The Last Coin

by James P. Blaylock

  He pulled it up through the leaves, scraping it over a limb, and then set it on the roof with the noose in front of him. The moon wouldn’t be up for an hour yet; last night he had learned that much, anyway. The ‘possum cooperated admirably. Dead ‘possums tell no tales, he thought, grinning. He tightened the noose around its neck, and, towing the pole behind him, crept toward Aunt Naomi’s window.

  It was closed. Of course it would be. She wouldn’t want any more marauders. Last night had been enough to put the fear into her. Andrew slipped a hand into his back pocket and pulled out a long-bladed spatula, then shoved it through the gap between the two halves of the ill-fitting casement windows. It was the work of an instant to flip up the latch. In the hot, still night there wouldn’t even be a breeze to disturb the sleeping Aunt Naomi.

  If there was trouble, if she awoke again, he could just let the ’possum lie and drop the pole back down into the tree. He’d go across the roof and climb down onto the carport, and from there onto the top of his pickup truck. The library window was wide open, and there was a pile of bricks outside it. He’d be reading in his chair inside of two minutes, and all they’d find on the roof would be a dead ’possum. He had thought it through that afternoon—studied it from the street. It was as if Providence had come round to set it up: the bricks, the ’possum, the pole already lying beneath the tree; all of it had been handed to him with a ribbon tied around it. But if his luck held, he wouldn’t need to use the escape route. It would be a neater job all the way around if he could plant the ’possum in Aunt Naomi’s bedroom and let her find it in the morning.

  Nothing stirred inside. Aunt Naomi snored grotesquely; the cats slept through it. He slid the pole in through the window, barely breathing. Dropping the ’possum onto her bed would lead to spectacular results, except that she’d probably wake up on the instant and shriek. Near the door—that would be good enough—as if the beast were trying to escape, but hadn’t made it. He positioned the pole just so, paused to breathe, then played out the line. Immediately it went slack; the ’possum whumped to the floor, and Andrew hauled the pole out into the night.

  He pulled the casement shut and slid along on his rear end toward the tree, dropping the pole down through the leaves so that it rested on the same branch that it had been tilting against all day. Crouching, listening, he counted to sixty. The snoring continued, uninterrupted. She hadn’t even stirred.

  He crept back to the casement, pulled out his spatula again, and pushed the latch back into place, neat as you please. In a moment he was back in at the window, shifting Pickett’s telescope, shoving the ’possum bag in behind the foil-backed insulation stapled into the unplastered studs. He tiptoed back down the narrow stairs, washed his hands in the kitchen sink, and opened a beer to celebrate. It was 12:13 by the clock, and he’d already accomplished a night’s work.

  Far too full of anxious energy and anticipation to sleep, he lay down on the couch with the idea of reading a book, and in a half hour got up to pour himself another glass of beer. He read some more, half-heartedly, his mind wandering away from the book, until he found himself studying in his mind the complexities of coffee mugs. That led him on to silverware and to copper pots and pans and enormous colanders suitable for draining twenty pounds of fetuccini. He dreamed about extravagant chefs’ hats, about his wearing one, standing in front of an impossibly grand espresso machine that was a sort of orchestrated tangle of tubes and valves, reaching away to the ceiling.

  A pounding on the front door awakened him. There was a simultaneous screaming, coming from somewhere—from over-head, from the attic. Andrew stumbled out into the living room, rubbing his face. He felt like a rumpled, dehydrated hobo. Wrapped in her bathrobe, Rose pushed past him, bound for the front door. She threw it open. There was Pickett, holding a fishing pole and tackle box and wearing a hat. He started to speak, to play out the role he and Andrew had written for him the previous afternoon, but Rose dashed away toward the stairs, shouting at Andrew to follow along.

  Upstairs, Mrs. Gummidge stood with her hand across her mouth, outside the open door of Aunt Naomi’s room. Somehow the ’possum had deteriorated sadly in the early morning hours. In the closeness of the room, it outstank the cats, which had, apparently, been at the corpse just a little bit—investigating it, but finally giving up and leaving it alone. It was perfect. Andrew bit his lip and winked at Pickett.

  Aunt Naomi sat in bed, her hair curled as it had been the night before. She breathed like a tea kettle. “How,” she demanded in a hollow, lamenting voice, “did that creature get into my room?”

  Andrew cleared Mrs. Gummidge out of the way. “Bring me the scoop shovel,” he said, taking command. “Out of the garage. The broad, aluminum scoop.”

  “I’ll get it,” said Pickett, hurrying away down the stairs.

  Andrew examined the dead ‘possum. “Cats have done for it.” He nodded at Aunt Naomi, who stared at him as if he were talking like an ape. “The cats,” he said, louder. “They’ve worried the beast to death. Look at him, he’s all over scratches. Like the Chinese—the death of a thousand cuts. Very nasty business.” He shook his head. Pickett came stomping up the stairs, carrying the short-handled shovel. “What do you think of this?” asked Andrew stoutly.

  Pickett stared at him, then said, “Looks like—what?—the cats got him, I guess.” He bent over to have a closer look, then screwed up his face and backed away. “He’s rather had it, hasn’t he?”

  Andrew nodded. “Does he look like the fellow we saw on the back fence two days ago? Same size, I’d say.”

  Pickett nodded. “I’m certain it is.” He looked up at Rose, who seemed to be staring at him particularly hard. “Couldn’t swear to it, of course, not absolutely. Wouldn’t want to sign an affidavit. If he were in a police line-up, you know …” He let the subject drop and pretended to examine the creature again, shaking his head at the very idea of it.

  Rose sat down on the bed beside Aunt Naomi and patted the coverlet over the old woman’s leg. “Can’t you get it out of here?” she asked Andrew, nodding toward the door.

  “At once. Back away there, Mrs. Gummidge. One dead ’possum coming down the stairs. Call Rodent Control, will you? There’s a man there named Biff Chateau who has done some work for me in the past. This is right in his line. Thank God for the cats, eh? This place would be hell on earth without them. There wouldn’t be a room in the house safe from monsters like this. He stinks to high heaven, doesn’t he?”

  There were more footfalls on the stairs, and Mr. Pennyman hove into view. Imposter, thought Andrew. He’s taken the time to massage his scalp before coming up. There might have been any kind of trouble at all up here—thieves, cavemen, Martians—he wouldn’t have been worth a curse. It occurred to Andrew that he could trip right then, and pitch the spoiled ‘possum into Pennyman’s face. No one would claim it wasn’t a flat-out accident. But he wouldn’t. This was art, this ’possum business. It demanded subtlety. There wasn’t any room for farce.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Pennyman,” Andrew said, shoving past the man on the landing. “There’s been a ‘possum fooling about in Naomi’s bedroom. Half-terrorized her before the cats got to it. God bless the cats, like I was saying. Lord love a cat. Nothing like them.” He angled away down the stairs, holding the scoop shovel out in front of him, Pickett following. “A cat by any other name …” he said over his shoulder. “Sacred in Borneo, I understand.” He continued to chatter long after Pennyman could no longer hear him. If he stopped, he’d pitch over laughing. He’d convulse. They’d have to call in a doctor to sedate him. The whole successful business would be spoiled like an old fish.

  There was Mrs. Gummidge, looming out of the kitchen. She’d gotten nothing but a recording over the phone at Rodent Control. Of course she would have. He’d known it when he’d sent her off, but she hadn’t thought of it. What Mrs. Gummidge didn’t think of would fill a book. It wasn’t even six in the morning yet. She’d left a message, and Chateau would discover it later. He’
d send a man out in a van later in the day, full of stories about renegade ’possums, about the land being overrun with them.

  Andrew was vindicated. That was the long and the short of it. He held the truth on a scoop shovel. They’d been suspicious of his ’possum, had they? Now here one was, giving them all the glad eye. Or the glazed eye. Andrew very nearly laughed out loud. He had taken up the reins and steered the morning out of chaos, right under the nose of Pennyman. He would look in on Aunt Naomi later that morning, after she’d had a chance to compose herself, to haul the god-awful curl papers out of her hair. He would ask her for a small sum, for the restaurant. Five hundred dollars would … Well, it wouldn’t go far. A thousand, though, would buy him the bar implements on his list, with money left over to buy single malt whiskies. His importer listed forty-two, at an average of thirteen dollars a bottle. That was five hundred and what, altogether? Something. He wasn’t any good at sums.

  He paused to smile at Mrs. Gummidge on his way out the door, thanking her for making the useless phone call. She grinned back at him and nodded. Pickett stood silently, holding his hat. His mustache desperately needed trimming.

  “I’ll just go to Naomi,” said Mrs. Gummidge. “I’ll bring round her tea.”

  Andrew winked at her. “You do that, Mrs. Gummidge. I’d suggest chamomile, for its soothing properties. Avoid anything containing caffeine. I’d fetch it up myself, but this fellow here ought to be dumped into a trash can and lidded, before the whole house moves out on account of him. Then I’m going fishing. You’ve met Mr. Pickett, I believe.”

  Mrs. Gummidge nodded, still smiling, her teeth set.

  “Yes, of course you have,” said Andrew. “Any number of times. Goodbye, then. If Rodent Control calls back, tell them the beast is in a trash can behind the garage. Normally it’s the animal shelter that handles this sort of thing, but I particularly wanted Rodent Control to be in on it. They’re equipped to test for plague fleas.”

  Mrs. Gummidge blinked. Andrew nodded to her and went out through the door, dumping the ’possum in an empty trash can and shoving the lid on, then leaning the shovel against the clapboard wall of the garage. Pickett followed along into the cool darkness inside, waiting in the doorway until Andrew turned on the lights. “She’s the grinningest woman I’ve ever seen,” Pickett said, putting his hat back on. “I’d guess she was a waxwork statue if I didn’t know any better. Or an automaton. You can’t trust a face like that. Impossible to read.”

  Andrew nodded, messing with a little bag full of white granules on the workbench. On the side of it, in black felt pen, was scrawled something impossible—a chemical name. “She has a vocabulary of about thirty stock phrases, most of them involving tea and Scrabble and changing poor Naomi’s bed linen. All of it sounds programmed. For my money she’s got some dark motive beneath it all.”

  Pickett watched him untie and then tie the plastic bag. He looked uncomfortable. “Which one is that again? Chloro-what?”

  “Chlorophacinone,” Andrew said. “No, I haven’t mixed it up yet. You use wet cornmeal—press it into cakes.” He put the bag down on the bench, as if he suddenly found it distasteful. “I’d thought of setting the cakes around as if I were poisoning ’possums. Rose would have to take the whole business more seriously then.”

  “I dare say she would,” Pickett said. “What if you do poison something—a ‘possum, say? What if by accident you poison a cat, for God’s sake? You’d never get out of the soup.”

  Andrew stared at the powder in the bag. “I’d hate myself if I poisoned anything at all. It was just going to be a blind, a ruse. Only because the cat-stealing trick went bad. I’m certain Rose saw through it. So I’ve got to press on, somehow, and make her doubt herself. Make her see that I’m serious about this ‘possum business.”

  “Are you serious about this ’possum business? My advice is to let it drop. Cut bait and get out. It’s a shame there isn’t a ’possum around the neighborhood. That would settle things.”

  Andrew sighed. “There is, actually. I think there’s one living under the house. That’s where I got the idea in the first place.”

  “Well there you are! Point him out to Rose. There’s your evidence, right where you want him.”

  “I can’t let on that there’s really one living under the house. She’d want him out of there.”

  Pickett stared hard at Andrew, as if trying to make sense of nonsense. “So you’re telling me that despite the poison and the dead ’possum in Naomi’s room and your fears about having been caught up on the roof in the middle of the night, what you really want to do is protect the ‘possum living under the house?”

  Andrew shrugged and then nodded weakly. “They’re such great-looking little guys, with that nose and all.”

  “I can’t do anything for you then,” said Pickett. “You’ve made a mess of your priorities.”

  “I can’t stand talk about ‘priorities.’ They tire me out.” Andrew picked up the sack full of poison. It seemed suddenly to contain a coiled snake or a nest of spiders. “I ought to pitch it into the trash, right now, while I’m thinking straight. Don’t tell Chateau, though, will you? I don’t want him to know that I tossed it out after begging five pounds of it off him to assassinate non-existent rats.”

  Pickett shook his head. “Toss it out. That’s what I’d do. I’m afraid of poisons, especially with Pennyman around. There’s no telling what you’ll find in your beer.”

  Andrew nodded. “Done,” he said, and he stepped out into the daylight, dropping the bag into another trash can and hauling the can across the backyard, away from the garage so that Rodent Control wouldn’t find it while looking for the ’possum.

  “I left my pole and tackle box in the living room,” said Pickett, remembering suddenly.

  “Go after them then. I’ll get my stuff together. I’d better not go back in—not just now.” Somehow the idea of coming face-to-face with Rose filled him with terror. He’d wait until the dust settled.

  Just as Pickett turned to go, the house door slammed shut, and there was Mrs. Gummidge, carrying a dripping coffee filter full of steaming grounds. She grinned at them. “Can’t put these down the disposal,” she said. “They’ll clog the septic tank.”

  “We haven’t got a septic tank,” Andrew said, grinning back. “Nothing but sewers for us.”

  She stepped across and lifted the lid from the trash can that Andrew had just moved. She set the lid down and looked in suspiciously, then dropped the grounds in. “No ’possums in that one,” she said cheerfully, bending over to pick up the lid. She banged it back down onto the trash can and hurried away toward the house, muttering about “poor Naomi” and “given such a fright,” her voice trailing away into nothing.

  The door slammed again, and Pickett stood watching the empty porch, lost in thought. His eyes had that vacant, dangerous look that meant he was “onto something,” that he was beginning to see things clearly at last. He was lost in plots, assembling and disassembling them, thinking of blowfish and assassins and lights in the sky, thinking of Moneywort and Pennyman, thinking of Uncle Arthur steering across foggy midnight oilfields in his red, electronic car, bumping over ruts, watching, perhaps, for the telltale glow of a suddenly uncovered lantern that would reveal to him in the instant of illumination the secret tiltings of world banks, the moment-to-moment machinations of governments. He turned around stiffly and set out after his fishing pole.

  THREE

  “See the rings pursue each other;

  All below grows black as night …”

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  “Looking Glass River”

  WHATEVER WAS HAPPENING had the feeling of nightfall about it, the feeling that twenty centuries of battles and betrayals, of civilizations and the shifting of continents, were crashing to a stony close. Something was coming full circle—slouching in on a wind out of the east. It was hot and thin—a desert wind with the smell of sagebrush and riverbeds on it, yanking off roof shingles in the night an
d scattering sycamore leaves and blowing spindrift off the back of the cold north swell as it hammered through pier pilings and surged up onto an almost deserted spring beach.

  The wind tore fruitlessly at the newspaper in the hands of Jules Pennyman, who sat at a redwood table in the shade of the old pier and drank black coffee from a Styrofoam cup. He knew as he sat there, idly sipping his coffee and watching the sea across the top of his newspaper, that something had loosened in the world; something had awakened, and was plodding toward him, or with him, across the aimless miles. He smiled and stroked his beard, then flicked a bit of thread from the knee of his white trousers. He could hear the deep, hoarse breathing of it on the wind, like an out-of-tune, bedlam orchestra. There was just the suggestion of the first trumpet behind it all, and there would follow in the days to come a rain of hail and fire and blood, maybe literally. He rather hoped so.

  Pennyman’s coffee was terrible—probably brewed early that morning and then burnt up on a hot plate. Andrew Vanbergen made a good cup of coffee. You had to give him that much. It didn’t matter much to Pennyman anymore, though; coffee was coffee. He drank it because he had to fill his stomach; that much was still required of him. He would have liked to see the world rid of its curious little habits. If it were up to him—and it soon might be—he’d have the beaches swept clean of sand and its seashells ground into powder and mixed into cement. He’d pave everything, is what he’d do. The pattern of mussels and barnacles and starfish on the pier pilings offended him, almost as much as the sunlight did. The shouted laughter of an unseen fisherman up on the pier rasped across the back of his brain like the serrated edge of a scaling knife.