick was hitchhiking his way along just as fast. “Your buddies would have killed me, Nick. And you.”

“He’s alive—I saw—”

“Stay on the subject,” she interrupted. He didn’t even seem to see her. His eyes were fixed on a different reality—the one she was trying to avoid.

“He drank that guy’s blood, Maggie, I fuckin’sawit.”

“You’re picking a funny time to get particular about how a punk died, considering what happened to Angelo,” Maggie said coolly, and had the satisfaction of watching him flinch. “You didn’t like me poking around about that, did you, so you told your friends, whoever the fuck they are, that I was going to be a problem. And they decided to toss my house, and me.”

“No, I didn’t …” His voice faded under her stare.

“Oh, I think you did. You didn’t think they’d hurt me, sure, I believe that because you are absolutely goddamn stupid, Nick. In case you didn’t notice, they brought the gas with them. They planned to torch my house. I’m sure they were planning to bake me in it. It may surprise you, but I don’t want to become a Pop-Tart.” She leaned forward across the table, took the coffee, and took a long sip. “Now, I’m giving you a couple of choices. One, you can get yourself up to the station and confess—I find that a little unlikely, but what the hell, you might give me a pleasant surprise—or two, you can try to get the hell out of town before IAD jumps up your ass.”

Nick reached across and reclaimed the coffee. He drained it. His hands closed over hers, warm and familiar (warmer than Michael’s, something whispered in the back of her head), and he smiled slightly.

“Or three?” he asked. She locked eyes with him. He looked so tired, lines grooved deeply around his eyes and mouth.

“Three, there is no three. It’s an either-or proposition.”

“About time you propositioned me,” he said, and tried a grin. It didn’t work. “Three, Maggie, I roll right over on you. Who’s gonna believe you weren’t in on it? I can tell them anything I damn well please. Hell, it’s what they’ll want to hear.”

“I don’t need the job,” she said with a confidence she didn’t feel.

“Don’t bullshit me, baby, you need it. Maggie, Iwarnedyou. I tried to help you, so don’t blame me, okay? You just couldn’t leave things alone.”

“As if that makes what you did right.”

His head jerked sharply, as if she’d slapped him with something more than her tongue. His hazel eyes were tired and unfocused; the color seemed to bleed greenly into the whites, like a bad bleach job.

“Christ, this went past right and wrong a long time ago, or didn’t you fucking notice? What was the problem with you, anyway? So I walked away while somebody whacked a punk—a punk who’d just shot you, maybe killed you! What was that, a hanging offense? Why couldn’t you just let it go like everybody else?” Nick took a deep breath and let it out explosively. He started picking at the Styrofoam of the coffee cup, making a little white pile of pellets.

“It wasn’t the first time. Look, you’ve been on the bag, Nick. You think I wouldn’t notice?”

“So?” he snapped. His teeth clicked as if he had to cut the thread of thought. “You think it’s something unusual?”

“Is it?”

“I’m not answering your fucking questions, Maggie.”

“It’s kind of a big step from being a little greedy to being an accessory to murder, buddy. Didn’t that bother you?” She was so frustrated and angry that the coffee she’d drunk boiled in her stomach. “I can understand about Angelo. I can’t excuse it, but I can understand it.Bat it doesn’t fucking matter.I’m not the only one who knows you’re dirty. You’ve got to get clean, right now.”

“Clean? What world do you live in? You think the drugs wouldn’t be out there if I didn’t take a little envelope on the side? You think it makes any difference in the world whether I starve or not? What the hell do you know about it, Mrs. Fucking-College-Artsy-Fartsy-Married-To-A-Fucking-Wiseass-Doctor? Fucking yuppies. What do you know about the working class? You drive your German car back on home to your rich house and manicured lawns and you don’t know dick about how things are in the world. Don’t you give me any shit about taking the money, Maggie. I needed the money.” Nick’s eyes were hard and shiny. She thought maybe he was crying, but it could have been the fluorescent glare blinding her. He took another pellet out of the styrofoam and squished it into submission between his fingers.

“Do they know about Laurie?” Maggie asked. His face went blank. Not his eyes, though. Never the eyes.

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