The Devil in Silver

Did they give you one free phone call in mental hospitals, like in jail? That was all he needed to start correcting things.

Tomorrow he’d call Mari.

Around a quarter to four in the morning, Pepper opened his eyes.

He might’ve been a workingman but he wasn’t this early a riser. Not naturally. But there he found himself, back to the room, facing the two large windows above his head, seeing the deep night fade into a faint purple dawn through the thin curtains.

Awake. Why?

Because somebody was jabbing him in the small of his back.

As groggy as Pepper was, he remembered the incident from seven hours earlier, when he’d yoked that old woman. He couldn’t afford to risk something like that again. He wouldn’t be completely surprised if Dorry had a way of sneaking in here. Maybe she was after that tip. Maybe she had more tour-guide information to give. He turned his head slowly, expecting to see the old woman.

Instead he found a man’s face. So close to his own that Pepper could smell the man’s turkey dinner. A broad, round face. Smooth skin, and practically bald. Brown complexion, darker than Dr. Anand’s. Not an Indian guy, but a black guy. There was no other way to put this: the guy’s head looked like a malt ball.

Poking Pepper again, the guy said, “Let me get a quarter.”

He had a wide, flat face and a wide, flat nose and tiny little eyes set deep into his head. He was a grown-up but you could imagine what he’d looked like as a child. Almost exactly like now.

Pepper could feel this guy’s nail digging into him. He was more than aggravated by this. He was mildly disgusted.

“Come on, Joe,” the guy said. He spoke with an accent, the English slightly clipped, which didn’t really tell Pepper much. He might be from another country, but in this borough there were probably five hundred countries to choose from.

“You’re my fucking roommate.” Pepper didn’t state this as a question. More like someone who’s just realized he’d stepped in dog shit. He shut his eyes, turned his head back toward the windows, and pretended to fall back asleep. Maybe his roommate would give up. But this malt ball–headed bastard just moved his finger higher. Poking Pepper in the shoulder. Harder. Pepper turned to look at him.

“Let me get a quarter,” the man repeated.

This guy’s round face looked wet with desperation. His cheeks, his chin were shiny and moist, as if he’d been sweating. Or crying. Or both. He began stabbing at the back of Pepper’s exposed neck with a nail as thick as the edge of a flathead screwdriver.

It was all too much, finally.

Pepper rolled onto his back, to protect his neck, and so he could move on this man. But when he tried to pull an arm free from beneath the covers he found he couldn’t quite do it. Pepper had wrapped himself up in his own sheets, his head sticking out one end of the wrap, his feet dangling from the other.

The guy hunched over him with a puzzled look. He scanned the length of the bed, saw the trap Pepper had sprung on himself, and dropped his poking finger. He crab-walked backward two steps just to take this ridiculous sight in.

“You look like an enchilada,” he said quietly. “How you going to give me a quarter now?”

Pepper said, “I wasn’t going to give you any damn money. I was going to smack you in the head.”

The man nodded, the top of his round head catching the dawn light.

“Well, you won’t be doing that, either.”

Pepper shimmied in the tight sheet.

“Just give me a minute,” Pepper said.

And the man did. He crouched and watched Pepper move. When the minute was up, very little had changed. “Now what?” asked Pepper’s roommate.

Pepper lay there, still tangled, but refused to ask this guy for help. Then he’d have to give the man a quarter. He’d rather lie here and starve himself loose.

The roommate leaned forward. “There’s an important person I’m trying to reach.” He looked over his shoulder, at the door to their room. “A man in the government.”

Pepper let out a long, slow sigh. Of course. Weren’t crazy people always trying to contact someone important? A man in the government. The Queen of Mars. The Knights Templar.

Pepper laughed to himself and relaxed and the sheets seemed to slip right off him.

“Patients are allowed to make phone calls?” Pepper asked.

“But it’s not free, Joe. You have to pay for the call.”

“That’s why you want a quarter.”

“Yes.”

“In the middle of the night.”

The man shook his head. “I want a quarter all the time.”

Okay then. Bonkers or not, the man had helped Pepper a little bit. Patients could make phone calls. Pepper had money—bills in his wallet and coins in his pocket. He wouldn’t call Mari this early, but it was good knowing that he could. He reached down into his pocket and felt the handful of coins waiting there, jingling a little.

“That’s it,” the man whispered. “Yes, yes, I hear the good news.”

Pepper found the coin he wanted to give, held out his hand, his fingers closed around the quarter. The man grinned.