The Clarity of Cold Steel

“AIN’T NOTHING,” she murmurs, her eyes focused squinting-hard as she works, her lips pursed, teeth baring periodically in a stifled wince each time the needle penetrates my skin. “I’ve brothers.” She jabs through, pulls tight, loops, repeats. “Or, had brothers.” She wipes a hand off on a towel tossed over her chair, rubs her fingertips together like she’s coming into money, continues on. “Just a few more.” Stitches. Care of Sweet Sally. She’s put about a dozen across my shoulder. She’s working my forehead now.

I wince as the needle pushes through my skin, hiss as she draws the thread, and I can hear it burning through, the zipping friction. It ain’t pleasant, but a lot of things ain’t pleasant. Gangrene ain’t pleasant. Bleeding out ain’t pleasant. Walking around with your skull hanging out ain’t pleasant. “I had two brothers,” I say, trying to take my mind off the barbarity at hand. I’m less than successful. “My younger’s superior to me in about every which way. My elder’s gone. Slough hit him hard not long ago.”

“Well,” she’s concentrating as she works, “Jason, my younger brother — don’t move — he was a bookmaker downtown. Tinkertown. London Town. Knightsbridge. Worked the races. The fights. The dodges. In and out of dives. Feeding off lowlifes and scum like you and me.”

“Speak for yourself.” I adjust in my seat.

“My little brother,” she continues, ignoring my pain, “always fast and loose with him. Too fast. Too loose. Too everything.” She takes a long breath, holds it, purses her lips, perseveres, pokes the needle through again. “Ended up in hock to some gents associated with Johnny Shakespeare.” She sits back, holds up a finger, takes a swig of whiskey and continues. “The bloke he owed was small time. A no one, really. But word climbed the ladder.”

“As it does.” I nod.

“Especially when you don’t want it.” She sits back, staring off, all of a sudden lost and forlorn. “He just … disappeared. Was up in Knightsbridge. Nigh on two years ago. No one’s sure of what happened but everyone knows.” Her lower lip’s trembling. “You know what they do to you up in Knightsbridge?”

“Sure.” I wince again, the corner of my eye watering along with the rest of it. I try to change the subject, “How’s…” but realize I barely know anything about her.

She sniffs, stares all forlorn and full of sorrow. It’s like she was shattered good and then glued back together meticulously, piece by piece. But the cracks still show and maybe a piece or two’s missing and just a small jostle’ll send it all crashing. “Jason was never any good with money. His or anyone else’s. Don’t know how or why he got into that line of work. If you can call it work.” Her eyes’re tearing now. “My other brother, Ken, he died of the consumption. Way back. Ten …twelve years ago? He died quiet, at least, that was a blessing. I heard anyways. I was topside turning tricks at the time. Couldn’t get away. Hell, I didn’t know till six months later.”

“I’m sorry,” I mutter.

She shrugs, loops another line through my brow, wipes her eye. “You take your pill today?”

“Sure,” I answer. “You?”

“Easy to remember,” she says. “Can’t barely breathe if I don’t.”

“I’ve always admired your lung capacity.”

“Thanks.” Along with the arm, Sweet Sally’s got a transplanted set of lungs. Like me and my liver, she got hers on loan. It was for short money, trade most likely involved, with their duration commensurate to the principle. Hers were so cheap they probably belonged to some black-lunged morlock miner. “How you fixed for them?” What I mean to ask is — “Did you hock the ones I gave you the other day?” but I don’t.

“How’s any of us fixed?”

“Well,” I reach into my inner pocket, “I’ve a few still if you’re running shy.”

She pauses, then nods. “My dealer’s been … iffy.”

“Right.” I set the pills on the table. “You still plying the dives?” I ask, trying for lighter fare and failing miserably.

She nods, half-heartedly. “Not for whoring no more. Just go to get good and pissed.”

“Bully for you.”

She wipes her hands together and raises both, “Voila.”

“Done?” I dab at the stitches with a forefinger, all rough and wandering like a line of ants crawling across my forehead. My face feels tight, like skin stretched taut over a drum.

“Yes, sir.” She puts her needle down.

“Thanks.” I slide my hand on top of hers.

“None of that now,” she waggles a chiding finger, sniffles, “I’ve a client been waiting over an hour cause of you.”

“I could cover you?”

“That a double entendre?”

I stroke the back of her hand with a finger. “Maybe you could just blow him off?”

“Ooh, a triple entendre?” She leans back, glaring sidelong. “Besides, who said my client’s a he, anyways?”