Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

  It was Nina and Willi, of course. They were not in trouble. I remember how pale Nina’s thighs and Willi’s thrusting flanks were in the dim light filtering through the maroon drapes. I stood there for a full minute, watching, before turning and silently leaving the suite. During that long minute, Willi’s face remained turned away, hidden in Nina’s shoulder and the eiderdown pillow, but Nina turned her face and clear blue eyes toward me almost at once. I am sure she saw me. She did not stop, however, nor did she cease the rhythmic grunt of animal sounds that came from her open, pink, and perfect mouth.

  By mid-March I decided that it was time to leave the hospital and Philadelphia and go home.

  I had Howard Warden take care of the details of moving. Even with his savings, however, Howard could scrape together only about $2,500. The man would never have amounted to anything. Nancy, on the other hand, closed out the savings account started from her mother’s estate and it came to a comfortable $48,000. It had been put aside for the children’s college expenses, but that was no longer a concern now.

  I had had Dr. Hartman visit the castle. Howard and Nancy waited in their rooms while the doctor visited the girls’ bedroom with his two syringes. Afterward, the doctor took care of the details. I had remembered a pleasant little clearing in the forest of Fairmont Park a mile toward the railroad bridge. In the morning, Howard and Nancy fed five-year-old Justin and— due to the strength of my conditioning— noticed nothing unusual except for an occasional flash of recognition not too dissimilar from those dreams where one suddenly realizes that he or she has forgotten to dress and is sitting naked in school or some other public place.

  These passed. Howard and Nancy adjusted nicely to having only one child and I was pleased that I had decided not to Use Howard in the necessary actions. Conditioning is always easier and more successful if there is no vestigial trauma or resentment.

  The wedding of Dr. Hartman and Head Nurse Oldsmith was a small affair, officiated by a Philadelphia justice of the peace and witnessed only by Nurse Sewell, Howard, Nancy, and Justin. I thought that they were a good-looking couple, although some say that Nurse Oldsmith has a harsh and humorless face.

  When the move was set, Dr. Hartman contributed to the collective fund. It took him awhile to sell certain stocks and real estate interests, as well as to get rid of that absurd new Porsche he so prized, but when trusts were set aside to continue alimony to his two ex-wives, he was still able to bring $185,600 to our venture. Considering that Dr. Hartman would, in effect, be entering early retirement, it was enough for basic expenses during the immediate future.

  It did not, however, offer enough to settle the problem of purchasing either my old home or the Hodges’ place. I no longer had any interest in allowing strangers to live across the courtyard from me. Foolishly, the Wardens had taken out no life insurance on their children. Howard retained a $10,000 policy on his own life, but this was laughable in light of real estate prices in Charleston.

  In the end it was Dr. Hartman’s mother, eighty-two, in perfect health, and living in Palm Springs, whose estate offered the best solution. It was on Ash Wednesday the doctor was in surgery when the word came about his mother’s sudden embolism. He flew to the West Coast that same afternoon. The funeral was on Saturday, March 7, and because there were several legal details to settle, he did not fly home until Wednesday, the eleventh. I saw no reason why Howard should not return on the same flight. The initial cash settlement of the estate came to a little over $400,000. We moved south a week later, on St. Patrick’s Day.

  There were a few final details to take care of before we left the north. I was comfortable with my little family— Howard, Nancy, and young Justin, as well as with our future neighbors, Dr. Hartman, Nurse Oldsmith, and Miss Sewell, but I felt that a certain security aspect was missing. The doctor was a small man, five feet five and thin, and while Howard was substantial in height and girth, he was as slow moving as he had been slow thinking and much of his weight had gone to fat. We needed one or two more members of our group to help me feel more secure.

  Howard brought Culley into the hospital on the weekend before we left. He was a giant of a man, at least six-feet-five, weighing at least 280 pounds, all of it that was visible compacted into slabs of muscle. Culley was dim-witted, almost unable to speak coherently, but as quick and nimble on his feet as a jungle cat. Howard explained that Culley had been an assistant foreman in Park Grounds Maintenance before being sent away for manslaughter seven years earlier. He had returned the year before to work on the lowest, toughest level of Maintenance— clearing stumps, tearing down old structures, paving asphalt trails and lanes, clearing snow. Culley had worked without complaint and was no longer on parole.

  Culley’s head tapered from its broadest point at juncture of jaw and neck to its narrowest at the crest of an almost pointed skull stubbled with a crew cut so short and rough it looked as if it had been administered by a blind sadist of a barber.

  Howard had told Culley that there was a unique employment opportunity open to him, although he had used simpler words. Bringing him to the hospital had been my idea.

  “This will be your boss,” Howard said, gesturing to the bed that held my husk of a body. “You will serve her, protect her, give your life for her if you must.”

  Culley made a sound like a cat clearing its throat. “That old bag still alive?” he said. “She looks dead to me.”

  I entered him then. There was little in that pinched skull except basic motivations— hunger, thirst, fear, pride, hate, and an urge to please based on a vague sense of wanting to belong, to be loved. It was that final need that I enlarged upon, built upon. Culley sat in my room for eighteen consecutive hours. When he left to help Howard with the packing and other trip preparations, there was nothing of the original Culley left except his size, strength, quickness, and need to please. To please me.

  I never found out whether Culley was his first or last name.

  When I was young I had a weakness whenever I traveled; I could not resist picking up souvenirs. Even in Vienna with Willi and Nina, my compulsive souvenir shopping soon became a source of humor for my companions. Now it had been some years since I had traveled, but my weakness for souvenirs had not totally disappeared.

  On the evening of March 16, I had Howard and Culley drive to Germantown. Those sad streets were like the landscape of a half-remembered dream to me. I believe Howard would have been nervous in that Negro section— in spite of his conditioning— if it had not been for the reassuring presence of Culley.

  I knew what I wanted; I remembered his first name and description but nothing else. The first four youngsters Howard approached either refused to respond or did so in colorful epithets, but the fifth one, a scruffy ten-year-old wearing only a ragged sweatshirt despite the freezing weather, said, “Yeah, man, you talking about Marvin Gayle. He just got out of jail, man, for citin’ riot or some shit. What you want with Marvin?”

  Howard and Culley elicited directions to his house without answering that question. Marvin Gayle lived on the second floor of a rotting, shingled town house shoe-horned in between two overhanging tenements. A little boy opened the door and Culley and Howard stepped into a living room with a sagging couch covered with a pink spread, an ancient tele vision where a green-skinned game show host blared enthusiasm, peeling walls with a few religious prints and a photograph of Robert Kennedy, and a teenage girl lying on her stomach staring up vacuously at the visitors.

  A large black woman came in from the kitchen, drying her hands on a checked apron. “What do you two want?”

  “We’d like to talk to your son, ma’am,” said Howard. “What about?” demanded the woman. “You’re not the police. Marvin hasn’t done anything. You leave my boy alone.”

  “No, ma’am,” said Howard unctuously, “it’s nothing like that. We just want to offer Marvin a job.”

  “A job?” The woman looked suspiciously at Culley and then back to Howard. “What kind of job?”

  “It’s
all right, Ma.” Marvin Gayle stood in the door to the inside hallway, dressed in nothing but an old pair of shorts and an oversize T-shirt. His face was slack and his eyes were vague, as if he had just awakened.

  “Marvin, you don’t have to talk to these people if . . .”

  “It’s all right, Ma.” He stared at her with that dead face until she looked down and then he turned the gaze on Howard. “What you want, man?”

  “Can we talk outside?” asked Howard.

  Marvin shrugged and followed us outside despite the darkness and freezing wind. The door closed on the mother’s protests. He stared up at Culley and then stepped closer to Howard. There was the slightest flicker of animation in his eyes, as if he knew what was coming and almost welcomed it.

  “We’re offering you a new life,” whispered Howard. “A whole new life . . .”

  Marvin Gayle started to speak then, but from ten miles away I pushed and the colored boy’s mouth fell slack and he did not finish the first word. Technically speaking, I had Used this boy before, briefly, in those last, mad minutes before I bid adieu to Grumble thorpe, and that might have made the feat the slightest bit easier. But that did not really matter. I never would have been able to do what I did that evening before my illness. Working through the filter of Howard Warden’s perceptions, while simultaneously controlling Culley, my doctor, and half a dozen other conditioned catspaws in as many differing locations, I was still able to project my force of will so powerfully that the colored boy gasped, staggered backward, stared blankly, and awaited my first command. His eyes no longer looked drugged and defeated; they now reflected the bright, transparent stare of the terminally brain damaged.

  What ever had been the sad total of Marvin Gayle’s life, thoughts, memories, and pitiful aspirations was gone forever. I had never done this type of total conditioning in a single blow before, and for a long minute my almost forgotten body twitched in the vice of total paralysis on the hospital bed while Nurse Sewell massaged me.

  The receptacle that had been Marvin Gayle waited quietly in the freezing wind and darkness.

  I finally spoke through Culley, not needing the verbal command but wanting to hear it through Howard’s awareness. “Go get dressed,” he said, “give your mother this. Tell her it is an advance on salary.” Culley handed the young Negro a hundred dollar bill.

  Marvin disappeared into the house and came out three minutes later. He was wearing only jeans, a sweater, sneakers, and a black leather jacket. He brought no luggage. That is as I wished; we would prepare an appropriate wardrobe for him when we moved.

  In all my years of growing up, I do not remember a time when we did not have colored servants. It seemed appropriate upon my return to Charleston that this again be the case.

  I could not leave Philadelphia without bringing home a souvenir.

  The convoy of trucks, two sedans, and the rented van with my bed and medical apparatus made the drive down in three days. Howard had gone ahead in the family Volvo, which Justin called the “Blue Oval,” to make final arrangements, air the house out, and prepare the way for my home-coming.

  We arrived long after dark. Culley carried me upstairs, with Dr. Hartman attending and Nurse Oldsmith walking alongside with the intravenous bottle.

  My bedroom glowed in the lamplight, the comforter was turned down, the sheets were clean and fresh, the dark wood of the bed, bureau, and wardrobe smelled of lemon polish, and my hairbrushes lay in a perfect row on my dressing table.

  We all wept. Tears coursed down Culley’s cheeks as he set me tenderly, almost reverently in the long bed. The smell of palmetto fronds and mimosa came through the slightly opened window.

  Equipment was brought in and set up. It was odd to see the green glow of an oscilloscope in my familiar bedroom. For a minute everyone was there— Dr. Hartman and his new wife, Nurse Oldsmith, performing their final medical tasks, Howard and Nancy with little Justin between them as if they were posing for a family photograph, young Nurse Sewell smiling at me from near the window, and near the door, Culley standing there filling the doorway, looking no less massive for his white orderly’s uniform, and just visible in the hallway, Marvin dressed in formal tails and tie, white gloves on his well-scrubbed hands.

  There was a small problem that Howard had encountered with Mrs. Hodges; she was willing to rent the house next door, but she did not want to sell. That was unacceptable to me.

  But I would deal with that in the morning. For the time being I was home— home—and surrounded by my loving family. For the first time in weeks I would really sleep. There were bound to be small problems— Mrs. Hodges was one— but I would deal with those tomorrow. Tomorrow was another day.

  THIRTY-NINE

  35,000 feet over Nevada Sunday,

  April 4, 1981

  Play it again, Richard,” said C. Arnold Barent.

  The cabin of the customized Boeing 747 grew dark and once again the images danced on the large video screen: The president turned toward a shouted question, raised his left hand to wave, and grimaced. There were shouts, confusion. A Secret Ser vice agent leaped forward and seemed to be lifted onto his toes by an invisible wire. The shots sounded small and insubstantial. An Uzi submachine gun appeared in another agent’s hand as if by magic. Several men scuffled a young man to the ground. The camera shifted, and swung to a fallen man with blood on his bald head. A policeman lay facedown. The agent with the Uzi crouched and snapped orders like a traffic cop while others struggled with the suspect. The president had been pushed forward into his limousine by a surge of agents and now the long black car accelerated away from the curb, leaving confusion and crowd noise behind.

  “All right, freeze it there, Richard,” said Barent. The image of the receding limousine stayed on the screen while the cabin lights came back up. “Gentlemen?” said Barent.

  Tony Harod blinked and looked around. C. Arnold Barent sat on the edge of his large curved desk. Telephone and computer extensions gleamed behind him. It was dark outside the cabin windows and the noise of the jet engines was muffled by the teak finish of the cabin’s interior. Joseph Kepler sat across the circle from Barent. Kepler’s gray suit looked freshly pressed, his black shoes gleamed. Harod looked at the craggy-handsome face and decided that Kepler looked a lot like Charlton Heston and that they were both assholes. Slumped in a chair near Barent, the Reverend Jimmy Wayne Sutter folded his hands across his ample stomach. His long, white hair gleamed in the glow of the overhead recessed lights. The only other person in the room was Barent’s new assistant, Richard Haines. Maria Chen and the others sat waiting in the forward cabin.

  “It looks to me.” said Jimmy Wayne Sutter, his pulpit-trained voice rolling and rising, “that someone tried to kill our beloved president.”

  Barent’s mouth twitched. “That much is obvious. But why would Willi Borden take that risk? And was Reagan the target, or was I?”

  “I didn’t see you in the clip,” said Harod.

  Barent glanced toward the producer. “I was fifteen feet behind the president, Tony. I had just come out the side door of the Hilton when we heard the shots. Richard and my other security people quickly moved me back into the building.”

  “I still can’t believe that Willi Borden had anything to do with this,” said Kepler. “We know more now than we did last week. The Hinckley kid had a long record of mental problems. He kept a journal. The whole thing hinged on an obsession he’s had with Jodie Foster, for Christ’s sake. It just doesn’t fit the profile at all. The old man could have used one of Reagan’s own Secret Ser vice agents or a Washington cop like the one who got shot. Also, the kraut’s an old Wehrmacht officer, right? He would have known enough to use something more solid than a .22 caliber popgun!”

  “Loaded with explosive bullets,” Barent reminded him. “It’s only an accident that they did not explode.”

  “It’s only an accident that the one bullet ricocheted off the car door and got Reagan,” said Kepler. “If Willi had been involved, he could have w
aited until you and the president were comfortably seated and then had the agent with the Uzi or the Mac-10 or what ever it was hose you down with no risk of failure.”

  “A comforting thought,” Barent said dryly. “Jimmy, what do you think?” Sutter mopped his brow with a silk handkerchief and shrugged. “Joseph has a point, Brother C. The boy is a certified loonie-tunes. It seems like an absurd amount of effort to create that much of a background story and then miss.”

  “He didn’t miss,” Barent said softly. “The president was shot in the left lung.”

  “I mean miss you,” said Sutter with a wide smile. “After all, what’s our producer friend got against poor old Ronnie? They’re both products of Hollywood.”

  Harod wondered if Barent would ask his opinion. It was, after all, his first appearance as a member of the Island Club Steering Committee.

  “Tony?” said Barent. “I don’t know,” said Harod. “I just don’t know.”

  Barent nodded at Richard Haines. “Perhaps this will help us in our deliberations,” said Barent. The lights went down and the screen showed leader and jerky, grainy eight-millimeter film that had been transferred to videotape. There were random crowd scenes. Several police cars and a cavalcade of limousines and Secret Ser vice vehicles swept by. Harod realized that he was watching the arrival of the president at the Washington Hilton.

  “We found and confiscated as much private still and home movie film as we could,” said Barent.

  “Who is ‘we’?” asked Kepler.

  Barent raised one eyebrow. “Even though Charles’s untimely death was a great loss, Joseph, we still have some contacts within certain agencies. Here, this is the part.”