Adrian McKinty - Hidden River

“You’re killing me,” she said.

“I—”

“Don’t stop,” she said.

And when I came, she came, and I groaned and she yelled and bit her finger and laughed.

“I’m breathless,” she said.

The whole thing couldn’t have taken five minutes. She kissed me and zipped herself up. I buttoned my jeans and looked at her and caught my breath. Amber had a little crazy in her: this, the stolen money in the pizzeria. A Venus in a sweatshirt. Everything you could ever think and more. And yet a sadness about her too, a sense of loss, a hunger that needed filled.

“We better get back,” she said.

She took my hand and we walked in silence along the streets, past the bungalows and mock Tudors and ranch-style houses, past mailboxes and strip malls and dog walkers and lovers and illicit men watering their lawn under cover of night.

She let go of my hand when we made it to the van. All the others inside, waiting impatiently. Robert wound down his window.

“Come on, you two, it’s been a trying evening for everyone, l-let’s get home,” he yelled.

I sat near the window. I stank of smoke. Everyone was polite, ignored it, didn’t mention it. Amber said nothing.

They dropped me on Colfax.

I watched them turn the van.

Amber in the front passenger seat.

You should run, Alex, I told myself. Run, now. Now that you’ve seen Redhorse. You should go.

Time had passed since Klimmer’s death and the cop resources were stretched thin. We could have gotten out of town easily. A million different ways. And yet I knew it was too late. The hooks were in.

Amber.

Stupid to remain.

I knew I wouldn’t tell John about Redhorse and I wouldn’t tell him about her.

The van drove off. Through the window I could see her brushing that golden hair.

I stood there. Coughed.

The whores. The homeless. The wide street. The black sky. The tail-lights diminishing. Standing there staring after the van, even when it had long since gone.

Haze covers Lookout Mountain. A calm sky. Aegean blue. Jets bending diagonals. The stillness becoming deeper and more taut. A silent vacancy. An absence from airport to aqueduct. It’s early yet. A stray dog. A tailless cat. A girl in a black stole.

The foothills close as a spider on the ceiling.

Hawk’s-eye view.

A street made more straight by the perfect right angles formed at intersections. Light sucked sideways from the vast eastern sun.

Worry has you by the hair.

Enemies from compass point to azimuth.

But not on this morning of ivory cloud, azure heaven, and the friendly boiling local star.

And only a moment ago this was the mythic plain, a migration path for bison and the Comanche nation.

Imagine an archer the instant before release. Before the Spanish, before the horses. Poised and under discipline of sudden death. That same feeling. The template for success or disaster. Blood, either way.

Mosquitoes above the windowsill.

The dead sunflowers.

The thock of arrows in the stampeding herd.

The braves running on to catch more game. The butchers remaining with their long knives of antler and bone.

“Noo nu puetsuku u punine,” they call to one another before they part.

That was then. The city’s pulse a drumbeat of cars and feet. A million people breathing in unison as the alarm sounds seven.

It’s not worse, merely different.

The right angles, symmetry. The smell of cannabis, garbage, eucalyptus. Urine.

My father would say that the Comanche missed out on the great secret of the universe. The linking of the five most important numbers in mathematics by the formula e iπ + 1 = 0.

My father.

What does he know?

Nothing.

Voices in the living room.

The pair of them.

Laughing, talking.

And then the silence betrays a more intimate encounter still.

A knock. A third voice.

Two men and a girl.

Happy.

She’s cooking.

They want me to come out but they think I’m sleeping. They’re letting me lie in. Still, the smell of food is bringing me back to life.

Even a junkie has to eat sometimes.

But if I don’t go out, the world out there can’t hurt me.

If I don’t go out.

I go out….

I don’t know what Ethiopians eat for breakfast, but it seemed unlikely that it was this. Areea had made us French toast with fried eggs, links sausages, and bacon. Faux maple syrup and coffee, too. Pat and I didn’t have the greatest appetites at the best of times, but John wolfed his portion and there was no denying that everything had a delicious flavor.

All very amiable. Areea in the middle of a story about her life in Ethiopia and why, of all places, they’d come to Denver. Apparently, it had the second-biggest Ethiopian community in America, though it was hard to concentrate since she was wearing a miniskirt that showed off her long, dark, beautiful legs, which complemented her flashing eyes and beautiful smile.

Still, everything clicked along until she and John started kissing again.

“Not at the breakfast table,” I protested.

“Alexander is right,” Areea said, removing John’s big hands from her bum.

John gave her a kiss on the cheek, and turned around to look at us.

“Well, boys, are ye not eating, how’s the grub?” he asked, smacking his lips.

“Everything is just wonderful,” Pat said.

“It is,” I agreed. “You’re a great cook, Areea.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Areea said, “American food is easy to make.”

She went to the kitchen to get more coffee.

“Isn’t she great?” John moaned happily with a goofy expression on his face.

“Jesus, you’re not in love with her, are you?” I whispered under my breath.

“I might be,” John said with a grin.

“You bloody eejit. You realize, of course, the relationship has no future,” I said.

“What is it with you, Alex? You’re such a grumpy boots every morning,” John replied.

Pat lit himself a cigarette and stared up at the ceiling. I clenched my fist under the table. I felt I had been very patient with John. Not one time had I brought up the fact that he had pushed a man over a balcony and bloody topped him.

“I’ll support her, I’ll look after her, I’ll get a job,” John said thoughtfully.

“Yeah, you’re doing a fine job now,” I muttered. “Me working my ass off all day long and you smoking pot and making love, living the life of bloody Reilly.”

“Why is someone else’s happiness such a burden to you? It’s the fucking ketch, robs you of feeling for your fellow man, don’t you think, Pat?”

“I’m keeping out of this, boys,” Pat said, and continued staring at a point above his head.

I took a sip of the coffee. John was a wanker, but maybe he was on to something there. I shrugged. I didn’t want this to develop into an argument. The situation was as much my fault as his.

“Sorry, John. Look, my head hurts, my sinuses are aching, my feet are killing me from all the walking. Problems, you know?”

“The sinus problem is from the pollution,” Pat said. “They should be dealing with that and the fucking drought, not going after minorities in this state.”

Areea came over with another pot of coffee.

“Wonderful,” Pat said, and gave her a grin.

“You have sore feet?” Areea asked me, and we all reddened with embarrassment, hoping that she hadn’t heard the rest of the conversation.

“Yeah, I do, I never walk this much normally.”

Areea took a long look at my feet and offered to give me a foot massage. I looked at John, I didn’t want to get into macho head games with him, but John nodded to show he didn’t care. I retired to the couch and Areea proceeded to torture the soles of my feet with her incredibly strong fingers. Ten minutes later she was done and my feet felt much better.