“That’s why I came here,” I say, “to find you and ask you about this and see if maybe you knew her. I bet she was here at some point. Her name’s Nina Wrigley…”
“Listen,” Blue Cheese holds out his hand, cutting me off. “Everyone has been here at some point, okay? That was like the whole point of this place. So unless she was the girl I was with last night, I’m not going to remember her,” he grins, “and even then it’s questionable.”
“But I have her picture,” I say. My voice comes out in a slight whine. I take her picture out of my pocket and show it to him. He leers at her disgustingly, licks his lips and then shakes his head.
“Nope,” he says. “Never seen that one.”
“Well what about the place where you found the book that her drawing was in? Maybe there’s something else there, another clue or something?”
He breathes in and then nods, like he’s just decided something. “Follow me then, I guess.” He looks me up and down and then shows me his gums again. “I think I have just what you need.” And with that my stomach starts fizzling and he grabs my hand. “Come on.”
We walk down one flight of stairs; he’s crushing my hand. His skin is clammy. I wiggle my fingers. He holds on tighter. My brain is overf lowing with questions and they bubble out my mouth, “Where are we going? How much more stuff is there? How long has it been there?” But he ignores all of them. He’s speeding along now, and I have to jog a little to keep up. We make our way through the living room where a girl is sitting on a swing that’s attached to the ceiling, swinging back and forth, kicking the wall with a giant pair of platform shoes each time she gets close, through the kitchen where ten people are gathered around the table drinking from a giant fish tank with super long straws, through a room where a dozen people are spray painting the walls.
Blue Cheese keeps going and I follow. We go down a long hallway, through a wooden door and down a very, very long flight of stairs in the dark with no railing. I’m grateful for his clammy hand now, glad just to have something to hold on to. When we get to the bottom, he reaches his arm up and a second later the basement is illuminated by the faint glow of a single bare lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. We are the only people down here. It’s bizarrely quiet. The air is cool and damp.
“You could start down here,” he says. I look around at the cement walls and exposed pipes. The floor is littered with cigarette butts and old beer cans and empty Pepsi bottles. There’s a sagging beige couch in one corner with a pillow and blanket on it, the blanket is covered in dark spots, mold maybe.
I realize he’s still holding my hand. He tugs it. “No, down here,” he says. I look up. The wiry muscles in his arm twitch. His lips are wet, like he’s been drooling. He looks down at his crotch, and then back up at me.
He tries to reach for my other hand and I back away. “What are you doing?” I say.
“You’re lonely.” He’s walking forward. “And I get it. But you’re not finding what you need because you don’t even know what you’re really looking for.” He reaches out and puts one hand on my waist. “Maybe I can help you figure it out.”
“This is why you brought me down here?” He steps in closer.
“There’s nothing else down here,” I say. “Is there.” But this isn’t really a question.
And he just shrugs. “That stuff I sold to Attic was all there was.” And then he smiles a bizarrely sweet smile. “Sorry.” Then he reaches his hand out and puts it on my ass and for a second I’m overcome with such sadness that I don’t even stop him.
But that second passes, and my brain catches up with my body. And I think I’m about to be sick. What am I doing down here? What am I supposed to do now? What the hell am I supposed to do now? I don’t know, so I just do what I always do when I have no idea what to do next: I close my eyes and I picture my sister, who was never scared of anything or anyone. And I think, what would Nina do in this situation? And it’s easy to figure this one out.
I bring my knee up as hard as I can between Blue Cheese’s legs.
He opens his mouth into an O and for a second he is too shocked to make any noise at all. And then his eyes fill up with tears and he just starts screaming his head off.
“Thanks for your help,” I say calmly. I run up the stairs then and I don’t look back.
Seven
I’m back upstairs, part of the party now, and my heart is pounding. I take my phone out of my pocket, call Amanda. Voice mail. I hang up. Now what?