Lights Out

Eddie sat up and put his feet on the floor, but he didn’t get up right away. He was afraid of igniting the pain. Move, Nails. Slowly, pushing off with his hands like an invalid, Eddie rose. He felt no pain at all. The painkillers were still working.

He used the sheets to clean himself, glancing down at his bandages as he did. The sight of them made him light-headed; he had to bend down, hands on knees, to keep from fainting.

Eddie went to the door, listened, heard nothing. He opened it and looked out. He was at one end of a corridor. There were several doors leading off it; at the other end, stairs. He stepped silently into the corridor. Paz. Then the nurse. Then anyone he could find.

The first door on the right was open. Eddie looked in, saw a simple room with no one in it. It had a bed with a bare mattress; wheeled up beside it was a metal device that resembled a dentist’s x-ray machine. On a radiator in the corner lay the clothes he’d borrowed from Jack; the corduroy pants had slid to the floor.

Eddie moved toward the radiator. On the way he passed the metal device, saw that there was no x-ray tube suspended from it, but a metal helmet with a chin clamp at the bottom. He stopped, examined it. Then he swung the helmet around and stuck his head inside. It fit him perfectly.

First there was only blackness and silence. Then a woman spoke. “One-twenty over eighty,” she said. After that came a blue-white glare. Through the glare he saw a white ceiling with powerful lights hanging from it. Music played: “Malaguena.” He saw a woman’s face. She wore a surgical mask, but he recognized her: the mermaid-waitress from Brainy’s.

“Pulse-eighty-two.” Her voice sounded in his ears.

“Remove the gown,” said Paz, somewhere out of sight.

Then came the blue-white glare again, the scalpel, the pink and plump hands with the manicured nails. The scalpel rotated, giving him a good look at it, then disappeared from view.

Paz again: “Right there.”

Pregnant pause.

Blue-white glare.

“Malaguena.”

Paz grunted. A nice touch. Then up came the pink, plump hand, red with blood or dye number two, with the dangling pouch in the manicured fingers.

A prop, or a cadaver’s pouch, or a live one, but not his. Eddie ripped off the helmet, tore at the bandages. Not mine, not mine, not mine. Eddie’s mind repeated those words, but he couldn’t be sure, wasn’t sure, until the bandages fell in a heap and he saw himself, intact.

Intact. Relief flooded through him like the best drug on earth. Intact.

Eddie got dressed. He went into the corridor, walked to the end. All the doors were open, all the rooms empty. Eddie went down six flights of stairs, all the way to the bottom. He found himself in a big basement; naked bulbs spread pools of yellow light. There was a steel door at the far end. He went toward it, passing mounds of sand, stacks of plush divans, Persian rugs, papier-mache date palms, and a disassembled minaret made of whitewashed plywood.

Eddie opened the steel door. It led to a short set of cement steps, smelling of stale beer. At the top was a bulkhead door, locked from the inside with a bolt. Eddie slid it back, pushed open the door, and climbed out onto the street.

He’d been wrong about the time. It was day. A cloudy day, dreary and dark, probably, but bright enough to make him blink. Eddie let the bulkhead door fall shut and started to move away. A woman on a mountain bike screamed, “You fucking idiot,” and almost ran him down.

22

“Bonjour, monsieur,” said the maitre d’ of Au Vieux Marron. “C’ est ferme jusque a cinq et demi.”

“Knock it off,” said Eddie.

“Pardon?”

They stood in the doorway of the restaurant, Eddie outside in the cold rain, the maitre d’ inside, warm and dry. It was about three o’clock and the restaurant was empty. The maitre d’ hadn’t yet put on his jacket and tie. He wore a white shirt, black pants, black vest, and a puzzled smile.

“Is it part of your job, speaking French all the time?”

The maitre d’s smile changed to an expression that reminded Eddie of Charles de Gaulle. “I am in the food business, monsieur. French is the language of food.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Then may I ask to what we owe this visit?”

“I was here last night,” Eddie said, thinking that the maitre d’ spoke better English than he did.

“Armagnac, avec et sans glacons,” said the maitre d’, recovering his smile; a knowing one.

“That’s me,” said Eddie. “I want my C-note back.”

“Pardon?”

“C-note. It means-”

“I know the meaning of C-note. What was your complaint?”

“No complaints,” said Eddie. “I don’t want the actual money. Just the C-note.” Eddie produced the $350 roll and peeled off two fifties. “Here.”

The maitre d’ eyed the money but made no move to take it. “It’s a rare bill, perhaps?”

“No. Call it a lucky charm.”

The knowing expression grew stronger. The maitre d’ began to resemble Claude Rains. “The tables?” he said. “Or the horses?”