Pigeon Blood

  **********

  The next thing Blair knew, he could see himself stretched out across the bed in the dorm room. There was an empty can of beer beside him, so he picked it up and tossed it out of his way. The can gave sharp protest against the brown-tiled floor.

  Getting up slowly, Blair’s head pounded like the steel wheels of a train do against an unforgiving track. He put his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. On the floor at his feet was Vinnie’s body; he looked as if he’d been dead for hours. His pinpoint pupils were facing the ceiling and glazed over like a couple of doughnuts.

  Blair stared at Vinnie, nudging him with a few of his toes. Vinnie’s thin lips were drawn back so tight that they were practically invisible; perhaps he’d died screaming. A thin line of dried blood marked his left cheek until it got lost in his bushy, red sideburns. It always amazed Blair how Vinnie could have sideburns so thick when his eyebrows were so sparse. Blair nudged him harder this time, pushing his body so much that a bottle of sleeping pills rolled away from him and settled about six inches away.

  “Come on, man,” Blair said, “this isn’t funny!”

  Getting up from the bed, Blair headed for the telephone mounted on the wall beside the door. As he stumbled along, he knocked over another empty beer bottle. Somehow he managed to dial 911. When the dispatcher got on the line, she sounded more upset than he did.

  “Help me! Pleeeeease!”

  “Ingrid?” Blair answered, opening his eyes again on realizing that what he was hearing wasn’t a dream.