The Chameleon Fallacy (Big Bamboo Book 2)

by Norwood, Shane

  He drew the curtains and sat back, drinking from the bottle and enjoying the gentle rocking of the train and the soporific clatter of the wheels on the tracks, and he began to feel as if he were in a giant womb, the womb of the world, and the earth mother had clasped him in her bounteous arms and everything was going to be fine, and he would sleep in Elysium and wake up in Saint Petersburg, and who knew where he would be next week, and what difference did it make, because when you have all that money one place is pretty much like another and you can have anything that you want. He fell asleep with that beautiful thought in his mind, and was surprised and annoyed when someone shook him roughly by the shoulder and woke him up, because he had paid that lying commie son-of-a-bitch porter to make sure that nobody bugged him, but he did not become truly alarmed until he looked up and saw that he, himself, was standing over him looking down at him.

  Monsoon was not the bravest soul on the planet, but he was entirely too old to be frightened by nightmares, and he told his image so, and he told his image to fuck off and leave him alone.

  The image assumed a thoughtful expression. “So you think I’m a dream. How interesting.”

  “Listen, pal, the only thing I’m interested in is going back to sleep. Beat it.”

  “But if you are not asleep, how can you be dreaming?”

  Monsoon had to admit that, for a figment of imagination, the image had a pretty good point. He decided to humor it. “So if you’re not a dream, what are you, ace?”

  “I’m you. For now, anyway.”

  “Full of shit is what you are.”

  “You really don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what, asshole?”

  “I’m not a dream. I’m the R3.”

  “Say what now?”

  “The R3. Remember what Hyatt told you? I evolve. I’m an idea. A state of mind. I’m here because you believe I’m here.”

  “But that’s where you’re fucking wrong, pal. I don’t believe that you are here.”

  “But you do. You just don’t think that you do. It’s the Chameleon Fallacy.”

  “Oh, here we go with that lizard shit again.”

  “Listen. Hyatt and Sebastian were talking out of their asses. Facts are not knowledge. The Chameleon Fallacy is the fallacy that knowledge exists in the first place. That reality is the same for everybody. It’s relative. Look up into the sky. What do you see? God? Jewels? Firefly farts? Immense balls of flaming gas incalculable distances away? Uncountable billions of atoms? Distant civilizations? Thirteen billion years of time? Look in your pants. What do you see? A dick and two balls, or conglomerations of protons and neutrons, a nothingness of improbably minuscule distances held together by quantum mechanics, with fucking quarks zipping through them? Looks like a dick, right? Feels like a dick, right? It isn’t a fucking king snake—must be a dick, then. That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “Dicks?”

  “No, asshole. Perception. The universe is different for every creature that lives in it and that has a mind. To a mind the truth is a flux. What is true today is not what will be true tomorrow or what was true yesterday. Belief. It’s a load of bollocks. It’s ideas buzzing around between synapses like mad bees in a honeycomb that keeps changing shape so the poor bastards can never get back to where they started from and it drives them nuts.”

  “Okay. So you seriously expect me to believe that this is not a dream. Then what happens if someone else walks in here right now? What do they see? Two of us?

  “How the fuck should I know?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you fucking tell me. I didn’t start this shit. I’m just here. For now, anyway.”

  “So what if I throw this fucking gizmo out of the window?”

  “It won’t make any difference. We are assimilated. The R3 which is me has absorbed your you-ness which is you.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “I dunno. Let me know how it works out.”

  Monsoon suddenly found himself alone.

  When he woke up, daylight was coming through the windows and someone was knocking at the door.

  As Monsoon sat at the heavy rustic table, after the conductor woke him and told him to change trains, enjoying a light breakfast of vodka and lukewarm weasel piss beer, and trying to avoid making eye contact with the waitress who was the approximate size and configuration of a fur seal and possessed of a similar odor, and who was giving him the come-on, he was surprised to hear his phone ring. He didn’t have a phone. He scrabbled in the bag where the noise was coming from and was further surprised to see the R3 glowing gently, and the name “Alphonso Nightingale” moving slowly across its surface like one of those old-fashioned Times Square advertisements.

  Shit, he thought, this gadget does more fucking tricks than Derek Flint’s lighter.

  Not having the remotest idea what or where to press, he just held the R3 to his mouth and spoke. “Hello?”

  “Hyatt. Hyatt. Is zat you?”

  “Er, yeah, yeah.”

  “Where are you, monsieur? Ze chauffeur ’as called. ’E ’ave say you ’ave not been on ze plane. Wat ze fuck is ’appening?”

  Monsoon had no way of knowing that the R3 was making his voice sound exactly like Hyatt’s, but he decided to wing it anyway.

  “Oh. Er. Yeah. Well, I, er, had a bit of a fall.”

  “Mon Dieu. Was zhere any damage?”

  “Oh, no. I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Not you, connard, ze device.”

  Monsoon had no idea what a connard was, but he could guess. “What do you think I’m speaking to you with, dipshit?”

  “Ah, bon. Zen we still ’ave ze deal, n’est-ce pas?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

  “So, ’ow soon can you be in Paris?”

  “France?”

  “Non, fuckeeng Texas. Of course France, you gogol.”

  Whoever this clown was, he was starting to get on Monsoon’s tits, and he was tempted to volunteer his opinion of facetious French fruits, but the sweet angel of pending fortune—bathed in the unmistakable perfume of moolah, butt-naked with dollar signs tattooed on her ass—alighted gently on his shoulder with a little golden tinkling sound, and advised him to resist the temptation.

  “Oh. Er, tomorrow, I reckon.”

  “Très bien. Ah ’ave reserved a room for you in ze Ritz. Go straight to ze ’otel. Mah peepuhl will rendezvous wiz you, and zen make ze transacksheen.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Good, er, great.”

  “Bon. Au revoir; à demain, mon ami.”

  Monsoon didn’t know whether you had to hang up R3s or not, so he just stashed the device back in the briefcase. As he did so, his train clanked into the station, and he climbed on. He found a seat at the back, and as the train pulled out, he gazed out at the bare trees and the stark gray buildings beyond, and began to ponder this latest turning of the worm.

  So. Fucking game on again. What it all came down to now was whether Hyatt had croaked or not. If he had, then all Monsoon had to do was get to Paris and convince this French faggot, who he didn’t know from Adam, that he was a white guy named Hyatt who was a scientific genius and spoke fluent Russian, do the deal, and then get the fuck out of Dodgeski before the truth came out.

  If Hyatt was still alive, he would either get there first, or not be far behind, and either way would have gotten straight on the phone to put the kibosh on the transaction. In that case he would have to play it fast and loose. But if possession is nine-tenths of the law, it’s ten-tenths of breaking it, and since Monsoon had all the goodies, that put him in a prime negotiation position. He would just have to burn that fucking bridge when he came to it.

  He doubted that Hyatt was greased. It had been a pretty decent shot to the noggin, but, unless Hyatt had an eggshell for a skull, not really hard enough to send him to the big research lab in the sky. And if he was, then he was a pretty good shot for a dead guy, because it sure as hell wasn’t Annie Oakley who put one through the pilot’s headphones.
Maybe if he had known what was at stake he would have slugged him harder, but he doubted that too. A lying, thieving, underhanded, opportunist shitbag he was, but a murderer he wasn’t, and he knew it. Did he wish Hyatt were dead? Not really. Even with all that was at stake, he knew he didn’t have the winter in his heart to think like that. Only guys like Baby Joe Young had the proper steel for those kinds of gigs. He wondered what had happened to that guy. Kinda weird the way he showed up in New Orleans like that.

  ***

  Thus far, the R3 was behaving as predicted by Hyatt and Sebastian, insofar as its behavior was entirely unpredictable. Which is why, when it received the call from Alphonso Nightingale, Hyatt received exactly the same call in real-time on his phone, but was unable to answer. Unlike Monsoon, Hyatt knew exactly who Alphonso Nightingale was. So all he had to do was make sure he got to Paris first, before Monsoon fucked things up, and have Low Roll and Hard D ventilate the little scallywag douchebag—after he had recovered the merchandise, of course. Calling Alphonso Nightingale and explaining that he had been cold-cocked with a religious effigy and suckered out of the goods by a lowlife nickel-and-dime grifter like Parker would not look good on his resume.

  But although Hyatt was pissed, and embarrassed, he wasn’t seriously concerned. It was really just an inconvenience. Parker had gotten lucky, and maybe Hyatt had underestimated him a little, but it wasn’t going to happen again. The real bad news was that he was going to have to fork out for a business class ticket for Hard D because his buffalo butt wouldn’t fit in coach. Besides, think of the poor bastard beside him. Hyatt could be a cold son of a bitch, but he wasn’t that cold.

  ***

  People invariably asked Alphonso Nightingale if he was related to Florence, and he invariably replied that he was. It was, of course, bullshit and a complete fabrication, as were most things related to Monsieur Nightingale. In fact, just about the only question he could have answered with any degree of honesty was whether he was an unprincipled, devious, lying motherfucker, in which case he could have answered in the affirmative with a clear conscience.

  Then again, baby Alph didn’t get much in the way of a start in life. He was descended from a family of collaborators who had changed sides more times than a fat guy in a bed full of breadcrumbs. His old man got bumped off around the same time that he was getting his ass smacked by the midwife, so he hadn’t gotten much in the way of parental guidance. His mother never told him anything about his old fella, and not much about herself either, other than that she was some kind of gypsy, so he grew up without any real sense of identity.

  Not many people can lay claim to having been an accomplished smuggler at age one, but Alphonso could. That was because his mother used to use him to smuggle stolen diamonds from Switzerland by shoving them up his ass. This went on for years until the unfortunate incident with the Rolex Oyster put a stop to it. His vision of motherly love and affection was forever colored by that accident, brown to be exact, and when he was ten he ran off with a circus, where he sold programs and dipped the customers on the side.

  One night he fucked up while trying to swipe the billfold of a top Unione Corse guy from Marseille. Of course, Alphonso didn’t know he was a top Unione Corse guy; he thought he was just another fat, greasy, garlic-smelling rustic with wine stains down the front of his shirt. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise, really, because the Unione Corse guy was so impressed by the way he stood up to the right good kicking they gave him that he offered to take Alphonso under his wing. For a vicious, gun-running drug smuggler, the UC guy proved to have decent avuncular instincts and was quite an amiable bloke, all things considered. And he was a diligent teacher. For example, he taught Alphonso how to shoot, throw a blade, fight like a shithouse rat in a blind alley, and walk in a convincing fashion with half a key of smack shoved up his ass in condoms. Well, at least it was a good deal more comfortable than Rolexes.

  That was how Alphonso Nightingale learned about who he really was and found out what had happened to his old man. Nightingale Senior had become an integral part of the opium/heroin trafficking deal that eventually became known as the French Connection, gathered a pile of Everest proportions, stool pigeoned like Kid Creole on a couple of characters, and, with the tacit approval of the Sûreté and the CIA, began making the transition to legitimate and sensationally wealthy businessman, before he ended up getting shot by Gene Hackman.

  It seemed a man named Gaston Delacroix benefitted from his old man’s demise, and took over the family business, lock, stock, and barrel full of brown-colored powder. After years of careful planning and scheming, Alphonso felt strong enough to make his move. Gaston Delacroix ended up with an eel living in his anal cavity, and the Nightingales sang once more in the Bois de Boulogne.

  Maybe Freud could explain it, and maybe it was as a consequence of his traumatic babyhood experiences, but Alphonso developed a lifelong fascination with jewels—diamonds in particular. He devoted a great deal of his time and energy to the accumulation of a fabulous collection of rocks, even going so far as to pay for them sometimes. Things were going just fine and dandy for a while, and he had all the trappings of the well-to-do French smack peddler: the yacht at Cannes, the apartment in Nice, the permanent suite in Monte Carlo, the original 78 wax recordings of Maurice Chevalier, the whole neuf yards.

  Then, out of nowhere, love walked in and sucker-punched him. A radiant and sexy woman claiming to be an Algerian refugee sought him out, saying she was being hunted by a renegade gang of former French Foreign Legionnaires in connection with something that had happened back in Africa, and that she needed protection and a new identity. Before very long they were lovers and old Alphonso was besotted. He doted upon her, gave her the best of everything, and even showed her his diamond stash. Shortly thereafter, love walked out of his life as abruptly as it had walked in, and his diamonds walked out right along with it.

  That derailed him for a while and things started to go from bad to worse, culminating an egregious piece of misjudgment, no doubt occasioned by grief and outrage, which resulted in him doing a two-stretch in Fleury-Mérogis. While he was in the slammer, he got ahold of a French translation of an American paperback thriller called Diamonds Aren’t For Everyone. It told the story of this Unione Corse guy who gets turned over by this radiant and sexy woman who claims to be an Algerian refugee, and…!

  ***

  The Italy-shaped pool of blood on Khuy Zalupa’s floor belonged, coincidentally, to an Italian. He was a Sicilian assassin by the name of Antonio Lo Vuolo. He was, prior to the abrupt termination of his employment, a very successful contract killer. His success was as much due to his appearance as to his skill or ruthlessness. You could not imagine anyone who looked less like a stone-faced killer. He was short, portly, and balding, and had enormous, wet, appealing puppy dog eyes that peered out of a round cherub face. His demeanor was gentle, his manner sociable and polite, and you would not suspect him of trying to ride the bus without paying his fare, never mind of wasting not less than forty souls in cold blood, in an often-gruesome manner.

  Lo Vuolo worked a lot out of Corsica, and became acquainted with Alphonso Nightingale during the old French Connection days. Apart from their professional relationship, Alphonso liked Antonio personally. He was a cheerful and willing character, always ready to bump somebody off at short notice, regardless of the inconvenience. Over time, he became Nightingale’s number-one man, the go-to guy when something beyond the ordinary, run-of-the-mill rubbing-out was required. A degree of trust developed between them. If you can’t trust your own friendly neighborhood hit man, then whom can you trust? That was why, when Alphonso Nightingale found out that Fanny Lemming was alive and well and living with some kind of Russian ogre in Moscow, and he needed someone to fly over there and straighten things out, there was only one guy he was going to turn to.

  Antonio Lo Vuolo didn’t normally like to hit women with his fist. It was because he wasn’t all that strong, and didn’t pack much of a punch, and it usually
resulted in the woman kicking the shit out of him. He therefore preferred to use a blunt object. But then, that required finesse. Unless of course you just intended to kill the bitch outright, right off the bat, then it didn’t really matter, but if you wanted her alive for interrogation purposes, you had to be careful. And Mr. Nightingale had been quite explicit in his instructions. No irreparable brain injury or irreversible hemorrhaging was to be inflicted upon Ms. Lemming until she had revealed the whereabouts of the diamonds.

  Antonio had found the solution in his Italian heritage. The best thing to use in such cases was, undoubtedly, a large zucchini. It was heavy enough for an incapacitating and concussive blow, but flexible enough not to do any serious structural damage.

  Which is why, when Fanny opened the door looking like a Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec cabaret poster made manifest, with her arms outstretched and her luscious lips puckered in a provocative pout, an eight-pound cucurbit came whistling out of the darkened hall, smacked her right in the courgettes, and turned her clock back to zero.

  It had left Antonio with something of a predicament, however. He was at all times a meticulous and diligent professional, and had been observing the coming and goings of the household for several days from a number of different vantage points. He had made all the necessary arrangements to put the snatch on Fanny Lemming the following day, and had been making a last-minute recon, when a window of opportunity suddenly and unexpectedly presented itself.

  People started to leave, cars pulled away, the police left, and the guardians apparently melted into the night. The sole resident of the manse was then the lovely lady in question, whom Antonio could see at her toilette silhouetted against the billowing lace curtains of an upstairs window, which was by that point the only lit room in the house.