NOS4A2(152)

“The big f-f-flood was in 2008, and the walls are st-st-still wet.”

Vic brushed one hand against the cold, moist concrete and found that it was true.

Maggie held her as they picked their way carefully through the debris. Vic kicked a pile of beer cans. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw that the walls had been tagged with graffiti, the usual assortment of six-foot cocks and dinner-plate-proportioned tits. But there was also a grand message, scrawled in dripping red paint:

PLEEZ BE QUITE IN THE LIBERY PEPLE R TRYING TO GET HI!

“I’m sorry, Maggie,” Vic said. “I know you loved this place. Is anyone doing anything to help out? Were the books moved to a new location?”

“You bet,” Maggie said.

“Nearby?”

“P-p-pretty close. The town dump is just a m-m-mm-mile downriver.”

“Couldn’t someone do something for the old place?” Vic said. “What is it? A hundred years old? It must be a historical site.”

“You got that right,” Maggie said, and for an instant there was no trace of a stammer in her voice at all. “It’s history, baby.”

Vic caught a glimpse of her expression in the shadows. It was true: Pain really did help Maggie with her stammer.





The Library


MAGGIE LEIGH’S OFFICE BEHIND THE FISH TANK WAS STILL there—in a manner of speaking. The tank was empty, with filthy Scrabble tiles heaped in the bottom, the cloudy glass walls giving a view of what had once been the children’s library. Maggie’s gunmetal desk remained, although the surface had been gouged and scratched and someone had spray-painted a gaping red vulva on one side. An unlit candle bent over a pool of violet wax. Maggie’s paperweight—Chekhov’s gun, and yes, Vic got the joke now—held her place in the hardcover she was reading, Ficciones by Borges. There was a tweed couch that Vic didn’t remember. It was a yard-sale number, some rents in it patched with duct tape and some holes not patched at all, but at least it wasn’t damp, didn’t stink of mildew.

“What happened to your koi?” Vic asked.

“I’m not sure. I think s-s-someone ate it,” Maggie said. “I hope it m-m-made sss-someone a good meal. No one sh-sh-should go hungry.”

There were syringes and rubber tubing on the floor. Vic was careful not to step on any needles as she made her way to the couch and lowered herself upon it.

“Those aren’t m-m-m-mine,” Maggie said, nodding to the syringes, and she went for the broom that was leaning in a corner where once there had been a coatrack. The broom itself doubled as the coatrack now; Maggie’s filthy old fedora hung upon it. “I haven’t sh-sh-shot up ss-ss-since last year. Too expensive. I don’t know how anyone can afford to get high in this economy.”

Maggie set her hat on her sherbet-colored hair with the dignity and care of a drunk dandy about to sway out of the absinthe hall and into the rainy Paris night. She took up her broom and swept. The syringes clattered in a glassy sort of way across the cement.

“I can wrap your leg and give you some Oxy,” Maggie said. “Way cheaper than heroin.”

She bent to her desk, found a key, unlocked the bottom drawer. She reached in and removed an orange pill bottle, a carton of cigarettes, and a rotting purple Scrabble bag.

“Sobriety is even cheaper than OxyContin,” Vic said.

Maggie shrugged and said, “I only take as needed.” She poked a cigarette into the corner of her mouth, lit a match with her thumbnail: a good trick.

“When is it needed?”

“It’s a painkiller. I take it to kill pain.” She drew smoke, put the lighter down. “That’s all. What happened to you, Vuh-V-V-Vic?”

Vic settled back into the couch, head on the armrest. She could not bend her left knee all the way or unbend it, could hardly bear to move it. She could hardly bear to look at it; it was twice the size of the other knee, a purple-and-brown map of bruises.

She began to talk, telling about the last two days as best as she could remember, getting things out of order, providing explanations that seemed more confusing than the things they were meant to explain. Maggie did not interrupt or ask for clarification. A faucet ran for half a minute, then stopped. Vic let out a sharp, pained breath when Maggie put a cold, damp washcloth against her left knee and gently held it there.

Maggie opened her medicine bottle and shook out a little white pill. Fragrant blue smoke unspooled from her cigarette, draped her like the ghost of a scarf.

“I can’t take that,” Vic said.

“Sh-sh-sure you can. You don’t have to d-d-dry-swallow ’em. I’ve got lemonade. It’s a little warm but pretty tasty!”

“No, I mean, it’ll put me to sleep. I’ve slept too much already.”

“On a concrete f-f-f-floor? After you were gassed? That isn’t s-suh-sleep.” She gave Vic the tablet of OxyContin. “That’s unconsciousness.”

“Maybe after we talk.”

“If I try to help you ff-ff-find out what you want to know, do you pruh-p-promise you won’t r-ride off till you rest?”

Vic reached for the other woman’s hand and squeezed it. “I do.” Maggie smiled and patted Vic’s knuckles, but Vic did not let go of her. She said, “Thank you, Maggie. For everything. For trying to warn me. For helping me. I’d give anything to take back the way I acted when I saw you in Haverhill. I was scared of you. That’s not an excuse. There isn’t any excuse. There’s a lot of things I wish I could redo. You can’t imagine. I wish there was something I could do to show you how sorry I am. Something I could give you besides words.”