All Tomorrow's Parties

35. ON AUTOMATIC

CHEVETTE hadn't closed her eyes when she'd pulled Creedmore down and kissed him, but with her arms locked around his neck, to hold him there and hide her from Carson, she couldn't see past the sleeve of Skinner's jacket. What she could see, past an out-of-focus view of Creedmore's cheekbone and left ear, was an adrenaline-sharp shot of Carson's progress through the crowd. This was sufficiently arresting that she had managed to ignore Creedmore's response, which had his tongue trying apparently to subdue hers with a so-far unsuccessful combination of speed and leverage, and his hands, up under Skinner's jacket, hunting frantically for nipple.

The crystal-clear shot of Carson was eclipsed by a close-up of Tessa, eyes wide with amazement and about to burst out laughing, just as Creedmore found one of the nipples he was after, and Chevette, in pure reflex, let go of his neck with her left arm and punched him, as hard and as discreetly as possible, in the ribs, going in with all the knuckle she could leverage.

Creedmore's eyes flew open, blue and bloodshot, and Chevette let go of him, ducked off her chair, and rolled under the table, all on automatic now. She thought she heard Creedmore's head hit the table as he tried to follow her, but now that he didn't have his mouth actually on hers, she was aware of the taste of it, and something naggingly familiar there, but that was just something her mind was doing while her body took her out of there the quickest way it saw. Which was a scramble on hands and knees, still under the table; out on the floor, still crouching but getting up speed; sprinting, still bent low, arms up to block anyone who might try to stop her; out through the door.

Where instinct, something, some recollection, took her right, toward Oakland.

And she didn't slow down until she felt it was safe to, but by then she'd realized what the taste in Creedmore's mouth was: dancer, and she wondered how much of that she'd taken on. Not much, probably but she could feel it in the pounding of her heart, see it in a faint aura around every source of light now, and know it in the fact that none of what had just happened actually bothered her, very much.

Trouble could look abstract, on dancer.

Carson, she thought, was trouble, and seeing the look on his face then, a look she'd suspected, she now thought, but had never quite managed to catch there, had made her scared of him. She'd been scared of him since the time he'd hit her, but she hadn't understood it in quite the same way. He hadn't really hurt her much, not physically, when he'd hit her. She was coming from a place where she'd seen people maimed, hurt really bad, and this cute media boy, who didn't even know how to punch, how dangerous was that?

But now she saw, the residual drug in Creedmore's saliva having its effect, that what she'd been afraid of wasn't that he'd hit her that time, or the possibility he'd do it again, but some instinctive, underlying recognition that there was something wrong, something way worse. That he was bad news and covered it up. Always, more carefully even than he chose his clothes.

And Tessa, when Chevette had had the conversation with her that had resulted in her moving to Malibu, had said that she envied men the inability to get it up, when there was something wrong. Even if they don't consciously know, Tessa said, it won't happen. But we don't have that, so something can be just as wrong as can be, and we still stay. But you can't stay if he's hit you, because he'll do it again.

Walking on, toward Treasure now, the bridge gone spectral, monochrome, and maybe that was the dancer too, she didn't know.

'Out of control, she said. That was how she felt her life was now. She was just reacting to things. She stopped. Maybe she was just reacting to Carson.

'Hey. Chevette.

Turning to see a face she knew, though she couldn't put a name to it. Ragged pale hair above a thin hard face, bad scar snaking his left cheek. A sometime messenger from her Allied days, not part of her crew but a face from parties. 'Heron, the name came to her.

'I thought you were gone, Heron said, displaying broken teeth.

Maybe something broken in his head too, it struck her. Or maybe just some substance, tonight.

'I was, Chevette said.

'Where?

'SoCal.

'You ride down there? Messenger?

'No, she said.

'I can't ride now, Heron said and swung his left leg, rigid, forward, catching his weight on it, something wrong there with his knee. Tangled with a cage. A car, and she thought how long it had been since she'd heard that.

'You get insurance?

'Shit no, cage from Dog City. The Department of Justice. 'I got lawyers on it, but … Crooked shrug. 'One of my lawyers, Njembo, you know those three guys? Refugees from the African Union, right? Njembo, he knows that Fontaine. You know Fontaine, right?

'Yeah, Chevette said, glancing back over her shoulder. 'He still out by Oakland, wives and kids?

'No, Heron said, 'no, he's got a shop, just up there. He pointed. 'Sleeps there. Sells stuff to tourists. Njembo says his wives are after his ass. He squinted at her, the scar on his cheek catching the light. 'You look good. Hair's different.

Something in that flash of scar catching in the edge of Creedmore's spit-high; she shivered, the dancer dealing her cards of Carson walking this way, that same expression on his face, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket.

'Good to see you, Heron.

'Yeah, he said, something sullen and untrusting, maybe longing, evident there, and again the crooked shrug, maybe just to shake some pain from his shoulders. He looked down and set off back the way she'd come, and she saw how twisted the accident had left him, hobbling, swinging his stiff leg as he went.

She zipped up Skinner's jacket and went looking for Fontaine's shop, wondering if she'd know it if she found it.