Damnation Street

37.

With a weary sigh, Weiss pushed into a men's room stall and vomited heavily. The cashews came up out of him, spattering the toilet water. A lot of coffee came up too. Two cups at two bucks apiece. Goddamned airport prices.

Weiss bent over the mess, pressing one hand against the tiled wall. When he finished, he waved the other hand down low in front of the sensor to make the toilet flush. He watched what had been the contents of his stomach swirl slowly down the drain.

For another second or so, he stayed as he was, leaning over. He still felt pretty lousy. He wanted to make sure there was no more. There was no more.

He straightened. Turned. Shoved the door open. Stumbled out of the stall. The lights in the white-tiled room seemed overbright. They made him squint. They made his head hurt behind his eyes. They were like a needle on a naked nerve.

He shuffled to one of the sinks in the line of sinks set under mirrors on the far wall. There was a small, tidy-looking black man washing his hands two sinks over. He gave Weiss a sympathetic nod. Weiss nodded back, embarrassed.

"Airplane food," the tidy-looking man said.

Weiss managed a smile.

He waved his hands beneath the faucet, catching the sensor, making the water run. He cupped his palms and caught the water and splashed it onto his face. The cool, wet shock revived him. He dragged his hands down over his brow and over his cheeks and chin, wiping the water away. When he was done, he found himself looking into the mirror. The sight was sharp and painful like the men's room light.

The big heavy mournful countenance was pale and unhealthy. The sunken eyes with their dark rings looked ghostly, a dead man's eyes. The hound-dog cheeks had a greenish tinge. The bulbous nose stood out as if the face around it were wasting away. The shaggy salt-and-pepper hair seemed pasted on, a wig on a skull.

"For fuck's sake," he muttered.

A corpse is an unhappy sight to see anywhere, but to find one in the mirror is depressing as hell. It struck Weiss as a premonition. Just what he needed. He already felt sick to his stomach. Now he felt sick to his stomach and doomed.

I will kill you, Weiss. I want her there to see it.

He shook his head and turned away.

He came out of the men's room, moving unsteadily. The airport surprised him, as if it hadn't been there when he went in. The long, broad corridor surprised him. So did the people moving purposefully to their gates. A tired mom shepherding two dancing children. A businessman with a laptop slung over his shoulder. A young couple with their arms around each other. He stood and watched them go by.

There was a flight boarding to his right, a slow line moving past the ticket taker into the Jetway. There was a woman's voice summoning the passengers over the loudspeaker. There were televisions mounted on the wall. It all surprised him. It was all so modern and busy, present and alive. He felt as if he had come out of a fever dream, a dream of a darker, older world. It surprised him to find this world-this bright, loud, modern world-still here.

Still here. Weiss trudged down the corridor. He came to a row of shops and restaurants. He came to a bar. There were brightly colored hangings around the entryway: wooden cutouts of mountains and cowboys and chili peppers-a southwestern decor. Inside, the place was dark, somber. Low light. Chairs and tables dark brown. Solitary drinkers alone with their beers. Travelers passing through.

Weiss moved to the bar rail. He hoisted his butt onto one of the stools. A waitress stepped up to him, wiping his little piece of bar top with a cloth. She was forty or so. She had even features and long blond hair. Her face was lined and tired but still pretty. Her figure was good. Weiss let his eyes go up and down her. She was wearing a tight black top that showed off her breasts and her firm waist.

It was funny, he thought, how, when the subject came up, you realized how much you didn't want to die.

"Gimme a Rock, willya," he said.

She brought him the beer in a bottle. Poured it into a glass in front of him. He watched her face while she did it. She knew he was doing it. She liked it. She smiled.

"Thanks," he said.

"Sure. Can I get you anything else?"

He lifted his chin to one of the television sets hanging above the bar mirror. "Could you see if there's some local news on?"

He watched the back of her short skirt as she turned to pick up the remote. She switched the picture on the TV from a Diamondbacks game to the news. The sound was turned off but there were subtitles. He sipped his beer and watched the pictures, read the words. The beer made his stomach feel better.

The shootout at the Saguaro Hotel was the lead story. They had already covered it at the start of the program, but they returned to it at the end. Weiss was distracted, thinking about the Shadowman, trying to get rid of the images in his mind.

I want her to see what I do to you… You think it'll be clean? It will not be clean.

The pictures on the TV snapped him out of it. They showed the hotel and the broken window through which Bishop had fallen. The camera panned down from that to the swimming pool, to show how long a fall it was. There were still traces of blood in the water, or what looked like blood. The camera zoomed in on it.

The newsman didn't know the name of the man who had been shot. The police hadn't identified him yet. But Weiss suspected it was Bishop from the first. Then, when the newsman said the victim had been wearing a leather jacket, Weiss knew for sure.

He was not prepared for what he felt, for the weight of it. It was the end of something and he knew it. There would be no more second chances. He set his beer down on the bar, his hand trembling. He set some money down. His vision was blurred.

"Hey," said the waitress. "Are you okay?"

Weiss waved her off. He lumbered out of the bar with his head down, his back bent. He looked like a sick old man.