My husban—
The chest. Bullet just misses the heart. But you said you wanted it slow, so you get it. He bleeds, but he lives. You can go see him later tonight if you want. Take in a movie. Buy yourself a nice dinner. Nine p.m. Visiting hours will be over, but they’ll let you in. The night shift, they’re all fans. You’ll cry like you did in court when the government took your Chinese baby away.
That wasn’t me. That was a character.
They were your tears, the Dreamer of the Day says. That’ll get you in. Go see him. You’ll think the staph will have come from here. That you’re the carrier, that you infected him.
He pours two cups of tea. He hands one to Lil. She takes it but doesn’t drink.
This is the most disgusting place you’ve ever set foot in, he says matter-of-factly. So when your husband gets the MRSA, you’ll think it’s your fault. It’ll get in his blood nice and slow. It’ll take weeks for him to die. He’ll cry even better than you, demand that you visit him every day. Get a hotel room so you can spend all day by his side. He’ll forget the whore entirely, and she’ll be sent back to Moscow till the heat is off. You’ll sneak down to the burn ward to see Paul twice, three times. Then forget it. It won’t matter though.
Why won’t it? she asks. She passes the cup from hand to hand. There’s no place to put it down.
His face will be ruined, but so will your husband’s. The MRSA will do a number on his skin. Boils worthy of Job. Kill him slow. He’ll lose half his nose. Three weeks of rats in the veins.
Lil throws the content of her teacup at the Dreamer of the Day, but he’s ready. He swipes an old New York Post off the countertop and holds it up. The tea splatters all over another disgraced governor in black and white and red.
The Dreamer drops the paper, steps on it as he walks past Lil. Show’s over, he says. Go home. You’ll see.
She follows him back to the bedroom. You crazy old man, she says. What the hell? Did you put Paul up to this? Did he put you up to this? What kind of freak show are you two lunatics running here? Christ, talk about far fetched. I’ve met some real winners, some deranged fans, but you, you are a fucking fruitcake—
The Dreamer grabs a great handful of old suits and tosses them on the white tongue of the bed on which he’d sat. The back door of the railroad apartment. He opens it and walks out without a word. Where are you going! You can’t leave! she demands. The door slams shut. Lil rushes to the door, tries the knob. It’s unlocked, but she has to push, not pull. All the trash and boxes bar the way. She can’t squeeze her pinky through the crack of the door for the rubbish. Lil grabs her purse from the little bench, runs through the apartment on tiptoes, sideways along the narrow path through the piles of garbage, and hits the hallway through the front entrance.
No Dreamer. Lil looks down the well of the staircase. No Dreamer. He’s an old, slow man. He couldn’t have made it outside in time. She’s on the second floor; there are no first-floor apartments he could have ducked into. Lil stomps down the steps and walks outside to a dusk painted red and blue from the lights of ambulances and a black and white. A radio crackles. A shrieking, thrashing blond held inches over the sidewalk by a pair of cops gets shoved into the back seat of the cop car. Then, gurneys.
——
Lil can’t see her husband. He’s in emergency surgery. Paul she doesn’t dare ask after, not when she sees two men in tank-shaped suits in the waiting area very patiently not reading the newspapers open in their hands. She doesn’t want to go all the way up to Grand Central. She doesn’t want to say to the Metro North ticket clerk behind those bars of bronze, “One-way to Valhalla.” She takes in a movie. Cries through it. It’s about someone with cancer. A real tearjerker. She can taste the hospital onscreen. Lil orders a nice dinner in a little place down on Greenwich Street, where the grid of the city collapses against the shore of the Hudson River. Doesn’t eat it. Tips 50 percent for some privacy. Indigo skies go gray. Nine o’clock, she’s crying in the lobby of St. Vincent’s. Not for her husband. Not for Paul. But her husband, he’s the one she decides to see.
Lil washes her hands at the restaurant. Again in the ladies’ restroom. She takes her husband’s hand now because he’s unconscious, breathing hard as though deep in his still body he’s running from somebody. She pulls her hand back, but it’s too late.
——
Nick Mamatas is the author of three novels—Move Under Ground, Under My Roof, and Sensation—and of over sixty short stories, many of which were collected in You Might Sleep . . . Nick’s fiction has been thrice nominated for the Bram Stoker Award, and as coeditor of Clarkesworld, he’s been nominated for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.
John Langan
—
I
“You know how much they want for a Coke?”
“How much?” Vasquez said.
“Five euros. Can you believe that?”
Vasquez shrugged. She knew the gesture would irritate Buchanan, who took an almost pathological delight in complaining about everything in Paris, from the lack of air conditioning on the train ride in from de Gaulle to their narrow hotel rooms, but they had an expense account, after all, and however modest it was, she was sure a five-euro Coke would not deplete it. She didn’t imagine the professionals sat around fretting over the cost of their sodas.
To her left, the broad Avenue de la Bourdonnais was surprisingly quiet; to her right, the interior of the restaurant was a din of languages: English, mainly, with German, Spanish, Italian, and even a little French mixed in. In front of and behind her, the rest of the sidewalk tables were occupied by an almost even balance of old men reading newspapers and youngish couples wearing sunglasses. Late-afternoon sunlight washed over her surroundings like a spill of white paint, lightening everything several shades, reducing the low buildings across the avenue to hazy rectangles. When their snack was done, she would have to return to one of the souvenir shops they had passed on the walk here and buy a pair of sunglasses. Another expense for Buchanan to complain about.
“M’sieu? Madame?” Their waiter, surprisingly middle aged, had returned. “Vous кtes—”
“You speak English,” Buchanan said.
“But of course,” the waiter said. “You are ready with your order?”
“I’ll have a cheeseburger,” Buchanan said. “Medium rare. And a Coke,” he added with a grimace.
“Very good,” the waiter said. “And for madame?”
“Je voudrais un crкpe au chocolat,” Vasquez said, “et un cafй au lait.”
The waiter’s expression did not change. “Trиs bien, madame. Merзi,” he said as Vasquez passed him their menus.
“A cheeseburger?” she said once he had returned inside the restaurant.
“What?” Buchanan said.
“Never mind.”
“I like cheeseburgers. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. It’s fine.”
“Just because I don’t want to eat some kind of French food—ooh, un crкpe, s’il vous plaоt.”
“All this,” Vasquez nodded at their surroundings, “it’s lost on you, isn’t it?”
“We aren’t here for all this,” Buchanan said. “We’re here for Mr. White.”
Despite herself, Vasquez flinched. “Why don’t you speak a little louder? I’m not sure everyone inside the cafй heard.”
“You think they know what we’re talking about?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Oh? What is?”