Behind the Eyes of Dreamers Read Online Free PDF Page B

against the table, preventing her from standing up and going to work on the metal devices.
    Someone nudged her. “That ho’s lookin’ for you,” Felice drawled contemptuously. She forced herself to look up and saw Asenath on the metal stairway, motioning to her. The burly man had disappeared. “Don’t go,” Felice went on. “You don’t want to be with the likes of her.” Then Oscar put a restraining hand on his wife’s shoulder.
    “Don’t tell Suzanne what to do,” he said quietly. “You go ahead,” he said to Suzanne. She hesitated for a moment, then got up and walked to the stairway.
    “Come on up,” she called to Suzanne. She climbed the stairs.
    “What is it?”
    “I got two packs of cigarettes off my friend,” Asenath whispered. She winked at Suzanne and her black eyelashes seemed to crawl over her eye like an insect. “Want a couple?”
    “That was fast work,” Suzanne said, trying to smile. Asenath’s cold blue eyes showed no reaction.
    “You better come to my room, or else everybody’s going to want one.” The redhead turned and Suzanne followed her past the first level of rooms and up the next flight of stairs. Asenath finally stopped in front of a doorway. “Come on in.” Suzanne entered the room. Warren was sprawled across his mat, clothed in a pink shirt and velvety purple slacks. He held a small hand mirror and was fiddling with his moustache. “Have a seat,” said Asenath, motioning to her mat. Suzanne sat, feeling uneasy.
    Asenath didn’t sit down. She peered out into the hallway, then strode over to Suzanne. “There aren’t any cigarettes, kid, just some questions.”
    Suzanne opened her mouth. Her vocal chords locked and nothing emerged except a sharp gasp. She swallowed and pulled her legs closer to her chest.
    “What’s that man of yours been up to?” Asenath asked.
    “I don’t know,” she managed to say. “I don’t know what you mean.” Her voice sounded weak, ineffectual.
    “Stop being stupid. He’s been out every night this week, we know that, and we know where he is for some of the time. Now you tell us where he goes.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You’re saying that a little too often; I don’t want to hear it again. We’ve tried following him. We know he doesn’t come back here right away. You must know something, he must have hinted at what he does.”
    Suzanne looked away from Asenath to Warren, who had put down his hand mirror and was staring blankly at the wall. “I don’t know where he goes,” she said, pronouncing the words carefully. “I don’t know anything about his activities. Joel tells me nothing. He rarely told me anything, even before we all came here. Our relationship is not exactly what you would call open.” She felt defeated and exposed before the red-headed woman and her dark silent partner.
    “Christ,” Asenath muttered.
    “Let her go,” said Warren. Suzanne stood up and began to move toward the door. A hand seized her shoulder and she found herself facing Asenath’s blue eyes again.
    “If you do find out anything,” the prostitute whispered, “if he does decide to confide in you, you better let me know, I’m telling you, and right away. And you just keep quiet about this little talk.”
    She retreated from the room angry and frightened, afraid to stop now in her own room to wake up Joel. I have to warn him. I have to find out. I have to talk to somebody. She paused at the top of the stairway, apprehensive about joining the people in the large room below. But they were ignoring her, busy working on their alien devices.
    She continued down the steps, avoiding a glance at Felice and Oscar. She sat down in a corner and began fitting metal pieces together under the casual, almost reassuring gaze of Neir-let.
     
     
    “I have to talk to you, Gabe.”
    “Sure.”
    “Not here.” Suzanne eyed the people sitting in front of Gabe’s dome nervously and felt that they were all watching her. She forced herself to look at them