And when he graduated his papa bought him a Chevrolet convertible, and even though it was secondhand and old he thought it was the best car that ever there was, and he took his girlfriend riding, and he played music by James Brown and the Detroit Emeralds and the Pointer Sisters really loud, and all the other kids thought he was so cool, and all the other kids’ girlfriends wished that they could be his girlfriend.
And then he got a job at a dealership in Key Largo and he sold so many cars that after six months they gave him his own gig in Key West, and he made a shitload of money and bought a condo on the beach, and when his company booked a cruise ship for two weeks as an incentive for the top men, he was on the team, and that’s where he met his wife.
She was tall and black and so beautiful that birds fell dead from the trees when she walked past and young men spontaneously ejaculated into their Calvin Kleins and Tom Cruise had once asked her to marry him but she told Tom Cruise to fuck off.
On his honeymoon Michael took his wife to Bermuda and they ate ceviche from seashells and drank daiquiris from coconuts shells and they made love on a pink beach at sunrise as white birds flew past, and he knew in that moment that she was pregnant and that it was a boy and he would also be called Michael, and he would go to Harvard and one day would win a Grammy, and at his acceptance speech he would say that he owed it all to his father, and Michael would stand up and the cameras would be on him and all the people would be clapping and cheering and tears of joy and pride would drip down onto his white tuxedo and…
But that was all the dreaming that Michael Montcalm Robinson had time for, and if he wanted his life to flash before his eyes for a bit longer he should have gotten himself thrown out of a higher balloon, because the rate of acceleration of a falling body is 32 feet per second squared, and the fall only took eight seconds. In any case, it was not his life that was flashing before him, but the one that he wished he would have had, because the one that he’d really had was so desolate and unfair that it was not even worth eight seconds to think about it, but at least when Michael Montcalm Robinson impacted the Parisian pavement and was splattered so far and wide that it took the Parisian police two days to scrape him together and a team of divers had to dredge the Seine to find his left leg, for one split second in all eternity, he was a happy and contented man.
***
The standard expressions, in such cases are: “Oh my God, I didn’t think we were going to make it;” “Thank you, Jesus, thank you, Lord;” “I swear I will never get into another fucking balloon as long as I live;” “It’s a miracle;” etcetera etcetera.
Nonstandard expressions include: “I’m gonna kill that fat motherfucker;” “I woulda been fuckin’ famous;” “That slimebag cost me my place in history;” “Where did that fat crud go?” Etcetera etcetera.
Low Roll and Hard D struggled up the cobbled embankment and onto the grass. A crowd had gathered. In the river, Crispin was being lifted into a rowing boat. Unbelievably, he was singing.
Even a layman could see that he had lost his marbles, but a trained psychiatrist would have quickly realized that he was away with the fairies in the land of endless delight, where the rivers ran with Chardonnay and piano keys were made of sugar candy and caramel, and nymphs tripped the light fandango over silk carpets with roses behind their ears and solar-powered vibrators up their asses. And he wasn’t coming back anytime soon.
As the boat pulled up to the bank, an ambulance screamed to a halt. The driver leapt out and the paramedic did likewise. Actually, “leapt out” was too dramatic a description—ambled out was what they did. They were not only insouciant; they were laissez faire, savoir-faire, and fucking Vanity Fair. Big fucking deal—another balloon-crash-naked-fat-guy deal, huh? And then? Twenty-odd years as a Parisian paramedic and it took a lot more than plummeting pork chops to surprise you.
They were surprised, however, when, after they had stretchered Crispin into the back of the ambulance and were closing the doors, an immense fat guy loomed up behind them and banged their heads together, leaving them sleeping among les étoiles, while a skinny guy jumped into the driver’s seat and hit the ignition.
Crispin was still singing when the ambulance stopped two hundred yards away, under a copse of trees, and the doors swung open. He was still singing when he was dragged out feet-first on the gurney and wheeled under a tree.
“Fuck it,” Hard D said. “My piece. My fuckin’ piece. It fell in the damn river.”
“Well. It’s a fuckin’ ambulance, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So they must have a scalpel or somethin’.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.” Hard D stood over the gurney while Low Roll went to look for something to excise the life from Crispin Capricorn.
The whirring sound that he heard meant nothing to him. The dull thonking noise should have meant something, but he was too engrossed in thoughts of revenge and disappointment to pay attention. It was only when impatience overcame him that he turned to see what was taking so long and saw Low Roll lying immobile under the tree, and an aged black man with hair like a spun-dried yak and eyes like shattered rubies staring at him with a look that turned his blood to milk.
“Leave me fucken mate alone, ya fat cunt,” Wally said. The tone was even. Affable, almost.
Hard D needed only a second to get over his surprise. He looked at Wally. The jig had to be kidding. He was fucking ninety at least. He looked down at Low Roll, looking somehow forlorn and plaintive, lying in the grass like a lost, broken toy. He balled his ham shank fists and stepped forward. Big mistake.
He swung at the black, wrinkled, grinning satyr face, but the black, wrinkled, grinning satyr face wasn’t there—only empty space. And, as Hard D’s momentum carried him forward, a heavy, sun-dried, curved section of tree bark smacked him in the forehead with amazing power. He went down on his back and felt someone climb on top of him. He could not see because of the blood in his eyes. He felt a hand that, amazingly, seemed to be inside his actual flesh, ferreting around in his flabby neck like a small, strong animal. The animal found what it was searching for: his carotid artery. The animal squeezed it closed.
Hard D was surprised to see a carousel whirling before him. There was a big red horse. Low Roll was sitting on the horse. He was smiling, holding a giant hot dog. The biggest hot dog anyone ever saw. The music was Germanic and loud. Hard D smiled at Low Roll. Low Roll belted him in the crust with the hot dog. A cloud of happy stars came to carry him away to a place where everybody was just as fat as he was, and you could sleep as long as you wanted. He was almost disappointed when the pressure went away, and the vicious sodium lights from the real world stabbed him in the eyeballs as he opened his eyes and squinted through tears at the India rubber demon leering down at him. He was even more disappointed when the India rubber demon hooved him savagely in the nuts before flitting away through the trees into the refugee night.
Chapter 20
Wally and Baby Joe sat for a while without speaking. They didn’t need to. There was so much to say, and nothing at all. There was between them that silent communication that strong men and friends share all over the world, the given understanding that things are the way they are, and what has passed has passed, and what will happen will happen, and that’s just the way that it is and the way that is should be, and that talking about it doesn’t make any difference. But with them was the presence of another, and they both knew that he would be spoken of, and that the words would come when they were ready, and that if they tried to force it the words that came would not be the right ones.
The bar was crowded and noisy, but they seemed to be contained within an aura of greater density of light that isolated them, apart and in an orbit separate from the others. As if they had greater gravity. And if any saw the incongruity of an aged aboriginal and a man who bore the air of a corsair, drinking in silence in a room full of revelers, none chose to comment.
“The fat, useless bastard,” Wally said finally, with perfect timing,
just as Baby Joe had his glass raised to his lips. The barman was quick, and only got marginally sprayed. He brought another whiskey without being asked.
“But ’ell’s bells, mate. What are the fucken chances? You’d need a better word than fucken ridiculous, I reckon.”
“Don’t ask me, Wal. Fucked if I know. It’s inexplicable.”
“Too right, mate, an’ a fucken good thing too.”
“How so?”
“I bin around awhile, in case you ’adn’t fucken noticed. I seen things that don’t ’ave no rational explanation. I come into this world a long time ago and I din’t know shit when I got ’ere, and I won’t know much more when I go, but I figured out that if there are things beyond our understandin’ it’s because that’s the way it’s supposed to be. My people back ’ome talk about the dreamtime. Well, maybe this is all a fucken dream, who knows? I mean, there’s no gettin’ your brain around what just ’appened. Bjorn Eggen once told me that his ancestors, those longboat bastards, reckoned that everythin’ was written, a long time ago, and that a man can’t do anythin’ to change ’is destiny. Well, if that’s true, the bloke what wrote Crispin’s destiny ’ad a fucken sense of ’umor, that’s for fucken sure.”
“Ain’t that the truth. What did the cops say?”
“Not much. They kept me a while, but they never gave me an ’ard time or nothin’. Some kid saw the whole fucken thing. Then this bloke that spoke English come in an’ ’e shows me some mug shots. Gets me to sign something I couldn’t fucken read, shakes me ’and, tells me to fuck off, and gets a cop car to drive me back to me ’otel. Seems these two characters were some kind of ’ard cases. Wanted in the States in question with several incidents. Fucken snipers, would ya believe.”
“Shit, the feds told me about a sniper,” Baby Joe said. “Odds on it’s the same guy.
They got another round in, and Baby Joe clued Wally in on the whole shitty deal.
“Shit a fucken brick, Bruce. That fucken mongrel bludger again. Jesus, Baby Joe, what’s goin’ on, mate?”
“I dunno, Wal, but I’m gonna find out. I’m gonna track the shifty little prick down again, and this time I’m not playing patty-cake.”
“But why, ya bladdy drongo? Why don’t ya just take Asia and ’ead ’ome?”
“I don’t know, Wal. I know it’s a bonehead play, but it’s just a feeling, an instinct maybe, that if I don’t do something now, this will come back to bite me in the ass when I’m not expecting it. At least this way I’m ready. I tried to explain it to Asia but I didn’t really get to the heart of it. It’s hard to explain. Maybe it’s just unfinished business. Maybe killing the Don wasn’t the end of it after all; maybe it was just part of some greater cosmic fuck-up that I don’t understand. You said it yourself, some things are beyond comprehension.”
“Strewth,” Wally said, hovering back his beer and holding his finger up. “’Ere we fucken go again, then.”
“There’s no ‘we,’ Wally. This ain’t your…”
“Now you just ’old yer fucken ’orses right there. Yer not gonna try an’ gimme any more of that ‘not your problem’ shit, are ya? If ya think I’m gonna miss this dance ya can kiss me wrinkled old crocodile arse.”
Baby Joe smiled ruefully and shook his head. “I knew I never shoulda told you, you old bastard.”
Baby Joe fell back. He held her close and brushed her damp hair from her face where it had fallen over her eyes. The heat was still between them. Her breath was still shallow and her nipples were still erect. She reached down and touched him where he was still proud. She squirmed against him.
“Hey, I’m an old guy. Give me a break.”
“Okay,” she said. “You can have a breather, but don’t try going anywhere, buster. This dance ain’t over. I’ll fix us a drink.”
Baby Joe watched the way her perfectly proportioned ass moved, and the way her red hair hung down almost to the small of her back, and he looked at the small, muscular indentation there at the base of her spine that he loved so much. He looked at her flushed face, and her wonderful, full breasts as she came toward the bed with a smile to light the world, carrying two glasses of whiskey. She handed him his drink and curled up beside him.
He lay there, feeling her warmth, listening to her breathe. Was she as okay as she seemed? Was that possible? Or was she too calm? Was she just a storm waiting to break, a cloud waiting to burst? Wasn’t the mind like that? And could it keep secrets, even from itself? Did she know, even? And did she blame him, as he blamed himself for not finishing Lundi when he had the chance? For choosing suffering over execution? For not considering the possibility that he might survive? Any way you looked at it, Lundi could have taken her life twice, in terrifying ways, because of what he’d done and failed to do. And in the end, he didn’t save her, Crispin did.
They had talked it over through the night, unweaving their story thread by thread and sewing it back together again, tailoring it into a robe yet finer, melting it down and reforging it. But into something stronger? Or only harder, and brittle?
“How’s the fat man?” Baby Joe said.
“It’s amazing. Incredible, really. You’d think nothing happened to him. Physically, just a few cuts and bruises. And psychologically…just like New Orleans. He doesn’t remember anything. His brain has shut down again. He thinks he got knocked over by a guy riding a bicycle in the park. It’s all over the news. Some tourist filmed the whole thing. I asked the people at the hospital not to let him see the TV.”
“What did the cops say?”
“They were actually very nice. But they did say that I need to stay here. They might want ask me some more questions. They said I should get in touch with the embassy.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What?”
“Having to stay.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s not going to let us out.”
“What isn’t?”
“This thing. This entity. This set of circumstances, sequence of events, whatever you want to call it. It’s dragged us in. It has a shape, a warped logic. Almost a will. It needs to come to some conclusion. It won’t let us go until it’s over.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. This is all a coincidence. We were just unlucky. All we have to do is leave.”
“I wish I could say you’re right, but I don’t think so. Some arcane mechanism has been set in motion here. You can’t get off the roller coaster until it stops—or somebody stops it.”
“But Lundi is dead now. I mean, really dead. Beyond-resurrection dead.”
Baby Joe laughed. “I can’t argue with you there. That evil motherfucker is about as dead as it gets. You can’t get much deader than splattered. Probably took them three days to scrape the fucker up.”
“But that’s it, then. It’s done.”
“No. It only started with Lundi. Whatever he was involved in got out of control. It spiraled like a fucking typhoon and started to suck people in and chew them up. It’s sucked us in.”
“To chew us up too?”
“No. I won’t let that happen. But if we just leave, it’ll follow us.”
“You don’t know that. You can’t.”
“You’re right. I don’t and I can’t, but I believe it.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“The same thing as with the Don. Whatever this is, whatever it wants, I’m going to stop it. And whoever is behind it, feeding it, I’m going to stop them too.”
“You mean kill them.”
“If I have to. Look at what’s happened already. To you, to Crispin, to me. We weren’t unlucky—we were lucky. We might not be so lucky next time.”
Asia said nothing. She curled up tighter, pulling her knees up under her breasts, and laid her head on Baby Joe’s chest.
“Monsoon Parker is here,” Baby Joe said.
Asia sat up and looked at him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you. It was wrong. I
should have told you. But the truth is, I wouldn’t be telling you now if I thought we could just walk away from this.”
She smiled at him, letting him know that it was all right. “Did you see him?”
“Yeah. The feds told me he was here. I tracked him down, but the slimy little fucker blindsided me. I have to admit it was a pretty cute trick. I was too soft on him. That was before the ante got raised. It won’t happen again.”
“So what does it all mean?”
“I have no idea. But I know that little bastard has something to do with what’s going on. He might even be the key, the fucking catalyst that drives the reaction. Who knows? But I do know that when I find him, I find out what this whole shooting match is about.”
“But how will you find him?”
“The same way I found him before. It doesn’t make any difference which ship you’re on, the rats are always in the same place.”
Asia smiled and moved against him. “So, er, when does the rat hunt start?”
“First thing in the morning.”
“Oh,” she said, climbing on top of him. “Well, in that case…”
***
“The fucken fat bludger ’ad an arse the size a Ayer’s fucken rock, and ya coulda used the other barstad ter check the oil in yer fucken tank, mate.”
The Chameleon Fallacy (Big Bamboo Book 2) Page 40