“Ungrateful,” Maryalice said. “Ungrateful shit. Get in that bathroom.” She came around so the lighter was pointing at Eddie and the Russian, but with the open bathroom door behind them.
“I know you’re upset-”
“Shit. Shit goes in the toilet, Eddie Get in the bathroom.”
Eddie took a step backward, his palms up in what he probably thought looked like an appeal to reasonableness and understanding. The Russian took a step back too. 0 9 243 “Seven flicking years,” Maryalice said. “Seven. You weren’t shit when I met you. God. You and that uppity-mobile talk. You make me sick. Who paid the fucking rent? Who bought the meals? Who bought you your fucking clothes, you vain piece of shit? You and your uppity-mobile and your image and you gotta have a smaller fucking phone than the next guy because I’m telling you, honey, you sure as fuck don’t have a bigger dick!” Maryalice’s hands were shaking now, but really just enough to make the lighter look even more dangerous.
“Maryalice,” Eddie said, “you know I know everything you’ve done for me, everything you’ve contributed to my career. It doesn’t leave my mind for a minute, baby, believe me, it never does, and all of this is a misunderstanding, baby, just a rough patch on the highway of life, and if you will only just put down that flicking gun and have a nice drink like a civilized person-”
“Shut the fuck up!” Maryalice screamed, at the top of her lungs, the words all run together.
Eddie’s mouth snapped shut like a puppet’s.
“Seven flicking years,” Maryalice said, making it sound like some children’s charm, “seven fucking years and two of ’em here, Eddie, two of ’em here, and flying back and fucking forth for you, Eddie, and coming back. And it’s always light, here Tears came, streaking Maryalice’s makeup. “Everywhere. Couldn’t sleep for all the light, like a fog over the city. . . . Get in the bathroom.” Maryalice taking a step forward, Eddie and the Russian taking one back.
Chia reached over and picked up the stungun, she wasn’t sure why. It had a pair of blunt chrome fangs on one end, a red, ridged stud on one edge. She was surprised at how little it weighed. She remembered the ones the boys at her school had made from those disposable flash-cameras.
‘And it always finds me, that light,” Maryalice said. “Always. No matter what I drink, what I take on top of that, It finds me and it wakes me up. It’s like powder, blows in under the door. Nothing to do about it. Gets in your eyes. And all that brightness, falling .
244 William Gibson Eddie was half back through the doorway now, the Russian behind him, actually in the bathroom, and Chia didn’t like that because she couldn’t see the Russian’s hands. She heard the ambient birdsong start as the bathroom sensed the Russian, “And you put me there, Eddie. That Shinjuku. You put me where that light could get me, and I could never get away.”
And then Maryalice pulled the trigger.
Eddie screamed, a weird shrill sound bouncing off the black and white tiles. That must’ve covered the click of the lighter, which hadn’t even produced a flame.
Maryalice didn’t panic.
She held her aim and calmly pulled the trigger again.
She got a light, that time, but Eddie, with a howl of rage, swatted the lighter aside, grabbed Maryalice by the throat, and started pounding her in the face with his fist, the howl resolving into “Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!” in sync with each blow.
And that was when Chia, without really thinking about it, came up from where she’d been sitting for so long that, she found, her legs were asleep, and didn’t work, so that she had to turn her lunge into a roll, and roll again, before she could jam the chrome tips of the stun-gun against Eddie’s ankle and push the red stud.
She wasn’t sure it would work on an ankle, or through his sock. But it did. Maybe because Eddie wore those really thin socks.
But it got Maryalice, too, so that they seemed to jerk together, toppling into each other’s arms.