Nicola Griffith - Always

“Take a look at Mackie. A pseudonym. I’ll forward his picture and employment records. Pull the WWU transcript and photo of James I. Mackie, class of ’06, and if it doesn’t match the one I send you, run mine past your sources in local law enforcement.” I realized I was telling him how to do his job. “Call me first thing tomorrow.”

I got myself a towel, dried off, dressed in clean clothes, ordered coffee. I had just opened Corning’s Visa account when my phone rang. I picked it up. Dornan.

“Yes?”

“…a rat.” Then something else, smothered by a blast of music. He was in a bar.

“What?”

“…your contribution today was to kill a rat.”

“Are you with Kick?”

Noise.

“I said, Are you with—”

“…have to kill it?”

“What? Dornan, the rat was dead already.”

“…upset. Today of all days.”

“And what day is that?”

“…very hard day ...” More noise. Then, “Peg’s going to sing? Joel, Joel, look, Peg’s going to sing.”

Peg? Joel? Singing?

“…hard to understand… All you had to do was talk to her about her day—”

No one had asked me about my day. My day of earthquakes that weren’t there, and twisty, incoherent speeches about cherry trees and perfection.

“…”

“Dornan, I can’t hear a word you’re saying. Keep Kick safe for me. Dornan. Dornan?”

“…”

I thumbed the phone off. I stared at the screen, not seeing the data.

I considered driving back to the bar, decided against it. Clearly, she was surrounded by friends. Equally clearly, I had not been invited.

I focused on the list of debits. Two more from Bellevue. Corning was still at the Hilton.

Turtledove had good working relationships with Seattle PD and the King County sheriff’s department; it was impossible to stay in business for fifteen years as a PI without them. By morning I would know, one way or another, about Mackie. Then I would talk to him, get the information I needed to give me leverage with Corning. Then I’d pay her a visit. Then we would go to Mindy Leptke. Then I’d get Kick’s reputation back.

The coffee came. I poured, cradled the cup between my hands. I wondered if Kick had drunk herself insensible. I wondered what she was so afraid of.

I thought about the cherry tree. Luz. Kiss it better. I couldn’t kiss better whatever was bothering Kick, at least until she told me what it was. But I could take care of that tree. I could make that better.

THE AZALEA BLOOMS WERE DELICATELY TINGED WITH BROWN, AND SOMETIMES,now, in the late afternoon, storms would boil out of nowhere and flash and throw water on everything and blow transformers in a writhe of light— turquoise, magenta, lime—similar to the titanium earrings that had been popular when I was a child. It had been on a night like this, with spring singing in my bones, that I’d met Julia. We hadn’t exchanged a word. The next day she came to the police gym. After the rookies left we faced each other in chi sao, knees bent and wrists touching. As we circled, her toes gripped automatically at the mat. Narrow feet, I remembered, aristocratic, and golden, already toasted to biscuit by judicious exposure to sunlight.

Almost a year later, I stared at ten pairs of feet in the Crystal Gaze basement. Therese’s feet, soles up in full lotus, were strong but brutalized— those of an ex-ballet dancer. Christie had peasant feet, blunt and solid and healthy, nails cut square and pink-and-white clean, utterly un-gothlike. Kim’s toenails were painted metallic blue, the same color as her fingernails. Suze’s left foot had a massive bruise on the instep; Pauletta’s were close to the color of old tea, her ankles delicate.

Sandra’s feet were a complete surprise. They were lovely: smooth, unhurt, and clearly cherished. Part of me had expected her to treat her feet with indifference, for perhaps the toes to have been broken and reset many times, for there to be evidence of cuts from broken glass. They reminded me of something, someone, and I was surprised by a strong, sudden urge to pat her on the leg and tell her everything would be all right.

Katherine and Jennifer were both hiding their feet, Katherine by tucking them under her and Jennifer by draping them with her hands.

I stood and gestured for everyone to do likewise. “Some people find working in bare feet makes them feel as vulnerable as working naked.”

“I’m not getting naked for anyone,” Nina said.

“Another reason to be grateful today,” Pauletta said.

They were starting early with the banter. “Why do you suppose having naked feet makes us feel so vulnerable?”

“Is this one of those call-and-response, we’re-not-going-anywhere-’til-you -get-an-answer things?” Pauletta said.

“No,” I said, surprised. “I hoped one of you would know.”

Silence. Today, I didn’t mind. Today, I felt as whippy and light as a sapling.

“Today we’re going to learn about falling. And then throwing.

I ignored the ripple of unease.

“Culturally, Americans are taught that being down in any way is shameful, inferior: something to be avoided at all costs. The older we get, the more we absorb this message. It becomes more and more important to stay on our feet: stand your ground, find your feet, stand tall. It’s likely that we become more scared of falling as we grow for two simple reasons: the ground seems farther away, and we heal less easily.

“We’re taught that once we’re down, we’ll never get up again, that we’ll be defenseless. It’s not true. There’s a whole martial art dedicated to floor techniques. Jujitsu is built on defending yourself from the ground.”

“Show us that, then,” Suze said.

“All right.” I gestured everyone but Suze away from the mats and lay down on my back in the middle, knees pointing at the ceiling and feet flat to the floor. “Attack me.”

“How?”

“Any way you like.”

She tried to run around my feet for my head. I swiveled on the mat. She ran the other way. I swiveled again. She lost patience and came straight at my feet, which I lifted into kicking position. She backed away.

“What if there’s two of them?” Jennifer said.

What if they have flamethrowers? What if they’re driving tanks? “Let’s find out. You step into the circle and attack my head.”

She stepped a cautious six inches towards me and Suze, predictably, took the opportunity to rush me.

I waited until Suze was close, swept her feet from under her with one leg, swiveled a hundred eighty degrees, and held my feet menacingly at Jennifer. She backed away, hands up.

Suze leapt to her feet. From the way she was shaking out her right hand, she’d landed on her arm.

“Before I can teach you how to do that, you have to learn to fall first.” I rocked back and did a totally unnecessary kip-up. The perils of spring. It was fine to feel the sap rising, but not to act that way in a class full of beginners. I took a slow, meditative breath.

“The first step in thinking about falling is to regard it as something you’re actively doing, something you’re controlling rather than something that’s being done to you. You’re the subject, not the object.”

“The hammer, not the nail,” Tonya said.

“Yes. As with all things, we begin with breath. Relax. In, slowly, slowly, through the nose, out through the mouth. In. And out. In. Out.” They fell into the rhythm faster than they had in previous weeks. Several of them— Tonya, Christie, Therese—automatically dropped their shoulders and lowered their chins. I felt an unfamiliar blossom and swell of… something. Pride. “Keep breathing. Nice and slow. All the falls I’m going to teach you have been designed specifically for hard surfaces. I’ve practiced them all. Some of them I’ve used out on the street. They do work. Trust them.”