27 THE BIRDS’ REVENGE

27

THE BIRDS' REVENGE

"There's colors all around you, Ceecee Cooper."

"What colors?"

"All the warm colors. Like you're so ready, you're shinin'. But you'll have to wait till later."

"Wait for what?"

"Wait to ride the rocket. I'm up so high, girl, I can't get my dick up with me. The physics of it just don't work."

"You sure are up there, but you're worth waiting for."

"You want some of what got me here?"

"What is it?"

"Weed."

"Can't be. I don't smell it."

"Yeah, 'cause I don't smoke it. Doin' dabs."

"Dabs are powerful shit," she says.

"These are special dabs, fully spiced."

"Spiced with what?"

"Maybe DMT or somethin'."

"Better not be fentanyl, you drop dead on me."

"He wouldn't do that. He'd never do that. He's not some pusher for China wants to kill American kids. He only cares about money."

"Who does?"

"Old Bead."

"Old Bead?"

"Belden Bead. I do a job for him. No one does a better job for him. I'll get you a taste of this stuff. You'll see."

Vida shakes her head. "Not now. If I take some, then when you come down from where you are, I'll be up. I want us both in the same space, you know, when we take that ride later."

He nods vigorously and claps his hands with delight. "Hey, I need some candy. Good chocolate. There's a box in the fridge."

"You stay there," she says. "I'll get it for you."

When Vida brings the candy to the table, Morgan puts a hand on her butt and slides it between her legs, pressing the crotch of her denim shorts. She endures his touch long enough to take the lid off the box, whereupon his attention is redirected to the chocolates.

She returns to her seat. "When did you start using weed?"

"Seems like always."

"You don't remember."

"Sure. I was thirteen. Old Bead saw hustle in me. Got me workin' the middle-school crowd." Morgan pops a candy into his mouth.

"Who is this Bead guy?"

Morgan sorts nervously through the variety of candies, as if deciding which one to eat next is more stress than he can handle. "Bead is gonna move me up soon. The day he moves me up, I drop out of Long Valley High, get out of this house, get myself an apartment, cool wheels. I've been savin' for the day."

"But who is he?" she presses.

"Who is who?"

"Bead."

"Old Bead."

"You keep saying."

He picks up a candy, reconsiders, puts it back, and selects another. "Bead is Bead. Everyone who knows how things really are, not just how they seem, they know Bead."

"Yeah, well, I'm new in town."

He looks up at her. "Hey. I forgot. You're fresh. You sure are fresh."

She watches while he eats the piece of candy. Then she says, "So this Bead guy."

"His daddy, Horace Bead, old Horace and Katherine, they own all kinds of shit. Belden got himself a law degree from Yale so he'd know how to get around the law. He doesn't practice. Belden Bead, he's too busy to have time for lawyerin'."

Morgan startles, knocks the candy box aside, shoves his chair back from the table, and sways to his feet. Attention fixed on the ceiling, he turns in place.

Getting up from her chair, Vida says, "What's wrong?"

"Birds," he whispers.

"Where? I don't see any."

"Birds but not birds. Like birds but with people faces. Mean faces." He seems to be overcome by awe rather than fear. "Look at their eyes."

"Morgan, it's the spice. In the dabs. What? Mescaline or LSD?"

Closing his eyes, covering them with his hands, the boy speaks in a voice so deadpan that, in these circumstances, it's eerie, as he might sound if they were, in fair weather, having a discussion about how best to avoid being struck by lightning the next time they were outdoors in a thunderstorm. "The best thing is to keep your eyes covered. If they can't see your eyes, they can't tear them out. You're safe if you just keep your eyes covered until they go away."

Vida has never until now been in the presence of someone spaced out and hallucinating. However, intuition tells her to respond to his delusion as if it were real rather than try to argue him out of it, offer sympathy rather than argument, mercy and comfort rather than disparagement.

"I'm here for you," she tells him. "If I can't see these things, then they can't see me. If they can't see me, they can't peck out my eyes. That's how it works."

Morgan stands there like the searcher blinding himself while other children scurry away for a game of hide-and-seek. "Maybe it works that way, maybe, but be careful."

"That's how it works," she insists. "I'm safe. What do you need, Morgan? What can I do for you?"

"If I don't lie down, it'll get worse. If I lie down long enough, they'll go away. Everything always goes away."

Leading him to a bed is not a good idea. "I'll get you to the sofa in the living room."

She snatches up the dish towel from the breakfast table. With her other hand, she grips his left forearm without pulling his hand from his eyes, and she gently leads him. The drug seems to have cast a gerontic spell over the boy; he shuffles along like an old man.

When he is lying on the sofa, she kneels on the floor beside him. "Keep your eyes closed, but take your hands away from them. I have a cloth to lay over your eyes and keep you safe. That'll be more comfortable."

"They're still here," he says. "I can hear their wings."

When Morgan moves his hands and lowers his arms to his sides, Vida places the folded dish towel across his eyes and brow.

"It's cool," he says.

"Yeah, it's still damp with champagne."

"Are you goin' now? Don't go."

"I'll stay a little while."

"Now they're talkin'. You hear them?"

"No."

"I don't like when they start whisperin', the things they say. That makes me dizzier."

"Then don't listen. Listen only to me. We'll talk together until they stop whispering."

Although he shuffled like a fragile old man as she led him to the sofa, he now seems like a small child. She holds his hand in both of hers.

In his current condition, Morgan's memory of what has occurred between them is sure to be full of holes. Vida takes a chance when she mentions the name of the boy who, according to Anna Lagare, had also thrown bottles at José Nochelobo. "So who's Damon Orbach?"

Morgan frowns. "How do you know Damon?"

"I don't. When you said Horace and Katherine Bead own all kinds of shit, you said ‘just like Damon Orbach.'"

"Why would I say that?"

"How would I know, baby? You said what you said."

"Damon doesn't own nothin'. His dad, Perry, he's the big bear in the county. It might all be Damon's one day, except his old man is such a hard-ass he'll never die."

"So Damon's a friend of yours, huh?"

"We hang out. We got similar grievances. That's what Damon says. ‘Similar grievances.' Man, I'm pressed."

"Impressed with what?"

"Pressed. Like a weight on me. Like you're layin' on me, but not that nice. You gotta lay on me."

"We'll do the laying later, sweetie. When you feel better. You sell dabs or something to Damon?"

"Shit, no. Old Bead would cut my nuts off."

"Why?"

"Only Bead supplies Damon and only what Bead wants him to have. He doesn't want any chance of Damon flushin' himself."

"Flushing himself?"

"Takin' an overdose. I am so heavy." He's slurring his words. "I never been so heavy."

"Are you all right, baby?"

"I'm a freakin' whale. But I'm okay. Don't you go nowhere."

"Where would I go?" she asks.

"I'm slidin' away, but I'll be back."

"I'll be here."

Below the dish towel, his mouth forms a loose smile. "I'm a man of mystery." And then he's snoring.

She lifts the cloth from his eyes and takes it to the kitchen. With paper towels, she quickly cleans off the breakfast table and tucks the two chairs under it. She returns the carton of orange juice and the box of candy to the refrigerator, the package of cinnamon rolls to the bread box. She washes the two tall glasses, puts them where Morgan found them, empties the remaining champagne down the drain, turns on the water long enough to flush away the smell, and wipes the sink dry. When she leaves, she takes with her all the used paper towels, the empty champagne bottle, the cork, and the wire hood that once restrained the cork.

Removing every proof that she's been here is not likely to induce him to believe that he hallucinated her as he did the birds with human faces. However, intuition suggests that without evidence of her visit to prod his memory, his recollection of what she looked like and what he told her will be hazy at best. Intuition has always been reliable, and not merely in the search for gemstones. Her intuition is a gift no less than it is for Lupo and the wolves that he leads through the perils of the wilds.

She walks the quarter of a mile to her pickup and returns home by way of the forest-service road rather than pass by the Slyke house again. During the drive, she mulls over what she has learned and what, if anything, she can do with the knowledge. She suspects that even if Morgan never discovers that she was Connie Cooper, he'll eventually come into her life again and with lethal intent.