Silk

Halfway through the first song, she’d tossed her head to one side, flipping hair from her eyes, had only looked away from the strings for a second, but she’d seen him. Pablo, eyes like anthracite lumps of coal, face like weathered cemetery marble. One violently still point in the fury of the mosh pit.

“All you make me feel is depressed,” Jonesy sang. “I’m tired of toeing your line.”

Pablo had stepped forward, not the slightest change in his expression, his utter absence of expression; the slamming flesh had parted freely as he came, Charlton Heston dividing meat with zombie eyes.

“Let me out of this iron lung! I can fuckin’ breathe on my own!”

He’d made it to the edge of the stage before Jonesy had noticed him, and there’d been no security down front, no security in the whole place except for one off-duty cop checking IDs at the door. And the door may as well have been a million miles away. Someone had turned on the strobes just then, and the red light had begun to pulse madly, arrhythmia flicker, as Pablo pulled himself up, pushed aside and between the monitors. He’d moved slow, and the lights had added the illusion of silent-film jerkiness.

Daria had taken one step back, her hands stumbling as the music came apart like a house of cards.

The crowd had shouted stupid encouragement, this new show as good as anything else, and Pablo hadn’t even blinked when another beer can had bounced off the back of his head.

“Hey, man, we’ll talk about this after the show,” and Jonesy had laid one hand firmly on Pablo’s shoulder. “Okay? ’Cause you’re just go

“Give it back to me,” and everything that hadn’t been in his gaze was coiled tight and hot inside those words. He’d held both hands out for the bass, his right still encased in dirty plaster, looking more like a zombie than ever, Frankenstein’s vengeful monster come to collect his due.

“You don’t even know these songs, man,” and Jonesy had stepped away from his mike, had moved quickly to put himself between her and Pablo.

“It’s mine and I said give it back to me, you goddamn stinking bitch,” and Pablo had shrugged free of Jonesy’s grip, had shoved him aside and lunged for the Gibson so fast that Daria hadn’t had time to get out of his way. He’d grabbed the bass and yanked hard; the strap had held, but Daria stumbled, had lost her balance and gone down on her knees at his feet. The canvas strap had twisted up and under her chin, digging deep into her windpipe, cutting her breath off as it pulled her head around until she’d stared helplessly into Pablo’s crotch. Her hands struggled to unhook the strap, desperate fingers still stinging from the last notes of the interrupted song.

Then Pablo had yanked again, harder than before, and Daria had heard her neck pop, had felt the nasty sensation of bone grinding cartilage. But the strap had come loose, had whipped free, and she’d crumpled, hands at her own violated throat, gasping the smoky air in reckless mouthfuls.

And Pablo had stood above her like some ax-wielding crazy in a slasher flick, the bass clutched by the graceful handle of its neck, the dull silver instrument washed metallic red in the strobes. He’d raised it slowly over his head, over hers, and then Jonesy had hit him hard from behind, sharp rabbit punch to the base of his skull, and he should have gone down and stayed down. Instead, he only stumbled and drove one hard shoe tip into Daria’s left ear.

“FUCK OFF!” he’d screamed, screamed high and shrill in a voice that had hardly sounded human, much less like Pablo. He’d swung the bass around fast and hard and nailed Jonesy square in the chest. Still wheezing, struggling to get enough air, Daria had clearly heard the wet snap of breaking bone, and Jonesy McCabe had sailed backwards, colliding in a noisy tangle with Carlton ’s drums. And then Carlton had tackled Pablo, and they’d both disappeared over the side of the stage, swallowed immediately by the mad crush of bodies.

Daria had staggered to her knees again, and people had begun to back away from the stage, clearing out a small, irregular circle of the warehouse’s concrete floor where Carlton was busy slamming his fists repeatedly into Pablo’s face. The Gibson had lain a few feet away from them, trampled, broken, irrelevant.

She stood up, hands out cautious like a tightrope walker, purple-white blotches dancing in her eyes. Jonesy in a limp heap, unconscious amid the jumble of brass cymbals and aluminum tripod stalks. Abruptly, the lights had stopped strobing, and she’d seen the dark trickle of blood at each corner of his mouth. For all she’d known, Pablo had killed him, and Carlton was in the process of killing Pablo. Because of her, because she’d tried to steal something that wasn’t hers to take. Because for once in her grubby life something had felt right. Daria used the rig the bass had been plugged into to brace herself, had taken one step toward Jonesy.

And then the pain had gone off like a grenade lodged somewhere deep inside her skull, perfect agony filling in the place where her brain should have been, drowning body and mind in its searing electric gush. And the last thing she’d seen on the way down to merciful blackout was Carlton, climbing back onto the stage, nose squashed and bloodied grimace, and the shattered Gibson clasped triumphantly in one hand.

4.

Niki set the receiver back into its black cradle and sighed, a loud exasperated sound, and Daria could see that she was really having to work at the half smile, only a weak droop at the corners of her perfect lips.

“That bad?” she asked, and Niki shrugged, stared down at her feet. Her toenails were painted a dark and pearly blue.

“Yeah,” Niki said. “Or worse.”

“Can they fix it?” Daria was sitting at the edge of the bed now, her own feet dangling over the side, not bare, but hidden inside tube socks with mismatched colored bands around the tops. Left, orange. Right, maroon.

“Yeah, if I want to hand over every pe

“You should get a second opinion,” Claude said from the kitchen sink; washing the breakfast dishes, three cups and three saucers and Ivory liquid suds up to his elbows. “Most of those guys are crooked as the letter M.”

“Yeah,” Niki said, and then, “I don’t know.”

“Dar knows mechanics, don’t you, Dar? The big guy that plays guitar for Vanilla Domination, and that other guy, the one who looks like Nick Cave, except not so ugly.”

Daria was still looking down at her own feet, homely twins and a big hole in one heel so she could see the scar where she stepped on a broken 7Up bottle last summer.

“Yeah, I’m sure I can find someone to take at look at it, if you want.”

Niki stood and stretched, and Robert Smith, white face, blackened eyes, fright-wig do, stared back at Daria from Niki’s belly.

“Thanks, guys, but I’m afraid I’d only be delaying the inevitable. It’s either my bank account or the junkyard. I just have to decide which.”

“It certainly couldn’t hurt,” Claude said, setting a coffee cup down to dry. “Just to be sure.”

Niki shrugged again and then sniffed cautiously at one underarm, wrinkled her nose, and to Daria, even that seemed somehow graceful.

“God, I stink. Would it be okay if I used the shower?”

“Go right ahead,” Daria said and reached for another Marlboro, looking away before Niki Ky did anything else to make her feel awkward, dumpy, like a gorilla at charm school.

“You guys are wonderful,” Niki said. “I just hope you don’t get sick of me before I can get my ass back on the road,” and she picked up the pink gym bag and stepped into the tiny bathroom, pulling the door shut behind her; Daria could hear her wrestling with the useless old lock.

“It hasn’t worked since I’ve been here,” Daria shouted and immediately Niki stopped fumbling with the doorknob. A moment later, the loud, rusty squeak of brass hot and cold water handles and the sudden, wet shissh of the showerhead.