Noir

by K. W. Jeter

  “Except in your case, things went way bad.” The barfly had read his thoughts as though they had gone scrolling down the blank mask of his face. “People-or at least other asp-heads-they died. Right here in the Wedge. And not very prettily, either.” She casually examined the deep scarlet nails of her hand. “They were the ones who paid the price. Not you.”

  “I didn’t know,” said McNihil. “That there was going to be one.”

  “Then you’re even stupider than you look. Even with your original face.” The barfly’s voice hardened, contemptuous. “You should’ve known, but you were too much of a smart-ass for that. What did you think you were connecting around with down here? A bunch of losers and perverts, all just banging away at each other all night long? Just so we could provide lots of sensory raw material for the prowlers to come down and pick up, so they could take it home to their owners? Real nice for them, I suppose, if that’d been the way it was; all the fun and none of the risks. But then, that’s how the guy you’re working for, that’s how he pitches the arrangement, isn’t it?”

  “Pretty much.” A slow nod. “That’s how somebody else got roped in. Name of Travelt.”

  “You don’t have to tell me about him,” said the barfly. “I know all about that story. More than you do.”

  “That’s why I came here. To find out what I don’t know.”

  “How flattering.” With a wry grimace, the barfly shook her head. “Really, pal-you don’t have to come right out and tell a girl that you’ve got some other reason for putting the moves on her. Like I didn’t know, or something. Like I’m as dumb as you are. You couldn’t let me keep a few illusions?”

  “Why should I?” McNihil let the mask of his face show a thin smile. “Why should you get to keep them, when nobody else does?”

  “You seem to still have a few of yours. That’s either a tribute to your stubbornness… or your stupidity. Even that Travelt guy learned his lesson after a while.”

  “And what was that? What did he learn?”

  “He learned,” said the barfly, “that there wasn’t anything he could do here. Not in this world. His bosses over on the other side-the same ones you’re working for-they may have let him think he was a big deal, a take-charge kind of guy, somebody who got things done. But he was way out of his league here. Out of his league, and off his turf. The Wedge, and what’s beyond it-that doesn’t belong to the DynaZauber corporation, or to the Collection Agency, or anything from that other world you came from.” The scorn in the woman’s voice became more withering with each syllable she spoke, like acid going through a reverse titration process. “You’re in our territory now, pal. The Wedge-everything over here-it belongs to itself.”

  “What about the other one I saw? What about… Verrity?”

  “Who?” A wicked malice showed in the barfly’s smile. “I thought she didn’t exist. I thought you made her up.”

  “That’s what I thought, too.” McNihil spread his hands apart, a small gesture of surrender. “But I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Good. That shows you’re learning. There’s hope for you yet. Maybe that’s why the Wedge is being so nice to you, letting you off the hook. Maybe…” With a tilt of her head to one side, the barfly gave him a newly appraising look. “Maybe you’ll be as lucky as the other one. Maybe she’ll do something… nice… for you. Like she did for that Travelt guy.”

  “What’d she do for him?” McNihil asked, though he already knew what the answer was going to be.

  “Come on,” chided the barfly. “I know you know. Your head’s not too hard to get into… at least, not for somebody like me. I can walk around inside your skull like it’s the hotel lobby. Easier, in fact, considering the present state of things around here. All this stage-setting, the heavy symbolism and shit-it really gets in the way, sometimes.”

  “How was it when Travelt came here?”

  A dismissive shake of the head. “I don’t even remember. It’s hard to keep track of these things, when everybody’s walking around with the same face, that prowler mask.” She gestured with one hand toward McNihil. “Except it wasn’t a mask for that Travelt guy, the way it is for you; the Adder clome told me about the services he did for you.”

  “That’s true.” McNihil had expected that the barfly would be up-to-speed on that matter. “Travelt was actually inside his prowler. The transference had taken place. Enough of him had passed from one to the other. That corpse I was shown-there really wasn’t anything left of him in there.”

  “Lucky for him. In a lot of ways.” The barfly gave a slow nod. “He got a second chance. To become real. How many people even get one chance at something like that?” Her gaze weighed and judged McNihil. “That must be why you came here. Because you knew it was your big opportunity.”

  “You might be surprised,” said McNihil. “I already had my chance.” And I took it, he said to himself. There were some things that the barfly didn’t know, despite this being her turf. Even when she’d kissed him, she hadn’t been able to tell. The spark had passed from her mouth to his, this memory into his head; that was all that mattered. They think there’s only one mask possible-they didn’t know what he’d done to prepare himself for this journey. The ultimate mask, which concealed a difference greater than that between the human and the fake; no one had found him out so far. He might pull it off yet.

  “Maybe you did… and maybe you didn’t.” The barfly drew her head back, studying McNihil as if seeing him for the first time. “I don’t know; I’m not the one to decide. But if you’re hiding something-if there’s something you think you can keep from being found out-then you’re playing a dangerous game, pal.”

  “Who am I playing against?”

  “What?” The barfly raised an eyebrow. “Verrity isn’t enough of a name for you?”

  “No…” McNihil shook his head. “Not if it isn’t the real one.”

  “Real, schmeal-that sort of thing just doesn’t apply here. Not as far as names go, at least. There’s a thousand different names for her, just like there are for the Wedge. It just depends on where you’re coming from.” The barfly’s gesture pointed beyond McNihil. “Take another look out the window. A good look, this time.”

  The light had shifted outside; looking up as he stood at the window, McNihil saw the dark streaks of clouds cutting beneath the sun. Around the buildings, the shadows had diminished and grown less distinct, a slow fade into the graying daylight.

  “Tell me what you see.”

  He didn’t answer the barfly. McNihil leaned his hands against the charred windowsill, bringing his face past the shards of glass still embedded in the frame. The remains of the buildings’ shadows had drawn his gaze downward. Now he saw what lay in the streets.

  “I told you.” The barfly’s voice was a soft whisper from behind him. “I warned you. This isn’t anywhere you want to be playing games. She plays for keeps.”

  When he’d been at the End Zone Hotel before, in that other world he’d left behind, he’d looked down from the rooftop. The building had been in flames then, real ones that consumed both architecture and flesh. But past the fire and billowing smoke, McNihil had been able to see the mass overlapping and interconnecting copulation that had been taking place down at ground level, the bodies writhing and seeking each other’s heat in the wet, sticky bounds of the fire-dousing foam. All that motion had ceased, along with any warmth, either fiery or body temperature.

  The foam had been sluiced away, down the street’s gutters and out to this world’s hidden sea, by endless centuries of storms. Leaving behind the remains, in this world, of what had been alive in that other one. Whitening bones were knitted together, a stiff tapestry of static coitus. The human skeletons reached as far as McNihil could see, as though a tide had receded from among the buildings, revealing coral reefs at their base. Empty eye sockets gazed back at him, darkness and silence inside the bone, hollow grins fixed in transports of idiot delight. We came here, said the skeletons to McNihil, in more ways than
one. He could hear them inside his head. And it was worth it.

  “Sometimes she dances,” the barfly said softly, “arrayed in skulls. Those ornaments have to come from somewhere, don’t they?”

  “I suppose so.” This was part of the memory, he knew. That they had given him in the barfly’s kiss-This is what they want me to see, thought McNihil. “I guess it’s all part of the gig.”

  “She has one name when she’s like that. And one dreadful visage. Probably better-for you, that is-if you don’t see her in that form.”

  McNihil glanced back over his shoulder. “Do I have a choice?”

  “No…” The barfly shook her head. “Not really. Not here. But you have luck; at least for a little while. You’re lucky you’re from the Gloss, the real one outside. That’s where her worshipers know her as Tlazoltéotl. Also Ixcuina, or Tlaelquani, depending upon whether you want the Nahuatl, the pure Aztec, or the original Huaxtec.”

  He’d seen that name, the first one, before. On the sandwich-board advertisements of the homeless marching single-file in nocturnal alleys, on a bishop’s monitor and a dead man’s stomach, revealed and hidden. McNihil supposed it’d been inevitable that he’d meet up with her someday. But not just yet.

  “It doesn’t feel like luck,” said McNihil.

  “You don’t even know.” The ultimate barfly slowly shook her head. “To have any encounter with Tlazoltéotl at all, to have seen her in my face the way you did, and still be walking… you’re a totally lucky bastard.”

  “Why? Who is she?”

  “Like I said.” The barfly gave a shrug. “Different names, different forms. But always the Filth Deity-that’s what the name means-the goddess of sexual impurity and deep, bad, annihilating sin. First a seductress, with no thought in her immaculate head other than connecting. Then comes her first destructive form, the one dedicated to gambling, risking and daring everything, including your own life. Then the redemptress, the form that can absorb and absolve human sin. That form can forgive sinners and remove all the world’s corruption. But it’s not her last form. The last form is the hag with teeth of iron, the destroyer of pretty youths and all innocence. Like I said-everybody meets up with her eventually. But not many walk away.”

  “She’s the one with the wild black hair? The crazy eyes?”

  “Very good,” said the barfly. “You’ll know her when you see her again. The wild hair, the crazy eyes-and wearing the flayed skin of one of her victims.” The barfly smiled. “Rather appropriate for around here, I think you’d have to say.”

  “And this is her world,” said McNihil. “Isn’t it?”

  “Of course it is.” The barfly regarded him with amusement. “What else could it be? This business with the prowlers, people trying to protect themselves from the dark and scary stuff… what good does it do? Nothing at all. The prowlers can’t help you. Nothing can. Just because you created a world without Tlazoltéotl in it doesn’t mean it was ever going to remain that way. The doors will be broken down and the dark, scary stuff will come flooding in.” One of her hands flicked a tiny gesture toward him. “Same way with your own little world. Yeah, you made up Verrity… but it didn’t end there. You made her up-and then you made her real. You made the place for her, out of your own lusts and fears. And Verrity came to fill it. You should’ve known that was going to happen.”

  He knew she was right. But he still had a job to do.

  “What about Travelt?” McNihil turned away from the window. “That’s who I came here to find. That’s my job. You said she did something nice for him. So I take it he’s still alive?”

  “Sure,” said the barfly. “But that’s not going to help you.”

  “You mean because of him being inside his prowler? I can deal with that.”

  The barfly shook her head and laughed. “He’s gone way beyond that. He was looking for a place to hide. From everything. Just walking around inside a prowler wasn’t going to do it for him. He knew they could still find him. Somebody like you could find him.” She leaned back, smiling. “So he’s gone where you won’t be able to reach him. He had a Full Prince Charles done on himself. That’s what she did for Travelt: he got it for free. On the house, as it were.”

  That was just what McNihil had expected. If somebody was going to run, they might as well run all the way.

  “All right,” said McNihil. He’d come prepared; that was what the stuff in his jacket pocket was for. “Take me to him. To where he is.”

  The barfly stopped smiling, and regarded him for a few moments in silence. “You’re the boss,” she said with a shrug, and stood up from the bed.

  TWENTY-ONE

  NECK OF SOME MECHANICAL BRACHIOSAUR

  Nothing going on in there.”

  November turned and looked behind her. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me.” Another cameraman, different from the one she’d talked to at this slow ocean’s perimeter, but with the same lazy-and-hip attitude-he watched her from behind an identical pair of dark-lensed glasses. November wondered if they were part of some network-issued uniform. “That wreck’s all burnt out.” He was perched in the molded plastic seat of a camera boom, extending across the expanse of gelatinous liquid and the catwalks below like the neck of some mechanical brachiosaur; the visual echo of a small microphone arced from his headphones. The cameraman pointed to the End Zone Hotel, or what had been the hotel before the fire. “Nothing’s going on, because there’s nobody inside. Gone, gone, gone-a long time ago.”

  “Yeah, I know.” November had walked all the way across this contained sea, like Christ keeping his feet dry at Galilee. Around the catwalks’ and derricks’ pilings, little ripples and gurgles sounded, the sighs of bubbles that flowered, broke open, and disappeared with the heavy glacial quality of magma as she’d made her progress along the planks. “I was here when it happened.”

  “So was I.” The cameraman tilted his head to listen to something in his ’phones, made a sotto voce reply into the mike, then redirected his attention to the woman standing in front of him. He’d angled the camera boom to impede, if not totally block, her way. “I was one of the first on the scene when the word went out. The combine had me up here so fast, I still had my toothbrush in my mouth and I was rolling tape. Been a while since the last big poly-org outbreak-that was the Goose-Pimpler up by the Bering Strait. I was on that one, too. We had to wire the whole place up with space heaters to keep the thing from freezing over and turning any exposed flesh blue. Got so hot up above that me and the rest of the crew were riding our gear in shorts and T-shirts. Like a summer day with melting glaciers all around.”

  “How nice for you.” She hadn’t come all this way-not just across the catwalks, but the hitch up from the hospital down south-to wind up listening to this idiot brag. At the same time, she didn’t want to blow him off too fast, maybe arouse his suspicions about what she was doing here. There was probably some kind of security detail around here, sleeping on the job at the moment, but capable of being roused. “You don’t seem to have that kind of a problem.”

  “Nah-this is the perfect setup.” The cameraman turned a small chromed wheel, and the boom edged a few inches closer to November, as though the brachiosaur head had come awake to sniff her human scent. “Nice, big one; getting some good shots off it.” He patted the complicated flank of his videocamera equipment. “I’ve seen some of the ratings. Worldwide, this is beating the pack. Those enhanced Lucy reruns, with the Tarantino dialogue filters and the Peckinpah slo-mo death scenes-those were a good idea, but they just really can’t compete. People are just too hip to those reconstruct jobs; you can’t just add four minutes of ceegee’d special effects and have people plotz like in the old days.” He gave an appreciative nod. “You want the numbers, you gotta have something happening in real time. You get that event factor, people think they’re watching the news.” The cameraman shrugged. “Plus sex, of course. That always helps.”

  “I’m sure it does.” November put her hands on the for
ward edge of the boom, balancing herself as she tried to slide around it on the catwalk. If she looked down, she could see the soft bones, loose collections of vital organs, and skeins of nervous tissue floating in the gel. “Give the people what they want.”

  “Yeah, right.” The cameraman angled his head so he could look at November over the top of his glasses. His eyes had the red corners and pinpoint pupils of someone who had no way of remembering what sleep felt like. “Couldn’t have come at a better time, either. Sweeps week, you know.” He radiated a sweating intensity, excitement translating into a vein ticking at the corner of his forehead, as though November had laid her hands on a portion of his carnal anatomy, instead of just the machinery he controlled. “Sometimes it makes you wonder… like whether they plan it that way…”

  She didn’t make a reply. She’d gotten to the point where she was half off the catwalk, holding on to the camera boom rather than just using it for balance.

  “So like I said. No point in going in there.” The cameraman smiled and made another, tinier adjustment to the little chrome wheel. “All the action’s out here.”

  The camera boom nudged her in the chest, pushing her all the way off the catwalk. November held on to the device’s platform, both hands digging into the various bolts and flanges. Her boots dangled a few inches above the gel’s surface membrane. Underneath, the outlines of the perpetually copulating forms grew more tangled and numerous, as though her shadow on the slow waves were a newly tattooed image, one that they hadn’t seen before.

  “Cute-” November looked up into the face of the cameraman above her. “But not very.” It was made even more clear to her that she hadn’t fully recovered from her hospital stay. The delicate new skin of her fingertips and palms felt as if it were about to shred apart from her desperate clutching of the boom platform. Plus, she was too weak to climb up and kick this smirking sonuvabitch’s ass. “I’d appreciate it… if you’d put me down…”