Zombie looks at me. “She’s fun. What a blast you must have had this winter.”
Constance’s worried grin disappears. Her bottom lip quivers. Then she bursts into tears and flops down on the asphalt, resting her elbows on her knees and burying her broken face in her hands. Zombie takes in the act for a long, uncomfortable moment.
I know what she’s doing: The best hammer to break the bonds of distrust is natural human sympathy. Pity has killed more people than hate.
When the last day comes for Zombie, it won’t be another person who betrays him; it will be his heart.
He glances at me. What’s with this woman?
I shrug. Who knows? My apathy fuels his pity, and he gives in to it, squatting beside her.
“Hey, look, I was being an asshole, I’m sorry.”
Constance mutters something that sounds like pancakes. Zombie touches her shoulder gently. “Hey, Connie . . . It’s Connie, right?”
“Constan-stan . . .”
“Constance, right. I have a friend, Constance. He’s hurt pretty bad and I need to get back to him. Now.” Rubbing her shoulder. “Like, right now.”
It makes me sick to my stomach. I turn away. Across the eastern horizon a slash of garish pink glows. Another day closer to the end.
“I just—I just don’t know—how much more—I can take . . .” Constance is moaning, on her feet now and leaning her whole body into Zombie’s, a hand on his shoulder, a not-so-young-and-fair damsel in distress. If I had to give Constance a nom de guerre, I would pick Cougar.
Zombie gives me a look: A little help here?
“Of course you can take more,” I say to her, my stomach still churning. I wish the hub would get a grip on my gut. “And then you’re gonna take a little more, then a little more, and after that a little more.” I pull her off him, not gently. She snuffles loudly, pouring it on.
“Please don’t be mean to me, Marika,” she whimpers. “You’re always so mean.”
Oh dear God.
“Here,” Zombie says, taking her arm. “She can walk with me. You should be covering the rear anyway, Ringer.”
“Oh yes,” Constance purrs. “Cover the rear, Marika!”
The world spins. The ground heaves. I stumble a couple feet off the road and double over, at which point everything in my stomach comes out in a violent gush.
A hand on my back: Zombie’s. “Hey, Ringer—what the hell?”
“I’m okay,” I gasp, shrugging off his hand. “Must be the undercooked rabbit.” Another lie and not even a necessary one.
33
MIDMORNING, DOWNTOWN URBANA, under a cloudless sky, the temperature in the midforties. You can feel it coming. Spring.
Zombie and Constance rush into the coffee shop while I cover the street. From the doorway, I hear Zombie’s startled cry, and then he’s skittering back to me across the treacherous coffee-bean-covered floor.
“What?”
He pushes past me and lurches onto the street, whipping right, then left, then back again. Constance comes over and says, “Apparently the kid’s gone.”
In the middle of Main Street, Zombie throws back his head and howls Dumbo’s name. As if in mockery, the echo ricochets back at him.
I trot over to his side. “Screaming probably isn’t a good idea, Zombie.”
His response is a wide-eyed, uncomprehending stare. Then he turns and races down the street, calling his name over and over, Dumbo! Dumbo! and Dumbo, you dumbass, where are you? He loops back to us after a couple of blocks, out of breath and shaking with panic.
“Somebody took him.”
“How do you know?” I ask.
“You’re right, I don’t. Thanks for the reality check, Ringer. He probably got up and ran all the way to the safe house, except for the inconvenient fact that he was shot in the back.”
I ignore the sarcasm. “I don’t think anyone took him, Zombie.”
He laughs. “That’s right. I forgot. You’re the one with the answers. Come on, the suspense is killing me. What happened to Dumbo, Ringer?”
“I don’t know,” I answer. “But I don’t think anyone took him because there’s nobody left to do the taking. Your cat lady would have seen to that.”
I start off down the street. He watches me for a few seconds, then shouts at my back, “Where the hell are you going?”
“The safe house, Zombie. Didn’t you say it was south on Highway 68?”
“Unbelievable!” He erupts in a torrent of curses. I keep walking. Then he shouts: “What the hell happened to you out here, anyway? Where’s the Ringer who told me that everyone matters?”
“Mean,” Constance whispers to him. I hear her clearly. “I told you.”
I keep walking.
Five minutes later, I find Dumbo crumpled at the base of a barricade that stretches from sidewalk to sidewalk across Main. That he made it this far—nearly ten blocks from where he was hit—is extraordinary. I kneel beside him and press my fingers against his neck. I whistle loudly. When Zombie comes sprinting to the scene, he’s out of breath and ready to collapse. So is Constance, except her exhaustion is an act.