When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger Read Free Book Online Page A

limply in someone’s grasp, almost grateful that this wasn’t really happening to me, that it was some terrible nightmare that I was merely remembering, safely in the future.
    I don’t know how long they beat me. When I came to, it was eleven o’clock. I just lay on the floor and breathed; some ribs must have been cracked, because even breathing caused agony. I tried to order my thoughts—at least the drug hangover had abated a little. My pill case. Got to find my pill case. Why can’t I ever find my damn pill case? I crawled very slowly to the bed. The Black Widow Sisters had been thorough and efficient; I learned that with every movement. I was badly bruised almost everywhere, but they hadn’t shed a drop of blood. It occurred to me that if they’d wanted to kill me, one playful nip would have done the job. This was all supposed to mean something. I’d have to ask them about it the next time I saw them.
    I hauled myself onto the bed and across the mattress to my clothes. My pill case was in my jeans, where it usually was. I opened it, knowing I had some escape-velocity painkillers in there. I saw that my entire stash of beauties—butaqualide HCl—was gone. They were illegal as hell all over and just as plentiful. I’d had at least eight. I must have taken a handful to get me to sleep over the screaming tri-phets; Nikki must have taken the rest. I didn’t care about them now. I wanted opiates, any and all opiates, fast. I had seven tabs of Sonneine. When I got them down, it would be like the sun breaking through the gloomy clouds. I would bask in a buzzy, warm respite, an illusion of well-being rushing to every hurt and damaged part of my body. The notion of crawling to the bathroom for a glass of water was too ridiculous to consider. I summoned both spit and courage, and downed the chalky sunnies, one by one. They’d take twenty minutes or so to hit, but the anticipation was enough to ease the throbbing torment just a little.
    Before the sunnies ignited, there was a knock on my door. I made a little, involuntary cry of alarm. I didn’t move. The knock, polite but firm, came again. “ Yaa shabb,” called a voice. It was Hassan. I closed my eyes and wished I believed in something enough to pray to it.
    “A minute,” I said. I couldn’t shout. “Let me get dressed.” Hassan had used a more-or-less friendly form of address, but that didn’t mean a damn thing. I made it to the door as quickly as I could, wearing only my jeans. I opened the door and saw that Abdoulaye was with Hassan. Bad news. I invited them in. “Bismillah,” I said, asking them to enter in God’s name. It was a formality only, and Hassan ignored it.
    “Abdoulaye Abu-Zayd is owed three thousand kiam,” he said simply, spreading his hands.
    “Nikki owes it. Go bother her. I’m in no mood for any of your greasy nattering.”
    It was probably the wrong thing to say. Hassan’s face clouded like the western sky in a simoom. “The guarded one has fled,” he said flatly. “You are her representative. You are responsible for the fee.”
    Nikki? I couldn’t believe that Nikki’d do this to me. “It isn’t noon yet,” I said. It was a lame maneuver, but it was all I could think of.
    Hassan nodded. “We will make ourselves comfortable.” They sat on my mattress and stared at me with fierce eyes and voracious expressions I didn’t like at all.
    What was I going to do? I thought of calling Nikki, but that was pointless; Hassan and Abdoulaye had certainly already visited the building on Thirteenth Street. Then I realized that Nikki’s disappearance and the working-over I’d gotten from the Sisters were very likely related in some way. Nikki was their pet. It made some sort of sense, but not to me, not yet. All right, I thought, it looked as if I was going to have to come across with Abdoulaye’s money, and wring it out of Nikki when I caught up with her. “Listen, Hassan,” I said, wetting my swollen split lips, “I can give you