by E. E. Knight
Valentine hated to think of the faces. "No, I'll check out your games. And your bar."
"Be down in an hour or so. I've got to go up and do my own reporting." Moyo inclined his head toward the barred corridor.
"You actually go up?" Valentine asked; no pretense was required for his incredulity.
"Just to an audience blister. You ever been in one?"
"No," Valentine said.
Moyo lost a little of his bristle. "My predecessor used to rub lemon zest inside his nostrils to keep out the smell. But it's the walls that get to me. That paste they use, it sucks water out of the outside air somehow. Everything on the inside's wet and dripping. When a big drop hits your shoulder . . . well, you jump. Feels like someone tapping you."
Valentine broke the silence that followed. "See you for a drink later, then."
"Sure. Whoa there, Stu, you missing something?"
"What's that?" Valentine asked.
"Looks like you dropped your roll." Moyo pointed. "It's right under the desk there."
There goes the excuse to come back up here . . . "Must have fallen out when I reached for my coin," Valentine said, flushing. "That would have been a pisser; that's my walking-around money." Valentine retrieved the bills he'd nudged under the desk moments ago.
"I'll forgo the ten percent finder's fee," Moyo said. "Rooster, give me the latest transport figures with destinations, then send in that ass Peckinsnow on your way out, would you?"
* * * *
Valentine slipped the brass ring to Cotswald on the way out as Rooster collected his carryall from his desk. Valentine wondered how long it would take him to have it "checked out." While a brass ring meant little to a Kurian or one of their Reapers if it wasn't on the actual owner's finger, it was still a powerful totem when waved in front of the groundlings. Valentine just had to hope the circumstances of the ring's loss were not so well known as to have everyone connected to it, including Stu Jacksonville, immediately rounded up for the Reapers.
"If you're into music, maybe you can show me around Beale Street tomorrow," Valentine said.
Valentine watched Cotswald touch the ring in his pocket, fingering it like an exploring teenager. "Sure," he said absently.
"You'll find that little thank-you—what did Mister Moyo say, 'finder's fee?'—useful if you ever get down my way," Valentine said.
"I'll have to do that before long," Cotswald said. Valentine felt sorry for the dreamy look in the man's eyes. Did confidence men ever feel guilty as they took their marks?
Valentine and Rooster exited on the "showcase" level. Cotswald continued down in the elevator.
Fresh paint covered the structural concrete here, and the lighting came from bulbs.
"Rooster, can I ask you a question?"
"Shoot, Stu. You don't mind if it's Stu, do you?"
"Not at all." Valentine liked using false names in the Kurian Zone. One more curtain between David Valentine and the vast darkness of the Kurian night. "Why the kindling up in Mister Moyo's office? My head porter has a nicer rig."
Rooster glanced up at the ceiling. "Affectation. He started out as a diesel mechanic. When they made him yard supervisor he got an office. It had that junk in it. To him, that first desk meant he made it. I don't mind—he gave me the previous director's outfit for my office. Solid mahogany and half a herd of leather."
"Do you intend to be the next director?"
"Almost there already. I run the day-to-day stuff, he gets the headaches. Personally, I like having him between me and them."
Valentine wanted to ask more about the day-to-day stuff, but they reached the box.
About a dozen people, not counting a food server and an impossibly beautiful young man tending bar, already lounged in the box. The wedge-shaped room was divided into a set of plush-looking seats arranged stadium-style and an entertainment area. A hot tub filled with ice prickled with the necks of beer bottles and sparkling wines. Harder liquors filled up a backlit case behind the bar.
A pair of televisions at each corner held scheduling information. "Closed-circuit TV," Rooster said. "Most of the skyboxes are wired. We've got a camera snafu so there won't be close-ups tonight. Getting replacement electronics takes practically forever."
Valentine looked over the attendees. One of the men had the look of an athlete, as big as one of the Razors' Bears, but his velvet skin had a far healthier sheen and only a neatly closed scar or two. Men and women in well-cut summer cottons were listening to the sportsman. Two obvious party girls eyed him hungrily from the bar.
Rooster introduced Valentine as a "hotel owner from Florida."
The box looked out over the three-ring circus at the center of the arena through tinted-glass windows. Valentine looked out on Moyo's entertainments.
The layout was familiar to anyone who had seen a circus. A hard wooden track, black with wheel marks, surrounded three platforms. The two on either end were more or less stages—one had a band on it at the moment, furiously working their guitars and drums—and the one in the center was an oversized boxing ring shaped like a hexagon.
Two decks for the audience, a lower and an upper, held a few thousand spectators. Valentine saw motion in the upper deck to his right, just beneath the ring of skyboxes.
"Admission is free," Rooster explained. "Some of the bookmakers own skyboxes. If you bet heavy with them you can sit up here."
Valentine caught motion in the upper deck, not sure of what he was seeing for a moment. Yes, that definitely was a woman's head of hair bobbing in an audience member's lap.
"I've heard of seat service, but that's taking it to a new level," Valentine said.
Rooster laughed. "Some of the cheaper gals work the BJ deck. They're supposed to be selling beer and peanuts and stuff too, but a lot just carry around a single packet or can. Lazy bitches."
"Outrageous," Valentine said. He looked up at the gridwork above. And froze.
The lighting gantries had Reapers in them.
Valentine counted three. One sat in a defunct scoreboard, occasionally peering from a hole like an owl. Another hung upside down from a lighting walkway, deep in shadow, neck gruesomely twisted so it could watch events below. A third perched in a high, dark corner.
"They always here?" Valentine asked. He didn't want to point, but Rooster was sharp enough to follow his eyes.
"Oh, yeah. That dark box, there and there; you have a couple more in each of those. Memphis' own version of closed-circuit TV. They never bother anyone." He lowered his voice. "Sometimes a contestant gets badly hurt. The injuries end up being fatal."
"Then why do they fight?" Valentine asked.
"Look at Rod Lightning's finger back there. Nice little brass ring and a riverside house. He trains cage fighters now. Sight of beetles bother you?"
"Not unless they're looking at me," Valentine answered, honestly enough.
Moyo arrived with a small entourage of river and rail men. Valentine took an inconspicuous seat and watched events below. Something called a "bumfight" began, involving a half-dozen shambling, shabby-looking men clocking each other with two-by-fours. It ended with two still upright and the blood in the hexagon being scrubbed by washerwomen while a blond singer warbled from the stage near Moyo's box. He only had one brief conversation with Moyo.
"How do you like the Midway?" Moyo seemed positively bubbly; perhaps having another report over and done took a weight off—
"Better organized, and a lot less dangerous, than New Orleans," Valentine said. "There's nothing on the Gulf Coast like this."
"You checked out the inventory yet?"
"I've got a couple more days in town still."
"Rooster can set the whole thing up. I'm going to be on my boat this weekend."
"I think he's got a handle on what I need," Valentine said.
There was topless Roller Derby on the wooden ring—a crowd favorite, judging from the cheers. The metronome motion of swinging breasts as the woman power-skated had a certain fascination, Valent
ine had to admit. Then an exhibition of flame dancing. The first Grogs Valentine had seen on the Midway spun great platters full of flaming kerosene on their outstretched arms and heads. They arranged it so the liquid fire sprinkled off the spinning dishes and they danced beneath the orange rain. Valentine found it enthralling and said so to Rooster.
"God, I hate those things," Rooster said, on his third drink. "Stupid, smelly, ill-tempered. They're useless."
Attendants with fire extinguishers cleaned up after the dance as the Grogs cartwheeled offstage.
Then it was time for the main event. A cage descended on wires from the ceiling, ringing the hexagon with six wire barriers. He watched Pulp Fontaine turn the Draw's shoulder into a bloody ruin. So much for long shots, Valentine thought, as Fontaine accepted a victory crown from this month's Miss Midway.
"Ten thousand will get you her for the weekend, Stewie," Rooster chuckled. "Want me to set it up?"
"I don't roll that high," Valentine said.
The party in the box got louder and the stadium began to empty out. It was just after eleven. Rod Lightning left with the two bar girls. The announcer began to count down for kill-tally bets. Valentine wondered what that meant.
"Time to call it a night?" Valentine asked Rooster. "Thank you for your hospitality."
"Nope. One more special show," Rooster said. "Ever heard of a rat kill?"
"This have something to do with extermination?"
"In a manner."
Valentine watched twenty men of assorted sizes and colors being led into the center hexagon. Each had a black hood over his head. Some of the people on their way out hurried for the exits, but a good third of the audience stayed.
"What's this?" Valentine asked, a little worried.
"It's a rat kill," Moyo said from over his shoulder. "I'm going to watch this one. One of my yard chiefs is in there. Daniel Penn. He was screwing me on deposits, swapping out corpses for the healthy and smuggling them across the river."
Rooster made a note on a pad. "They're all criminals of one sort or another, or vagrants."
Some of the condemned men lost control of themselves as they stepped into the ring. Bladder, bowel, or legs gave way. Escorts in black uniforms shoved them into the cage and lined them up. Valentine saw a shot clock light up in the scoreboard—evidently one part of it still worked—set for sixty.
"And here comes the Midway Marvel," Moyo said.
"Jus-tiss. Jus-tiss! JUS-TISS!" the crowd began to chant.
Tall. Pale. Hair like a threadbare black mop. It was a Reaper, stripped to the waist, loose, billowing black pants ending just above its bare feet. It walked oddly, though, with its arms behind it. As it entered the cage he saw why—thick metal shackles held its wrists together.
"JUS-TISS JUS-TISS JUS-TISS!" the crowd roared, the attenuated numbers sounding just as loud as the thicker crowd had for the night's main event.
"The Marvel's got sixty seconds to off as many as he can. Record's fifteen for the year. All-time high is eighteen. Contest rules say that one always has to survive—even though we've never had a nineteen."
As they unshackled each man from his companions and removed his hood they read the crime, but no name. Number one was a murderer. Number two committed sabotage. Number three had been caught with a transmitter and a rifle. . . .
"Why no women?" Valentine asked.
"Haven't done women in a rat kill for years," Moyo said.
Fourteen, a currency forger, fainted when they took his hood off.
"Crowd didn't like it as well," Rooster said. "They booed when it killed a woman instead of a man. We have other ways of taking care of women. Would you—"
"No thanks."
A heavyset man in a black-and-white-striped shirt with a silver whistle entered the ring to more cheering. He wore a biking helmet and thick studded-leather gloves. The condemned men bunched up.
Valentine felt sick, suspecting what was coming. "Who operates the Marvel?" he asked.
"The one at the top of the Pyramid," Rooster said, lifting his glass a few inches for emphasis. "We only get to do one of these a month. You're lucky."
"You must have an unusually lawless town," Valentine said.
Moyo leaned in close. "I'll tell you a little secret. Only a couple are really criminals. The others are volunteers who took the place of a spouse or a relative in the fodder wagon. On a bad night only six or seven die, so they've got a better than fifty-fifty chance of making it back out."
That's the Kurian Zone, A lie wrapped in a trap cloaked in an illusion. "Jesus," Valentine said.
"Never showed up," Moyo said.
The referee held a black handkerchief high. Valentine was surprised to see that the Reaper's arms were still bound. Weren't they going to unleash it? Or would it simply break free at the right moment?
Sixty seconds, Valentine. You can get through this.
The referee let fall the handkerchief and backpedaled from between the Reaper and the trembling "rats."
As the fabric struck the floor the crowd cheered.
The Reaper sprang forward, a black-and-cream blur. It landed with both feet on the neck of the man who had fainted. Valentine almost felt the bones snap.
The referee blew his whistle.
"ONE!" the crowd shouted. Those still in the box counted along in a more subdued manner.
A convict grabbed another, slighter man by the arm and pushed him at the Reaper. Snake-hinged jaws extended and the stabbing tongue entered an eye socket.
Tweeeeet. "TWO!"
"Two," said the audience in the box.
The Marvel had a sense of humor. It head-butted the man who had thrown his companion into its jaws. Blood and grayish brain matter splattered across the damp canvas.
The whistle blew again. "THREE!"
"Three," Valentine said along with the others. The shot clock read forty-six seconds.
Another jump, and another man went down. The Reaper had some trouble straddling him before the tongue lanced out and buried itself in his heart. Tweeeet.
"Four," Valentine said with Moyo, Rooster, and the crowd.
"But it'll cost—"
Some of the men climbed the panels of the cage—not to get out, it closed at the top—but to make themselves inaccessible. The Reaper sprang up, jaws closing on a neck.
Whistle, cheers, and the shot clock read thirty-nine seconds. The Reaper threw the body off the way a terrier tosses a rat.
"SIX!" tried to hide behind the referee and got a leather-glove backhand for his troubles. "SEVEN!" was kicked off the fencing by another man higher up. "EIGHT!"
Valentine found himself yelling as loudly as anyone in the room.
Part of him wasn't faking. Another part of him was ready to vomit thanks to the previous part. . . .
Fifteen seconds left.
The Reaper hurled itself at the cage, and three men dropped off the fencing like windfall apples.
"NINE!" "TEN!" As the whistle and shot clock sounded, the Reaper lashed out with a clawed foot and opened a man up across the kidneys.
"Ten is the official count," the loudspeakers said. "Ten paid three to one. Check your stubs, ten paid three to one."
"About average," Rooster said. "Sorry you didn't get a better show, Stu."
The dripping Reaper folded itself onto the mat.
Eleven died anyway, screaming on the blood-soaked canvas.
Moyo said his good-byes. He looked exhausted as he drained the glass of whiskey he'd been nursing.
"How about a nightcap?" Valentine asked Rooster, who emptied his glass at the same time his boss did.
"Night's still young, and so are we, O scarred Stu." He refilled his glass.
"I've got a bottle of JB in my boat."
"Naw. Better liquor at my place," Rooster said. "You haven't really partied Memphis-style yet."
"Or we could hit some bars."
"I got something better than that."
"Better than the Midway?" Valentine asked.
>
"Better. I need to stop off at the security station first and check out some inventory. Meet at the big stone statue out front? Say in fifteen minutes?"
"How about I come with you?"
"No, you don't have the right ID for the security section. I'll be fast."
"See you there."
* * * *
Valentine rode the elevator down—a more alert-looking guard worked the buttons after hours—and collected his pocketknife. He had to shrug off prostitutes—three women and a man, all with makeup headed south for the evening—on the way to the statue. The night had cooled, but only a little. The concrete seemed to be soaked with heat like the bloody canvas within.
Please, All, be coherent when I get back.
He caught sight of Rooster, leading a little procession of three individuals in oversized blue PYRAMID POWER T-shirts. All female, all teens, shackled in a manner similar to the twenty culls within.
"Got you a little souvenir, Stu." Rooster tossed him a black hood with the number ten on it. Valentine smelled the sweat on it.
"I had them tag it with the date. The one with the number the Marvel took is collectable."
Valentine wadded up the thin, slick polyester in his hand. "Who are these?" he asked, looking at the string of young women. Rooster held a leather lead attached to the first. A foot and a half of plastic line linked each set of ankles.
"I'm—" one began.
Rooster lifted a baton with a pair of metal probes at the end. "You wanna get zapped? No? Then shut it!"
"I just need to get a bag from my boat," Valentine said.
"Okeydokey," Rooster said.
"What's the plan for these three?" Valentine said as they walked.
"Inventory Inspecshun," Rooster slurred. "Fresh stuff, just off the train, that I picked out this week. Privileges of position and all that. They go back in the inventory hopper Monday morning." He glanced over his shoulder. "Provided I don't get a lot of lip," he warned. "Then it's back with the deposits."
"Three?"
"I don't mind sharing. I like to do one while the others watch."
Valentine looked at the trio. The youngest looked fourteen. He read silent pleas in their eyes.