Mona sipped her coffee and studied the woman’s clothes and hair while they waited for Prior to wake up. At least that’s what they seemed to be doing. Gerald was gone again. She wasn’t much like anybody Mona’d seen before; Mona couldn’t place her on the style map at all, except she must’ve had some money. The hair was European; Mona’d seen it like that in a magazine; she was pretty sure it wasn’t this season’s style anywhere, but it went okay with the glasses, which were insets, planted right in the skin. Mona’d seen a cabbie in Cleveland had those. And she wore this short jacket, very dark brown, too plain for Mona’s taste but obviously new, with a big white sheepskin collar, open now over a weird green thing trussed across her breasts and stomach like armor, which was what Mona figured it probably was, and jeans cut from some kind of gray-green mossy suede, thick and soft, and Mona thought they were the best thing about her outfit, she could’ve gone for a pair of those herself, except the boots spoiled them, these knee-high black boots, the kind bike racers wore, with thick yellow rubber soles and big straps across the insteps, chrome buckles all up and down, horrible clunky toes. And where’d she get that nail color, that burgundy? Mona didn’t think they even made that anymore. »What the hell are you looking at?« »Uh . . . your boots.« »So?« »They don’t make it with your pants.« »Wore ’em to kick the shit out of Prior.« Prior moaned on the floor and started trying to throw up. It made Mona feel kind of sick herself, so she said she was going to go to the bathroom. »Don’t try to leave.« The woman seemed to be watching Prior, over the rim of her white china cup, but with those glasses, it was hard to be sure.
Somehow she found herself in the bathroom with her purse on her lap. She hurried, getting the hit together; didn’t grind it fine enough, so it burned the back of her throat, but like Lanette used to say, you don’t always have time for the niceties. And anyway, wasn’t that all a lot better now? There was a little shower in Gerald’s bathroom, but it looked like it hadn’t been used for a long time. She took a closer look and saw gray mold growing around the drain, and spots that looked like dried blood. When she came back, the woman was dragging Prior into one of the other rooms, pulling him by his feet. He had socks on, no shoes, Mona noticed now, like maybe he’d had his feet up to sleep. His blue shirt had blood on it and his face was all bruised. What Mona felt, as the rush kicked in, was a bright and innocent curiosity. »What are you doing?« »I think I’ll have to wake him up,« the woman said, like she was on the subway, talking about another passenger who was about to miss his stop. Mona followed her into the room where Gerald did his work, everything clean and hospital white; she watched as the woman got Prior up into a sort of chair like in a salon, with levers and buttons and things. It isn ‘t like she ‘s that strong , Mona thought, it ‘s like she knows which way to throw the weight . Prior’s head fell to the side as the woman fastened a black strap across his chest. Mona was starting to feel sorry for him, but then she remembered Eddy. »What is it?« The woman was filling a white plastic container with water from a chrome tap. Mona just kept trying to say it, feeling her heart race out of control on the wiz. He killed Eddy , she kept trying to say, but it wouldn’t come out. But then it must have, because the woman said, »Yeah, he’ll do that sort of thing . . . if you let him.« She threw the water over Prior, into his face and all down his shirt; his eyes snapped open and the white of the left one was solid red; the metal prongs of the shockrod snapped white sparks when the woman pressed it against the wet blue shirt. Prior screamed.