Though the tape was still up, the alley was empty, and no policeman stood sentry. She slipped under the yellow barrier. The sweet, sickening smell of putrefaction hit her like a wall. Breathing through her mouth was just as bad. She could taste it.
Three dumpsters sat in the wide lane. The Round Up’s alley door was closed, but music vibrated against the concrete walls. Moving down the lane running behind the dancehall, she scanned with the Mag-Lite for clues the police might have missed. Yeah, right. But she could hope. Hunched over, her back ached. The closer to the row of dumpsters she got, the louder the music, the laughter, and the voices became. And the more alone she felt. She put her hand to the wall and felt the people inside. She craved the excitement, the anonymity. The power.
Concentrate, Cameron prodded.
She’d heard no music in the dream. Tiffany’s body had been dumped after closing, or else the drunk had been deaf. Ten feet into the lane, she turned, looked back, tipped her head to the left, then the right. Yeah, the view was right. The car she’d seen in her vision had arrived from the east end of the alley. She kept walking, reached the first of the bins, trailed her hand along it without quite touching.
No, that wasn’t where they’d dumped the body.
She gave the second can, Tiffany’s temporary resting place, a wide berth. She wasn’t ready for it.
Max moved beyond the dumpster to the space where, in her vision, she’d huddled in a man’s body. He’d taken his bottle of Gallo with him. Or the police had impounded it as evidence. The alley had been stripped clean from one end to the other. Not a clue to her dream drunk’s identity was left behind.
Why is the wino so important? Cameron’s voice was just a thought inside her head. She didn’t have an answer. Except that he was important. Somehow.
She turned back to the second dumpster, the one she’d avoided. Hand lifting slowly, as if the appendage didn’t belong to her, she put her fingers against the metal and closed her eyes. Hot. Molten. Sizzling. Like Tiffany. Burning with life. A bright flame blazing blue in the center.
Fingertips still in contact with blistering metal, Max remembered pieces of her vision, then let herself tumble into it again.
Her stomach rolled with the bad wine she’d sloshed down, rotting garbage singed her nostrils, and she was seeing double.
Not she. He. Max looked down at stained jeans and a tattered, once-white T-shirt she—no, he—wore. Arms long and bushy, the right one undulated with the tattoo of a black and red snake coiled round and round the biceps and down the outside of the elbow, its tail disappearing into the nest of dark hair on the forearm.
She—he—fished his precious locker key from his pocket as two cars pulled over at the end of the alley. Rolling the plastic top between his fingers like a talisman, he watched four people climb out to open their trunks at precisely the same moment. The picture staggered, then merged into one. One car. Two people. One was dark, its cloak flapping in the wind like the wings of a vulture. The dark legs of their pants disappeared into the concrete, as if they didn’t have any feet, as if they’d somehow grown from the stench of the alley. They wore masks like horror movie fiends that never died. Dracula. Frankenstein. Staring at them, he believed, like a child, that monsters were real.
He pressed back between the two shithole dumpsters, clutching his key in his fist. The great metal box clanged, shuddered, and when he eased around the corner to watch with one eye, the two stood almost on top of him. He snapped back, scrambling as deeply as he could. A bang. Muffled voices. A grunt. Something hit the bottom of the can, the blow softened by layers of stinking trash. The top crashed down, sending shock waves through his head. Footsteps receded, the slam of a car door, then another. They were gone. Crawling forward on his knees, he saw he was alone in the alley. Something shiny gold flashed on the concrete. He picked it up, fingered the smoothness, and put it in his pocket. Climbing hand to hand, he stood fully on his feet, lifted the lid. And almost puked despite the cast-iron quality of his stomach.
The woman lay on her side, rotting meat clinging to her cheek. Maggots crawled on the chunk of half-chewed burger; soon they’d be crawling on her. Slippery fruit peelings stuck like goo to her matted and bloody blonde hair. Her white tank top, splattered with red-brown stains, was ripped open across her breasts, the flesh beneath black and blue. Her short, pleated skirt hiked up to her waist, bruises mottling her hips and thighs.
He let the lid down slowly, softly, as if he couldn’t bear to disturb her rest. All he could think before he ran down the alley was to thank God her eyes hadn’t been open.
He couldn’t stand the eyes of the dead.