Julia
The sky fell slowly in small drops. The rain was nearly over, but clouds still hung low, huge and gray, persistently drizzling out their last bits of moisture as they rolled unhurriedly across the sky. The overcast was thick enough to turn the afternoon into evening. But in that place, time didn't matter much.
She stood on a narrow, paved walkway leveled into the hill. Tombstones rose from the grass all around her. Weathered monuments to death. The dank, musty smell of earth invaded her nostrils. It was an acrid, lifeless smell. The rain soaked into her hair and clothes. It dripped off the hem of her coat, forming a puddle at her feet. It extinguished the cigarette in her mouth.
Tell him I'll be waiting for him there. That's all. He'll know what it means…Tell him I'll keep waiting.
That morning a pink sky had stretched across the horizon. It turned a warm tangerine where the sun crept up, peeking out through the cityscape. She pulled the visor down and turned the red convertible off the expressway and onto the surface roads. Her eyes flicked to the rearview mirror frequently, but there weren't any more black cars trailing her. She kept listening for the squeal of tires or the loud, percussive bark of gunfire. All she heard was the engine's throaty rumble over wind rushing past her ears. The scenery rushed up to meet her before melting into indistinct smears of gray and brown with an occasional splash of green. She was going to finally keep that rendevous they had made three years ago. They had planned to escape together. To start a life. They were going to be happy.
"It'll be like watching a dream."
Like falling into a dream.
"Your eyes are different colors." She'd noticed it the first time they had made love. She got a strange feeling when she looked straight into his eyes. It was like falling into a dream.
He smiled when she said that. "My left eye sees the past." She could hear that easy, charming smile in his voice.
"And what about your right eye?"
The sky darkened as she was driving through the city. Clouds obscured the sun, heralding the promise of rain. She pushed her sunglasses up onto the top of her head, nestling them in her hair. He said she looked good, wearing sunglasses like that. She remembered the fist time she saw him. It was at a bar. She was standing by the pool tables waiting for information on a hit. She turned…
He stood there, just out of the light, with a cue in his hand. He stared at her from across the pool table, his mouth open. His look said she was out of place. That she couldn't be real. Maybe she was a phantom. She had stopped him.
Gravel crunched beneath her tires as they rolled slowly over the wet street. She parked in the street beside the graveyard. An austere wrought-iron fence segregated the dead from the living. It stretched out along the street at the foot of a gently sloping hill. Headstones jutted out of the earth, planted haphazardly on the hill in an overgrown garden. Trees rose up at regular intervals in rows that banded the landscape. At the hill's crest, a line of them held their stately silhouettes against the grim sky.
Julia lowered the window and leaned back, listening to a song playing on the radio. A sad, lilting tune slurred out on a soulful saxophone. A sympathetic and encouraging piano responded to the reedy voice. It reminded her of a song Gren played for her a year ago, back at the Blue Crow.
"It feels like I wake up running."
"What are you running from?"
"Heh, the past."
"Stay here. Stop running for awhile. I can always use the company."
Gren was the only person had she told about Spike. For some reason she had trusted him. They had shared a bond. Two fugitives hiding from the same person.
She lit a cigarette, turning her head to slowly exhale the plume of smoke out the window. It billowed up into the air, joining the fog outside. The song ended and she turned off the radio. Beneath the patter of rain, the motor purred quietly then fell silent, stroked to sleep. She pulled the key from the ignition and stared ahead at nothing, listening to the rain, waiting for it to stop.
It had been raining that day too.
The whole world had seemed composed of a gray fog. It rested thick and heavy on the air, a web catching the raindrops as they plummeted to the ground. The peaks of tall buildings disappeared into that churning mist. Maybe the sun wouldn't ever break through such a dense wall of dark clouds.
Her small apartment was on the top floor, in the corner overlooking an intersection. Raindrops drumming on glass nearly drowned out the splash of tires rolling through deep puddles. She stood at the window in the dark, watching the rain slide down the glass, waiting expectantly for news.
Then he was there, framed by the doorway. She saw his reflection in the glass and turned. He wore this beige trench coat over a navy suit and yellow dress shirt. As usual his thin black tie was askew, just a little. Raindrops stuck in his dark, puffy hair and on his face. He stepped closer into the dim light seeping in from the window. Determination set his jaw, and when he spoke, his voice came quiet but steady.
"When this is over, I'm leaving the Syndicate."
"They'll kill you. You know how they work."
"Heh, let them say I'm dead. I'll be waiting in the graveyard," he said with an easy voice and his cocky smile. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a ticket and held it out to her. "By the graves, not in one."
"Spike, I can't come with you."
"Yes you can. We'll leave here. Get out of this."
"And go where, and do what?"
"Live. Be free. It'll be like watching a dream." There was such confidence in his voice and smile, an infectious hope in his brown eyes. She took the ticket from him, clutched it tightly in her hand as his arms folded around her. He bowed his head, breathed in deeply and then released her.
The gate hung closed and forbiding, but unlocked. It creaked loudly on its rusty hinges, their grinding whine like the shrill call of a dove. She stopped just inside the gate and smelled the rose. Its perfume was sweet, enticing and the petals satin against her lips. Julia dropped the flower on the ground, swinging the gate closed behind her. She walked along the path a little while, her hands in her pockets, flinching when the rain dropped close under her eyes. There was no point in walking any further, so she stopped and turned to face the gate and wait.
Julia stood on the narrow, paved walkway, staring out into the rain. Tombstones rose all around her. Carnations and other flowers she didn't recognize wilted in bouquets, decaying at the feet of the weathered momuments. Their fragrances had washed away long ago. The dank, musty smell of earth invaded her nostrils. It was an acrid, lifeless smell. So different from the rose.
In the distance she could see the city, a dark, jagged shadow piercing the bleak horizon. The monotonous rumble of traffic didn't reach her here. Nothing could reach her here. All she heard was the rain pattering on the sodden grass, plinking into the puddle growing at her feet. The water weighted down her trenchcoat and soaked through the hem of her pants. It fell unremittingly with a mock sympathy onto her face and hands. Her blond hair, drunk with it, clung obstinately to her cheeks, bangs tickling her eyelids. She tilted back her head, eyes closed, and allowed the rain to punish her face. It ran in thin rivulets down her high-boned cheeks, around and over the curve of her lips, still pursed tenaciously around a soggy, drooping cigarette that had gone out long ago. She let the drops gather under her eyes and spill over, rolling down her temples. They were cold tears.
"So you were going to betray me." The hissed words grated her ears, obliterating the dream as a callous barrel of a gun pressed against her temple. He glanced down and pushed her bags with his foot. "Did you really think you could just leave?"
"Vicious…" She looked up into an impassive face, its eyes two black stones. They were so lifeless, and cold. They frightened her more than the gun he held to her head.
He towered before the window, casting her into shadow. He stared out at the sky, holding her in a bitter silence. His pallid hair, lank from the humidity, curtained his face. He rolled his eyes down to look at her, continuing in a low, gravely voice, mocking her. "Keep dreaming Julia. It's never going to happen."
"Are you going to kill him?"
"I won't." He smiled slowly, laying the gun down on the table in front of her. "You're going to do it for me. Either you kill him or else both of you die. Those are your only options."
After Vicious left she pulled the window open, letting the damp air rush in. A gust blew her hair into her face and almost pulled the ticket from her hand. Julia ripped the ticket into small pieces. They fluttered down to the street like little white birds, weighed down by the rain.
The gate's discordant groan ruptured the memory. Julia's eyes snapped open at the sound. She pulled the cigarette from her mouth, dropping it on the ground and lowered her head, looking through the fog. A lanky form materialized just inside the gate, and then paused, stooping to pluck something from a puddle on the ground. It was the rose she had left, a deep red bloom on the brink of maturity. The man approached leisurely, his steps hollow on the pavement, becoming gradually more tangible. She dropped her hand into her pocket, fingers curling around cold steel.
Spike stood in the rain facing her, not wearing a coat, just a blue suit. He had a hand in his pocket. No expression on his face. He waited there patiently as the rain darkened his clothes, without any expectations of her, this sad look in his soft brown eyes. It was like a dream. She pulled her hand from her pocket slowly and lifted the gun, aiming at his chest.