literature

22. Lem's Deal

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Literature Text

He bent down to enter the room between two strands of police tape pulled across the doorway. On the floor were chalk drawings where five bodies had been. Those were the Sweeps, the hunters that Pryor had killed. One was a cop.

The denim blanket that Lem and Pryor had slept under was gone, probably in the same evidence locker as the hunters' crossbows and raincoats.

Something else was missing. There wasn't a sixth chalk outline, but Lem knew where it should be. He stood in the spot where Pryor left his victim, several dark stains where drops of blood had fallen on the dust-strewn floor. There were no evidence markers. Either the crime-scene people had missed the blood, or were told to ignore it. Lem had long suspected some kind of connection between the Sweeps and the cops, and this little episode had erased his doubt.

Lem dropped to all fours, and touched his tongue to the dried blood. Even a week later, he could still pull the methamphetamine taste from it, the vigor of youth, the alcohol and desperation. Life had sucked this kid dry long before Pryor found him.

Lem sat back on his haunches. Did he really have to go after this kid? He was new blood. Dumb. A head empty of memories, and a thirst that he couldn't fight. He'd fuck up, the Sweeps would find him and he'd be nobody's problem after that. Hell, it probably happened already. Even if the kid was lucky, found himself a nice sewer pipe to crawl into and a few rats to ease his thirst, he was still competition. Another drinker from the same oasis.

Lem should walk away. Keep quiet. Drink the Sister's plastic cups of pig blood, teach Melody sign language and read Corky's books until this curfew blew over.

He closed his eyes. He scratched his arm. Not the one with the Corps tattoo, but the other one. It didn't itch; nothing of Lem's had itched for decades. But there was a memory there, another tattoo that Corky told him he'd sat for after that day in Khe Sanh. It was a silhouette, one figure carrying another. Below that, in small, blocky letters, Leave No Man Behind.

Corky had carried Lem out of the jungle, and lost his hearing for the trouble. Old Hitchcock had found him when he was new blood, gnawing on a stray dog in an abandoned cafeteria. Sister Constance gave him a roof and kept him from starving. Any one of them could have looked the other way and saved themselves a lot of pain and heartache. They didn't.

He knelt forward and licked at the blood again, getting a good taste of it and the person it still carried. He stood, squeezed through the police tape, and took to the street again, ignoring the rain that started to fall.

--

Rain wiped the world clean of scents and sins, but Lem didn't need his tongue for this. He'd tasted the kid's blood, and could find the rest of it on the dark side of the moon if he had to. It wasn't like a GPS, though. He could feel the pull, knew what direction to go, but how he got there and how long it would take was a mystery. So he concentrated on the journey. Details underfoot, learning as much as he could as he went.

He stopped at a sewer, darting his tongue as he knelt next to the opening. The kid had slept here. Probably a few nights. Lem smelled rot, the kid had probably dragged a few animals down there. Lem moved on.

Empty lot. Some kid stood on the corner where the streetlight merged with the shadows. Ballsy, considering the curfew. He had a hoodie pulled tight, eyeing Lem around the edge of it. Caution oozed from him with the same stink as greed.

Lem tasted the air, turning his head so the kid wouldn't see him flick his tongue. He tasted meth. And blood. Someone had died here, recently. Probably this guy's competition. Lem lowered his head and walked up to him, staring from under his hood, pushing out with his mind. I'm no big deal. Just want some quartz is all. On the down low, see? Money in my hand. Lem pulled his right hand from his pocket, balled into a fist.

The kid wavered a second, then dug into his jacket, meeting Lem's left hand with his. He pressed a baggie into Lem's palm, and as far as he was concerned, Lem had replaced it with two twenties.

It didn't matter. As soon as Lem pocketed the baggie, he had the kid by the throat, eyes locked. Then they became old friends. Shot hoops around the block as kids. Cut class and smoked dope together.

Hey, you sold anything to this guy? Seen him around?
No signing, Lem was pushing the words into the kid's mind, along with an image of Pryor's last meal.

"Yeah, once in a while, but not for days, man." The kid had an expression on his face that reminded Lem of those stories about snakes that hypnotized their prey. "I heard some fucked-up shit though, you know Monk, used to work this lot? He got stuck last Sunday night. Right here. In the throat and shit. I heard it was Leon what did it."

Who's Leon?

"That kid you lookin' for." Then he grinned. "I hear he gives it good, man. Be breakin' off shots of ass downtown. You after a piece?"

But Lem was already walking away, and his dealer was already forgetting about him.
The rest of this is here: [link]

© 2012 - 2024 Memnalar
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LunaticStar's avatar
Wheee. Pretty fun. A good smooth chapter. I like how it's implied he's following a past he doesn't remember because the former owner of his body decided to write down the things he liked permanently. ._.

LEON.

S KENNEDY?

Image in brain. Can't un-brain.