The Mirror Thief(142)

Why did you want to make any deal with them? Claudio says. Why did you think it could be any good?

Who else? Stanley says, moving the icepack to Claudio’s opposite temple, coming around the chair to face him. The boss? If you don’t tell me, then I’m gonna think yes. Got it? You understand what that means?

Claudio’s slotted lids blink at Stanley. Then he looks away. His lips open and close. It was the one you guessed, he says. The white one.

Okay. Who else? The boss?

Claudio shakes his head, winces.

What about those other two? The ones we saw with Whitey at the penny-arcade?

Yes. Those. No more.

Stanley lifts the icepack to move strands of hair from Claudio’s eyes. His brow is clammy. What happened, kid? he says.

I do not wish to talk about this with you.

Goddamnit, kid. Why didn’t you fight ’em off like I taught you? Why didn’t—

Claudio reaches up with his icepack, bats Stanley’s arms away. I fought them, he hisses. I fought them like you said. And look.

He tries to lift his broken hand; grimaces. Skin’s missing from the knuckles; Stanley hadn’t noticed that before.

I fought them, Claudio says. I tried to go with no fighting, but they would not permit me. They would make me do a thing that I did not want to do. They tried to make me, but I fought them. In the way that you said. I kicked them, and I hit them with my hand, and when I hurt my hand, I kicked them again. I hurt them. I made them go.

Stanley nods. Okay, he says, touching Claudio’s hair. Okay. That’s good. It’s good that you tried. But, kid, if you’d done like I told you—exactly like I told you—then you wouldn’t have a busted hand, and we wouldn’t be in this fix. You got a lot of heart, chum. But we still got some work to do toughening you up. Next time—

No, Claudio says. He cocks his head under Stanley’s hand, looks him in the eye. Then he lifts his left fist and punches Stanley in the forearm, hard. It’s a glancing blow, but it hurts. Stanley takes a step back. Claudio sits up just enough to hit him again, in the shoulder, moving him farther away. Whoa, Stanley says. Take it easy, kid.

Why do I have to do these things? Claudio says. Why, Stanley? I do not want these things. You want them. Tough? God damn you and your tough. I do not want to be tough. I want to be brave. I want to be beautiful. I want to be famous.

Stanley rocks back on his heels in the little kitchen, rubbing his arm with his thumb where Claudio struck it. Tomorrow he’ll have a bruise there. Okay, he hears himself saying. That’s fine. We can do that. I’m sure there’s ways we can do that.

Claudio settles in his chair, picks up the icepack, puts it on his hand again. There are one million ways we can do it, he says. One million times did I try to tell you. But you did not listen. You did not listen.

In the next room the phone returns to its cradle with a soft chime, and Synn?ve rushes back into the kitchen, opening cabinets and closing them. I reached Adrian at the office, she says. He’s leaving work early. He’ll be home soon, and then he’ll drive you to the hospital. For now, let’s keep the ice on your hand. And—here, Stanley, here’s a bottle of Tylenol. Get Claudio some water, and have him take two. I’m sorry, I’d do it myself, but I’m filthy from the studio. I have to clean up before Adrian gets here.

Where’s Cynthia? Stanley asks, but Synn?ve’s gone from the room before she hears him. As he opens the bottle and shakes the white pills onto his palm, Stanley hears her move through the house: running water, opening drawers.

He puts the Tylenol and the dripping glass on the tabletop next to Claudio’s hand. Claudio’s fingers release the icepack, pinch each pill in turn, bring them to his lips. Then he washes them down with sips of water. He moves very slowly. His eyes are closed.

Not talking to me, huh? Stanley says.

Claudio slouches in his seat. His lips and eyelids are bluish. A vein flutters in his forehead, shrinking and growing like the belly of a snake. His bloody inflated face hangs on his skull, and for a second Stanley can’t remember what he really looks like.

I had so many things to tell you, Claudio mumbles. But you never listen.

For a long time Stanley watches him like that: sipping from the crystal glass, fighting to keep his head up. He’s sideswiped by a memory of the long rainy days that closed out their February: the kid reading his stolen screen magazines while Stanley read The Mirror Thief. Stanley was combing his book for clues; Claudio was just killing time. That’s what Stanley thought, anyway. In Claudio’s head, of course, it was the other way around. Stanley’s known this before; maybe he’s always known it. Now he understands it differently—harder, colder, more serious—and it feels like he’s met a high wall, or a fork in the road. This kid has his own warm body, living and dying, and a black-box mind that cannot be seen: just the same as Stanley, or anyone. And Stanley can’t know him; he can barely know himself. There are many questions that Welles’s book can aim him toward the answers to, but this is not one of them. The best it can do is convince him that questions like these don’t matter, and Stanley hopes one day it will.

He stands behind Claudio and stares at the back of his skull until he can’t take it anymore. Then he steps to the side door—his rubber soles soundless on the linoleum—unlatches it, and slips onto the porch. He does this without so much as creaking a plank, but Claudio must feel the air change when the door swings open. Stanley? he says.