by Jeff Noon
“There’s no button,” he drawled.
“What do you want, mister? A prize?”
He pressed the button marked with the number one, and the doors slid to and the car started to descend.
“We’ll walk down from the first floor,” he said.
“Sure, we can do that.”
“What happened to the ground floor button?”
Zelda shrugged. “How would I know? Maybe some kids stole it?”
“Or maybe…”
“What?”
“There is no ground floor.”
Zelda shook her head at this. “Nyquist, you’re really suffering.”
“The building doesn’t want us to leave. It was calling to us.”
“Oh God, don’t say that! What is wrong with you?” She laughed nervously. “I don’t want to think about such things.”
The car reached the next floor down and stopped, and the panel light remained fixed on the number three. It blinked on and off. Zelda stared at the doors, expecting them to slide open and someone to enter, scared it might be one or all of the gang who had chased them down the stairs. But the doors remained closed. The car was stationary.
She looked at her companion. Nyquist’s eyes were closed and his body lolled against the wall. He was trembling. Quietly she said, “It’s just the people downstairs, or upstairs, or in the adjacent apartments.”
His eyes opened. He didn’t understand.
“The voices we heard, in that bedroom. It’s just people talking in the other apartments and the voices travel through the walls, or the pipes.”
“You think so.”
“That’s what I think.”
“You said the place was abandoned.”
“I told you, a few people live here. I mean, we met that man in the corridor, didn’t we, with the cat?”
Nyquist glared at her. “You’re trying to make me feel better, is that it?”
She shrugged and looked away and said, “Is that the thanks I get?”
“Whoever it was, living or dead, they said my name. Our names! They know we’re here.”
“I think…”
He waited for her explanation. She didn’t have one.
“I think we misheard. We were confused, the gin made us tipsy.”
“Both of us?”
“Oh, don’t get all uppity. I’m just positing a suggestion.”
“Positing?”
“Is that too fancy a word for you?”
Zelda looked defiant and she pressed at the first floor button a few times, hoping to get the elevator moving, or for the door to open. Neither happened.
“I’m getting hot.” She wafted frantically at her face with a hand. “Did I tell you I was claustrophobic? No? Well I am. And there’s another nice word for you. Four syllables.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Why aren’t we moving?”
“I don’t know.” She pressed a few more buttons at random. “We’re stuck.”
Nyquist wiped at his brow with the back of a hand.
Zelda tried a smile. “Well this is a state of affairs, I must say.”
He didn’t respond. They both fell into silence, each pressed up against opposite sides of the elevator. Zelda fidgeted with her bag. “How long will we be here?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
She looked around at the confines of the elevator car, shook her head sadly, and then said, “Can you imagine, as a teenage girl I dreamed of writing, of telling stories that everyone would fall in love with. I’d write my own adventure story and make myself the heroine.” She sighed heavily. “And now look at me.”
“You’re not so bad.”
“Is that the best you can do? Not so bad?” Zelda grimaced. “I’m plying cheap fantasies to two-bit losers once or twice a night just to make them feel better about themselves, like they’re big strong men, or romantic heroes, or whatever else tickles them. Whatever makes them feel alive, for an hour or two.”
“You wrote your poems.”
“Oh sure. Poetry. Now there’s a way to get rich.”
The car started again with a jolt, and the elevator descended.
“Thank God.” She smiled broadly. “My grandma told me: once a story’s started, there’s no escaping it. Not until it’s done. Not until the very last word is told.”
The car stopped a second time.
Zelda groaned. “We should’ve taken the stairs.”
“What floor are we on?”
“I think we’re between floors.”
Nyquist made a noise, a murmur.
“Are you all right?”
He didn’t answer. He was staring at the wall before him, his eyes narrowed. Zelda reached for him, worried, but he pushed her away and continued to stare ahead, and a word, a cry, caught in his throat.
“What is it?”
He spoke in a rush. “I don’t know where I am. I don’t know which story I’m in.”
“Yours and mine, of course.”
Her answer did little good and he started to shudder. Zelda had seen this happen a few times before, this sudden fear that took people over, when they felt the city’s stories overwhelming them, strangling them.
“Nyquist. It’s all right, I’m here. I’m here for you.”
He shook in her hands and a line of spittle overflowed his lips. He cried out, “I’ve got no story. No story!” The car jerked and started once more to descend. The sudden movement set him off worse than ever and he cowered as though the four walls and the floor and ceiling were all closing in.
“This is the story,” Zelda insisted. “Our story. Yours and mine, intermingling.” She bent down with him and held on tight and said the words over and over: “Our story, in this moment. Zelda and Nyquist. Two adventurers. Our story!” And at last he started to calm down and his body rested in her arms. Slowly, he came back upright.
The car stopped and the doors opened.
“We’re here,” she said. “The first floor.”
The man looked back at them from the corridor.
There was a moment when neither party recognized the other. And then Nyquist was jolted back to life, to full attention, as his body took over in an instinctive movement. His fist banged on the button panels, hitting them at random, willing the doors to close in time.
The man outside stuck his foot between the closing shutters. He was a big guy, at least half a foot taller than Nyquist and built wide and heavy. He moved slowly, but his weight was enough to cause damage, as he barreled into the elevator car. Nyquist was taken off guard. His opponent pummeled him with a red raw fist, a blow that drove Nyquist further into the elevator. The back of his skull connected with the rear wall. There was a moment of darkness and then he was sliding down the wall to the floor. He heard Zelda crying out: she seemed to be a very long way away, in another time, another place. And then the man was at him again, his fist raised to inflict further damage. Nyquist was in the worst position: he could hardly move, the space was too small and his opponent took up too much of it. The air was flashing with colors and sparks. He was blacking out, he was going under. Zelda was there with him now, down at his side, she was screaming up at the man, yelling at him to stop, but he didn’t stop, he simply grabbed her and threw her against the other wall and then he bent down and held Nyquist by the throat and lifted him up, almost lifting him off the floor, it was so easy a task. Nyquist felt blood dripping down into his eyes, half-blinding him. The man stared at him, teeth glinting, breath foul and his eyes narrowed almost to slits. He dragged Nyquist from the elevator and into the corridor. Zelda stumbled after them both. There were voices coming from further down the corridor and she looked that way to see the other two pursuers, the man and the woman approaching.
Zelda stood her ground and cried at them to stay away and to leave Nyquist alone. No one listened to her, nobody cared.
Nyquist was down on the floor. Sideways on he saw Zelda being dragged away by the other man, the woman helping him. Down the long, eve
r-distancing tunnel of his dwindling vision they disappeared, Zelda screaming out at him in silence, complete silence, her mouth wide open but empty of all noise, her eyes filled with anger and despair. Nyquist cursed the words of the world that had brought him here, a helpless case. The big man hit him again on the side of the head and now he could feel the carpet fibers in his mouth, the taste choking him. One last time he called out for Zelda. His hands scrabbled for purchase, but nothing would hold, nothing, nothing at all, the world was slipping away and he was sliding down the incline of his own consciousness as it tipped and tilted crazily. His nails dug into the flesh of his attacker, hung on, but they were ripped away easily. He was being pulled away from everything that was good in life, all light, all warmth, all peace, all love.
All dreams.
Every last dream.
Crooked Man Blues
SHE WAS a stranger, haloed by lamplight.
“He’s waking up.”
An unseen man responded to the woman: “So he is, Amber.”
Nyquist forced his eyes open fully.
The woman’s hair was jet black and shiny with ringlets on each side, and her skin was doll-white except for the eyes and lips which were painted as dark as her hair. From the look of her, Nyquist felt he might be in a cabaret bar, some place in the post-war years, a dive. The music he could hear – a barrelhouse blues from an out of tune piano – only added to this atmosphere.
He sat up, groaning in pain.
He couldn’t move freely, his hands were tied at the wrists with twine.
The unseen man continued: “But he looks terrible, don’t you think? A pile of flesh and blood and nothing much else.”
This character now loomed into sight, a thin guy dressed in a double-breasted pinstripe suit, a dark blue shirt and a purple tie with a large knot. He smoked a cigarette with delicate ease and gazed at the fingernails of his other hand, searching for dirt, no doubt.
Nyquist tried to speak, to ask about Zelda, but managed only another groan.
The thin man sauntered over. “Don’t exert yourself, Mr Nyquist. Not yet.”
It was a threat.
“My name is Vito. And this is Amber.” The woman smiled with her black lips. “And this is Lionel. Well, you’ve met him already, I think.” Vito smiled with the least possible movement of his facial muscles.
Lionel grunted. He was the big number who had attacked Nyquist in the elevator. His current victim was an upright piano which he pounded with his giant fists, punishing it for some previous misdemeanor, the splayed fingers often hitting two or even three notes at the same time: so it wasn’t the instrument that was out of tune, it was the man’s hands.
“Igor Stravinsky would have loved it, don’t you think?” said Vito. “Oh surely it would’ve caused a riot in Paris.”
Now the blues gave way to a ragtime tune that rattled like a skeleton in chains. Amber started to dance to the rhythm, her lithe body made even more feminine by the man’s suit she was wearing. The pearls around her neck swayed in time to the manic beat. Vito watched dancer and piano player with utter disdain in his eyes. His glossy gelatined hair shone under the light. “Such brazen show-offs.” Vito’s voice was cultured, dripping with decades of privilege; somehow or other, he had fallen on hard times.
He was dangerous.
Nyquist wiped at his face, as best he could with his hands tied together. He could feel the dried blood on the side of his head. The music sounded like a crazed funeral march in his skull, calling him to an early grave. He wasn’t ready for such a journey, not quite yet, but the slightest movement made him feel dizzy.
At last he managed to speak. “Where’s Zelda?”
Vito tilted his head to one side like an amused bird of prey. “Your lady friend, the drunken whore?”
“Where is she?”
“Of course, you’re concerned.” Vito smiled and turned to his companions. “Amber, why don’t you bring in our other guest.”
She nodded and left the room.
“Now, don’t worry,” Vito continued. “Zelda’s been well taken care of.”
Nyquist felt his anger biting. He got to his feet and stepped forward, his bound hands clenched into fists and raised up together like a club, ready to strike.
“Steady on, old boy. You’ll do yourself an injury.”
The room seemed to melt a little. “What have you done to me?”
“A little precaution.”
He’d been drugged, that was it. A narcotic of some kind. His veins were heavy with it, his bones also, and his skin was another man’s skin that he was living inside for the time being. He sat down again and rested his head on his hands. And when he closed his eyes all he could see was the dead man rising up before him. Patrick Wellborn. He could barely think a single clear thought without it threatening to overpower him.
Amber came back into the room, leading Zelda by the arm. Nyquist looked on as his newfound friend let herself be guided. She shuffled along with her body drooped forward and her head bowed down almost to her chest. Her once-long blonde hair had been chopped at quite roughly with a pair of scissors, so that chunks of it were missing.
“Zelda?”
She made no response to his call, not at first.
“Zelda? What have they done to you?”
Lionel started to play a dramatic melody, something that might accompany a silent movie. He was a real joker.
Now Zelda looked up and Nyquist drew in his breath at what he saw. Her face was bruised in different places, one of the wounds so bad that blood was still wet and pulpy on her skin. Her eyes, when they finally alighted on Nyquist, seemed utterly bereft of life. He got to his feet once more and looked deeply at her, willing at least a spark to be present. But there was only dimness, only a soft unfocused gaze that soon enough drifted away from him, without any proper recognition.
“Why have you done this?”
Vito answered simply: “I might ask the same, actually. I’m presuming it was you who attacked Patrick Wellborn? You beat him to death, from the looks of his injuries.”
Nyquist took a step forward, trying to spit out an expletive. But his response was cut off halfway through the word. He felt dizzy. The music stopped suddenly. Lionel had raised his bulk from the piano, and he and Amber and Vito were all standing there looking at Nyquist. What were they looking at? He couldn’t work it out. Through a yellow haze he saw Zelda collapse to the floor.
In sympathy, he sat down himself, back onto the seat.
“Will he be all right?” Amber asked. “He looks dreadful.”
“I’m sure,” Vito said to her.
“He’d better be,” said Lionel. “We don’t want any trouble, not when Mr Dreylock wakes up.”
“There won’t be any trouble,” announced Vito. “Believe me.” He was the leader of this little triangle, but even he was looking worried now.
And still Nyquist couldn’t work out why. And then he threw up. His whole body was bent over, heaving and vomiting, right on the carpet.
Amber laughed at him. Vito sneered with disgust. Lionel hopped from one foot to the other, while running the palm of one hand over his silvery crew-cut.
“Clean that up,” Vito said.
Lionel puffed out his barrel chest. “Me? Why me?”
“Because you put him in this state.”
“I only hit him. You slipped him the Mickey Finn.”
Amber chimed in, protecting Lionel: “Vito, don’t be a bully. Leave him alone.”
“Clean it!”
The edge in Vito’s voice acted on Lionel like a trainer’s whip. The big man made his way to the door of the room, moaning as he went.
Nyquist felt terrible; he wiped at the vomit on his lips with his bound hands and wished for better times, if he could only find a way out of this state. He scanned the room, seeking a means of escape. It was a large apartment, far more lavish than any he had been in as yet, furnished well in the art deco style. His sight moved to the large window, through which he
could see the night sky. He was high up in the tower block, somewhere near the top floor, a luxury suite. Only the old piano seemed out of place; it looked like an instrument salvaged from a public house, or a brothel. Vito stood near the door. Nyquist was caught here, and the drug was holding him back from action.
He looked down at Zelda, where she lay curled up on the floor, softly moaning to herself, and his head cleared a little, seeing this. Her remembered her face as it was before, and her hair, and the beautiful lines around her eyes. That smile. Her spirit. The short time they’d spent together, close, touching, an hour or so, if that. Two lonely people reaching out to each other, in the cold, in the night, that was all it was. Yet it seemed to mean so much more to him, the moments freighted with poetry. Those lines she had recited, he tried to recall them. A man and a woman in silence. Walking alone, one word spoken between them, one word written. No. No, he was getting it wrong. Oh damn. He would have to ask her, that was it, when all this was over and they were safe, he would get her to recite the poem again, just for him. And the thought of this future event gave him hope, a way forward.
Lionel came back into the room carrying a mop and bucket. He started to clean the floor around Nyquist’s feet, slopping suds into the carpet. This close up, the scabs and blisters were visible on the big man’s knuckles, wrapped tight around the handle of the mop. Amber looked on with a look of concern in her eyes. Vito was already bored, he had retreated to the table where he sat quietly, reading a newspaper while idly spooning chunks of corned beef direct from the tin to his mouth. Nyquist’s only chance now was to wait, willing his blood to clear itself of the drug, and his mind to settle.
A sudden noise startled him, the sound of a bell coming from another room.
Everyone stopped what they were doing.
Lionel held the mop in mid-stroke, water dripping from it. Vito frowned and folded his newspaper in two. Amber stood to attention, her entire being focused on the sound. No one spoke. The ringing sound continued, this time followed by a man’s voice screaming.
“Amber! Amber, I need you! I need help.”
Immediately the woman responded. She left the room and hurried down the corridor.