False Memory

Martie was rocked harder by the sight of Skeet than she would have expected to be. Skeet the feeb, perpetual boy, so earnest but so weak, self-destructive, always seeking to do to himself what his mother had failed to do with a pillow. Martie loved him, but only now did she realize how much she loved him — and only now was she able to understand why. For all his faults, Skeet was a gentle soul, and like his precious brother, his heart was kind; in a world where kind hearts were more rare than diamonds, he was a treasure flawed but a treasure nonetheless. She could not bear to stoop to him, touch him, and find that he was also a treasure broken beyond repair.

Heedless of the blood, Dusty dropped to his knees and put his hands on his brother’s face, touched Skeet’s closed eyes, felt the side of his neck, and in a voice torn as Martie had never heard it torn, he cried, “Oh, Jesus, an ambulance! Hurry, someone!”

Jennifer appeared at the open door to her work area. “I called. They’re coming. They’re on their way.”

The woman in pink stood at the reception window, on the ledge of which she had placed two guns, including the machine pistol that Skeet had taken off Eric’s body. “Jennifer, don’t you think it would be a good idea if you put these out of the way someplace until the police arrive? Have you called the police?”

“Yes. They’re coming, too.”

Warily, Jennifer went around to the inside of the window, took possession of the guns, and put them aside on her desk.

Maybe it was because Skeet was dying, maybe it was the horror of Ahriman’s ghastly face and the blood everywhere, but whatever the reason, Martie couldn’t think clearly enough to make sense of what had happened here. Had Skeet shot Ahriman? Had Ahriman shot Skeet? Who had shot first and how often? The positions of the bodies didn’t support any scenario that she could imagine. And the eerie calm of the woman in pink, as though she were accustomed to witnessing gun battles daily, seemed to argue that she had played some mysterious role.

The woman stepped to the least spattered corner of the lounge, withdrew a cell phone from her purse, and placed a call.

Still far away but drawing nearer, distorted by distance and topography, the shrillness of sirens sounded fearsome and curiously prehistoric, organic rather than mechanical, a pterodactyl shriek.

Jennifer hurried to the entrance door, opened it, and placed a small rubber wedge to prevent it from closing.

To Martie, she said, “Help me move these chairs out to the end of the hall, so the paramedics will have room to work when they get here.”

Martie was glad to have something to do. She felt that she was standing on a crumbling brink. Helping Jennifer, she was able to step back from the abyss.

Holding the phone away from her mouth, the woman in pink paid a compliment to Jennifer: “You’re quite impressive, young lady.”

The receptionist cast an odd look at her. “Uh, thanks.”

By the time the last chair and small table had been transferred to the nearer end of the corridor, multiple sirens had grown louder and then, one by one, had cycled into silence. Help must be in the elevators.

Speaking into her cell phone, the woman in pink said, “Will you stop babbling, Kenneth? For an expensive attorney, you’re something of a ninny. I’ll need the finest criminal-defense attorney, and I’ll need him immediately. Now get a grip on yourself and do it.”

When she terminated the call, the woman smiled at Martie.

Then she took a card from her purse and held it out to Jennifer. “You’ll be needing a job, I suppose. I could use a young woman as competent as you, if you’re interested.”

Jennifer hesitated, but then she took the card.

On his knees in blood, repeatedly smoothing Skeet’s hair back from his pale face, her special husband was talking softly to his brother, though there was no indication that the kid could hear him. Dusty spoke about the old days, about things they had done as boys, pranks they had played, discoveries they had made together, escapes they had planned, dreams they had shared.

Martie heard men running in the hall, the heavy booted feet of fire-department paramedics, and she had the crazy wonderful feeling, just for a moment, that when they burst through the open doorway, one of them would be Smilin’ Bob.

76

Out of chaos, more chaos for a while. Too many strangers’ faces and too many voices talking at once, paramedics and police, quickly but noisily negotiating jurisdictional boundaries between the living and the dead. If confusion had been loaves of bread and if suspicion had been fishes, no miracles would have been required to provide a banquet for multitudes.

Martie’s confusion was only fed by the startling news that the woman in the pink Chanel suit had shot both Skeet and Ahriman. She admitted to the shooting, requested to be arrested, and would provide no further details, though she complained about the lingering stink from the doctor’s burnt hair.