Exquisite Corpse Read Online Free PDF Page B

to snip the wrong tube if I didn’t.”
    The sister blinked, then gave me an understanding (if slightly frozen) smile. I turned away and walked quickly down the hall. A few doctors were hurrying in the opposite direction, but none of them paid the slightest attention to me. I heard one of them saying, “… have a look at Compton …” and another replying, with a certain smugness, “Drummond’ll never let you in.”
    Minutes later I let myself into a multilevel car park, as deserted as the morgue and seemingly full of nothing but Jaguars. There were Jaguars of every colour and vintage, convertibles, coupes, roadsters, and sedans, some lovingly maintained, some utterly decrepit. Here and there I saw a Ferrari or MG, as if to ease the repetition, and off in an obscure corner I thought I could make out one pathetic Mini. But for every other sort of automobile, there were at least three or four Jaguars.
    I tried the key in thirty-seven car doors before one finally clicked open. As I slid into the driver’s seat, I saw a stack of books on the seat. Well-thumbed paperbacks, with lurid covers of pain red and void black.
The Acid Bath Murders. The Butcher of Hanover. Zodiac. Killing for Company. The New York Vampire. Buried Dreams.
    I fitted the key into the ignition, and the engine came on with a smooth low roar. A glowing gauge assured me that the tank was full of petrol.
    London was less than two hours away. I would be there before the hospital knew I was gone, with a little luck.
    And on this day it looked as if I had more than a little luck.

2
    J ay Byrne left the cold stone comfort of Charity Hospital late in the afternoon and hurried down traffic-choked Tulane Avenue in the direction of the French Quarter. At Carondelet he turned left, crossed the gaudy thoroughfare of Canal, ducked down Bourbon Street, and was soon in the heart of the Quarter.
    Even in November there were days when New Orleans was balmy, almost tropical. This was one of those days. Over his gray T-shirt Jay wore a jacket made of some matte-dull black fabric that seemed to absorb and consume all light. It was an expensive piece of clothing, but it hung on him awkwardly, his thin wrists jutting from the sleeves like chicken bones. Clothes had fit him badly for most of his twenty-seven years; his limbs never quite seemed to match up, and no fabric or cut was comfortable to him. He preferred being naked whenever possible.
    Jay’s fine-textured, longish blond hair blew about in the breeze coming off the river. As he walked, he trailed one hand along the ornate spikes of a wrought-iron railing, then along the timeworn texture of old brick. The afternoon light had taken on a golden cast by the time he reached Jackson Square.
    A small figure was waiting for him on the steps of St. Louis Cathedral, faded red shirt with a trippy-looking flower on it, baggy black shorts, glossy black hair. A Vietnamese kid perhaps seventeen or eighteen; Jay thought his name was Tran. He’d seen him around the Quarter a lot. The boy’s face put Jay in mind of a delicate scrimshaw mask in a museum, exotic-boned, not so much androgynous as beyond gender entirely.
    But this mask was topped with a trendy haircut, a shiny shoulder-length sheaf tumbling into his eyes. He palmed the two crisp hundred-dollar bills Jay offered with no flicker of surprise, then slipped Jay a sealed, unmarked manila envelope.
    â€œIt’s real clean,” the boy said cheerfully. “Something called ‘Nuke,’ out of Santa Cruz. You won’t need to take more than one at a time.” His accent was like some strange gumbo, part Vietnam, part New Orleans, part the wisecracking American Generic young foreigners often picked up—from television, Jay guessed, though he had never watched it enough to be sure.
    â€œThen I’m stocked up.” Jay tucked the envelope into the silk lining of his jacket. He took a deep breath, then made the plunge.