Kingdom of the Blind

CHAPTER 16

Amelia woke up, clawing her way to the surface, to the sunlight. Her head throbbed, and her mind was numb. And her eyes refused to focus.

She looked around, blinking, until she could make out what she was seeing. And not seeing.

This wasn’t her bedroom. Certainly not the small, neat room at the academy that she’d called home for the past two years.

But neither was it the shithole in the rooming house.

This was a whole other shithole.

And then she remembered. Sinking back into the grimy sheets, her face going slack, and she closed her eyes.

“What have I done?”

“What did you do, Sweet Pea?”

Marc sat on the edge of the bed in his underwear gray and sagging. His eyes were bright in their sunken sockets. Like a gleam from some deep well.

She and Marc had been toddlers in the same village. Playing in the same playgrounds, schoolyards. Streets.

Marc had come to Montréal first. Young, gay, fresh, and alive. Fit and handsome. Excited to be out. He’d made a life for himself. A male prostitute, to be sure. But clean and careful. With his own tiny place.

His dream was to find some rich old queen and settle down.

She’d followed Marc to Montréal. He’d guided her. To the best dealers. The ones who didn’t cut their shit with worse shit. When she’d sunk low enough, he guided her to the best street corners. And protected her. He was like a big brother to her.

He was careful himself, teetering on the edge of addiction but not quite tipping over. Keeping himself presentable. For the nice restaurants, the private clubs, the international travel he knew was in the next car. On the next corner.

When Gamache kicked her out of the academy, Amelia had gone to the only person she knew could help her find what she needed.

They’d stared at each other, on either side of the threshold of his apartment. Barely recognizing each other. Marc’s hair wasn’t just greasy, it was falling out. His scabbed scalp visible in patches. His lips chapped, his skin mottled.

When he smiled, she could see gaps where teeth had once been.

“Am I so bad?” he asked, reading the look on her face.

“No, no. Am I?”

She could see herself in his eyes. A stranger. Repulsive in her cleanliness. Jet-black hair shiny. Complexion smooth.

They were no longer brother and sister. They were barely of the same species.

“Why’re you here?” he asked, barring the door.

“I need your help. I got kicked out of the academy.”

“Why?”

“Possession. Maybe trafficking.”

He’d laughed then, relieved. “Maybe?”

Amelia might look like another species, but they shared some DNA after all. She’d come home. To him. To the gutter. Where she belonged.

“What?” he’d asked, dropping his arm and letting her in. “Hell dust? Percs?”

“Fen.”

“The good stuff.”

She nodded.

“Do you have it on you now?”

He reached filthy hands toward her. She backed up, tripping over a pile of clothes on the floor but quickly righting herself.

“Of course not. They took it all. I need to find some more. But there’s even better shit. It’s not out yet, but it will be. That’s what I really want. You heard of it?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard the rumors, but it’s bullshit. There’s nothing.” Marc stared at his unexpected guest. “What do you know, Sweet Pea?”

“I know it’s not bullshit. Some cop let it through his fingers. And it’s good, Marc.”

“Really?”

“Really good. Way better than fen. Whoever has it will make a fortune. Will have everything they’ve ever wanted. Forever.”

“Everything?”

She nodded.

“Forever?”

She nodded. “No more shitholes. No more turning tricks. No more wondering where the next hit’s coming from. We’ll have lots of everything.”

“We?”

“I need your help. Look, I learned things in the academy. Useful things, like how to organize, how to fight. The cartels are gone. Everyone’s scrambling, right?”

He nodded.

“I can take over.”

“You?” He looked at the small girl and laughed.

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight…” she said. It was, she knew, his favorite saying.

“It’s the size of the fight in the dog.” He studied her for a moment. “You are quite a bitch.”

She laughed. “You’ll help?”

He looked at her with both hope and suspicion.

“You know people, Marc. I’ve been gone too long.”

“Not just gone. You were a cop.”

“Not quite,” said Amelia. “And since when can’t a cop also deal drugs? Not exactly a stretch. Will you help?”

He looked out the window, then back at her. “The streets aren’t what you remember.”

She needed no proof beyond what she saw in front of her. He wasn’t what she remembered.

“You don’t want to mess with what’s out there, Amelia.”

He opened his arms in display. What happened. When a tipping point was reached—and exceeded.

“Go home, Sweet Pea.”

“I am home.”

Marc looked at her. And his weary brain considered. “Everything?”

“Everything,” she said. “All we have to do is find the shit.”

He nodded, coming to a decision. “What the fuck. I have nothing to lose. Maybe that should be our motto.”

Amelia grunted. “Maybe.”

Thanks to Gamache, she too now had nothing to lose. It was, she realized, a very powerful place to be.

“Come with me,” he said.

Marc hadn’t lied. The streets of inner-city Montréal had changed. Never safe. Never clean. Never fun, now they were many degrees worse. Darker, filthier. Clogged with excrement, puke.

The faces that met her were gray. But the looks were canny. She was a stranger to them, even with Marc to vouch for her.

“Don’t tell anyone where you’ve been,” he whispered.

“No shit,” she said.

“If anyone asks, I’m going to say you were in Vancouver, living on the streets.”

They approached a loose knot of dealers, who stared at her.

She still had some meat on her bones. Pink in her cheeks. Clothes that hadn’t hardened with a crust of frozen puke. And piss. And cum.

“If she was in Vancouver,” a dealer asked Marc, as though Amelia weren’t standing right in front of him, “why’d she come back?”

“I’m right here, fuckface,” she said. “Talk to me.”

She was at least six inches shorter. She had to tip her head back to glare up at him.

The dealer stepped forward, thrusting his pelvis into her. Pushing her until she was against the brick wall of the alley. Then he ground himself against her.

He was twenty-five at most but looked ancient. Like something dug up at some primitive burial site. They all did. A mass grave, under micrograms of fentanyl, on the streets of Montréal.

His breath on her face smelled of rotten eggs. Of sulfur. Of hellfire.

“You know why I’m here,” she snarled, not bothering to push him away. “You know what I want. What I can’t get in Vancouver.”

He thrust his body against her.

“You came for this, did you?” Grinding his pelvis into her. “I remember you, little girl. Amelia.”

He said her name in a drawl, dragging it through the mud.

“You have one thing I want.” She reached between his legs. “And it isn’t this.”

She squeezed. Though what she felt was soft. Like a mitten in his pants.

“That’s it, little girl. Squeeze harder.”

She brought her hand up from his crotch to his throat and gripped it in exactly the way the martial-arts instructor at the academy had taught her.

Then she squeezed.

“Like this?” she asked.

His eyes widened. And she tightened her grip on his throat.

His eyes bulged. And still she squeezed.

“Amelia,” said Marc. “Stop. You’ll kill him.”

“Nothing to lose,” she snarled. And squeezed until she felt his larynx begin to collapse. “I want the new stuff. I came all the way back for it. And if I can’t get it, I’ll take something else. Just.” She squeezed. “For.” Tighter. “Fun.” Still.

And saw terror in his eyes.

Everyone stepped away, including Marc, while the dealer made a gurgling noise.

“I beg your pardon. What did you say?” she asked. And went through his pockets with her free hand as his eyes began rolling to the back of his head.

She found packets of pills. Packets of powder.

None of it was what she was looking for. She put the packets in her pocket.

Then released him.

He coughed and sputtered, then lunged at her. Amelia stepped aside, pushing him face-first into the wall and pinning him there.

“I’m not a little girl, shithead. I’m a fucking bitch,” she hissed into his filthy ear. “But you know what else I am, you pathetic piece of merde?”

She twisted his head so that he could see her.

“I’m the one-eyed man. Tell that to your supplier. Tell him to watch out.”

She gave him one last shove, turned around, and left. Marc scurrying behind her.

“What was that supposed to mean?” he asked. “What did you just do? They’ll kill you.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t actually care.” She handed him most of the packets. “One for you. Sell the rest.”

“What about you?” He slipped through the snowy street, trying to catch up with her. His arms wrapped around his chest, his coat too thin to keep him warm on this bitter night.

“I have better things to find,” she said.

The next morning she woke up in Marc’s room, in Marc’s bed. With Marc staring at her.

“Jesus, girl, what did you get up to last night? When I left you, you were looking for the new shit. Did you find it?”

She shook her head. “How’d I get here?”

“I carried you. Found you in an alley. I thought for sure you were dead. But you were just passed out. What did you take?”

She rubbed her hand over her face, feeling the grit of dried sleep, or tears, down her cheeks.

“I don’t know.”

Amelia had been stoned before. Lots of times. But never like this. Her head felt like it was splitting open, and she struggled for breath.

She tried to remember what had happened the night before. But all she saw were flashes that twisted and tilted in her memory. Turning her stomach until she thought she’d puke.

There was one that kept repeating.

A little girl. She was six or seven years old. Bright red Canadiens tuque on her head. She was wearing moose mittens and holding out a baggie of dope.

The child was swaying on her feet. Staring ahead of her.

But Amelia knew it wasn’t so much a memory as a hallucination. Brought on by the shitface dealer calling her a little girl.

“You made quite an impression,” Marc said, getting into bed beside her and pulling up the covers. “Everyone wants to know who you are.”

“What did you tell them?”

Putting his arm around her, Marc hugged her to his bony chest. Speaking into her dirty hair, his voice muffled, he said, “I told them, Sweet Pea, that you’re the one-eyed man.”