Free Arc D'X by Steve Erickson Page A

between her teeth. She wanted to bite it in two and taste its blood.

    In her sleep she raised her fingers to her mouth and tasted blood after all. Dimly she looked at her fingertips as though pieces of the word would be there.

    "America," she said. She woke and there was blood on her pillow. There was blood on the sheets of the bed beneath her. Someone was lying in the bed with her and his head was flowing with blood; and she was startled to have found him again, and wanted to ask what had happened to him and where he'd gone, except that she knew he couldn't answer. Then in the next moment she forgot her dream entirely, only the flotsam of it washing in and out with the tide of her consciousness; and though the tall man in the bed next to her looked familiar, she could no longer remember his name. The music suddenly stopped and she heard the click of the radio. She sat up in the hotel room to look at the two men in suits STEVE E R I C K S O N • 53

    at the foot of her bed. One was a very large black man and the other was a small white man with red hair. The black man bent over to pick up the knife from the floor and stood there for some time, holding it in a handkerchief and turning its bloody blade over and over.

    She looked again at the dead man next to her. She was now awake enough to cry out, and she rose from the bed too fast, becoming dizzy. "Take it easy, Mrs. Hemings," the large black man said. He put the knife in the handkerchief over on a table in the corner of the room and took Sally by the arm to steady her.

    "Married name is Hurley," said the small, wiry white man. He was reading from a note pad that he pulled from his coat pocket.
    "Hemings is her own name."

    The black man pulled a chair from the table and sat Sally down.
    The room was stark. No pictures hung on the dirty white walls and there was no furniture besides the bed and the table and the chairs. On the table were the knife, now forming a small pool of blood, and the radio that had been playing. Besides the door that led out into the hotel hallway there were two other doors, one of them to the toilet'where there were a sink and faucet but no bath or shower. The other door was next to the bed.

    "Mallory, is that guy still out in the hall?" the black man said to the other one, who turned and opened the door and signaled to the hotel concierge in the hall. The concierge was a fat man with a handlebar mustache; he was pale and breathing heavily. He tried not to look at the bed where the body was. "Where's this go?" the black man said to the concierge, pointing to the door by the bed.

    "That's been shut up as long as I've been here," the concierge said. Bringing himself to look at the body, he blurted, "I don't like this in my hotel."

    The black man went over to the door by the bed and opened it.
    The concierge made a sound of surprise: behind the door was nothing but a wall of dirt. Some of the dirt fell into the room. The black man touched the dirt wall and looked at his fingers; he gnawed on the inside of his cheek, which he tended to do when he was confused. "This has been opened recently," he said. He looked at the dirt trickling into the room through the door. "Someone tried to get out through here," he said. Then he walked back over to the table where Sally was sitting in a daze. She stared at her A ft C D'X • 54

    hands in her lap. The black man sat down in the other chair and looked at her. "Now then, Mrs.—" he started. "Damn," he muttered, and turned to Mallory.

    "Hurley," Mallory said.

    "Mrs. Hurley," the black man said, "what's your name?"

    Sally didn't answer. "Sally," Mallory said, reading from his note pad.

    "Thank you, Mallory," the black man said with annoyance, "I know you know what her name is. I want to see if she knows what her name is." The concierge was still whimpering at the sight of the body in the bed. "Mallory," the black man said, "please take away our friend here and let me talk to Mrs. Hurley?" Mallory took the