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"Who's Isabelle?" he asked.

  Timmy gave him the freaky scowl, left eyebrow arching. "You kidding me?"

  "No."

  "I've told you that story."

  "Who is she?"

  "You know this, man." In a whisper that was still loud enough to be heard down at the far end of the bar. "You been into the gin bottles again, Gray?"

  "No."

  Shrugging, stretching out his arm so the name caught in the light. "Isabelle is the name of my niece. She was born the day I got back from the Gulf War."

  Chase waited. So did Timmy.

  "That it?" Chase asked.

  "It's not enough? What the hell were you expecting?"

  "I was hoping for more."

  "There isn't any more. More what? Besides, you've heard me talk about her a million times. She's in tenth grade now. Won the science fair last week with some project on fruit flies. Genetics. That stuff. You really don't remember me telling you that?"

  Genetics and stuff. You didn't have to have a thought disorder that diminished your ability to think clearly and logically to forget that. Even if it was often manifested by disconnected and nonsensical language that renders the patient incapable of participating in conversation, contributing to his alienation from his family, friends, and society.

  "Gray?"

  An affected person may believe that he is being conspired against, called paranoid delusion.

  "Gray?"

  "Yeah, I remember now, Timmy. Sorry about that."

  Knowing not to push it, sensing the ground had already weakened beneath them, Timmy hovered for a few seconds and nodded, aimed his chin at the stage. "I think something's happening up there."

  Shake had fallen into a fugue state. It took a second of scanning the audience for Chase to find a guy drinking beer, wearing a poofy linen pirate shirt. That had been enough to throw Shake off his rail.

  Chase grabbed one of his poetry collections from the sales table, walked down the center of the room, and took the steps up to the stage two at a time. He read for about twenty minutes, sort of breezing around Shake a bit, trying to make it look like some kind of performance art.

  After each poem, Chase would gesture towards Shake, sharing the recognition, and the puzzled audience would applaud dutifully. "Let's hear it for Shake Sunshine Jr., ladies and gentlemen!" It was weird, but still not quite up there with Conrad's poopie act.

  Okay, so you embrace what makes you unique.

  Shake began to loosen where he stood, the deadlock freeze wearing off.

  Hanging onto the mike stand, running his free hand through his hair and trying to be Lenny Bruce cool, Chase let his voice get husky and said, "We have a very special treat for you all tonight. The Narrative Bone Palace is proud to introduce you to a young poet making a hell of a wave on the New York scene."

  He spotted Nurse Jez in the same spot at the back of the room as she'd been standing the other night. The fact didn't frighten or thrill him, hardly even puzzled him this time. The perfume-laden air grew heavy with a sense of irrevocable finality.

  "Many of you are already well-acquainted with his unique style. Prepare to be enticed, and please give an outstanding welcome to our very own... Jasper Cox."

  See how it all fits together, Chase thought. There's a reason for almost everything in the long run, even if you couldn't put it into place until the very end.

  Jasper wasn't even surprised. He made his way to the mike and looked like he wanted to lick it. He didn't make any acknowledgment, just took in the crowd, swelled where he stood, and dove into his first poem.

  Two hundred and forty pounds of immobile black man wasn't easy to move, but Chase eventually wrestled Shake towards the curtains. By the time they were both off stage, Chase was panting and really wanted to grab that dude in the poofy pirate shirt and throw out his entire wardrobe. Who wore clothes like that anyway?

  "Shake, I want you to listen to me." Touching him gently on both sides of his face. "You're going to do something right now. It's not difficult. You were made for this. Listen. You are going to let the words absolve and redeem you."

  It was enough to get a shimmer of action in Shake's eyes, a spark that died immediately. Chase tried again. "Shake." No, this called for some shock therapy. "Ron. Ron Wilson. This is where you belong. Come up. Come on back, Ron. You're letting the words absolve you. They will redeem you. You know this in your guts, where it counts most."

  Shake started coming out of it even more, really unwinding until he was up and running again and glanced over at Chase. "Hey, man, where'd you go? For a drive?"

  "Yeah." It was always better to agree.

  "You still going by the hospital?"

  "Yeah," Chase said, already trapped in the pattern, unable to stop himself. He would've laughed if he could've. Of all the times to get sucked in by the old current. "It helps to calm me."

  As he kept circling town, driving back and forth between the community college and the library, heading out on the parkway—

  "It's cool, man. Look at me."

  "—to gun past Garden Falls, where the shadow of the buildings sliced down alongside the moon."

  "Gray, come on," Shake said. "Come on back."

  "He'd stop off at bars and have a few more, speaking to no one. He did that for a couple of years, biding time, feeling a slow movement and rise under his skin."

  "It's all right."

  "That was all right," Chase said.

  He and Shake were hanging onto one another. Colliding patterns really had a way of taking your feet out from under you.

  "You still seeing Nurse Jez?" Shake asked.

  "Yeah. She's back there right now."

  "You're not going to like this, but you have to believe me. You've got to trust me on this one, man. She's not there. She's not real, Gray."

  "Maybe she survived the fire."

  "You aren't listening to me. She's not real. She doesn't exist. She never did. You made her up."

  Well, isn't that some fun, slappy shit to pull. "No."

  "It's true."

  "You told me two days ago that she died in the fire."

  "You were freaking about your father, completely confused. I figured I'd tackle one delusion at a time."

  "She read poetry to me on the ward. All the suicides. Plath, Brautigan, Berryman. I had sex with her. She fucked me into the floor. You don't make that up."

  "Most of us don't," Shake admitted, already back to sagely plucking at the twin prongs of his beard. "You do. You did. She gave you a way to get through it."

  It almost never paid to argue with someone nearly as crazy as yourself. Chase asked, "Was there a fire?"

  "Yeah, man, there was a fire."

  "Who set it? Jilliane? The pyro chick with the burn scars? Tell me it was her."

  "Don't you know yet? Can't you remember even that much?"

  "Oh hell. If you say it was me I'm going to—"

  "No, Gray." Shake let his sorrow bleed into his eyes, the drag so strong that Chase almost went with it. He swallowed and opened his mouth and nothing came out. Shake tapped his teeth together, trying to find his tempo again. He couldn't, and just let his words fall. "It was me. I set the fire."

  "You?"

  "Yeah, I did it to save your life. It's how we met. Don't you know that?" He looked deep into Chase's face, trying to shuck everything else that always pulled them away from reality. "It was my fourth day there. They were torturing you in that big tub. I saw them and thought they were killing you. It was the only way I knew how to try to stop it. I took a pack of matches off that Jilliane pyro chick, lit my pad up, and threw it in a laundry basket. I don't know how it got so out of control."

  Chase put himself to it and remembered the dark face of a man called Ron Wilson, who would later become Babawanda Mugwanda and thereafter Shake Sunshine Jr., peering in through the small, clouded plastic window at the top of the door. Ron usually sat in the center of the ward at a table large enough for only one man, staring down at his writing pad. You'd
think they wouldn't give pens and sharpened pencils to the consumers, thinking they might go crazy and start stabbing the nurses, or jab themselves in the carotid. But there he was, scribbling away every day, sort of bouncing in his seat to the rhythm of his own verse, whispering without muttering, grooving to his own meaningful narratives, the verse of his survival.

  "You saved me," Chase said. "I didn't remember."

  "You can't hold on to it."

  "You act like you don't believe me when I tell you about Barrack."

  "I always believe you. You can't remember that I believe you."

  "Well," Chase said. "Before I forget again, let me say thanks."

  "You don't have to say thanks, man. You're my best friend. I knew it even back then. Right at the beginning."

  Chase craned his neck and looked around the curtains, studying the room.

  Jasper did all right, grabbing the audience and holding onto them with all his versions and imprints. Chase thought he could hear himself in there, and Shake and Isaac as well. When the folks clapped he could see Dawn in her seat really tearing it up, waving her arms. Maybe you really could find love and somehow be redeemed in the end.

  He saw Jez and Joe Singleton standing at the back of the place.

  She had her hair up in the pony tail again, bare legs easing down and down from the hem of her slinky black dress.

  The heat of Chase's rage started up, that engine turning over, slowly at first, then rattling on.

  Joe Singleton had the same pony tail, took out his gold lighter, flicked it, and brought the flame up to his cigarette.

  There was no Nurse Jez.

  Joe Singleton stared at Chase, blinking in the smoke-filled darkness, and nodded once.

  "How's Jasper doing on the stage, man?" Shake asked.

  "Good. And look there, you've got to check out this beautiful girl. She was crying before because you didn't give your whole reading."

  "What?"

  "She was really heaving. I thought she might faint."

  Shake leaned over and his eyes followed to where Chase was pointing and settled on the dude with the poofy shirt. Shake instantly became rooted and inert, his face wiped clean of expression.

  Chase stepped out into the front of the Palace, headed for the emergency exit sign to the side, knowing the knife would follow.

  13

  Joe Singleton, who'd cut himself open out of boredom, who'd stolen his own kid and made an abbreviated run to nowhere, who'd taken out his own old lady, shadowed Chase down the street.

  There weren't that many alleys anymore, not like you see in movies from the 40s. Nowadays almost every inch, even two foot wide gaps between buildings, was prime real estate. It took Chase about six blocks before he found an alley in the Village barely wide enough for them to have their face to face.

  He ducked in past a street lamp that gave off a ring of illumination. It covered about half the ground of the alley which dead-ended at a gated doorway and a dumpster.

  The sounds behind him weren't so much footsteps as they were skitters, like a small animal creeping up.

  Okay, so here it comes.

  Plant yourself, get ready.

  He spun, unsure of exactly what he'd find.

  His father with his shattered head blooming red and bubbling his last suicidal thoughts. Or Jilliane, hairless and thin as kindling, her blisters spitting and exploding against the bricks. Doreena hopping like a hobbled frog, with her panties around her knees, dragging herself in circles. Maybe Ellis, his Windsor knot loosened by his own small brand of madness, eyes spinning from doing nothing for the past five years except mainlining tragedy. Granddad with his hacked wrists and some of his wheelchair-bound palsied buddies, going, "Fred, don't be mad, Freddy…" Jez, waiting to throw herself at him, proving that she was real, and had loved him, and still did.

  We need whatever we need to get us through the long night. You just never knew who might be the next to lose their frickin' mind.

  It's Joe Singleton, the maniac.

  The cheek that had been smashed in the accident was webbed with pits and scars. Those insane eyes of fury like pyres. He wasn't grinning, not at all, except looking at him now, anybody could see that he really was.

  You understand the wrath of a patient man, and that's what Singleton was telling you that night five years back. Saying how he would bide his time for this moment, living for the kill.

  "Why are you here, Joe?" Chase asked.

  Singleton's voice was much higher than Chase expected. Almost prissy. "You killed my little girl."

  "I think that was you."

  "You're not getting out of it, no matter how you try."

  "It was your actions that caused her death."

  Not even talking to Chase, hardly even noticing him. "I've been waiting for this."

  "I know you have. You also murdered your wife."

  "That bitch, she deserved it."

  Whiny, on the verge of a snivel.

  This was the big finale?

  Chase stared at Joe Singleton thinking about everything he wasn't seeing. All the elements in the man's makeup that had brought the guy down this road. Surely he had his fine points. His moments of tenderness and caring, when he wept in his sleep or cried out from heartaches no one else could quite understand. There was more to him, but in the story of Chase's life, Joe Singleton was just the killer con. But not very smart.

  Joe Singleton, coming at him with the four-inch blade held low against his leg.

  First move.

  A wide arcing, sweeping slash that might look cool on the screen but didn't do anything. Vaudeville. First act enticement, pure theater. The funny guy playing off the straight man. It was only part of the build-up, something Singleton did to get himself psyched. Chase didn't even have to slip to one side or the other. The blade eased by and got no closer than six inches. On Chase's cell block, if Singleton had tried that with a shiv they would've driven it into his ear.

  Next move.

  A jab that was supposed to perforate a lung. Joe's good at this, he's had lots of practice. So far as Chase could tell it wasn't meant to murder, just maim and scare, chop somebody down some. This is what Joe had done to his wife a couple of times over the years. Punctured a lung so he could listen to her sucking air and gasping like a dying grouper as she crawled across the carpet. Chase ducked and dodged the way his grandfather had taught him years ago, and lifted and drove his fist forward in a vicious uppercut that should've take Singleton's head off.

  But his swing was too short and his knuckles barely brushed Singleton's chin, glancing off something slippery.

  Jesus Christ, Singleton, the fuckin' maniac, used a moisturizer.

  With Aloe.

  Third move.

  The kiddie stuff was done now, this was going to be a bad one. Chase tried to stay calm but was too anxious. A cold wire pressed against his spine, from the back of his neck to his asshole. His nuts shriveled. It was a weird feeling, wanting to stay alive. Chase hadn't realized he cared so much.

  Singleton stabbed forward, faking to his left even as he settled himself on the balls of his feet. Chase knew what was happening but had already tried to counter, hedging to the right.

  Ah, silly.

  You're going to die because you were dumb, and for no other reason.

  Chase couldn't shift fast enough as mad Joe Singleton, the animal, the punk, eagerly anticipating the proper moment, sprang and slid the blade into Chase's belly.

  Letting out a throat-ripping shriek, Chase realized now, god damn, no matter how cool they play it in the books, this shit hurts like crazy.

  He'd never seen blood from that deep inside a human before. It's the blood that went around inside the organs you couldn't even name. It dripped thickly off the first two inches of blade.

  Two inches. That might be small for a dick, but if you held your fingers that far apart, and imagined steel going in that much, you opened your eyes wide and went whoa mama.

  The wet warmth flooded o
ver his belt buckle and splattered the concrete. He almost fell over but Stacy appeared at his side, reached out, held and steadied him.

  "Enough of this," Singleton hissed. "Time to take you out."

  "Who's next?" Chase asked.

  "I've got a whole list."

  Amazing that someone could be locked up for five years, thinking about this showdown, and not come up with anything better to say than that.

  But really, you couldn't take him too much to task, since all Chase came out with was, "Blow it out your ass."

  Stacy tightened her grip on his hand. He felt that. Chase chewed his tongue, still not quite ready to be dead yet. Whatever happened, he'd go out swinging. He clenched his hands into fists and stood his ground. You found your pride where you could.

  Lifting the knife a little, Joe Singleton let out a snicker and angled the blade up, ready for the single thrust under Chase's ribs and into his heart.

  And now—

  Huh.

  Well.

  Behind Singleton, moving quickly, was Arlo Barrack.

  Sometimes it doesn't take much effort on your part to read exactly how it will unfold.

  "Miss me, Killer?" Barrack asked.

  Singleton spun and tried to pull his action again, doing move number one. "Who are you?"

  Barrack didn't back up an inch as the knife arced by half a foot from him. "You helped kill your own kid, you prick. This is too good for you."

  Stuck in his own pattern, Singleton tried move number two just as Barrack brought up his .38, pressed the muzzle to Singleton's temple, and pulled the trigger.

  It wasn't something Chase had ever wanted to see, but it wasn't all that bad, considering.

  A piece of Singleton's skull flew off in a semi-solid clump and landed almost at Chase's feet. The right eye, like Dad's, dropped out of the socket and slid down his cheek. Singleton managed to take a step, and one more, before sinking to his knees and toppling onto his face.

  "There," Barrack said, glowering at Chase, "I always pay my debts. We're even. If I ever see you again, I'll knot an anchor around your neck and kick you into the east river."

  Barrack started off but then stopped, wheeled around, expecting some kind of answer.

  "Sure," Chase told him.