by Andy Monk
The poor bastard.
“I can’t believe he has left us…” Mr Wizzle’s muttering brought her thoughts back.
“Men…”
He leant over and put a warm fleshy hand on hers, “We must have faith, Molly. I believe the Lord has plans for Amos… and that those plans will return him to us.”
“Sure…” she’d seen little to give her faith in either men or God over the years. Frankly, Amelia’s reassurances about Silver bringing Amos back were more credible. In the meantime, she’d have to do the same as she always had. Rely on herself to sort things out.
And that usually worked out well...
The Barber
The bell brought him back.
He didn’t know where he’d been, or how long he’d been there, just that it had been a cold and distant place a long, long way from the light.
He’d been drifting off a lot lately. Not asleep, but not really awake either. Something else. Somewhere else. Maybe there came a point when you had so much shit flying around between your ears your brain couldn’t deal with it anymore. He supposed that was what had happened with Emily, though in his case he eventually snapped out of it and returned to the world. His poor daughter, however, seemed to have permanently taken up residence in that other wretched place.
Ash blinked and looked around. Best not to look too vacant, folk tended to get nervous if the guy holding the razor wasn’t paying full attention.
Both his greeting and smile were stillborn.
“Ash!” the Mayor beamed after turning over the Closed sign hanging in the door, “I’m overdue a trim.”
Part of him wanted to be sucked back into the other place. Most of him, however, just wanted to slit the fucker’s throat.
“How are you rolling, Ash?”
The Mayor sat down unbidden, leant forward and inspected himself in the mirror. When Ash remained both silent and rooted to the spot, the reflection of the Mayor’s eye settled on him.
“Is there a problem?”
“No.”
“Excellent!” The Mayor lifted his head and patted the flesh beneath his chin, “Why don’t you put that razor of yours against my throat then? I’m getting a mite too furry down here. Can get irritable with the weather being so hot and all.”
The razor was in his hand, though he didn’t remember reaching for it. He scrapped it back and forth along the strap hanging from the counter while thinking about cutting a man’s throat.
If man was the right word.
He put the razor down and found his soap cup, his hands were trembling. The Mayor was wittering away about something, but it wasn’t floating down to the part of Ash’s mind that was still working.
He’d thought Amos had raped his daughter and had tried to kill him. It had turned out he hadn’t. Then he’d thought William Stone had done it, but the old preacher had hung himself before anyone, including Ash, could get to him. It had turned out he hadn’t either.
Now the Mayor was sitting in his chair. Everything he’d learnt about the black candy and the Dark Carnival and the monsters that walked among them made him think it had been the Mayor who’d been responsible and Emily’s life, and that of his whole family, had been ripped to bloody shreds so the Mayor could hang the quiet, brooding gunslinger.
Now he’s sitting in my chair… Now he’s sitting in my chair… Now he’s…
The thought raced around his head. Faster and faster. The words bleeding into each other until they became a meaningless blur of noise drowning out every other sound in the universe.
Until his soap mug shattered on the floor.
“Ash?”
“I don’t need no soap…”
His razor was back in his hand and a piece of broken mug was still spinning on the floor as he stepped across to the Mayor, who did nothing but watch Ash in the mirror as he stepped behind him and pressed the open razor against his throat.
“Would it make you feel better?” The Mayor asked, the razor twitching against his flesh in Ash’s unsteady hand.
“Better?”
“To slit my throat?”
“Did…” he swallowed and narrowed his eyes “…did you hurt my girl?”
“You been asking questions Ash… putting your nose where it doesn't truly belong.”
“I know… about you.”
The Mayor gave a little shrug and returned his attention to his reflection in the mirror, “You know something about me…”
“I know about the little black bottles.”
“Yes, I know you do. And that is… inconvenient,” he cracked a smile, bright, radiant and rather incongruous for a man with sharpened steel being pressed against his throat, “…but I’m a reasonable man. A generous man even. So, I’m here to offer you a deal.”
“Did you hurt my girl?” Ash hissed, pushing a fraction harder with the razor.
“No… that was Deputy Blane.”
“Blane?”
“He’s quite the reprehensible little scamp, I’m afraid,” the Mayor’s voice dropped to a knowing whisper, “it’s always the quiet ones you have to watch out for, y’know…?”
“Why? Why’d Blane hurt my girl?”
“Because, like I said, he enjoys such things. And because I told him to.”
“You... told him to?”
“For the greater good.”
He felt something break inside him. The last barrier holding back his reservoir of hurt and anger and despair finally succumbing to deluge his mind in a furious, snarling torrent. No more questions were needed, no more answers, no more consequences. The bastard responsible for destroying his daughter had come to put his throat obligingly against the razor and confess to his crimes.
What else was he supposed to do?
His wrist twitched to slash the Mayor’s throat open. Instead, he found the man’s hand on his, the fingers wrapped around his wrist like bars of iron. Even when he put his full weight behind him, Ash couldn’t move the razor a fraction. Not even the fraction required to open the bastard up.
“I said I had a deal…”
The Mayor smiled, as reasonable as a man offering him a slice of Sunday pie.
“What can you possibly give me?!” he screamed, trying to bring his free hand round to grapple for the razor, but the Mayor caught that wrist with his other hand.
“I have to say, frankly…” the Mayor said, without any hint of strain or exertion in his voice, “…this ain’t my kind of dance.”
Ash felt himself flicked away like a bothersome fly, hitting the wall hard enough to jingle the bell on the shop door again. The Mayor stood up and adjusted his tie in the mirror.
He still had the cutthroat in his hand, but being flung across the room like a child’s unwanted toy had taken some of his wind away.
“Why?” he demanded.
“Why what?”
“Emily, why did you have her hurt, she nev-”
The Mayor waved him down, “You know, sometimes it isn’t actually about you. It was for the greater good. Like I said.”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“That really isn’t advisable.” Satisfied his tie was where it should be, the Mayor turned back and beamed at him, “Though if you want another shot, please, take it. A cutthroat isn’t going to get the job done though.”
He rubbed his thumb along the back of the razor’s handle, part of him wanted to take the shot. Whatever the hell he was, the Mayor sure looked like flesh and blood.
“Tell you what,” the Mayor tugged at his lapels, “why don’t you just listen to what I’ve got to say, hear me out, let me put my cards on the table. If you still don’t want to deal, then, by all means, try your luck again.”
“What the fuck could you offer me? All the money in the world couldn’t put right what’s been done to my girl.”
“True enough, but I ain’t offering money. I got a much better currency.”
“Like what?”
The Mayor opened a hand Ash hadn’t noticed him close. A litt
le black bottle sat inside.
“That shit?”
“This shit,” the Mayor nodded.
“There ain’t nothing that can do for me, I wouldn’t drink it even if I didn’t know where it came from.”
“You shouldn’t jump to hasty conclusions…” the Mayor rolled the bottle up and down his palm, “…this little bottle is magic Ash. It can do all kinds of things, and one of those things, if you’re amenable and co-operative, would be to put your life back together.”
“How?” Ash was talking and he was listening. He was also still running his thumb back and forth along the razor’s handle. Still thinking how much he wanted to spray this bastard’s blood over the wall before he went looking for Blane.
“You, Emily, Kate all back together again. Just like before. All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty back together again, but they didn’t have my glue Ash.”
“You gave her that shit to make her say Amos hurt her, and now she’s halfway dead. You’re never going near her again.”
“With some people, the candy goes down real smooth. One little sip and I can make them believe pretty much anything, with other people it doesn't do a single damn thing. Which can be a pain. Most, however, fall between those two stools, usually more towards the former than the later. Emily, she’s real close to it not working, so it played with her head. Which is a pity, but I know my onions Ash, I really do. I reckon one more dose and I can bring her back, bring her back so she won’t remember much, and anything she does remember won’t seem real. I’ll make her well. Put her back together again, just like she used to be. Wouldn’t you like that?”
“Of course I’d like that,” he spat, “I just don’t fucking believe you.”
“Then there’s you and Kate,” the Mayor went on, “Kate mostly.”
“What about Kate?”
“Oh, she ain’t exactly hanging right either, is she?”
“None of us are.”
“You want to know where she was when young Arthur Blane was getting all recreational with your daughter?” he took a step closer, “Eh?”
“She was at home. Asleep.”
Ash tried to concentrate on the smooth familiar lines of the cutthroat’s handle and not the sick, twisting feeling in the depths of his gut.
“Nope,” the Mayor said with a grin and a wink, “wanna try again?”
“She was at home. Asleep.”
“Pretty sure we already covered that one boss, how abou-”
“She was at home. Asleep!!!”
Deep down he knew what was coming, and he didn’t want to hear it. He tried to push the Mayor aside and make for the door, the bright light of the street suddenly drawing him like a moth. Outside was sunlight and sanity, outside he could still cling to the last vestige of his life, the woman he’d loved from the first fumbling words he’d spoken to her all those years and two beautiful children ago.
Instead, he found himself thrown back against the wall, though this time the Mayor hadn’t so much as lifted a finger to do it.
“I haven’t quite finished,” the Mayor said, sweeping a hand over his slick backed hair.
“I don’t want to know…”
“She was out being fucked by another man.”
The Mayor said the words slowly, his lips curling precisely around each one as if to ensure there was no chance they might be misunderstood.
Every syllable was like a fist in his guts.
“She’s been doing it for some time. Her lover comes around while you’re here and he fucks her in your bed. You know, sometimes being predictable isn’t a virtue Ash…”
He wanted to call him a liar and slash the bastard’s throat, but he could do neither. The first because he knew the words were true, the second because he couldn’t move his arms. He could feel the Mayor’s hands tightly gripping his wrists like he had when he’d been sitting in his chair, even though the Mayor’s hands were in his pockets as he stood before him, casually destroying what remained of his life.
“Wanna know who she’s been fucking?”
Before Ash could shake his head, the Mayor grinned, “None other than our esteemed gunsmith and your new buddy, John X Smith! Who would have thought, eh Ash? Your wife being fucked by Hawker’s Drift’s very own Casanova? That boy really can’t keep his pecker to himself, though he has helped contribute several fine children to the town’s population, so I can’t complain too much. I love children. Don’t you, Ash?”
John. Of course. How blind and stupid could he be? He wanted to curl up on the floor, maybe forever. He tried to pull away from the wall again, but two invisible and immensely strong hands pushed him right back.
“I wouldn’t worry so much about John, I think Kate’s finished with him now. Probably blames herself for not being there when Emily was raped. You’d know better of course, but she hasn’t been herself lately. Self-loathing can do that to a person, I suppose. Anyway, the good news is she’s no longer fucking the gunsmith….” the Mayor made a sad face and stuck out his bottom lip “…the bad news is she’s now fucking Deputy Blane.”
Ash tried to shout something, he had no idea what, just some primal howl of rage and pain, but nothing emerged as another invisible hand clamped around his throat.
“A moment’s hush here please, Ash,” the Mayor said, pulling a hand from his pocket to wag a finger at him, “we’re nearly done.”
He stepped closer, close enough for his breath to play across Ash’s face and the stink of perfumed smoke to worm its way into his flaring nostrils.
“To be fair to Kate – and I’ve always hated to cast unnecessary accusations about a woman’s virtue – she’s only fucking Blane because he’s blackmailing her. He found out about John and after enjoying your daughter so much he couldn’t resist collecting the whole set. I’m sure he’ll get around to your other daughter too eventually.”
Ash strained to break the grip holding him back, pushed with every scrap of rage-fuelled strength he could muster, but he couldn’t move even a fraction of an inch away from the wall. He could feel fingers digging into the soft meat of his throat, moving and shifting their grip even though there was nothing to see.
“Well, I think that’s everything. I’m not sure if Blane has told Kate that he made Emily a woman. A tactless thing to do, but between you and me, I think his social skills are somewhat lacking. So, who knows!”
It struck him, distantly, that usually the Mayor’s eye constantly moved and the world generally stayed still. Now, however, the Mayor’s eye didn’t waver from his while the whole world was reeling about him.
“So, that’s it in a nutshell! Now everything makes sense, huh? Even if your life is shattered to a thousand pieces. All the King’s horses Ash and all the King’s men. They can’t put it back together again,” the Mayor lifted his hand into his line of sight. He was holding a little black bottle again, “but I can Ash… I can…”
The pressure on his throat eased.
He assumed he was expected to say something, but nothing came bar the tears rolling down his face.
“Now, now Ash,” the Mayor patted his arm, “It’s not all lost, y’know. That wonderful perfect life you had. You can have it all back. Everything. Your beautiful smiling daughter, your loving, faithful wife. Your happiness. It’s all in this little bottle. A sip for you, a sip for Kate, a sip for Emily. Then everybody is happy again! And Kate will never stray again, I promise you that Ash. She’ll be as good as gold. She’ll only have eyes for you. She won’t remember being unfaithful, and you won’t either. You’ll just be happy. Forever. Do you want that Ash? To be happy again? Better than this pain, isn’t it? To have your life back? Do you Ash, do you want it?”
“Yes…” Ash croaked.
“But I need something in return, fair is fair after all.”
“What?”
“Tell me about your little friends. About your little insurgency. Tell me what you know.”
Ash’s eyes narrowed, then he closed them
to squeeze out the tears, “I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
The Mayor tutted.
“Ash, no harm will come to them. I may have to rearrange a memory or two, but nothing more. And they’ll be happy too. So, let’s not be silly. After all there is nothing you can do to me. Amos was the only one who might have proved a nuisance, but his gone now. The rest of you…”
“Gone?”
“Mounted up and rode away. Quite noble really, cost me the money Molly owed, which is an inconvenience, but, sometimes my schemes don’t bear the fruit I’d hoped.”
“Like raping Emily?”
“Didn’t work out so well, but there you go. I suppose it was lazy to try the same trick twice.”
“Twice?”
“Before your time, anyway, you going to spill the beans?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’re disappointing me, Ash. This is a good deal. A great deal! Not many people get their lives back just how they’d like it. I’m a generous guy, anything else you want to be thrown in to sweeten the deal? Maybe you’d like a bit of action on the side? I can arrange that. Anyone you had your eye on? Maybe you’re tired of cutting hair? Frankly, I can sympathise with that, fancy doing something else? It can be arranged. Just tell me Ash, tell me your heart’s desires. I can make dreams come true you know.”
“No.”
The Mayor sighed, stepped back and pursed his lips, “There is another way…”
Ash felt his right hand rise, he tried pushing down but it made no difference. It twisted around, angling the cutthroat upwards towards his face.
“What can you do without? An eye? A nose? An ear? An ear would be good, unless you’re planning to wear spectacles. Maybe your tongue? If you’re not going to talk to me, I guess we could lose that…”
Ash felt the cold of the metal against his cheek. Sweat was greasing his face as he strained to force his arm down. Muscles tautened and tensed, but the strength in the invisible grip upon him was irresistible.