Gin Palace 01 - The Poisoned Rose

coming from the east brushed my skin like a hand.
    Back upstairs, I set out the food while Marie dressed in the bathroom. She came out in jeans and a mannish shirt. Her hair was wet and uncombed. She looked younger that way. We sat on the foot of her unmade bed and ate off paper plates but didn’t really talk. There was enough for both of us to think about, so that was what we did, we ate and thought and left each other be.
    After breakfast Marie stood and gathered our plates. I caught a glimpse then of three long scars on the inside of her left arm, thick ones running from her wrist to her midforearm. She carried the plates into the kitchen area. I watched her but said nothing.
    Later on, Marie packed while I stood by her window and watched the traffic below. I looked for Searls, for Jean-Marc, for the Montauk police. I wanted to believe we were safe, but I knew there was no harm in vigilance. The village was busy now. I felt suddenly drowsy, and my eyes ached. But I stood there, keeping a lookout.
    Marie put together a single suitcase and set it by the door. That was it, she was ready to go. All we had to do was wait till sundown, then make our run through the villages—East Hampton, Bridgehampton, Water Mill, then Southampton. Every mile we traveled would only take us closer to the Chief’s domain. After Southampton, we’d pass Hampton Bays, then Westhampton. From there, it would only be a matter of miles till we reached Manorville and the wide open Long Island Expressway.
    The day passed slowly. At times there was no motion in the apartment at all, and no sound. At times, as I stood there and looked out, I felt that Marie and I were missing something, though I wasn’t sure really what. We were both lucky to be alive, if unlucky to have lived. All that mattered was peace—peace for her, at least. For now, as we waited, silence and stillness would have to do.
    A little before six I went back downstairs to buy us dinner. It would blow my budget, but I didn’t care. Marie offered to pay, but I knew she would need all the money she had with her to start over. I could miss a meal or two for that.
    I brought back a pizza with feta cheese, sliced tomato, and black olives. We ate while sitting cross-legged on her floor, side by side, our backs to a wall. I did my best not to see the scars on her wrist again. When we were done, there were two slices left over. We wrapped them in aluminum foil for her to eat on the road later tonight, or for breakfast tomorrow. It was half-past six now, and we could feel night coming, could see it beginning to influence the sky and smell it in the air that flowed in over the low window sills.
    By eight the change was more dramatic, and the same points of white light that had been the last to die this morning were the first to be reborn now. They weren’t stars, of course, but planets. Venus and Mars and Mercury, I think. Named for the Goddess of Love, the God of War, and the Messenger. I watched them grow sharper and sharper on the horizon, in a sky that seemed to drain of color by the minute.
    It was twilight when I realized that Marie was standing at the window on the other side of her bed. She was watching the changing sky as well, but I could tell she was getting ready to say something. I waited. Darkness was beginning to fill the corners of her apartment, shadows spreading out around us. When she spoke, her voice was less hoarse than it had been last night. The day’s silence must have been good rest for it. The sound of her voice struck me as something new in an old world. It compelled me deeply for some reason. I could have sworn I’d heard it before, maybe even recently.
    “I should have done this a long time ago,” she said. “I should have left this place far behind me and not clung onto it as desperately as I have. Maybe things would have turned out differently.” She thought about something for a moment, thought about it carefully. “My brother can have everything,” she said. “The house, the money, I don’t care about any of it. All I want is a job and a halfway decent apartment to be left alone in. I just want to find other people like me and take comfort in their presence.”
    I looked at the darkening sky and said nothing.
    “How did you do it, Mac?” Marie said then. She was looking at me.
    “Do what?”
    “How did you get away from your family?”
    “Why are you asking me that?”
    “You said you wanted to save me from having to go through what you