She was lying crosswise on the mussed coverlet, wearing a slip and one suede moccasin. The other had dropped off onto the floor. Her skin was the color of old candle wax, and she did not appear to be breathing. Then she took a huge snoring gasp and wheezed it back out. Her chest remained flat for a terrifying four seconds, then she jerked in another rattle of breath. There was another overflowing ashtray on the night table. A crumpled Winston pack, charred at one end by an imperfectly stubbed-out cigarette, lay on top of the dead soldiers. Beside the ashtray were a half-empty glass and a bottle of Glenlivet. Not much of the Scotch was gone — thank God for small favors — but it wasn’t really the Scotch I was worried about. It was the pills. There was also a brown manila envelope on the table with what looked like photographs spilling out of it, but I didn’t glance at them. Not then.
I got my arms around her and tried to pull her into a sitting position. The slip was silk and slithered through my hands. She thumped back onto the bed and took another of those rasping, labored breaths. Her hair flopped across one closed eye.
“Sadie, wake up!”
Nothing. I grabbed her by the shoulders, and hauled her against the head of the bed. It thumped and shivered.
“Lea me lone.” Slurry and weak, but better than nothing.
“Wake up, Sadie! You have to wake up!”
I began to slap lightly at her cheeks. Her eyes remained shut, but her hands came up and tried — weakly — to fend me off.
“Wake up! Wake up, dammit!”
Her eyes opened, looked at me without recognition, then shut again. But she was breathing more normally. Now that she was sitting, that terrifying rasp was gone.
I went back to the bathroom, dumped her toothbrush out of the pink plastic glass, and turned on the cold tap. While I filled the glass, I looked at the label on the pill bottle. Nembutal. There were ten or a dozen capsules left, so it hadn’t been a suicide attempt. At least not an overt one. I spilled them into the toilet, then ran back to the bedroom. She was sliding down from the sitting position I’d left her in, and with her head cocked forward and her chin down against her breastbone, her respiration had turned raspy again.
I put the glass of water on the nightstand, and froze for a second as I got a look at one of the photographs sticking out of the envelope. It could have been a woman — what remained of the hair was long — but it was hard to tell for sure. Where the face should have been, there was only raw meat with a hole near the bottom. The hole appeared to be screaming.
I hauled Sadie up, grabbed a handful of her hair, and pulled her head back. She moaned something that might have been
“Jor? Wha you doon here, Jor? Why-my wet?”
“Wake up. Wake up, Sadie.” I began to slap her face again, but more gently now, almost patting. It wasn’t good enough. Her eyes started to slip closed.
“Go…
“Not unless you want me to call an ambulance. That way you can see your name in the paper. The schoolboard would love that. Upsa-daisy.”
I managed to get my hands linked behind her and pulled her off the bed. Her slip rucked up, then fell back into place as she crumpled to her knees on the carpet. Her eyes flew open and she cried out in pain, but I got her on her feet. She swayed back and forth, slapping at my face with more strength.
“Get ow! Get ow, Jor!”
“No, ma’am.” I put my arm around her waist and got her moving toward the door, half-leading and half-carrying her. We made the turn toward the bathroom, and then her knees came unhinged. I carried her, which was no mean feat, given her height and size. Thank God for adrenaline. I batted down the toilet ring and got her seated just before my own knees gave out. I was gasping for breath, partly from effort, mostly from fright. She started to tilt toward starboard, and I slapped her bare arm—
“Sit up!” I shouted into her face. “Sit up, Christy, goddammit!”
Her eyes fought open. They were badly bloodshot. “Who Christy?”
“Lead singer with the Rolling Fucking Stones,” I said. “How long have you been taking Nembutal? And how many did you take tonight?”
“Got a scrishun,” she said. “None your bi’ness, Jor.”
“How many? How much did you drink?”
“Go-way.”
I spun the tub’s cold tap all the way, then pulled the pin that turned on the shower. She saw what I meant to do, and once again began to slap.
“No, Jor! No!”
