Blind Sight (A Mallory Novel) by Carol O'Connell Page A

hidden from the passing cars. The brim of his cap was pulled low, and his eyes were going in all directions, everywhere but up.
    “Smell that air,” said Albert. “I think it might rain. . . . What’re you lookin’ for?”
    “Cameras. They’re everywhere these days.”
    “Yeah, it’s gettin’ so you can’t take a piss without somebody watchin’.” Albert raised his eyes to the high ironwork. “I don’t see no cameras.”
    The stranger was on him, grabbing him. Wait a blessed minute here! Gripped by arm and leg, Albert was lifted upward.
    Over the railing.
    God Almighty!
    He was in flight over night-black water.
    Falling, screaming, Albert pawed the air, working his legs, as if he could climb an air-stair back up to the bridge. Reason was flown. Life was everything. Life was all.
    He hit the water, landing hard, as if upon a bed of concrete. The pain . His legs. His back. Plunging down and down. Holding his breath. He would not give up his last bit of air. His arms flapped like wings. He flew up to the surface and filled his lungs. Blessed be.
    Albert expelled a gulp of air as a wave covered him and he was sucked under, inhaling water, his chest in the grip of a giant fist. Back to the surface, and there his coughing ripped his innards. Drowning was lung-tearing, nose-searing, godawful hurt. The water torture went on and on —until, exhausted, he sank below the black waves and hungthere. Motionless. Calm now, all the oxygen cut from his brain. Taking away the pain. No trace of him was left on the skin of the river. The last bubble from his mouth floated up and away to pop his final breath in the open air.
    —
    WATER ?
    Jonah Quill was slow to awaken in this dank room, sipping air fat with moisture. He could feel water all around him—taunting him. His throat was sore. His lips were cracked. One hand dropped to a cool stone floor. The other one touched down on a rubber surface, and he walked his fingers across it to find a wire that would plug an air pump into a wall socket. This was an inflatable mattress like the one his uncle dragged out for Jonah’s sleepovers with friends.
    The boy lay very still, listening to his own replay of an old soft-spoken reminder, his ritual for every awakening, Open your eyes. This had always been his aunt’s first command of the day. Not till he was in kindergarten did he think to wonder—what for? Why lift up his lids for eyes that could not see?
    “I’ll show you.” Aunt Angie had taken him up to Bloomingdale’s to run his hands over a department-store manikin. A saleslady had lain one down for him, so he could reach and touch the lids of open plastic eyes, and the saleslady had told him it looked nothing like a living person.“But shoppers feel the dummies watching them, and they don’t steal so much. We call it the spook effect.”
    And then Aunt Angie had said, “Open eyes, even blind eyes are useful . . . because you might be watching them, all those strangers out there with eyes that can see.”
    This was a gift she had given him, one that had increased him by guile, but it was not so useful now, not here. Still, he opened his eyes—for her.
    The boy rose from the mattress, and it took some effort to stand upon cramped legs. He was nauseated, and his stomach hurt. Jonah kicked off one sneaker and, by light touch of toes, looked for obstacles in his path. His big toe hit cold metal, and he ran his hands over the stacked appliances, identifying the clothes dryer by its round door and inside drum. The object beside it was lower to the ground, smooth and—
    A laundry room with a toilet?
    Jonah was tempted to drink the smelly water in the bowl, but then his elbow hit something taller, and his hands found—what? Rough outside, smooth inside, a hole. A drain? A sink! A big one! His fingers traveled along the edge to find the faucet taps, and he turned on the water. Cupping his hands, he drank from a stream of cold, clean liquid.
    All the while, he gave thanks