The phone barked; a lime-green rotary job. Wanda moved to answer it, stopped when Conrad gave her a look. Ten rings, then silence. That would be Marsh, Singh, or DeKoon. He wasn’t in the mood for any of them, their accusations, interrogations, threats. Earlier, someone at the front desk had slipped a note under the door. The note gave an address and a date and was signed by his good friend Tony Kite. Tony was ready and waiting for the next step.
The room brightened by sluggish degrees. Big rigs loaded with produce and lumber rumbled past, shook the windows. The television snowed. Numbers shuttled on the clock.
Finally, she lighted a cigarette, smoked it while she watched him with heavy-lidded wariness. “Are you retarded?”
He stared at his swollen hand, limned on the table between a clogged ashtray and a bottle. The hand could’ve been the subject of a Bacon study, a rudely carved chunk of marble; it didn’t seem attached at all, just lying there, mute and bruised. He said, “Cerebral hemorrhage.”
“What.”
“Brain damage. It’s distinct from mental retardation.”
“Oh.” She sucked her cigarette. Her face was much older now, wasted. “Doesn’t seem all that different to me. When it comes down to it.”
Sometimes, when he lacked the will to concentrate, the needle jumped tracks. He said, “Goodbye, Wanda,” instead of, Let’s get breakfast.
“Huh?”
“Let’s get breakfast.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Conrad got the disposable camera from his jacket. He held the camera at arm’s length, stared into the lens.
VII
They ate pancakes and drank coffee at the truck stop.
Wanda said, “He wants to know what you’re doing.”
“How’s that again?” Conrad sipped his coffee stoically. His arms prickled. An antiquated paper spread before him on the table, recently plucked from his wallet where it was kept safely tucked behind Imogene’s washed out graduation photo. Imogene had stolen the abstract from a government archive, although it was doubtful anyone missed it; the design was a relic of the Cold War, back when the KGB had teeth and CIA operatives smoked Lucky Strikes and knew how to kill with the mysterious techniques of Judo. He unconsciously covered the ink blot splotches with his hand.
The muscles in Wanda’s face twitched. “I wonder, is all. Where are you headed, really?”
“I’m looking for someone.”
“I think I feel sorry for them.”
“Me too.”
While Wanda was in the restroom Conrad paid the tab and left a tip for the burly rancher’s daughter who’d cleared the dishes and pretended not to notice the apocalypse of his features. He couldn’t decipher the waitress’s name tag. His eyes watered and stung.
Conrad finished the dregs of his coffee. Wanda’s pack of cloves was tucked under the rim of her plate. He lighted a cigarette, indifferent to the NO SMOKING sign above the door. He held the sweet tang for a while, trying to burn the taste of bile and Wanda from his mouth.
Wanda did not return from the bathroom.
Conrad glanced at his watch. Tony Kite would be waiting. He stubbed the butt on the edge of the saucer, walked out, started his car and drove west. Today was Imogene’s birthday; her third since she’d run away with Raul Lorca.
VIII
Dust hissed against the tin walls of the fireworks shack. Here, somewhere in the Nevada hinterlands, the anatomy of the world was baked prairie and emaciated scrub; sulfur pits and the petrified bones of gangsters. Mountains stabbed the horizon. Beyond, were rivers and green valleys and farms. Or maybe nothing but a maw, an esophageal tube and a hell of acid and darkness.
Conrad wasn’t betting either way. He stuck a cigarette in his mouth and paused, head cocked, to appreciate the ghostly intonations of the wind, its slithering veil of grit.
“Yo, amigo,” Tony Kite said. He was shorter and lighter than Conrad and his arms were carved up with prison tattoos. No business suit today, no power tie or gold cufflinks; today he wore a chambray shirt with burn holes in the breast pocket and ingrained dirt at the collar, jeans bleached grey, threadbare moccasins. Tony Kite, in his heyday, had been the wunderkind of a premier contractor with offices across North America and Britain. His success, as he often elaborated when exceptionally stoned, relied upon having friends in the gutter and lower—namely Quentin, Huntsville and Folsom, to hit the marquee attractions. Right then, gazing at the gathering storm, he sounded less than placid, which was as close to high emotion as he usually got. Here was a man who’d survived prison riots, looked down the drain pipe of a Mafioso’s .45 and escaped from the trunk of a moving car during a botched kidnapping in Bogotá. Not much fazed him. “Who’s the girl?”
“What girl.” Conrad knew, though.
Kite shut the batwing doors and jerked down the stainless steel skirt. He peeked through the slats. “The one in your car.”
“Damn.” Conrad lighted his cigarette; the corona of his Zippo’s flame illuminated boxes and bundles and stacks of firecrackers, cherry bombs and M-80s. He sat and smoked, impassive as a Gila monster. He hadn’t told Kite about the women, wouldn’t have known where to begin.
“She your squeeze?”
“No.”
“She followin’ you, man?”
“Apparently.”
“She a pig? Oh, shit, man. She a Fed? A spook?”
“No. I don’t know. That’s the other pair I told you about. Well, they aren’t Company. NSA. Same difference.”
“The pretty boy and the goon.”
“Yes.”
“Spooks are the worst. My grand pappy was Army intel in WWII. Creepy bastards.”
“Didn’t your company deal with intelligence people.”
“Course we did. More you get to know them, more you hate them.”
The shack rocked and clattered in the throes of a powerful gust. A miniature cyclone skittered across a patch of ochre light, collapsed into itself after a dozen or so torpid revolutions.
Kite said, “God, you look like you been through a wood chipper. Givin’ the crowd a show?”
“It’s nothing.”
“A flesh wound, huh.”
“Is she still there?”
“Uh, yah. She’s still there.”
Conrad smoked. Each inhalation made him aware of his battered ribs, the bloated mass of his spleen.
“Maybe you better reschedule this meet.”
“Why?”
“Never mind, never mind.” Kite stared out the crack at the blowing dust, and presumably, the woman in the Cadillac. “I wonder who that bitch is, man.”
“I assume we’re green light.”
“Sure, man. Green light. It was expensive...”
“Okay. How does fifteen percent above duty sound?”
“Sounds like me and my old lady are going to Costa Rica for the winter. Although, why take sand to the beach, eh?” Kite turned from his post to wink.
“Give me the news.”
“Right. I got the Brazilian; he’s a fuckin’ butcher. My people, that’s what they say—he’s a butcher. He did some illegal plastic surgery in Beverly Hills, blinded some producer. The cops want him bad.” Kite went to the register and brought back a photograph.
Conrad took the photo. It matched the surveillance shots baby sister Imogene had snapped back when she was spying on Dad at the booby hatch, although she hadn’t truly grasped the implications, she’d simply been following woman’s intuition, bless her dark, little peach-pit of a heart. Nonetheless, this was the Brazilian, alright. They’d met several times at the Cloister. Dr. Souza was old as dirt then and nothing seemed to have changed during the intervening decades.
“Well, the Brazilian’s a menace. Did freelance work for Lockheed-Martin, DynCorp, plus some Podunk outfits. He got drummed outta all of them. Had an international rap sheet long as my arm, before this Beverly Hills action. Guy likes psychotropic and designer poisons. Don’t know why the hell he switched to surgery—he ain’t much good at it,
ha-ha.”
Pain, suffering, cruelty. “They have this thing about transformation,” Conrad said.
“They?”
“There’s a conspiracy.”
“There’s always a conspiracy. I gave him the quiz, like you said. Did the Twenty Questions bit. Told me to tell you, ‘Drake is the Prince of Darkness’. Said he’ll deal for the codex.”
Conrad thought of the manuscript safely hidden in the wheel well of his Cadillac. A bundle of desiccated vellum sheaves bound in catgut, throbbing like a chunk of plutonium or a piece of concentrated darkness. Imogene’s gift to him and the one piece of intelligence he’d withheld from the Stooges. “Blood of Old, Opens the Eye. Flesh of Flesh, Opens the Mouth to Drink the Stars.” Oh, this is definitely the real McCoy. His palms sweated. He was done with it; question was, was it done with him?
“Man, you’d tell me if you had cancer, or somethin’.”
“I don’t have cancer.”
“Then what?”
“Revenge.” Conrad knew that Kite knew—his friend was trying to keep his feet warm by making small talk. Conrad was bad at small talk.
“Hey, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, baby. I loved Genie, too,” Kite said. “Whatever you gotta do to get inside, that’s fine as far as it goes. But, come on, man. Are you really gonna let this lunatic stick you? What if it’s not authentic? Or, what if it is?”
“I’m reasonably certain it’s authentic.”
“You’re reasonably certain.”
“My father knew him when I was a boy. They were colleagues.”
“Yeah, but that’s a long time gone. Man it ain’t cool to take rides from strangers. You don’t know where it’ll end.”
“We all end up in the same place, T-dog.”
“Well, shit. Don’t make me sorry for mixing up in this deal.”
“Think about Costa Rica and you’ll feel better.” Conrad couldn’t tell Kite what he thought the serum did without sounding like a bigger lunatic than the Brazilian. “When and where?”
“Souza’s waiting in Rattlesnake. Eagle and his brother brought the dude in and got the building and everything. Not too far, man. Gotta do it soon; the dude won’t hang around forever. He’s got itchy feet on account of the pigs, you know. I get the idea we can’t really hold him. He’s got this sort of…presence. A real heavy presence.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah, man. Why, you scared or somethin’?”
“Oh, not really. I’m wondering why you’re grinning. What’s so funny.”
“It’s a veterinarian clinic, man. Like for dogs and shit. But it got shut down a while ago. Still got the notice on the door.” Kite laughed and stomped his foot on the rickety planking. “You goin’ to the vet. I hope he don’t neuter you on accident, man!”
“Hell, K, I hope he doesn’t neuter me on purpose. Let’s roll over to the motel and see the man. We’ll take my ride.”
Kite made some calls. His people had lodged the Brazilian at a no star motel in Rattlesnake; left him with a quart of tequila, a couple of strippers from the casino and an Shoshone strong arm with a twelve gauge dozing outside the door. Eagle and some of his homeys from the reservation would swing by and have the doc at the clinic in time for the main event.
Kite stuffed a cheap automatic pistol in his waistband, covered it with his shirt. Then he rolled a joint and smoked it. Conrad didn’t join him; he was worried dope might contaminate the procedure.
They ventured into the congealing gloom. Kite padlocked the stand as Conrad warily approached his car. He didn’t quite trust it in the creepy, blustery light, its passenger door hanging ajar, creaking with each buffet. The familiar metal gleamed dull and somehow alien, suggestive of passive complicity in this sinister turn of events. Already, dust gathered on the seats.
The girl was long gone, as usual.
IX
Kite dropped him at the motel, said he’d be back in a few minutes. Conrad got the idea that his friend not only disliked the Brazilian, but was frightened of him as well. He thought it a reasonable reaction.
Conrad told the man guarding the door to take a walk. He sent the whores away too, the older of the pair comforting her sobbing comrade. Their faces were gray with revulsion and shock, although both were thankfully unmarked—Conrad was familiar with the Brazilian’s tastes. Now it was only him and the old chemist. He placed the cloth wrapped manuscript on the table, straddled a creaky chair and folded his arms across the backrest and studied Souza.
Souza resembled a petrified corpse that had been stripped of its cerements; Tutankhamen’s vile grandfather, the high priest of a blood-black god. He was entirely naked. Brown as rotted vellum and desiccated and short of breath, he stood near the window, basking in the sunset. His tiny eyes shone in the gloom. “My boy! So good to see you again!” He spoke with the perfect enunciation of an educated foreigner. “When was the last time...you were very small. But my, goodness aren’t you a behemoth. Destroying God’s creatures to amuse the idle rich, I hear. A drink?”
Conrad shook his head. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Souza.”
“What else could I do? Perhaps I should not have, I think. This thing you do for your sister—it is unwise. Very, very unwise. Are you certain you don’t want a drink? Have a drink or I’ll be nervous.” Souza went to a cabinet. He was extremely limber and graceful for a man who appeared a millennia dead. He handed Conrad a paper cup of vodka. “I should not have come. No, I see that now. You are mad, my boy. Utterly mad. The scent of madness oozes from your pores. And your eyes are like flames.” He repaired to the bed where he sat cross-legged amid a wallow of sheets and thin, stained hotel pillows. “If Imogene is dead, God rest her, there is nothing to be gained.”
“Vengeance.”
“Perhaps you are a fool then.”
“Genie left a trail. All I can do is follow it. Go to the places she did. Collect the things she did. Speak with the people she did.” Conrad met the old man’s gaze at this last statement.
Souza nodded. “Yes, she visited me. Several years ago.”
“Did you give her the serum?”
“Your sister is a persuasive woman. Of course I gave her what she asked. Do you possess the triggers?”
“I have two. Do you know them?”
“No, I’m but a humble chemist. Even with the serum you’ll need the third.”
“Then stick me. I’ve got names. I’ll track down another trigger.”
“Ms. Imogene already had them when she came to me. She was prepared and primed for the next step.”
“She’s the fucking Boy Scout of the family,” Conrad said. “How did Tony find you, by the way? Disappearing from the cop radar is a talent I’d like to cultivate.”
“Your amigos found me because I wished it so. I don’t worry about the authorities, or men such as yourself. I take pains to conceal myself from Dr. Drake. It is at terrible risk to myself that I emerge to deal with you in this place.”
“You’re hiding from Drake.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Why?”
“Do you not understand the way of this world you’ve entered? The strong eat the weak. Me, you, your lovely sister. The good doctor would be happy to devour us, one by one. He’s already begun.” The old man sighed and snapped his fingers. “To business. I am pleased you brought the manuscript. I’ve sought it for…well, forever and a day, more or less. Ms. Imogene never let on that she’d acquired it when we were negotiating. I believed all she had to offer was a pound of flesh. So clever, that one.”
“Yeah. Makes me wonder what she traded instead.” Conrad hefted the cloth bundle, weighed it in a final calculation. He rose and handed the manuscript to Souza. He smiled a loose, friendly smile, having decided to kill the chemist at his next opportunity.
Souza grinned and fondled his prize. “Perhaps you’ll have the opportunity to ask her. I think this would be an unhappy outcome. I think you would be better served to slink away into the night and forget her, forget Dr. Drake.”
X
The Rattlesnake Animal Clinic was a dead black rectangle off an unpaved street. A solitary lamp illuminated the service entrance, the merciless grilles of several parked cars. The night wind smelled of radiator fluid and cooked insects. Occasionally dust spattered the lamp while deformed tumbleweeds careened by on their migratory paths to oblivion.
Inside the blistered stucco and cement, the lair of knocking pipes and quiescent wires, at the very heart of the squalid box, was Operating Room #2. Brutal, fluorescent light seeped beneath the rumpled seal of the double doors. A radio played dim, unintelligible music, distorted the ebb and flow of whispered conversation.
The light snuffed. A man began to shriek.
XI
Time is a ring,” Imogene said. “Bye, bye.”
Conrad missed her already.
They want in. They want in. They love you, Connie.
“Super collage. Supercollider. The Drake Technique in action. There is no center and the edges are telescopic.”
The walls were dirty. How could a clinic be so dirty. Flies circled a bulb, crawled on the dangling chain. Somebody was shrieking to the accompaniment of an opera diva.
The Light is the Darkness Page 6