by Gene Wolfe
Murray took two from a plastic canister on the counter and stacked them on a saucer for Stubb, then took the dollar and rang up ninety cents on the cash register. As he brought his dime to Stubb, he whispered, “So she could see you paying. It’ll get me off the hook later.”
“Sure.”
“One would have been okay. The twenty-cent kind would have been okay.”
“You do me a favor, I do you a favor. Nobody can say Jim Stubb cheated him unless he cheated Jim Stubb or his friends first.”
“Well, thanks anyway. Who’d this commissioner want you to call?”
“Charlie, the guy I talked to first.” Stubb picked up a doughnut and broke it in two. “I thought I asked for more coffee. Holy Jesus, Murray, aren’t I ever going to get some more coffee?”
* * *
In the room belonging to the witch, a foot or two to one side of the area visible through Barnes’s peephole, stood a machine consisting of a keyboard that was like a typewriter’s, except that it lacked provision for the lower-case letters, and a screen like a television’s. The witch pressed a switch on the keyboard, and the screen glowed palely green. She pressed keys. A succession of letters appeared at the bottom of the screen:
AZXDFGHBRTGHJM
This line was lifted by another appearing below it:
OIJNUHBYGVTFCR
The witch glanced at them, then pressed an additional sequence. The next line read:
WAZXS CGHTVE NFAERTI
She nodded to herself and began to undress, tossing her clothes onto the bed. Naked, she removed her contact lenses. Taking a black glass bottle from a dresser drawer, she poured a small quantity of unguent into the palm of her left hand and smeared herself with it, beginning at her feet and giving special attention to her vulva, rectum, and breasts. It smelled as weeds do crushed beneath the tires of a truck in spring.
The anointing completed, she turned off the light. Dull winter sun leaked around the blind, yet left the room nearly dark. The screen pulsed yellow-green:
SACG HRCMLO LOBZYTGKK
BSCNLP EANAL YNSSFINNO
The witch herself now possessed a slight luminescence. She replaced the bottle and took a yellow pastel from the same drawer. This pastel, if it glowed at all, did so only feebly, but when she scribed a circle on the floor, the line seemed almost a trench of flame.
Leaning to reach the drawer without leaving her circle, she took out a small drum. Its body was of blackened metal; its head carried a blurred picture of a rose, executed in blue and red. The witch placed this instrument in the center of the circle, then with the pastel inscribed the words ADAM TE DAERAM around the interior of the circle, and outside it: AMRTET, ALGAR ALGASTNA. That done, she tossed the pastel back into the open drawer.
Cradling the drum between her crossed legs, she tapped it with her fingers. The sound was like the beating of a heart.
After an hour or more had passed, she sang in a clear contralto: “Palas aron ozimonas, Baske bano tudan donas, Geheamel cla orlay, Berec he pantaras tay.” This little song ended, she was silent for a time, staring at the pulsing screen as she drummed.
At length, she began a new song: “Bagabi laca bachabe, Lamac cahi achababe, Karrelyos. Lamac lamec Bachalyas, Cabahagy sabalyos, Barylos. Lagoz atha cayolas, Samahac et famyolas, Harrahya!” Before she had finished it, the screen flamed:
AMRTET ALGAR ALGASTNA
ADAM ALCAR DAGERAM
The old house trembled slightly, as though some subway train, blocks from the tunnel through which the trains ran, had gone beneath it. As though some old motorman, asleep and dreaming, had sent his train hurtling through the earth.
The witch smiled.
The Attackers
The machine came down the street on the back of a flatbed truck. Not that it could not move by itself; it could, on two stubby, treadless tracks. Its neck, which lay stretched upon the flatbed, was not stubby but longer than the neck of any giraffe. Like a giraffe, the machine was bright yellow but smudged.
The flatbed truck parked five doors down from the Free house, and the operator and the driver got out. Heaping one splintery timber on another, they built a ramp at the back of the truck. The operator climbed onto it and into the machine; its engine roared; oily black smoke belched from a pipe shaped like Lincoln’s hat.
A second truck brought the ball. The ball too was black; it might have been the bowling ball of a giant.
The machine lifted its head slowly but smoothly and looked about at the snow-powdered neighborhood. It crawled down from the flatbed and picked up its ball.
Through the windshield of his squad car across the street, Sergeant Proudy watched the machine with somber satisfaction. It was the policy of the Department to overawe resistance with a show of force, and he had brought two patrolmen with him; their names were Evans and Williams.
“Here we go,” Proudy said. “Let’s make sure everybody’s out.” They left the squad car, and the two preceded him up the steps. Both were younger and taller than he.
Williams rattled the knob. “Locked, Sarge.” He rapped a panel with his knuckles. “There’s a fire station a couple blocks down. I could borrow an ax.”
A large and very neatly turned out man in a blue overcoat was watching them from the sidewalk. “You three busy now?”
None of the three answered.
“Don’t worry about me. I can wait until you’ve got a minute.”
“Hit it again,” Proudy told Williams.
Williams drew his revolver and used the butt to pound the door. “I could shoot the lock off,” he said hopefully.
“The three of us will take it with one shove,” Proudy told him.
Evans asked, “We got a warrant, Sarge?”
“We don’t need one. This building’s condemned—it’s city property. Altogether on three now. One … two … THREE!”
Three shoulders crashed into the door, which did not budge.
The man in the blue overcoat mounted the steps. “I’ll give you a hand,” he said. “I used to be pretty good at it.”
Evans said, “We got too many now. We’re gettin’ in each other’s way.” He had a round, ruddy, freckled face. In ten years, he would look angry all the time.
Williams, who was black but otherwise much like Evans, asked, “You plain clothes?”
“Used to be,” the man in the blue overcoat said. “Had seven years of it. Eighteen on the force. I’m Mick Malloy.” He extended his hand to Proudy, who took it.
“I make you,” Proudy said. “Eleventh precinct, ain’t that right?”
“Right.”
“Williams, you see if you can get that ax. Leave the car here. We’ll have another shot at the door while you’re gone.”
Williams nodded and went down the steps. The sidewalk was white with snow; his footsteps compacted it without melting it. Evans said, “Maybe those guys could swing their wrecking ball and hit this door, Sarge.”
“And maybe there’s somebody standing in back of it.”
“I never thought of that,” Evans admitted.
Malloy said, “A cop can’t think of everything, and one slip-up’s all it takes. Maybe somebody else gets it, or maybe he does.” He rattled the knob. “We used to have a guy at the Eleventh we called Whitey Nelson. One night they found his cruiser parked in front of an empty store. Whitey was inside the store with one in the pump. Nobody ever found out why he went in there or what he walked into.”
“Probably he saw a light or somethin’,” Evans said.
“Maybe. He left a wife and six little kids. You want to have a go at this?”
Proudy said, “You and Mick do it, Evans. I’ll count. I wouldn’t want to get in your way. Get set now, boys, and give it all you got. One—two—THREE!”
The two big men slammed their bodies against the door; it shivered but remained solid.
There was a rattle and a bang as a window on the second floor opened. The two policemen and the former policeman looked up.
A woman with a
wide face and curly blond hair leaned out. “Fuck off, you bastards!” she yelled. “We’re not leaving!”
Sergeant Proudy started to say something, but she withdrew. A moment later she was back, holding a tin wastebasket. “Fuck off!” She upended the wastebasket. The three men jumped to avoid the water, and the window slammed shut.
“Assaulting an officer in the performance of his duty,” Proudy said. “We’ll get her.”
Evans nodded. “Damn right, Sarge.”
Malloy shrugged and smiled. “Hell, it was just water. Suppose it had been acid or something? We could all be dead, or maybe crippled for life.”
Evans said, “I bet they got a crowbar in one of them trucks.”
“Good idea,” Sergeant Proudy told him. “You take a look, Fred. You’re getting in my way up here anyhow.”
As Evans turned to go, Malloy said, “You married, Sarge?”
“I look like a fairy?”
“Hell, I’ve known single guys that were as straight as you or me. Sometimes the wife dies first, you know? You’d be surprised how often that happens. Got any kids?”
“Noway.”
“That’s a shame. I got three, myself. Back when I was on the Force, I used to think if anything happened to me, they’d look after the old lady.”
Sergeant Proudy nodded as if acknowledging some deepdrawn confidence. “A guy can’t stay on the Force forever. You do something, maybe, for one guy. Then bingo, it’s another guy that’s in, and you’re out on your ass. Or you don’t do it, and you’re out even faster. Everybody slips up sometimes.”
“Hell, it was nothing like that. It’s my heart. I got angina.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have hit that door.”
“Don’t worry, Sarge, I know what I can do. I got it under control. Besides—”
A small crowd, mostly children, had gathered to look at the machine. Now a short, red-faced man with an attache case was elbowing his way through. Catching the policeman’s eye, he called, “Are you Sergeant Proudy, sir?” He gave a somewhat theatrical start as he appeared to see Malloy for the first time. “Hello, Mick.”
“Hi, Steve.”
“Mick, if you’re making your pitch, I’ll wait. You know me, I’m one of the boys.”
“Sure,” Malloy said. He sounded tired.
“A lot of guys would horn right in. Not me. I don’t consider that ethical.” The red-faced Steve turned his attention to Sergeant Proudy. “I’m S. B. Marshal.” He extended a business card. “I just want to caution you at this time to wait and hear us both. I’m not asking you to do that out of fairness to me, but out of fairness to yourself and your family. As an intelligent and dedicated public servant, you can surely see it’s to your advantage to shop around and get the best.”
Malloy said, “I wasn’t making any pitch, Steve. The Sarge and me were just talking about old times. Never having been a cop, you wouldn’t understand.”
“In that case, Sergeant, there’s a little diner up the street. Maybe we could get out of this cold and have some coffee? On me, naturally.”
From the sidewalk, Evans reported, “They haven’t got no crowbar, Sarge. They said how about the back? Maybe the back door ain’t strong.”
Proudy rubbed the side of his nose. “That’s the first sensible thing I heard today. Mick, you going to be around for a while?”
“Sure. I got something I want to talk to you about.”
“I thought you did. Okay, you stay here till we open it from inside. If Williams comes with the ax, tell him we’re around back. Mr. Marshal can stay to keep you company, if he wants to. When we got this wound up, you and me will talk.”
On one side of the house, a narrow areaway choked with debris led toward the rear. Sergeant Proudy entered it and Evans followed; it was too narrow for the two to walk abreast. Abandoned trash cans waited there with engine blocks and fenders, lightless table lamps, and broken stoves bereft of heat. It was dark as midnight, and everything lay under a film of snow.
The policemen took their flashlights from their belts and used them to light their way until Sergeant Proudy slipped on the tilted side of an old Frigidaire and fell, smashing the lens and bulb of his. Evans helped him up. One hand was skinned. Proudy sucked it and wrapped it in his handkerchief.
“Let me go first now,” Evans said.
“How are you going to get past? You want me to lie down so you can walk over my back?”
“Take my flash then, Sarge.”
“With my luck, I’d break that too. Shine it around my feet. Kind of through my legs so I can see where I’m going.”
“Sarge—”
“Yeah, what?”
“You hear somethin’?”
For a second the two stood listening. “Just the traffic over on the freeway.”
“This ain’t like that.”
Sergeant Proudy wiped his nose with the handkerchief on his hand. “So what’s it like?”
“I don’t know. Like a engine turnin’ over real slow. Thub-ub, thub-ub, thub-ub, like your heart.”
“You’re hearing your own heart, that’s all. The pulse starts pounding in your ear and you hear it. Happens all the time.”
“This ain’t my heart,” Evans said.
“Oh, yeah? Turn it off and see if that noise don’t stop. Now shine that light at my legs like I told you.” Sergeant Proudy attempted to grip the wall with his good hand as he clambered across the junk. “Got to be careful here,” he said. “Bedsprings.”
“Maybe there’s a alley. We could go down to the end of the block and see.”
“What’s the matter with you, Fred? We’re halfway there.”
“It still goes back a long ways,” Evans said.
“These houses aren’t that big.”
“What’s the big black thing at the end?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Down at the end, Sarge.”
“There isn’t a damn thing.”
“It’s gone now,” Evans said.
Sergeant Proudy, seeking a toehold on a pile of frozen garbage, snorted. “Probably a car or a truck in the alley.”
There was a narrow alley, but no car. The yard into which Ben Free had swept his fragments of glass, his bent bottle caps, stood side by side with a dozen others much the same. Or perhaps instead of standing, it slept beneath its snow. Perhaps they all slept.
And it was snowing much harder now, and a cold wind had sprung up to swirl the falling snow. There is a legend that horizontal snow will drive you mad; it is believed by those who believe in aspirin in cola and the piety of politicians. If they are correct, there was much madness behind the windows of the shabby houses. Their bricks were brothers to the bricks of Belmont Hospital; their blind, staring, half-opened eyes, their quarter-open and slit eyes, luminously yellow, peered from the skulls of lunatics.
“Here it is,” Evans said, then he too slipped. His flashlight fell clattering into the corpse of a jukebox, and the red and green glowed again with the ghost of its old plastic gaiety.
Sergeant Proudy swore and shouldered him out of the way to grope for it himself.
“We’re even,” Evans said. “Anyway, mine didn’t go out.”
“Yeah, but you dropped it.”
“That’s what I said, Sarge.”
“So I’m going to borrow it for a while, okay? I’m surprised mine busted. Those things are usually built pretty good.”
“I cracked the glass in mine once. I socked this gambler with it. You got it?”
“Yeah … .No, damn it, this’s something else.”
Snow swirled about the two men.
The Assault
Glasser wore blue-tinted spectacles and a large and rather hairy tweed coat. The coat was burdened now with snow; the spectacles made Glasser appear blind, though he was not. He hurried forward, hand extended, as a real blind man might who had been informed of the proximity of the Messiah. “I’m Nate Glasser,” he announced. “Pleased to meet you, Sergeant.”
“Not no sergeant,” the policeman with the ax told him.
“I’m sorry,” Glasser said. “I thought you were a certain Sergeant Proudy.”
“Huh uh.”
“You see, as I walked past the police car, that one back there, I couldn’t help but overhear the radio. They were asking for Sergeant Proudy.”
“That’s our unit,” the big policeman said, quickening his step. “I believe I better see about it.”
He swung open the squad car’s door and jerked out the microphone. “This Unit Twenty-three, Dispatcher. Citizen say you calling us.”
“You still at that demolition site, Twenty-three?”
“Parked across the street.”
“We got a call, a seventeen fifty.”
“What address?”
“Caller didn’t say. Just that it was the Baker house, and there was a cruiser out front, but she didn’t see any officers. Then she yelled and hung up. We thought it might be you.”
“I’ll have a look,” the policeman said and tossed the microphone onto the seat.
Glasser touched his arm. “What’s a seventeen fifty, officer?”
“Home invasion. You know a Baker house ’round here?”
“I’m afraid I’m a stranger. I’m with Pee, Em, Gee, and Dee.”
“Hey!” The policeman raised the red ax he carried and trotted toward a group standing chatting on the sidewalk.
Loping beside him, Glasser told him, “They’re no good. They’re agents too. I know the whole bunch. Except the little guy.”
The little guy had turned at the policeman’s shout. Unlike the rest, he was shabby. His thick glasses scarcely reached the second button of the policeman’s coat.
“Sir, you know the Baker house?”
“Sure,” the little guy said. He pointed to the house next to the one before which he had been standing. “Not condemned. If they really build the ramp, it’ll be right next to the supports.”