Andrew Vachss - Flood

Flood looked around the temple once more-taking it all in, memorizing it for life. Max clasped his hands together, closed his eyes, and leaned his head against them. It was time for Flood to rest. She nodded and flowed into the lotus position on the temple floor, Max’s robes draped around her shoulders, pulling everything inside her.

Max and I left her there while we went to throw out the garbage.

I MADE A bed for Flood in the trunk of the Plymouth-she couldn’t go to a hospital, and I didn’t want some inquisitive cop noticing her anywhere near the scene where the Cobra vanished. It didn’t look like a problem… he’d been carrying all kinds of weapons but he hadn’t been wired.

When I opened the trunk again inside my garage Flood was curled up like a baby, one arm cradling the other. It probably was broken but she never made a sound. I got her upstairs, let Pansy out to the roof, and went in the back for my medical kit. When I came back into the office she was sitting on the desk in the lotus position, looking at the door.

“Flood, get up and take off your clothes.”

“Not now-I’ve got a headache.” She smiled, pointing to her battered face. But the smile was weak and the crack fell flat.

I threw the cushions off the couch, pulled a flat piece of plywood out from behind it, and laid it against the springs, then folded over some blankets to make a cover and put a clean sheet over the top. Flood hadn’t moved.

“Flood,” I told her as gently as I could, “you have to work with me now, okay? Put your legs over the side of the desk. Come on.”

She slowly unwrapped from the lotus position and did like I asked. I eased the robes from her shoulders and took the bad arm in my hand. The skin was bruised but not broken. “Can you move it?” She rolled her arm from side to side. Her face stayed composed but some pain flashed in her eyes when she brought her hand toward her shoulder, flexing the bicep. At least it was a clean break, if it was broken.

I motioned to her to climb off the desk and untied the white sash as she stood in front of me. The silk pants came next, falling to the floor in slow motion. She stepped out of the pants and kicked them away, then stood there in the morning light as I went over her body as carefully as I could. The flesh over one elbow was gone, a lumpy discolored knot was on the outside of one thigh, and the two smallest toes of one foot were already dark with clotted blood. She let me move the toes without protest-they weren’t broken, just bleeding under the skin. Like a patient child, she opened her mouth and allowed me to probe around-all her teeth were intact, the damage was on the outside. Her pupils looked okay, and she wasn’t talking like someone who had a concussion, but I didn’t want her to fall asleep for a while just in case she did.

I took one of the pieces of aluminum in the medical kit that looked like a good fit, tested it against her forearm, bent it into the right shape. I put the aluminum splint against her forearm and wrapped it into place with an elastic bandage. It didn’t look pretty but it would work well enough if she didn’t jump around, and let the bone set properly.

I swabbed out the open wounds, packed them with Aureomycin, and covered them with gauze bandages. Then I walked her over to the couch.

“Which is better, Flood? Lying on your back or your stomach?”

“Depends on what you have in mind.”

“Flood, I don’t have the patience for this crap. You don’t have to convince me you’re tough. You’re going to be fine, okay?”

“You looked so scared, Burke…”

“Maybe you did get a concussion. I’m not the one who got mangled.”

“I know. I’ll be good. Whatever you say.”

I put her on the couch lying on her back, folded a pillow under her head, and covered her with another sheet. I got the splinted arm supported by a folded blanket, kissed her forehead, and went back to the desk to put things away.

“Burke,” she called out.

“What is it? Just relax, I’m not going anywhere.”

“My sash… the white sash with the black tips…?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s for you. To keep, okay?”

“Okay, Flood, I’ll keep it.” By then it was obvious she didn’t have a concussion-but she was running on the fumes in her reserve tank.

“Keep it here… for me, okay?” she said, and was drifting off to sleep before I could ask her what she meant.

ALMOST A WEEK went by like that. Max brought over all kinds of strange-looking gunk from Mama Wong’s kitchen for Flood to eat. It looked like molten slag to me, but Flood seemed to know what it was. Pansy tried some too, but she didn’t like it… no crunch.

I watched her get stronger, watched the swelling go down until I could see the other eye, watched her flex the arm experimentally, practice her breathing.

I didn’t go out much, but Max stayed with her when I did. Pansy stayed to guard her when I went downstairs for the papers in the morning. I would read the stories to Flood until one morning she told me to stop. The headlines just sounded like body-counts, she said, so I stuck to the race results. I still watched the horses, but I didn’t feel like making any bets-with Flood getting better every day I sensed my luck was about to change, and I didn’t like the feeling.

One morning she was already up when I came back upstairs. She was wearing an old flannel shirt of mine-unbuttoned, it hung on her like a robe. She was working her body: hard now, not tentatively like before. A modified kata in the narrow office, but the kicks and chops and thrusts looked clean and sharp. She was back to herself. Her pain was leaving, and mine was on its way.

I tried not to show it. “You want one of these bagels?”

“You have any pumpernickel?” Flood wouldn’t eat white bread.

“Yep. New York Fresh too.”

“What’s New York Fresh?”

“Less than two days old.”

She grinned. Except for what looked like a monster black eye, she was as good as new. The splint was on the couch-she twisted the bad arm behind her and touched the back of her own head. “See?” Like a little girl showing off. I saw.

I took my bagel, cream cheese, and apple juice and sat down in the chair behind my desk to read the morning paper in peace. Flood wasn’t having any of this-she plopped herself in my lap, nuzzled my neck. “Let’s go out today, okay? I feel like I’m locked up in here.”

“You sure you’re ready?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” she squealed, squirming around in my lap until I gave up trying to read the paper.

I finally got to the paper while Flood was taking a shower. I started with last night’s race results, like I always do, but I wasn’t that interested. I still had almost all of Margot’s money, and pretty soon it would be time to earn it. I’d been working out a plan in my head but needed to run it past Flood first.

She bounded out of the shower, water still glistening on her white skin, smiling an angel’s smile. I knew she hadn’t forgotten-I couldn’t keep her here much longer. She walked to the back door to let Pansy out.

“Put some clothes on first.”

“Who’s to see up here?”

“Just do what I tell you. I can’t explain every little thing to you.”

She saw the look on my face and sweetly went back for a towel while Pansy waited patiently. Good-I didn’t feel like telling her about the kind of people who watch. I was listening to one of those radio psychologists on a talk show late one night on a stakeout: she was saying how people who like to watch are really harmless: repressed, sad perverts, more annoying than dangerous. Once when I was being held waiting for trial the guy in the next cell told me he watched women to see if they had a message for him. Something about the way they dressed themselves before they went out-it sounded like the guy belonged in Bellevue instead of the House of Detention, but it wasn’t my problem. They took him off the tier later that night. One of the guards who knew me from the last time stopped by my cell and slipped me a pack of smokes through the gate. I figured he just wanted to talk-the nights get lonely for them too.