Sara Paretsky - 1996 - [V.I. Warshawski 06] - Burn Marks by Burn Marks

Author:Burn Marks
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-07-08T23:04:29+00:00

25

The Lady’s Not for Burning

My headache had returned full force. I tried desperately to be sick. My empty stomach could produce only a little bile, which left me more nauseated than ever. I was so sick I didn’t want to move, but I knew I would feel better if I went to the kitchen and put some compresses on my aching head and drank some Coke. My mother had always spoon-fed me Coke for a stomachache. It was a miracle cure.

I sat up and got so fierce a stab of pain that I cried out. And realized beneath the pain that I wasn’t home in bed— I had been lying on a couch, one that smelled so bad I couldn’t lie back down even with my aching head.

I sat with my head on my knees. I was on a couch with no cushions. When I stuck out a gingerly hand I could feel the tufts of padding spring out. My groping hand came on a leg. I recoiled so fast that the lights danced in front of my eyes again and I retched. When the spasm subsided I reached out tentatively and felt it again. A thin bony knob of a kneecap, the hem of a thin cotton housedress.

Elena. She’d called me, gotten me to the burned-out shell of the Indiana Arms. And then? How had I come to be unconscious? It hurt my head to think. I stuck up a hand and touched the locus of the pain. A nice lump, the consistency of raw liver and about as appealing. I’d been hit.? Or had I fallen? I couldn’t remember and it was too much work trying.

But Elena was hurt too. Or maybe passed out. I fumbled in the dark to find her chest. I could feel her heart beneath the thin fabric. It kept up a shallow, irregular beat. And she had a head injury. She’d been hit, someone had called my name so I’d think it was she calling, and all the while she was lying in here unconscious. And then he (she? that hoarse whisper had sounded like Elena) had knocked me out.

I was so pleased with remembering the evening’s events that I sat for a bit without moving. My memory wasn’t quite right, though. I hadn’t come to the Indiana Arms but an abandoned hotel across the street from it. It was only the acrid smell of smoke that made me think I was in Elena’s old building.

I leaned against the foul remains of upholstery to rest my eyes. The acrid smell didn’t diminish. I hadn’t thought the wind was so strong tonight as to blow ash across the street, and anyway, how intense would the fire smell be a week later? Something else was burning, some other part of the Near South Side going up in smoke. Not my problem. My problem was to feel well enough to get out of here.

I’d brought a flashlight with me. Pushing back my nausea, I got down on my hands and knees to hunt for it.

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