Part 17 (2/2)

That's how I left him, the great Cob Gilles, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer: sobbing, curled into a fetal ball on his apartment floor.

Photograph. October 22, 01:31 P.M. Fingers in concrete:

The picture is lit with a flash. Washed-out gray concrete. Sharp shadows pointing to the left. The toe of a single out-of-place boot is visible on the right side of the frame-a stray object intruding on an otherwise stark scene.

And set in the middle of the photograph: fingers, protruding from the concrete floor. They sprout out of the ground like thick-stemmed plants, only different-not pus.h.i.+ng out displaced dirt, instead reaching up from a perfectly smooth unblemished surface. The surface cuts below the knuckle on all the fingers save the pinkie; the pinkie's knuckle is bisected neatly in two. And only the tip of the thumb is visible, little more than a thumbnail, sending up a glimmer of reflected light.

The angle is low; the camera is perched about a foot off the ground. And even though it is not a macro shot, the image is close and clear-razor-sharp details, blown up larger than life. The flesh on the fingers looks ghostly pale in the glare of the flash, and the ragged, dirty edges of the fingernails are all visible. The knuckles have been sc.r.a.ped raw, dotted with tiny tags of gray-white skin, ripped up to reveal a glimpse of rosy pink beneath. It is not a bad sc.r.a.pe, just the result of unintended friction, the kind of wound you'd get wrestling an unwieldy box through a narrow doorway.

It is a desolate shot. Gray and lonely.

”What the f.u.c.k was that?” Sabine barked as soon as I caught up to her out in front of the photographer's apartment. She let out a feral growl and kicked at a bloated paper bag lying on the sidewalk; it burst against her boot, sending fast-food wrappers and a crumpled-up cup skittering across the concrete. ”I had plans. I wanted to help her, for G.o.d's sake! I wanted to help her with her art! But she wouldn't even listen.”

”Yeah, well, I don't think she wants your help,” I said. ”And whatever your plans are, I don't think she's in any condition to lend a hand.”

”Yeah,” she said. ”I gathered that.”

Sabine let out a loud sigh; it was an exhausted rush of air, and in it I could hear her anger deflating. When she continued, her voice was imploring, and it sounded like she was asking me to do her some abstract favor, maybe change the very nature of the world around us. ”I just ... I was expecting something different, you know? Magic, not silence.”

I nodded and tried to give her a rea.s.suring smile. It felt weird on my lips, and I thought I might be doing it wrong. ”I know,” I said. ”It's disappointing. But maybe we shouldn't be putting so much faith in other people.”

Sabine gave me a questioning look, and we pa.s.sed a couple of moments in silence.

”He was a photographer?” she asked in a gentle voice. ”Just like you?”

”Yeah,” I said, flas.h.i.+ng a wry smile. ”Just like me.” I shook my head and walked away, moving out into the middle of the street.

Sabine caught up to me as I started to retrace our path back through the dark city.

Even more than before, the streets of downtown Spokane seemed deserted. It was late, approaching midnight, and there were no lights in the surrounding buildings. There was no laughter, no screams echoing in the distance. Just silence. Silence and the sound of our feet on wet pavement.

We were a long way from the world I knew.

I glanced up into the sky, expecting to see the face of the earth floating overhead-like maybe we'd been transported to the moon or to some alien asteroid hurtling through s.p.a.ce-but there were only clouds up there, and the m.u.f.fled outline of a moon packed in cotton.

I wanted to get home. I wanted to get home to Taylor.

When we reached the house, we found Taylor seated alone in the kitchen. There was a single candle burning on the table, and its steady flame etched shadows beneath her eyes. She looked tired. She looked like a haunted woman, drawn in heavy charcoal lines.

Sabine grunted a halfhearted good night and retreated up the stairs to her bedroom. I don't think she was trying to avoid Taylor and me or our upcoming encounter. I think she was just tired and disillusioned. I think she wanted to crawl into bed, where she could think about the Poet ... and dwell and curse and seethe in peace.

”I heard about Amanda and Mac,” Taylor said.

”Yeah.”

”That ... that situation ...” She paused and finally, at a loss for words, finished her statement with a cryptic shrug.

”Yeah,” I agreed with a smile. ”We're on the same page there.”

I sat down opposite her, and she gave me a blank, emotionless stare. ”I'm sorry I left this morning. I had things I had to do ... personal things, and I didn't want to wake you.” She leaned back from the table and tilted her head, as if she were trying to see me from a different angle. ”And I guess there were things I didn't want to deal with, too ... things between us. I just wanted to let them lie. I wanted to give myself time to think.”

I nodded, feeling surprisingly calm, surprisingly focused. My visit with Cob Gilles and the Poet had changed things for me. Before, I'd been so angry at Taylor. And for what? For some perceived slight, some juvenile feeling of abandonment? Now, none of that seemed to matter. It just ... didn't matter.

If Cob Gilles was right-if the world was crazy, if photography was s.h.i.+t-then what did that leave? What was he still clinging to? What was keeping him alive?

The Poet.

”Don't worry about it,” I said. ”It's fine, I-”

”No, Dean, it's not fine. It's stupid. Us-” She raised her hand, flicking a finger back and forth between the two of us. ”This, whatever it is ... it's stupid, monumentally stupid. I'm not going to be able to give you what you want. You're not going to be happy. And I'm going to feel like s.h.i.+t just yanking you around.”

”I'd be perfectly happy with a little yanking.”

She was silent for a moment, and then her cold facade cracked and she let out an abrupt laugh. It was an odd, strangled laugh, having to fight its way past reluctant muscles. But it was a laugh. And she shook her head in surprised puzzlement, like she didn't quite know what to make of me. ”I suppose we could leave the yanking to Danny.”

”See! There you go,” I said, raising my hands. ”Problem solved. It's not my natural inclination, mind you, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. For you.”

She continued to stare at me, those perplexed eyes jittering back and forth. And the smile faded from her lips. ”What are you doing, Dean?” she asked. ”I'm trying to give you an out here.”

”Yeah, well, maybe I don't want out,” I said. ”Maybe it's not the s.e.x that's got me all smitten. Maybe it's you. And everything else-every f.u.c.ked-up feeling and unexplained horror-can take a giant f.u.c.king leap.”

She smiled and reached across the table to grab my hand. Her touch was light, a trembling paintbrush drawing indistinct shapes across my palm. ”I didn't realize you were such a saint.”

”Oh, yeah, that's me,” I said. ”I'm all about the piety and the motherf.u.c.king goodness.”

She continued to smile, and it was such a warm and genuine smile. Sitting right there, in its path, it felt like I'd found the most beautiful place in the world.

”Then come along, Saint Dean,” she said. ”It's been a long day. We deserve some rest.”

I took my antibiotics and a couple of Vicodin, and then we settled in for some sleep. Taylor wanted me in her bed. We lay side by side, perfectly chaste, holding hands in the dark.

”Are you still concerned about Devon?” she asked as the Vicodin began to hit, lifting me about an inch above her queen-size mattress. ”I think I know what it is. I think I know who he's spying for.”

I grunted. Devon and the radio. The underground tunnels. It seemed so long ago, separated from me by a gulf of time and weirdness-by Amanda and Mac, by Mama Ca.s.s, by the photographer and the Poet. I found it amazing, how all of that horror and confusion-so intense in the moment, so overwhelming-could just fade away. It's some type of psychological defense, I figured, some type of coping mechanism. Somewhere along the line, I'd started living in the moment, letting everything just wash over me without fully taking it in, without dwelling.

”I didn't want to tell you until I was sure,” she said. ”But maybe you should be there with me.” She squeezed my hand. There was caring and vulnerability in her voice, and I got the sense that she was offering me another gift here, that she was opening herself up, including me in her secrets. For someone with her issues, I imagined that this was a great act of intimacy.

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